part four:: zigeunerweisen

Soojung’s heart is thumping louder than her mother’s voice when she’s passed the line from irritation into plain anger. Why, you might ask? Simple. The young princess’s anxiety is at a record high because she’s about to be introduced to the inhabitants of a seaside village who quite possibly want her head displayed on a stick. Considering that this particular village has an inhabitant who has already tried to kill her—more than once, actually—Soojung has a right to her fear. Even with Joonmyun next to her, squeezing her hand comfortingly, she still can’t control her trembling limbs.

“Joonmyun oppa, what if the man from the docks is here now? Doesn’t he want me dead?” Once the words come out , Soojung mentally bangs her forehead against an imaginary iron wall. She must sound like a terrified little child—and the last thing she wants is for Joonmyun, of all people, to regard her as a child incapable of holding her own ground.

Joonmyun, however, simply ruffles her hair with one hand. “You’ll be fine, Soojung-ah. Don’t you trust your oppa?”

No, Soojung wants to say. But obviously that would lead to a potentially awkward conversation that she really doesn’t want to have right now. So, she keeps silent and wonders whether Joonmyun is mocking her secretly underneath the winning smile.

It takes the two of them quite some time to reach the village, much longer than Soojung thinks it took her to get here the first time. But she’s still awestruck by the bustling vibrancy of the community life, coexisting in stark contrast to the icy white formality of the Palace. Realizing that hangs slightly open, she quickly shuts it, but her gesture doesn’t go unnoticed by Joonmyun. He smiles fondly at her, recalling her habit of being quite shocked by anything new.

After a few minutes, they find themselves on the outskirts of a cluster of huts that seem to be reserved for people of importance in the village community. Joonmyun gestures for her to be quiet and to stay hidden behind the trees the surround the shacks. Soojung looks around to see whether anyone is watching her, then darts behind the tree, her long auburn hair flowing behind her as she cowers in the gigantic arboreal shadow.

Joonmyun takes off, running in the direction of a large group of men that have just gathered near the docks. He skids to a halt in front of them, gasping for breath. Soojung can barely hear anything from so far away, but she can see that the men are in some sort of heated debate, and Joonmyun’s appearance has exacerbated the tension among them. One of the men, a rather short one with amounts of kohl under his eyes that could rival Sooyeon’s when she’s going to some royal party, seems to be attempting to restore some order among the men, but he’s apparently failing miserably. Eventually Joonmyun runs back to the spot where Soojung’s hidden and takes hold of her arm, pulling the reluctant girl to where the men are gathered.

Soojung doesn’t dare lift her eyes from the ground or to even move a muscle. Someone scoffs at her presence, saying something barely comprehensible yet obviously derogatory in a thick rural accent. Gritting her teeth in indignation at the part that she actually understood, she raises her chin defiantly to meet the eyes of the man who had been crying on the first night Soojung had come to the village. She returns the giant man’s fierce glare with equal force, daring him to speak up against her again. And he does exactly that. Letting loose a torrent of vitriolic Hangeul that’s too accented and too fast for Soojung’s ears, he gestures wildly, sometimes making a slitting motion across his throat that makes her blood run cold with pure terror.

Joonmyun and the kohl man are frantically trying to calm the tall man down, but to no avail. Suddenly, a shorter man, maybe a boy, comes barreling out of one of the nearby huts, dragging along with him a girl bearing a striking resemblance to the tan-skinned stranger from Soojung’s last visit here. “Hyung! Who’s this? Is she the Crown Princess? Whoa, you’re really short. I thought the Crown Princess would be taller, didn’t you, Jinri?”

Jinri nods eagerly, her long curls bobbing in unison. “How old are you?” she asks.

Soojung can’t detect a single trace of malice in her voice, which surprises her to no end. “I’m eighteen. And I’m not the Crown Princess. That’s my sister,” she replies, rather unnerved by the lack of hostility.

“Oh, really? Then I’m younger than you! I can call you eonni!”

Soojung narrows her eyes. Jinri’s cheerful and seemingly harmless mention of the word ‘eonni’ triggers memories of rose-scented perfume and two inch long crimson nails. She shudders a little, wondering what her sister might be doing at this very moment. Probably plotting Soojung’s demise along with Queen Taeyeon, she surmises with a sigh.

