It is when he is lying broken, bruised and bleeding on a floor that is too cold, in a room which is too dark that the memories filter through a hazy veil that flits back and forth between oblivion and wakefulness. Outside his mother’s heels walk away, he could hear her wheezing in anger, some glassware breaking before it is all swallowed by whimpers that escape his own bleeding lips and the burning in his ribs and silence that bids the memories to play over the darkness that takes him down.

In that life he is a prince.

The title burdens expectations on him until he is crushed under their weight, hopes of a clan - a mother who was stripped of her honor - of a sister who always chased after power. Tied to a marriage that supposedly saved his family, overwhelmed by the love of a wife for whom he felt only a little gratitude. He imagines of a stale world like that.

By the time the last rays of the sun vanishes outside, and the bleeding stops - his bones beginning to freeze from lying on cold for so long - the first image of her - rosy cheeked and beaming at him, returns. Her name leaves his lips in a cracked whisper, his hand outstretched as if they are still treading through ankle deep snow and she needed him to steady her - his fingers curl around nothing and dark spots dance across his vision.

“Soo - yah…”

In a field of yellow flowers, under soft sun and spring breeze, he watches how she smiles. Pretty - like an angel, and his heart is filled with hope. He lets the dark thoughts settle in place, too transfixed by the hope she brings. His angel of light - his saviour. He needs to leave this hell to find her and she would love him - smile at him like in those memories.

The next time the devil comes for him - he does not go without a sound. The memory is hazy when he thinks back he can hardly re - summon the confidence with which he related the last moments of his mother to Attorney Yoo. For he knows - in some corner of his mind - the fire didn’t start abruptly. Oh well - he remembers spilling the kerosene - he remembers the dark red that tickled down his mother’s forehead as she lay sprawled where he had pushed her.

He clumps down the memory. It was needed - it was his fight for survival. It was needed. As he learns of his true identity - of his real mother, more confident he becomes in his choice. He was never meant to rot away in shadows, but rise to light and find her.

But then his real family is as twisted as it had been thousand years ago. Expectations begin to pile on him - making him weary, making him stumble. He feels sorry for his mother - for all that she had gone through. But it is hard to forget she could have saved him a little earlier. It’s hard to look at her and not to recall the devil she had entrusted him to.

But she loves him. He makes peace with that. She tries to make amends. He could forgive her simply for how she avenges him on So. He is sure her bitterness has nothing to do with his past memories. It seems he is the only one who remembers. But it feels so satisfying to watch how the man who stole everything from him is being crushed in this life. He helps her along - keeps her secret, and prays in silence that it hurts much more than the boy lets on.

And in contrast to her hatred for So, her affection for him is boundless. Her love hardly washes away the scars of her absence yet he relishes every caress, every look of affection, of pride, every soothing word of praise. His mother - he clings to her with greed. His!

He works to the best of his ability, becomes the man she wanted him to become. He becomes her secret keeper, her right hand. He has no love for the brother she keeps hidden, but makes an effort so that he is the only other one who can tame him. He passes with flying colors so that she would hug him with the same bursting pride. A doctor who could infiltrate the ranks of the Hwang Hospitals, who could steal loyalty from those under Mu. He learns so that he could save those she wants to and finish off those she doesn’t want meddling in - with finesse. He feels like a magician dubbing in dark magic, as he learns how innocent things could be manipulated to cause harm that would never appear in charts.

He lets them bring the Hae girl into his life, lets go of his dream angel just for his mother - whose love he craves. But she holds too many in her heart. She praises Tae, beams at him with pride when he comes up with a new trophy to decorate her office. And he burns in the corner - too overcome by his own need to have her looking at him, to have her acknowledge what he is doing for her.

He complies when she asks him to make Tae even better. But the little monster stirs somewhere inside him. He chooses the drug carefully - it would increase performance just as she asked, but would destroy his mind little by little. He has made up his mind - he wants Tae gone. He was raised as a weapon, with love - but still as a weapon. He knows but to make peace. He makes peace with blood - by carving his way through enemies. He lets the darkness grow - lets the greed swallow him whole. He watches in silence as Tae grows into the demon he had carefully planed and savors the taste of victory as he too turns on his enemy from the past.

