Episode 22, various scenes.
As the troops marched back from their long day protecting the king until the Royal Army came, Choi Young walked tiredly and exhausted. Dae Man and the few Wudalchi that stayed behind stopped in front of him, waiting for the results. Choi Young nodded and the Dae Man group grinned and greeted the rest of the troops.
He then heard a noise and turned to look towards it, finding Eun Soo running as fast as she could. She ran as fast as she could and stopped in front of the General, her eyes open in expectancy, her face flushed and excited to see him once more. He took a few steps closer to her, his hands already flexing in want of holding her. He saw her scanning him, trying to find any scratches or wounds he could have on his person. She looked back up at him, relief hitting her in satisfaction. Choi Young leaned forward to take another step before remembering that they were out where his men could see them. He turned his head somewhat and told the men, "You guys worked hard." He then promptly walked past Eun Soo to their room. He wanted nothing more than to hold her but he had to change. He knew that she hated the smell of blood, which puzzled him to this day, so before anything, he needed to bathe and dress. He missed Eun Soo's face dropping for a second before she pivoted and walked after him.
When they walked into the room, Choi Young threw his sword down. He no longer cared for it and it soon began to disgust him on how much his life depended on a blade that killed its former owner. Eun Soo slowed her walk to a halt to pick up the fallen sword and place it respectfully on the table. Choi Young travelled back past her with his fresh clothes, on his way to the bath. He had to keep his eyes on the floor to stop himself from looking at her, else his last shred of self-control crumble. "I'll help you take off your armor," She offered, reaching out as he walked by.
He continued past as he quickly replied, "No need." He was almost out the door, he could make it, just a few more steps.
Her voice rang out, "Don't be like that." Her pain was shielded from him, but all the sadness she felt that day came out like a small trickle, causing him to slowly turn and face her again. His face kept still, exhaustion exuding from his face. "Turning your back on me, and evading me, don't do that to me," She stated, her voice quiet but strong. She walked closer to him slowly, making his guards waver again.
She reached out to touch his face and he quickly backed away. "It's not my blood," He said, staring, waiting for her normal response of backing away and sickened. To see her reject him was something he couldn't handle seeing again, not tonight nor ever again. What she did next was the biggest and yet the best surprise that he needed.
She replied simply, "I know," and reached again for him, wrapping her arms around his neck, holding him tight to herself. He didn't know how to react at first, stunned completely. This was the exact opposite of what he was trying to avoid. Finally he held her back with his left hand, closing his eyes in contentment. This. This was the reason he still lived. To be with her, to have her in his arms again. He dropped his clothes and wrapped his right arm around her, pulling her even closer to him.
He turned his head to rest in the crook of her neck and placed gentle kisses there. "Thank you," He whispered into her skin. He felt the shiver down her spine, which made him hug her tighter. She let out a sharp pain sound, squirming out of his reach. His eyes danced around, trying to avoid the tears he was hiding fall. She is disgusted by me, he thought bitterly.
She surprised him again by walking around him as she was talking, pulling on the ties on the back of the armor. "This armor of yours.. It really hurts when you get crushed by it!" She exclaimed, untying it quickly. "I bet you never had to deal with that before, eh?" Choi Young's face held a look of utter shock but when the armor dropped off his shoulders, he quickly shed it and turned around to reach for her face. He held her face with both hands and kiss her passionately and languidly. Her hands held onto his sides, clutching at his robes.
He moved his lips to kiss softly all over her face, slowly covering her skin with his love. He opened his eyes to gaze at her, her face glowing in peace and affection towards him. He looked down at his hands and left them drop to her hands, pulling them off of him. "Let me go," He uttered quietly, squeezing her hands in his. "I don't want to stain Imja with this blood." He stared down at the ground again bent down to pick up his clothes again.
Eun Soo tugged on the back of his shirt, causing him to lift his head to look up at her. "Don't I get a stay in any of this?" She questioned, her eyes squinting at him in mock anger. Her eyes soften at his expression before she dropped to her knees in front of him. "Stay here... With me," She pleaded, her hand cradling his cheek. She leaned forward and kissed him again, softly, gently, lovingly.
It was his undoing. He lifted her up while still their lips were in contact with one another, and led her to his bed. She backed up slowly onto it, him carefully laying her down and softly covering her body with his own. He kissed her to tell her the words he left unsaid, that he struggled constantly to say. I love you, he whispered to her. I need you, he pleaded. Stay, he begged. All she could do was wrap her arms around him, her left arm around his waist and reaching up to his shoulder blades, the other around his neck, holding him down to her.
