The Love They Never Had

The servants...the servants...of course, why hadn't I thought of this before? The servants of a yangban (noble home) were how my father collected information about everyone and anyone. The servants who acted like they ruled this home even above me were the ones who gave my father that extra layer of confidence about his position because in this corrupt land, if a person had power, than even his servants were seen as right hand men instead of conforming to their roles in this society that I longed to change. And it all started with Confucius. China, Japan and Korea were separate countries, so why were we believing the philosophical ideas of one man who wasn't even from our nation,? These ideas were constricting the lowborn but they didn't even touch the nobility class and even the Emperor and his Royal Family used these moral laws when it suited him. And ruined the lives of illegitimate children like myself and left us with no place in this world, no rights and our lives on the line if we ever displeased our legitimate and senior family members. And the fact that these servants kept coming for Yeon after I myself had repeatedly ordered them not to, and my father needed to keep Yeon alive for his grand plan...no harm could come to her. Not that I would allow it, but my father would be very angry indeed if she was hurt here. I still had the Liadong war that I was going to take part in and I knew that my father knew I was going to try my best to get out of his control by trying to impress General Yi Seong-Gye, who was going to ascend the throne and become the new ruler of our Goreyo dynasty that was slowly coming to and end. So I knew that she would try to do everything in his power to undermine that, even using the most humiliating methods to do so. But I couldn't do much myself since I was an illegitimate son living under his father's roof, and if I made a single mistake, my father was well in his right to kill me without so much as giving me a grave to put my body to rest. I wasn't going to use Yeon like I did to everyone else, but if these feuds continued under my father's roof, then I might need to give her a helping hand myself to encourage her position to rid us all of these people and maybe, just maybe I could find my own people to infiltrate into this home, his work, his personal life that he always lives as far away from me as possible...

"My Lord!" "Good god man, you almost gave me a heart attack! What is it?" "It is the Young Mistress! The servant that you punished, she is attempting to drown her in the washing area!" "What did you just say? Who pushed who where?" "The young woman that you took into this home, she is being drowned as we speak in the washing area! She will die if you do not do something..." I was on my feet and out of the door before my servant could finish his sentence. What was going on? Just when I was thinking about how to rid myself of these servants, they actually went that far to touch her? To harm here? I hadn't been this angry since her last fit and that was when she took us both to be registered to this stupid military exam that had ruined everything had...

"Young Master, she is still unconscious only due to water inhalation. I will have a write up a prescription for her to recover as quickly as she possibly can, but this is really unfortunate for this to happen to a girl as young and as pretty as her." Pretty? Pretty? Even this physician who had never met Yeon before managed to make the same mistake as I did and flatter Yeon excessively. She was completely soaking wet and her attire was a complete mess, so I couldn't make any such comment right now. Wait, just what the hell was I doing? Yeon had almost lost her life right now and the only two men in the room were sitting around and trying to compliment her looks?

"Young Master, the guards were inefficiently on patrol and they missed this entirely. This is due to my negligence in managing this household and I am wiling to be punished." "What are you talking about? You were with me in my study, why would I expect to you be anywhere near the washing area where the female servants work. So this is clearly their fault that his happened." "Young Master forgive me! Forgive us please! It wasn't us! It was..." "the guards patrol on schedule shifts, if they are to be punished, then that means my father should be held responsible as well. Nevertheless, they are most certainly inefficient, and they should be punished." "But young master..." "imagine if it was my father who 'slipped and fell' with no guards around. I really wonder why they couldn't hear anything at all when they were supposed to be guarding my quarters as well." I had Chun-Ae and all of the washing servants kneeling on the floor in front of Yeon as I took her in my arms and I placed her gently into her bed just as I did merely a few weeks ago. The washer woman had their own stations right near my quarters, but they also worked with the rest of the washing ladies from the other houses of nobility and I knew they were the ones who were responsible for gathering most of the information that my father collected whilst it was maids like Chun-Ae who made themselves at home in other people's homes and businesses and they demanded whatever it was that they wanted whenever they wanted it like thugs...

"Both the guards and the washer women have not acted appropriately at all and they need to be disciplined. Their incompetence is absolutely outstanding..." "Young Master, they did make a blunder but..." Chun-Ae, you act like my father's right-hand-woman with such pride, what other servant in this home could possible have the power to pull away the guards from my quarters and my mother's so you could kill Yeon if you could, only because she is far better than you in everyday, even with all of her flaws that she isn't even responsible for. No-one asks to have a disorder like Yeon does, no-one asks to be orphaned,

and she is just a sweet yet defenceless girl with no memories at all. If her brother was here, you wouldn't even be able to see the light of day that I will grant you because I can only rid myself of you once and I need a lot more evidence before karma comes down on your ugly little head...in fact, I am pretty sure that it was you who found each and every man who serves my father as a part of his private army.

"So, are you saying that no-one deserved to be punished for this incident? Such leniency to these buffoons will send out the message that servants can be expect from anything and everything." Young Master?" "Confucius tells us that it is necessary to separate punishment and compassion, and it is very unnecessary to have them in our service if they cannot preform simple tasks like this. And as I am investigating this incident, why is it that my servant reported to me that you were the one who pushed Yeon down into the water." "It is a lie! Young Master, I cannot even walk after the punishment that you inflicted on me because of this lowborn..." "Mind your words, slave, or I will make you a washerwoman instead." I didn't mean to growl at her or anyone; all of the years of keeping my mouth shut and my emotions in tact were crumbling if anyone even looked at Yeon the wrong way. Myself and Hwi had always been put in awkward situations due to our class differences and we really couldn't defend each other as much as we both wanted to and should have. But Yeon was a different story and she was under my roof now, so who knows, protecting her in a slightly more intimate way could repair some of that damage to our friendship before I found a way to makeup for the current situation that I had landed all of us in.

"But Young Master!" "How can you possibly defend their actions? And who are you to say anything as a mere maid in this household! Who exactly do you think you are?" I could tell that my words were hurting her, which gave me all the more motivation to keep going on as a form of emotional compensation for Yeonnie.

"Chun-Ae, you always claim to care about me. But have you even taken into account that this happened so close to my quarters, that if I do not punish these guards, my father might be under the impression that anyone can harm his guest. And you know what my father is like when it comes to his reputation." The look on her face was completely priceless and the wheels in my mind suddenly started spinning just as my father's arrival had been announced. "Punishing these servants may harm our prestige, but my father is no fool to hire such ineffective and useless people. If this carries on, then anyone that my father brings home could well be in danger. And then what? You have not even offered anything to help Yeon if it wasn't you who caused such chaos!" "What on earth is going on here? Why is that lowborn girl soaking wet?" I made sure to intervene before Chun-Ae even had the chance to, and just like I had predicted, he got so angry that he himself dismissed his own washerwoman spies and even put me in charge of finding some new ones myself, since he never suspected me of disobeying him. And for the first time in her life, Chun-Ae got punished heavily by my father by being flogged 50 times and demoted to kitchen duty. Within a single night, Seo Yeon had managed to eliminate a quarter of my father's household and she gave me a reason to keep going forward instead of wallowing in my own pain and misery, and I couldn't be more grateful to her. But unfortunately, under my father's ever-watchful eye, I could not interact with Yeon. But he didn't say that I couldn't send her gifts as a token of my appreciation.

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Despite all of the chaos that was going on, I couldn't help but to closely observe the Young Master's body language and interactions with Yeon. And it looked like my worst fears were coming to light; he couldn't keep his eyes off of her. His face was still panic-stricken just like the day he bought her here in his arms. And he did it all over again right in front of me, but that wasn't all. Touching of any kind between the two sexes before marriage was very clearly forbidden by Confucius laws, and even married couples dare not touch each other in public. I would have thought that he young master would adhere to these simple rules, and yet here he was, holding Yeon's hands by the corner of her bed, caressing it and he even placed her hand against his cheek at one point. He was like a newborn babe playing with new toys, he had acted like he had never touched a woman in his life and he was now taking full advantage of it whilst she was still unconscious. And the worst thing was, he didn't even realise he was doing it. No matter how much he defended her, he still couldn't acknowledge her and he really shouldn't have to! And as for that lowly bitch, this once incident of me loosing my head had caused me to loose the trust that I had worked so hard to gain with the Nam's and I had lost a big chunk of master Nam's service people. And now I didn't even have a chance to redeem myself. Seo Yeon, she hadn't even been here for a month yet and she was causing me so much inconvenience. How dare she tread on my face like this? Very well then, if it was recovery time that she needed, then I would give her plenty of it. And take this chance to win over the young master so I could take my rightful place in this household as a bride.