(971 AD, 22^nd year of Gwangjong’s reign)

It was dusk and shadows were growing very long. There was spring in Soel’s steps as she made her way to the low wall that she had been practicing to climb. The wedding announcement and the planning around it required her father to stay in Songak for the whole 2 weeks before the wedding and that gave Soel an excuse to stick around too. She promised herself that by the end of the 2 weeks, she’d be able to jump over fort walls effortlessly and give an expert climber like Ju a run for his money. Her happiness was also in part due to the wedding itself. She loved the idea of having Mun Deok around in Chungju as her sister-in-law. She had already planned out in her head all the different places in Chungju that she would take Mun Deok to and all the things they would do together. When she reached the designated meeting spot, she found Ju sitting on the wall, deep in thought, looking troubled. He jumped off when he saw her approach and dusted off his hands. “Have you been practicing?”, he asked in a dry tone. Soel nodded her head vigorously, his sour mood not dampening her excitement. “Let’s see how good you are”, he said waving her towards the wall. Soel stood a few feet away from the wall and took a deep breath. Then she ran towards it and climbed on to it in 3 easy steps. Once on top, she balanced herself perfectly as she walked a few feet along the wall before jumping off and landing in a roll before getting on to her hands and knees. She looked up expectantly, hoping to get some appreciation but Ju simply nodded his head as he said, “We’ll have to move to a bigger wall tomorrow.” He walked over and climbed up the wall where he resumed his previous thoughtful posture. Soel joined him there and they sat side by side in silence for a while, watching the sun go down before she asked softly, “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” “Hmmm…. yes, something’s very wrong, but I’m not sure whether it’s a good idea to get you involved.” “Why not?”, Soel asked. Ju was quiet for a long time, struggling to decide what the right course of action would be. Finally, he turned to her and said very solemnly, “Do you remember that you said you’d give me whatever I asked for if I taught you how to climb a wall? I think I’ll have to collect on that promise now. I know that it’s too much to ask for and I don’t know if it’s within your power to give. But if there’s anyone who can make this happen, it’s you.”

13^th prince Baek Ah flinched and averted his head as a sweep of the King’s arm sent an array of dishes and bowls crashing on the floor, smithereens flying in all directions. “I should have known this would happen. I should have known they’d manipulate her and try to use her against me. I should never have let her meet or speak with any of them”, King Gwangjong fumed as he paced around the room. “Uhmmm…. Manipulation is a very strong word”, Baek Ah pointed out cautiously. He took a step backwards as the King him in anger. “Manipulation is not a strong enough word for what the Queen is doing. After everything that she and her brother put Hae Soo through, I can’t believe she’s trying to use Soel to get what she wants. That woman has no sense of shame.” “Your majesty, Soel and the Queen have never met each other. I’m quite sure of it. You need to calm down and think things through rationally”, Baek Ah said in a placating tone. “There’s nothing to think about. My oldest daughter will marry Jung’s son. I’ve already made the decision and that’s the way it’s going to be”, the King said resolutely, in a much calmer voice. “I respect your decision, your majesty. I’m just saying that you should also think from your daughter’s perspective. You know better than anyone else what life is like when you are forced to give up on the one you love and enter a political marriage”, Baek Ah reminded him solemnly. The memory of his loss reopened the King’s wounds and made his heart bleed. “And who was the reason I had to live that life?”, he spat out, his eyes red with rage. “That person is dead, has been dead for a while. In fact, they are all gone. So you too need to let that go. Forget everything that happened. Please don’t take it out on the children”, Baek Ah said softly, his eyes reflecting the sorrow within. The King turned to face him, the fire still burning in his eyes and asked with a smirk, “Why shouldn’t I? They are HIS children. Why should I show them any mercy? Why shouldn’t I make them suffer for his sins?”

