The Royal Deal

Chapter 1 – A Life Without Purpose

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The last thirty-six years of Heeyeon’s life had not been particularly fortunate.
She had lived with an indifferent husband and needlessly rude in-laws, and her parents nagged her endlessly as if she was their sounding board for all their complaints with life.

There was also the matter of her colleagues who never missed an opportunity to stab her in the back.
Her children felt like a burden, but she was too afraid to say it out loud for fear of censure.
Nobody could really understand.
Her husband might have as he should have, but he was too busy with his own affairs and expecting favor after favor from Heeyeon to pay attention to what a struggle motherhood was for her.

Heeyeon was barely getting by in life, what with all these tangled, messy and complicated relationships surrounding her.
Perhaps they were the reason she had picked up the habit of saying, “I’m sick of this,” every now and then.
She wondered when life had become so intolerably boring.

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Every day in her life seemed to drain the energy out of her like a parasite.
Her life after marriage had become a nightmarish reality, one where she was failing an exam as there was no right answer to the problems.
Her life repeated a mundane cycle of work and home and Heeyeon was rapidly nearing exhaustion.

Today was another one of those days.
She boarded the elevator holding a bag of compost with her gloved hand.
A warm and dry breeze swept the hair off Heeyeon’s eyes as she approached the steps leading outside her building.
The breeze felt comforting and she looked up at the night sky almost subconsciously.
Though the night was cloudless, not a single star could be seen.
The waning crescent of the moon lit up the ground weakly, as did the streetlight.
As she walked toward the dumpsters, she looked around her, noticing the cozily lit apartments and their warmly decorated balconies.
The night was quiet except for the rustling of the young leaves that seemed to be enjoying the breeze as much as she was.

Heeyeon let out a deep sigh.
“I wonder what is the purpose of my life,” she said out loud to no one.

Having disposed of the bag of compost, she took her time walking back to the apartment.
She walked to her building and stopped right under her balcony and looked up.
Her apartment seemed similarly cozy to the others, and yet Heeyeon felt a sense of dread looking at it.
Instead of security, her home seemed to elicit a sense of imprisonment in her heart.

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Nevertheless, she soldiered on as there was an endless list of tasks