A\N: First, I don't know why I'm posting this. Second, I don't believe I'm posting this. Third, I'll probably regret posting this.
This scenario has been dancing back and forth on my mind, and has made company to me through many sleepless nights ever since the conclusion of the drama (because Moon Lovers will never let me go...). I wasn't going to write it, but I started to rewatch it with a friend, so I'm having a lot of SoSoo feels that claimed to be written down and seen by the world. Let's just hope it's not that bad...
Oh yeah, English is not my first language, so mistakes are expected. Do let me know them and I'll correct as soon as possible! I did run a grammar check, but my insecurity always speaks louder. And also, I haven't been writing recently, so I'm still a little rusty (bear with me!).
And before you begin, please NOTE: Hae Soo is not pregnant on this fic! Sorry, it's kind of a rewrite, even though I like the ending of the drama... And the other change is that Soo didn't ask for Baek Ah to deliver her hairpin to Jung.
Now we begin from the moment Baek Ah left So. Which means that there are no dubious implied scenes of So and Yeon Hwa's consummation, and Wook is still pretty much dark!Wook. Jung is wherever he is... (This should mean he's at Chungju, but since he walks everywhere in the drama, I might summon him to unpredictable places just for the sake of the plot).
Enjoy your reading! :)
When Hae Soo wakes up, her eyes are puffy and her head hurts. She feels disoriented for a while, but after a few seconds staring at the ceiling of her bedroom all the recent memories comes back.
She sits up abruptly, eyeing the chamber that now makes her remember of Chae Rung more than anything. She remembers going out that night, preferring the air of the Damiwon - the place where the king was poisoned - rather than the comfort of her bed, and Baek Ah coming to talk to her. After that it was all blank.
She must have passed out from the exhaustion, she guessed. But the brief nap did nothing to ease the hammering on her head or the pain in her heart. Nothing had changed. Chae Rung had betrayed her, and the King had her executed. (Brutally executed, she remembers, even though she tries not to. The vision of her small body beaten brutally engraved on her eyelids.)
She closes her eyes, stopping the tears from coming down. She always knew that life in Goryeo wasn't easy, but had never seen the cruelty in the way people were treated. Chae Rung said she had no regrets nor grudges, but Soo has. An endless list of shoulds and woulds that only makes her feel worse.
I should have been more cautious with the King's bath, I should have realized sooner that she was guilty, I should have let the King grant her freedom when he wanted to, I should have known what she'd been doing, then I would have found a way to send her away from the palace. Then my little sister would be alive. A traitor and a regicide, but still alive.
Then there would be no bad blood between her and the King, and she would be able to look at him without feeling all the pain.
Her little sister had betrayed her.
Her lover had her executed.
Life in the palace was a poison, and she reprimands herself for being so naïve when she arrived for believing that she would be alright there. That as long as she worked hard, all things would come out just fine.
Now she lives among ghosts. Everywhere and everything is a painful memory she's been trying to forget.
She can not bear that anymore.
She is no psychologist, but she knows she's depressed. All the darkness is threatening to take over, and she knows it's only a matter of time until it claimed her life.
She has to leave that room. She has to leave the palace.
Jung said that he could take her out, but now that he is banished it's harder to send a message to him. Baek Ah would help her with that, she's sure, but after Woo Hee's death, she knows he had to be alone for a while. She has to respect that.
Beside her bed, she finds her hairpin, the one he gave her when he first proposed. She should have accepted him then, she thinks as she lays again, too tired to walk out of her bedroom and go back to the bath pool in Damiwon - the place where Go Ha Jin first met Chae Ryung, the place where Hae Soo was betrayed and deceived by Chae Ryun -, so she just stares at the ceiling once again, recalling her deepest regrets.
She curses herself for being so insecure, so afraid of giving her heart away, that she refused when he offered to take her away from the palace. She wishes she had said 'HISTORY BE DAMNED' and just left with him. He would never let her go now.
He would always hold her close, too desperate and too longing. He said he could never be without her, so he would try to convince her to stay. Even if she pushed him away, even if she said she hated him, he would still have her with him. She knows just how stubborn he was, especially if she was involved.
