I watched my woman make her way towards me with my usually badly behaved nephew who had become rather tame these past few weeks when I had him stay with Yeon. Watching her order the servants around for the sake of a small child just proved me right in crossing bay boundaries to contain this woman and make her mine even beyond the attraction that we had to each other. "Go and wait for me in your new bedroom as I speak to your uncle for a bit." "Ok auntie but please hurry up, I want you to tuck me into bed!" "Alright, I'll be there in just a second!" She replied quite wearily as she clapped straight into my arms. "Well done wife, that is another task taken care of. Wife?" "Don't stop there, I want more praises from you." "Very well, you look exceptionally beautiful today…" "That is because I am wearing everything that you picked out for me before I even arrived here, but I guess that is a story for another time?" "Well…." "Husband, please take me back to my brother so we can just get married, start a family and move on from the palace. And what are you plans for after the wedding? Will you return back to the palace? When and how long for? Can we just…." "Take a breath wife; I have already explained that I shall take a break and watch how the palace functions without me for a while, I promise you." "This isn't the first time that you have made empty promises to me, husband, and I really am getting worried about you. You are just loosing so much weight all of the time, you cannot really sleep much at night and you are always so cold." "I am cold because you are too tired to keep me warm in bed this week…" "That is because my body needs a break, even if it is hard for you to accept sometimes. But how much longer are we going to be here for? You know that my brother has been waiting for us, especially after you successfully managed to frame The Chung Family for the poisonings…" "Yeah, well I did that for him so he could show a little more patience. But I don't think that we should be here for more than 2 week maximum." "Do you want me to leave? And take your nephew with me?" "I should bring you back, but I…do not want you to leave my side. You are spoiling me far too much when we are together." "And you have yet to spoil me at all, noble husband of mine."
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"Auntie! Come on! I am waiting for you!" "I am coming now, just wait for me…" "Yeon…I really am sorry for what I said when you first came here…I just…" "Seon-Ho, I wanted you when you first found me that I will probably be barren due to my condition, which is why I have no issue with…completing my wifely duties to you even before marriage. But do not expect any miracles from me, and if you still want children then I suppose that I can find you someone to…" I was getting so emotional talking about this, but his evil plan against me and worked and I had gone down so far with this man that I was unable to let him go. I smelled his scent in our bed when he left for work, I saw him everywhere around myself and my nephew, we had all started to eat his favourite foods and when he was inside me…it just did something to me that made me cling onto me even more. He had become unstable lately but it gave us more time to bond with each other and just stay in our company for as long as we could be together and not talk about his work constantly.
But he still wasn't 100% the man that I fell for, so I was having trouble finding out if I even liked this new person that he had become now. He was short-tempered, impulsive and even more reckless than he was in his teenage years. But he had also become much more possessive, must more observant of me and much more demanding, if that was even possible. The person that I was under his father's roof would have suffocated under all of this pressure, but I was no longer that person at all. I was growing older, I was getting impatient with my loneliness and my own plans and I just wanted to settle down. I knew that it wasn't right, but I was starting to accept his possessive and cold nature as a replacement of my family's love and care for me that I missed out on. Having his eyes constantly on me made me feel like I was seen for something other than my plans for survival. Having his hands constantly on me made me feel like I wasn't so invisible and introverted anymore and tending to him personally made me anticipate out future together with excitement. I wanted him all to myself for a good while without any distractions at all. "Why are you looking at me in that way wife?" "I just…miss you a lot, even when you are besides me. And I love you so much…enough for me to wait for you to be the man who claimed me without so many plots and schemes and…" "Yeon, you will marry me, no matter who I am." "I will be your companion, no matter who you are, but that man who lived with me in the Nam yangban, I am only his wife, his servant and his soulmate." "What if I can never bring that naive man back into your life?" "Then…I guess I shall be alone in this marriage until he finds his way back to me." "He will come to you when you give him children, for that will give him a focus outside of the palace to work on." He replied rather bitterly, but not before he pulled me in for one of his aggressive kisses before his nephew could see and pulled us both into his new room.
