Hwarang: Past Memories

Prologue

They say your first love is not easily forgotten. It can be as sweet as the fragrance of flowers or as wild as a fire.  

If you are lucky you won't ever have to say goodbye to it... but most of us end up doing so. 

I should have known from the moment I said hello, I'd have to say a painful goodbye. 

-

My mind was having a hard time comprehending what it was seeing. I mean it was very obvious what I was seeing... but believing it was a whole other story. 

The wildflowers in my hands fell one by one on the dirt pavement below, being carried by the breeze as my heart broke into tiny pieces. 

The first man I gave my heart fully to was kissing another. 

I couldn't move or breathe as I watched from a distance. 

I could literally feel my heart tear at its seams with every beat. 

A gasp and a sob escaped my throat and soon my hands reached up to cover the pathetic sound. 

No... He wouldn't... 

"My beautiful flower" he had once called me.

Now this beautiful flower was shriveling before him as he laughed into another's lips. 

Watching the nameless girl giggle and shyly play with his hair, I had decided I had enough. 

Somehow my feet moved me away from there, through town, through my home's doors, and allowing me to collapse finally in my room. 

Loud anguished sobs fell from within me and soon my brother's footsteps came rushing in. 

"Yu-ri! Yu-ri what's wrong? You're too pretty to be crying like this... please stop..." He said as he hugged me carefully, unsure what to do at my anguish. 

I just sobbed at the thought of my first lost love and the bitterness that came with it ending as it did. 

-

SMACK. 

My knees hit the wooden floor harshly as I cupped my now stinging cheek. 

"You would dare disgrace this family in such a manner?! You?! A True Bone?! Do you not know better than the prostitutes in a brothel?!" My father's voice cut through the air. 

"Abeoji..." I wept through my tears. "Forgive me..." 

He scoffed with disgust, "Get out of here. Now. I don't want to see you in the morning. You are no daughter of mine. I will not have you taint our reputation... If your brother asks, you are sick and going away for a long time. That's final." He said and his footsteps carried him out of the room, the door sliding with a loud noise, covering the sound of my cries.

I had lost more than just a love... I had lost it all...

-

Passing through the gates of Silla's capital I briefly paused to look back. 

I had been born there, raised there, and now I could never return. 

Through fresh tears, I turned around vowing silently to become stronger than this somehow. 

This place would be nothing but a distant memory one day. 

He would be nothing but a past memory, gone with the wind like the flowers that day...