Chapter Text
1
The first time Cheoljong encountered the name, he really didn’t pay attention to it. It was carved in stone with the rest of the queen’s parting words:
‘I came for no reason and I'm leaving. Jang Bong Hwan’
At the time, Cheoljong didn’t even spare a thought for the name on the stone. He barely finished reading the message when he was jumping right into the lake. The queen had just tried to take her life again, and he couldn’t let that happen.
She had not been thankful at all for his actions. If anything, she seemed angrier at him than ever before (which was saying a lot, as the queen never shied away from showing her anger at anyone, and most of all at Cheoljong). In her rage, she just kept screaming at him about the ‘No Touch’ rule. Which Cheoljong found frankly confusing, as ‘No Touch’ meant living a happy and fun life. By stopping her from ending her life, he was helping her live by the ‘No Touch’ philosophy.
The queen’s lack of gratitude was of no consequence. He didn’t save her to hear a thank you. He knew she would be thankful eventually to not have ended her life that day. Whether she admitted it to Cheoljong or not was irrelevant to him.
It was only later when the queen was safe and sound in her bedchambers and he was alone with his thoughts that he remembered the name on the stone. It was odd that the queen had carved another person's name in what she intended to be her last words. Who was this person? Why were they so important that the queen thought about them at such a moment? He had paid so little attention to it; he couldn’t even remember what the name was. It seemed like such an unimportant thing at the moment, but if that person was in the queen’s thoughts when she was about to attempt against her life, it was not unimportant to her.
That person’s importance in the queen’s life was probably monumental.
That night he was unable to fall asleep because all that occupied his mind was the queen and the mysterious person. He finally gave up and went to the lake. It was impossible for the king to just sneak out of his bedchambers, so as protocol dictated, he was followed outside by his retinue of eunuchs and guards, but he ordered them to stay a couple of meters behind him. Somehow, it felt like an awful violation of the queen’s privacy to just be here, reading the stone again. Even if it was in a public area and technically anyone could read it at any other moment of the day, Cheoljong still felt uncomfortable letting the retinue get closer to the stone.
With his hand, he traced the name carved in the stone: Jang Bong Hwan. A man's name.
Who was this man to the queen? Why was he so important to her? Was he maybe a past lover? A father figure? Or a brotherly one? Maybe even a young boy for whom she felt motherly affection?
Or maybe it was not someone she loved at all.
Maybe the name on the stone was that of someone the queen hated or feared so much that it had cornered her to attempt her life. After all, what name do you write on your suicide note if it isn’t the name of the person that makes you take your own life?
(Or maybe that’s what Cheoljong wanted to believe to calm his guilt. He wouldn’t have a reason to feel guilty if it wasn’t the action of him and his family that had led the queen to that lake. It would be easier if this were all the blame of Jang Bong Hwan.)
He returned to his bed chambers, more for his retinue’s sake than his own. It was a chilly night, and he didn’t want them getting sick because of him.
He laid on the bed thinking about this Jang Bong Hwan all night. Without even knowing anything else besides the name of the man, just the idea that he was the person responsible for the queen’s suicide attempt made Cheoljong boil in rage and hatred for the man. What had that man done to the queen? How had he hurt her so much that she thought of taking her own life? What kind of monster was he to hurt someone to that extent? A variety of horrifying possibilities passed through his mind.
Cheoljong wanted to take revenge. With the resources he had available as the king, it wouldn’t be too hard to find him. But he needed the queen's help in recognizing him. What were the odds there was only one Jang Bong Hwan in all of Joseon? And even if there was only one, he didn’t have a clue what the man did to the queen. He doubted the queen would like to help him do anything, as she seemed to despise him with good reason, so he decided not to tell her anything yet.
A few days later, the investigator he sent came back with the news that there was no one by the name Jang Bong Hwan in Joseon.
2
Cheoljong didn’t forget about his attempt to find Jang Bong Hwan, but if the man didn’t live in Joseon, then the chances of finding him were significantly lower, if almost nonexistent. And with everything that was going on in the palace right now, his investigation was moved to a lower priority on his list. He was not expecting to come across the man’s name again soon, especially not from the queen’s lips. Especially not in the context of the conversation they were having.
He didn’t know what had made him ask the queen who was the person she cherished the most, but her answer, for some reason, was of critical importance to him. Her reply that the people she cherished the most were Hong Yeon and Court Lady Choi, as heartwarming as it was, was not the answer Cheoljong was looking for.
“Among men, whom do you cherish the most?” He hated the tiny tinge of desperation in his voice; he hoped the queen didn’t notice.
She seemed to struggle with herself for a bit before replying:
“Jang Bong Hwan.”
Jang Bong Hwan! How dare his queen say another man’s name when she was married to Cheoljong. Shouldn’t Cheoljong be the answer? Shouldn’t a married woman cherish her husband more than any other man in the world? Especially the name of that man who had tortured her so much she had tried to take her life.