Her melancholy reverie comes to an abrupt end as the boy waves his hand in front of her face. “Hey, are you okay? You look kind of pale, noona.”

The kohl man glares at the boy and pulls him aside, muttering a few irate words into his ear as the young man whines, “But it’s not her fault, hyung!”

The older man’s frown deepens as he hisses, “We’re already lucky that Jongin-ah isn’t here. Don’t push it, Sehun-ah.”

Soojung’s shudders start up again. She really doesn’t want to recall the manic anger and hatred in that tanned man’s eyes, but she just can’t forget his noble-like face and the way he had tried to strangle her, and it fills her with a sense of helplessness and fear. Joonmyun, noticing her discomfort, pats her shoulder in what’s meant to be a heartening gesture, but it makes Soojung’s mood even worse. The last thing she wants is to look weak in front these people, who already have less than stellar opinions of her. She heaves a sigh, then makes what might be the worst decision she’s ever made.

“Hello,” she starts out bravely, quailing internally as her voice comes out an octave higher than what she intended. “My name is Jung Soojung. I’m eighteen years old. I want to help you all. I don’t know why you hate me, but I know it’s not my fault. And I’m going to try to fix that.” At the end of her little speech, her cheeks are flaming red and she has absolutely no idea what to do next. But she notices that Sehun and Jinri are smiling encouragingly at her, even though the older members of the group look quite disapproving of her stunt. So Soojung directs her gaze bravely at the kohl man and his tall friend. They seem to be torn between strangling her and just ignoring her.

Finally Joonmyun breaks the awkward silence in the air. “There now, Soojung-ah’s introduced herself. Why don’t you all go ahead?” Soojung simply can’t fathom why or how he can act as if no enmity had ever existed between the royalty and the commoners, as if they were simply meeting over a cup of tea to make acquaintances. That entire calm demeanor probably came from years of dealing with her psychotic mother, she deduces.

The kohl man’s eyes narrow until they’re almost slits. Soojung watches in morbid fascination as his fists clench and unclench, detachedly wondering whether he would try to attack her or Joonmyun. But nothing happens, except for the defiant silence from both the older commoners. So Joonmyun sighs and does the honors for both men. “This one is Baekhyun,” he says, gesturing to the kohl man. “And this is Chanyeol, our gentle giant.” However gentle he may be, Soojung still thinks Chanyeol’s height is quite intimidating, and so is the disdainful expression on his face when he looks at her.

Suddenly, Sehun and Jinri decide to make the whole experience a lot less awkward when they each grab one of her arms and bodily haul her away on an impromptu tour of the docks. Soojung soon realizes that both of her newfound dongsaengs are more than willing to fill up the empty space between her and them by chattering enough to drive someone like Sooyeon or the Queen absolutely crazy. She allows a small smile to slip onto her face at the thought of forcing her prissy, commoner-hating sister to spend time with Sehun and Jinri.

Soojung soon realizes that being around these garrulous people is rubbing off on her; she’s never opened up this much to anyone except Joonmyun, and it unnerves her more than anything else going on in her life at the moment. She isn’t supposed to be trusting these people so much, for God’s sake, but she is, and Soojung doesn’t know if she can really handle this much interaction outside her own comfort zone.

Out of the blue, Jinri grabs her arm and drags her behind a tree, her face pale with barely concealed terror. Sehun is panicking now, wringing his hands in a nervous tic as he mutters a string of hasty words that Soojung can’t quite catch. But she gets the meaning anyway. Something bad has happened, and she had better hide or else the consequences would take a toll on her.

Jinri’s body trembles as she softly tells Soojung, “Jongin oppa’s here. You need to hide. I heard what happened the last time he saw you here. Don’t make any noise or he’ll find you and kill you. Please stay safe, eonni.”

Soojung breaks out in cold sweat, her vision suddenly clouded with terrified tears. She doesn’t want to think about what might happen if Jongin stumbles upon her, but there is quite a high probability that he might just do so and it scares her beyond words. Above the pounding of blood rushing in her ears, she can hear Jinri telling Sehun to run and distract Jongin while she finds a hiding place for Soojung. And she realizes that she can’t keep running away from the cold hard reality like a scared mouse scurrying from the cat that chases it. So she straightens up and looks Jinri in the eye with all the courage she can muster. “I don’t want to hide, Jinri-sshi. Actually, I don’t need to hide from your brother. I can face him on my own.”

