The Wedding Night (from the second novel)

[Blogger's Note: This next scene is from the second novel, it was translated by a different translator, and posted on a separate website. I don't remember where it's from, but I want to thank the person who took the time to do this.]

The Wedding Night

Seonjoon and Yoonhee haven’t spoken a word until now, although they still exchanged glances and smiles. But they hadn't exchanged a single word .

The silence started from the moment they had entered the room decorated for their wedding . The room is so dark that the lights from the oil lamp in it is the only thing enabling them to see each other 's face . But still he is silent, and she becomes impatient with his silence. Finally, Yoonhee speaks first.

"This hurts so much "

As she predicted , this made Seonjoon jump in shock.

"Hurt? Where does it hurt? "

"Thanks to my heartless groom , my shoulders hurt , and my head feels so heavy."

The burden of being dressed in the heavy wedding costume, of course hurts her body. Seonjoon understands this, but he didn't respond with the answer she wanted to hear.

"Sorry , but can you endure it for a little while longer? I dont want you to disrobe yet. "

Yoonhee was speechless, watching him with eyes wide with surprise. The groom is saying that he doesn't wish to have his bride disrobe when they are on their wedding night, is there anything stranger than this?

But he speaks with such sincere and serious expresion that he doesn't seem to be joking.

"Are you really my bride? Are we really married? I still can't really believe it even though I am seeing this with my own eyes!"

"If you do not intend to prepare for your bride's funeral tomorrow , you better help me remove this heavy thing now! "

Hearing her complains, he responds by teasing her.

"This is the first time I'm seeing you dressed in female attire. I won't ever get sick of watching you dressed like this."

Yoonhee can't bear to continue her complaints, instead her heart is filled with such apology towards him, who is now frowning with such a serious request. Her voice and expression took on a hint of teasing .

"In the future I will just let you have your fill of watching me like this till you get sick of it, will that be okay ?"

In the future...Sunjoon repeated these words in his heart over and over again. Even if the future is filled with more obstacles, he would still wish to be wed to her. If they do not overcome this hurdle now, they might never have any future.

"Yes.. you must!" He answered with such conviction .

Then he started to help her disrobe, but after removing the wedding headgear, he stopped.

Yoonhee gazed at the old headgear that was borrowed .

"Sahyung is a man with such great status, but now i am making you go through such a humble wedding, I am really ashamed."

"What does it matter this kind of wedding or that kind of wedding. Just having you sitting right in front of me like this, I am already content!

The words were spoken with such tenderness and devotion ... and his eyes speak the same as he gazed at her. And also his hands that is now gently covering her hands, are filled with love and tenderness.

"Even if I were really a man, I will still have loved Sahyung."

Ever since he met this woman, how many times had he been through hell, and how many times more in the future? But as long as he can be with her together, even if there is hell far worse then this, he will be able to endure it.

Sunjoon frowned slightly but soon the frown wss replaced by twinkle in his eyes and a smile that emerged just for her.

"Thank you for being a woman. For me, the fact that you are a woman, there is nothing more that I am grateful for.

Yoonhee can sensed his feelings for her through his hands that hold hers so tightly.

"Wi ..wish ..I can still get a wish from you, right?"

"Yes"

"Now can I use that wish?"

"What kind of wish? Since I promised you, I will do my best to make it come true for you."

"This might be a bit shameless to ask,.but can you promise to love only me forever?"

She asked so cautiously and he replied without hesitation,  "I cannot grant you this wish."

Yoonhee held her breath as she stared at him. Contrary to the answer that he had given to her, his smile was filled with such love as he watched her.

"Loving you only forever, even if you didn't make a wish, to me that is the most natural thing to do. So I won't consider it a wish and grant it to you."

Yoonhee looked into his eyes, her eyes filled with such happiness.

Being with him like this, all the worries seem to have vanished, she didn't even dare dream of being his wife, and even if she had, she was so afraid the dream will be broken and it will hurt even more. So of course, she can understand him now, that he can't even bear to see her out of these clothes (cherishing the moment so much, thinking it might be a dream.)

Yoonhee stretched out her hands to help Junsoon remove his hat. She smiled as she continued on to remove that belt around his waist.

"I haven't heard of a bride removing the clothes for her groom on the wedding night."

It might sound like one of the groom's lectures again but there is no hint of reprimand in there. The bride responded in kind with a rebutt that wasn’t intend to sounds like one but more like teasing: “If there is a groom who intends to sit there till morning, then of course there has to be a bride that will do that.“

He was captivated by that suggestive graze in her eyes and quickly extinguished the lights out with the chopsticks.

He used his sense of touch to remove her clothes, his hands different from before...now they had become more eager and hurried. As if reprimanding him for his impatience, Yoonhee spoke: "though it is worrying when the groom sits till the morning, but a groom that seems to be obsessed with lust till it hurts his health, is even more worrying."

