Chapter 187: Hana/ Seon-Ho

The truth was that we had found our mother's old diaries one day when father was out with our uncle Hwi. To be honest, we had always been aware of our parents...peculiar relationship. Other parents were not as affectionate as ours was, not even our uncle Hwi and auntie Hee-Jee. And as for our father....he was unusually affectionate with us for a man of his position. Usually other parents would have their children set on a career path by the time they reached the age of 8. My brother had already made up his mind by the time he was 6 but he did so willingly without a single push from my father at all. As for myself well, I was actually given more freedom than most girls thanks to my mother. She allowed me to almost enjoy the same liberties as boys did with a few exceptions and my brother shadowed me everywhere...or did I shadow him? As we were twins, we were pretty inseparable anyways.

Actually we were that way with our cousins; Chul and Geon as well, not that I had any choice as my brother hardly let me out of his sight anyway. We pretty much had the same schedule but my brother always woke me up at the same time he did, made me get ready at the same time, there was not one single occasion where we didn't eat together...in fact we were together all the time until it came to our classes in the palace, and even then my brother always waited around for me until class ended and soon after our cousins had started following suit. We always snuck out into the market in our free time, away from the despicable, truant, ignorant and spoiled royal children or we tried to explore our village on our own without everyone watching us like when we were with our parents all the time. But everyone knew us so we always got away with having free food on the market stalls or anywhere else we wanted. We all ran through the fields without a care in the world, I took turn flying kites with each of the boys and we all bathed in the river my my father and uncle would after their old sparring matches. We liked to read books that were 'deemed to be unsuitable by society' because we had family who worked in our society.

In fact my father was fine with is, as every 'unsuitable' book seemed to fit my mother and my aunt perfectly. They were both powerful women who went against society's norms everyday and I couldn't wait to be like them. My aunt was a powerful woman in society but my uncle was so close to the Prince that nobody dared to tease my cousins about the sort of place that their mother ran, not that any of us cared anyways. The gibang was just one of our many homes, as was my grandfather's village, Uncle Moon-Bok's pharmacies, Chief Park's school for boys who wanted to join the military where my brother and cousins trained and uncle Jeong-Beom's house where he always fed us his humungous meals that we were always competitive to finish, he told us these amazing stories about people from different classes, backgrounds and hierarchy that just proved to us that these stupid labels didn't matter.

But our grandfather's village was the best place to be; where we could jus as easily blend in with all the other children as if we didn't have any expectations on our backs from the palace, we didn't have to deal with entitled kids who were talentless anyways and we could just be free. And we could visit Moon-Bok's children when they weren't with their parents or helping out in the gibang their mother helped to run anyways. In fact she pretty much did now and my aunt Hui-Jee was still the owner so she still got the upmost respect from everyone. We interacted a lot with the village children, spend time with their families, helped to serve out communal meals and help come up with ideas we wanted to happen in the village, like more creative outlets, more life learning skills and small jobs where children like us could earn a little pocket money like running errand for other people. But now we had these stupid people back in our home that wanted nothing more than to break my parents marriage up, it looked like there was very little chance of my family going back to the village again. And the fact that my mother had no choice but to hide herself in her bedroom until she gave birth to my new sister or brother was only making me more mad. I didn't want to be in this village anymore, I wanted to be with my whole family in my grandfather's village where even my my father was happy. I wanted to help him build his school and become his best student and i wanted to be with my brother and cousins everyday until they left me for the military, but that wasn't going to happen with these people here and I knew that my father was just as eager to get rid of them. He had also made a few comments in the past about how we had inherited the Seo's mischievousness and my mother had started teaching us tricks of her own, so why couldn't we help out? But I had to admit, not even I was expecting was I found in my mother's old diaries when I suggested to the boys that we looked around my father's office so we can start collecting evidence themselves of their misdeeds.

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I saw the shock and upset in my children's eyes the minute I saw them pouring over their mother's old diaries. I was upset that they went through my study but I had never scolded my children and I wasn't about to start now. I sighed, got on my knees and Hana went straight for me whilst Hyuk just looked...a little lost in his thoughts. I had to pull him back towards me next to my lap as I began to answer all of their questions one by one. We all knew my marriage was different to everyone else's in a world where affections, intelligence and freedom were prohibited from being displayed in the outside world, and now I had to tell my children and nephews everything as they were just as much a part of our lives than anyone else.

I told them the reason why I...kept my wife as close to me as I could, why I didn't have any concubines at all and why I was so over-protective over her. They even knew themselves how reckless and childish she could be sometimes and now that she was pregnant we all really had to help look after her even more. I even had to divulge about our past with them and the situation I was facing now in order for them to be prepared for anything they might hear about and of us in the future. My girl just clung onto me and promised to help me along with my nephews whilst my son ran out of the room to confront his mother. We could only follow him as he ran past his aunt, but I couldn't blame him, he was just as protective over everyone as I was, and we all knew where he got that from. He also had...inherited my bad temper when he got angry but that rarely happened, he was usually a very clam and collected boy, far better than I was. I still let things rile me up even though I did carry out my work better when I was angry it seemed.

I watched my boy storm up to his mother and demanded he tell her if everything she had written in her diary was true with angry tears in his eyes. We were all surprised, he wasn't one to express his emotions so openly, that was usually Hana's job. My wife took one look at our boy, observed him exactly the same way as he always did to me and smiled at him sadly before pulling him into her embrace against his will and confirmed everything. He tried to wrestle from his embrace but I had to pull him into my own in case he did anything to his unborn sibling yet until he calmed down and I had to put him to sleep in his mother's room. Thank goodness Hana took her cousins away as soon as Hyuk ran as I went to sort them out. I met with Hui-Jee in the hallway who was sitting with the children and going over their work assignments from the palace. I went over and joined them before it was time to eat dinner. Hana stayed behind though and put her arms around my shoulders and asked me if I trusted her.

I had been waiting for the day she ask me something like this, exactly like her mother used to before she did something reckless. I took he little face in my hands and looked at my little girl who was not so little anymore...and I saw the same defiance in her eyes that her mother possessed and I surrendered to her. I told them I trusted herself and her brother before she flashed me her brilliant smile, held me for a while and ran to eat, but not before 'commanding' me that I had to start indulging them about every part of this so-called investigation I had to carry out to everyone after dinner and even scolded me if I ever tried to do something like this on my own again.