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Life as a stable boy is not glamorous, but Choi Jongho doesn’t mind.
His duties are simple: wake before dawn, muck out the stables, feed the horses, exercise and groom them. Be available at any given moment to saddle them up in case one of the royal highnesses wishes to ride.
They rarely wish to ride. Jongho is often left alone.
In the summer, the sun is hot. After years of work, his skin has grown tanned and coarse.
The fields bracketing the castle and which border the stables are vast. In the mornings, when Jongho wakes before the sun, he allows himself a moment, just one, to watch the gauzy tendrils of light unfurl themselves slowly over the hills.
Life as a stable boy is by no means glamorous, but Jongho enjoys the heat of the sun. The light on the hills. He’s solitary by nature, and he doesn’t mind going hours without anyone but the horses for company. He’s found that he often prefers it.
His days are easy. A quick bath in the lake in the mornings, and at night, dinner in the kitchens with the rest of the servants. When he sleeps, he does so in a small loft above the stable that is closest to the hills, padded with straw and soft blankets he’s managed to sneak from the castle. He does his job competently, and has not once been chided by the royal head of staff. There’s very little that is complicated in his daily life.
There is a prince that lives in the castle. He’s the second son, and young, around Jongho’s age, perhaps twenty. When the boy was born, two years before Jongho had yet entered the world, there was an announcement that had swept through the kingdom stating that the baby prince was to be named Yeosang.
Yeosang. A sound which resonates from a high point.
Anticipating that their second son might one day grow to become a knight, the king and queen had bestowed upon him the name hoping that it would imbue him with strength and prowess.
But Jongho has seen the boy in his lessons, has seen him with his tutor in the fields which border the stables, wobbling under the weight of even the lightest blade. He has seen him after his tutor leaves, watching the butterflies dance in the tall grass. Jongho thinks the prince appears more natural weaving flower chains than wielding a sword.
Jongho can see him now, in fact. From the eastern window of the second stable, Jongho can just barely make out the prince’s small form sitting on a bench in the garden with a large, leather-bound book propped on his knees.
“You’re daydreaming again, Choi Jongho.”
He is not.
“I am not,” he grumbles, and in his indignation inadvertently pulls the coarse brush through his horse’s mane quicker than he normally would, earning an annoyed whinny from the mare in question. He softens, murmuring an apology.
Song Mingi simply lets out a laugh from where he sits, sprawled on the wooden loft which Jongho calls his bed.
“Explain the look on your face, then,” Mingi says, dangling a single leg off the balcony. “Your eyes have gone all gentle.”
Jongho sets down his brush, beginning to prepare the mare for her daily trot around the grounds. “You’re one to talk,” he says, knowing (far too) intimately Mingi’s current romantic circumstances (those which happen to pertain to a certain Kim Hongjong, the royal tailor).
“At least I am forthright,” Mingi sighs, reclining on both of his elbows, as if he isn’t at that very moment hiding from the royal blacksmith in hopes that the large hole he (accidentally) might have burnt in the floor will be forgotten, if he only manages to stay out of sight.
“And I am being forthright when I say that I do not daydream about that little prince,” Jongho says tiredly, fastening a worn leather saddle onto the horse’s back.
Mingi lets out a gleeful hoot of laughter. “I said nothing of a little prince.”
Mingi finds himself having to dodge the heavy grooming brush launched at his head, which eventually lands behind him with enough force to leave a decently-sized nick in the wood. Not bad, Jongho thinks, inadvertently flexing his muscles.
Mingi’s saved, in the end, from Jongho’s powerful fists by a sharp knock at the door.
“It’s me,” says a high, pleasant voice from outside the stable. Ears perking up eagerly, Mingi jumps down from his perch and dusts off his trousers. Jongho rolls his eyes and busies himself with his saddle. The boy is like a puppy, floppy and lovelorn.
Mingi opens the door to reveal a small, rascally-looking man with hair that is longer in the back than it is in the front. Grinning, he pulls him inside.
“Good morning, boys,” Hongjoong the tailor says, eyes glinting as he looks back and forth between Jongho and Mingi. “All is well?”
Mingi snorts, gesturing towards the window. “Jongho has been gawking at the prince again.”
Hongjoong lets out a fond little laugh, the corners of his mouth turning upwards. “Nothing out of the ordinary, then.”
