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It’s somewhat eerie to write a letter which feels more like an obituary, but I suppose it shall have to suffice.
So, Kim Taehyung.
This is my final word to you, it seems. I hope this finds you in the best of health, and I can envision you smiling by your kitchen, fingertips only clean enough so as to not get any mud on my gift to you.
Or perhaps you aren’t smiling, because I hardly keep any secrets from you and you most likely already know what is happening.
I’m off to war.
With my coronation, it was inevitable. My queen begged of me not to leave, but you are the only person who came to my mind. There isn’t much left to say between us— I regret our situation deeply, but there is nothing I have left to say to anyone but to you.
Excuse my horrible handwriting, it’s quite nerve wracking to lay down my heart on paper for you with a war being held off not too far, but I wanted to confess that I love you.
I do, I truly do.
And perhaps it’s treason to love a man, but I cannot be loyal to an empire which does not allow me to be with the one who makes me happy. I see my wife but I look right past her.
In my dreams some days I will see you; in that one garment I gifted you, right beside me and I realise that I’ve made you cry more than laugh, but I envision you smiling. With the sun in your eyes, your hands in mine, and in those moments it feels like the world is at my mercy.
If I have you, I realise, I have the world.
Selfishly, I wish I’d never laid eyes on you. A beauty amidst the masses, so stunning. Maybe it was wrong for me to have looked on and on and on until my heart was bursting at the seams, but can you blame me? I apologise if this is unbearable to read, but I need for you to know.
You, out of everything I’ve known in the brevity of my life, are most precious to me.
Not my wife, not this kingdom, nor the crown upon my head.
You, just you.
And I wish I’d denied the alliance, I wish I’d let you into the palace and into my heart sooner but as I sit here with shaking hands and my impending death on the horizon, all I regret is not being able to kiss you once more.
Just once more.
Perhaps for good luck, or a kiss goodbye, even. Just one, because I will miss you most of all, my love.
And I do not send you this in order to sadden you, as I will not be there to wipe your tears. I send you this as an apology. My first and last apology, because I am, in most likeliness, dead by now.
I wished to right one wrong, and this is my pathetic attempt to. Kim Taehyung, in another life and another time, I hope I get to meet you again.
This is not an obituary, as much as it is a love letter.
Yours, Jeongguk.
— King Jeon Jeongguk (1618-1644) to Kim Taehyung, a letter that never got delivered.