Disclaimer: The SKKS-verse belongs to the creators of Sungkyunkwan Scandal.

Author's Notes: Belated Happy New Year! Sorry about the lack of updates, but I had some Internet access issues over the holidays, then became busy with entertaining out-of-town guests. That's all over now, though, so here is the long-overdue update. Hope you enjoy it, and thank you to jinx XD for the reviews!

Chapter Thirteen

Jae-shin wasn't feeling too good, either.

It had been a week since the argument with his wife, and the coolness between them showed no signs of dissipating. The lingering tension, coupled with the need to present a united front and keep Minister Moon from worrying, was taking its toll on his disposition. As a result, instead of taking his ease indoors as he was entitled to in his own home, he spent most of his time in the garden, brooding on Young-shin's rock until it was time to go indoors for meals or bed.

The temptation to reach out to Ka-hai and make everything all right again was strong. Even though he believed that he was in the right this time, there was a hollow feeling inside him that hadn't been there the first time they'd had a serious argument. Perhaps, he thought, it was because they were much closer now compared to then. He missed that feeling of intimacy, and not just in the physical sense.

However, Jae-shin refused to be the first to break. This wasn't a game; the stakes were much higher and it wasn't anywhere as fun as the games they played sometimes, in bed or out of it. It also wasn't a matter of pride — hadn't he once spoken first, after that misunderstanding about her childhood friend coming to visit? He admitted (eventually) that he had been wrong then. This time, it was she who needed to take responsibility for her errors.

Just then, he saw his wife walk past a window that looked out into the garden. Like him, she had spent the past week going about with an abstracted air, and he liked to believe that it was because their argument weighed heavily on her mind and she was thinking about how to apologize.

Deep down, he hoped that it would be soon.

Once she was out of sight, Ka-hai paused to lean on a pillar and take a few deep breaths. The smells in the kitchen seemed particularly noxious that day, and it was only by sheer force of will that she had been able to finish supervising dinner preparations as though nothing was wrong.

It had been a week and she wasn't feeling any better. There were a number of possible explanations for why she felt so unwell, including one that was presently still too terrifying to contemplate. With great effort, she shook off the nausea and continued on her way to the bedroom that she still shared with her husband.

A possible explanation that she was at least willing to consider was that this was her body's way of telling her to make amends with Jae-shin. By now, it was obvious that their discussion that night had affected him deeply, and she felt bad about that.

But, she thought as she entered their bedroom and knelt by the washstand to splash water on her face, how am I going to apologize when I don't know what I had said wrong? Wasn't it true that things happened only when you actually did something; that the only way to benefit from a good idea was to act on it? Since he understood how the whole thing worked, why didn't her husband just explain it to her instead of getting angry as he had? More importantly, why was he defending the Blue Messenger when, as a police officer, he was supposed to be against him? Just thinking about the events of that night made her feel angry and frustrated all over again.

Besides, Jae-shin wasn't completely blameless in all of this. Ka-hai's mouth thinned as she dried her face with a towel and dampened the same cloth to sponge her arms and the back of her neck. He had misunderstood her, too, and no one wanted to feel as though the things they were doing to help other people were worthless. She was fairly sure that they mattered, too, even if just to the few that she was able to help.

Yes, she would apologize when she understood why it was necessary, but she wasn't the only one who had to do so.

The tension at home bled into Jae-shin's work as well, and he wasn't in the best of moods when he sought out Bok-soo on the Sungkyunkwan campus to check if he had found out anything.

The younger man shook his head ruefully. "I'm sorry, but no one's talking."

"No one's talking," Jae-shin repeated skeptically, "or you're just not telling me what they've told you?"

He frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

The conversation swiftly went downhill from there, with Jae-shin badgering Bok-soo about hiding the Blue Messenger's identity, and the other man insisting that he really, truly knew nothing. Bok-soo scowled when Jae-shin questioned him for the fourth straight time. "But if I did know something," he said, "maybe I wouldn't tell you anyway, not with the way you're acting!"

Jae-shin scowled as well. "Is that an admission of guilt?"

Fortunately, Yong-ha was also on campus to pay Sun-joon and Yoon-hee a visit, and came across the pair before they came to blows. "You'll have to excuse our friend, here, Bok-soo," he intervened, his smooth words a contrast to the difficulty with which he pulled the combatants apart. "Even after all these years, I don't think he's completely housebroken yet."

The former thief glared at Jae-shin over Yong-ha's violently orange shoulder. Besides anger, there was disappointment in his eyes. "That's for damn sure. He still has a thing or two to learn about working well with others, especially people he actually depends on."