Jongho simply splutters indignantly from the corner while Hongjoong now turns on Mingi. “And you? Perhaps an explanation as to why you’re hiding in Jongho’s bed when you’re meant to be working?” he asks playfully.
Now it’s Mingi’s turn to grow red, avoiding eye contact. “No reason.”
“Oh? Well. There’s a rumor I’m hearing around the castle,” Hongjoong says with a sly, roguish smile, pointing a slim, ringed finger at Mingi, “that a certain blacksmith’s apprentice is wanted for crimes related to floor-burning.”
Mingi’s cheeks turn scarlet. “They have no evidence it was me.”
“They will if I turn you in,” Hongjoong says, grinning playfully and nearly pawing at Mingi’s chest. “What are you going to do to keep me quiet?”
Jongho’s eyes go wide, wondering how a person can be so shameless, and in front of others, no less. He thanks the gods with everything inside of him that at that moment he has finished saddling his horse, because he is fairly certain that Hongjoong is going to debauch Mingi against the wall of the stable now ( his stable, he thinks glumly) and he does not, in any circumstance, want to be present for that.
He manages to escape before Hongjoong has actually managed to get any of Mingi’s over-garments off, leaving them with a simple “not in my bed!” to which Hongjoong just laughs a particularly devilish laugh and Mingi appears to choke.
Once he’s on the grounds he finds himself able to breathe freely again, though the fondness he feels for Mingi and his paramour, Jongho’s only real (two-legged) friends, is undeniable.
The lush green of the hills comforts him as he leads the horse away from the castle and towards the riding path behind the garden that trails into the forest. As he approaches, the once-distant image of the prince’s blonde head becomes clearer in his line of sight. Jongho can see the soft-looking silk of his shirt gleaming in the sunlight, the golden rings adorning his slender fingers.
The prince was born with a birthmark under his left eye. In the kingdom, it’s said that such a mark indicates a fatal wound from a past life— a killing wound— and the royal cabinet had taken this mark as even firmer evidence that the prince would grow to be a great swordsman; that the boy had clearly been no stranger to battle.
But when Jongho finds himself near enough to see it, to really see it, the mark which everyone whispers about, he thinks that it is not so much a wound as it is an adornment. The pink of it makes him look not fearsome, but instead, rather lovely. It is the same color as the hydrangeas planted beside him.
And as Jongho passes by, gently leading the mare along the periphery of the garden, the prince looks up at him. He only looks once, quickly, as if on accident, before returning his eyes to the book in his lap.
Jongho flushes, focusing hard on his leather shoes as he leads the horse to the woods.
The next day, when he takes the horse out to ride, he finds the prince once more on the same bench. He is reading a different book, Jongho notes, as the leather of the binding, once a dark green color, is now a deep brown.
And the next day, the same.
The day after that, it rains. The prince is nowhere in sight. Jongho still must exercise the mare, only now, he feels something akin to sadness as he leads her through the woods, rain lashing at his shirtsleeves.
But the next day, the prince is once again perched on the bench. He has no book today as far as Jongho can tell, and he simply leans back on his arms, enjoying the sun with the top of his shirt unlaced. Jongho leads his horse along the periphery as usual.
And then suddenly, the prince speaks.
“It was raining yesterday, but you still took the horse out. I saw you.”
Jongho stops in his tracks, startled. In the two years he’s worked at the castle he’s not once heard the prince’s voice. It’s pleasant, with a lower tone than he had imagined.
He had never once expected the prince to notice him, let alone speak to him. He bends forward in a quick bow.
“Yes,” Jongho just says, still at a loss. “Um, your highness. She becomes unruly if she does not exercise daily.”
“You work in the stables then?” the prince calls out to him from his bench, still a good ten feet away.
“Yes,” Jongho says, unsure of what else to say. The prince himself seems unsure of how to continue.
“I think I might wish to ride tomorrow,” the prince says, straightening up on the bench, bringing his legs up to sit cross-legged.
Jongho nods. “I will be in the stable from morning until night.”
At that, the prince might have smiled, but Jongho is unable to be sure at this distance. He waits anxiously to be dismissed.
After a moment, the prince also nods. “You may continue on your way.” And then adds, almost hesitantly: “I will see you.”
Jongho leaves, biting his lower lip with enough strength to draw blood.
The next day, Jongho waits. He putters around the stable all morning, making sure the horses are fed and groomed, taking special care to make sure the prince’s horse is polished and gleaming.