Well, he didn’t know if that last part was true. That was just a theory after all. With this new revelation that Jang Bong Hwan was the man the queen cherished the most, he was looking at the inscription on the stone from another perspective. So he was right with his very first theory, that this was a man so important to the queen she would think of him in what she thought were her final moments. Who even was this Jang Bong Hwan? Where would the queen meet him if he didn’t even live in Joseon? What made him so special that the queen would consider him the man she cherished the most?
“Who is he?” asked Cheoljong, trying (and failing) to keep his voice even and not to show her how much he needed to hear the answer.
“The one and only most perfect man in the world. He is the most charming man I know.” How could she say that so carelessly?
Cheoljong was a man, and she knew him; she was married to him. Even if their marriage had been arranged for them and not one that came to be out of love, still, how could she say that Bong Hwan was the most charming man she knew?
He didn’t even need to ask her to elaborate because she seemed happy to sing Jang Bong Hwan’s praises.
“I mean it; he doesn't have a single thing missing. Looks are looks, and personality is personality. And those amazing knife skills of his…” she sighed dreamily, “the ultimate existence who is even perfect in books too. Damn, he is the best. He's always refreshing, so thrilling.”
She was dripping with enthusiasm, completely ignoring how every word was cutting Cheoljong, how the anger was boiling inside the king.
“Then, why aren't you with such a man that you cherish?” he asked, not even attempting to conceal the venom in his voice.
“Exactly.” That single word hurt more than her whole previous speech about the many virtues of Jang Bong Hwan. “Because I couldn't be with him, it's more ardent, more regrettable, and more heartrending. It's driving me crazy, really.”
She sighed, and Cheoljong reached the horrible realization that probably the reason why she couldn’t be with the man she loved was that she was forced to marry Cheoljong. He knew she hadn’t entered the marriage willingly; he didn’t either. It had not been a happy marriage, at least at the very beginning of it. In the earliest days of their marriages, he would’ve sworn he despised the queen, but those feelings were long gone. The queen had melted something inside of him and had slowly and steadily made herself a place in Cheoljong’s heart.
When he had entered the marriage with the queen, he had been heartbroken by the idea of being forced to wed a woman that was not Hwa Jin; it didn’t occur to him that the queen might be carrying a similar burden. Worse even, as Cheoljong at least was allowed to keep Hwa Jin in the role of Eun Bin, the queen would never be allowed to be with this Jang Bong Hwan again.
The whole situation was giving him contradictory feelings and confusing his head and heart. He found it heartbreaking that the queen was forced to marry a man she didn’t love when she was in love with someone else. He felt the dread the aforementioned man was himself. He felt like a hand was squeezing his heart because he had come to develop feelings for the queen, and the idea that she felt trapped married to him almost made him want to throw up. He felt upset because he had gotten over his feelings for Hwa Jin; shouldn’t the queen be over her feelings for Jang Bong Hwan too?
He wondered if she spent her nights awake thinking about Jang Bong Hwan. If Jang Bong Hwan was the reason why the queen was always so reluctant to kiss or touch her husband. Was it because she wished he was Bong Hwan instead?
“Are you sighing because of that man, Jang Bong Hwan? Because of your longing for him, do you even lose sleep and feel lonely?” was all he managed to ask her.
She looked at him, and some realization seemed to hit her eyes.
“Wait, are you jealous?” She had the audacity to sound amused. “How cute!”
“Cute?” Repeated Cheoljong incredulously.
He got closer to her, and she moved farther from him until she pressed her back against the nearing bookcase, making it impossible for her to move further back. He placed his hand on the same bookcase, not touching the queen at all but trapping her between the king and the bookcase.
“What… why… What is this?” she stuttered when she noticed she was trapped.
“You are right, it is jealousy.” What was the point of denying what they both knew was true? Cheoljong was jealous, an emotion that was dominating him way too frequently lately. Every time the queen smiled at another man, every time Kim Byeon-In kept referring to her as “my cousin”, as if he had any ownership over her, instead of the proper ‘Her Majesty’. Every time everybody kept referring to her as “our queen” as if she was public property. He knew he was being ridiculous and unreasonable, but he couldn't stop himself. “You are not in public use for everybody, so please no longer use the word ‘we’ recklessly. It's a royal command; I don't want you to be called my cousin or our queen either.”
Their faces were way too close; they were almost touching. He noticed the queen couldn’t stop staring at his lips; if he just leaned a bit further, their lips would be touching. Her cheeks had an adorable pink.
“Also, am I still cute?” he asked smugly.
The queen looked so flustered by Cheoljong that Jang Bong Hwan was probably the last thing on her mind.
“You are very cute, but you still can't beat me,” she said, suddenly waking up from the trance she was in. She tried to move away from him again, but they ended up accidentally knocking over the bookcase. The topic of Jang Bong Hwan was long forgotten.
He hoped he had made himself clear when he told her she was not of public use to everybody, and this was the last time he was going to hear the name Jang Bong Hwan.
3
For months, he didn’t hear the name Jang Bong Hwan again. He thought the man was going to be buried forever in the queen’s past, especially now that their marriage was finally sailing in the correct direction.
He no longer had doubts the queen loved him as much as he loved her.