His right hand travelled all through her hair, first undoing it from its bun, then running his fingers through it, massaging her temples while caressing her locks. HIs other hand was running up and down her side, fingers grazing her chest at every pass. He moved to lie down on his left side, dragging her onto her side as well, and with his left arm, wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer to his own body.
Their bodies began to heave for breaths, causing their chests to move and bump against each other. Choi Young had been fighting back his sounds but when Eun Soo moaned, it was again his undoing. He kissed her deeper, grazing his teeth on her lips, while his right hand seized her left breast. He leaned his head out of the kiss and stared intently at her, silently asking if this wasn't too far. She lazily opened her eyes, having difficulties falling out of her stupor, and gave him a tender smile, nodding her head slightly. He immediately went back and captured her lips again, gentler this time as he gingerly massaged her breast, fighting back his own groans from pleasure. Too long had he gone without touching her body, feeling her against him again. He needed her today, to remind her that he was alive here with her. He wanted to seal their promise of together.
Eun Soo made another soft moan as he applied the slightest amount of pressure on her bosom, her breaths coming quicker and quicker out of her nostrils. She pressed her body closer to him, her hands slowly going under his robes on his chest, feeling his steady heartbeat. Suddenly the day's happenings came back to her, her tears stinging her eyes again. She slowly backed her torso away and leaned out from their kiss, causing Choi Young to remove his hand from her chest and rest it on her waist. His eyebrows were raised high, questioning, asking silently if it was too far. Eun Soo gave a weak smile and shook her head. "You feel so cold... There's a warm bath for you," She explained, her hands coming to rest on his face again. His face relaxed and he gave her a half smirk, nodding.
He rolled over to sit up and held a hand out to her. "Only if Imja follows me," He insisted, grabbing her hand and pulling her to stand up with him. His smirk grew at the wide eyes she sported, following his back as he opened her dresser and pulled out her night clothes. He turned back at her with a look that asked, Well, are you coming?
"If you hadn't met met, would you still be sleeping so?" Eun Soo had to ask as they held his sword in both of their hands. Her worries were getting the best of her, scared that he might go back to those days when she was gone, either by her sickness or by leaving this world altogether.
Choi Young shook his answer as he answered, "I have no idea...What I would be like if I hadn't met Imja. At all." All he could speak was the truth. He had grown too attached to his woman and to imagine how his life would have continued without her was too impossible, too farstretched of an idea. He hugged her closer with his left arm, holding her tighter to him. "That punk who gave poison to Imja...I failed to capture him," He said after a small spell of time had passed. Eun Soo turned her neck to be able to gaze at his face better, feeling the disappointment Choi Young was expressing in himself. "And the one that menaced Imja, I let him go as well," He continued, his words trying to be plain but she could feel him holding back. He dropped his eyes down to his sword and began to run his fingers on the hilt. "This sword didn't slay what it needed to slay," He spoke in a hushed morose tone. "It keeps on slaying the pitiful things only."
As he talked, Eun Soo's heart felt like it was dropping into little pieces, being stabbed by daggers. She looked over to the cast iron containers where her antidote once was and seriously contemplated on whether to tell him. She couldn't even bring the words to her lips to begin to tell him what happened. She knew that if even by some miracle the words came out, he'd either storm right off to the Yuan Ambassador or become even more downhearted and crestfallen, and who knew how worse his hand would become? She silently prayed for wisdom as she stared at them, on what to do, if it'll work, if it could help fix the both of them.
After a few minutes of him holding Eun Soo, Choi Young nuzzled his face into her neck. "Put the sword back. I've had enough of it today," He spoke as he sighed and laid down on the bed behind her. She stood up, carefully holding the sword as she walked across the room to place it in the holder on the wall. She slowly pivoted on her feet to watch Choi Young as he rested on the bed. He had his left arm over his forehead while he flexed his right hand in the air.
She fought the urge to sulk and travelled back to their cot, kneeling on the bed beside him. "Do you want me to give you a massage?" She offered, holding her hands out to reach for his. He glanced in her direction for a moment before exhaling and grabbed one of her hands to pull her to lay down beside him.
