Secret of the Red Lotus Flower (빨간 연꽃의 비밀)

Chapter 18

A young woman stood next to the palace pond, the full moon giving her an ethereal glow. She looked across the water towards Gyeonghoeru Pavilion, a shining jewel affixed upon a clear, black mirror. The sound of music and merriment could be faintly heard. She knelt next to the shore to grab two lotus lanterns that had broken free of the rest and floated all the way across the water.

The young woman was so engrossed in freeing the lanterns from the reeds that she did not notice a man had silently approached her from behind. He smiled as he watched her struggle with the lanterns. He was half-tempted to give her a little push but was aware that she would probably not be too happy with him if he did.

"I remember sneaking out here late at night with you and Ha-neul and to watch the adults with their parties," Prince Bon-hwa said. "It sounded like they were having fun with the food and music. We would talk about how we couldn't wait to grow up and join in."

Yeong-ja nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Bon-hwa speak. She did her best to will her beating heart to slow. The court lady slowly stood and turned to face the prince, putting on her best tranquil servant smile.

"You and Ha-neul talked about joining in the celebrations," Yeong-ja corrected. "I knew that the only way that I would be going to Gyeonghoeru Pavilion was if I was serving the food."

"I do believe we tried to brainstorm a few ways to sneak you into the festivities with us." The brim of his crumbled gat was started to droop. He must have cracked part of the bamboo frame during his fall earlier. In frustration, he took his hat off and flung it to one side for the groundskeeper to find in the morning.

"I remember. If I recall correctly, the best the two of you could come up with was to 'borrow' clothes as well as jewelry from your mothers and tell people that I was a foreign princess who didn't speak Korean," Yeong-ja said. "While it was nice letting you imagine crazy things like that were possible, I was always the one that had to remind you of the reality in order to rein you in. A court maid impersonating royalty is a recipe for punishment or worse when they are discovered."

"True," Bon-hwa said, stroking his bearded chin. "You were always such a spoilsport back then."

Yeong-ja couldn't help back laugh at his jest. Bon-hwa always had a knack for slipping past her defenses. She quickly put up her walls again when she saw the playful gleam in his eyes. She had forgotten how dangerous he was.

"Well, someone had to keep you two in line," Yeong-ja replied. "Especially when the Crown Prince returned from the lessons with Princess Chae-yeong, proclaiming to be Hong Gildong Returned and we were the Hwalbindang."

"The League of Those who Help the Impoverished," Prince Bon-hwa said. "Hard to forget. Ha-neul always had a big imagination and even bigger dreams for someone so small. Don't forget all the times when Ha-neul would say that I was the evil nobleman and you were the woman that I had kidnapped. Looking back, Ha-neul was always the hero while I was either the sidekick or the villain."

"There were just the three of us. Someone had to be the bad guy. You never seemed to care back then and just went along with whatever the Crown Prince said you would be. It was silly watching you two waving sticks around as if they were swords while fighting off imaginary foes."

Bon-hwa was about to speak again when they heard the musicians stop playing lively music over at the banquet. The two stopped their reminiscing to focus on the Pavilion again. The guests politely clapped as old musicians left to take a break and five new musicians replaced them. A man and woman took center stage while the other three sat along the edge of the performance with their instruments: a gayageum zither, a haegeum fiddle, and a daegeum flute.