There were just no words to describe how being loved by the person you love felt, especially how it felt to be loved by someone like his queen, who was always so passionate and forward with her emotions, wants, and needs.
To know the woman you love would have your back no matter what was a wonderful feeling; to know the woman you love would not hesitate to push you against the nearest wall and have her way with you was a fantastic feeling. To have a woman who would do both—well, Cheoljong must have saved a country in his previous life if he was this lucky in this one.
And now they were expecting a child together. How perfect can life be? Sure, the queen didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic when she learned about the pregnancy, but she later became excited when she realized that would make her the mother of a future king and therefore give her more power than she currently had. Seeing her in her power-hungry mood shouldn’t be a mixture of arousing and endearing, but it was. Cheoljong was really a goner.
Finally, he understood what people meant when they talk about happy endings. He really believed he had found his.
And then, everything changed... or at least the queen did.
It wasn’t a gradual change either, just from one day to another she was a completely different person. For starters, she now addressed Cheoljong as “Your Majesty”, which of course was the proper and respectful way to address him and therefore so very much unlike his queen, who was neither proper nor respectful.
But it was not only Cheoljong; she started referring to everybody by their appropriate title. She stopped using strange words that he needed to add to the queen’s dictionary. She stopped going to the kitchens to compete with the royal chef. She changed her way of speaking and no longer sounded arrogant. She was every bit the perfect queen she was supposed to be, and Cheoljong hated it.
He suddenly felt as if he was married to a stranger. As if his queen had left and had left this impostor in her place.
At first, he didn’t say anything. She had gone through a lot recently, including getting harmed when she was pregnant, Kim Byeon-In’s passing for which the king knew the queen unfairly blamed herself, among all the other stuff. It would be reasonable for the queen to not be feeling like herself. Add the stress that came with the pregnancy. How could he blame the queen for not acting like her usual self? She probably needed him now more than ever. And for the following months, he just stayed by her side, caring for her. But feeling like the worst husband in the world because deep down, he couldn’t stop thinking this was not the woman he fell for.
In the fourth month of the queen’s pregnancy, after the monthly appointment, the doctor confirmed both the queen and the baby were healthy.
“Your plan to one day rule Joseon as the Queen Dowager is sailing smoothly,” he whispered jokingly in the queen’s ear. She looked at him, and a flash of sadness passed through her eyes.
“I would prefer not to think about you passing away yet, Your Majesty. You are a healthy young man, and I hope you live a long life,” she replied. That was odd. In the past, the queen would’ve whispered jokingly to Cheoljong that yes, she wanted to be Queen Dowager, and she was planning to kill Cheoljong as soon as the baby was born so her reign could last as long as possible.
He dropped the joke but kept an eye on the queen’s reaction to their interactions. He saw the flash of sadness again when a couple of days later, he used the word ‘anti-fan’, and again when he brought up the 'No Touch' philosophy a few weeks later. He noticed the pattern then—the queen would get sad at any mention of her previous behavior. So, he stopped referring to her previous behavior completely because he never wanted to see her sad or hurt her. But that just reinforced the impression that she was a stranger to him now.
He felt a strange sensation as if he was mourning someone who was still there with him. Five months after the last entry, he decided to dispose of The Queen’s Dictionary, the last reminder of the person the queen once was. Somehow, it felt monumental to just let go of it, like he couldn't just throw it away.
He decided if he was going to dispose of it, at least it deserved a proper goodbye. He walked to the lake one afternoon, completely alone for a change, without the usual retinue of guards and eunuchs. He sat by the lake, which was probably unfitting for a king, and started reading the words once again, wanting to commit their meaning to heart, even if the queen no longer used them. When the sun was setting, he finally got the courage, closed the dictionary, and walked a little closer to the lake, ready to throw the dictionary in the water.
“Your majesty, please stop.”
He turned around and saw the queen walking towards him, as fast as her advanced pregnancy let her. Before he could even react, she had reached him and taken The Queen’s Dictionary from his hands.
“Why are you trying to throw away this precious thing?” she said, taking the dictionary into her hands like it was a treasure, and still, he could see the flash of sadness in her eyes.
“It doesn’t have any use now,” he replied, and he didn’t mean to sound as accusatory as he did. It was useless, as she didn’t use those words anymore, and she didn’t add new ones either. He didn’t want to say any of that out loud, he didn’t want to make her feel worse.
He saw the tears starting to form in the queen’s eyes, and he felt like the worst husband in the world for even considering throwing the dictionary away.
“Still, you wrote this dictionary for someone very dear to you; you cannot just throw it away,” she replied as if he hadn’t written that dictionary for her, as if she was talking about someone else. Then, he saw a single, shiny tear escape the queen’s eyes, and his opinion that he was the scum of the earth cemented.
He put his arms around the queen. He didn’t care if it was proper or not for the queen and king to be hugging in a public space.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly into her ears. “I shouldn’t have tried to dispose of The Queen’s Dictionary. It’s just that you seem so sad every time I mention one of the words that’s mentioned there. I didn’t want to keep unintentionally hurting you.”