She has to leave, even though it will break her heart.
At least I won't suffer too long, she thinks. The death sentence of ten years that had been heaving over her head now seemed like a blessing. She has to find a way out, then bear her last years without him.
She wonders if she will even live that long with a broken heart.
She holds her hairpin tighter in her palm. It will hurt him too. It will hurt him as much as it hurts her now (maybe even more), but as a King who made history she knows he will survive. He has survived much worse things in his life, after all.
She feels herself starting to drift away once again when the doors burst open suddenly, and she sits hurriedly once again.
He doesn't see her at first, in the darkness of her little bedroom. He simply walks to the middle of the room, his walk irregular and uncertain - so unlike the prince she first met - until his eyes finally adjust to the dark and he sees her, sitting on her bed and staring right back at him.
She's not surprised when he avoids her gaze and chooses to look at the floor before sighing.
"Baek Ah told me you refused to enter in your chambers."
So it was Baek Ah who carried to her bed.
"Is that why you came here? Were you trying to avoid me?"
"I know you don't want to see me right now." he says, still looking straight down, "I cannot go against that. You are right to be mad, so I'm not going to ask your forgiveness or understanding. I'll leave you alone now."
He turns to leave, and that's when she sees the bottle of alcohol on his hand and finally makes sense of his staggering.
"Have you been drinking?" she asks before she can hold herself back.
He stops and then shakes his empty bottle.
"Indeed." he turns to her with a cold and empty smile, "It appears that I have been drinking the whole night."
"You shouldn't be wasting your time over such degenerated habits…"
"You're not even talking to me properly, but still can give me a lecture?"
She fights back the embarrassment and presses on.
"You're the king. Surely you should focus on ruling the country…"
"Rule the country?" he scoffs, bitterness dripping from his words, "Who rules the country if not those noble snakes that use me as their puppet? I rose from a dog on a leash to a dog on a chair! So, I'm sorry that I'm leaning over such improper habits, but honestly, I don't see anything else that I could do."
She flinches a little, hiding the hairpin further away from his view. She had seen him shouting before, but not at her. Never at her.
Soo knows his anger isn't completely directed at her, even though he is lashing out at her right now. But she can't deny that she is a major contributor to his current frustrations.
It's not like she can't pretend she doesn't know why he is in the middle of such a breakdown.
"You're drinking because I told you I want to leave, aren't you?", her voice is a soft whisper in the dark room.
The king chuckles.
"Is that so obvious?"
His laugh has no humor, just a cold and ironic hysteria, and it hurts her to see it. Especially when she remembers the last time things were good, and the way that his laugh made his chest rumble.
She can't bring that laugh out of him right now.
"I can't stay here anymore." she says miserably, averting her eyes from his silhouette obscured by shadows. She doesn't need to look at him to know what his reaction when she utters those words will be, and she doesn't want to see the moment he feels the rejection and allow his proud shoulders fall. She keeps her gaze down to her hands closed tight around her hairpin when he falls to the floor on the stairs next to her bed.
She can't quite hear when he whispers, more to himself and his empty wine bottle than to her.
"You're cruel, Soo-yah."
She flinches, because just listening to the misery in his voice - so similar to the 10th prince's back in the past - is enough to shatter her heart. Because what he says is right: she's cruel, she's selfish, she just wants to save herself. She had promised to always stand by him, but when things are too much for her to handle, she wants out.
"I'm sorry." And she is, she is sorry for him, sorry for herself. She's sorry because she's weak, she's sorry because she can't stay, she's sorry because she wants to live, sorry because she isn't strong enough to stand by him. She's sorry for not getting away from the palace with him when they had the chance. She's sorry for asking him to let Chae Rung stay.
The tears pour down her cheeks then, because her heart hurts, and she only wishes that she was back to the 21st century, when her biggest problems was a jerk of an ex, a fake best friend, and their debts.
She should have never wished for her life to change back then.
