Notes.

Totally unpopular opinion here : I LOVE Ji-Seon. Never thought the actress was acting badly or that she was useless. There were so many possibilities with the character, but the writers ruined her and only reduced her to being Dong Soo's future wife. I liked the idea of her doing something on her own with the giseng and fur hat stuff, and I though it would be interesting to develop it in this story. Oh, by the way, yes, Woon as a gisaeng (not a cliché at all, but it was lingering on my mind for such a long time, I couln't do otherwise).

Soundtrack (beginning during the last paragraph of this chapter, at THAT moment you'll-know-when-you'll-read-it) :

And Then Time Stops (Detroit : Become Human Soundtrack)

CHAPTER X

"I don't know what you're looking for

But I don't think it's me

I wish I could give you my all

Not caught in make believe

I don't feel how you feel

I'm just tellin' it like it is

I don't need you to say those words no more"

(Kygo ft. Zara Larsson & Tyga, norwegian artist, "Like it is")

a. Claustrophobia

On January 14, 1777, at the end of the day, Yoo Jin-Su went to town to conduct her usual New Year's transactions and exchange greetings with her business partners. In nearly a decade, her ginseng business had grown to such a point that she had become one of the most renowned figures in the market, and she had built strong relationships with more than forty buyers and resellers in Hanyang, increasing the number of her associates to about one hundred, counting merchants throughout the country. She also had valuable contacts abroad : in China, ambassadors and minor bureaucrats were clamoring for her red ginseng, while the Japanese preferred white ginseng, as did the people of Joseon.

Jin-Ju had even talked about an opening at the Chinese court with the Qing, and the possibility of supplying Tibet, " if things are well negotiated ". The success of the business had long been unhoped for : in the early days, Ji-Sun remembered the difficulties of finding funds, convincing buyers and asserting the quality of her production. They didn't wanted to talk to her, under the pretext that she was a woman. It had always taken a man at her side, and no matter what they could say or didn't say, their presence was enough to unblock the conversational abilities of her interlocutors. They were even turned to in case of important decisions and large loans. Today, things had changed, and the power was hers. Now, people asked to see her, and she received by herself, Jin-Ju in her shadow, always ready to kick out cheaters or sharp-tongues if necessary.

She was immensely grateful to Jin-Ju for agreeing to become her business partner. Yet, when she had the idea of starting her own business in 1763, nothing could have predicted that she would come to such a fruitful association with the daughter of a former bandit who was a member of a murderous guild. Jin-Ju had an adventurous and independent nature, the structure of which did not make her prone to permanent alliances of which she would not have had the exclusive monopoly.

The first time she met her at the age of twelve, Ji-Seon remembered finding her a bit rough, and so different from herself that the idea of becoming her friend would never have crossed her mind. Moreover, she had a loyalty to Baek Dong Soo that had led her to protect Ji-Seon out of a simple desire to please him, and which had led Ji-Seon to distrust her future companion, not out of malice, but because she longed to have someone around who didn't see her constantly as the victim of unpleasant circumstances. Then the years had passed, and with the changes in their mutual situations came the ideal conditions to make them quality partners.

It would have been pointless to deny that Baek Dong Soo had played a major role in the process of liberating what she had always believed to be her "destiny". He was the one who had prevented Heuksa Chorong from deporting her to China, where she would have had to submit to the emperor's will and betray her native country at the same time. It was partly thanks to him that the guild had withdrawn, because he had burned the tattoo of the invasion plan, thus removing Ji-Seon's particularity and value in the eyes of the Qing. With the tattoo erased, she was free.

At times, she blamed herself for not having made this decision on her own : she had always wanted to live independently from the will of others, far from what her father had done to her and the burden he had placed on her shoulders, without even asking her about it. For the first twenty years of her life, she had never really belonged to herself. She was the daughter, the future wife, the samini. Never to herself, always to others. Sometimes she had wanted to tear her skin off her back with her bare hands, in excesses of rage and intense pain that could have shocked anyone who knew her for her peaceful and controlled temperament. In her youth, she had desperately tried not to hold a grudge against her father, and she had succeeded after the death of Prince Sado, when all will to fight had disappeared within her.