"Don't worry, just leave that to me. You should probably go back to work — I think I saw the headmaster coming this way."

"I'll do that." Bok-soo nodded curtly to him and, with a final dagger stare at Jae-shin, stalked away, muttering to himself.

"It's a good thing I stepped in before you two started hitting each other," Yong-ha remarked to his friend after the campus guard had gone. "No way was I getting involved if you had actually already started whaling away. I'm a lover, you know, not a fighter."

Ordinarily, one of his friend's jokes would have been enough to drive Jae-shin to crack a smile, but that day he simply glowered and remained stonily silent.

Yong-ha promptly switched to a more direct approach when he failed to get a reaction. "What in the world were you thinking?" he demanded, swatting his friend's arm with his fan. "Have you forgotten that the king himself told Bok-soo to keep an eye on us? What if he tells His Majesty that you're abusing your position or something like that?"

"I'm not abusing my position," Jae-shin growled. "He's blocking an official investigation."

"How are you so sure about that? Maybe he really doesn't know anything about whatever it is you're asking him."

"Something tells me that he knows more than he's letting on."

"Well, you won't know that for sure unless you torture the information out of him, and he'll definitely go to the king if you do that." Yong-ha smiled bracingly and slung an arm across his shoulders. "Look, you're obviously having a bad day. Why don't you stop by the shop for a drink and we can talk about this?"

Jae-shin didn't want to talk about anything, but he also knew that his friend would never take "no" for an answer, so he allowed himself to be hustled off-campus and over to Yong-ha's fashion empire. There, a servant was promptly dispatched to bring them food and drink. Watching the servant jump to do Yong-ha's bidding reminded Jae-shin of the staff at home, and then of Ka-hai, which made him feel awful all over again.

"Now," Yong-ha said when they were settled in and the servant had taken his leave, "what's going on?"

"Nothing," he replied curtly. "I'm just under a lot of pressure at work, that's all." He reached for the wine bottle, but the other man grabbed it away before he could get to it. "I see that you still have the habit of inviting people over for drinks... and then not letting them have any."

"Something is terribly wrong with you, Geol-oh," Yong-ha declared, hiding the bottle behind his back. "You might as well tell me what it is if you want to have a moment's peace. And I know that it's not the Blue Messenger case," he added before Jae-shin could insist that it was. "You've been working on that case for months and it's never affected you like this before. It's something else."

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "If you must know, Ka-hai and I had an argument."

"About what? Have you been leaving the lid off the chamber pot or something?" His friend grimaced. "That's disgusting."

"No," Jae-shin said irritably. "She just really doesn't like what the Blue Messenger does."

"Because it's untidy?"

"Because it's unproductive."

"And in calling the Blue Messenger 'unproductive,'" Yong-ha concluded, "it felt as though she were calling you unproductive, too, right? Does Ka-hai know that you also used to run around, scattering leaflets all over town?" he asked when the other man grunted.

"No."

"Well, why don't you tell her so? If she knew about that, then maybe she'd change her opinion."

"Why would I do that?" Jae-shin scoffed. "You heard her talk that day we were in town — it's obvious that she doesn't think very highly of that kind of thing. Besides, it's all in the past," he added shortly. "There's no need to bring it up again now."

"Even if it's all in the past," Yong-ha pointed out, "the Red Messenger still seems to be a big part of who you are, and something that your wife should know."

As luck would have it, Ka-hai's father-in-law took her and her husband on that long-awaited trip to the Cha estate before she could sort everything out. Besides wanting to return to her childhood home, even for just a while, she also wanted to show her family that she was doing quite well as a wife; and she hoped that Jae-shin wouldn't ruin everything by being rude to her in front of everyone.

To her relief, he played along at being happily married despite the fact that they had barely said a word to each other since the night of the disagreement. He wasn't overly affectionate (and it just occurred to her that she might have overdone the charade the first time) and was even a little bit reserved in his manner; but he spoke politely when spoken to and even addressed her directly a few times, and that was more than she could have hoped for given their situation.

However, it seemed that their best efforts probably weren't good enough. "Your husband seems... distant," Lady Kang observed when mother and daughter had withdrawn for a private chat. "Is anything wrong with the two of you?"

"What? Oh, no!" Ka-hai shook her head, hoping that she wasn't blushing guiltily. "Jae-shin is working on something very important, so he's rather preoccupied." She gave a weak laugh; her words were at least partly true. "He gets like that sometimes. I suppose it may seem strange to other people, but I'm used to it."