It is when he has his path set, his battles chosen that she appears again. The angel of his dreams. She looks younger - just like in his memories. A sweet teen girl - too kind, too caring, too concerned as she watches over So. He stumbles on them by accident, merely because he was looking for So - on his mother’s directions. Something burns inside him as he watches her stroking his hair, his head on her lap. Friends - the bitterness claws at him. His little brother has been keeping secrets.

He sees her again, a year later - at a Christmas masquerade ball their family had organized for charity. She makes a vision in a silver gown that floats around her like weightless clouds, her cheeks are dusted pink, eyes dancing with mirth - standing in a cozy alcove under a treacherous mistletoe with someone.

The girl who made him taste love - the woman who made him taste betrayal. He filters through memories of their fall out as she unties the strings of her companion’s mask, a shy smile playing at the corners of her mouth. He had died shunned away, locked up in a dying house under the command of the king she had enthroned in his place - the man she went to in the end - the man she chose over him.

It brings him no surprise to see that her companion is So, one of his hands resting on the bare skin of her back trailing up to the nape of her neck as she removes his mask.

“He was honest with me…” Her words cut through his conscience, and plunge into his heart, twisting there like a poisonous blade.

The fairy lights wink in soft hues of blues and pink, as So brushes a thumb over her cheek making her eyes flutter and shut a moment before their lips meet. He turns away as the need claws at him and fury burns him. He is proud of his control over emotions - he summons the same to keep his head as inwardly he is dying to punch the man who dares to steal her again. Instead he plots coldly to steal her back - this time to keep forever.

It comes together rather beautifully. He uses Tae as his weapon against So at first. It is too easy to fan his jealousy until it roars into a wildfire. He uses all the tools he can - to replace Myung Hee with Ha Jin. It is not so easily accomplished. So he turns to his mother’s only weakness - the son she keeps hidden. The man who’s sanity lies in a delicate balance - with his mother’s last plan to bring him into light being crushed brutally - her heart is still tender for him. He plans it slow - he plans it meticulously. Only his guess turns a little too correct. The man who had been tucked into the shadows of Haes for so long had indeed formed an attachment to the little fairy that keeps flitting around. A slight push down the steep ground - his beast of a brother begins to desire her. It is his plan - to make her his ardent wish, so that he could appeal to his mother’s affections and say… “let me bring him Ha Jin, let me marry her instead of Myung Hee.”

But his mother remains torn. She still has hopes of executing the original plan of switching the two, if it happens she tells him - its easier to let her remain with So.

He can hardly tolerate to watch how close they’ve come over the years. So he plays another card, before his little brother steals his love for good. That game ends with Tae’s death - at the hands of his pet. It wrenches them apart nevertheless. He fights hard to keep his smile in check as he watches the defeat settle on his brother’s shoulders.

He tells him how dark the memories would be - how the shock could have killed her. He makes So believe - letting her forget is for the best.

And So concedes, too easily that he finds it too good to believe. But his brother begs him to save her, heal her and protect her. Make sure she never remembers him as he goes away from her life forever.

Gladly…is the word dancing at the tip of his tongue - though he does not say that, instead patting his brother’s back in a pretence of understanding.

As So leaves, deceived, deluded and heartbroken, he begins playing his real hand. Finally Myung Hee has committed a sin that required her demise in his mother’s book, she is taken off the board and buried with their secret. Instead, Ha Jin takes her place and he chooses her new name. His heart bursts with a sense of fulfillment when Hae Soo wakes up.

At last - he feels. At last.

But the fates conspire against him - against his most ardent wish. When she is finally opening up to him, even if only a little - So enters their lives again. And she is drawn to him like moth to flame, the thought is acid on his conscience. He tires to tear them apart, keep her closer to him - make her his, before she is stolen again, but fate keeps intervening and she arrives drenched in his blood, remembering all that he tried to keep away from her.

He tires again, poking at the tender spots of So’s ego, wounds he himself had once cut open. The lie distances them only for a little while. He should not have played the same card twice - a fool’s move, he learns the hard way. The nineteen year old So had taken his words and bowed out, the man he has grown into still helps her escape. Snatches her from him even when he has no hopes of a future with her. It is what he always does, pull her along with him into the mouth of destruction. Ruin her - and leave her and the foolish woman seeks him out over and over again. Thousand years had been too little a time for either of them to change.