So she cries again for Chae Rung, and a little bit for Woo Hee. Also a little bit for herself, because her heart feels like is going to explode just then and there. She cries for him too, because he's so much more than this, but he's stuck with her and a seat that forces him to make harsh decisions that bring him closer to the king she always feared he could become.
"Every day I wake up here, I remember that I'm trapped in a place that wishes me dead and keeps hurting people that I care about. I have seen so much cruelty happen to people that didn't deserve it. You're making choices that will keep pushing you away from me! I can't even look at you and not remember what you commanded. And it just breaks my heart to the point that I would wish to just stop living, so all this suffering would end."
She doesn't look at him, and she knows he's not looking at her either. The silence surrounds them in the moonless night, in the cover of her bedroom, and in the darkness of all the unsaid things, and the distance between them.
"I don't want to leave you, but you're giving me no option", she whines.
"Well, I had no option!" He's still angry, but holds down the volume of his voice this time, mind working past the drunkenness, "Do you think I like to send people to their executions? Do you think I would have done that if there was another way?"
"Then what about Woo Hee?" her anger also comes up, but unlike him, she does not stop it, "Did you have no option either?"
That stops him, and his next words are muttered through his teeth.
"I didn't know her intentions. And you know I wouldn't hurt my brother like that."
"You would if it was the only way to save him!"
"I did not wish for that girl's death!"
"But she is dead now, and the thirteenth prince is gone." She tries to stop her words, but it's too late. She has hurt him again.
"I shouldn't have let him lead those troops. I should have been more ordering to him. No matter what, the guilt always finds its way back to me. I guess I drove Baek Ah away. One way or another I would eventually do it."
"That's not what I meant." her voice is soft again, because she can't be mad at him when he looks so vulnerable.
"I ruin everything."
"Pyeha..."
"I ruined you." he cuts her motivational speech, his voice void of emotion, "The first time I saw you, you were a ball of energy and light. Look at you now, faded, tied to a place you hate for the mistake of falling in love with a monster. I ruined you, and I ruined my brothers' lives. I promised myself that I would be a good king and put an end to the bloodshed in the court... I guess I ruined the palace as well." she can't see them, but she knows that there are tears on his face, "My mother was right. I'm an animal, and I shouldn't have returned."
She doesn't say a thing. Not because she doesn't want to, not because she doesn't have what to say, but because she can't. She can't make her voice come through the lump in her throat that was formed when he started speaking. So he goes on.
"If I had stayed in Shinju you'd be happily married to the man you used to love, my brother would still be king, princess Woo Hee would be alive and well, and you'd have Chae Rung at your side. And I would be where I belong." He finally brings his eyes to her, and his gaze finds a way to burn her even in the complete darkness. "Even until now, you're trying to run away from me."
"I'm sorry." It's all that comes out in a sob. Her words drown in the emptiness inside of her. Her voice is weak, because she can't forget Chae Rung bloodied body rolling on the ground.
It's unfair. To both of them, it's completely unfair. Life has never been fair to anyone, but the amount of despair that has been building on top of her - of them - is beyond the usual lemons life has to offer. They deserve so much more.
"Don't be." His voice is cold, but his mask doesn't fool her anymore, "I shouldn't have been so much of a fool to believe that you'd always want to be by my side."
The words are colder than ice and cut deeper than steel.
"I don't..."
"Don't bother to apologize." he cuts her attempt to excuse herself once again, "It was inevitable, so it's not your fault. It's just the way things are. Everyone leaves me in the end. Like Baek Ah did. Like General Park did. Like my brothers and my mother did my entire life."
"I love you." She says through her tears.
"I know." He smiles sadly.
"I wish I could stay, but I can't."
"Of course you can't. I'm cursed to always push my loved ones away. You just could bear with me a little longer than the others." He looks down again, his words now a little jumbled due to the excessive drinking and the exhaustion their argument, "I hoped I could always be the one by your side, and that you could be the one who would never leave me alone. But now you want to leave, and tear my heart apart."