"Well, I hope you're not chattering too much," her mother warned. "Doing such work will probably help his career, and a proper wife should be supportive."

She ducked her head, partly in acknowledgment and partly out of guilt. She hadn't been very supportive on the night that they had argued. "I know, Omonim."

"You should be good to your husband. Your father and brothers say that your home is a fine one."

"Oh, it is, Omonim." Ka-hai nodded fervently, and, hoping to distract her mother, added, "You must come and visit me sometime. I'm sure that both Appa and Abeonim will allow it if we asked them."

Unfortunately, the distraction proved futile. "There, you see?" Lady Kang went on. "Not only are you in charge of a large house without any mother- or sister-in-law to please, but you also have a father-in-law who is very kind to you. There are many girls who could only hope to live your life. You don't want to lose all of that."

"No, Omoni, I don't." At that point, she wanted nothing more than to run screaming from the room, but she willed herself to stay put. Her mother meant well, and if she had any advice on how to keep her husband happy, Ka-hai would gladly sit through an eternity of lectures to hear it. "I promise you, I'll do my best. I know I'm very lucky in this match that you and Appa were able to make for me."

The next words flew out of her mouth before she had time to think about them.

"And I really, truly want to be a good wife to Jae-shin. I love him."

I love him.

Her legs were unsteady as she left the room after the excruciating interview. While fielding her mother's questions, Ka-hai seized on the idea to invite Jae-shin on a walk. Now, she didn't feel as though it would be a very good idea.

She knew, of course, that it would help keep up the pretense that everything was all right in their marriage. It was just that she didn't know whether she would be able to be alone with him, given that she currently felt so very vulnerable.

While she was lost in these thoughts, her feet carried her directly to where her husband lay napping in one of the rooms overlooking the garden where they had taken their first stroll together. Judging from the silence pervading the house, it seemed that the rest of the menfolk had decided to take naps as well.

Jae-shin awoke the moment he heard someone step into the room. Upon opening his eyes and seeing it was his wife, his first impulse was to smile; but as he became more awake, he managed to remember that they weren't getting along very well at the moment, and he assumed the coolly polite air with which he addressed her these days. "Yes?" he asked, his voice slightly thick from sleep.

Ka-hai cleared her throat and put on a pleasant expression. "I was wondering if I could interest you in a walk," she replied. "Just the two of us.

"Of course," she added when he said nothing, "it's fine with me if you would rather sleep." Her cheeks turned pink. "I'm sorry I disturbed you."

His heart skipped a beat when he heard her say "sorry," but it sank again at the realization that the apology had nothing to do with their disagreement. He shook his head, as if to clear it, and sat up. "No, it's fine," he said. "I'll go."

They put on their shoes and exited the house in silence. For Ka-hai, it wasn't the quiet that was the problem. She spent certain parts of a usual day by herself, only imagining that Jae-shin was watching over her shoulder. The problem was that this time, he was actually present; and despite the current situation between them, she felt compelled to actually make conversation.

"You've already seen this part of the grounds," she said. "I was thinking to take you elsewhere, so you can see more of the place while we're still here."

"All right."

As they moved quickly through the garden and towards the stables, Ka-hai reflected that there was a lot that she had to say, and this was probably the perfect opportunity to say it all. However, all the words stuck in her throat and refused to come out.

She didn't want to explain that going on this walk was supposed to ease any doubts about the state of her marriage. Judging from the way he had been cooperating with her every time they were in their parents' company, he understood that this was part of the charade. Perhaps he could even appreciate that taking a walk also got them away from any curious stares or awkward questions.

"These are the western stables. The horses that my father gave me for my dowry are kept here. Do you mind if we stop and take a look at them?"

"Not at all."

Ka-hai also didn't want to apologize for offending him that night. She had run through the conversation backwards and forwards, and was tired of trying to figure out what she might have said wrong — especially now that there were other important things demanding her attention.

"This stallion here is Chul-moo's sire, Dong-moo. You'll notice they look a lot alike."

"Yes, I can see that."

Speaking of things demanding her attention, she didn't want to tell him about her suspicion that she was breeding. As the possible father-to-be, Jae-shin had every right to know; but they definitely needed to settle their differences instead of just covering them up with a distraction, however welcome it might be.

Besides, she wasn't even completely sure of it yet.

She would tell him when she was sure and they were on speaking terms again. On the other hand, if they didn't make up, then surely he would realize that she was pregnant when it began to show... or when she actually presented him with the infant.

"This is where we train and exercise the horses. My father taught me to ride here."

