Chapter 4: You Should Have Just Died

The day my mother died, I was supposed to go to Namsan Tower with her.

She had always wanted to go there, because she said that it was so tall that you could reach up and touch the sky.

But that day, there was a special fan meet for Emperor Lee Hyuk.

I remember her smiling, and glancing at the posters on my walls.

"You choose him over me?" she puts on an aggrieved face. "You choose your king over your mother?"

"I'm so sorry, mum," I say, hugging her apologetically. "I promise that we'll go next week. Emperor Lee Hyuk's going to give out special fan posters, and he's going to sign them, and take pictures with us. I have to go."

She my hair.

"Go then, go and meet him, and take pictures with him," she says fondly. "Who knows, if you're lucky, he'll notice you and marry you, and you'll become his empress."

So I went to my fan meet, and my mother went off to town, driving alone in her car.

The emperor never showed up at the fan meet, and I received a call half-way from my father.

"Your mother's been in an accident," he said, his voice choked with tears. "They're preparing her for surgery. Come now."

I rushed to the hospital, and there was a group of men in black suits in the hospital corridor in front of the Operating Theatre. I didn't care, but made my way straight to my father and sister.

They were crying.

"She died," my father whispered. "She died before they could operate on her."

That was what I believed all these years.

Until yesterday.

Yoon came to see me. He told me that the rare blood that was meant for her surgery had been given to Lee Hyuk instead.

You see, Lee Hyuk had been involved in a motorbike accident on the same day that my mother had the accident. That was why he never turned up for the fan meet.

I confront him in his bedroom.

I scream at him, and hurl myself at him. I claw at his face, and beat him with my fists.

"It's your fault that my mother died. You killed her. That blood was meant for her, not for you."

His face whitens.

"I didn't know," he says slowly, stumbling over his words, his hands clenched at the sides, standing there like a statue, doing nothing before the onslaught of my hands and my fists.

"I didn't know," he says again, with difficulty, like a man awakening from a nightmare, with the remembered horrors still reflected in his dark, terrified eyes.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm so, so sorry - "

"You should have died," I say, cruelly, cutting him off, watching with satisfaction as he flinches from my words. "You should have died, so that my mother could live. You should have died, so that Empress So hyun could live. You should have died."

I stumble out of the room, into Woo bin's arms.

"Take me out of here," I whisper. "I need to get out of here. I can't breathe."

He drives me to the bridge.

A soft wind blows, and I feel the raindrops on my face, mingling with the salt of my tears.

"He knew, didn't he," I say.

Woo bin doesn't say anything. He just looks at me with infinite kindness and gentleness.

"He knew, but he never said anything," I say again to myself.

Because there was nothing that he could say.

She died, and he lives.

He lives, because of her.

I bite my lips hard to stop them from trembling.

I am shaking so hard that I can't stand.

I feel Woo bin's arms close around me.

He holds me close, and folds his arms comfortingly around me as the tears flow in my grief and my pain.

We come back to the palace late.

It is almost 2 am.

The heavy gates clang shut behind me.

He is there waiting, standing tall and dark in front of my chambers, his face in shadow.

He steps out into the light as we approach.

He strides toward me purposefully.

"Get out of my way," I say, my voice scornful, icy.

"No," he says.

One word.

But it's explosive, deafening almost, in its quiet menace.

I step to the side and push past him.

He reaches out a hand, and grips me at the elbow.

"Let me go," I grit.

"No," he says again softly.

I raise my eyes to his.

They are burning with rage, and something else.

Something that turns my knees to jelly, that makes my heart start to pound.

We stare at each other.

"You are my empress," he says softly, almost caressingly. "You are my wife, to have and to hold, till death do us part."

I can't breathe.

We are alone, just the two of us, my arm in his tight grip, his fingers pressing against my skin, hot, burning.

He takes two more steps toward me, until we are almost touching each other.

His warm breath stirs my hair, and his eyes are on me.

I feel hot, feverish, giddy.

"Your Majesty," Woo bin's cool, steady voice breaks into my consciousness, "the Empress is tired. She needs to rest. It has been an eventful day for her. Let her rest, Your Majesty."

There is a hint of steel underlying the emotionless words.

I look at his fists. 

They are balled up at the sides, and there is an unusual flush on his cheeks.

Lee Hyuk stares at Woo bin's fists, then raises his eyes to his face.

"Is that an order, my brother?" he says softly, menacingly.

"No, Your Majesty," Woo bin bows. "It is a request."

The emperor stares at him long and hard, and then turns to me.

His gaze instantly softens, and his eyes gentle.

"Indeed, you look tired, my Empress," he says gently, almost tenderly.

He loosens his grip on my arm, and stretches out his hand.

Very gently, he brushes the wisps of hair back from my face, and brushes his fingers over my damp cheeks; a light, feathery touch, soft, fleeting, like a butterfly's wings.

He bends forward, and says softly, a mere whisper, almost inaudible, "Goodnight, my Empress."

And then he turns on his heels and disappears into the dark night, leaving me cold and shivering in the night air, my face still tingling from the warmth of his touch.