Chapter 45: Gojib (Persistence)

She had changed again, and it wasn't for the better this time. Her face was sunken in, as if she was barely getting any sleep, she had lost so much weight and she looked as miserable as I did, despite her words. Holding her was no different from holding a wounded bird in my hands and it was making me angry. But no matter how many times I tried to ask her, she would just ignore my questions and push me away to another woman as usual. I was close to finding out the rest of her secrets, but I was giving her one last chance to come clean herself and she had better recognise my mood at this point. A lot of things happened the last time we met that got in the way of our...reunion, but I was still unaware of how we got to that point when I had no idea when she regained her memories in my father's home and what she did after that. And I needed to know; I needed to know everything about her before I took a really big decision in my life that would change everything. As 'my woman', Hui-Jee was completely useless and her so-called connection never worked in my favour at all. In fact, she had secretly used them to create the opposite effect, and I had become the butt of everyone's joke when it came to the palace. In fact, since housing Yeon with me, my life was worth nothing every time she left my side, both personally and professionally. I couldn't focus in the palace and I felt strangely empty without her. But looking back at what we had before Dal ruined everything, I at leas had something...someone that I could rely on, even if it was only a tiny piece of her since I could not open up to her about what I was going through at the time. Not that I really needed to anyways, Yeon could always see through me with a single look and she pretty much guessed everything away, apart from what I was putting her through with her brother...

"What's the matter?" She asked me softly, knowing full well what I was thinking about. But she always wanted me to talk and tell her on my own. But she needed to understand that worked both ways, because I could never read her the way that she read me. "I have had a long day and I wish to rest while you keep coming up with all of the excuses in the world to keep lying to my face. Your journals will be exposed soon and you can figure out what to say then when I shut this place down." "Are you really going to make everyone suffer just because of me?" "Do you not think that I am capable of doing so?" "You wouldn't go that far, not for me." "Let us see." I was in the middle of undressing myself when the whole brothel seemed to line up at her door and begging for her help with everything under the sun; they couldn't access the water outside, my men were stealing their dinner and taking over their rooms, some women needed medical attention and so on. "Seon-Ho please..." "You can beg all you like, you are not leaving this room until you give me something." "Are you really going to do this! They need me..." "I NEED YOU! I ALWAYS NEED YOU AND YOU ALWAYS PUT ME OFF FOR EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD!" "That is because you already had someone by your side! You chose her! You pursued her! Since you obtained her as you wished to, she is the one who is supposed to me helping you, not me! Not again!" "You will give me what I need whenever I need it!" I had to grab her to shake some sense into her because I was not going to fall for her pleas and begging, not anymore. I was dead serious when I mobilised men to block any and every entrance from this brothel which did not suit somebody of her standing at all.

And she knew it, she knew how serious I was this time and she knew that nothing else could say to me this time would make me fall for her words, especially when I tucked myself in her bed without uttering a single word.

She was trapped and she knew it, she had no way out apart from coming clean to me, especially if she wanted to save everyone like she always did. She did start crying a little and I did feel bad for her, but there was no way for me to help her unless I understood what exactly was going on and what she had been through to get to whee she was now. "What...what do you want to know?" "What happened in my father's home?" "Why do you want to know so badly?" "Because you deceived me." "Like you didn't deceive me first?" "You know that I had no choice to do that." "And I did? Why is it that you can get away with everything in the world and then when I do the same thing, I get vilified for it? I did everything for my brother..." "And I did everything for your both. I put my life on the line for you both several times, I went against my father for you and I did everything to protect you without getting anything in return." "In return? What on earth are you talking about?" "You know damned well what I am talking about." "Yeon? The children are all crying and we need help here. Please just tell the young master everything that he needs to know so we can parity everyone and open up for business tomorrow." "I am coming to you all as soon as I can! Please stay with the children for now until I find a way out of here! Seon-Ho please! Do not ruin my hard work because of this!" "You know what you have to do to help everyone. By helping me, for once."

It did take her a while before she really accepted the fact that I was not going to let this go and I made her promise me that she would confess all to me once I let her open her doors and do what she needed to do. It wasn't like she could run away again since I had this place surrounded and I knew for a fact that she would never abandon anyone here. But waiting around for her in her own bed really wasn't a bad thing at all; I could smell her favourite perfume everywhere, even on the bedsheets that I had laid upon. It actually took me a while to realise that she had laid out this room in exactly the same way that she had lived in my mother's quarters, which really did touch me even amongst all of the other emotions that I was feeling in this moment. How could she possibly keep denying me when she herself was reliving our best memories together like this? She even had my mother's favourite flowers strewn across her table with her...and her sweet tea that smelt oddly familiar...and even the desserts on her table that I hadn't seen for such a long time now...