"What took you both so long?" "I told you that I had to speak to your uncle, remember? You had had you dinner haven't you? So let us go to bed and…what is that on your arm? Let me take a look?" "Is the wound painful, nephew?" "How can it be painful if I am the one who caused it, uncle?" "What do you mean, nephew?" "Silly child, how can this not be painful? Your bruise is bright red, it looks almost inflamed." "What do you mean that you caused this, boy?" "I wanted to get away from my mother, so I faked these bruises. My mother desk't beat me, she just doesn't care about me at all." "I see, but the more that you are neglected, the more that you should be able to take care of yourself." "Husband, he is barely 4 years old for goodness sake…" "Am I…allowed to stay with you? Forever? I do not wish to see my mother ever again." "I am making appropriate arrangements boy, but we cannot guarantee that we will be with you everyday. We might have you leave you with your aunt's brother sometimes as myself and your aunt both work in the palace." "Will you leave me with them forever?" "Of course not, you shall come to live with us as soon as we marry, as your uncle's nephew, we shall gladly take you in." "So what will I become? In the palace when I am all grown up?" "That will depend on which subjects you excel in and we will most likely follow that career path for you…" "Uncle I just…never want to be poor again, I want to make lots of money when I grow up, that is all I care about."
I could see the look of despair on his face that was very reminiscent of what he looked like when he was with his father, so I had to steer him away from his nephew, just in case he accidentally lashed out at him. This wasn't going to be easy and as much as I was uncomfortable with the situation, I had to keep some distance between them both at least until his palace affairs were over and we could all work on this relationship together. "Husband…" "Wife, I am going to make this clear only once and I hope that I shall never have to repeat myself to you. I know that I have dumped this boy onto you last minute and I apologise for it, because it wasn't planned at all. But I do not want you to coddle that boy at all, do you understand me? You will raise and educate that boy, but you will never spoil him, lest he turns out to be like the rest of my family." "Ok, alright, I will take on your instructions…" "But?" "But I will punish is former servant for mistreating him and to let your name be known in the palace, at least let me do that much for him." "Very well, but nothing in excess, you will punish them with floggings and no more." "Very well, let me just tuck him into bed and then…" "…you can finally give me some attention for once?" "Husband, when do I not surrender to you? Tell me?" "Sometimes I fear that having children will drive us apart for how much attention you shall shower them with, which is all I have from you at this very moment." "Will you…really want to marry me? Even if I cannot give you what you wish for?" "Seo Yeon, i only ever wanted to have children because of you, why else would I want them after everything that I have been through?"
That is because I know how desperate you are to mix your own blood with that of The Seo's, that is just one of many reasons why you chose you pursue your…fondness for me over that which you have for my brother. Another reason is that as a man of the palace, a family image is just as important to you, so you need a wife on your arms. You wish to breed a family of mixed blood and social status through me but as for your purpose, I still have no idea what it is. But all of these are the reasons why you will never let me go…even if you do claim to love me, even a fraction of how much I love you with every fibre of my being…
"…why are you looking at me like that, wife?" "What? Oh nothing, I just…" I barely had time to finish my sentence he had already grabbed me quite viscously by the arm to the point where I could feel a bruise forming under his touch for the very first time, but he didn't seem to notice or even care at all this time. "When we marry wife, your days of keeping secrets from me will come to an end, you know." "Husband…you are hurting me…" "I know; this way I will mark you if you ever think about running away from me." "But why should I want to…" "Because I am not the man who was fully devoted to you as I was under my father's roof; I am forever torn between you and my ambitions since your days in the brothel." "What are you talking about? You were never devoted to me back then? You were with…." "Seo Yeon, i know that you will never believe me, no matter what I say about her, so I will take this opportunity to speak the truth and I will continue to do so…." He pulled me in so close to him that I could practically feel his breath on my cheek as his big hands covered a large portion of my arms. "I…knew that she wanted to use me from the start to get revenge on her brother, so I used her in the same way back in those days." "Husband, what are you…" "I used the brothel girl to make you jealous, to make you finally notice me over that half-brother of mine. Do you believe me?" "I…I…"