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SHE SEES THE THUNDER, THE LIGHTNING, THE RAGE (that's all she is too)
During the first days, Go Hyang is a shadow. Woon does not see her, but catches a glimpse of her in the corridors of Heuksa Chorong's headquarters when he leaves his small bedroom on rare occasions, spots her at every turn, hears the rustle of her skirt as she slips into one room or another, most often into the Sky Lord's quarters. When he passes by Chun's apartments, the doors of which always seem to remain locked, and to conceal the secrets, the deceptions, the underbelly of power and sky, he sometimes slows down and listens to the conversations.
Go Hyang's voice, if she is visiting, and she does so regularly during the aftermath of the crown prince's assassination, when the kingdom is a huge crack that the norons, the minister of war and his old friend, the king of assassins, the master of the sky, are constantly trying to fill, has no face. Nevertheless, it contains characteristics, clues, that Woon perceives and gradually gathers to form a figure, attitudes and a temperament.
Her tone is always firm, always even. She never raises her voice when she answers Chun, or suggests an idea. He never sees her go in or out. She escapes him completely, like Ji-Seon, walled in her room, silent, indifferent, distant. Both of them run away from him, each in their own way. Woon remembers his own evasions of Dong Soo's questions, his withdrawals when he was younger, the isolation he sought, far from others, far from looks, far from curiosity (far far far away).
Without mercy, without hesitation, Go Hyang and Ji-Seon act in the same way, withdrawing, wanting to be invisible. They play cat and mouse, but they are clever, subtle, quiet. Woon doesn't stand a chance. You want to be the cat? They ask, smiling in their own depths, in their secret interior. So be it. You shall be the cat. Catch us, if you can. He launches himself after them, tries to adopt their strategies, progresses in the dark. They escape every time.
He comes to understand the frustration Dong Soo most likely felt himself when seeing Woon slip through his net, fleeing his control, shutting himself in. You can't catch us, the mouses say. You can't catch me, he had thought years earlier, weeks earlier, when Dong Soo had asked him "why?"
(deal with the silence)
He only meets her after three weeks, the time for his own ugly and voracious wound to heal, for the betrayal expressed in his flesh to close, and for the poison to flow inside his veins, forever (and ever and ever and ever). Dong Soo made sure Woon would never forget. Maybe one day Woon will return the favor. The idea keeps him awake at night, torments him, fills him with excruciating satisfaction, jubilant horror.
Ji-Seon does not speak to him, continues to run away, lays accusing and beautiful eyes on him, like the burn of a white-hot blade. He meets Go Hyang while being lost, under a mask of false determination that the last decade has sculpted to perfection. He has been living with lies for so long that he worries, at times, about the possibility that he has come to believe them too.
Woon-ah, you're so good
Woon-ah, you are so clever.
Woon-ah, you are the wisest and most reasonable.
(Woon-ah you killed your father Woon-ah you lied to us Woon-ah you're a murderer Woon-ah Woon-ah you'll never catch us again never again)
Go Hyang's eyes cut through him like a glass blade when she raises them to face him. She bows, then looks at him, and as she looks at him, Woon hears the voice in Chun's apartments, the whispers of the fabric of her skirt on the floor, the figure disappearing into the corners, the mouse escaping. Her eyes are steely, molten, monsoonal torrents. Eyebrows barely frowning, she looks at him, and Woon sees what she sees in her eyes, understands that he was never the cat, but simply another mouse, and perhaps all mouses are cats in the end, and the roles reverse and readjust according to situation and status.
Go Hyang's eyes say "caught". She knows. What exactly, Woon can't explain until much later, but in that moment, during which their eyes meet, he knows she knows, and cold sweat runs down his spine as Go Hyang watches him with a wise steadiness, a quietness that knows, that has always known, that reads inside his substance and extracts from it all she needs to work with him. Of her, he will never really know anything. Of him, on the other hand, she knew everything within the blink of an eye.
Go Hyang is a courtesan, accustomed to serve, smile, obey. According to Chun, she has stronger nerves than all the men in the guild, including Woon and the Sky Lord. Never underestimate your opponent, Woon, he tells him, hand on his shoulder, glancing at the gisaeng, the tender courtesan, the one who lowers her eyes with respect and raises them with defiance (you never know what people are behind closed doors). She bows to him, answers him in a soft, controlled voice. On the surface, she plays her role to perfection, submitting to his will as well as Chun's.
Nevertheless, she remains desperately out of reach, holds her cards firmly against her heart, and reveals them only sparingly, meticulously choosing which ones are most likely to be favorable to her. For Chun, she adopts a respectful docility, nods her head at his command, goes to meet Ji-Seon, examines the map painted on her back. At first, she does the same with Woon, thinking that the heir has the same expectations as the king, that their desires are alike. Woon barely sees her adjusting to him, adapting like a snake wraps itself around the branch of a tree or an animal.
