I haven't written in this notebook for quite a while now.
A lot has happened since then.
Mom hired a bodyguard to follow me around and keep me safe. He rarely leaves my side, he doesn't let me out of his sight until I am in my mothers arms. I understand though. Everyone understands. But it doesn't stop me from noticing the glares I get from the other kids at school. They all whisper about me, and I can hear it. They say things like "that's her, isn't it?" Han Saet Byul. The one who the president talked about. The one who almost died.
But who am I to deny the fact?
Mom says the guard is there to act as my knight, but she makes sure to tell me that he is only the "fill-in" knight. That my real knight is off fighting a war in order to keep me alive. I think mom believes I have forgotten about him.
But she's wrong.
I could never forget about him.

Neither could she.

_____________________

It's my first day of my last year in middle school. I've grown up a lot since then.
See, I can even spell right! Mom doesn't nag me about it anymore.
Mom doesn't scold me at all anymore.
When I accidentally leave my coat on the floor or when I leave food unfinished.
It's sort of scary, it's as if she's forgotten how to feel anything but sadness.
She doesn't say a word and just smiles.
Mom smiles whenever she looks at me. It gives me comfort to know that she is still able to smile.
But it's not the same smile anymore. She's lost all of the sparkle that used to reside in her eyes. They don't seem dead, but they don't seem alive either. 
They look as if they are struggling. 
She pretends that everything is okay, my mother is strong. My mother is there for me, and so is dad. But dad just doesn't live with us. He says he's indebted to my mother and to my knight. I can tell he isn't lying. I don't ask him to come back.
But I wish my knight would.

Mom does too.

She doesn't think I know, but I do. Because at the late hours of the night, when she is tossing and turning in her bed, her blanket curled in her fist, her forehead covered with beads of sweat, and her lips quivering, I run to her side. 
She doesn't know that I hear her whimpers and pleas.
She whispers my knight's name, and it sounds so profoundly elegant and endeared in her voice. Even thought her words are hoarse due to the tears building their homes in her eyes, I repeat after her.
"Dong Chan, come back. Dong Chan please come back, it's okay."

I know that my knight gave up his life for me. It makes me sad, but also proud. 
Back then I didn't understand much.
He told me it was all a game.
I tried to play along, and play fair, just like my mom taught me to, but now I wish I could have cheated.
I wish that I could have cheated, and that he could have come back.
But he played by every rule there was. He did every single thing he could to win. 
He got the end result he desired, but at such a monstrous cost. 

Mom likes to tell me the story of a Queen.
But before she was a Queen, she was a mother.
A mother who had experienced losing her child to death. The Queen could not live with the despair, so she tried to join her daughter.
But a knight followed her and pulled her out of death's arms. He took her back through time and showed her how to live.
He unclothed the treacherous plot being carried out against her and her reign.
He helped save her daughter, and her kingdom.
Along the way, the Queen fell in love with the knight, but the knight had committed a sin towards her. He was disgraced and didn't have the heart to forgive himself.
But the Queen loved him regardless of it. She embraced his entirety, for he was the one man who believed her when no one else had. He was destined to save her, that was God's gift to her daughter and herself.

The story sounds so familiar, and I can't quite say why.

Mom likes to tell me that the knight lived happily ever after with the Queen and her daughter.

I was half asleep when I heard it. I heard the sound of metal being scraped against metal. The hurried sound of twisting gears shot through my ears, but they did not only reach me. They also reached my mother.
She was out of bed before I was. Her knuckles turned pale as they gripped the knife she wielded in her trembling hands. Keeping me behind her, she unlocked the door.
I waited anxiously, anticipating the sounds of shrieks and struggles.
But all I heard was my mothers gasp, accompanied by the sound of the blade hitting the floor.
Fear coursed through my very essence, my veins filling with horror.
I ran out to where she stood, only to halt when my muscles turned stiff in disbelief.
There, holding her tightly in his embrace, was my knight. 
He held her as if his life depended on it, the tears streamed down his face. My mother looked as if each breath she took in was helium, lifting her to the sky. But he held her in his arms, making sure she would never leave. The world seemed so magical in that moment, and he looked magnificent even without his armor.
My mother's faint whimpers could have pierced even the most frost bitten hearts.

At the sound of my footsteps, he looked up at me.

"Saet Byul, is that you? Look at how much my wife has grown since I've been gone."
He's smiling. 
My knight looks so amazing when he smiles.
I stared into his eyes as they were glazing over with new tears.
"Dong Chan Ahjusshi."
"You haven't cheated on me, right?"
"Dong Chan Ahjusshi."
"I'm sorry, it seems as if I'll have to cheat on you with this woman in my arms, is that okay, wife?"
"Ahjusshi." I let out my suppressed shriek of joy as I ran into his arms. He picked me up with one arm, the other held my mother.

She asked him how he came back.
He smiled and said that God had one last gift to give.