"Pyeha…"
"I don't want your pity. But I also don't want to be your destruction." his words are harsh, but his tone is softer than before, "I made your life here miserable, and the last thing I could ever want is to hurt you. So I'll keep my promise of years ago and grant you freedom from the palace." he takes a deep breath, bracing himself for what he says next, "You may leave in the morning."
"Really? P-pye-" She almost goes up to him, the relief making her relax a little. But the shadow of her misery does not lift up from her, so she remains seated.
"Don't come say goodbye to me. I won't see you off."
He lets his head fall back, leaning on the thin wall behind him, and turns his face away from her. Too tired to storm out of her bedroom as he would have done.
She's as tired as he is, but she doesn't lay down, nor does she leave the room to the Damiwon once again. She just sits there, her hand already growing numb from holding on to her hairpin so tightly.
"What about you?" she whispers, trying not to disturb his unusual rest.
"Loneliness isn't a stranger to me, Soo-yah." he manages to answer her through the sleep that starts to spread through him, "My body is used to it as much as it's used to poison."
She's at loss for words. Too surprised by his decision of letting her go, and too stunned by his statement to say anything. So she remains silent, until he mumbles something out of his sleep.
"I don't know if I can live without you, though."
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- - -『◆』- - -
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.
She can't fall asleep.
Instead, she watches him sleep next to her, his black robes blending him into the darkness.
She eases the grip on her hairpin, her hand a little numb from the strength she used on her grasp before. Now that their argument is over and he's passed out, the melancholy hits her again with double power. Her heart starts throbbing again and she rubs her chest, hoping to ease the pain, but knowing that only part of it is real.
Her heart is hurting for him, and she can't make it stop. She can't make her feelings for him stop.
He's unlike every other boy that she got fooled enough to give her heart to in the past. He's been by her side through everything. He's shown himself bare before her, allowing her to touch his deepest secrets. He's never been afraid to show his entire heart for her. He never ceased to demonstrate his feelings for her.
He's her best friend, the love of her life. He's given her more than she could ever give him in return. And for that, she could never forgive herself.
"You're an awful person, Hae Soo." she whispers.
Could anyone blame her for wanting to live? No. She knows so herself. But could anyone blame her for leaving him alone in the place that continues to consume every good part of him until he becomes a bloody tyrant? Yes. Especially if she is the only one he still has in that place. She would the first one to do so.
She moves out from her bed, crawling through the wooden floor until she is close enough to him. Through the darkness she manages to see his face, with his tears beginning to dry on his cheeks, the make up on his face faded somewhat. And the vision of his scar with the expression of loss and helplessness on his face brings an old memory.
He is the same boy she saw in the bath of Damiwon. The same boy she had stopped from destroying all the prayer stones. A boy who is suffering. A boy who is tired and just wanted to be loved.
Could she live without him?
Could she live or would it just be surviving?
She wonders if she was brought back just to ease his pain, just for making him love and be loved. To be allowed a few moments of happiness together, so he could be a better king. Or is she simply messing with history? If she didn't reach back for him, would he be in a better place now? Had she been too selfish for trying to stay by his side for so long? Letting him go, just like Jimong suggested, was the better option? Were they always meant to be together just to be torn apart later?
"I'm sorry." She hates that this is the only thing she can say right now.
She hates all of this. She hates the doubts and confusion that took over her mind. She hates that the lifestyle of the 10th century is so harsh that it forces her to push away her most loved one.
She didn't know if she could live without him either.
"Don't go, Soo-yah..."
His voice startles her a little, and she thinks he's awake. But after moving a little, the King's body stills and he does not move nor speak again.
Her tears start falling once again.
He always looked younger when he slept, like all the worries and troubles he ever endured never happened. He looked at peace, and she couldn't stop smiling every time she watched him then. But now, he does not look peaceful at all. He resembles more of the time he came to her in distress after being once again rejected by his mother, after being repudiated by the people at the rain ritual, after being haunted by the fact that he had killed his own brother.
Everyone always leaves me, he said. She had promised him she wouldn't change first, and now she's breaking his trust and leaving.
She thought it would take a lot more to convince him to let her go, she was prepared for a fight, she had a huge list of reasons that forced her to leave him behind, she braced herself for all the lies she would have to tell him, to make sure that their bond would get severed enough that he would no longer wish for her presence at the palace.
