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Mari opened the door to Insuk’s bedchamber.  It was immediately obvious that she shared it with three other girls.  The guard set the girl down in a chair before departing the room.  

Mari crossed the room to Insuk and asked her, “Can I help you get changed?”

A ripple of embarrassment flowed over Insuk’s face.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Mari assured her in a soft voice.  “We all need help sometimes.  One way or another.”

Insuk glanced up at her.  Then she sighed.  “My clothes are in that drawer there.”

Mari followed that directing hand.  As she opened the drawer and withdrew another outfit, she turned back towards the girl and smiled.

“Jimin must be absolutely crazy about you.”

Startled, Insuk stared at her.  “What?”

“To risk being flogged just to pick you a flower from the queen’s garden.”

As Insuk continued to look befuddled, Mari continued gently, “It’s quite clear he loves you very much.  It was written all over his face every time he glanced your way.”

“I think you’re mistaken.  Jimin and I are just friends.”

“Just friends?”  Mari chuckled.  “I think, my dear, you need to revisit that conclusion.”

“But how could a man like Jimin be in love with a girl like me?”

“A girl like you?” Mari quirked a dark eyebrow at her.

“You know…” Insuk glanced down at her legs. 

“You mean because you’re lame?  You think that would prevent a man from loving you?” 

Mari thought of her own scars.  The ones that were hidden from most of the world.  The ones Tae had discovered and lavished his love upon.  

“Let me tell you something about deformities.  When you find true love, it doesn’t balk at what repulses others.  Instead, it seeks to eradicate the pain such a scar has inflicted upon your soul.  It cares not for the brokenness.  Only for the broken heart.  If it can’t heal the deformity, it will lavish all its love upon the heart until it’s whole again.”

A tear slid down Insuk’s cheek.  “You don’t understand.”

“Oh!  But I do!”  

Mari turned around and unwrapped her hanbok.  She removed it before lifting her undershirt to reveal some of her scars to Insuk.  Before Tae and his healing love, she would never have shown her scars to another soul.  She had found them too hideous to admit to.

The girl gasped in horror.  “Oh, miss!  I am so sorry!  How did you come by those?”

“I was once a slave.  My owner liked to take out his anger on my back.  The worst of it left these marks in my skin.  Scars I thought would keep my husband from ever loving me.  But I was wrong.  So wrong.”  

A tear invaded her own eye as she recalled the many times Tae’s tender lips had slid across that knotted skin.  Those scars were still there, but the ones on her heart diminished a bit more every time he lavished his love on the ones he could touch with his lips.

Mari continued, “If anything, my brokenness made him love me more.”

“Now you’re talking about pity.”

“No.  I’m talking about compassion.  It’s a fiery force that can heal a broken heart.”  Mari paused to meet Insuk’s eyes before asserting, “I believe Jimin wants to heal yours.”

Insuk’s eyes dueled with Mari’s for a moment before the young woman’s face crumpled.  A sob escaped her as she exclaimed, “Oh!  If only that were true!  I once loved Jimin with all my heart.  But he never looked my way.  But now, you’re making me hope again…”

His own words – his marriage proposal – had encouraged her expectations to rise also.  Three years from now, she would be his wife unless he fell in love with someone else before then.

“Hope away.  The boy is nuts about you,” Mari declared confidently as she rewrapped her hanbok before moving to help Insuk change her own clothes.

Insuk felt her cheeks suffusing with heat.  Could it be true?  Could Jimin truly be in love with her?  How could she discover the truth without exposing her own heart to the pain of rejection?