There are Many Flowers in Seoul

Chapter Thirty-Five

Although it was a weekday, Gyeongbokgung Palace was a popular destination for tourists and small groups of students who were led by their teachers on field trips to learn more about their country's rich history. Rose was greeted by an imposing pale stone wall which bore three towering arches through which the visitors passed. Overhead, the roof turned up in the corners and was clad in dark green and reddish-brown tile. Rose couldn't decipher the sign but assumed it simply marked the entrance. As awed as she was, Si-woo hesitated only a moment upon seeing how the sight had captured her. For the first time that day an affectionate smile touched his lips. As a local and past visitor to the site, he knew the splendour and beauty which lay within, and didn't find anything about it new or surprising. He forgot – like all local peoples in their own corner of the world – that this might be an exciting experience for someone seeing it for the first time.

Gently, Si-woo reached out and brushed his fingers against the back of Rose's hand. 'Are you ready to go inside?'

Rose jumped. 'Sorry,' she apologised automatically. 'I didn't think it would be so huge.'

'You have palaces and temples in Japan, don't you?'

'Well, yes,' she said, 'but we still have an active royal family.'

'True, that's one thing we don't have. But the history is just as grand.'

'I'd like to see it. If we have time, I mean, I know we're here to work.'

Si-woo's eyes pinched. Realising only then that he'd given his camera more attention than the beautiful young woman he'd offered his company to, he said, 'I get caught up sometimes. It's just... when you're in front of the camera, you're so beautiful. I feel that if I didn't take your picture, I'd be committing a crime against God.'

Rose felt the heat spread across her cheeks and neck. True, she'd been disappointed that he hadn't acted like he was out with a girl he might be interested in, and Rose had begun to wonder if he'd have been as happy on the trip on his own or with just about anyone else from the studio, but his explanation was enough to win him some points. No one had ever said that it would be a sin not to take her photograph before. Most photographers just shouted at her for not understanding their vision or for not innately knowing how to stand or how much she should pout her lips. Si-woo was fast changing her opinion of people in that profession.

He held out his hand to her, the camera hanging loose around his neck, now less important than playing his part as her companion. 'Shall we?'

It was with some small hesitation that Rose took his hand. To Si-woo, it might have been nothing but a simple gesture, but to Rose it meant an awful lot after Keiji. It was how it had all started with her disastrous high school relationship, and had soon evolved into hugs, kisses, and a feeling that she might at last have found the guy who'd see her simply as Rose and wouldn't think of her family before her. Si-woo didn't notice her apprehension and led Rose through the archway while she stared at their laced fingers, marvelling at how much larger his hand was than Keiji's. It had never crossed her mind to ask Si-woo's age, but he didn't look much older than her. Rose had never been a good judge of age, but she'd have put him in his mid-twenties at the most.

Far more interesting than Si-woo was the palace before them. A long stone path stretched between the archway and the building, flanked by large areas of pale ground. Tourists and women in traditional hanbok walked wherever they pleased with no regard for the designated pathway, and Rose allowed Si-woo to lead her across the ground and toward the impressive building. He cast glances back at her and smiled, enjoying her open-mouthed wonder as she turned her head this way and that, trying to take in the majesty of the palace, imagining it filled with the royal guards and soldiers, travellers and tradesmen, and visitors from far-off lands. To their right was a perimeter wall, and to the left stood more historic buildings, lovingly preserved by the historians and staff on site. Their bold, deep reds popped against the otherwise barren ground, and their rooves flipped upwards at the outer edges – something which seemed to be a theme of all the palace buildings – which Rose marvelled at. She couldn't fathom the stress put upon the original architects and builders who'd been forced to defy the laws of gravity to achieve such an aesthetic.