Chapter 22: You Belong to Me

January 2019

When I first came to the palace, I was young and inexperienced, naive and foolish. I was too sensitive, too raw, I read too much into too little, sensing thorns and stings in carelessly spoken words, seeing barbed criticism and veiled disdain in casual glances. In retrospect, they were insignificant and inconsequential, barely monumental enough to stir a ripple in my world and hardly merited those agonizing moments - of which there were many, far too many - of self-doubt, self-hate, and self-reflection (numerous hours were spent on this last in front of the unflattering mirror in my room). But when one is young, one is hardly brave, and a careless word would linger for hours, days, and weeks after, and a smirk, a look, a glance beneath the eyelashes, would burn and sear, red and raw and unforgiving, and brand itself into an open sore, an eternal scar. Today, sheathed and shielded in the complacent armour of maturity and experience, these little brushes with unkindness, real or imagined, are shrugged off lightly, and are swiftly forgotten.

The visitors continue to pour into the palace, but where once I had hated them, and begrudged the hours I had to suffer their presence, the new me no longer lives in dread of them, and strangely enough, I have even begun to thrive in their company, and I do not need Hyuk to be at my side any longer to rescue me. I have become a master at the art of conversation, parrying remarks and comments lightly and easily, steering conversations glibly, smoothly, adroitly, to safe grounds, quite unlike that young, gauche, badly-dressed me who floundered, tongue-tied, in the middle of a sentence,  her bitten fingernails clutching desperately at the edges of her ill- fitting skirt, her voice trailing to silence, her face red with mortification and embarrassment. The new me sits nonchalantly with her varnished nails and her expensive dress, her hair swept up in the latest style, relaxed and serene in her favourite chair, elbows propped casually on soft plump cushions, smiling a little, and leaning forward at the correct moments to interject a clever little remark here, a funny innuendo there. At times, I believe I even eclipse Hyuk who would lean back and watch me, a faint smile playing upon his lips, a tiny gleam of pride in the depths of those dark eyes, as I hold centre stage with my rapt and adoring and ever-widening circle of admirers. What a feat indeed! Little Miss Nobody from Nowhere has finally evolved into A Woman of Substance, and I could not be happier. My sister, Helro, has declared it a miracle ( her exact words were: "There IS a God, after all!"), and no one compares me to So Hyun any longer; now when they speak of the Empress, it is Empress Sunny that they speak of. The other one has been forgotten, it is as if she never existed. For such is the fickleness, the inconstancy of human nature, that even So Hyun, the brightest of stars, that most dazzling of beauties, could be so carelessly cast away, so callously forgotten in the blink of an eye. She has been consigned to the dusty ashes of history, she belongs to the past, to yesterday, while I, Oh Sunny, am the glowing, living, vibrant present of today and tomorrow.

It is New Year's Day, and Hyuk and I have been invited to a grand bash at the opulent mansion of the wealthiest man in Korea and Asia, Kim Yong Dun, a businessman with interests at home and all over the world, reputed to be the third richest man in the world, and appears without fail in Forbes' Richest List year after year. His mansion sits on top of a hill that overlooks the city of Seoul, and rivals the Grand Palace in its sheer size and majesty. He and his wife are waiting for us at the entrance as our black limousine glides in. A flurry of activity ensues, the car door opens smoothly, and Hyuk steps out of the car first, and turns to me, taking my hand and helping me out. He introduces me to the rotund, beaming man standing beside him, and the multi-billionaire bows to me and straightens, and says, with a wide smile, "Welcome to my humble abode, Your Majesties." His wife, a pleasant- looking woman with a sweet smile, bows to us as her husband introduces her formally to me. 

