she had beseeched her mother and brother to reconsider a coup d'état, but in the end reluctantly agreed. malguk shifted in many sleepless nights before finally confessing with wormwood tears to her sister she simply cannot see it through. abandoning her brother when the time had come, she was banished from their villlage afterwards along with her sister.

they find asylum among a small familial hamlet near the coast, malguk finds feelings for an already married man and confesses that he is the figure in her hearthrob dreams, and in secret they breathe in each other under peppered stars and lotus overrun grottos. slowly but surely, the girl finds guilt nestled in her breast for being without blood bond, married, but continues to taste the musk of her lover anyway. her not-husband offers a contract of children and to dispose of his current wife, but all the guilt had risen to the surface and girl refused for the sake of staying loyal to a culture nigh abandoned due to her exile, she explains she is tainted without proper marriage, and so their elopement was off the table and malguk's heart stricken again.

no longer finding worth in non-familial love, she wanders to the teekons in a somewhat drunken, wishy-washy state, droopy eyed and breast heavy.