A\N: I'm sorry for the wait. I actually thought I had uploaded this chapter already...

The King was a sad man.

Of course, it took a while for Seol to notice that, her juvenile mind too lost in fantasies and daydreams, tales her father used to tell her before she went to sleep. But when she began to understand how people worked and how memories and feelings influenced their actions and behaviors, she also understood that the King always carried a sorrow deep down on his chest.

Now, she only wanted to know why. Even though she probably never would.

There was no way she could ask why though. While Seol wanted to know and understand her favorite uncle more, there was a line her mother taught her to respect, and deep sorrows were behind it.

So, whenever she visited the palace and went with her father and/or her mother to have a meal with the King, she just observed carefully. She kept her eyes open and her ears attentive, so she could grasp something to solve her biggest mystery.

But then they would say goodbye to the King, as he was too busy to spend an entire afternoon with them, and her research would be postponed.

And that was why she was where she was now. Whatever there was.

Seol was just walking by the side of the Dongji lake, when she decided to go a little further than she used to. And a few minutes later she found it.

Her mother would definitely scold her later, her father would be worrying like crazy. But instead of going back before it was too late, she had decided to investigate the ruins of an abandoned building.

The old and decrepit doors were blocked, so she walked around the building in ruins, tiptoeing to see past the cracks on the walls until she found a spot wide enough for her to sneak in. But before she could walk in any further, a voice called out behind her.

"I'm sure there are better places to visit in the palace," Seol heard him saying and jumped in surprise, "That are not an abandoned building."

She looked around, trying to find the owner of the voice, searching in every direction before she noticed him, standing outside the wall separating the building from the lake, staring at her through an old threshold.

"Pyeha," she shrieked in joy and ran to the opening, looking up at him happily, "What are you doing here?"

"Ei, is that any way to speak to a king?" Gwangjong's voice was severe as he admonished her behavior, and Seol laughed at how alike to her mother he sounded.

Then she proceeded to bow and properly greet the King, speaking in a submissive tone, just like she was taught, "What brings you to this humble place, Pyeha?"

"Much better," the King grunted in satisfaction, his scary king face fading, and he smiled at her, "But you still shouldn't ask that to owner of the house you're visiting."

"I just thought no one came here anymore," Seol shrugged, looking behind her to the almost crumbling building, the signs of abandonment showed that it was a forgotten place for everyone else in the palace.

"I'm the only one that comes here," he explained to her, and she turned to see that he was also observing the old construction, "The only one but you now."

That wouldn't do. Seol knew the palace had many beautiful spots that attracted visitors and residents, but that hidden part of the lake should also be valorized. That way, the King and her wouldn't be the only people who came to the old building.

"Why don't you reform it? That way people might come."

"I don't want people to come."

"Oh."

Seol's eyes bulged as she attempted and failed to hide her disappointment, hoping that he was not mad at her for roaming around his property like that. But then he saw her fidgety expression and scoffed.

"I open a few exceptions from time to time," the King said softly and she smiled excited, "You can explore it however you want, just be careful."

"Sure. But, Pyeha," Seol asked before she ran back to resume her investigation of the place, "Why do you come here if there's nothing left?"

Her uncle's smile changed, as his eyes filled with what Seol now knew to be called nostalgia, and his voice had a different tone when he spoke, "For the memories."

She approached him carefully, crossing the wooden supports of what was once a door and stepping to the outside of the ruins, standing next to him and looking up to his eyes, trying to decipher his words.

"Good memories or bad memories?"

The question seemed to take her uncle by surprise, as he blinked and looked up, frowning in the distance as he thought about it for a second. Then he took a deep breath and sighed.

"They are happy memories, so they are good," he answered, making a pause between the words, as if he was still trying to understand how he felt about them, "But they are from a time and a person that will not return, so they are bad."

Seol continued to look at her uncle, and for the first time in her life she saw a bit of resemblance of the man with her father. They both looked the same when they talked about the past. The King even made the same expression her father did whenever he talked about his deceased brothers, and she recognized the desire to go back in time for a glimpse of lost loved ones.

There were no words of comfort that Seol could say to him about dead people, so she said things about things she understood. And she understood what it was like to have memories.

"Shouldn't a treasured memory of someone who passed away be a good thing?" Her question made the King turn his eyes to her, and she shuddered under his pointed gaze as she explained what she meant, "Because even though you are sad, you have something happy to live with. It would be way too worse to lose someone and remember nothing of them."

The King's smile returned, and she was glad she had been able to lift his spirits up a little.

"You are very wise for a young child," he said, and she shrugged.

"It's just because I thought about that a lot." Now it was Seol's turn to look away as she revealed her most inner self, "I never met my mother, so we never created any memories together. And if I could have at least one piece of her with me, maybe I could think of her differently. She wouldn't be just a woman who gave me birth, she would be someone I could think about whenever I felt alone."

She hadn't meant to make him awkward or tense, but he remained silent after she finished talking. But when Seol looked to him again, she found him staring off at the distance, and he smiled bitterly, as if he was seeing something else that was not the lake.

"I guess that, after we're dead, we only live in the memories of the ones we left behind."

Then he got that look.

That look of an emotion that was deeper than sorrow and crueler than despair. A feeling that lasted more than a person's life and craved in the heart, refusing to be erased. The kind of aftermath that only those that had had a great loss could fully understand.

