"do you... trust me?" it's a low whisper, the king's soft lips pressed against the stuttering pulse in your throat. but you think, or maybe you hope, the implications are trying to delve much deeper into your heart. regardless, your answer has never...
time continues to slip on -- blissfully, mercilessly, endlessly.
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OCTOBER
"Janae!"
You have never seen Eunuch Kim as happy as he is now, kicking up dust as he hurries towards his family and his home with a box completely full of cookies in his hands. You follow behind them, an easy smile on your lips.
"Janae," he repeats the sweet term of endearment for 'wife,' making Chun-ja blush when she spots you behind him. "I missed you."
"You're going to make our sweet uinyeo-nim regret coming here if you continue to be like this," she says, but the affection in her eyes could melt even the snowiest of days to come.
"She will forgive me." Eunuch Kim grins, his cheeks dimpled with how wide his lips are parted in his joy.
"Only because I am fond of Chun-ja," you tease. "Where is Han-jae?"
As if having heard his name, the boy rounds the corner holding a bucket in his arms. It's promptly dropped to the dust and Chun-ja's distraught cry at the well water inside it splashing out is drowned out by Han-jae's cry of, "Dad!"
"It's the food he really wants, I'm sure!" Eunuch Kim laughs, handing off the box to you before he stretches his arms out. His big sleeves swing as he envelops his boy in a tight hug.
Though you are only standing by, you feel the affection in your heart swell and swell and swell, as if it could burst. But perhaps if it grows big enough, it could one day overtake the quiet, subtle envy that strikes you now at this familial scene, for something you could never have. So you swallow your emotions and say with as much cheer you can muster, "of course!"
NOVEMBER
"She told you to keep it a secret, didn't she?"
You turn in surprise, crunching frost beneath your feet. Beside you, in this snow-covered landscape, Yoongi stares intently at the mound of grass that is Queen Jeonghui's grave. When did he find out?
"...She did."
His eyes soften. His palms press tightly against each other. "I realized... It took me a long time to realize that she must have."
"Isn't it just like her?" you murmur.
He lets out a restrained sigh, a small puff that comes out transparent and white in the frigid air. "She shouldn't have made you bear such a burden."
You don't know how to reply.
Heaven knows you have regretted the decision before, yes, especially in those bitterly lonely days after her passing and he was so unbearably distant and so, so silent. But you cannot change the past. And now... even if you had the chance, you don't think you would choose otherwise. You could not ever betray her trust. Not only because doing so would've betrayed yourself too. Then what right would you have to stand next to him? (Even though you had little of that to begin with.)