Now she cursed her father, and constantly wondered why he had imposed a task on her that would inevitably have led to her downfall. Because he didn't love me, she sometimes thought, in the evening, in her bed, in her house, he only loved his mission, he only loved his honor, it's the only thing that matters to men, honor. Strangely, the idea that her father had only a limited affection for her made the torment that followed the drawing of the tattoo on her back less painful. Instead of contradicting the image of a loving and tender father, it merely presented the continuity of a personality governed by his own interests and those of the kingdom, to the detriment of the happiness of his daughter, a girl among many others.

While preparing her small handbag, a charming item that Jin-Ju had brought back from one of her trips to Jeju Island, Ji-Seon thought that being the promised consort of Prince Sado had once made her feel like something other than a back with a battle map printed on it. In the end, she understood that the heir to the throne had chosen her for this characteristic and had accommodated herself to it, but nothing had diminished her growing anger or weariness.

She had no love for the prince. She respected him as one should respect a future husband and a member of the royal family, but it was difficult for her to develop feelings of passion towards him. All he wanted was her back. Nevertheless, for her part, she wanted to be rid of it. Their two desires were in harmony, and she had found enough affection in her heart for the prince to tolerate becoming his wife and the mother-in-law of her son. Moreover, he had always been respectful. Marrying him was a promise, that she would no longer simply be the canvas of an invasion plan.

When he died and she fell into the hands of Heuksa Chorong, all of her hopes were dashed. She became just a back again, and there was only death waiting for her. She had nothing to say, nothing to do. Her opinion didn't matter. In the context, Yeo Woon had been a nuisance to her peace of mind, and she had hated him with all her heart for his total inability to understand that she just wanted to be left alone.

No one had ever asked her what she wanted. She herself had never explored other possibilities for her future than her own death in China, her entry into the orders or her marriage to the Crown Prince. Throughout her life, she had been told repeatedly that she would follow a path that had been laid out for her, preferably by others. It was only with the destruction of the tattoo that she was suddenly confronted with herself and what she wanted to do. For this she felt a sincere gratitude towards Baek Dong Soo, and a colossal debt. These were the only emotions she had for him. Otherwise, he left her completely indifferent.

She could see that he found her to his liking, and she was aware of what such tenderness could imply for her. There was a way in this opportunity for her to pay off a life debt, but such a prospect had seemed unbearable to her. I can't, she remembered thinking, full of anguish and deaf panic, I could never, not him, nobody, never again. She had never completely belonged to herself : the day she woke up, with her back throbbing from the burning tattoo, had been the first day she realized she could be a person, not just a plan. That was the only reason she had cried back then. Everyone had attributed her emotion to Dong Soo's gesture, but like everything else about her, everyone had been so terribly wrong. Ji-Seon didn't say anything. She had gotten used to it, and anyway, Baek Dong Soo had already been hurt enough by others (Yeo Woon).

She had searched within herself, and discovered that she didn't wanted to get married. She wanted to live for herself, without being someone else's something. The idea of becoming a merchant was born from this desire : she had found a way to pay back her debt, while avoiding having to give herself in repentance. But even this project had been difficult to grasp, when so many others had wanted to join it. No one really knew where the providential funds received following the queen's fainting and the repression of the ginseng sellers had come from, but Ji-Seon had now gotten to know Yeo Woon well enough to understand that he had facilitated the transaction.

It was a kind, courteous and generous gesture from him: she had immediately hated him for meddling in a matter that did not concern him, and blamed herself for it at the same time. He tries to help, she had thought, but he doesn't do it right, he feels guilty and thinks he owes me something, but he chains me up, that's all, the poor boy. For a while, however, he had exerted an almost mystical attraction on her, because they were so similar in so many ways that it would have been difficult not to see an emotional closeness between their two situations. She had felt a tenderness for him that had been gangrened by her abduction by Heuksa Chorong, Yeo Woon's disregard for her need for solitude, his passivity in the face of events, and his willingness to redeem himself to her at any cost in an attempt to save his soul. At times, she had wondered if she was hating herself, through Yeo Woon. They were so much alike, deep down, that the possibility seemed quite conceivable to her in retrospect.