But by mid-afternoon he’s grown anxious. He has exhausted all possible tasks that do not involve leaving the stable, and Jongho is not accustomed to having so much time to think.
He knows that if the prince does show up asking Jongho to fit his horse for a ride, he will have to accompany him, according to the rules placed upon him as the second son. He imagines the two of them riding in the woods, side by side. He wonders if the prince will care for conversation, or if he will prefer to ride in silence.
Jongho is not one for conversation. In truth, he never quite learned how to have one. Growing up in his village, he had been quiet and diligent. He kept to himself mostly, and the friends that he did have managed to do most of the talking for him. It’s for this reason that he’s so fond of Mingi and Hongjoong, because with them around it’s often hard to get a word in edgewise. He’s thankful for them more than they know.
He’s saved from his introspection by a gentle knock on the door, and it’s nothing like Hongjoong’s sharp taps or Mingi’s clumsy thumping. Jongho springs up quickly, dusting himself off and regulating his breath.
Then he opens the door and the prince is there, at the threshold of his stable, looking catastrophically out of place. In Jongho’s two years here, the prince has not once come to see him of his own volition to go riding.
Jongho bows quickly, remembering his manners.
The prince just laughs, cocking his head slightly to the left. “There is no need to bow. We are not being watched.”
“Oh,” Jongho just says, confused. “Yes. Alright.”
“What is your name?” the prince asks, inviting himself into the stable and looking around.
“Choi Jongho,” Jongho says, his own name sounding foreign on his tongue. He begins to bow but stops himself just in time. “I do not have to ask yours, your highness.”
“There is no need to call me that,” says the prince, his posture surprisingly relaxed. “My name is Yeosang.”
“With all due respect, your highness, I can’t call you that,” Jongho says, not sure whether or not the prince is leading him into a trap. “If somebody were to overhear… I’d lose my position.”
The prince frowns. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“Excellent,” the prince— Yeosang— says, smiling just enough for Jongho to catch a glimpse of his teeth, white and expertly rounded as if by a sculptor. “You can call me hyung. A compromise.”
Jongho almost smiles involuntarily. He purses his lips tight. “I should not.”
“Perhaps only when we are riding, then,” Yeosang suggests, the corners of his lips twitching upwards.
“Perhaps,” Jongho murmurs. Remembering the task at hand, he turns now to the prince’s horse. “I assume you want to ride her today?”
Yeosang nods. “I’ve not ridden in a long time.”
Jongho does crack a small smile at that, no matter how improper, while fastening the horse’s saddle to her midsection. “It’s no problem. That’s what I’m here for.”
“Have you always liked horses?” Yeosang asks, fiddling absently with one of the buttons on the cuff of his white linen shirt.
“You ask many questions,” Jongho says, still facing the horse rather than the prince. When he doesn’t hear a reply, he sighs and continues. “Animals have always taken to me.”
“You are lucky,” Yeosang says, with a trace of something unrecognizable in his tone. “How did you come to work here?”
Jongho has finished saddling Yeosang’s white horse and has since moved on to his own dark brown one. “I worked as a stable boy on my father’s brother’s farm since I was old enough to hold a rake,” he says emotionlessly, quickly and effortlessly knotting the saddle into place. “When I came of age, I was told I must seek work elsewhere, and so I came here.”
“Do they treat you well here?” Yeosang asks curiously. Jongho is afraid of what dangerous emotion looking him in the eyes might bring, so he concentrates fully on the horse in front of him.
The question startles Jongho enough for his normally nimble fingers to fumble upon one of the knots he had been tying.
“I— cannot ask for more,” Jongho says after a brief hesitation. “I am given food, shelter,” he gestures to his loft, “a place to rest my head. That is more than many can say.”
Yeosang’s eyebrows furrow slightly, before he smooths them over again, making his face impossible to read. Not that Jongho had been looking in the first place.
Noticing at that moment that both horses have finally been saddled, Yeosang rubs his hands together lightly. “Shall we go?”
Jongho nods politely.
Yeosang was not being dishonest when he said it had been years since he’s ridden a horse. Jongho ends up having to nearly lift him completely onto the saddle (a task that is by no means difficult— he is very strong) and as he starts them both off towards the trail at an agonizingly slow pace, he stays close, just in case.
They ride in silence for many placid minutes, during which the symphony of sounds produced by winged creatures and tree-dwellers trickles pleasantly into Jongho’s ears.
