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There is a week in June when Seoul swelters to the point of absurdity, yet people still take it as fact and adapt, holding their hair away from their necks and pointing their portable fans at overheated skin. It's as predictable as any picture of survival, I-rang thinks, as she turns away from the window, catching slats of sunlight illuminating dust motes before they land on the piano's smooth surface.
"Start again," I-rang instructs before the piano pedal releases the final notes.
I-rang's student, Jeongyeon, sighs as she slumps on the piano bench. She eases her foot away from the pedal, shoulders hunching forward in a display of remorse atypical of a ten-year-old girl who has only just finished her second session of piano lessons.
"I don't know if practicing more will even help," Jeongyeon says unhappily. "I keep making mistakes."
"What makes you say so?" I-rang asks, keeping her tone even.
Jeongyeon exhales loudly, looking more her age when the huff of air leaves her bangs askew. "I've been listening to myself play, ssaem. Most of the notes fell flat. Or they were either too loud or too random."
I-rang sits next to Jeongyeon on the bench, giving her full attention. "I think you're listening to the wrong things. Focusing on your mistakes instead of what you're doing right."
Jeongyeon glances at her. And for one clean note of a moment when their eyes meet, I-rang thinks that perhaps it's by design that all her students show such insecurity, withdrawing their hands so tentatively after playing those final notes. Their caution seems driven by the awareness that there is something to lose in their pursuit to assert themselves in the world, and I-rang feels their nerves so acutely that she sometimes wonders if she is merely superimposing her own. After all, it hasn't been that long since she ventured outside of her comfort zone. Opening this piano academy was just one in a long line of forgotten impulses she recently discovered she could finally act on.
"I can't believe this slipped my mind," I-rang begins, looking at Jeongyeon with a steady gaze. "But it seems that I forgot to give you an important assignment after our last session."
Jeongyeon looks preemptively defensive. "I know I can't always rely on playing by ear. I've been learning how to read music just like you said."
"I know you have been. That's not it," I-rang shakes her head. "Later, when your mom comes to get you, you should ask her if you can take a walk outside. If she agrees, I want you to make a list of everything you hear. Whatever catches your attention."
"Um, okay," Jeongyeon says slowly, unconvinced. "And then what?"
"When you go over your list, you'll realize that there is no wrong or right sound. Everything exists for a reason. Even the things that don't make sense to you now," I-rang says. "Easy enough, isn't it?"
Jeongyeon responds with a beleaguered sigh. I-rang curbs her urge to laugh, keeping her face neutral when she tells Jeongyeon to try again, watching as Jeongyeon's fingers reach for the piano and play the last three notes that she'd taken out of sequence the first time.
They ring a little clearer, fuller, on her second try.
"Better," I-rang offers in the authoritative voice she's been using since she was eighteen to make members of the Royal Family take her seriously. "You'll take that walk, then?"
Jeongyeon nods, finally smiling. "Yes, seonsaengnim."
They say their goodbyes fairly quickly afterward. Jeongyeon skips out of the room to head outside, where her mother is likely already waiting for her. Wanting to ask how Jeongyeon spent the last hour, more interested in what her daughter has learned and if she'd had fun than whether or not she'd made any real progress.
I-rang is tidying up the sheet music, fastening them inside a folder, when she hears Jeongyeon gasp loudly from outside the door. Immediately concerned, I-rang runs out to see if she's somehow hurt herself.
"Jeongyeon? What's wrong—"
I-rang cuts herself off when she sees the familiar silhouette of her sister-in-law in the reception area.
Huiju sits demurely on the couch, typing on her phone with an irreverence usually reserved for the incognito paparazzi. She still puts on a show of being busy for them, though she never needs to. She maintains the work ethic of a sycophant intern despite having recently celebrated her first anniversary as Castle Group's successor.
Still, Huiju looks entirely well-rested. She always does. Her black-and-gold sunglasses sit low on her nose, gleaming in the midday sun that filters through the window, making her look every bit the celebrity she aspires to be. Once, she might have needed to exert effort to sustain every flash of fame she secured, trotting out to perform like a circus animal, but I-rang knows that gaining the attention of others has become a low-hanging fruit now. That's what happens when you live to be the last recognized queen of the Korean monarchy, regarded with a hushed reverence that the previous ones only acquired after death.
