The Red Palace

by June Hur

“Friendship is born at the moment when one … says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself…” —C. S. Lewis

Things were different in the palace. No one acted like children here. Even royal children behaved like solemn and anxious elders.

To enter the palace means to walk a path stained in blood, our medical teachers had whispered. There will be bloodshed. I only hope it will not be yours.

Lies are the only defenses the lowly have against the powerful.

I didn’t trust him—or any man—enough to be alone with him in such an isolated place.

Palace secrets must never get out, or else inevitably there will be blood.”

I’d somehow come to believe that if only Father would acknowledge my worth, then it would be like a badge of honor that the rest of the world could see, too.

I knew how to keep my heart calm in the face of death and dying, screaming patients, and yet one sharp word from my father, and I turned into a fragile child. Before him, I never knew how to keep myself from crying—the type of crying that left me in a heap of violent shudders and gasped attempts to speak—no matter how much he resented the sight of it all.

To be a boy opened doors that would never open for me, shielded him in a way where my own status as a woman had stripped me naked.

“Count the cost. Do not charge into the future unaware. Remember that, Hyeon-ah. No matter how hard you try to preserve yourself, every important decision in life will come with a price. It will come with regrets.”

“When the time comes,” he said quietly, holding my gaze the way he held my hand. “You watch out for me. And I will always watch out for you.”

“Revenge begets revenge; the anger is unquenchable. We become the monsters we are trying to punish. Justice, however, brings closure, and that is what I want. It can only be achieved by remaining sober-minded and rational.

Why would you risk an entire investigation to spare me?” He frowned as he peered down at me, as though confounded by my stubbornness. “I saw you nearly die today. I watched a man hold a blade over your throat.” A muscle worked in his jaw, his face ashen. “You are smart, capable, and you have a dream. Jieun told me all about it. So please, listen to me and don’t let this investigation ruin you. I’ll do all that I can to assist your mentor, so just—” Rawness chafed at his voice as he whispered, “Promise you’ll stay out of this case from now on.”

“I wonder what time it is, nauri,” I whispered. “You don’t need to keep calling me that,” he replied just as quietly. I closed my eyes again. Outside, a woman yawned as her footsteps crunched across the yard. Further off, a dog barked. I would address him properly in the morning. But just for now in these in-between hours, just for now before the sun rose and everything returned to its rightful place, I whispered, “All right … Eojin.”

I paused, spoon halfway to my mouth, as a fuzzy memory surfaced. The grayish blur of pre-dawn light. Eojin reaching out to touch the fallen strand of my hair, just long enough to tuck it behind my ear … and then he was gone. A memory … or a dream?

I wanted to love and be loved. I wanted to be known. I wanted to be understood and accepted.

Some patients looked well on the outside, when they were already fatally broken on the inside.

Replace patients with people and it still stands

“The more urgent a circumstance,” I said quietly, repeating Nurse Jeongsu’s words, “the calmer we must be.”

“If you enter the palace, you either die or you survive and become another monster within its walls

“When we’re together … it’s as though we are like water in the river, my thoughts flowing through yours, yours through mine. And when we are silent”—a faint smile tugged at his lips—“I forget you are even there sometimes.” “I’m flattered, nauri,” I said drily. “It is the greatest compliment. I dislike being around people for too long. But when I am with you … I never feel the need to be someone I am not.”

Some dreams, I’d learned, were meant to fade away. And to let go of them didn’t mean to let go of myself, but to release the life I’d imagined I wanted.

a good teacher must teach precisely and with a whole heart in order for a student to be molded into a true uinyeo.

“One doesn’t always need a sword to find the truth.”

“There is only you.” His words caressed me, winding themselves around my soul. “There will only ever be you. I promise, Hyeon-ah.”