It’s Yeosang, unsurprisingly, who breaks the silence.
“It’s pretty here,” he says, looking up at the light streaming through the gaps in the tree branches.
Jongho offers a soft sound of agreement, unsure of what to say. Something about the prince makes him feel as though not a single one of the words in his vocabulary is adequate.
Yeosang continues. “I haven’t been in these woods since I was very small. Everything appears different.”
“I imagine now that the trees do not seem as big,” Jongho murmurs, looking pointedly at the path ahead.
Yeosang lets out a laugh, a surprisingly booming sound for such a slender, delicate boy. “I suppose so,” he says. “But they are still very big.”
Jongho holds back a small smile. “I saw one fall, once.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.”
It’s silent for a minute before Yeosang laughs again. “You really do not say much, do you.”
Jongho bites back another smile. “It is difficult to find the right words to say,” he says, decidedly omitting the fact that he only has this much difficulty around Yeosang. “I’ve never spoken to a prince.”
Yeosang huffs, like a child. “I wish I was not one.”
“A prince?”
“Yes,” Yeosangs says. He frowns. “What use do I have for riches when there are families in the villages that cannot afford food?”
This surprises Jongho. His belief until this moment had been that most royals, on principle, tend to give very little thought to those who reside outside the palace walls.
He doesn’t know what to say in response, is unsure even how to react to hearing such words coming out of the prince’s mouth, and so he says nothing.
The prince, though, is apparently unused to being ignored. “Did you know any?”
“Any what?” Jongho asks.
“People. Who could not afford food. Before you came here.”
Jongho almost laughs at his innocence. “Yes. There were many.”
Yeosang frowns again. Jongho wants to tell him he’ll get wrinkles if he keeps doing that.
A fraught moment of silence passes between them before Yeosang finally speaks. “My views do not align with the king’s, you know.”
Jongho raises an eyebrow.
“I think that everyone should have food.”
This time, Jongho cannot help but let out a small laugh. “It seems that your politics are sound, your highness.”
At that, Yeosang smiles against his will. The words left unsaid settle below them on the forest floor, resting among the leaves and sticks. Jongho feels them surround him, gently, as they continue under the tree canopy.
For the next few weeks, they ride almost every day.
Jongho begins to understand Yeosang’s habits of communication. The prince, while well-intentioned, is used to getting what he wants. And that means not letting Jongho get away with one-word answers, or grunts, or slight, bemused nods in response to what he says.
Jongho would never tell the prince that he’s glad for all the probing.
Their rides together gradually turn from slow walks into faster walks which eventually turn into friendly races along the edge of the forest (which Jongho nearly always lets Yeosang win).
Jongho learns that Yeosang, as the second son, often feels neglected and ignored. In turn, Jongho reveals that his parents are dead.
Yeosang probes, of course. Jongho indulges him.
“My mother died giving birth to me,” he says, reclining on his elbows in the small grassy clearing at which they decided to rest before riding back to the castle. He twitches his lips up, remembering something ridiculous. “My father said my head was very large.”
Yeosang’s expressive eyes follow Jongho’s with rapt attention. “I’m sorry,” he says, presumably referring to what Jongho had said about his mother, and not the size of his head.
Jongho waves away his apology. “My father worked on fishing boats,” he continues. “When I was six, he left for what should have been a two week trip and he never came back. I lived with my uncle after that.”
“You must have had to grow up quickly.”
Jongho shrugs. “I’ve lived as I have for as long as I can remember. It’s not as bad as one might think.”
“You don’t ever wish that you’d had a bit longer to be a child?” Yeosang questions, absently twisting a blade of grass between his fingers.
Jongho shrugs again. “Do you?”
Yeosang scoffs against his will. “I am certain that my mother and father believe I am still one.”
“What would you do?” Jongho asks, softly, letting his voice fade into the gentle breeze. “If things were not the way that they are.”
“If I were not a prince?”
Jongho nods.
“I think,” Yeosang hesitates, “the question I’d rather be asked is ‘what would I no longer do.’”
Jongho raises an eyebrow.
Yeosang continues: “If I were not a prince, my existence would no longer depend upon the labor of others. I would no longer be the beneficiary of a system that makes capital of other people. That would be enough.”
Jongho simply looks at him. “Your analysis is compelling.”
“You do not seem convinced.”
“Forgive me,” Jongho says, “but you have not ever lived as the people in the villages do.”
