Samurai ↔ Nishimura Riki

twenty nine

Her promise? A vague memory resurfaced her mind. Right, she had agreed impulsively to her mother's request. Hyewon frowned. "How do you know about that?"

"Your mother wrote to me not too long ago," he replied shortly.

"My mother would never willingly get involved with the likes of you," she snapped.

He shrugged his shoulders loftily. "It's your choice to believe it or not. Let's finish this conversation at my office to have some privacy." His eyes flickered towards the door.

Should she go? The immediate answer should've been no. She owed him nothing. But she hesitated. He was still, irrevocably, part of her life. Family was still family, no matter how much she wanted to deny it. And she had promised her mother she would speak with him...

Hyewon exhaled tiredly. "Fine. 10 minutes, nothing more than that."

-

The walk to her father's bureau was silent.

She followed him, staring at the paintings on the palace walls in means of avoiding making conversation with her father. When her father stopped in front of an unfamiliar door, she almost bumped into him.

Kangseok held the door for her and let it swing shut when she was inside. It had a distinct musky smell that made Hyewon scrunch her nose before sneezing. However, the desk, made of walnut wood, was neat with its papers stacked on top of each other neatly. A few lit candles were placed around the room, brightening their surroundings. In a way, it faintly reminded her of General Kang's office, except it was a whole lot cleaner and tidy.

He noticed her sneeze and smiled slightly. "The smell, right? You'll get used to it. Take a seat. Would you like me to ask a servant to bring in some tea?"

"No, it's fine," she declined, sitting warily on an armchair in front of his desk, arms and legs crossed as she examined the room. What would it be like growing up, playing around this room if her parents had stayed together and resolved their problems. It was useless to ponder about such things, she chided herself. The past couldn't be changed. He had another whole family to take care of. Besides, she was already too old to be horsing around, it was impossible to go back.

Her eyes caught on a small painting hanging from the wall. It was of a family and quite well done too. The details were immaculate and precisely stroked. It must've been of his family, she thought, slightly bitter.

Unable to deal with the elephant in the room, Hyewon turned to Advisor Lee. "That painting is of your wife and your children, right?" she asks softly.

He blinked before sitting down and wiping his glasses. "Yes, that's my current wife, your stepmother, Jia, and my two younger sons, Wooin and Woojin. Of course, they are also your half brothers, that is, if you would like to accept them."

"Do they know that you had me?" A simple question, but oddly enough, Hyewon eagerly leaned forward to hear his answer.

"Jia does. Wooin and Woojin, on the other hand, don't know they have an older sister. They're rather young to know things about this.

"Oh." Having nothing else to say, she rested her back against the chair. Half brothers. She never had a sibling before, being a single child. She never thought of having one, let alone two before, biologically related to her. Yeonjun had filled in the position as her older brother for her, but now she was the older one. "What did you want to tell me?"

He toyed with a pen in his hands. "To be honest, I wasn't expecting you to agree to come to my office," he confesses ruefully. "I'm sure you know the story of how your mother and I separated well enough."