For some reason, his words were what finally set the tears flowing freely. The queen didn’t remove herself from his embrace, but she didn’t return it either. She just stayed there, sobbing while Cheoljong was absolutely lost without a clue what to do.
“I’m sorry I’m not the person that you wrote that dictionary for,” she finally said, and Cheoljong was even more lost than before. He wanted to reply that yes, she was the person he wrote that dictionary for, but even he had a hard time believing it. How could the queen have changed so much? He had a hard time recognizing her as his queen.
“What changed?” he finally asked, unsure if he was making things worse, but he needed answers.
She freed herself from his embrace. She hesitated for a few moments as if she was debating with herself if she should reply or not. She seemed to finally come to a decision and said.
“I wish I could be the person you love; every reminder that I’m not it’s a dagger in my heart,” she said, confusing Cheoljong even more. Despite the track of tears on her face, she was standing proud, like the perfect queen she now was. “But I cannot do anything about it. Things cannot go back to the way they were. Jang Bong Hwan left, and there is nothing I can do about it.”
Jang Bong Hwan.
He felt as if the earth had opened below his feet, and he was free falling.
Why was it always about Jang Bong Hwan? He hadn’t heard the man’s name in months. He thought the queen didn’t think about the man anymore. He had convinced himself he was the only one in her heart. How wrong he was.
Somehow, this Jang Bong Hwan was still of great importance to the queen. How idiotic and arrogant Cheoljong had been to believe he had the queen’s heart. He cursed Jang Bong Hwan’s name because no matter what Cheoljong did, he was always second to Jang Bong Hwan. And he cursed himself too for believing the queen loved him like he loved her. He wanted to leave; he wanted to crumble in the privacy of his bed chambers. But he couldn't leave right now, not before he had all his answers.
What did she mean when she said Jang Bong Hwan left? He was not even in Joseon according to his investigation. Was all the change in her behavior just because she missed him so much she was not acting like herself? How could that man have so much power over the queen?
“What do you mean Jang Bong Hwan left?” There was so much more he needed to ask, but first, he needed to understand what had happened.
“He is gone, forever,” replied the queen, but she seemed to be struggling to find the right words to explain herself.
“Is he dead?” asked Cheoljong, not sure if there were any other possible interpretations for the queen’s words.
“No,” replied the queen simply. “At least I think he is not, hopefully he reached his destination safely. But he is gone forever, and there is nothing I can do about it,” she said, and the tears started falling again.
“You miss Jang Bong Hwan,” stated Cheoljong. It was not a question. What other explanations were there for the queen’s tears and her change of attitude?
“It’s irrelevant whether I miss Jang Bong Hwan or not,” she sobbed. “What’s killing me is that you miss Jang Bong Hwan, Your Majesty. And every day when I see how terribly you miss him, knowing I’m not him, I die a little.”
And with that, she left, still in tears, with The Queen’s dictionary in her hands, leaving Cheoljong too confused by her last statement that it almost distracted him from his heartbreak.
4
In the following days, Cheoljong tried with all his might to find a moment alone with the queen. For some reason, it was getting incredibly difficult. Well, it was always challenging to find a moment alone with all their responsibilities and the number of servants following them around, but he had always managed to get alone time with the queen when he tried. Lately, the queen was never available; one might think she was avoiding him.
Ever since she left him on the lakeside after saying that Cheoljong was the one who missed Jang Bong Hwan, she seemed to be doing everything in her power to avoid being alone with him, presumably to avoid his questions. But Cheoljong was a stubborn man, and he did have plenty of questions. He could be heartbroken over the queen’s devotion to Jang Bong Hwan, but before he could drown in his misery, he needed to understand what was really happening because above all, he was confused.
Finally, after two weeks of being avoided by the queen, he finally reached his last resort and decided to summon her to spend the night in the King’s bedchamber. Something that hadn’t happened in a while, he realized, when in the past, they used to be unable to keep their hands to themselves. However, his reason to summon the queen to his bedchambers was not for any marital activity, but to finally ask her all the questions he wanted to ask, without the chance of the queen running away or one of the servants interrupting them.
The queen seemed to know his true intent too because as soon as they were left alone, she just sat next to him, not touching the wine the servants had left for them, and said unprompted:
“I think the other day in the lake, my emotions got the better of me, and I said more than I should, and now I cannot elaborate without sounding like a madwoman.” Well, that just increased Cheoljong's confusion and curiosity. “I know it’s probably useless to ask Your Majesty, but is there a chance you forget about that conversation?”
He wished he could say yes, he wished he could just forget the lakeside conversation and that damned name of Jang Bong Hwan, but he couldn’t. If he didn’t get the answers that he needed, he was never going to find peace.
He shook his head; the queen didn’t seem surprised by his denial.
“I need to know what’s going on,” said Cheoljong.
“And you deserve the truth, Your Majesty,” replied the queen. “But the truth is so fantastic you will have a hard time believing it. If you want to hear it, you need to promise me one thing.”
“What is it?” He was willing to promise to give her the entirety of Joseon if that would mean finally knowing what was going on.