"Let's just rest for the night," He said, turning over to his side and pulling her close to him. He kissed her forehead then her lips briefly before closing his eyes.
Eun Soo's face quivered from both exhaustion and trying to stay strong for the man sleeping already in front of her. She wrapped her hands in his robes and nestled her head on his shoulder. She prayed for peaceful sleep and a better day ahead.
When he heard from the king that the antidote was gone, his heart stopped. His mind was a mix of slowly recognizing his majesty's words and running through his last conversation with Eun Soo. He couldn't even answer or respond to the king. He bowed his head and walked out in a daze before he saw Dae Man outside the door. He motioned with his head where they were walking to next before he roughly ordered, "Tell me what happened yesterday. To Eun Soo and the antidote."
Dae Man struggled with his words, fighting internally within himself about whether he should tell the General before Choi Young sent a glare his way and Dae Man shuddered and started talking as clearly as he could. "She said not to tell you, but HIgh Doctor cried a lot," He stuttered, moving his hands as he explained. "She cried so I couldn't talk."
Choi Young twisted his head to face Dae Man as they walked. "She cried?" He repeated, trying to confirm the words. He knew how agonizing it was to see her tears, and his heart clamped tightly from the pain.
Dae Man nodded and kept reporting, "She sobbed and cried more. I never saw a person cry like that." Choi Young's response turned from anguish to anger. She cried so hard in front of this boy and yet to him, her partner, she said nothing! Was he still too far away from her, was she still trying to protect him, and yet made him feel like she couldn't once again trust him or confide in him?
He marched down to his aunt and questioned her as well. "What happened to Imja and the antidote yesterday?" He seethed inside bu he made sure not to aim it towards his aunt, lest she say he was too emotional and wouldn't share the events.
She sighed and responded, "Amidst all that happened, she was very worry about you." She paused for a second before continuing, "If you'd be alright after she left. What will happen to you if she just stayed and died in front of you." Choi Young's grip on his sword tightened, his fingers growing numb from the pressure. He stared off into the distance, his mind going further and further away from grief and straying further and further into fury, yet his heart kept hurting from the pain of being kept from the truth from his beloved. His aunt kept going, "She didn't care what would happen to her at all, and was just worried about you." She finally looked up at him before going on, "So I told her she should ask you in person." She stopped and arched her eyebrows, asking, "Did she?"
Choi Young's hand flexed as he picked up his sword in a huff. "Would I have come down here to talk if she had?" He retorted, storming off before he could hear a mouthful of reproachful words from his aunt.
Tears of anger teased his eyes as he stomped throughout the castle. Once again, he was left in the dark from her, and he was too livid to care what got in his way at the moment.
After searching through the Ambassador's office, he marched quickly back to their room in the Wudalchi fortress. He came to a stop at the door in front, taking a moment to take a deep breath in to try to contain his emotions. It was a harder act than he thought it would be as he had to rest a hand on the door to fight back the tears and the anger dwelling just below the surface. He wasn't sure how it was going to go, but he knew that he was about to break both of their spirits in one moment. He took another breath in before he steeled his resolve and strode into the bedroom. As he made his ways down the steps, he looked around for her, stopping in front of her medine and tools. Huffing in annoyance, he sat down, sputtering curses in his mind. She said she would be here! He screamed in his mind. Where is she?!
He took a deep inhale through his nose as he realized that the iron containers that had her antidote were still up on the table as they were before. He shot up and looked inside them, finding them either empty or incomplete. Irritated, he dropped a lid freely on the table, then overturning the entire table out of sheer frustration. None of this was fair! He had served his king, he protected Imja, or so he tried, and yet all he ends up with is a screwed up hand and the woman he loves is dying and has to go back to heaven. He huffed out another breath before storming out of the barracks to the Queen's palace.
She never thought her heart could break any more than it already had. She stared at the mums in her hands, the same type as the one he carried around with him in her old aspirin bottle. A silly thought passed through her mind of plucking the petals one by one and playing the game of "He loves me, he loves me not," but she knew that if it landed on 'he loves me not,' it would shatter what little poise she still had left in her. Still, it amused her even if for only a moment.
His face. His face was still plastered in her mind, his breath on her face she could still feel from hours ago. His rejecting her as she reached out for him was like she was cut in two halves and then dunked in icy water. She thought he would never leave her like he did, nor did she think he'd refuse to even let her touch him.
When did it all go wrong so quickly?