Music drifts from the mansion all through the cold wintry night; in the enormous gardens twinkling with blue and white Christmas lights, men and women drift like phantoms among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars, smartly-dressed servants in black and white stand to attention beside the rows and rows of buffet tables covered with white starched tablecloths that stretch endlessly, garnished with glistening hors-d'ouvre, spiced baked hams crowded against mountains of fresh green salads and turkeys roasted to a rich burnished gold, chicken double-boiled with ginseng and herbs, braised lamb shanks, to name but a portion of the wonderful spread; a bar has been set up at one corner, and stocked with gins and liquors and the finest, most expensive wines. An orchestra plays in the main hall, which is packed with guests, the cars continue to stream into the drive, and the hall, bedecked with gold and silver ts, swells with new arrivals, faces form and dissolve in the same breath; the bravest among them, the ones b with beauty and confidence, break languidly from the crowd, and start to wander, weaving in and out seamlessly among the shyer and the more reserved. Like goddesses from an enchanted and magical world of beauty and perfection, they glide sinuously among the sea of strangers, invariably and irresistibly drawn to the man who stands in the centre of it all, the charismatic and magnetic Emperor Lee Hyuk, his perfection of form and nobility of beauty eclipsing all other men's in the room, his great height dwarfing all others. I see his dark head incline courteously toward a beauty in a white lacy gown clinging with scarlet fingernails to his right elbow, turn charmingly to give his undivided attention to another tall and willowy siren in a revealing and tight black dress, swaying against him, and brushing her fingers seductively over his arm, both women fighting to stake a claim, no matter how fragile, how transient, among the many clustered around that tall dark figure. I see a smile curve slowly around those beautiful sensitive lips, every inch of which I know so well, so intimately, and I am seized by a sudden savage jealousy, and I want to scream out loud: take your hands off my husband, he is mine, he belongs to me. As if he senses my presence, he looks up, and our eyes meet across the hall, and hold, the gaggle of voices around me recede into the distance, and the world fades; the men clustered around me, flirting with me, paying me compliments with their eyes, their lips, blur into insignificance. The only people in the room are Hyuk and me, and all that I am aware of are him, and his eyes on me.

The band strikes up a tune, and the spell is broken. Everybody claps excitedly. The Master of Ceremonies, his face slightly flushed from the champagne, steps up on stage, and announces, "We would be deeply honoured if Emperor Lee Hyuk and Empress Sunny could grace us with the first dance of the evening."

Hyuk bows to the guests who are clapping enthusiastically and smiling, and then walks slowly toward me across the floor, detaching himself smoothly from the bevy of beauties who fall back, their faces filled with disappointment. He stops in front of me and inclines his dark head toward me, bows to me suavely, and stretches out his right hand, and says smoothly, "My Empress, shall we?"

He looms over me, tall and dark and a little dangerous, looking impossibly handsome in that black velvet tuxedo suit. His eyes are dark with a glint of wicked mischief, and his lips quirk just the slightest into the merest hint of a smile. My heart gives a tremendous leap, and, all of a sudden, I am wildly excited, giddy with anticipation. Very carefully, I lay my hand on his open palm, and he closes his warm fingers over it. With his touch, the fever that I thought had been tamed and trammelled, stirs from its restless slumber, and the smouldering embers burst into flames, sending the hot blood coursing madly, deliriously, through my veins.

I step into his arms, and he closes his fingers around my waist, and draws me slowly toward him. Everybody in the hall has gathered in a circle around us and is watching us.

A woman dressed in a striking emerald green sequin gown starts to sing.

I know this song. It was my mother's favourite song.

It is Barbara Streisand's "Evergreen" from the original movie "A Star is Born".

Her voice rises and falls, warm and rich, soft and tender.

"Love, soft as an easy chair

Love, fresh as the morning air

One love that is shared by two

I have found with you

Like a rose under the April snow

I was always certain love would grow

Love, ageless and evergreen

Seldom seen by two

You and I will make each night the first

Every day a beginning

Spirits rise and their dance is unrehearsed

They warm and excite us

'Cause we have the brightest love

Two lights that shine as one

Morning glory and the midnight sun

Time, we've learned to sail above

Time won't change the meaning of

One love...

Ageless and ever...

Evergreen..."

She sings beautifully, achingly, and the song, so haunting and poignant, tugs at my heart, and something stirs from deep within my mind - an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, a memory of when we first met, that had happened somewhere a long time ago, when I was a mere girl, a child. I love you. I love you. I love you. The words that had once upon a time tumbled so easily, so readily, from my lips, and then subdued, buried savagely within my stony heart, tremble once more upon my bruised and fearful lips, and then released in a sigh, a wisp of feathery air: "I love you..." But the song drowns my whisper, and he does not hear it. The moment passes, and we glide on, and the music continues to play. 

