A little ficlet set in episode 8 of Bossam
She kept the rock in her pocket, a little weight that would occasionally hit her leg as she walked about her day. It would bump against her and she’d slip her hand into the pocket to feel its smooth warmth. It was little larger than a pebble, long, flat and oval. At first she’d thought it black but it had been wet then. Dried, it settled into a dark, ashy grey. Looked at in the light, she could find small striations that waved over its surface.
Dae Yeop teased her the day she’d tripped while running in the palace and a small pair of pebbles had slipped from the pockets of her silk hanbok, taken from the banks of the man-made stream that ran through the palace gardens. She’d blushed and defensively proclaimed they were pretty.
Jewels had been gifted to her from the moment she’d been born, and beautiful jades, and golden trinkets. She had every manner of precious thing tucked into chests and drawers in palace rooms; she wanted for nothing when it came to priceless baubles and trinkets. But the little pebbles had called to her, gleaming white, jagged edges sometimes sparkling in the light. They reminded her of her time in the gardens, of Dae Yeop - seeing them would make her heart race.
Those pebbles were long gone, now, but she could not quite remember when or where.
But that day that Ba Woo had taken her to the ocean she’d looked down and seen it, glittering darkly under the foam of surging waves. She had plucked it out, the first ocean rock she’d ever held.
Later that night she’d sat on the stone beach, turning the little black rock over in her hands, listening to the ocean that she’d never even hoped to see in her life, though quieter than when they’d arrived, it was still a lulling rhythm that danced with her heart. She watched as Ba Woo explain to Cha Dol how to find the perfect rocks for skipping.
Worn smooth by years of waves, this would be a perfect rock for skipping, she realized, but her heart seized at the thought of tossing it away.
Ba Woo had looked up and his eyes caught hers in the failing light, laughter teasing at his lips and glowing in his eyes, such a rare sight. She opened her mouth to thank him again but she held back. She’d already thanked him for this, for taking her to the sea, for giving her the experience of the ocean. It would be ridiculous and sentimental to repeat the words. He already knew. He didn’t need to be told again.
She rubbed the rock, instead, then tucked it, still a little damp, into her pocket, a secret kept close.
It brought a little measure of calm, stroking it, hefting it, feeling its weight and so she kept it in her pocket day in and out. She worried it anxiously as she hid around the corner of the police office, Chun Bae a few steps ahead of her to bribe and sweet-talk the guards into letting them in to see Ba Woo. She clutched it tight as she ducked around him into the courtyard, looking around for him. For Ba Woo, her dark, smooth ocean rock.
annaxmalina
andulkaphoto
turnnoffyourmind
