Futile Love

“Even if you’re the Crown Princess… ”

The Crown Prince’s cold eyes suddenly came to her mind. She also recalled his cold voice as he said she should not stand in his way. Her husband, the only person in the palace she could rely on as a young crown princess from another country, was just cold and scary.

“If I am destined to be the Crown Princess not favored by him…”

Kyosul was concerned about her life more than anything in the imperial Mok Kingdom, where the princes’ fight to succeed the throne was allegedly fierce.

Kyosul walked between the bookshelves of the spacious library. While smelling the musty odor of old books, she felt as if she went back to the library of her motherland. When she closed and opened her eyes, she felt as if she were already there in her motherland. It looked like Prince Mingung, her brother, was about to scold her with a smile for dozing off again.

While she scratched the back of the book with the tip of her finger, she stopped and closed her eyes. And when she opened her eyes again, someone with round lips was face to face with her to her surprise. That man with the long and round lips whispered into her ear, “I didn’t know I’d meet you here.”

When she closed and opened her eyes again, she saw a man’s face before her eyes. She briefly stopped breathing in surprise. She delicately scanned his face with her large surprised eyes.

His white and clean face had a soft jawline. His loosely raised topknot was covered with a monotonous decorative hat and several baby hairs flowing around his face. The back half of his hair was untied and drooped down. His smiling eyes were bent like crescent moons. His thin lips were bent opposite to his eyes, so the more he smiled, the thinner his lips became.

As far as she knew, that was the softest smile she had ever seen on a man. His lips that seemed to be painted with a fine brush stroke began to move. His voice, which seemed like the sound of the leaves blowing in the breeze and falling on a tranquil lake, filled the air.

“I didn’t know I met you here.”

When Ruhae spoke to her, she could barely breathe. She thought she had imagined him, but she was mistaken. Feeling relieved, she replied, “Oh, you’re Uljin Yu.”

“Princess, oh, you are…” Ruhae slurred while hesitating at the moment. Was she mistaken when she thought that his smile looked sad? “You’re now the Crown Princess.”

It was their second meeting. It was their reunion after only a few days, but their relationship in terms of royal title changed greatly. The rank of Prince Ruhae, the third in line to the throne of the great empire Mok Kingdom, and that of the princesses from the small and weak Hwa Kingdom were completely reversed. The princess of the small and weak kingdom had become the Crown Princess of the Mok Kingdom now, wife of the Crown Prince who had the strongest support among his royal family members and who was closer to the Emperor than anyone else. Namely, she had now become his brother, the Crown Prince’s, wife to whom he had to exercise due courtesy.

Ruhae felt bitter. Ruhae recalled the words that he repeated in his head.

When I see her, Woorum or Kyosul, let me say this to her.

He practiced and practiced saying it.

“Long live the Crown Princess! I’m honored to see you.”

Ruhae lowered his body. He initially leaned forward slightly but soon knelt down. While looking up at her, he turned his mouth up slightly.

“Ooops!”

Kyosul put both hands on her mouth, at a loss for words. She heard that kind of greeting before. On the day of the wedding, Bipaan, who appeared suddenly, received such greetings from the court ladies. After the wedding ceremony, she also received such greetings. In the imperial palace, the Emperor and the Empress received many more greetings like that. In the Mok Kingdom only the Crown Prince and Crown Princess could receive greetings starting with ‘Long Live!’. Even the Crown Prince’s second wife could not receive such greetings.

“Oh, please stand up.”

“Are you uncomfortable?”

“Well, I’m uncomfortable with you greeting me like that. ”

Kyosul spoke her mind frankly with a shy look. Though she hesitated at first, eventually she said what she wanted to. Though it seemed contradictory, that was exactly her way of speaking.

Ruhae burst into laughter before he knew. Clearing dirt on his knees, he stood up.

“You’re going to hear it from me often, so please get used to it.”

“In my home country, even my father didn’t hear such greetings, so I just feel embarrassed.”

That was true. In the Hwa Kingdom, they didn’t use any such greetings. She received such greetings numerously which even his parents King Chung and Queen Yo never did. Moreover, she didn’t like Ruhae’s greeting her like that, in particular. She felt strange about his greetings, unlike the court ladies’. The fact that Ruhae was treating her as his superior made her very uncomfortable.

“More than anything… I just feel it more uncomfortable to hear such greetings from Uljin Yu.”

“Well, what you’re saying is… ”

Ruhae’s soft tone stiffened. His heart sank. He felt she might misunderstand what he just said. Suddenly, the feelings that bothered him all night came to bother him again as they had on the wedding day of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess.

What am I doing now?

Ruhae smiled a humble smile to get rid of such rebellious feelings. Even a short silence seemed to make them feel uncomfortable with each other.

Ruhae quickly changed the topic.

“What were you doing in the library?”

“Ah.” She blushed at his question. “I was thinking of my brother. Though I didn’t like books that much, my brother loved books and learning. ”

“That’s why you cried a lot.”

“I really got along very well my brother. I still miss my elder brothers and younger brothers a lot.”

Her gaze was now fixed on a faraway place, her motherland. It was the first time that she left for a faraway place like this in her life. As she couldn’t go back, she tended to look back at her good old days while she adjusted to this new life in the Mok Kingdom. Above all, it was not easy for her to adapt to the difference in the cultures of the two kingdoms.

“I haven’t seen all the royal family members’ faces here yet. I hear the imperial palace is a busy place. ”

“That’s true. It’s hard for them to see each other’s face here.”

“I’m a bit bewildered.”

She couldn’t understand it easily because she got used to bumping into somebody once she exchanged greetings with royal family members every day.

“I have also heard about the royal story of the Hwa Kingdom. I was impressed because the atmosphere of your royal family was quite different from that of our royal family.”

“Well, everyone is friendly and caring for each other in my country.”

She smiled brightly as if she were in the royal court of the Hwa Kingdom.

Wow, she can smile brightly like that!

Ruhae looked at her smile delicately and remembered it. When he brought up the topic of the Hwa Kingdom, she began to babble on her episodes. She talked about her happy times with her brothers like they were a heroic story.

“So, I felt that each day was too short. One day, I felt it was so regrettable that it was getting dark already, so I hid behind a tree in the backyard with Yojin and insisted that this was our dwelling. Oh, Yojin is my younger brother, but we had the smallest age difference, so we always played together. Of course, I liked my elder brother, Prince Mingung, the most.”

Once she spoke, she didn’t stop. She was now about to reel off the stories about her four older brothers and four younger brothers. Obviously, she didn’t feel tired of talking about them with her small lips. He found her incessant talking interesting.

“When I first saw you, you cried a lot. So, I never thought you’re such a cheerful woman.”

“You must be kidding me. ”

She became sullen instantly. She wasn’t just easily moved to tears or bright smiles. She was honest about all her feelings. Even now her feelings of high purity were immediately expressed in her face. It was the first time he looked into such honest face. He felt the reason he was comfortable seeing her was because of a sense of relief that what he saw in her was her true face.

“No, I’m not joking. I am praising you.”

“It’s not like praise at all.”

“What I mean is that you are cute.”

Was it because he was already contaminated by her candor?

Ruhae said something inadvertently, which he should not have.

“Thank you for that,” she said.

But it was not Ruhae alone who was embarrassed at that moment.