Yeosang does not reply but merely looks at him with an eyebrow raised, and so Jongho continues: “Here, you can be either one of two things. Someone who works to make others richer, or someone who gets rich on the backs of others. I invite you to attempt a life without choosing one or the other.”
Yeosang frowns, dropping the now-frayed blade of grass. It lands among the others. Then, to Jongho’s surprise, he smiles. “I think I will accept your invitation.”
~~~
During one of their walks, they come across a pond, big enough to drown in but small enough to swim across. Jongho has never been this far into the forest before. He doubts Yeosang has either.
But to his surprise, at the sight of the pond, Yeosang dismounts his horse like he had always known it was going to be here and starts unlacing his shirt.
“Your highness—” Jongho begins, and then corrects himself after a brutal glare from Yeosang, “— hyung. What are you…”
“It’s beautiful out. The pond is clear; I can see the bottom. Don’t you want to swim?”
Truthfully, no, Jongho does not want to swim. If he gets his clothes wet, it will throw off his entire laundry rotation, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Jongho isn’t exactly spoiled for choice in his daily attire. But Yeosang is standing there by the pondside, white shirt already half unlaced, looking up at him with such childlike glee and wonder and joy. These are not emotions Jongho gets to see on Yeosang too often, and truth be told, he rather likes them.
So he shrugs his shoulders and dismounts his horse.
He tries to avoid watching Yeosang too carefully as he strips down to his undergarments, but he can’t help but steal the occasional fleeting glance. The skin on his chest is pale and soft, as though it’s never seen sunlight before. Perhaps it really hasn’t. The blonde hairs on the gentle slope of his stomach catch the light of the sun just so.
Jongho swallows, and busies himself with unlacing his own shirt, a much more humble thing made of something between cotton and burlap.
He waits for Yeosang’s cue when removing the rest of his clothes, unsure whether to leave his undergarments on or off. But Yeosang doesn’t stop. He simply removes every last bit of fabric that had been on his body until nothing remains, and then jumps into the pond.
“Are you coming in?” he yells joyfully, doing a small lap across the pond’s widest section.
“Not all of us are so practiced at taking our clothes off with such haste,” Jongho replies with a smile. He’s not usually one for jokes, and he flushes with embarrassment as soon as the words leave his tongue, but he doesn’t regret saying it.
Especially not after he sees Yeosang’s reaction— even from yards away, he can tell that he’s blushing, and he sends a huge splash of water in Jongho’s direction.
Jongho finally finishes undressing and jumps into the water quickly to spare himself the discomfort of having his own body be seen.
They swim and splash around for quite some time, thankful to have the sunny clearing all to themselves. Jongho notices how they orbit each other in the water, circling like sharks, almost touching but never quite.
They play a game Yeosang claims he invented where Jongho has to close his eyes and guess where Yeosang is based only on the sounds he’s making. Jongho takes his job extremely seriously and stalks him across the pond, finally ending the game in a tackle that dissolves the touch barrier between them immediately, making Jongho question why it ever existed in the first place.
Touching is easy, under the water. The act no longer holds the crushing gravity that it does on land. Jongho forgets himself, touching Yeosang’s foot with his own. Yeosang reciprocates with a gentle nudge against his knee.
They inch closer to each other in the center of the pond, their legs silently treading beneath them, water streaming down their faces and necks. With slight hesitation, Yeosang reaches out and grasps Jongho’s shoulders. Jongho freezes, but only for a moment. He reminds himself that touching is different here, where they have the clearing and the pond entirely to themselves. Here, where their lives are their own.
And so Jongho forgets himself again, allowing himself to truly touch Yeosang, the prince, his royal highness. He extends his arms and grabs Yeosang’s waist. His body is delicate, certainly royal, but sturdy, too, in a way that surprises him. He feels Yeosang’s shallow breaths expanding and contracting in his abdomen, air filtering in and back out of his lungs.
They’re close now, closer than they’ve ever been. Jongho can see the flecks of gold in Yeosang’s brown eyes; a prince indeed.
Jongho wants to kiss him.
But he knows even out here, where it feels as though maybe it could be allowed, that it isn’t. So instead, he simply splashes Yeosang with a big wave of pond water, and the world regains its balance.
They swim until they get tired.
And after that, they lie at the pondside, letting the sun dry and warm their naked bodies. They eventually redress, but neither of them makes any effort to try and leave.