“Someone said that no matter how much rice wine you drink, you wont be drunk, no matter how much you adore your wife, it wont hurt your health. Having intimacy with one’s wife is not considered lusting."

“Whose words are those? Which sage said that? Confucius or Mencius? From now onwards, I will only follow the person who had said those words.”

Her resistance made him more anxious. He pushed away her hands, and as he started to remove her outer coat, he said: "Fortunately this is just a saying ,otherwise I will be jealous of the sages."

“What will happen to the Confucius and other sages that I have followed during my life? I won't stop my admiration for them in future too …"

He didn’t stop what his hands were doing, removing her dress. And with a hint of laughter in his voice:

"Huh, Nan-Sul-Hun’s * (a famous female poet in Joseon dynasty) husband treated Du Fu (a famous male poet in China) to be his love rival. Do you intend for me to make Confucius into my love rival? I am a petty husband who will get jealous!"

The layers of inner garments under the dress is making him lose patience, there seems to be no end to the layers . And that whispering voice of his wife is making him even more anxious.

“I said before that the skies (heaven) are greater than the sage, so how can the sage compared to my husband who is as high as the sky."

The memories of that moment flashed through his mind, he pushed her to the mat on the floor, his lips sealed hers, and they drown in each other kiss and it was so addictive that they can't stop.

Suddenly there were shoutings from outside the door:  “Yo Garang! are you in there!"

Sunjoon's hands stopped what he was doing, that amusing tone seemed to belong to Yongha Sahyung. In Sungkyunkwan , his voice never faiedl to appear at the most inopportune of moment. Now Sunjoon is even hallucinating about it.

Yoonhee was laughing: "It is really amazing this thing about habit. I think I heard Yeorim Sahyung's voice!"

"Yes I heard it too."

But he doesn’t care about this hallucination now, and continues his quest to remove what is remaining of her pants. And Yongha's voice becomes more clearer now.

“I received information that the one and only Garang is having a secret wedding here! Quick come out to receive your punishment!"

Sunjoon broke off from Yoonhee in a hurry . Yoonhee was also in shock and sat up instantly. The two looked at each other; if they heard it together, then it cannot be be hallucination, hence both of them were so in shock that they did not even dare breathe.

"Oh! This is the newlywed's room? How can there not be anyone peeping in! This wont do, at least I need to poke into the window to take a look."

“Hey! Stop it. The ones inside are not children! What are you doing looking in like that?“

That voice came from Jaeshin.

Jaeshin and Yongha! And there is something more urgent then the problem of both of them being here now. The emergency is that Yongha's voice is getting closer to the door!

"The fun of wedding nite is to peep into the newlywed's room, how can you do without that!"

He isn’t thinking of poking into the paper window is he? But with his kind of character, Yongha will definitely do it! Yoonhee and Sunjoon stood up at the same time. She looked around flustered, and was in such a hurry to get out that she can't even differentiate which is the front and back door.

Sunjoon grabbed her hands, and pointed to her clothing, she had only the inner garments on. She was too panicked to care about her state of dressing and took the dress to covered herself.

Meanwhile, Yongha's fingers are closing in to the window and poked open one of them.

Sunjoon snatched the dress that Yoonhee had taken to cover herself and covered it over the window! Luckily there was voice outside that came to stop Yongha.

“Who are you! Why are you here?” Lady Cho asked outside.

Sunjoon listened to what was happening ..and whispered to Yoonhee.

“I will take care of this...you just stay here. Don’t go out!"

 

And he let Yoonhee take the dress, while he looked for the hat he had just taken off. As he searched, he yelled towards the outside. "Yeorim sahyung! We haven’t start to undress yet, there is nothing to watch! I will be right out!

There was a twinge of anger in his voice. It isn’t enough with what happen in Sungkyunkwan, now he had to come and ruin the wedding night. Which groom would not be angry! And it had to happen right after he had managed to remove all those layers of clothes.

So he stepped out with a stern face, wishing that they weren’t even here right now!

END OF TRANSLATED EXCERPT FROM THE SECOND NOVEL.

Here’s an additional scene from the wedding night which follows the above scene, but hasn’t been translated. This comment was made by someone who had read the second novel, and posted her comments on one of the many websites about the drama:

Yoonhee has kept telling Sunjoon to tell his father about her crossdressing, since his father already has seen her face. Sunjoon lies to her that he did (also he lies to her that she hasn't been called to work at Gyujanggak) so that she'll agree to marry him. When Yoonhee finds out (she finds out on the wedding night) she runs over to Sunjoon's father to tell him the truth, and Sunjoon's father cancels the whole marriage, despite Sunjoon and his mom's protests. Well, not cancel, but he's not letting them start living together, even though the wedding is done.

[Blogger's Note: Those of  you who watch a lot of Korean dramas know that in Korea, a marriage has to be recorded in order to be recognized, and when it is recorded, the wife is officially listed as part of the husband’s family. So basically, this means that the marriage is not official yet.]