But she knew better than to ask and pry. Seol was not old enough to understand what kind of pain a grown adult like her uncle carried around, but she was old enough to know that people didn't like to talk about them.

She didn't try to satisfy her curiosity, and swallowed all the questions her mind had just formulated, so she didn't hurt him even more.

Instead, she shared something about herself.

"I'm almost sure that my father is not my father."

That made the King choke and stutter, as he turned around to face her properly. His face was now showing that his mind was back to the reality, his voice showing how much he was actually shocked, despite his attempt to look unfazed.

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, he's as loving as always, but sometimes I see guilt in him. Like he feels he shouldn't have my affection. Like it shouldn't be his but someone else's." As she explained her reasons, her mind went back to her last birthday, when she had hugged him and proclaimed him to be the best father in the world, "I used to think that it was because my mother died, but the fact that he basically keeps me a secret from the outside world doesn't ease my suspicions. He's too honest, he can't bring himself to pretend and to lie for too long."

Part of her wished that the King would chastise her for thinking such things about his brother. He was the first person she told her most secret fear and worry, and even though he was always nice and open around her, that didn't mean he would tolerate her bad behavior.

But the scolding never came, and he only took a deep breath before speaking again.

"Does he know you're thinking that?" His tone was grave and serious, and she was glad for it. Most people would laugh at her theory, mark it as an unfounded fear of a child. She was relieved for not being reprimanded nor diminished.

"I could still be wrong. And I don't want to do something that would hurt him." Seol sighed in a mix of sadness and frustration, and then she remembered her confidant was her father's eldest brother and an old acquaintance of her mother, so she decided to investigate a little further, "Would you know anything about that?"

The King looked pained for a second, but he shook his head in a negative, his eyes cast down in what she could only classify as apologetical.

"I only met you when you were six years old," he explained, hoping to justify his lack of information for her, "And I last saw your mother before she married your father."

Seol knew that already. It was the only thing he always said whenever she made him a question about her birth mother. Even so, at times he could also drop a random fact that would add some piece to the frame she tried to build in the mind about the woman who gave her life. Now Seol was at a dead-end, and this time she couldn't find any leads about her possible biological father.

"I wish I could talk to her somehow. That way she could tell me if I'm right, and who's my real father. And if I'm right and it's not Abeoji, then why did he raise me?"

Her uncle didn't have an answer for that, so he only stared at her with inquisitive eyes.

"If you were right," he asked carefully, as if he was treading in a dangerous soil, "Would anything change?"

The question was not hard to answer at all, as Seol had been thinking about that possibility for a long time.

"Of course!" She shrieked happily, "I would have two fathers, then."

Her conclusion seemed to please the king, since his smile looked genuine this time and he ruffled her hair affectionately. Seol was is so happy to see him at ease again.

"Don't let him know you're thinking such things," the scolding finally came, but just like when he had reprimanded her for not greeting him properly, she knew he was not actually mad, "And if you consider him your father already, it shouldn't matter if he truly is or not."

"But it does," she retorted, as if begging him to understand that side of her as well, "Because it's a part of me."

"Don't you think that if you don't have the memories, you won't hurt?"

"Don't you think if I don't have the memories, I'll have nothing at all?"

He looked puzzled, then baffled. She wondered if she had said anything wrong, but then he scoffed and laughed, and she smiled brightly.

"I can't even begin to understand your logic, so I won't even try to come up with a retort."

She laughed back at him and he chuckled, influenced by her. But then her smile faded as another worry settled down on her mind.

"Please don't tell him," Seol implored breathless, as the thought of her father knowing about what she said hurt even more than not knowing anything about her mother.

"Don't worry, I won't," his voice was gentle, but firm, and she knew she could trust his word, "But if you don't go back soon, he'll mobilize the royal guards to find you."

That's when she realized that it had been quite a while since she had arrived at the old building. And yes, her, sometimes overbearing, father would most likely find guards to search for her if she spent too much time out of his view while they visited the palace.

Then she sprinted and started to run away, following the same path that had brought her there, and going back to the side of her mother and her siblings. But before she could rush outside of the walls of the building, she went back to the man still staring at the lake.

"Pyeha," she called out and he turned around to see what she wanted, "If Abeoji turns out to be not my father, will you stop being my uncle?"

Will anything change for us?

Seol didn't have to say everything that was on her head, though. He knew what she meant even if never said it out loud.

"A king does not change his heart so easily," he answered in the regal and authoritarian tone, speaking as if that was a foolish question with an obvious answer, "I'll be whatever you need me to be."

She didn't believe her smile could ever be any bigger than it was right now, and she beamed before making one last remark, "That's why I like you the best."

"Don't let Baek Ah hear that."

"The truth is the truth."

Seol was still smiling as she left, but her laughter died as the wind hit her face. Her heart started to feel heavy, and her sprint gradually became a walk as she let her worried thoughts take over her mind.

The King had anything a man could want, except for one thing. Except for the one thing he craved the most.

The King was a sad man who just wanted love.

Myrka Crdenas Garzn: Seguiré até un cierto momento - or, debo dicer, una cierta edad. Seó que nesse capítulo la conversa de So con Seol no tibe mucha cosa sobre Soo, pero la niña eres muy pequeña ainda. Gracias por leer e comentar. :D