Work Text:
They restored the deposed Queen Yoon’s respect.
They returned her royal title.
They reinstated her status.
They gave her a new house, which might seem better than the one she had lived in before, with luxurious furnishings.
And they gave her finer clothes.
Yoon Yun Hee sits in her new room,
wearing her usual, ordinary clothes,
the dining table set before her with fine tableware, filled with lavish foods.
Yet, she feels nothing:
no desire,
no intention,
no appetite,
nothing at all.
Neither the title, nor the restored position, nor the easier and more comfortable way of living,
could return what she had lost;
not the distant happy past,
not the serene life despite its sweetness and bitterness,
not the family,
not the husband,
not the children.
And she had already refused, as much as she could, from those things.
She wanted no connection with them;
with those people in that cruel, miserable palace,
who believed that gifts like these could erase or change what had already happened,
those who sought to appease their conscience and free themselves from guilt.
But she hated to give them that,
and she would not give it.
Holding her late son's ribbon in her hands,
she lowers her eyes, gazing at it,
gripping it more firmly and running the fingers of her other hand over it gently.
Once. Twice.
A tear falls, and she closes her eyes to hold back more from streaming.
A memory crosses her mind: Queen Im informing her that her son's son was still alive.
For this, Yun Hee lifts her head forward,
opens her eyes,
and presses her lips tightly together,
to restrain her sobs,
to restrain her scream,
so that the dam of her deep sorrow would not burst.
It had always been her way in life: to resist, to endure, to suppress as much as she could,
amid all the tragedies she had suffered,
because her son Yi Ik Hyun, the only one remaining of her five children, was still alive, by her side, relying on her.
Now, even he had departed from her world, and she was left to suffer in the depths of her solitude, in the pain of wounds that would never heal, and in the prison of her memories of her loved ones—which had not always been a prison, but often a refuge and solace—
and there remained only one thing that could make her continue:
a hope that drove her to carry on,
and to endure,
for it;
the hope of seeing her grandson,
Meeting him.
One day.
In that pale room, empty except for her faded presence,
where silence presses down on her,
Yoon Yun Hee takes the spoon in her hand, beginning to eat from the bowl of rice, ignoring the other dishes.
She takes the first bite,
slowly and forcefully.
She presses it tightly with her mouth, marked by the passage of time, the wrinkles and prominent lines of pain twisting with each movement.
She chews quickly, with difficulty,
and swallows.
Still, she must do this exhausting little task, at least this much.
She closes her eyes and takes a breath through the sudden choking that surrounded her,
fighting against the pangs of pain gripping her chest,
against the remnants of a resisting spirit that had extinguished, which no longer had any reflection in her gaze.
The rice holds no allure for her, no desire to taste it, no flavor.
Nevertheless, she still reaches her spoon back to the dish,
letting out a sigh from within,
taking a second, third, and fourth spoonful.
And so, on and on.