Huiju slides her sunglasses to the top of her head and places a manicured hand over her chest, like she's startled. "Oh, and who might this be?" she asks.
Jeongyeon shifts her weight from one foot to the other, staring at Huiju with clear awe. It would be an endearing sight, I-rang thinks, if Huiju weren't so thoroughly immersed in it.
"Yoo Jeongyeon," comes the girl's starstruck reply after a second of delay, bowing a little when Huiju crouches next to her and compliments the different charms adorning her Crocs.
Leaning against the wall, I-rang watches all this with equal parts amusement and resignation. When Jeongyeon's mother arrives, she asks if she and Jeongyeon can take a photo with Huiju, who grants this request almost immediately, posing and flipping her hair in several different ways until Jeongyeon's mother sheepishly mentions that her husband is waiting outside for them.
I-rang finally pushes off the wall when the fanfare dies down.
"You know, my piano instructor used to slap my wrists if I got so much as one note wrong," Huiju says by way of greeting when her eyes land on I-rang. "I heard what you told your student in there. You've gotten way too soft, daebi-mama."
I-rang sighs. "What are you doing here?"
Huiju raises one perfectly waxed eyebrow. "I was bored. I thought you would welcome the company. Or the chauffeur service, whichever you prefer."
"I would prefer if you didn't terrorize my students every time you came here."
"Terrorize?" Huiju scoffs. "I'm great for business! Your waitlist doubles in size every time I make an appearance. You should be grateful."
Every second Thursday of the month, Huiju parks her red convertible on the street in front of I-rang's house, completely disregarding I-rang's warnings. My neighborhood is generally safe but you shouldn't take risks, she would say. To which Huiju would always counter, I think I liked you more when my safety was the furthest from your concerns, unnie.
They've been having lunch on the same day, same time, for almost three years now. The first few times had been pleasant enough, propped up by an amicable silence that was interrupted only by updates on the abolition of the monarchy. They would spend at least an hour talking about changes in foreign trade diplomacy or modifications to property laws. In the beginning, this rotation of mundane topics where their interests overlapped seemed to be the only olive branch they extended to each other.
Neither of them really wanted to be the first to show any sign of discomfort, especially when Yi Wan had stressed how important it was for Yun to feel like his world was expanding, despite moving to a house that was a hundred thousand square meters smaller than the home he'd grown up in. Everything he'd known since birth had changed, and this had to remain a good thing. By the time they had left the palace, it was clear to I-rang that there were only three people who would do anything to keep Yun from thinking otherwise.
Seong Huiju, unfortunately, was one of them.
"Yunnie has been asking for a bass guitar," Huiju says forlornly as she cuts a slice of watermelon into neat cubes.
They're standing next to each other in the kitchen making hwachae, at Yun's insistence, of course. A tradition that began during their first summer out of the palace. I-rang had already prepared his fruit of choice, keeping cartons of blueberries and raspberries chilled in the fridge. Huiju had brought a jar of coconut jelly—Yi Wan's favorite, because they knew he would complain about its absence, and that would somehow lead to Yun whining alongside his uncle, even though he much preferred popping boba.
"He has been," I-rang echoes as she prepares to dice a kiwi. She doesn't think Yun has been getting enough Vitamin C lately, not since he'd discovered the existence of multiplayer games and blackout curtains.
Huiju sighs at I-rang's response. Once upon a time, she might have appreciated the willingness with which I-rang offers confirmation, but they have become better attuned to the subtext of each other's sentences, the evasion threaded through them. And anyway, I-rang finds that it's much more entertaining to nudge Huiju into showing all her cards first than to play willingly into her hands. Likely, this is a lingering effect from I-rang's time at the palace, where you were worse off when incapable of getting past veils of secrecy.
"Well, why don't you get him one?" Huiju huffs, her knife clattering across the chopping board after she set it down to give I-rang a belligerent look.
"Because," I-rang draws out with deliberate patience, her own hands stilling, "he only wants one to impress a girl."
This, predictably, delights Huiju. "Wait, a girl?"
"A classmate," I-rang corrects, unable to hide her grimace. "Apparently, she's been bringing her bass guitar to school and teaching him how to play a few chords during their breaks. But I have a feeling it's not just simple admiration."
