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After Jung Sook left her, Mi Sook lay on her bed as the healing salve soaked into her skin and pondered all the things which her friend had told her.  How had she so misunderstood his words earlier today?  Was she completely losing her mind?  Maybe her father had hit her in the head today and knocked part of her brain loose.

She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep and dreamt of Dan Se.  She woke up longing for him.  She glanced outside, and the sun was setting.  She wondered if he had returned to the house yet.  But she didn’t want to move.  Her body felt calmer.  However, she knew that if she stretched, she would regret it.  So she closed her eyes and remained immobile.

But a little while later, a knock sounded on her door. 

“Come in!” she called.

A maid opened the door and brought her dinner in on a tray.

Disappointed, she directed the girl to leave it on the side table.  As the maid shut the door behind her, Mi Sook frowned.  She had hoped that Dan Se was standing on the other side of that door.  Apparently, he had taken her words to heart.  He clearly planned to leave her alone.  Her heart sank.  There was only one thing for it.

She climbed out of the bed and walked across the room.  Then she knocked on the adjoining door.  The one she shared with the next room.  His new room.

But no one answered her knock.  So she decided to eat some dinner.  Before enacting Jung Sook’s plan. 

If Dan Se wouldn’t come to her, then she would just have to go to him.

––

The moon was high in the sky by the time that he ventured upstairs.  Utterly exhausted. 

He hadn’t wanted to lie in bed sleepless tonight.  Without her.  So he had avoided his new bed for as long as possible.  He had even had a drink with his father.  Not normal behavior for them.  But it had been rather shockingly pleasant. 

He had informed his father of the treatment that Mi Sook’s father had given her this morning.  And had told his appa in no uncertain terms that Lord Man was to be banned from ever entering his house again.  If he couldn’t live with that, then Dan Se had promised to take his wife elsewhere.  Where she would be safe.

His father had surprised him by promising to bar her father from ever entering the premises again.  When Dan Se had told him how badly Lord Man had beaten her, his father had looked a little green around the gills.  And he had promised to protect her in her husband’s absence.

Dan Se had then informed him that he would not be absent for a month.  Unless the king changed his mind.  Which, at this point, would probably be a good thing.  Dan Se had no idea how he was going to occupy himself without his wife for the next month.  Avoiding her felt ridiculous after all that the king had done to free him to spend his time with her.  But Dan Se couldn’t bring himself to face her again.  He had no wish to upset her further.

He had stayed up late playing a rare game with his father. 

“Do you have some fondness for the girl, Dan Se?” the older gentleman had finally asked him after downing several drinks.

Dan Se had glanced at him dispassionately.  “Who, Appa?”

“Who?” he’d asked derisively.  “Your wife, of course!  What other girl is there to speak of?”

“I do not wish to speak of her any longer tonight,” was all Dan Se had responded.

“Eh?  What’s this?  Why don’t you wish to speak of her now?  You were quite keen on discussing her protective orders earlier.  You even threatened to remove my only daughter-in-law from my house if I didn’t agree to protect her.  Clearly, you have some fondness for her.”

“If it’s clear I have some fondness for her, then why did you feel it necessary to ask me if I have some fondness for her?” Dan Se asked logically.

“What?  Oh!  Dash it!  You’re just trying to confuse an old gentleman!”

“You are hardly old, Appa.  Can we not just concentrate on our game?  I am weary of discussing Mi Sook tonight,” he sighed.

The older gentleman studied his son thoughtfully for a few moments.  “Trouble in paradise already, son?” he asked with uncharacteristic compassion.

Dan Se shrugged.  “It’s hardly paradise, my lord.  My wife was beaten this morning within an inch of her life.  She has no need of my touch right now.”

His father frowned.  “But I don’t believe you’ve ever touched her.  You didn’t even spend your wedding night here with her.  Nor any night since.”

“Let’s just say that this isn’t the first time her father has laid a finger – or several hands – on her.”

“What?” the man gasped.  “He beat her before your wedding?”

Dan Se grunted.  He hadn’t meant to share this much information with his father.  What had gotten into him?

Too much drink, most likely.

“That man is a scoundrel.  Despicable.  How could he beat that sweet, little thing?”  His father gazed at him blearily.  “And how could you not warm her bed, Dan Se?  Have you no emotions whatsoever?  Are all your feelings dead?”

Dan Se just looked at him.  Then he mumbled, “Aye.  They died with Han Sung.”

His father frowned.  “A good many things died with Han Sung.  But you are the only son I have left.  And I am the only elder you have left.  I think that we should make the best of it.”