I could hear her coming back and I quickly threw myself back into bed before she could catch me snoring around. I had come here in full confidence that Yeon would admit to just being jealous of Hui-Jee or just sulking and just surrender to me as she always did, especially after the amount of time we had spent apart. But I could not deny that I was beginning to get a bad feeling about all of this. Maybe, just maybe she really was going through something that neither myself nor her brother was aware of. We had both been angry at each other before, plenty of times, but she had never pushed me away like this before and not for this long. And especially when Hui-Jee and I...well, Yeon almost cut off our relationship immediately...No, this was no happening right now. I knew that I had neglected her to some extent in my father's home, but there was no way that I could have missed this unless Yeon deliberately hid this from me. But why? Why would she do that and essentially hurt herself like this? Why would she put us both through this?

"Seon-Ho?" "Have you done what you needed?" "Yes, I..." "Well if you have then get to bed! Blow out the candle and get dressed!" "What happened? What has made you so angry?" I ignored her questions and just looked at her pointedly before I got up and I practically pushed her down onto the bed. And for a moment, just a single moment, I was taken back years ago when I first saw her new face. I felt sensations that I had never felt before then go through my body as I did now, even amidst my confused anger. But I could not express myself to her back then, I did not know how. And after all this time had passed and I still missed her everyday, I still could not find it in myself to be...gentle with her as she was to me. How I wished I could put my anger aside for one night, a single night where I could simply indulge myself without worry, fear or even scheming as I was now. Maybe that was why I couldn't be gentle and romantic with her as I wished to be, because I knew I was forcing her and I was truly fighting my conscious to keep my...tactics away from her. The only innocent person in my life, even if she was confined to a filthy place like this. The mere kindness that she showed to others even when I confined her here was worth more than anything that I owned or dreamed of...

"What are you thinking about?" "How to take possession of you." "You wish to possess me?" "I am an empty man who has gone through many things in life, what else can I do besides loot and plunder?" "You can have a home and a family if you wished to." "So you give it to me if that is what you wish for me." "Do you really think I am going to let you touch me after what you did to me?" "And what did I tell to you? Tell me, where does your so-called righteous anger come from when you were the one who hurt me?" "Hurt you? I hurt you? Me?" "We...have so much time on our hands to decide who was right and wrong. But in the meantime, you will give me what I want or you will give me a girl from this brothel." "You bastard. You will always force me to do your bidding without a care for my feelings at all." "If you did not want this, you would have fought me off already and have a line of girls waiting to serve me. Well. Go on then. Try to push me off of you and I will choose somebody else." "I am a disabled orphan, I do not suit your thirst for power or any man at all." "I know." "So why are you still forcing me?" "Because I will have you if nobody else will, just like when you chose to fall in love with the most hated man in the kingdom." "Is that why you wish to posses me? To enslave me? To make me pay for that?" "Am I really such a monster in your eyes?" "Isn't that what you are trying to prove to me? That you are one? Aren't you venting your anger from your misfortunes onto me? Just like you did back then? Under your father's roof?" "I will not apologise for anything until I know what to apologise for, and only you can give me those answers. If you want to dwell on the past and drown in your misery, you do it in your own time." "Are you demanding my time as well now?" "Your time, your place of work and your body." "What are you talking about?" "Until you come clean to me, the money your girls make will go straight into my pocket. I need to recoup my losses after I let Hui-Jee go." "You cannot do that! I will not let you ruin all of the hard work that I put into this place!" "But why? Why is someone like you working so hard in a place like this! Why!" "You don't need to know why! Just do what you always do and ignore me! Pretend like I don't exist!"

I was fool to think this would be an easy night and that I would get what I waned when I wanted it, just like I had all of my life, even if I had to fight to the death for it. But being with her was 100 times better than being without her, and I did not have any immediate plans to be anywhere else. If I wanted Hwi back in my life, then I needed Yeon. And to obtain Yeon, I had to be patient and face this unknown reality with her. And in the event that I could not face it, I will simply take her with me wherever I went, even in the next life. Because no matter how I came to be in this life, I was damned sure never going to be this miserable and pitiful ever again.