Huiju snorts. "And you're what, deciding now is when you want to try helicopter parenting? He's thirteen!"
It's a kindness, I-rang thinks, that Huiju doesn't remind her that she'd already become the worst version of what a mother could be. That any mistake she makes now pales in comparison to the burden she'd made Yun endure for years.
"He is," I-rang repeats as she picks up the kiwi and slices it in half, smiling faintly when she hears Huiju groan.
Huiju suddenly peers at I-rang's face. "So, what's the problem?"
Nothing, supposedly. It isn't like I-rang hasn't trained herself to solve problems with terrifying efficiency. In the months that followed their departure from the palace and all its terrible constraints, this skill resurfaced every time they were at the supermarket, and Yun threw a tantrum because I-rang had limited his cereal choices to two instead of the five he had initially bargained for.
Secretly, though, she often found herself slipping his third option into the cart when he wasn't looking, because she liked that the moment she'd allowed him to be a child, he took it with little hesitation, exposing his heartbreak in public, which he'd previously only nursed in private. Away from prying eyes, just as she had drilled into him at an early age, and then, away from I-rang herself, which was a consequence she came to regret far too late.
Yun's moments of small rebellion made I-rang realize that it hadn't been too late for him. For them. She hadn't felt like an adequate mother until the first time she pulled a box of Honey Rings from the cabinet, and Yun grinned widely like he'd known all along that she would cave in.
But there is one problem she hasn't been able to resolve on her own. Not for her lack of trying as well.
"What am I supposed to tell him?" I-rang asks, training her eyes on the wooden handle of her knife, damp as drops of kiwi juice clung to it.
"About what?" came Huiju's puzzled reply.
"About his crush," I-rang answers, her hubris completely dismantled. She feels slightly ridiculous, but she holds onto the emotion to stave off the creeping specter of her incompetence.
"Well, to start, you don't have to say anything. He'll probably be embarrassed if you try to pry. So, unless Yunnie asks you directly, you can relax."
"Relax," I-rang repeats, bemused. "Has anyone actually ever relaxed just because someone told them they should?"
"I do," Huiju says so readily that it can only be a lie. "Maybe it's a class divide thing. Or a generational thing. People your age are too uptight."
"I'm only older than you by two years," I-rang says. She doesn't point out that Yi Wan is, as well, because Huiju wouldn't welcome the overture. Or the reminder that she's missing an opportunity to subject Yi Wan to her teasing.
"Exactly," Huiju replies, undeterred. "That means you have twice the wisdom to give to him."
Perhaps that was true about I-rang once. She often weaponized the knowledge she had, and even the knowledge she didn't have, because this had always been her first line of defense. It prepared her for combat while ensuring that she retained her composure, or at least the appearance of it. But this hard-learned survival tactic was the first she let go of when she realized that humility could take her much further in life, in ways that truly mattered.
Of course, so did honesty.
"I've never really been in love," I-rang admits.
Huiju hums, reaching for her tea and sipping it slowly. She sets it back down before she glances at I-rang. "Not even when you were convinced my husband should have taken the throne and married you?"
I-rang had had a few crushes in middle school, boys whose achievements she knew by heart because she'd heard her parents list them to her after every function she was made to attend. She understood the reasons behind each wave of attraction, but the actual experience always felt impersonal. It wasn't until she'd been put in the same class as Yi Wan and saw with her own eyes that it was possible to be kind and not simply capable that she felt a tug deep within her.
What I-rang felt for Yi Wan had been ambiguous, at best. Misleading, at worst. Something that should have hinted at the shape of love, but instead only served to isolate her from the feeling. She understands it for what it is now: sympathy for their shared cage, envy for the ease with which he chose to be kind despite the oppressive weight of clipped wings.
I-rang laughs. "Especially then."
"So, you're what? Worried you'll give Yun the wrong advice? Ruin his life?" Huiju asks, uncannily sensitive when I-rang least wants her to be.
I-rang inhales sharply. "It's so easy to say one thing and have your child look back on it as the set of words that made their life worse."
What do you think about becoming the Crown Prince's wife? I-rang's father had posed this question when she was thirteen, his tone ominous despite the excitement on his face. Should you wish it, I can make it so that you will fall in love and raise a King.