Jinri and Sehun’s jaws seem to hit the ground and bounce back up to reconnect with their faces. “Noona…” Sehun’s voice trails off as he watches Jongin’s approaching figure in the distance. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Jongin hyung looks like he’s drunk, you know. If we can get him restrained somehow, you might as well try talking to him.”

Soojung is quite taken aback by their immediate consent to her plan. She’d thought that these children would at least be as wily as Sooyeon, if not more, considering their commoner upbringing. The Palace had ingrained in her from a young age that the commoners were like snakes—not to be trusted, and to be crushed without a second thought if necessary. But those walls they had built to seclude from the outside world were being torn down, brick by brick, and Soojung realizes with a jolt that she’s been enjoying her newfound freedom every step of the way.

Soon, the trio has their plan formulated and ready for execution. Stepping aside for Sehun to pass as he runs off to distract his hyung and bring him to a secluded hut, Soojung observes Jinri with the practiced eye of a woman who has spent the better part of her life simply watching people. With a single glance, the princess deduces that her newfound dongsaeng is a kindred spirit, full of the life and the youth that was so forcibly stolen from Soojung herself. She sees her younger self in Jinri, a child who perceives the good in the world, all the while knowing its evils. And now Soojung has this strange feeling inside her heart—the feeling of having a friend.

|ethereal masquerade|

Jongin has lost his senses. He’s quite sure of that right now—the four empty bottles of soju in the near vicinity are a testament to that sentiment. But since when does Kim Jongin really care about the repercussions of his actions, however foolish they might be? Tipping back another shot of the addictive beverage, he closes his eyes and lets the pounding adrenaline take control of his system, wincing at the thought of the berating he’d definitely receive from Jinri once he arrives home. So he staggers to his feet, legs wobbling and threatening to give way under him. Jongin’s eyesight is blurrier than the sky on a stormy day, and he keeps stumbling over every single rock in the Joseon Empire, or so he thinks in his inebriated state of mind.

But what irritates him more is the sporadic flashes of a certain delicate visage that appear anywhere and everywhere in his vision, the very same one that has been popping up whenever he tries to get even a wink of sleep. Jongin clenches his fists in frustration and lashes out the nearest thing—which happens to be an object bearing a striking similarity to Sehun.

“Ouch!” Sehun yelps, clutching his eye. “What was that for, hyung?” he whines, rather indignant at the sudden blow.

Jongin can only stare in mute disbelief as Sehun hops around, crashing into nearby objects. “What are you doing here, Sehun-ah?” Jongin asks, watching as Sehun curses each and every corner of the shack.

The younger boy doesn’t respond for a while, nursing his now swollen eye and a number of other injuries. He stays silent for so long that Jongin begins to suspect that Sehun is avoiding the answer to his question. The tanned fisherman furrows his brows in confusion. And that’s exactly when the bag gets thrown over his head. Literally.

|ethereal masquerade|

The bazaar is one of the Crown Princess’s most cherished hiding places. Though the boisterous, malodorous, and overcrowded market is the perfect space in which to conceal her usually extravagant presence, and to provide her with the solace that she craves so much. Sooyeon finds it rather ironic that she runs off to the sullied slums of the Joseon Empire at the first provocation from anyone, when she’s required by lineage and duty to be the figurehead of the Empire, a woman who ought to stand tall and proud in the face of any barrage of vitriolic vituperation. But then again, the entire Empire is erected upon a pedestal of irony, down to the very foundations of the Palace, however elaborate its accoutrements might be.

Her mother’s shrill voice snaps her back to her reality. Queen Taeyeon is yet again throwing one of her hissy fits—Joonmyun’s term for Taeyeon’s frequent temper tantrums. At the thought of her ruddy-haired confidant, Sooyeon’s heart clenches a little. Taeyeon had sent Joonmyun off to the seaside to deal with “a few minor problems”, but Sooyeon knows better than to believe her mother’s mendacities. Her only source of emotional support in the Palace circle is gone for the next two days because Taeyeon had somehow got it into her head that the two ought to be separated in order for her to find a suitable future King of the Joseon Empire.