Startled, Dan Se glanced up at him.  “That’s just the drink talking,” he murmured.  “Tomorrow you’ll have no use for me again.”

“Ay, what’s this?” his father demanded.  “You think I have no use for you?”

Dan Se sighed.  “Appa, can we not just play the game?”

“No.  We need to talk this out.  You think I’ve no use for you?”

“It has never been a secret that all your hopes lay in Han Sung.  The last kindness I could do you was to marry his fiancée and preserve the family honor in some small way.”

“Is that why you married the girl?”

“What does it matter why I married the girl?”

“I imagine it matters a great deal to her.”

Dan Se snorted.  “It does not.  The girl despises me.”

“What?”  His father wrinkled his brow in confusion.  “I think you are wrong.”

“I am not.  I’m sleeping alone tonight, Appa.  And it isn’t of my own choosing.  I can promise you that.”

“Well, whatever you did to make her cross, go apologize to her.”

“Apologize to her?” Dan Se asked, astounded.  He had never heard his father apologize to anyone.

“Aye.  That’s what I did whenever I made my dear Se Ji angry.  Always got me back between the sheets with her.”

“Appa,” Dan Se breathed, nearly out of patience with the man now.  “I have no need to discuss your wives with you.”

“Are you sure about that?  Seems to me that you could use a little instruction.  I suppose that’s my fault for never putting you in the way of a woman.  You have no idea how to be around them.  But you need to be a quick learner now that you have a wife to please.”

“I am shocked to hear you admit that you ever sought to please a woman.  I thought you believed that your women were here simply to please you,” Dan Se spoke baldly.

“Aye.  I did feel that way from time to time.  Until I made one of them flaming angry.  Then only a bit of sweet coaxing would work.  I never had any taste for beating my woman.”

“Well, I am glad to hear it, Appa!” Dan Se ejaculated, a little shocked at the turn this conversation had taken. 

Most of his life, his father had said little to him.  Much preferring to let his grandfather raise him and Han Sung.

“Why, Appa?” he quizzed him suddenly.

“Why what?”

“Why did you give the raising of me and my brother over to your father?  Why didn’t you take us to task yourself?”

“The old bully wouldn’t let me,” he ground out.

“What do you mean?” Dan Se furrowed his brow darkly.

“I have no more fondness than you for getting my brains bashed in.  Who do you think the old man knocked around before you were born?”

Dan Se gaped at his father.  Completely stupefied.  And then immensely saddened.

“You didn’t think to protect your sons from his abuse?”

“Protect you?  How on earth would I have protected you from that sad, old man?”

“Taken our beatings for us?” Dan Se suggested.

His father was the one staring at him baffled now.  “Hmm.  I guess I always figured that if I tried to intervene, all three of us would get it.”

“So you let him beat a defenseless child while another vulnerable being stood by and watched?” Dan Se cried out in disbelief.

His father blinked.  “Well, when you put it that way, it does sound bad.”

“Appa,” Dan Se breathed, utterly shocked.  “It was bad.”

He downed the rest of his drink in one swallow.  And wished for another.  But his father had already drunk the whole bottle.

“I’ve had enough,” Dan Se declared and stood up.

“Come now, son.  I wanted to play you again.”

“Not tonight, Appa,” his son sighed.  “I have had a long and disappointing day.  It is time for me to head off for bed.” 

Alone.

“Aw, come on.  Just one more game.  And how about another drink?” the drunk man picked up the bottle and tipped it upside down.  Not directly over his glass.  So it was a good thing that bottle was already empty.

“Appa.  You already drank it all.  You should head to bed too.  Then in the morning we can discuss which of us is the more pitiful.”

“Pitiful?  Speak for yourself.  Who’s pitiful?  I’m not.”  He leaned forward until his forehead hit the table.

Dan Se winced.  But truly, he was used to seeing his father hammered.  Now he wondered if the man had simply spent his time drinking to escape the hardships of his life.  Not the least of which was that he’d lacked the backbone to stand up for his own children.

Dan Se felt incredibly sad all of a sudden.  Even more depressed than he had felt when he’d left Mi Sook’s bedroom earlier today. 

Was life always to be so disappointing?

How different might it have been if his father hadn’t lacked the courage to stand up to his own father?  And if his grandfather had possessed enough bravery to confront Minister Park?

Of course, knowing how merciless that traitor had been, they all might have found themselves poisoned had his grandfather stood up to the tyrant.

Dan Se heaved another deep sigh before heading to his new room.  Where he was going to fall into an exhausted heap.  Disheartened.  And alone.