In that moment, the order had seemed wrong to her, though she couldn't figure out how. She only knew that something was misaligned from both directions.
At that age, she used to spend her Saturday mornings in the servants' quarters. She didn't visit her mother's dressing room to watch her mother's elaborate makeup routine like the other girls in her class said they liked to do, expecting to be rewarded for their patience with scraps of gossip about corrupt public officials or illegitimate children. Instead, she would ask to polish silverware until it shone like her mother's jewelry and practice carrying large trays of tea and snacks like the maids often did when her father had guests over.
It was silly, really, but she'd been so jealous of their grace, instilled in them through the practice of keeping a single tray even and upright. She remembered how she would place all her hope and longing at one end and her fear at the other, daring herself not to be able to balance it. Maybe it was this obstinacy that proved to her father how valuable a pawn she could be, but if he'd taken a second to look closer, he might have seen the bravado it concealed, the cracks where a clear resolve should be.
You are to be the Crown Prince's wife, her father had declared on the day she turned eighteen, a life sentence she had mistaken for privilege. Love, even. Which, at that point, she was aware was the only thing she had lacked.
For years, she refused to look too closely at Yun's face. Too fixated on the crown above his head that it overshadowed every shift in his expression, every cry for help.
"I don't—" I-rang pauses, biting her lower lip so hard that she faintly tastes blood. "I don't want to give him any reason to hate me. I've been doing a good job so far, don't you think?"
Huiju seems to find that amusing. "Unnie, he's going to tell you he hates you," she chuckles.
"What?" I-rang blinks.
"Maybe he'll even scream it to your face."
"This is your version of a pep talk?" I-rang asks with an edge in her voice. "That explains why you've never had friends."
Huiju's mouth dropped. "Min Jeong-woo—"
"Tried to assassinate your husband," I-rang says plainly. "Must you mention him to prove me wrong?"
"Well, you're not listening," Huiju retorts.
"Well, I don't want to," I-rang returns, too insulted to practice calm.
I-rang turns her back to Huiju, opening the fridge to take out the can of Milkis that she'd specifically told Yun not to drink because they needed it for the hwachae. She hears Huiju call her name, and steels herself before she turns around. Huiju is leaning back against the countertop, studying I-rang with a scrutiny that feels very exact. I-rang finds herself frozen under it.
"I'm sorry, okay? I probably shouldn't have phrased it that harshly," Huiju says after a while.
"It's fine," I-rang replies, reaching for the large glass bowl she'd set aside so they can finally finish making hwachae. "We can just move on."
"No, you need to let me explain," Huiju presses. "Sometimes, it's okay to ask that of people—of me," she continues, in a tone that conveys she thinks I-rang is being purposefully obtuse.
I-rang sighs, closing her eyes. When she reopens them, she finds that Huiju is still staring at her. "Fine, explain then," she prompts, which makes Huiju smile faintly.
"When I was younger, I felt like all I had were my words. Even if I hadn't been confident, I would demand something from my father because all that took was to say 'I want this' or 'I want what Taegu-oppa has.' Sometimes, I'd even tell him that I hated him just to get a reaction. Then, I'd leave the room, not even knowing if I would get what I wanted or if things would change, and still feel relieved. Because each time, I felt like I was making him listen to me."
Huiju pauses, and I-rang feels like she should probably say something here—interject, reassure. But Huiju takes that moment to slide the glass bowl towards her. Wordlessly, she places all the cut-up fruit inside, leaning her hip against the counter and glancing at I-rang.
"I was always more fixated on how the words I said made me feel instead of whether or not they were permanent."
I-rang huffs a laugh. "That sounds like you."
Huiju grins knowingly. "What, self-centered?"
"Or resilient," I-rang allows. "It's infuriating."
Huiju's smile shifts. "You know that my relationship with my father hasn't always been good. It was fucking terrible, especially when I was old enough to understand that his apathy was cruelty. But Yunnie is different. You aren't cruel to him."
"I was, though. Cruel to him, I mean," I-rang reminds plainly. No use in lulling themselves into a false picture of the past. "Wasn't I?"
"You're not cruel to him now," Huiju amends. "And you won't be in the future. Certainly not by choice anyway. So if Yun ever says that he hates you, you should know that he won't mean it in any real, irreversible way."
