The Brothers Kim

Chapter 17- Striking a Chord

With their breaths bated, the men at court eyed the entrance of the palace, where they were expecting the new emperor to make his anticipated appearance. Hushed whispers could be heard as the men exchanged looks with each other when they spotted one of the eunuchs emerge. He sounded the drum and all murmurings ceased. Everyone peered up expectantly.

"His Majesty, Park Jimin, the emperor of Saim!"

The new emperor materialised from the shadows, revealing his face for the first time. Reluctantly, his subjects kneeled before him but not until they had fully digested his features in a blink of an eye.

The first thing the clansmen noticed was that their new emperor was undoubtedly a young one. Even from the back of the palace grounds, one could discern his age from the size of his frame and the way he walked. He was not a very tall man and his gait was somewhat unrefined, indicating to the men present that His Majesty had not yet acquired the gallant stride, of which all royals possessed.

But like an unpolished jade, the clansmen could see that the new emperor had the potential to rule. He may not have received the education that all emperors before him had received but, only time will tell if this will prove a disadvantage to his reign. After all, he was now the Mandate of Heaven: the just ruler—the Heavenly Son of Celestial Saim—and only he could cease the turbulence which rippled across the kingdom.

One by one, the clansmen approached the new emperor and swore their allegiance to him, reciting a sacred oath that vocalised their undying loyalty and love for their kingdom and ruler. It was a revered ceremony, one that the people of Saim took seriously to demonstrate their patriotism.

"...I am your humble servant" one of His Majesty's loyal subjects would say, before rising to make way for the next person.

~*~

"Gyuri!"

With a sudden jolt, Gyuri broke away from her daydream. "Huh? What? What's up?"

Kalyani scorned at her from the other side. "Are you still not done?" She gestured at the partially polished deck of floorboards outside one of the Kim brothers' personal living quarters. "The Kims will be arriving from the palace soon—why are you not finished yet?"

"I'm going as fast as I can, alright?" she retorted while scrubbing more vigorously, "There's just so much to clean."

"Quit your whining" Kalyani sneered. She rolled her eyes as she tutted, "Of all the people I had to work with, it had to be you."

Two hours before, Madam Zhou had distributed the tasks amongst the maids. Gyuri had hoped that she would be given something easy but, to her dismay, she had been allocated to clean quarters. And to make matters worse, she had to work with Kalyani, who hated her to the core. Gyuri was immediately apprehensive: she detested paired work.

For Gyuri, 'working in pairs' often meant 'doing work for two'. As Subin, she never had any luck when it came to paired work in school. Often because she was always paired off to an idiot or a lazy arse, who couldn't care less about the task at hand. And more often than not, Subin ended up doing all the work by herself while her partner just signed off their name in the end.

Gyuri bit the insides of her cheeks to stop herself from lashing back at Kalyani. While she detested working with lazy bums, nothing could compare to her loathing towards stuck up teenage girls who looked down on others. If anything, whenever Gyuri met those type of girls, she was always reminded of the plastics from the film, 'Mean Girls'.

"Honestly," Kalyani grumbled as she scowled at Gyuri, "why couldn't I have been put on flower-making duty instead?"

"And why couldn't I have a more hardworking partner?" Gyuri muttered under her breath.