“That you will believe that what I’m telling you, no matter how strange it sounds, is nothing but the truth.”
“How can I promise you that before hearing what you have to say?”
“Well, at least promise me that no matter what I say, even if you believe me mad, you are not going to throw me in an asylum.”
“That I can promise,” he replied sincerely. He would never just commit the queen to an asylum in the hypothetical scenario that she had indeed lost her mind. Then he finally asked the question that had been eating at him for months. “Who is Jang Bong Hwan? The first time I asked you, you said he is the most perfect man in the world, but that’s not what I want to know. I want to know who he is to you.”
“I didn’t tell you he was the most perfect man in the world,” she replied, and before Cheoljong could argue that yes, she did (he still remembered that vividly), she added, “He was the one who told you that. He was so narcissistic; he probably believes the sun rises because of him.”
Despite her words, she sounded fondly amused, which would stir Cheoljong's jealousy if it wasn’t because her words made no sense.
“You are the one who told me that. I have never even met Jang Bong Hwan in my life!”
“You have; you probably know him more than you know me,” she said sadly; this conversation was giving him more questions than answers. “Remember those times ‘I’ said ‘I’ was a man from the future?”
He could practically hear the quotation marks in ‘I’.
How could he forget about that particular insanity? Recently, she didn't go around claiming that anymore, but for months she did. How could he forget those nights when they would stay all night talking about the future she claimed to be from? When she told him fantastic stories about flying machines, carriages that moved without horses, and a Joseon where the King was elected by the people and was called the president?
His heart ached for how much he longed for just another one of those nights. He nodded to let her know that yes, he did remember.
“It was all true. Jang Bong Hwan is the name of the man from the future that was occupying my body.”
That… was not what he was expecting her to say.
Cheoljong wanted to interrupt her, to ask her the real story instead of the crazy story about the man from the future, but she seemed to guess his intentions because before he could open his mind, she said:
“I know it sounds insane; that’s why I didn’t want to say anything. But please, listen to me, listen to everything I have to say before you reply,” she pleaded.
Cheoljong nodded, and let her talk.
She then started talking again, and the story just kept getting crazier and crazier. She proceeded to explain how Jang Bong Hwan was a man from two hundred years in the future, how he had occupied her body for months, from the day she jumped into the lake the first time until the day she was wounded, then apparently he returned to his time. How she had been there, in her body too, vaguely aware of what was going on, but unable to intervene.
She explained how Jang Bong Hwan thought the only way to return to his time was to jump into the lake, so he kept trying to do that. Apparently, he was a chef in his time; that’s why he was always in the kitchens terrorizing the poor Royal Chef. He was an arrogant and rude man on any good day, added to the fact that he knew nothing about Joseon's manners and the proper education expected from the queen was what made ‘the queen’ act erratic during that time period.
Cheoljong didn’t interrupt her a single time; he just let her talk.
Cheoljong couldn't believe the story; it was crazy, right out of a fantasy book. But one look into the queen’s eyes showed the sincerity in them. The queen was not lying to him; she truly believed what she was saying. Which only left him with two options:
Option one: the queen had lost her sanity and couldn’t tell reality from fantasy anymore.
Option two: the queen was telling the truth.
Option one seemed like the only possible one, but he didn’t want to believe it; he refused to believe the queen was insane. Which cornered him to consider option two. If he ignored his disbelief that it was possible to travel across time or occupy another person’s body, the story made too much sense actually. The way the queen had changed her entire personality and mannerism could only be explained if he was walking about two different people. It would explain why the queen used such strange words; they were probably words from the future. It would explain how someone can suddenly gain the ability to cook and then lose it.
As crazy as it sounded, the man from the future explanation was the only one he could believe.
He could feel the queen’s eyes on him.
“I believe you,” he said simply, and he could see the relief crossing her face.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she replied with the same simplicity.
They stayed in silence for a bit, while Cheoljong was lost in thought trying to process the reality of what the queen had revealed. How he looked at every interaction in a new light, how he finally understood what had happened.
“If you say he was in your body from the day you jumped into the lake until the day you were wounded… that means he was the one that was here at the beginning of our marriage, from trying to kill each other until…” he didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to; they both knew he meant until they fell in love.
“Yes, Your Majesty, it was him, the one you fell in love with,” she said, and for the first time during the conversation, she sounded close to tears. “You never showed interest in me before he came into our life, and now that he left you certainly long for him, even when you didn’t even know there was something missing. I can see it in your eyes, how much you want me to act like I did before, but I can’t because it was not me, it was Jang Bong Hwan.”
And yes, that made too much sense, because all the things that Cheoljong both loved and exasperated him about Queen So Yong, like her arrogance, her stubbornness, and how wild she could be, were not characteristics that belonged to her at all. They all belonged to a man from two hundred years in the future. Cheoljong’s world had just tilted on its axis.
He had fallen in love with a lie, with a farce. How dare Jang Bong Hwan make him fall in love with him while pretending to be Queen So Yong? And not for the first time, he silently cursed Jang Bong Hwan’s name; he was nothing but an impostor.