So now Sooyeon is stuck getting ready for some futile party that Taeyeon and her husband Jungsoo are throwing. King Jungsoo, in Sooyeon’s opinion, is even more imbecilic than any party that he’s ever hosted. Considering that he happens to be just one out of Taeyeon’s many puppets, the one that she favors the most, Sooyeon can’t help but pity the man who Taeyeon had married after the Crown Princess’s biological father had (supposedly) died from a disease. But she has a task to do. After all, she can’t just forget Joonmyun’s enigmatic advice on how to “conduct” herself as the Crown Princess and future Queen.

To add to the frivolity of the Queen’s ball, everyone happens to be required to dress in the newly popular European style. This means—for Sooyeon, at least— an extremely arduous process of trying on and discarding multitudes of gowns, none of which seem to reach Taeyeon’s ridiculously high expectations. But it isn’t as if Sooyeon could botch this one opportunity to get on Taeyeon’s good side at last. There is simply too much at stake for that. And though the amount of pressure on her from the rulers of the Empire to behave well at this ball is extremely high, Sooyeon isn’t really complaining—the ball gown isn’t that bad looking, with

Queen Taeyeon suddenly barges into the dressing room, coiffure held in place with an innumerable amount of ivory pins and reeking of perfume. “Sooyeon-ah!” Taeyeon exclaims, her eyes narrowing in exasperation. “Have you been daydreaming again? I swear, Sooyeon-ah, you’re turning into that sister of yours, with her head in the clouds.”

Sooyeon turns her face to the side slightly, hiding her eye-roll from her mother as she applies mascara to her long eyelashes. “I’m almost done, eomma. Almost done.”

Taeyeon heaves a sigh. “Here, let me put that on for you,” she mutters, taking the mascara from her daughter’s hand and finishing the job for her.

“Thank you, eomma,” Sooyeon murmurs, her voice saturated with cloyingly sweet honey. Whatever it takes to get on her good side, Joonmyun’s whisper echoes inside her head.

Taeyeon lets a small smile grace her lips—apparently, she has fallen for Sooyeon’s filial flattery, and the Crown Princess leads a little victory dance in the secure confines of her mind. “Come on, Sooyeon-ah. We ought to start out the ball, you know, as the women of the royal family. And your dance partner for the night is waiting.”

“Bwoh? Dance partner? Eomma, I don’t dance!”

Taeyeon giggles a little, making Sooyeon’s eyes widen in surprise. She’s never seen her mother giggle before, let alone crack a smile in the presence of others. “Well, your partner will teach you. Come now, we must hurry.” She pauses for a second, then adds in a somber tone, “Do well, Sooyeon-ah. Don’t disappoint me tonight.”

Sooyeon clenches her fists in resentment. Leave it to Queen Kim Taeyeon of the Joseon Empire to be conniving enough to feign affection towards her own daughter in order to obtain her desired end. She turns her face away to hide the tears that are now making her vision swim, and she carefully dabs at them with a lace handkerchief. Finishing up her toilette and coiffure, the Crown Princess rises from her elaborate fauteuil and raises her kohl-rimmed eyes to meet her mother’s.

Silently, Taeyeon takes her daughter’s hand and leads her out of the dressing room, their footsteps muffled by the plush carpet of the hallway. They stop in front of a huge oak door, and Sooyeon’s heart begins to pound in her ears. This is the doorway to the Palace’s ballroom, where royal connections are made and broken as easily as a twig in the forest under a boot.

“Are you ready, Sooyeon-ah?” Taeyeon gives Sooyeon’s hand what’s supposed to be a comforting squeeze, but it comes out more like a threatening clasp.

“Yes. I’m ready, eomma. More than I ever will be.”

“Good girl,” Taeyeon murmurs, then reaches for the golden handle of the French door and pushes them open.

Sooyeon is immediately blinded by the amount of light emanating from the chandeliers, but she barely has time to process anything before a stentorian voice blares out.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Shinsa suknyeo yeorobun! Please welcome the Crown Princess of the Joseon Empire, Jung Sooyeon!”

Ladies and gentlemen, let act one of the royal play begin.