“Where did you learn to swim?” Yeosang asks after a long silence, hands folded behind his head. In this light, with just his linen shirt, simple brown trousers, and wet hair, he looks almost… common.
Almost, Jongho reminds himself, remembering his gold-plated eyes.
“Have you forgotten?” Jongho snorts. “My father was a fisherman. I grew up in the water. I should be asking where you learned to swim. I don’t suppose it’s an activity that exactly becomes someone of your position.”
Yeosang flushes. “My older brother taught me,” he says, followed by a long pause. “We were friends, once.”
Jongho cocks an eyebrow. “And now you are… not?”
“No,” Yeosang says, offering a small smile that does not even attempt to reach his eyes. “Not really.”
Jongho just waits, knowing that Yeosang will say more if he just keeps his eyebrow raised. And just as Jongho predicted, he does.
“It’s just that he is loyal to my parents,” he says. “He’s set to be king. And he wants it. He really does.”
“And you wouldn’t?” Jongho asks, playing with a string that had come loose on his shirt. “If you were in his position?”
Yeosang sighs, picking at his fingernails. Jongho has noticed he only does that when he is anxious, or uncertain. “I cannot say what I would do in his position, for I am not in it. I can only say what I know from being myself. And Jongho, all I know is…” he says, pausing to try to find the right words, “…my parents. They are not… good people.”
Jongho snorts internally. Ask anyone in any village in the entire kingdom, and they could have told you as much. But he knows that this is a personal issue for Yeosang. He knows it is not easy to reject the only family you’ve ever known.
He just nods, softly, saying nothing. He can tell by the expression in Yeosang’s brown-gold eyes that he understands.
~~~
The next day, Jongho waits in his stable as he always does. But after that day by the pond, Yeosang stops coming.
No longer does he stride quickly and confidently down the hill to his stable and demand Jongho prepare his horse for riding. No longer does he sit in the sunny courtyard reading leather-bound books and making daisy chains. In fact, Jongho does not see him on the grounds at all.
Was it something he said?
He finds himself, at times, gazing absently at Yeosang’s saddle where it sits on the shelf in his stable. He quickly brushes off the thought that he might have ruined his chance at a friendship with the prince he’s been idly studying for two years.
He reminds himself of his place in the world, and tells himself that he’s lucky just to have gotten a scrap of the prince, once in his life.
And because he has nothing else to do and no one else to be, he carries on.
Autumn comes with little fanfare. Jongho adds raking leaves to his list of daily chores, and does it well and without complaint. Hongjoong and Mingi still come by a few times a week, and life returns to normal.
One day in mid-November, Jongho pulls down his horse’s saddle cloth to prepare for her daily ride, and almost yells in surprise when out with it falls a small scrap of white parchment. It flutters to the ground almost gracefully, with a sense of regal poise.
The saddle cloth is new, so it must be the bill of sale from the shop, he rationalizes; though he’ll never know for sure, he reminds himself. Frustrated that he hadn’t seen it before and embittered by the fact that he’ll never know what it says, he kicks it underneath a pile of hay.
Not being able to read has never been a problem for Jongho. He’s content with all of the things he has come to understand about the world on his own, without needing to read to understand them. He knows the strange comfort he finds in riding a horse, in riding a horse fast , and the feeling of wind and air and flickering sunbeams all around him as he shares something so profound with another living creature. He knows the heat of the sun, and the light on the hills, and he loves them, he really does. Reading would complicate many things for him. He’s glad no one ever taught him.
But then the next day, another. Under his pillow this time, just as delicate and expensive-feeling as the first.
By the end of the next week, he’s found enough pieces of parchment to be able to begin wallpapering the stable with them. He thinks at first that the culprit might be Hongjoong writing notes to Mingi, who sometimes takes refuge from the drudgery of blacksmithing in Jongho’s stable. Perhaps passively enmeshing Jongho into their twisted love affair adds to the thrill of it all.
But if the notes were truly intended for Mingi, why wouldn't Hongjoong have left them somewhere he’d obviously find them? Certainly, Mingi has been known to drape himself carelessly over Jongho’s straw pallet every now and again, but there’s a haphazardness to this whole affair that doesn’t strike Jongho as entirely Hongjoong’s style.
He intends to confront the tailor as soon as he next encounters him.
It’s sooner than expected, though, because Hongjoong stops by the stables that same night. And Jongho hasn’t even yet prepared his moralizing speech!
