The flowers are her home. They're her shelter in the whole, wide palace. Of all places, of all corners, of every room in the Damiwon, she chooses that garden, that spot. The water pot is heavy but she doesn't mind it; this time, she waters every petal and every shade of green with the grace of a sanggung. It's not her job to do anymore; Chae Ryung, her beloved friend, is there now and it's a job for her rank, but Hae Soo chooses, she sneaks out. It's a job and it's a break — it's her escapism. She wears Lady Oh's clothes and it's Lady Oh's hairpin in her hair but she's so out of place, so inadequate, so much less than. She loves the king for the person he is, for the kindness she's experienced in the past and that she appreciates again, she'd be an ingrate if she didn't, but she's not. She's not. She has to fake every step with Lady Oh's steps, every movement a shadow of Lady Oh's movements, a memory of lessons she only half-remembers because there were always so many different things Soo was always thinking about then. She should have paid more attention, she should have been diligent. But she didn't, she wasn't, so she tries her hardest. The hardest she's ever tried. Don't think about running. Stay faithful to what you decided to do. She carries the words as a prayer, a gift she was given a long time ago. Or was it a long time ago? She has no calendar in her room, her memory functions in events, in festivals, the days slipping through her fingers like water, a threatening future always looming at her from the bottom of the ocean of her blood.
It has been so long since she's felt truly happy.
She limps and she bends her body and talks to the flowers in a whisper. Sister Go Ha Jin is back today, she tells them, the talk of a lunatic, but she has talked to the moon before so it's only appropriate. It's Go Ha Jin who walks around in her sanggung costume, her voice cheerful to the flowers and the trees and the butterflies and the sun. Stay faithful, and she does, if she can draw her strength from that place then she can believe she can make it, too. It's another beautiful day, she tells them, and it is, every day is beautiful and calm and she wishes it could last forever. She dares to dream and in her dreams, there is no bloodshed. All her friends are there and they're smiling at her and at each other and there is no more poison amongst them. They call her name — which one? — and she feels she can tell them everything, every lie she's ever told, everything she's ever feared.
It's another beautiful day, she tells the flowers, and she's still in Goryeo, she's still an inexperienced sanggung. Her knee falters when she bends down and she stands up again. She's been in Goryeo for years, yes, she knows that much, and she has survived. Instead of dreams, she should focus on tomorrow. A single tomorrow, a single day. Try your best again today, Go Ha Jin, that's what she tells herself when she wakes up, and that's how she keeps her back straight, Lady Oh guiding her every movement from behind her. Although she remembers very little of her lessons, she remembers to be careful. She remembers to keep her place. And she becomes a little more like her with every passing day, even if she doesn't notice it.
Maybe it's worse to dream. Dreaming means having to wake up. Is that why she loses track of time? Because dream and reality strike her in different frequencies of her perception, and she doesn't know if she wants to remain hopeful or to root herself to the prison that is the palace, preparing for every twist and turn that is thrown at her?
She sighs. She has a headache again. On certain days, she eats as little as her teacher used to, always because she brings it upon herself. Always, always using my head too much.
Go Ha Jin — Hae Soo, she's Hae Soo — halts. There is a shadow amongst her plants, her friends, napping under the sun like a lazy cat. She's quick enough to spot him before she waters him. He doesn't move when she gets close, neither when she sits down next to him. He's usually so guarded and ready into action that Soo is surprised he looks so vulnerable, his hands resting on his middle, his legs outstretched and relaxed. She wonders if he'd leap at her if she touched him, but she doesn't. She doesn't even brush his bangs out of his eyes. How much had he been working with the king lately, so much that she barely sees him? For all her caution, Soo still doesn't know where the royals are taking her. She hears very little about clans and soldiers. She wants to know and desperately doesn't, at the same time. And at the center of her turmoil, there is always Wang So.
For the first time in a long time, she wishes she had her phone. She wishes she could draw on his face with a marker or a lipstick and take pictures so they could laugh together later. She wishes she could capture his serenity, the moment all fight and teasing are stripped down from him so she could look at it when she caught herself thinking of him, of his lashes when he stands close. Soo lies down next to him, not making a sound, barely even breathing, and she thinks of a world without war, thinks of her own, imperfect world where so many things were wrong but where she could sleep with a clear mind and love with an honest heart. Why did she have to travel so far to meet the people who mattered the most?
Her hand clenches at the thought of love, grasping at the grass beneath the two of them. She thinks it's not fair that she sees him like this when in her mind she still sees him with sword full of his brother's blood. She wants to tell him all, to tell him everything, but she doesn't know if she's causing it all to happen or not. Fate or Destiny, Hae Soo? Were you fated to do this or is this an inescapable destiny? Choi Ji Mong tells her nothing and it tears her apart.
She trembles, maybe from the chilly wind that passes by, maybe from the worry that consumes her. She doesn't have her phone, she's not in Seoul and she's Hae Soo, not Go Ha Jin. Beside her, the fourth prince sleeps, or maybe he doesn't, maybe he's just enjoying her presence. Watching him, her desire to cry slowly, slowly fades away, seconds precious like the time she let pass by her never was. She's scared of what he can do but she doesn't want to go.
She doesn't want to go.
The space between them is close enough to draw a line. Her hand is hesitant before her eyes, reaching out, reaching out, fingertips that remembered the touch of a scar. I'm yours, he had said, and she never forgot it, the way he had closed his eyes, the wolf at her feet, at her reach. She's disarmed with every smile and above all, she's disarmed when he looks the least of what she expects, when he looks exactly as he does then, no worry in his brows, no anger at the corners of his mouth.
He's beautiful.
She gives him a name in her heart, just as she did with all the flowers in the garden, and she's afraid he's growing inside of her.
He already did.
Fate or Destiny, Hae Soo?
Can the heart make a distinction at all?