Chapter 52 (1/2)

“I just can’t ignore your sincerity. So, you don’t have to take it seriously. So, please don’t have any vain expectations.”

“Of course not. I just want to clear your misunderstanding about me. I don’t have any underlying motives towards you,” he said, chiming in with her reply.

When he replied like that, she replied in an embarrassed and disappointed tone, “Oh, I’m glad you said that…” But she alternately pursed and bit her lips, and she fidgeted the letter with her fingers while trying to put it down on purpose.

He jokingly added, “Please don’t throw it away.”

“I’m not bad-mannered enough to do that.”

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“Thank you.”

“I even keep all the blank slips from you. So, don’t worry.”

“Really?”

He seemed to feel he was out of sync with her again. And then she turned quickly without giving him any time to ponder over it.

“Let me leave first,” she said.

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“Please take care.”

Looking at her disappearing slowly, he tilted his head.

After watching her leaving the North Palace, Ruhae also turned back to head for his residence in the South Palace. He felt rather heavy when returning. He was habitually walking back, lost in deep thoughts.

“Blank slips…” he kept repeating it. That word Kyosul said casually fixed his mind. “What did she say she collected?”

Staying in his office, he was fixated on that word while recalling every word she said.

Kyosul’s word was the most difficult coded message. Reading classical books, interpreting the difficult articles of criminal justice and even handling the messy state affairs was easier than deciphering her message.

After thinking hard, he finally interpreted it in several ways.

“Did she want to reassure me that she doesn’t throw away stuff easily?”

That’s a possibility, but he was bothered by what she said to him. He took notice of her way of speaking and expression that suggested something to him.

In particular, he recalled her darting eyes as if she gave him some kind of eye signal. He also recalled her pursing her lips often and blushing with a puckish smile.

“Yeah, she can be weird sometimes.”

He felt he might needlessly think of her as too picky and difficult to deal with.

“Indeed, your small actions makes me wonder about your motivation a lot,” he murmured with a hearty laugh. Then, he didn’t care too much about it.

***

As soon as she woke up in the morning, Kyosul opened the window. She was accustomed to it by now. She didn’t have any intention of basking in the sun or ventilating air.

When she opened the window and checked its sash, there was always a happy smile on her lips.

Today, too, there was a flower on the windowsill.

“Does he expose himself to the early morning dew to place this flower here?”

Sticking her upper body out of the window, she looked around. She imagined the secret stranger’s moving up to her residence.

Most likely he would sneak into the back of her residence to avoid the court ladies’ eyes and then come up to the windowsill right next to her bed.

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When she thought about it carefully, she suddenly felt warm deep inside.

“How cute he is!”

She grinned casually and then pressed her lips with her fingertips in surprise.

“Did I say he was cute? Oh my…I think I took it from Prince Heyjin’s mouth.”

Kyosul could understand what Heyjin meant by ‘cute’ when she described her husband’s behavior. When Kyosul imagined Ruhae placing this blank slip every morning, she couldn’t find any other expression of his image than ‘cute’.

She picked up that little flower placed neatly on the windowsill and walked cheerfully away from the window. She opened the lowest drawer of her desk and put it with all the other flowers. The drawer was already full of flowers. She felt happy, looking at the blue-tinged inside of the drawer.

Obviously each of the flowers suggested that Ruhae thought about her often.

She could confirm directly that all the moments he thought about was capsuled in the drawer.

“Will he come today?”

She went to the North Palace every other day, but she hadn’t bumped into him since she received the letter from him the other day. When Kyosul asked Heyjin in passing, she just shook her head. Perhaps, he was snowed under with state affairs.