She never married Baek Dong Soo. When Yeo Woon died, she was probably the only one to see him change, shut himself up, imprison himself in the past. Sometimes, he would look at her with eyes glowing with an emotion so complex that she was deeply troubled by it. Other nights, he would stare at her in a way that tended to suggest that he was angry at her, and for a long time, as her business prospered and she grew more and more independent and secure, she had wondered about those piercing glances. She finally decided to talk to Jin-Ju, with whom she had taken the time to build a stronger relationship based on mutual deference and genuine mutual support, totally devoid of any interest other than their own individual and professional development.

- Angry at you ? Dong Soo ? No, Jin-Ju exclaimed with a soju cup in her hand. He's been distant with everyone lately. Ever since Woon died, actually. It's not your fault.

It's because I'm not Yeo Woon, she had come to understand, and oh, how she had hated that conclusion almost as much as she had hated Baek Dong Soo. He doesn't see me, he sees him. I do not exist.

He had proposed to her in 1768, one year after the appearance of the Gwishins. The country was experiencing a confusion of titanic intensity, and business had never been so delicate. Ji-Seon immediately refused, seconded by Jin-Ju. You don't want to marry him ? she had told her the previous day, when the young woman had sensed the event was coming and confided in her out of desperation. So don't marry him. You'll make him a gift, and to you as well. You have other things to do. Given the current context, no one will blame you, not even him.

To say that he wasn't taken by surprise would have been a lie, as he probably didn't expect such a clear refusal from her, who had always accepted things without blinking an eye, even if she didn't agree. But Jin-Ju had been right : he hadn't been angry at her, and had listened to her reasons with a kindness that had pleasantly surprised her and had rekindled a fragment of affection towards him in her heart. You would be unhappy, she had said with a gentle hand on his, and so would I be. Let's promise each other to remain good friends : we would be happier that way than as husband and wife.

Nine years later, they weren't married, Baek Dong Soo had a wife and son of his own, Ji-Seon her business, and they got along better than ever. Ji-Seon had never felt that she had made a better choice, and there wasn't a day that passed without her congratulating herself for choosing her freedom over a discordant union. She had paid her debt, financially supported the family of the one who had helped her when she needed it, and provided Jin-Ju with a comfortable position where she maintained her independence while working in association with Ji-Seon.

She handled overseas imports and negotiated sales and investments with a rare skill that had already been demonstrated when she had found the fur hats for Ji-Seon years earlier. No one had ever done this for me, she had thought warmly, no one has ever done anything for me without implicitly asking for anything in return. Jin-Ju had been the first. She hadn't gotten married either. Do you see me being someone's wife ? She had kindly teased her while celebrating a successful transaction with Ji-Seon one night. I would die of boredom. I prefer to help you in business, it's more exciting. Ji-Seon replied that Jin-Ju wasn't helping her, but was developing a business that was half his own. Jin-Ju laughed, lifting up her soju cup to drink to her health.

Sometimes Ji-Seon wanted to hear Jin-Ju laugh for hours. She had been the unofficial companion of painter Kim Hong Do for a few years before she decided that she had seen enough and wanted to move on. They had remained good friends, but the whole thing had caused a scandal among the family. Jin-Ju had shrugged her shoulders and said that she did what she wanted. Ji-Seon could have sworn she could have kissed her for having the courage to assert herself like that, as she herself had been so limited by other people's ambitions.

There was a gentle knock on the door of her main store in Hanyang, above which she had her private apartments. Baek Dong Soo then appeared, dressed in civilian clothes, his hair untied and held back by a black ribbon.

- Are you ready ?

Little Yoo-Jin clung to his father's hand, admiring the rich objects displayed on the shelves, the fabrics, the ginseng extracts. He was a handsome child, with a sharp eye and an immense thirst for learning. Dong Soo's face was a little pale, his eyes a little red, but he looked sober, and Ji-Seon felt a hint of relief. She was not unaware that he had been drinking a lot over the past few years, and that his consumption had cost him his job, until Hong Guk Yeong's intervention. I did the right thing, she thought for the umpteenth time in nine years.

