Jinhee sat across the table from her mother on the gazebo out in the courtyard. A pond surrounded them and the brezze rustled the reeds and they were rushed with the sweet scent of flowers that were expertly placed around the palace that she had called home for the past ten years. It was rare to have the pavilion all to themselves but her mother deemed it a special occassion as she was known for doing. The first day of school for Jinhee there was her favourite desserts sitting on the table for breakfast which, as any foolish child would, she stuffed them all into and had a terrbile stomach cramp for the rest of the day which dampered the exciting nature of first days. The food had been lovingly prepaired by her mother but the food had no taste to Jinhee who was dreamily staring out at the trees that housed a new family of sparrows that cheeped out merrily at the edition of their newest children.

 

In that moment all she could think about was the cast system that was forced upon their nation by the family that housed and clothed them. Even in their own small province in the country was so clearly broken up into different sections of people which was never to be intermingled. At the very bottom were the outcasts; chamber maids, workers, morticians and criminals were the largest portion of the outcasts and anyone related to those fields were instantly brought down to their levels. The middle class were the farmers and fishermen, the country was built on the back of these strong men and women and they were treated with such cruelty that the wealthy would turn away their heads from them so they didn't have to feel the guilt of seeing starving children because there was a dry spell in the region. These people were widly accepted by most but the higher class would never touch their skin. If buying food from a vendor and their hands accidentally touch, they would rip their hand away and almost be in tears because there was always the chance that they were carrying a desase that the clean and healthy rich people would contract from them. Then, as an extra slap to the face, the food would be dropped and spilled on the ground in front of the people struggling to put a meal together every night for their families. When that would happen, members of the outcast would rush the food and eat it off the ground while crying tears of joy for a warm meal for once in their life. Anything above the middle class was deemed as worthy in the eyes of the King.

 

Upper middle class were the well educated who had most everything in life handed to them on a silver platter. Doctors, mathmaticians, religious figureheads and scholars were considered the upperclass and they were the worst of them all. They were well off enough to never know what it was like to struggle, but not classy enough to keep their noses from sticking up into the sky. Even their clothes made them stand out as they walked around the marketplace. Middle class and below wore deep, earthy tones that wouldn't show the dirt and sweat from working hard days but the wives of the doctors and teachers would be in bright greens and yellows to falunt that even a speck of dirt on their clothes would be a tradgety worth whining about. Jinhee looked down at her hanbok and hated how brightly coloured her clothes were as the yellow top clashed against the red bottom that puffed out around her thin frame; she was jealous of her mothers clothing as it was a deep purple, much like the dark blue of the servants but was covered in flowers and animals, lovingly stitched into the rich fabric. This, and a few others were the only hanboks she wore since her father had passed away a month ago.

 

"Daughter? What are you thinking about?" Her mothers calm voice had broken through her deep thoughts and Jinhee stared at her, not truely knowing what to tell her. But once she noticed the awkward question hanging in the air Jinhee had to make something up.

 

"I'm thinking about father." It was not a complete lie as her fathers memories were constantly playing through her mind. The man that had raised her and brought her to this level of success was nothing more than a middle class doctor when he had started out. Her father, Jeon Beomsoo, was born into an upper class family and studied to be a doctor but grew tired of dealing with the ungreatful wealth and traveled to the smallest villages in the area and would give medical help to the outcasts and elderly. He would stay for free in their homes and help them with all of his abilities and even teach them to treat the illness if it were ever to come back. It was on the road that her father had met her mother, Kim Jeongja, she was the only child to a small villages teacher and because of that she was very well educated by her own father and had high hopes placed upon her.

 

When her father and mother got married, both families opposed the union as they thought their own respective children were too good for the other but her parents were able to balance each other out well as he fathers wandering feet and her mothers loving heart brought joy to many people in the country. Jinhee grew up travling and seeing the deepest and darkest sorrow in peoples hearts as they cried and begged her father to save their dying children and she was to watch as her father struggled and, in many cases, was unsuccessful in bring forth their hopes. It filled her with a great sense of pride for her parents and made her humble for everything as she knew that it could have been worse for her. Around the age of eight or seven, Jinhee's father was forced to join the army as a medical soldier and he vanished for two years.