Baek Ah lifted his face and looked his brother straight in the eye, catching him by surprise. Since the day his brother became King, Baek Ah had always kept his head bowed in front of him. He had always addressed him as “your majesty” and never asked for any favors for himself or for anyone else. To preserve the sanctity of the throne, he had always chosen to treat the man before him as a King and not as a brother. But today, his brother needed his help to let go of past hurts, to move on and to make peace with everything that fate had put him through. “A long time ago, before you were King, when you were just my hyungnim, you were the most generous person I knew. Even when people hurt you over and over again, you were always willing to give them another chance, to mend bridges, to forgive. During that messed up birthday party, I know how hurt you were to have your siblings gape at your exposed scar as though you were a freak on display, and yet when Eun oraboeni apologized, you forgave him immediately. Though Yo oraboeni never treated you as a sibling and incessantly attacked and ridiculed you both in words and in deeds, you held back and spared his life even when he was deemed a traitor.” “And then I lived to regret it. I was young and naive, and foolishly sentimental”, So interjected, not wanting to be reminded of a past that held too many painful memories. “You were young and hopeful, and yes, foolishly sentimental”, Baek Ah agreed with a laugh. But his tone grew more somber as he continued, “Hyungnim, I can give you a hundred reasons why you need to forgive and forget before it’s too late. But right now, I think you should do it for just one reason, the most important one. I think you should do it for your children. You should do it because Soel asked you to and because it would make Mun Deok happy. You should do it so that you can let go of the ones who are gone and hold on to those you still have around.” The King was quiet for a very long time before he asked in a resigned tone, “But what about the Yoo clan? Even if I marry my second daughter to Jung’s son and hold both the weddings together, they are not going to be happy to share the honor of the first royal wedding with the Hwangbos. And worse, the Hwangbos are going to be delighted”, he grumbled, his face contorted with disgust. “You could ask Jung to find a way to appease the Yoos. As for the Hwangbos, I’m sure you can think of some other way to torment them”, Baek Ah pointed out. “Hmmm….. Jung won’t have an easy time handling those over-ambitious ministers and nobles”, the King said with a smile. “And I WAS planning on starting a tax audit. There’s no reason why we cannot focus primarily on one particular clan this year and I just thought of which Hwangbo nobles I’d like to start off with. I think this just might work”, he said rubbing his hands as Baek Ah looked on with an indulgent smile and a shake of his head.

Wang Chi sat in the classroom, scribbling aimlessly on the sheet of paper before him. Though the class was dismissed a long time ago, he sat on, slowly losing track of time, unable to find the will to leave. He glanced up slowly with a bored expression when he heard someone enter the room, before bolting upright. Princess Mun Deok grabbed on to a desk to support herself as she struggled to catch her breath. Her face was flushed and her hair was a mess, with loose strands flying in all directions. Her shoes were covered in dirt and were leaving imprints on the wooden floor. The hem of her skirt was covered in splattered mud. She looked so completely unlike herself that Wang Chi rushed to her side in alarm. But the moment she recovered from her mad dash across the palace, she started looking frantically around the classroom. Wang Chi looked on with growing concern as she dragged a low stool and placed it in front of him. Before he could process what was going on, she climbed on the stool, steadied herself by grabbing on to his shirt and kissed him full on his mouth. Then she took a deep breath and smiled from ear to ear as she explained, “I just heard from Ju oraboeni. The King changed his mind.” Before she could explain further, his lips descended on hers. She put her arms around his neck to steady herself just as he wrapped his arms around her waist pulling her closer and she forgot what she was about to say as her eyes fluttered shut.