I-rang opens her mouth to say something—denial or acceptance, she couldn't say—but her words seem to cling to her throat. Wary as Huiju continues to watch her with unabashed concern.
The first time I-rang met Huiju, she had envied Huiju's shamelessness. Bound to the image of the Crown, and aware of the impossibility of her own scarcity, she'd tricked herself into believing that her appetite was repulsive. Whether it longed for love or for truth. Or for the assurance that she could still be a good person, should she be brave enough to choose to be. For a time, these seemed too difficult a commitment to someone as immovable as her.
She remembers the first evening she arrived at a home filled with laughter. How that had made her pause in the doorway, wondering if she'd made a mistake and entered a stranger's house instead. The rhythm of her footsteps padding down the hall seemed to echo in her head like a hurried funeral march, and her thoughts strayed to the tired question of what she could do differently to strip herself clean of cynicism. It made her wonder if other people had ever toed around happiness the way she was. If forgiveness were less a clean cut and more a bullet that rejected any exit wounds, merging with her guilt to push against her skin each time she forgot about its existence.
She rounded the corner to see that Yun and Yi Wan were pouring bright blue liquid into silicone molds, engaged in a heated debate about whether or not Yun could finish two popsicles before Yi Wan could polish off one. Huiju was standing off the side of the kitchen island, supervising more than anything. When she noticed I-rang, she smiled in that subtle way of hers that made I-rang feel that she was being mocked somehow. Her grin grew wider when she addressed Yun, a challenge gleaming in her gaze, "I don't know if your mother would approve of you eating two this late at night."
Three pairs of eyes flicked in her direction. I-rang ignored the ghost of a smirk gracing Huiju's face to focus on her son's pleading pout. "If you do, you can't eat anything sweet for breakfast tomorrow. Understand?"
"Yes, okay! I only need to prove to jageun-appa that I can eat more popsicles than him. You're the best, eomma!" Yun squealed, turning his attention back to the popsicle molds. Beside him, Yi Wan chuckled as he began to stretch in place, pretending to prep for a fight.
I-rang had made eye contact with Huiju then, who only shrugged at her, as if saying, do you see how easy it could be? Her expression held all the smugness of someone who had learned a similar lesson not too long ago, but it was authentic enough that it hadn't punctured I-rang's pride to accept.
"How do you sound so sure of yourself all the time?" I-rang sighs now. "It's really annoying."
"Years of pretend," Huiju laughs. "Also, I've been learning how to read tea leaves. You know, swirling them and watching them settle into patterns of fate."
"Are you serious?"
"I would never joke about fate."
"Well, you've never been the type to leave much to it," I-rang deadpans.
Huiju smiles at that. "It's not like you're any better," she replies, then purses her lips, momentarily lost in thought. "For most of my life, I acted first without thinking things through. And I don't think I've changed all that much since I was young. But the difference is that I have people around me who tell me when I take things too far."
I-rang can't help the laugh that escapes her. "Yeah, that happens more than you think."
"You do, too," Huiju returns predictably. "Just so you know."
"I do know that," I-rang says.
Some rational part of her can even appreciate the stability that Huiju's presence in her life offers. But something else also lurks in the back of her mind whenever she acknowledges the goodwill freely proffered to her.
"But you have never known what it was like. The desire to make amends," I-rang continues, keeping her voice even. "For all the terrible things you were made to do. For all the equally terrible decisions you made on your own after, because you no longer knew how to be the person you were before."
I-rang has never found the courage to say any of this to Huiju. It was a miracle that she'd even found it in herself to demand penance from Yi Wan, all those years ago, when every thread of her being had been begging her not to, the pretense of righteousness she once had to fall back on all but gone.
At the time, I-rang had felt a small spark within her, one full of growth and hope that she might change for the better. She had acquiesced to the entire country recognizing and reckoning with her mistakes until Yi Wan had refused to let them shape her, and by extension, Yun. So she fixed her gaze forward, all the while refusing to smother that nascent flame back into complacency. She thought that was the price she had to pay to belong to this world, to be available to it in a way that she had not been born for. Instead, all that seemed to do was force her to exist within an impasse: She should be proud enough to live out her second chance, but not shameless enough to forget what had cost her to attain it.
"You know, you are a surprisingly bad judge of character," Huiju replies after a while.