But he has already given her freedom. And she feels more miserable than ever.
"Why did you have to love me so much, huh?", she whispers through her tears, "If you had listened to me and left me be, you wouldn't be suffering now. Why did you chase after me, you fool? What am I to do now?"
Could she leave him behind?
Could she abandon him in a lair of wolves?
"Please, forgive me." Her words are soundless, and she turns away from him, before she's swayed from her decision.
She tries her best to move around her bedroom in the darkness without waking the King. She tries her best to pretend that his presence isn't a constant on her mind, and selects the essentials for her life outside the palace.
She's basically running away, and she knows it. But she also does not want to see him before she leaves, or she'll end up not leaving at all.
This is not fair to him, Go Hajin.
She ignores whatever her modern self could ever suggest her doing, were she on her place. She opens up her chest and starts packing her personal belongings.
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- - -『◆』- - -
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When Wang So wakes up, his eyes are puffy and his head hurts. He feels disoriented for a while, but after a few seconds staring at the ceiling of her bedroom all the recent memories come back.
He is alone. Once again.
He thought it wouldn't hurt that much. He had always been alone before, so he thought he would be used to the pain. But after being loved so much, after being helped to get rid of his darkness, after being held against her warmness, after being abandoned yet again, the loneliness hurts even more than in the past.
He holds back the tears. He will not cry.
He raises from the floor, his body aching due to the position he stayed during the night, and that is when he notices the blanket around him.
His heart aches when he notices that it smells just like her.
Gwangjeong then looks around her bedroom, and tries to not think too much about the details, but he can't help avoid noticing that her bed has been taken away, and her wardrobes are opened and emptied.
The only thing that's left is the red and blue hanbok on top of a cupboard.
He moves closer to it, taking it on his hands. For a moment he has to hold himself back to not storm out of the room and go after her, drag her back from wherever she decided to go, and lock her back on her room with soldiers guarding her doors
He has let her go, but she's still his person.
However, after hurting so many people, maybe he does not deserve to have anyone by his side.
He puts the hanbok back on its place and leaves the room.
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- - -『◆』- - -
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The last stone he piles makes his heart sink a little further.
He does not pray, nor does he say a thing all the time he spends building a small tower besides the ones Hae Soo built. He quietly continues his work, remembering the first time he ever bothered to build one of these, on the day he gave up on gaining the love of his mother.
Maybe now he should give up on being loved at all.
He also remembers the time when he thought that no one would ever be able to hold him close, to warm him and make him smile to the point of blatantly stealing his heart away, make him chase after her, and even be willing to meet him in the middle. He knows that if she left him, then there's no hope for him anymore.
The last stone he piles seals the empty space on his heart.
He rises and stares straight ahead, ignoring the stones she piled for them, and focusing his eyes to the lake, hoping to calm his mind. He does not move when he hears the footsteps coming closer to him, probably belonging to one of the eunuchs who've been worried by his absence.
"What did you wish for?", her voice surprises him, and he has to summon all of his willpower to not turn around, not take her in his arms, not to say he has changed his mind, he does not allow her to leave, she'll have to stay by his side forever.
"Nothing." he manages to speak in a controlled voice, but does not turn to her, "There is nothing else I want."
"Nothing at all? I'm disappointed..."
She must want to kill him, for sure. Had she known how little he is from falling apart just by listening to the small familiarity in her voice, she would have been cold and distant before leaving him behind.
"I thought I said I didn't want you to come to say goodbye?" The harshness on his voice is intentional. If she's so reluctant to leave him without saying a word, he'll have to force her to do so.
"Yes, you did.", she says quietly, but still getting closer to him.
"Then?"
"I'm not saying goodbye."
"What?" He turns to her then, surprise evident on his face and on his posture, and the confusion almost pouring out from his eyes, and he does not understand why she suddenly starts giggling, and even though he's aware that it's the first time he sees her smiling on a very long time, he still wants to understand what's happening, so he raises his eyebrows and she seems to notice his unasked question.