The other couples join us on the floor, and it starts to get a little crowded. 

"Are you having a good time?" Hyuk asks, his cheek pressed against the top of my head.

"Yes, although," I say a little sourly, "you seem to be having a better time."

He draws back a little to look down at me, his brows furrowed.

"I sense a certain - undercurrent in that cryptic statement," he says, and his lips quirk a little, making him look devilishly handsome.

"You seemed to be having a good time with all those girls flocking around you," I say viciously.

"Oh, you are referring to um, my company earlier," he grins. "I can't help it if I'm popular."

I snort.

He laughs.

"They're models, am I right? They look like models," I say glumly. "I suppose they are models. The black widow and the bride in white. Dress the part, and you'll snare the grand prize." I am rambling. I am beginning to feel depressed. I glance down at my green dress. I look like a clump of cabbage beside those two beauties. 

"On the contrary," he says. "One is the daughter of the Minister of Finance - she's an Oxford graduate, and aspires to be a politician, and the other is the heiress of the Stensen Pharmaceuticals Group...she's a doctor."

I almost trip over my feet, but, luckily, he catches me.

"Which one is the heiress - let me guess, is it the black widow who bought the dress that was ten sizes too small for her?" I glare at him and say nastily.

He laughs.

"Wrong again. The black widow is the politician, the bride in white is the heiress doctor."

I feel even more depressed. 

"I suppose that woman in the yellow gown over there is an astronaut, and the curvaceous one in the blue dress is a scientist," I grunt.

"Which one do you mean? There are four curvaceous women in blue dresses - "

"The one who keeps bumping into you," I snarl, "and smiling at you, even though there's enough room here to swing four cats."

He chuckles, turns his head, and smiles charmingly at the sultry temptress in blue, who almost swoons in bliss.

"I shouldn't have worn green. I should have worn blue, or yellow, or red. I look like a clump of cabbage beside all these women," I say morosely. "Tell me honestly - do you think that I look like a clump of cabbage in this green?"

He surveys me mock-critically, and purses his lips.

"Those red sprinklings against the green kind of remind me of that kimchi we had for dinner yesterday."

"What??" I yell, and the other couples turn their heads and look at us curiously.

"They think we're quarrelling," Hyuk says helpfully. "We should do something to put their minds at ease."

"Huh?" I ask, perplexed.

"Something - you know, like a kiss..."

I stop dancing. My feet refuse to move.

"Hey," he whispers. "You're making it worse. Now they think you're so mad with me you won't dance with me anymore."

He bends over, and says, "I have to kiss you...that's the only solution..."

Anything to smooth over a potential crisis...

I raise my face to his, and close my eyes.

"All right. Go ahead, kiss me," I say, in a martyr-like tone. Oh God, my heart is fluttering.

He bends, and kisses me on the forehead, lightly, swiftly, a brush of his warm, moist lips, and...that's it???

I open my eyes. He's grinning widely at me.

"Why, Oh Sunny, I do believe I see - disappointment in your eyes. Don't tell me you were expecting me to kiss you on the lips here, in front of all these people? How scandalous." He clucks his tongue disapprovingly.

"Oh, you!" I push at him, but he catches my hands in his, and draws me close to him, so that our bodies are pressed against each other.

"I'll kiss you later, when we're alone," he murmurs."I'll kiss you all you want, so be patient, my sweet..."

I colour hotly, and bury my face in his shoulder.

"Ah, I was only teasing you," he says softly, leaning close to my ear. "I'm a brute..." He presses his lips against the top of my head. "You don't have to be jealous, because those women are of no importance, they don't mean a thing to me...the only woman in my life who matters to me is you, Oh Sunny..."

The music stops. The dance ends.

He looks into my eyes. "Remember," he says quietly, "always remember..."

"...that I belong to you, and you," his voice drops to a whisper, "you belong to me..." 