"How so?" I-rang tiredly inquires.
"What about my many philanthropic pursuits doesn't scream 'trying to make amends for being a conniving businesswoman for the better part of my adult life?'"
I-rang scoffs. "That doesn't count."
"Doesn't it?" Huiju challenges.
"No. You're simply taking responsibility."
"Which is what you think you've been doing," Huiju says. "When really, you've been trying to operate beyond the base morality of guilt, even though no one is better off with you claiming that what has gone wrong in our lives in the past is all your fault."
Huiju's words echo around in I-rang's head, but she keeps her face neutral, practically by instinct. "I want to set a good example for Yun. What kind of life am I supposed to be living if I can't teach him to own up to his mistakes?"
"A predictable one," Huiju deadpans. "That's what you want, isn't it? You don't want to have to be constantly alert anymore, waiting for someone to take this all away from you."
"Yes, well. I’ve been inundated with so many images and stories of who I am that sometimes I can’t really tell the difference between what I want and what I’m expected to want," I-rang says. Then, trying to pull back from the weight of their conversation, she adds, "This must seem trivial to you."
"Coming to terms with the past is hard, unnie. But you have to accept it and move on with your life," Huiju says, a hint of reproach in her tone. "And not in the way you've been attempting to, either. Like it's a sequence of notes you made up simply because it's what you think this imaginary audience in your head wants to hear from you."'
I-rang had only the most perfunctory of memories of her first week in their new house, desensitized in a way no shock or surprise had desensitized her before. Only one moment stuck out, when, on the fifth night, Yun had slipped into her room, asking if she could play something on the piano for him because he couldn't sleep. She sat up in her bed, stiff-jointed, and shuffled towards the piano by the window. The moon had provided her with enough light for each key to be visible. But, half-asleep, she couldn't seem to pull from memory a piece that she knew like the back of her hand. So she'd improvised, a second later, playing intuitively until she realized that Yun's soft snores had begun to accompany her song.
Since then, there has been a measure of intimacy with which she viewed spontaneity. Like everything in her new life, it was slow to take, as infrequent as it was desired.
I-rang glances at Huiju. "I don't know if I can yet. Sometimes, I think that this regret is what helps me wake up every morning."
"And when it isn't?" Huiju asks. "What does?"
"Mostly, the smear campaigns against your tailored suits on social media."
Huiju scoffs. "My suits are imported from Italy."
I-rang gives Huiju an unimpressed look, which makes her laugh. Moments like these, I-rang thinks, make her believe that it's a lost cause trying to efface herself underneath Huiju's tenacity. Huiju, likely understanding that I-rang needs the space to process the depth of her emotions, gestures to the bowl of hwachae in front of them.
"Shall we finish this, unnie?" Huiju asks, picking up the unopened jar of coconut jelly. "We really should reconsider the ratio of coconut jelly to popping boba, though. Unless Yi Wan wants to start a fight with me, he won't say a word about us using only half a jar."
Huiju, when she returns to I-rang's house that evening, is accompanied by Yi Wan and Yun, who'd picked her up from work right after they watched a benefit concert at Yun's elementary school. Their excited chatter can be heard all the way from I-rang's office, where she's been reviewing tomorrow's lesson plans for her students.
There's a soft knock on her door, and then the sound of it opening. She sets her papers aside when a familiar head full of messy hair appears between the gap.
"Eomma, did you have a good day?" Yun asks as he sinks into the chair across her table, his once-perfect posture nowhere to be seen.
"Mm," I-rang hums as she straightens in her seat to face Yun fully. "Have you eaten yet? Did you enjoy the concert with your uncle?"
"I don't even know if he was aware that I was sitting next to him the entire time," comes Yi Wan's impish reply. He stands in I-rang's doorway, leaning against the frame with a distraught expression on his face. "Yunnie was too busy staring at—"
"Ah, jageun-appa!" Yun whines, jumping to his feet. "Seriously?"
"Oh, sorry," Yi Wan says. He mimes zipping his mouth, biting back a grin when Yun lets out an impatient sound. "Go on and help your jageun i-mo take the hwachae out of the fridge," he says, whispering something else to Yun that makes I-rang laugh under her breath.
