As the years go by, life forces us to reflect. We discover, perhaps too late, that the only force that moves the world is love. But love is not a single substance; it manifests itself in the weight of a word, in the detail of a gift, or in the silence of an action. As we gaze at the blue sky, where isolated clouds follow the erratic flight of birds, we understand its fleeting nature: some are designed to love many times, while others have only one definitive shot. We often confuse wanting with loving, without understanding that there is an unbridgeable gap between the two.
From this place whose name I prefer not to mention, I try to rescue what fear forced me to let go, aware of the repercussions that love has embodied in my skin. I am Haneul, a scholar who serves the Joseon dynasty from the shadows, for in this century knowledge is a privilege reserved for men. Every morning, before reporting to Cheomseongdae, I perform the ritual of drinking tea. It is a delight to watch the dawn paint the sky; its colors restore my joy, while the warmth of the air adds a magical touch to the day. Nothing has a purer scent than the wind brought by birds on their first flight.
My father, a man of renown, was in charge of supervising the court's astronomical findings. I grew up in his shadow, secretly assisting him in his studies under the instruction he himself gave me from the cradle. I watched him admire the sky with an almost religious devotion, and as the winters passed, I educated myself in the silence of books to become his hands and eyes when old age caught up with him.
Nothing fascinated me more than deciphering the mysteries that occurred above our heads, both under the sun and in the depths of the night. I had a natural aptitude for reading, capable of spending hours devoted to the sky and the stroke of the brush on paper. However, my mind was not a prison: I was outgoing, with an easy and loud laugh. I liked to run until I was out of breath and climb the highest cliff just to feel a little closer to the moon.
My days passed in a monotony that I loved; it was the only world I knew and the one I hoped would accompany me until my last breath. But one night, as I climbed the cliff to watch the moon, the silence was broken. At Cheomseongdae, scholars worked on maps such as the Cheonsang yeolcha bunya jido, tracing constellations inherited from ancient dynasties. It was then that I heard footsteps: loud, precise, marking a march that grew heavier as I gained height.
I spotted the men arriving at the observatory in formation. They wore leather armor and carried bows, arrows, and swords that glinted in the dim torchlight. However, one of them immediately caught my attention; his presence was an anomaly in that stone courtyard. He stood at an imposing height, a figure of six feet two inches that cast a long, protective shadow on the ground. It was not only his size that was intimidating, but the almost divine symmetry of his features; he had one of those faces that seem to have been sculpted by the gods in a moment of absolute inspiration.
His lips, a natural and delicate pink, contrasted with the severity of his marked jawline, inviting forbidden curiosity. He had a clear complexion, a porcelain pallor that, far from being fragile, served as a canvas for the small scars of war that told his story of survival. Every feature in him was a promise of perfection: a harmony of angles and softness that forced the gaze to linger, to lose itself in the details of a profile that did not seem to belong to a mortal, but to a living legend walking among us.
Suddenly, the echo of laughter broke the night. It was my father, calling my name with the desperate joy of someone searching for a treasure to deliver. As I hurried down the cliff, my feet betrayed my balance on the rocks; I stumbled, but instinct drove me to run even faster toward the refuge of our home. I needed to clean myself up before facing his gaze.
As I pushed open the door to his chambers, I stopped dead in my tracks. My father was not alone; the shadows of two unknown men were cast against the walls of his Sarangchae. His eyes burning with excitement, he urged me to come in, oblivious to the fact that I was a mess, my clothes stained with blood and mud, my hair tousled from the agitation of my escape. "I can't come in, Father, I'm not clean," I replied urgently, backing away from his insistence.
It was then that a deep, fearsome voice cut through the air: "Give your daughter time to clean herself up; she must present her greetings with the formality she deserves." Those words terrified me. I fled to my room, escorted by my Momjong, feeling my body tremble with the violence of someone walking to the scaffold, as if the simple act of being seen were an unforgivable crime.
In the safety of my chambers, the silence was broken only by my gasping breath and the feverish movements of my Momjong. She, with the efficiency of one who knows my secrets, began to strip me of my dirt-stained clothes and that forbidden freedom that still pulsed through my veins.
The hot water in the porcelain bowl gave off a steam laden with the scent of plum blossoms.
As I washed my skin, the sting of dried blood on my knees was a physical reminder of my clumsiness on the cliff. My hands trembled. It wasn't the cold of the night that made me shiver, but the echo of that deep voice that had interceded for me. How could a stranger read my need for shelter before even seeing my face?