The lands you’d grown up in were ravaged by war, famine, and disease, yet you’d survived against all odds. Back then, you knew him as Deung Yul-Cheon, and the two of you had made a pact to continue surviving in a world that would sooner see you dead. You took the pact seriously— trained yourself to become a woman that no man could resist —if only because that was your way of survival.

It didn’t mean you liked it, but it kept you alive, fed, and safe.

You just never expected to see Yul-Cheon again, not after he’d cast his old name aside and taken a new one. You knew of his ambitions— of the peace he wanted to bring to the world —but he was so different now.

More different than you expected.

“So this is where you disappeared to.”

He said it like you were the one to leave first, to abandon the other in pursuit of more ambitious goals.

“A Kisaeng seems like a regrettable choice.” You can taste the condescension in his voice, like a bitter tart on your tongue, and it makes your stomach curl. Or maybe it was because of the pipe he was smoking from.

You'd always been weak (weaker than him), but in front of this new Yul-Cheon, that weakness felt amplified; like a chill wrapping around your body, making you tense and stiff.