She shows him nothing.
Dong Soo and Cho-Rip have always made a display of their feelings like expensive works of art, barely caring about restraint or modesty. Go Hyang and Ji-Seon are walls he crashes into, birds he can't capture, can't understand, but they read him, split him open, inspected his desires and moods in one glance, and (know). One of the most valuable skills for a assassin is to learn to offer no opening.
None of them needed to wait for Woon to present his neck or side. With a single look, they cut everything to the bone, and they see, now, they see everything and without reservation, as if Woon were naked, vulnerable, a fledgling unable to defend. They see and show nothing in return, and the mouses becomes two huge cats, with black pupils as wide as the moon.
Ji-Seon's eyes say that she doesn't want to be there, not with him, not with anyone, that she wants peace or revenge, either way. Go Hyang, on the other hand, is more curious. She belongs to Heuksa Chorong, and her prison is Woon's, not Ji-Seon's. She does not disapprove of his choices, because they are also hers. She sees the assassin, the future Sky Lord with a bloody sword, and she does not move back, does not look at him with horror, nor is she frightened in his presence.
She holds his gaze, sees everything, the kid who killed his father, the boy who betrayed his friends, the killer wanting to rule over others, the ambitious man wanting to rise up to the clouds, and nothing offends or shocks her. She simply tilts her head, follows his directions, smiles politely and answers when he asks her questions.
Once Ji-Seon is gone, he comes to her, sometimes. She sits with him, facing him, her face both open and closed. Her features are beautiful, her eyes peaceful, her lips barely smiling. He spots a glint in her eyes, something different. But he never sees anything else. She rarely initiates conversations, except when she has vital information to share with him or pressing suggestions to make. She listens.
She never says to him, "Woon-ah, that's wrong," or "Woon-ah, what did you do? ". She never runs away like Ji-Seon. If she doesn't give him anything to see, it's not because she despises him, but because she is made that way. Gisaengs and assassins differ only in the weapons they use, ultimately, seduction or threat, blade or clothing. But both lurk, waiting for their prey to take the bait.
The game is the same.
(Never underestimate your opponent)
To Go Hyang, he comes to tell things, to reveal things. They escape him, like the two women. In most cases, they are not very detailed. He utters a sentence, a word, but Go Hyang does not ask for more. She understands in a natural way, without needing any clarification or enlightenment. She never requires anything from him. She does not reproach him for anything. She often brings him tea, without him demanding it.
She delivers his messages, gives him information, obtains things for him. She does not tell him that he is the most reasonable, or the most gifted, or the most generous. She never adds that she relies on him, because someone has to deal with Dong Soo's nonsense and motivate Cho-Rip. She doesn't scold him. She doesn't rave about his accomplishments, doesn't get horrified by his murders.
She knows. She understands. The rest is of no importance to her.
Go Hyang is not Ji-Seon. She is not Dong Soo either, or Cho-Rip, or Sa-Mo, or all the others he grew up with and lied to. She has seen and figured out every facet of him. He doesn't have to lie to her: she already knows everything. She will never look at him with fear, wondering why he did what he did, asking "why?", being confused by such an outcome. Go Hyang sees and accepts what she sees.
Dong Soo has only ever had half the information, and because of that, he believes in chimeras and in Woon the nice guy, the one with the good heart, the one who would never kill anyone. Bad pick. Woon loves him, but his love is based on lies, on another fantasy. And he is almost certain that Dong Soo hates him, now. He saw Woon's face entirely, everything underneath the mask, and (he didn't like it).
No matter his affection for Woon, no matter that they grew up together, no matter the brotherhood and rivalry and love. All lies. Clouds of smoke. Dong Soo wants a Woon that doesn't exist, because Woon was never more than half himself when he was with him.
And Woon is tired, tired of playing the double agent, tired of hiding, tired of lying and not being seen.
But Go Hyang sees him, and does not ask him to become another, to be something other than what he has always been deep down. For Woon, the liberation of such a realization has the same violence as Dong Soo's blade lacerating his side, and yet it is kinder, sweeter. There is definitely something good about dropping the act, letting himself be seen in full, and realizing that Go Hyang doesn't care.
He thinks she loves him, sometimes, in the grip of an incongruous feeling, an old primal instinct.
"Stay," he asks her one night, in his room, after he has killed Chun, usurped the throne, earned his crown as Sky Lord.
"My lord?" She asks, gently, kindly.
She does not question him further, nor does she protest. Woon looks her in the eyes. She holds his gaze and does not flinch.
Later, he lays his head on her bare breast, in her warm, reassuring embrace, in the tenderness and total acceptance she offers him. Go Hyang's long fingers curl into his hair. My lord, she whispers.
(Caught)