"I see."

Ka-hai definitely didn't want to tell Jae-shin that she loved him. A very big part of her believed that she needed time to come to terms with that fact. She also feared giving him that sort of power over her, especially now that they were in the middle of an argument.

Only a small part of her was giddy over the realization that she adored him even though he was occasionally grumpy, needed to be reminded to clean up after himself, and things weren't very pleasant between them right now. That part wanted very badly to to shout from the rooftops and dance with delight.

Instead of dancing with delight, though, she slipped on a loose stone in her path and would have fallen if Jae-shin hadn't steadied her with an arm around her shoulders.

"Are you all right?" he asked, startled. He wasn't quite sure, but his wife seemed alternately preoccupied and skittish today; and he wondered whether it meant that she was preparing to finally swallow her pride and apologize.

However, if she was, she wasn't going to do so at that very moment. "I'm fine," she replied stiffly, regaining her footing and shaking off his arm. "Thank you for your help."

He sighed silently as she dusted herself off and kept walking, her carriage painfully straight. Despite the ongoing difficulties in their marriage, it had been nice to have an excuse to hold her again, however briefly.

For her part, Ka-hai proceeded with caution, studiously avoiding his gaze, just in case he might be able to guess that she loved him just by looking at her, and making sure that there were no further opportunities for her to fall into his arms and break her resolve not to say anything.

She led him past the shed that she had once thought about showing him. She didn't say a word.

Unlike the Chas, who had more or less fallen for the show that Jae-shin and Ka-hai put on during their visit, Minister Moon could tell that the couple had hit another rough patch. The steward reported that they had been heard arguing, and Jae-shin was once again going around looking grim. The most telling sign, however, was that they barely spoke at the dinner table anymore, at least on the increasingly rare occasions that the younger Lord Moon was present to dine with his father and his wife; he had begun working late again.

Minister Moon told himself that he shouldn't interfere in the children's affairs, and took consolation in the knowledge that Jae-shin and Ka-hai weren't screaming at each other every night and still shared a bedroom.

However, like many well-meaning parents, he couldn't resist prying and decided to see what he could get out of his daughter-in-law. The tension appeared to be taking its toll on the poor girl, who was looking increasingly tired and ill.

(Whatever he found out would be purely for his own information at this point, of course. Action would be taken only if it was deemed meritorious — that is, when Minister Moon began to grow tired of the situation, which might not be too far off. He was still the head of this family, after all.)

"If you don't mind my saying, my dear," he observed gently one morning, when Ka-hai came to pay her respects and bring him his breakfast, "you're looking a bit peaked. Are you all right?"

Of course, she assured him, "I'm fine, Abeonim. Please don't worry."

"Are you sure? Is everything all right with your family back home?"

"Oh, yes. They're doing quite well, thank you."

He peered at her. "Jae-shin isn't troubling you?"

She paused, her hesitation brief but telling, then recovered enough to chuckle softly. "No more than usual."

From the tone of her voice, Minister Moon knew that that was all she was going to say on the matter. He supposed that he should be pleased that she was trying to spare him from worry, but he also knew all too well that hiding things didn't make the problem go away. "But you do know," he told her, "that you can always come to me for help if you have any problems, do you not? You're my responsibility now, as well as your husband's."

Blinking back the tears that always seemed to threaten these days, Ka-hai nodded in acknowledgment. She also couldn't help thinking wryly that she did not need any more signs that her mother was right about how fortunate she was in her married life. "I do. Thank you, Abeonim."

Her father-in-law nodded. "I'm still a bit worried about you, though," he said. "You need to take better care of yourself. Perhaps you should stop doing this and get more sleep in the mornings. I wouldn't want you to get sick on my account."

"I'm quite sure, Abeonim, that I'm not sick," she replied with a strained laugh. As the days went by, and after carefully reading through her new book on women's ailments, it was becoming more and more obvious what was ailing her. "I think... I think I'm going to have a baby."

Despite her mixed feelings on the subject (and, indeed, on everything these days), she couldn't help laughing again, more genuinely this time, when Minister Moon's face lit up. "Really? How long? Does Jae-shin know?"

Ka-hai blushed. "Please don't say anything about this to Jae-shin, Abeonim. I want to be sure first before I tell him. If I'm right, then it hasn't been for very long."

"Of course, my dear," he said eagerly. "You have my word. A husband should always find out directly from his wife, after all. Yes, you should definitely get more rest in the mornings," he declared. "And you should see a physician as soon as possible. The sooner we are certain, the better."