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As Yeo Wool wandered through the marketplace searching for a tangerine, he caught sight of a tiny girl and her older sister.  The small child’s eyes were lit up like the noonday sun as she pointed at a stand of rice cakes.  The older girl shook her head.  But it wasn’t their actions that drew his notice.  It was the fact that they were the spitting image of each other.  And of someone else.  Someone very dear to his heart.

Yeo Wool hadn’t seen her since they were children.  Sam Sook had been betrothed to an old man when she was yet a small girl.  And gone to live with his family before she even reached her adolescence.  But she had once been Yeo Wool’s good friend.

From time to time, Yeo Wool had thought of Sam Sook and wondered how she was doing.  She was twenty-four years old now.  A wife for many years.  Probably a mother too.  Was she here?  Were these girls her daughters?

He gaped at them as his eyes slid over their little forms.  Both had long, flowing, midnight tresses.  They gleamed brightly in the light of the sun which was now riding high in the sky.  Heralding the lunch hour.  Though the older sister’s hair nearly reached her waist, the smaller girl’s locks barely brushed her shoulders.  The tiny one suddenly forced her wee lip forward in a deep pout before a wail disproportionate to her compact size erupted from her bitty mouth.

Alarmed, a young woman turned towards that pitiful sound and softly rebuked both of her children while reaching down to grasp the smaller one by the hand.  Yeo Wool felt as if time had stopped as he stared at the troubled mother.  At a face that had changed.  Matured.  Grown somehow sadder over the intervening years.  He hadn’t seen her in over a decade.

But he discovered that his feelings had not changed.  Not one bit of his adoration of her had faded in her absence.  It flooded him at her unexpected presence.  That long-ago boy’s heartfelt devotion bubbled up once more.  To overwhelm him.  Nearly bringing tears to his eyes.

“Sam Sook?” he whispered.

But she did not hear him.  Her eyes were full of her children.  And tugging the tiny one along with her, she turned away from him.  He watched as the taller girl obediently followed her mother.

Sam Sook had two spitting images.  Maybe more?

He glanced around, his eyes searching for her husband.  But it appeared that she was alone today.  Wandering through the marketplace with only her daughters in tow.  He wondered if she’d ever had a son.  He winced as he remembered how her father had always wanted a son.  But after three wives and nine girls, he’d given up trying.  Sam Sook had tirelessly endeavored to make it up to him.

As his eldest daughter, she had engaged in masculine pursuits with her father.  In an attempt to grow closer to his heart.  She had definitely been his favorite.  Yet he had let her go before her eleventh year.  Sent her off to live with a husband forty years older than her.  Yeo Wool cringed as he thought of that little girl becoming the bride of a man old enough to be her grandfather.  It had always bothered him.  Even though he knew that it was common enough.  Especially in households that had to find husbands for so many daughters.

Her husband, Lord Jeong, had come to visit when she was but a child.  He’d been impressed by her incredible intellect.  And by the way in which she’d cared for her younger siblings.  And honored her parents.  Most especially, her father.  And Lord Jeong had sought her hand.  And whisked her away to another village a few years later.  It wasn’t far off.  Still, Yeo Wool’s path had never crossed hers in all the intervening years.  Not until today.

Curious, he followed her.  Wondering how she was doing.  And why she was here….