The party comes to an end and we bid farewell to our hosts. We pull out into the winter night, and soon,  we have left the fairy lights behind us. The dim lights of buildings and anonymous gas stations and street lamps and sleigh bells whirl past us, a train speeds silently into the darkness of the night, blurry faces peering out from behind misty, fogged up windows, bearing them onward to some unknown destination; the bridge is ahead of us, then the woods on both sides, and the clearing, and we are driving into the palace grounds, the gates opening with a loud clang, the uniformed guards buttoned up to their necks in identical thick coats saluting us smartly, and, at last, we are through, the gates clanging shut behind us mechanically, efficiently. Ahead of us, the lighted tall glass windows of the palace beckon, and the snow begins to fall, pattering lightly against the chilled windows, silvery in the frosty dark, and I turn to Hyuk beside me, and say excitedly, "Hyuk, look - it's snowing." 

"Is it really?" he says, looking out of his window. I wind down the window on an impulse, and stretch my palm to catch the falling snowflakes.

"Stop the car," I say to the driver. 

The car pulls to a stop, and I clamber out. Hyuk laughs, and says to the driver, "We'll take a walk back. You can go on ahead." He opens the car door and climbs out, and the car pulls away.

There is no one but Hyuk and I. I stretch out my palms, and catch the white snowflakes, fluttering down over the lawns and the woods, sprinkling the drive with a sheen of misty silvery dust. Silvery wisps of the soft and pale moonlight sift between the trees and scatter at my feet, shattering into a hundred million twinkling stars. I am in a fairy-tale world, an enchanted realm, where Time stands still, and the past and the present no longer matter. I am afraid to speak or move for fear that all this wondrous beauty, this magical moment, would crumble to fairy dust.

"Isn't it beautiful?" I say softly, a catch in my breath. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in your life?" 

Hyuk is so close to me I can see his pale face, the puffs of his breath mingling with the cold night air, and the snowflakes powdering the blackness of his hair.

"You're beautiful," he says quietly, looking steadily down into my uplifted face. 

"Make a wish," I say. "Wish for anything you want upon the first snow, and your wish will come true."

I close my eyes, and clasp my hands in prayer.

I open my eyes. His face is mere inches from mine, and I can see the faint shadow of stubble on his chin, see the misty wisps of his breath rise like languorous wraiths from a forgotten dream, and drift elusive, ephemeral, before my eyes, feel the warmth of his breath, his body, touch and brush, quivering, feathery-soft upon my face, my eyes, my lips, my every part of me...

"What did you wish for?" he asks softly.

"I want peace and joy," I say, a little wistfully, for an empress must put the interests of others above her own, "for this great nation of ours, and for everyone else in the world." I look at him. "What about you?"

"I'm afraid I'm rather more selfish than you," he says, a note of laughter in his voice. "I don't want universal peace or joy..." His voice trails off, and his eyes hold mine. "I just want you..."

We look at each other in the falling snow, crowned emperor and empress in our enchanted realm, and the trees sigh and the leaves rustle, as the winds of memory and hope blow. He bends down to me and leans in, drawing his arms around me. He kisses me, and the quiet, tranquil face of the snowy world is blurred and drowned to nothingness. I can feel the rapid beat of his heart, taste the coldness of his lips. The snow begins to fall around us, clinging onto his eyelashes, sprinkling like tiny little fragments of glass upon his lips. I stand on tiptoe, wind my fingers in his hair, and pull him to me, hard, and kiss him back.

"Promise me you'll never leave me," he says urgently, as we draw back for an instance to catch our breaths. "Promise me you'll stay with me, no matter what happens..."

"I promise," I say.

I raise my eyes to his, and wait. He is trying to say something, to tell me something; the words struggle to take shape in his mouth, his lips part mutely, soundlessly.

"I - ," he says haltingly, and once more, "I..."

I love you.

Is this what you want to say, Hyuk? Is it so hard to say these three words, Hyuk?

Will you say it, Hyuk? Can you say these words to me, the words I so long to hear? 

He stops, and looks at me, his eyes agonized. He reaches out for me blindly, and holds me tight.

"Don't leave me," he whispers. 

"I won't," I say, and I lay my head against his thudding heart, and close my eyes, as a deep, deep sadness fills my heart. 

He does not love me. He never has, and he never will.

It is enough that I love him. My heart is big enough, my love strong enough for the two of us. 

I take a deep breath, and say the words that he cannot, will never say. I say them out loud, and they mingle with the tears on my face, and the ice melting on his breath.

"I love you..."