 

In that time, her mother had stepped up and become a doctor despite never being formally trained as one. She watched her husband constantly and asked many questions and stored the information into her brain and, for the first little while, was clumsy in her exicusion but they all loved her more for it. By the time the war ended, her mother had become better than her husband and was well respected in many communities. Jinhee remembered the day the guards came to the home they were staying in and demanded to speak to her mother but Jinhee's greatest weakness was gossiping and hid behind the door to hear everything they talked about. The guards told her that her husband had saved the Kings life on the battle field and was now being granted the role of the Kings personal doctor so his whole family was going to be moving onto palace grounds. Her mother cried and thanked the heavens and quickly gathered Jinhee and their things and they were whisked away to the palace where they had lived since.

 

The memory of the palace doors opening and her father standing there in a cane made Jinhee weakly smile, at this point it was bitter sweet to think about him because his death left a gaping hole in her heart that she knew might never heal fully. Her father begrudginly told the story of how they came to live in the palace as he was a modest man and didn't think they deserved the luxuries they were given by the King. While out on the battle field her father was tending to a soldier who had been injuried by an arrow and they were ducked behind a large rock to try and hide themselves from the fighting so it would be easier to tend to the man and that was when he heard the neigh of the horses. He looked around and saw three large, white horses covered in gold and sitting uptop one of them was the King himself with his bow draw. Her father watched in awe as the King took out three men with a single arrow, which Jinhee always knew was a lie but let her father continue on with his stories. A flaming arrow came from the enemies and landed by the horse, frightening it badly enough that it bucked the King off and ran away, eventually being killed off in the distance by enemy soldiers. The King didn't budge and her father thought that might have just seen the death of their ruler but he couldn't just stand by and watch. The soldier he had been tending to was all patched up so he took off running to the King and pushed one of the royal soldiers out of the way. The King had hit his head hard from the fall and had become confused about what was going on around them.

 

As they tried bringing him to cover, an enemy charged at them and swung his blade at the King but Jinhee's father threw himself ontop of him and the sword, instead of killing the King, cut through the tendons in her fathers leg which gave him a limp for the rest of his life. At this point in the story, her father would draw up his pant leg and show the wound which had never properly healed and would inevitably lead to her fathers passing only ten years after the war. It was after that moment the King promised her father, for risking his life for King and country, that he would never have to worry about his family ever again. "And that, is why my little dove, that we are blessed to be in the presence of the royals on a daily basis. So remember, nothing is more important that loyalty and humility." Her father would blow a cloud of smoke from his mouth and wriggle his pipe in his fingers, very proud of the tail he told and then he would drift off for the rest of the day in memories of the war that kept him isolated from the rest of the world. Her parents saw living there as a gift but Jinhee saw it was a curse as she was never able to do the things she was able to as a child. Climbing trees was against the rules, sitting in the sun with her feet propped up and reading a book was against the rules, even just going down into the town and buying something from the market was highly disliked by the people in the palace and after being yelled at endlessly about it, Jinhee had stopped traveling outside the palace walls all together. She had to look through the window in her room that faced the town at the bottom of the hill and overlooked everything. She could see the people walking around and living their normal lives and she was eternally jealous of them.

 

Off in the distance Jinhee could hear the rythmic stomping of the royal guards and she looked over to see eight guards in total, all surrounding two extemly handsome men in bright purples and yellows that would make any creature stop and stare at them. Both Jinhee and her mother stood up and deeply bow in the direction of the two men who barely registered their exsistances. Once they were out of sight, they were able to stand back up and get back to their meal.

 

"The prince's looked especialy handsome today." Her mother exclaimed and Jinhee just rolled her eyes and went back to staring at the family of birds.

 

"They must have a viewing with the King." Most of the time the princes would be wearing less formal clothing but they looked like they were sparking diamonds blessed to walk the Earth by God himself. Jinhee had been raised in the palace and was unfortunate enough to be around the same age as many of the royal children, all six of them. If Jinhee thought poorly of the upper class than she hated the royal family and everything they stood for.

 

 

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yay first chapter. I have been thinking about this story a lot and decided to try and write it down for you to readddddddddd

 

I will be posting music with every chapter, most times it will mean nothing so don't look too hard into my choices lol I just try to go with the theme of the chapter.

 

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