Hongjoong, per usual, enters without knocking, sending two of the horses into individual fits of timorous whines. Jongho calms them quickly, sending Hongjoong a sour look. Hongjoong just grins.
“Any exciting plans this evening?” Hongjoong asks, making himself comfortable on the sturdy stool Jongho mostly uses to milk the cows.
“Are there ever?” Jongho asks, rolling his eyes and busying himself with adjusting his shirtsleeves just so he has something to do with his hands. “And don’t think you can just come in here and play innocent with me.”
Hongjoong’s normally lazy eyes go wide. “Whatever crime of which you are accusing me, I wholeheartedly deny.”
Jongho simply looks at him, quirking his eyebrow in a way that he knows makes himself look stern.
“If you are referring to the moments I’ve been—” Hongjoong begins, and for once appears to be fumbling around for the right words, cheeks flushed and avoiding eye-contact, “— engaged with Mingi while you’ve been out of the stable… Well. I promise you, nothing necessarily has occurred in your bed—”
Jongho cuts him off, rolling his eyes. “Please. Please, I do not wish to know what you do when I’m not here. I’m speaking of the silly little love notes you’ve been leaving him in my quarters. I know the importance of keeping your affair a secret, but isn’t this—” he pulls from his pocket today’s note, the fresh white of the parchment glowing dully in the lantern light— “a little too far?”
But instead of looking embarrassed, or ashamed, or even a little bit shocked, as Jongho had expected, Hongjoong simply looks at the note, then back at Jongho, then back at the note, then erupts into the most diabolical smile Jongho has ever seen.
“I did not leave any such notes,” he says absolutely gleefully, standing up and grabbing at the piece of parchment. Jongho yanks his hand back, but Hongjoong proves utterly feline in his reflexes and snatches it right out from between his fingertips.
As Jongho watches Hongjoong’s eyes frantically scan the piece of parchment, now slightly wrinkled from the earlier skirmish, he feels something in the deepest part of his stomach shiver. And he realizes he never had really believed Hongjoong had written the notes.
“Would you like to know what it says?” Hongjoong asks quite simply, looking him straight in the eyes.
Jongho nods, and Hongjoong proceeds to clear his throat.
Jongho,
I trust there is a reasonable explanation behind your apathy (i.e. utter silence) in response to my notes. I hope my attempts to communicate have not been bothersome to you. Truthfully, my parents’ tyranny is becoming unbearable, and being isolated in the castle is beginning to take its toll on my spirits. I miss riding, and the way the sun felt. I wish to talk face-to-face. As always, send your reply with the clean linens in the morning. I will be looking.
Y
They sit in belated silence for a little bit. Truthfully, Jongho feels embarrassed that the intimacy of his and Yeosang’s friendship has become suddenly known by another person.
His brain simply fails to come up with words to say, so he sits down in the stool next to Hongjoong and takes the parchment in his hands. Curious and tentative, he traces the first cluster of inkpen strokes.
“Is this my name?” Jongho asks, pointing to the configuration of straight and curved lines on the page.
“Yes,” Hongjoong says simply.
And then suddenly the tension melts, the awkward pressure that had somehow been building between the two of them released in a single moment of mutual understanding.
Hongjoong lets him practice writing his name over and over again until it becomes second nature. And then when he’s tired of writing that, Hongjoong helps him construct a response.
Forgive me for ignoring your notes. I cannot read. I should have told you. A friend has helped me craft this reply. Please do not think I had intentions of ignoring you. I know a place where we can speak unbothered. Meet me outside the tailor’s quarters at midnight. Again, I am sorry.
Jongho
Jongho has Hongjoong sneak the note into the basket of clean linens as Yeosang had requested.
The rest of the day passes with brutal lethargy. He practices writing the letters of the alphabet, dutifully copying from a page that Hongjoong had written out for him, for as much time as he can spare. But when he finally does return to his tasks, he finds himself unable to focus on them.
He begins to think that the horses are absorbing his unease, because they don’t seem to be paying attention to him either. In a moment of weakness, he almost accidentally lets go of the reins, but remembers himself just in time.
What had Yeosang’s note meant? Jongho has known the king and queen to be unjust in their policies, but never had thought their negligence in the political sphere would extend to their own son.
Truthfully, the king and queen have not come up often in their conversations. Jongho has gotten the sense that Yeosang tends to deliberately avoid the subject of them, and Jongho sees no reason that he shouldn’t.