- We can go, she said, and she smiled at him as she had always done, gently and indulgently.

b. Cupid and Psyche

The veil of the jeonmo was so profoundly black that it was totally impossible to see his eyes unless it was lifted, and it was of an impossible length. It was a piece that Hui Seon had acquired during her early years as a dead gisaeng in Suwon, and she made no secret of the fact that it was one of her favorite items. It maintains secrecy, she had told him when she presented him with the final composition of his disguise, and you know that secrets are our people's best weapon. Woon didn't like it when she called the Gwishins that way, despite the truthfulness of the term.

Too often he felt too far away from them to truly call them his people. It was a phenomenon that dated back to his existence as a living : he had never felt that he was a full-fledged member of Heuksa Chorong, just as he had never felt that he was definitely one of the boys in the Jang Dae-Pyo training camp. Something was always missing, except for one time (Woon-ah), but it was too far away, and he didn't wanted to think about it.

Go Hyang took part in his transformation with her usual assiduity, but Woon detected traces of anger and anxiety on her face, skillfully concealed for those who did not know her well. It was obvious that she had not approved much of Hui Seon's project, but that she had no say in it anyway. She's scared of ghosts and chimeras, he thought harshly. It didn't matter that Hui Seon regularly demanded an apology from him : she only saw what suited her (you too). Even so, she had listened to the account of his death as soon as he remembered it.

It had been a painful moment, and he hated the speed with which his mind seemed to drown in sadness when he mentioned it, but Hui Seon had not discredited his version, and had just sat there, looking at him with her wide dark eyes, knowing exactly what he was thinking and feeling, and the extent of his melancholy. That's not what I wanted, he had articulated, his throat tied by an emotion so dense and so invasive that it seemed to want to burst out of his being, I never wanted that, I wanted peace. It was the only time he had seen Hui Seon allow herself to cry in public, while she was saying " I know, darling, I know ". It was likely that she had her painful moments, but she was so similar to him that he had guessed she preferred to live them totally alone and secluded, far from the so lethal compassion of others. Sometimes kindness could do more damage than cruelty (Woon-ah).

Hui-Seon had chosen his outfit entirely, from the hairstyle to the make-up, which she forced on him under the pretext of keeping his identity completely hidden. Either you obey or you stay, she had dryly asserted, and Woon had submitted, thirsty as he was for freedom. When Go Hyang and So-Ri helped him to get dressed after his bath, she declared to have favored his colors, in order to "please him and make it less uncomfortable for him". The jeogori had the black of his eyes and was elegantly embroidered with silver on the sleeves and collar (here, gold is for ladies, said Hui Seon), while the chima was a dark red, reminiscent of a poppy or blood tint, enhanced by a black petticoat.

- We must be as somber as possible, Hui-Seon explained to him while Go Hyang tied the skirt around his waist. Nobody likes gloomy gisaengs. No one will not want to talk to us. And the dark colors are rather carried by old gisaengs, that people tend to ignore.

- Our colors, then, Woon couldn't help but replicate.

Hui Seon had bowed her head in an ironic motion.

- Not those of our profession, she had replied. A good gisaeng is a gisaeng that does everything to look young.

She then looked at him from top to bottom, then added :

- And virgin.

On his face and cheeks, So-Ri had applied a light powder that gave him a few colors, and a peach-colored blush that made him look almost healthy. Then Go Hyang had used a shaded gray for his eyes, which had already been almost emptied out by Hui Seon, whose favorite shades often tended to the darkest, and a fine touch of yeonji red on his lips. Not too much, Hui Seon intervened, who had witnessed the entire process with an air of intense satisfaction impregnated on her exquisite face. She also ordered that his eyebrows had to be refined, inspected his hands and fingernails, and imposed on him a gache and a norigae "for the sake of realism".

She went so far as to spend several minutes on his posture and walk, made more complex by the wearing of pair of black silk hye, among the most luxurious that Hui Seon possessed. The preparation was so meticulous that their small group did not go out until the end of the day, when the sun's rays began to fade. The temperature was cool, but under the thicker hanbok fabrics, Go Hyang was the only one to feel the bite of the cold. His face hidden by the veil of his jeonmo, firmly tied under his chin with a red ribbon, Woon looked at passers-by, streets and houses, without recognizing anything.

