Cursed | Yang Hongseok

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Flashback: China, 1020. (Hongseok's P.O.V)

The secret relationship between Xia and me continued for quite a while. No one really knew what was going on, but the other soldiers had their theories.

"You look surprisingly happy today, Hongseok." Shinwon teased me, punching me in the arm playfully. "Is there something you would like to share with us?"

I lifted my gaze just to face Shinwon's curious smirk, but I noticed that the rest of the soldiers were also staring at me the same way, so I just looked back at the ground, feeling the blood rushing to my cheeks.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said, although a little nervous laugh escaped my mouth anyway. Then, I stood up from one of the chairs and headed outside.

While I was walking on a path that led to the village, I almost didn't even notice the hand that touched my shoulder all of a sudden. When I turned around, I saw Hyunggu's worried face looking at me.

"You're going to see her, aren't you?" He asked.

"How– How did you even know?" I replied with yet another question, which confirmed his theory.

"I knew it from the first day, Hongseok." He said. "The way you were looking at each other at the green market... I just knew she was going to take a special place in your heart."

"... I guess you know me too well." I sighed, but then smiled ever so slightly. "Just, don't tell anyone. She will get in trouble if anyone finds out about us, and I wouldn't bear to see anything happen to her."

"I understand." Hyunggu nodded. "I won't tell anyone, don't worry. But be careful, because I feel like they might have already assumed the truth."

With that being said, he turned back and left, and I headed in the opposite direction, eager to meet Xia.

*

Her face immediately became brighter as soon as she saw me, and it was the same case with my own. She ran towards me, and I accepted her in a warm hug, the one that I had been anticipating for days.

"I missed you so much." She said, and I just giggled, inhaling the scent of her hair.

"I've missed you too."

The two of us would often spend our time together walking in the forrest, where no one could see us, and talking about everything that we could possibly come up with. Xia was smart and rational, but what I really loved about her was her strong determination. She believed that she created her own life, and that faith had nothing to do with it. Since I've never met such a free-spirited woman before her, each word that she was saying felt like a hypnosis that I would never get tired of listening.

Beside that, her beautiful face was a sigth my eyes would never get tired of.

"Do you see this? The moon is already visible, even though the night has yet to arrive." She said, while we were lying on the grass and admiring the sky.

"Yes, I do. It's beautiful." I said, looking at the same direction.

"You really think it is?" She asked me, sounding a little unconfident.

"Why wouldn't I?" I turned around to look at her face, and I was shocked to see the tears appearing in her eyes.

"The only thing we see when it comes to the moon is its light side – the one that it allows us to see. Everything else still remains a secret on its dark side." She said, her voice slowly starting to shake. "And those secrets might not be what we expected from the moon in the beggining. They might be bad, ugly, or even disappointing. What I'm saying is – would you still like the moon even if you knew all of its secrets?"

"I– I don't know." I said, but as soon as I saw her shocked expression, I continued. "When you love something or someone so much, you tend to oversee the flaws they might have. Not because they don't exist, or because you pretend to not see them, but because, even though a bad side exists, that doesn't make the good side any less worthy than it was before. We all have a dark side, Xia, even the moon. Without a bad side, nothing in this universe would be able to function. Bad and good always balance each other out."

When she heard my response, she nodded silently.

"Then you would still love me if I told you about my dark side, wouldn't you?"

I smiled, wiping her tears away gently.

"Of course I would."

She gulped and took a deep breath.

"... I'm married." She said, but before I was even able to respond, she continued: "To someone I don't love at all."

Saying that I didn't expect this would be an understatement, but like I said earlier, that didn't make me love her any less.

"Why didn't you say that earlier?" I asked, not really knowing what else to say.

"How could I?" She asked, tears sillentily strolling down her cheeks. "I was afraid you'd leave me."

"Xia, I could never leave you." I said serously, looking straight into her eyes. "I love you way too much to ever do such thing."

"Even now when you know my dark side?" She asked trough the tears.

"Even now." I said, giving her a gentle kiss on the forhead. "Women don't have a choice when it comes to marriages. I know some people might consider this a sin, but sometimes, we are nothing but slaves of our own hearts. We blindly follow the path we don't know just because it's telling us to do so. That's exactly what you did – and no, I don't think that's a sin. On the contrary, escaping from a toxic marriage is a sign of bravery."

She just stared at me, an then all of a sudden, she kissed me.

"I love you, Hongseok." She said when she pulled away. "Don't you ever forget that."

"I love you, too." I said, and then lied back on the grass next to her. By the time we ended this conversation, the night already arrived, bringing some unexplainable kind of peace with it.

That peace probably made me relax more then usual, because within only a few minutes, I drifted into sleep.

If only I hadn't done that.

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself in an unknown environment that for some reason sent chills down my spine. And for things to be even worse, both my arms and legs were chained.