How was it possible that he had fallen in love with a man posing as the queen? It was scandalous! It was impossible! He cursed Jang Bong Hwan’s name over and over again.
5
The fifth time he cursed Jang Bong Hwan’s name was that very same night. After Queen So Yong had clarified all his doubts and questions, they both lay next to each other, not touching despite their closeness. Not even attempting to reach for each other. They both knew the reason for her being summoned to his bedchambers that night was merely to interrogate her. The idea of engaging in the marital act was never on the table for this meeting.
He then realized that now that he knew the woman lying right next to him was not the person he had fallen in love with, he no longer felt like reaching for her at all.
It was the same face, the same body. But just knowing she was not the person that had made his heart beat so fast he felt like it could escape his chest made him lose all desire to be with her. It didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, with an heir already on the way. As long as she birthed a boy, Cheoljong probably could get away with not sharing his bed with her ever again.
He felt bad for her; she was not to blame for the whole situation, and now she was stuck with a husband that didn’t love her or desire her as a husband should. But he couldn’t imagine touching her, pleasuring her, kissing her just to look into her eyes—the eyes he swore he loved—and not find Jang Bong Hwan’s fire or his enthusiasm.
He couldn’t imagine sharing a bed with one of the concubines either. They were nice girls, but all of them had a flaw he couldn’t look past: They were not Jang Bong Hwan.
Damn, Jang Bong Hwan had really ruined him for everybody else.
But it was not only about having someone to warm his bed. The thing is, deep down, Cheoljong had been desperately hoping that one day Queen So Yong would go back to acting the way she did before, and now he had to accept the fact that it was never her at all; it was a man from two hundred years in the future, and now Cheoljong had lost him forever.
He guessed what he was feeling could only be compared to the type of mourning one would feel for a deceased spouse. Jang Bong Hwan was not dead; actually, he was not even born yet, but Cheoljong felt the mourning just the same. How else could he describe the longing he felt for him? How he would give anything just to have him one more day. To hear his stories about the future, to hear his revenge plan against the people who wronged him, and to be caught by surprise by Bong Hwan’s latest insanity. To share a ramen with him.
But that was never going to happen. Cheoljong had lost the love of his life, and he didn’t even know it until months later. He knew something was off, that something was missing, but he didn’t know how much he had lost until this very night.
He didn’t realize he was about to cry until the tears started falling, silently at first, trying to not wake up Queen So Yong sleeping next to him.
He damned Jang Bong Hwan for returning to his time and leaving Cheoljong behind. How could he do that? Queen So Yong had made it sound as if none of them had control over Bong Hwan’s departure, so it was probably not reasonable to blame him, but Cheoljong didn’t want to be reasonable. Everything he wanted right now was not reasonable at all.
He wanted to go to the future and drag Bong Hwan back to this time; it didn’t matter he was a man in his very much male body. He didn’t care what people in Joseon would say or think. He wanted to hold him; he wanted to look into his eyes, into the oh-so-familiar fire that always burned in them.
Or maybe he wanted to go back in time to a time before Bong Hwan returned to his time, and then stop him from leaving. He wanted to stop time and just spend the rest of eternity with him.
Or maybe he wanted to go to the future, to see for himself the wonders that Bong Hwan had told him about. He wanted to make a life with him there; maybe in two hundred years, it would even be possible for two men to get married. He immediately felt guilty. He could abandon Joseon and the crown, but he was about to become a father; he couldn’t abandon his child. The child that he had conceived with Bong Hwan but he would never get to meet.
At that point, he had already given up trying to be silent; the sobs were just escaping violently, and he couldn’t stop. It was probably unfit for a King to cry like a child, but the pain he was feeling was so great not even the tears were enough to express it.
He felt Queen So Yong moving next to him and he felt embarrassed that he had probably woken her up. He tried to clean the tears from his face, but new ones were forming, so it was moot. Queen So Yong gave him a sad look, but Cheoljong already felt so miserable and so pathetic that her pity couldn’t possibly make him feel worse. She got up without saying a word and then returned with a cup of water that she gave to Cheoljong. He accepted it gladly, only then noticed how much he needed water.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely. She just nodded; she seemed lost in thoughts.
The cup of water stopped the tears temporarily, but later they won the battle again, and again and again. Queen So Yong stayed awake all night too, silently accompanying him, but she seemed to be in her own world, thinking hard about something.
+1
When Queen So Yong proposed the plan, he thought she was insane. Apparently, in the months since she told him the truth, she had searched across the country for all famous and prestigious shamans. She had kept this a secret from Cheoljong because she wasn’t even sure her search was going to be successful. After months of searching, she had finally done it: She found a shaman that could bring Jang Bong Hwan back. It was not in the same way that he originally came to this time. Queen So Yong explained to him that the shaman couldn’t just summon Bong Hwan’s soul into So Yong’s body and have them both inhabit the same body. What the shaman could do was to swap them. This meant that for this to work, So Yong had to agree to go to the future and live Bong Hwan’s life.