Their procession formed a small and austere society with relatively homogenous colors. Hui Seon had demanded moroseness, and her gisaengs had followed the instructions, selecting cold shades for their clothing. Go Hyang wore midnight blue, and So-Ri an almost indigo purple. Min-Su was in green tending toward black, and Su-Jin's chima reflected a honeyed gold. Hui Seon was dressed entirely in black. All of them wore jeonmo, but several had folded the veil back at the request of their mistress. We souldn't all hide, she had said, it will only make us look more suspicious. They walked almost imperiously towards the commercial street of the palace, led by the rhythm of their mistress. The latter, when they arrived on site, immediately put one arm under Woon's.

- You're afraid I'll run away, he remarked, his voice muffled by his veil.

- No, she replied. I'm afraid you'll do something stupid. Now tell me what you want to see.

It was a weekday, and the street was full of shoppers and merchants. Most of the stores displayed sumptuous items : here and there, Woon could distinguish sumptuous fabrics, ornaments of jade, gold, silver and lapis lazuli, books with opulent covers and expensive decorative objects. I've been here before, he understood, feeling like he recognized the facade of a shop, but that was a long time ago, and things have changed. The excitement was perceptible, but also the suspicion. On several occasions, while following the gisaengs admiring the outside displays of the stores, Woon noticed patrols of four to seven soldiers passing by on the street, with their eyes on the watch. The sight of their uniforms created a dreadful weight in his chest.

- I told you they were everywhere, Hui Seon whispered to him, pulling the rich sleeve of his jacket. Don't look at them, it makes you look weird.

- I can't help it, he said with a sincerity that forced Hui Seon to interrupt her examination of a silver binyeo.

- What ? she asked in a soft voice. What's wrong with you?

- Nothing. I just want to see...

He couldn't finish his sentence because he didn't know how to finish it.

- Do you want to go home ? Hui-Seon inquired as she squeezed his arm. We could go out another day. I know I'm asking you a lot, but I just want us to be safe.

- I know. I'm fine.

Hui Seon then did something unusual. Passing her hand under the opaque veil of his jeonmo, she caressed his cheek with a vaguely maternal gesture.

- You're a very pretty gisaeng, she said to him. A little too tall, but very elegant.

- And who wears all your clothes.

- Exactly, replied Hui Seon, and she smiled in a knowing way. Come, let's join the others at this fabric store. I've seen some interesting things, and we'll be able to pick out some materials to make new clothes for you. More suitable than these, anyway.

Min-Su accompanied them, and it was in an attempt to see if she was following them that Woon had turned his head toward the north side of the street, where the colossal gates of the royal palace could be seen. He had given her only a brief glance, to which Min-Su had responded just as briefly with a peaceful smile, and then everything suddenly froze, the people, the movements, the noises, the air, everything.

He couldn't explain why for the first few seconds, and then he started aching where that infinite scar was, and he didn't know if it was his old wound or just something that had always been there and was just waiting for the right moment to violently pull itself out of his chest. He had the distant sensation that Min-Su was pivoting to follow his gaze, while Hui Seon pulled distractedly on his arm to drag him along with her. Farther on, where his eyes had stopped, Yoo Ji-Seon, dressed in pastel green and garnet, was looking at the stall of an antique bookstore.

Next to her, holding a little boy by the hand, the silhouette of a man dressed in blue was chatting with the shopkeeper. It's not him, Woon thought to himself at first, his dead heart suddenly beating in an impossible rhythm, it can't be him. Then the man turned to Ji-Seon (that's why Hui Seon touched my cheek, so that I would not look behind), smiled, and Woon felt like he was instantly losing his mind, dying and being reborn all at once.

(thefieldCho-RiptheprincetheexiletheministerHeuksaChorongtheskylordJi-Seontheswordinhishearthisswordmyheartmysanctuarymy oh oh oh Dong Soo-yah)