She felt tears trickling down as she remembered the tears in his as he yelled at her. She knew, deep down, that he was hurting and aching like she was, but she was still trying to find that part. She could count the many of times she's seen tears in his eyes on one hand, but these were the hardest tears to fight back.
He was protecting her, and himself a little. But this wasn't the protection she wanted nor needed. She needed him, his reassurance, his reminders of his love through his actions, but what she got was the whiplash of a century.
She kept twirling the flowers in her hands, memories of their time together flowing through her mind before being drowned out by the words he left her with. She closed her eyes to prevent the crying storm from coming again. The words he had spoken before, The words that she had fought so hard to keep, the words she fought for to be true... "Then I will ask you this. "Can you stay?" I will protect you your entire life, so will you be with me?"
"If I am to have Imja, it is for an entire life. Not today, this one day, nor a few days." She opened her eyes again, staring down at the flowers. Thos were the words she kept trying to play in her head, and not the harsh words from before. But those words kept coming back. "What I said before. That I would ask Imja to stay. I will take them back." Her mind began to crumble. "I thought wrong and I spoke wrong." She took a few breaths before it began to even out again. Her emotions had finally exhausted her thoughts, letting her just stare once again down at the flowers, trying again to gather her strength. But all she could do was gently feel the petals between her fingers, thinking, thinking, thinking.
All the moments he protected her, from the first time he promised he'd take her back, to him taste-testing the drink, him catching her as she was falling down the cliffs, him saying she had to sleep right by his side, those kept running through her head.
A voice called to her from her left. "It's late at night," The Vice General said, stepping closer to her. She turned to face him and nodded.
"Yes," She said simply, tryng to put on even a hint of a smile for him.
"I will escort you to the barracks," He offered kindly, a hand held out for her if she needed it to get up.
She gave a polite smile and replied softly, "I'll just go in later."
The Vice General thought for a moment before speaking. "It's just that General doesn't know how to express himself," He started, trying to help. "But if you get to know him, his temperament isn't exactly all that foul."
Eun Soo gave a soft chuckle before sighing and murmuring, "I don't know."
The Vice General eyes danced around before he got the courage to ask. "If it's uncomfortable to stay in that room, I will look for another dorm," He offered. He bit back other comments for the moment.
Eun Soo gave a half smile, thinking of his words before replying with, "Should I?" Maybe that would make it easier for them, even if only for tonight. Maybe being reminded of her illness was upsetting him more and more.
Vice General nodded and agreed, "Indeed." He finally let out the words he'd been keeping in. "Everyone's been worried. At General's temperament, he wouldn't just give you his bed," He reasoned. "According to the kids, every night there are two chairs pushed up and you sleep like that, so we should put in a cot," He insisted, his tone and face belaying the worries he'd been holding in for her.
Eun Soo's face shone for a moment as she thought on the Vice General's words. Indeed every night she did put up the two chairs, but not once had she ever been allowed to use them, and now even he stopped using them, opting to share the small bed between the two of them. She did wonder why he let her set up the chairs every night, and a little giggle broke inside her as she knew he was trying to protect her, even if only her dignity and honor.
The Vice General was taken aback at her smile and his mood shifted to unease from spilling out his words so freely in front of the high doctor. He watched her as she got up on her own, stepping back so she had more room to do so. "Take me there," She said simply, a bit of life coming back in her.
The Vice General nodded and before they moved, he told her, "If something troubles you, please tell me anytime." His face was etched in sincerity and she knew that if she ever needed to, she could rely on him. He was the closest thing she had to a father figure here, and she was grateful that his calming presence had been around Choi Young for so long.
She smiled and nodded, the two of them walking back to the Wudalchi fortstress together in amicable silence.
So I want to say this before I forget: the first scene I wrote here, I'm actually going to write a different ending as a separate stand-alone. Just as a head's up fo you guys =].
I may or may not include the bath scene in another story as well. It honestly depends haha. (Who am I kidding, I probably will lol).
Faithagain: YES I know exactly what part you mean! That is one of my favorite scenes :heart:. I've always wanted to write out them actually going shopping too! I can just imagine it haha.
Shineui: Hopefully this was better 9.9 Look, happy action! :wavy arm hands: I just felt like it was pretty much all sad at the first half v.v . Please don't be upset! :heart:
Tomorrow will be the first part of episode 23! :heart: