Chapter 14: Medicine That Tastes of Spring

The Emperor stared silently down at the profile of the man in his arms, then brushed aside the hair covering his face.

Was it because his back was turned?

He wondered if he felt this way because he couldn’t guess the thoughts behind an expression he couldn’t properly see.

Even as he rose and gathered Haeryeong’s limp body into his embrace, the reason eluded him.

Gangcheon leaned Haeryeong’s upper body against himself and commanded Iryeon, who was lowering the bed canopy nearby.

“Bring the Empress’s medicine.”

Iryeon quickly and diligently brought the decoction, the pills, and a bowl of omija punch to cleanse his palate.

“Empress, you must take your medicine before you sleep.”

He gently shook the body he was holding, but the man seemed to have lost consciousness entirely, his eyes refusing to open.

Iryeon watched them and spoke cautiously.

“Your Majesty, I shall try to wake him.”

“It is fine. Give me the medicine.”

Gangcheon picked up a pill from the jade tray Iryeon held, and before putting it in his mouth, he whispered into the Empress’s ear.

“I shall certainly put this debt on your tab. Be prepared to pay it back twofold.”

Perhaps because he had been releasing his energy for some time, a faint scent of damp hinoki cypress was beginning to drift from Haeryeong as well.

As Gangcheon released more of his own energy as if to smother that scent, the body in his arms flinched and vibrated slightly.

Gangcheon put the pill in his mouth and chewed it, mixing it with his saliva.

He rolled the medicine with his tongue until it was thick and dissolved, then gripped Haeryeong’s chin and pressed their lips together.

As he pressed down firmly enough to tighten the jaw, Haeryeong’s lips parted slightly with a gasping breath.

He let the dissolved pill flow inside and finally pushed his tongue in.

Haeryeong’s tongue lay limp, as if it might slide back into his throat.

He pulled it forward to rest quietly in his mouth and dissolved the remaining medicine against it once more.

He took his time, slowly, until the man finally gulped down the diluted medicine.

During the long duration of their joined lips, the peach blossom scent Gangcheon released billowed through the bedchamber.

After confirming the pill had been swallowed, he pulled away to find the pale, parched lips now moist and swollen.

The sight of the Adam’s apple twitching as it swallowed surging saliva captured Gangcheon’s gaze.

Lifting his eyes with effort, he saw a flush from the fever blooming like flowers across the man’s entire face.

As he stared at the face so red it looked as if the color might rub off on his hands, Gangcheon suddenly recalled the poem the Empress had muttered.

‘Since I have heard a love song, I must give a response.’

Whether it was because the poem Haeryeong had stumblingly whispered was somewhat to his liking, a response flowed out naturally.

Gangcheon hummed a reply themed around those red cheeks and lifted the bowl to feed him the remaining decoction.

“The fragrance of flowers in the world of men fades by the fourth month,
But the peach blossoms in the mountain temple have only just begun to bloom.
I sighed deeply, finding no path to the spring that had departed,
Never did I imagine I would find it had turned and come here.”

As he leaned down with the fishy decoction in his mouth, the slightly parted lips opened a bit wider.

When he poured the liquid inside, unlike with the pill earlier, Haeryeong did not accept it but instead thrashed his body.

Gangcheon tightened his arm around Haeryeong’s shoulders, which felt even smaller after his illness, and pressed him down as he kissed him deeply.

He waited until he heard that small gulping sound once more.

However, he did not pull away until long after.

He licked the wet lips and nipped at the plump, swollen flesh with his teeth, waiting for the taste of the medicine to fade before finally breaking the contact.

Just as he tilted the bowl to take another mouthful, a small groan escaped Haeryeong.

He lifted his head, medicine still in his mouth, and looked down at an angle.

The trembling eyelashes were slowly lifting.

Eyes blurred with fever were revealed slowly, like the moon rising above the horizon.

Gangcheon watched silently as those crescent-moon eyes slowly rounded into half-moons before hiding again beneath the eyelids.

When the dark blue full moon finally rose brilliantly in the opened sky of his gaze, Gangcheon unconsciously swallowed the medicine he had been holding.

Without a moment to grimace at the nauseating sensation of the liquid warming his stomach, Gangcheon fixed his eyes on the long, thick lashes that looked like laurel branches holding the moon.

He felt as though a light breeze were blowing from somewhere.

He wondered if the trembling of the Empress’s eyelashes was due to that wind.

“Haeryeong-ah.”

What a truly ridiculous thing.

The man who had never once called him that when he was waiting for it was now pretending to be surprisingly tender, just as he had decided to give up.

Haeryeong felt his stomach twist the moment he saw that face upon opening his eyes.

No, it wasn’t just a feeling.

The thick scent of peach blossoms filling the room and the cloying, fishy, bitter taste in his mouth made nausea surge.

“Ugh…”

He twisted his body to escape the man’s embrace, but the arm wrapped across his back and shoulder was too solid.

With a body that had no strength left after nearly fifteen days of illness, he could not possibly break free.

“What is the matter?”

‘Please.’

Haeryeong clamped his mouth shut and struggled to push against the man’s chest.

The movement was futile against the Emperor, who only hugged him tighter as if pulling him closer.

“Ugh… blegh.”

In the end, Haeryeong vomited the black liquid onto the Emperor’s chest.

The scent of the liquid streaming down the white silk sleeping robe caused a secondary wave of nausea.

“Ha.”

A short, hollow chuckle escaped from above Haeryeong’s head as he hunched over and vomited.

The thick liquid from the dissolved pill splattered across the Emperor’s chest, Haeryeong’s hand covering his mouth, and his entire body.

When the vomiting finally stopped and Haeryeong lifted his head with tears shimmering in his eyes, he saw an expression on the Emperor’s face he had never seen before.

“I… I am deeply sorry.”

The Emperor quickly wiped the expression from his face and handed the medicine bowl to the restless Iryeon.

“Prepare the bath. I shall enter with the Empress.”

Haeryeong, in his state of confusion, failed to register the words.

Not only had he covered the Emperor in vomit, but the unpleasant taste in his mouth and the smell from the hand covering it made his stomach continue to turn.

As he desperately held his breath to endure the sensation of his insides shrinking, the Emperor patted the hand he had wrapped around his back.

“Since you have already spit it out, do not be shy.”

A tear that had been clinging to his eyelashes fell.

His face burned as he failed to endure the shame and embarrassment.

As he shed silent tears, the man wiped them away with his fingers and spoke in a tender voice.

“Empress, are you alright?”

“I am… so sorry,” Haeryeong replied, his voice muffled by the hand covering his mouth.

“What shame is there in such a thing between husband and wife?”

Since when exactly had they been such a devoted couple that he said that with every other breath?

Haeryeong couldn’t even open his mouth to soothe his still-churning stomach; he simply looked up at him with a resentful gaze.

The Emperor, a faint smile on his lips, scanned Haeryeong’s face.

“Is the medicine not to your taste?”

“I apologize…”

“Now, now. That phrase again. How many times must I repeat the same thing before you stop?”

When Manchul brought tea to rinse his mouth, the Emperor took it himself and held it to Haeryeong’s lips, whispering.

“Rinse your mouth, and then we shall go wash. I will tell the physician to use different ingredients for the medicine.”

His actions looked remarkably practiced.

‘Did he always do this for the fragile Noble Consort?’

As Haeryeong merely stared at him, the man urged him and tilted the cup.

“Do not swallow. Good.”

While he spat the tea into the small silver basin Manchul held, tears continued to pool because of the man’s tenderness.

‘I wish I had never known.’

‘I wish I had only ever known your cold side.’

Haeryeong clutched his chest, weeping silently as the tears fell.

His heart beat with an unpleasant rhythm, and jagged breaths leaked through his slightly parted lips.

The Emperor, having cleared the teacup, patted his back and pulled Haeryeong into his arms.

At the touch that seemed to soothe his now-shivering body, the tears poured out even more.

‘If you knew how to do this, why were you so cruel all that time?’

He wanted to ask.

What was it about a young bride of only seventeen, who came alone from a far-off land, that made him so hateful that he treated him with such neglect?

His throat burned as if filled with lava.

Haeryeong, who was shedding silent tears without even a sob, lifted his wet eyes when he felt a chuckling breath.

Unlike someone faced with a weeping person, the Emperor was grinning.

“I never knew the Empress was such a pampered child. It seems not remembering might not be so bad after all.”

Haeryeong glared at the Emperor’s smiling face with sharp, venomous eyes.

Though he was someone who had never truly hated or cursed anyone, in this moment, he sincerely wished for the Emperor to be struck by divine punishment.

‘You must be so pleased that someone else’s weeping is so amusing to you.’

Haeryeong couldn’t bring himself to say it to the Emperor’s face and simply swallowed the words stuck in his throat.

“Your Majesty. The bath is ready.”

Iryeon, who had entered silently, reported with a bow.

The Emperor chuckled and rose from the bed while still holding Haeryeong.

Startled by the sudden height and the swaying of his body, Haeryeong’s wet eyes went round.

“Let us wash up properly and then sleep.”

“Please set me down. I shall walk on my own feet.”

The Emperor didn’t even pretend to hear Haeryeong and headed toward the bath.

He walked with steady, long strides, showing no sign of strain even while carrying Haeryeong.

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