Wook knows - when he sees her again, when she turns away from the embrace he offers. Instead of her usual citrusy lavender, she smells of earth and spice - she smells like So. His scent clings to her, a taint nothing Wook does would remove and now that he looks at her with new eyes - he sees his brother’s claim all over - on her swollen lips, on her pale throat, seared into her very soul that she growls like a wolf when he tries to touch her.

Fury boils over him - burning under his skin, betrayal - he thinks - betrayal is all she had ever given him. And the woman has gale to raise her chin and look at him in the eye and tell him that she would never forgive him. When it is she who should be begging for forgiveness - for betraying him - for breaking his heart - for ruining the perfect life they could have had, had she stayed loyal to him. For his love for her is sullied by her actions - he would never be able to look at her without being tormented by the thought of her in his brother’s bed. He takes pleasure in compelling her to follow him back to the cage that awaits her - it means too little against the deep wounds she had given but still, it soothes him to know she was helpless enough to hurt So, it eases his heart to think that she herself had blocked all her routes of escape. With her own words breaking her lover’s heart, she had made sure that there was no one she could turn to - no one but him.

She would learn it in time - of what she had lost in her shortsighted fight for freedom, the cost of his love she will learn in time - when he breaks her and remolds her into the perfect lover, she would learn it all. It is only fair after all that he installs it in her so deep like a faith that he is the only one who could love her - that she will never raise her eyes to look at another. He had waited thousand years - it is only fair.

Blood trickles down her wrist, along her arm as he grabs hold of it. Her struggle is muted and in vain, carefully he examines the wound. The broken glass crunches under his shoe and the tremor in her pulse makes him heady.

“Hush sweetheart,” he coos when she whimpers at the pain that sears through her arm, his hold is a little too tight and blood gush out from where the skin is cut open. “It’s hardly deep enough to scar - we just have to remove the shreds of glass. It wouldn’t have happened if you just took the medicine instead of throwing a tantrum and breaking glass would it?”

“I didn’t break the glass.” Though tinted with pain, her voice remains firm.

“Of cause -” he concedes with a frown. “You squeezed it too tight that it broke. An accident I’m sure -” he continues as he works on her wound, pulling out each shred of glass with a surgeon’s precision. His words are cut off by her gasp of pain and he looks up at her, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Does it hurt?”

Silent tears run down her face and she remains mum, her lips trembling.

“Well now you can imagine how hurt I was when you left without a word - when I couldn’t find you anywhere.” He runs a finger across her knuckles, smudging blood against her pale skin. “Heartbreak hurts much much worse - sweetheart.”

She pulls her hand out of his hold abruptly, her eyes burning even in the dim light of the kitchen.

“Leave!” In the shadows Chae Ryung jumps at the tenor of her tone, but there is only ice in Wook’s heart. “I won’t have you stay - leave now, Hwang Wook Ssi.”

“Well then, I can only be glad that you are no longer the mistress of this house.” He tells her calmly. “You stay here - under my watch.”

There is a pause in which he watches the droplets of red splatter on the white marble floor. And he speaks again, softer - “You are bleeding Soo, let me dress your wound.”

“I can do it myself.” She says curtly.

“Careful Soo…” he chooses his words with caution. “Our bargain is delicate .” She goes still at the reminder, standing immobile as he draws her closer, and dabs the cut with disinfectant - holding the cotton swab a second too long simply to watch her eyes tear up. “How much you must love him to give yourself up like this…” He pokes at the still tender topic, with sugar coated words. “How unfair it is that he would hate you now… My poor darling…my -” he moves to kiss her temple only to have her draw back.

“No.” She says, her hand curled into a fist, her knuckles white.

“Soo -”

“You will not touch me.”

“Should I remind you that you agreed to -”

“I know what I agreed to Mr. Hwang. I will be your wife. But you will not touch me -”

“Do you even realize you’re contradicting yourself?”

Her chuckle in response is dark and void of real mirth. She pulls her chair back, folds her arms across her chest.

“You will not touch me because I will not accept you as my husband. I have never loved you and I will never love you. The price of our bargain is that I give up the man I love - not that I give up my love for him, or my self respect as for that matter. If you know me you must know that - I don’t dwell on half way houses, I’ve given myself - heart, body, soul to the man I love,” she takes a momentary pleasure in watching the fury twist and contort Wook’s face before calmly continuing. “I don’t bargain on my body. I don’t sell my soul. Any fantasy you have to the contrary you can kiss them goodbye now.”