“I cannot ask that from you,” said Cheoljong. He wanted Bong Hwan back so desperately he would give up everything in his life, but he couldn’t request the same from So Yong.
“You are not asking, I’m offering,” she replied.
“It’s a giant sacrifice what you are about to make.”
“It’s not worse than living every day feeling like an impostor in my own body.” Her reply felt like a slap. “Don’t feel guilty. It’s not only you that misses him. It’s everybody, even if I make Court Lady Choi, Hong Yeon, and Chef Man Bok's life so much easier than he did, it’s obvious they want him back, even if they are not aware that he is gone.”
His heart broke for Queen So Yong, but he couldn’t say she was wrong. Then she smiled at him.
“The life of men has always been easier than that of women. I’m sure I’ll be fine in his body,” she reassured, “and I’m insanely curious about how the future of Joseon looks like. When he was in my body, Bong Hwan kept missing something called ‘wifi’. I’m excited to finally learn what that might be.”
At the mention of Jang Bong Hwan missing something from his time, it occurred to Cheoljong that he had been so focused on how much he wanted Bong Hwan back, or if it was fair or not for Queen So Yong to sacrifice herself, that he never stopped considering if Bong Hwan wanted to return at all.
“What if he doesn’t want to come back?” he asked. “He kept jumping into the lake trying to return to his time. What if he was not happy here?”
It would break him to know that all the time together Bong Hwan only wanted to leave, but ultimately loving somebody was letting them go, and he was not selfish enough to force Bong Hwan to live with him in his time while he longed for his life in the future.
“I think maybe he would miss some parts of his life in the future,” said So Yong, “but I’m sure that he loves you, and he probably misses you as much as you miss him. I’m sure he will be happy to be reunited with you.”
Cheoljong needed desperately to believe she was right. Besides, in the case that Bong Hwan didn’t want to be back, they just needed to do the ritual again and send him back to the future and call Queen So Yong back. And then Cheoljong would live the rest of his life drowning in misery, knowing the man he loved didn’t love him enough to return to him, and would carry the rest of his days just being the empty shell of the man he once was. Not that he was being dramatic or anything.
“Besides, he would like to meet the baby. After his initial tantrum over the pregnancy, he ended up being excited about having a child.”
“What about you?”
“If the baby were already born, I don’t think I would be able to leave them behind. Luckily, we are more than a month away from the baby’s arrival. It would be easier this way,” she replied. “Besides, Bong Hwan was the one that had the fun conceiving that child, it’s only fair he goes through the pain of the delivery,” she added with a tinge of vindictiveness in her voice.
The ritual took place the following week. Cheoljong was kicked out by the shaman, who seemed to care very little about his authority as a king, and assured him the ritual was not going to work if there were witnesses. With a sense of unease, Cheoljong was forced to wait for hours outside the shaman’s place.
Hours later, the Shaman let him know the ritual worked. The body of the queen was exhausted because they had to use all her energy, but the body was going to wake up when it was fully rested, and the soul inside the body should be that of Jang Bong Hwan.
Cheoljong carried the queen’s body all the way back to the palace, feeling anxious about the whole situation. To the palace staff, he gave the excuse that the queen had fainted due to the high temperatures of this time of the year and that she needed to rest. Then he kicked everybody out of the queen’s bedchambers, even the very worried-looking Court Lady Choi and Hong Yeon.
He felt incredibly restless about the whole thing. How did he even know the ritual worked? What if the shaman was nothing but a scammer? He stayed in the queen's bedchamber, canceling all his royal duties for the day.
Around midnight, a good fourteen hours after they returned to the palace, Cheoljong saw the queen’s body sitting up in the dark.
“Ugh, I feel so tired,” was the first thing the person, maybe Bong Hwan, maybe So Yong, said. Cheoljong’s heart rate went up like crazy; this was it, the moment of truth. Before he could ask or say anything, the person spoke again, visibly alarmed. “What is this? Where are my abs of steel? I feel like I swallowed a basketball! I definitely need to cut down on the beer.”
Basketball! That was a word Cheoljong had never heard before, definitely one of Bong Hwan’s strange words.
“Jang Bong Hwan?” he asked, the name sounded like a prayer on his lips.
“Who is there? How did you break into my apartment? I must warn you I know sixty-five ways to throw a knife.”
Yes, sounded exactly like Jang Bong Hwan.
Cheoljong grabbed the nearest candle and lit it, illuminating the room. He could see the eyes widening in shock when possibly-Bong Hwan saw it was Cheoljong who had spoken.
“Cheoljong?”
Any doubt that he had that the person in front of him was Jang Bong Hwan was erased right then and there. To call the king of Joseon Cheoljong instead of Your Majesty to his face required a level of disrespect that only Jang Bong Hwan was capable of reaching.
“Jang Bong Hwan, my love, it’s really you!” said Cheoljong triumphantly. Without much thought, he ran to him and put his arms around him tightly. Bong Hwan immediately melted in the embrace and hugged him just as tight. For a moment, it felt like everything was perfect. If it were up to Cheoljong, he would never let go of that hug.