"I'm staying." she says simply, the smile already leaving her lips, but he's too fazed by what she just said to be saddened by that.
"But I thought you… You hate this place.", he swallows hard and tries not to remember every time she ever said that the life in the palace didn't suit her, "You said it was breaking your heart, you said you couldn't stay." He wasn't mistaken, she said so, every single statement was a sharp dagger to his heart.
"I meant I couldn't stay without suffering." it's her clarification, but it does not clarify anything to him.
"Then why haven't you left already?" Just like everyone else did.
He does not complete his sentence out loud, but he does not need to. He just looks at her, clad in a pale hanbok and simple hairstyle, and he does not believe he'll survive when she collects her wits and agree with him, wonder why she's still here, turn around and leave.
She does not say anything for a while and his apprehension grows, his hand clutching in a tight fist. She just keeps watching the lake from the distance, melancholy evident on her eyes, before she finally speaks, her voice soft and quiet.
"Remember when you tried to pretend you didn't care for me anymore?"
He scoffs and resumes to stare at the lake just like her. He does not wish to talk about the past, but that does not stop her.
"You almost got me fooled, you know? For a brief moment I did believe your feelings had changed. But all your efforts fell apart when you jumped in front of that flying arrow for me."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"And even before that you had already went to extremes for me." she ignores his anguished question and keeps reminiscing, "When you stood by me on the rain, when you drank three cups of poisoned tea so I wouldn't be implicated. There was even that day you tried to stop my marriage to King Taejo."
He shuts his eyes and sighs.
"Soo-yah."
"And if I had accepted your first wedding proposal and your father had banished you to Shinju again, you wouldn't have minded, would you?"
"I still don't understand. Why haven't you left already?"
"I couldn't." this time he feels her eyes on him when she answers, "I packed all my things, but when I took the first step to a life without you I got scared. And then the thought of you alone in this place scared me even more, and almost broke my heart as well."
He turns to her and lets his eyes meet hers.
"I'd be fine eventually, though."
"Would you?"
He looks down to the ground, to the grass, his shoes, her praying stones. They both knew 'fine' wouldn't be the best word to describe his state of mind after her departure.
He feels her moving beside him then, and when she gets closer he watches through the corner of his eye as she piles a stone and silently clasps her hands together, her eyes closing softly.
"You've already given me too much, Pyeha. Even if it meant you'd suffer as well." she takes a deep breath before continuing, "It's not fair that I'm unwilling to do the same."
"I don't want you to suffer." it's all he can say miserably.
"Neither do I. But I don't want you to suffer either." she lets her hands fall beside her body, "That's why I'm staying. I'm willing to stay by your side even if it hurts me..."
"Soo-yah, this isn't-"
"And I'm willing to do it because I love you." She turns to him then, her eyes lacking any doubts or uncertainties, looking like her past rebel and noisy self, with a small flicker of hope and warmness,still covered by grief and sadness.
Her words make him want to pull her close into his arms and never let go, but her eyes keep him at bay. She notices his hesitation, and even though she does not do anything to close their distance yet, she smiles at him reassuringly.
"Things aren't okay right now, Pyeha. But I'll stay, and I'll fight, so one day they will be."
That's when it dawns on him. She's not leaving. She's staying. She's staying and he's not alone. It's going to take some time for things to be like they used to, and he is sure that the road in front of them is winding and treacherous, but he can do it, he can do anything if he knows she's going to meet him in the middle.
And he knows, there are no stones on his heart that she isn't able to move when she smiles like that.
A\N: I was going to fill this one with so much angst that actual tears would come out from the screen. But I got lazy. And it got too long. And I lost touch with my dark self who breaks the readers' hearts. And if I dragged too long this would remain on my 'The Ones That'll Never See The Light Of Day' folder.
I'll probably continue to write this. I know I always say that, but this time I actually have an outline (kind of)! So the chances of a next chapter coming are really high, I just can't promise when... Sorry, I'm a really slow writer T_T but I'll try to be quicker if I can.
Hope you enjoyed it!