When Yun leaves, Yi Wan takes the seat he vacated, casually crossing his legs as he flips through the stack of papers I-rang had just tidied up. I-rang swats his hands away, huffing when this only makes him laugh.
"So, you are aware that you left Huiju to her own devices in the kitchen just so you can harass my son about his crush?" I-rang asks.
"I knew it was a crush!" Yi Wan's only grins wider. "And harass is a strong word, is it not? I only wanted confirmation."
I-rang blinks. "Wait, he hasn't told you?"
"Officially? No, he hasn't," Yi Wan shakes his head. "He said that he wanted to tell you first. That boy cares too much about what you think."
I-rang glances at Yi Wan, taking a close look at his expression. The quiet admiration carved into it is nothing like the disdain he once wore around her. Back when she still lived at the palace, she used to dream about the harsh line of his mouth and the storm in his eyes, the hatred in them would eventually become disembodied, fitting itself within the contours of another face, one that bore an eerie likeness to her son's.
That could have easily been her reality, had she not realized those dreams were actually nightmares. The very things she most feared coming true.
I-rang smiles lightly. "I care about what he thinks, too."
Yi Wan's eyebrows raise at that. "And here I thought Yoon I-rang didn't care about anyone's opinion of her."
"Sounds like a foolish woman to me."
"We live in different times, don't we?" Yi Wan muses, gesturing at the photo of I-rang and Yun on her desk.
They'd taken it in Gapyeong two winters ago, after she'd made Yun listen to the steady rustle of their boots against the concrete when he complained about hating how silent the season was. During the remainder of their trip, he began to tally more sounds. The occasional crackle of bare tree branches, the hushed fall of snow, the birdcalls. It was among her favorite memories.
"What makes you say that?" I-rang asks.
"I was raised without ever having hugged my father. Without ever eating my mother's cooking," Yi Wan starts, looking away from the picture frame to glance at I-rang. "But Yun—he throws his school bag on the couch and runs to your office to ask about your day and tell you about his. He couldn't wait to get home because you have his favorite dessert sitting in your fridge. He talks about you as if you're the reason he understands that any disappointment he'll encounter in his life will eventually come to pass. And you should know that you are. The choice you made to change has meant more to him than he can put into words."
For a few seconds, I-rang refuses to meet Yi Wan's eyes, momentarily paralyzed with gratitude. No one in her life has fallen victim to her misgivings more than Yi Wan. After all, she'd chosen to see him as the lone barrier wedged between her and absolute power, rather than the bridge that sought desperately to reconnect her to the person she failed to protect. So it guts her a little that he continues to ground her into this path that she knew he'd always seen for her, but struggled to take for herself.
Still, it is a lovely speech, all things considered. Though I-rang wonders how transparent she's become to attract such sentimentality. Despite all her hard-learned gentleness, she still feels a ripple of indigestion at the affection directed at her.
"Did Huiju put you up to this?" I-rang asks.
Yi Wan blinks at her owlishly, feigning innocence. "I have no clue what you're talking about."
"Always clueless," I-rang shakes her head. "You would have been an ineffective King in the long run."
"That I do know," Yi Wan says, grinning.
"Eomma!" Yun screams suddenly, the ferocity of his voice carrying across the room, clear as song. "We're going to finish the hwachae now!"
Huiju's voice, equally loud, follows. "I told him we should have dinner first, unnie!"
I-rang sighs, turning to Yi Wan, who looks thoroughly amused by the ensuing argument downstairs. "Aren't you glad that you and Huiju only have to meet up once a month?" he asks.
"You bring chaos to my house every week," I-rang faithfully reminds. "Or did you not promise Yun that you were going to clean the grill and cook outside next Saturday?"
"Ah, you caught that? That was meant to be a bribe to get Yunnie to tell me about his crush," Yi Wan huffs.
"A tacky bribe coming from the main beneficiary of our country's richest conglomerate," I-rang throws back.
Yi Wan only sighs. "I never knew mothers to be omniscient. I guess it's a superpower you've been hiding from us all this time."
Maybe it will hit I-rang, once she’s downstairs, that she was too caught up in the earnestness of Yi Wan's statement to refute it. But right now it’s a salve, the concept of being a good mother in this life, next to the absolute realness of Yun's impatient voice floating from somewhere in the kitchen.