“This is a very good dream, very realistic, I would rate it five stars in Google reviews if I could,” said Bong Hwan, without letting go of the hug. “But it’s also an extremely cruel one too because tomorrow I’ll wake up, and you will be gone, dead for two centuries, and I’ll be alone again.”
His voice broke when he said those last words, and it was more than Cheoljong could take. He had been so selfishly thinking only of his own pain; he hadn’t stopped to think Bong Hwan was suffering in the future too. He realized he would gladly take all the suffering in the world if it meant Bong Hwan didn’t have to suffer ever.
“It’s not a dream,” he reassured him, putting his hands softly on Bong Hwan’s face. “It’s real.”
He could see on Bong Hwan’s face he still didn’t quite believe it. He ran to the nearest mirror and examined his face (or well, So Yong’s face) and pregnant belly while still looking absolutely shocked.
“How is it possible?” he finally asked.
“I’ll give you all the details later, but basically with the help of a shaman, Kim So Yong exchanged her soul with yours. She is in the future, in your body, and you are here,” explained Cheoljong, “it can be reversed if this is not what you want but…”
Cheoljong never finished the sentence because suddenly Bong Hwan’s hands were on his nape, his face just a centimeter away from Cheoljong's.
“Shut up,” said Bong Hwan. “How can you even think that this is not what I wanted? You idiotic king, do you have an idea how much I missed you every day? How much I would have sacrificed just to be able to see you one more time?”
Every word made a plethora of contradictory emotions bloom in Cheoljong’s chest. It pained him knowing Bong Hwan had suffered so much, yet it filled him with joy to know he wanted to stay with Cheoljong as much as Cheoljong wanted him to.
“Even your life in the future?” he asked hesitantly.
“There is nothing for me there. So Yong can do whatever she wants with that body,” he replied. “I just wish there was a way to thank her; she really did us a solid.”
“I guess the best way to thank her it’s to appreciate the chance she gave us to be together and live by the ‘No touch’ philosophy,” replied Cheoljong. “Let’s live a happy and fun life, Jang Bong Hwan.”
Bong Hwan stared at him for a second with an unreadable expression.
“You have no idea how much I missed you,” was the last thing he said before jumping to Cheoljong and pressing his lips against his with no warning.
How had Cheoljong been able to live months without Bong Hwan’s kisses? He kissed him back with the desperation of a drowning man, and Bong Hwan’s mouth was a bit of fresh air.
Bong Hwan jumped with an agility that no person in the eighth month of a pregnancy should possess and put his legs around Cheoljong’s waist, while still kissing him. That was the moment Cheoljong’s brain function decided to abandon him completely. All he could think was Bong Hwan’s mouth on his, Bong Hwan’s hands wandering in his back, how dangerously close their nether regions were.
Then he started kissing Cheoljong’s neck and the king’s breathing was getting more and more erratic.
"You'd better not be lying to me about this being real," said Bong Hwan against Cheoljong’s neck. "If tomorrow I wake up alone in my apartment, I swear to God and Buddha I’m vandalizing your tomb." He went back to kissing Cheoljong’s neck.
"My tomb is safe, Jang Bong Hwan. This is very real," he was surprised to hear how wrecked his voice sounded.
"Why do you keep calling me by my full name?" asked Bong Hwan curiously, leaving Cheoljong's neck for a moment; the king missed his lips already.
"For the longest time, I called you Kim So Yong. I’m enjoying finally calling you by your real name," explained Cheoljong. "Besides, I’ll have you know that before I knew the truth, I wrongly assumed you were a man from So Yong’s past, and I kept cursing your name. I need to make up for that."
"You thought I was So Yong’s ex? How did you even reach that conclusion?”
Incredible!
"It was you who put that idea into my head, going on and on about how perfect Jang Bong Hwan was, how he was the man you cherished the most and all that!" replied Cheoljong with all the indignation he could muster in such a joyous moment.
Bong Hwan had the nerve to laugh; it was unfair how that laugh filled Cheoljong’s chest with joy.
"Well, I am the most perfect man in the world; I haven’t changed my mind about that," replied Bong Hwan arrogantly. "However," he said, getting closer to Cheoljong's lips again, "In the light of recent events, I had to rearrange my ranking of men that I cherish. My recent trip to the twenty-first century showed me that while I still had myself, my life was miserable because I didn’t have you. So, I think it’s only fair that I accept second place and name you the man I cherish the most."
It was amazing how that simple affirmation brought tears to Cheoljong’s eyes.
"I love you too, desperately so," he replied, and then their lips met again. If possible, they kissed even more ardently than the first time. Hands were everywhere; it was impossible to know where one ended and the other began. Variations of “I love you” and “I missed you” kept falling from their lips in between kisses.
"So, Cheoljong, you like saying my name then?" asked Bong Hwan.
Cheoljong nodded, too focused on the way Bong Hwan’s hand wandered on his back to actually form a verbal answer.
Bong Hwan smirked mischievously and replied, "Good, because tonight that will be the only thing you will be able to say."
Oh, how Cheoljong had missed him!