Soel’s face contorted into many different expressions, and jaws twisting and turning in all different directions as she tried to do something other than just twiddling her thumbs. Sitting perched on a desk on the top floor of the astronomy tower, she looked expectantly at Ju who was bent over a contraption with long hollow tubes that extended up towards the sky. Her face took on an expression of long suffering as she asked for what seemed like the millionth time, “Is it ready yet?” Ju ignored her as he continued to fiddle with the controls. An impish look came over her face as she swung her leg and hit the leg of the table on which the telescope had been mounted. “Argh….. seriously…..”, Ju exclaimed as he looked at her with equal parts anger and disbelief. “That’s exactly what I wanted to say. Seriously? You ask me to come over late at night to show me something amazing as a reward for pleading with the King to get Mun Deok married to Wang Chi and then you just leave me here to die and decay while you keep tinkering with that thing forever. Does that even make sense? Do you have any idea how much I had to give up to keep my promise to you? First off, there is the King’s wrath that could turn a lush green meadow into burning embers in a split second. And then, think about this - I could have had Mun Deok as my sister-in-law. I was already making plans on how we would spend our time together and then I had to crush all my dreams with my own two hands. And that’s not all. I could have had a tall, handsome and heart-broken cousin flirting with me to get over said heart-break. And then there is the whole politics around this whole thing. The Yoo clan is furious and they will rise up in revolt if they ever found out that I had something to do with their demotion.” Ju closed his eyes and sighed in exasperation as Soel continued her rant. “I wanted to show you a planet. It took me all day to get the controls right and now you’ve ruined it”, he said in a defeated voice, as he looked at the telescope now facing the heavens at a slightly different angle that somehow made a whole world of difference.

Soel bit her lips as she looked at him with wide repentant eyes. But the next instant, she ran out to the balcony and swung around to face him, her white skirt swirling around her like rippling waves in a sea of black. “Well, you could just point it out to me. I have perfectly good eyesight”, she said with a cheeky grin, eyebrows rising in apprehension and eyes filled with a hope and a plea, pointing up at the sky. Ju sighed and then smiled as he followed her out. “Look for a very bright star near the moon”, he said as he positioned himself behind her. As Soel peered into the night sky, leaning against the railing, Ju’s left hand landed on the railing beside hers. She felt a strand of hair, dislodged by the force of his breath, slide forward and graze against her right cheek. “That one, right there”, he said pointing to Venus, visible as a bright orb in the night sky. “That’s Tai-pe, the beautiful white one. She’s a planet, very similar to earth and yet she shines brighter and more beautiful than any star in the night sky”, he said as he glanced at the girl gazing in awe as one more mystery of the glorious night sky seemed to unfold before her. A sweet scent of flowers and spices mixed with the morning freshness of a meadow wafted from her hair as he noticed how long and curved her eyelashes were and how her face seemed to glow in the moon light. Almost involuntarily, he bent his head down and let his lips caress her cheek. In a flash, Soel turned her body around to face him as he looked down at her with an inscrutable expression, his eyes bright and glowing and his lips trembling slightly. She gulped as she averted her eyes and said in a low voice, “This is a bad idea”. “It is”, he agreed even as he moved closer, his voice sending a bolt of lightning streaming down her back. Soel tried to back away, her torso leaning out at an angle from the balcony, being protected from a deadly fall only by a flimsy railing. “They’ll never agree”, she tried again. “They won’t”, he concurred as he reached out with his right hand and cupped the back of her head, pulling her back into the relative safety of the balcony. Their faces were so close at that point that their noses almost touched. “It’s dangerous to lean out so much. You can’t fly, right?” he said with a smile as he started backing off. Soel’s hands shot out and wrapped around his neck, stunning him and stalling his movement, bringing his face closer to hers. Her face tilted up slightly with the sudden movement and her lips brushed lightly against his. After that, it was all a blur.

If you were to meet them over tea some day and ask them who initiated that first kiss and who responded, they couldn’t honestly tell you, though they’d likely each insist that it was the other. They couldn’t tell you how the other’s lips felt or tasted either for they’d have no memory of whether it was satiny soft or fiery hot or sweet or tingly. They wouldn’t remember how Ju’s hands were entwined in Soel’s hair or how her fingers gripped the fabric of his shirt. The most they could truthfully tell you is that they felt as though they were falling helplessly into an endless abyss and that they desperately wanted to keep falling; that they were breathless, scared and exhilarated, all at the same time. If you were to push them even further, they might be able to tell you that none of those were conscious thoughts; that their brains broke down and just buzzed incessantly in their ears; and yet they felt so much - joy, fear, longing and redemption – feelings that came from somewhere far deeper - a different dimension that they could only glimpse when they were together.