Nightfall arrives without fanfare. Jongho eats his dinner, practices his letters some more, washes his neck and behind his ears with some cold well water, and waits for midnight.
At 11:45, he moves. Quietly, he creeps up to the castle before he finally arrives at one of the more tucked-away servants’ entrances. He knocks 5 times at the door, and, just as they planned, Hongjoong is there to let him in.
Jongho rarely enters the castle. He sometimes stops by the kitchens for a meal with some of the other servants, but even that he’s been doing less often recently. He’s unused to the way his shabby leather shoes tap and reverberate on the elegant marble floors.
He’s preoccupied by the heavy sound of his own footsteps as Hongjoong leads him to his quarters, following the twisting and turning inner corridors that comprise the labyrinth of the palace that— Jongho must continually remind himself— Yeosang calls home. He knows they’ve arrived when the footsteps in front of him abruptly halt, and all he can hear is the soft sighs of Hongjoong’s breathing.
“Alright,” Hongjoong says, handing him the key. “I’ll be back for this tomorrow morning.”
“Morning?” Jongho asks, confused. He accepts the key regardless.
“I’m paying our long-legged blacksmith a visit tonight,” Hongjoong says, a notorious glint in his eye. “And I expect to be…” he pauses, appearing to think for the appropriate word, “ engaged until well after morning.”
Jongho rolls his eyes for the millionth time. “Thank you for your generosity. Now go,” he says, and then lowers his voice to a whisper: “Before he gets here.”
“Good luck,” Hongjoong whispers, looking at him with a fondness reserved only for special occasions before slinking off into the torch-lit corridor, and then out of sight.
Now all that’s left for Jongho to do is wait, an activity with which he is already intimately familiar. He plops down outside the door, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and does just that.
He must have nodded off at some point, because the next thing he recalls being able to see is a head of blonde hair, and the flash of a pink birthmark.
Jongho stumbles to his feet. “You’re here.”
Yeosang smiles— no, he grins, and with all of his teeth. It’s the same grin he’s always had, but Jongho didn’t realize how worse off his life had been without seeing it every day.
“So are you,” Yeosang says, looking foolish and magnificent all at once.
The look he gives Jongho is piercing to the point at which he has to look away.
“Come inside,” Jongho says, flushing, and fumbles with the key Hongjoong had given him to open the door. Inside the tailor’s quarters they find a mess of patterned fabric, overturned mannequins, and various measuring tools. Around the corner, in a much smaller, ancillary room, is Hongjoong’s bed.
Jongho has never even so much as seen Yeosang inside the castle. He looks natural in this setting, rather than out of place and uncertain in Jongho’s stable— though he misses him there.
Jongho gestures for Yeosang to sit down in an upholstered chair at a table covered in cloth and needles and thread; a table that one can only assume is Hongjoong’s workstation. Jongho only allows himself to sit after Yeosang does.
Now that he finds himself here, face to face with Yeosang after weeks of not seeing him, he’s at a loss for words. He didn’t prepare a thing to say. Overwhelmed by the sudden reality of Yeosang’s blonde hair and soft eyes and his dainty hands and regal features, Jongho realizes none of his memories managed to even remotely do the prince justice.
Luckily, as always, Yeosang has something to say. “I’m sorry for my idiocy.”
Jongho falters. “Your what?”
“My complete and utter stupidity. I never considered that you wouldn’t be able to read my letters,” he says quickly and frantically, moving his chair closer to Jongho’s and looking into his eyes, his gaze almost pleading. “I showed the ignorance of a presumptuous, spoiled little boy.”
Jongho has difficulty restraining his laughter. “I do not blame you. You did not know.”
“I wrote you—” Yeosang begins, distress apparent in every syllable, “— so many notes, Jongho. I thought you were deliberately ignoring me! And the whole time…” he trails off, gesturing vaguely around him. “Am I worthy of your forgiveness? Please?”
“There is nothing to forgive,” Jongho says, his eyes so intently focused on Yeosang’s that he almost forgets to blink. “I promise.”
“You promise,” Yeosang echoes.
And the two boys just look at each other, studying.
Yeosang’s birthmark, light pink, curving around the gentle slope of his cheekbone. His hair, like corn silk, grown longer and curling slightly at the back of his neck. The soft indent in the upholstery where he sits, his legs crossed.
These are the things Jongho sees.
“Well… How have you been?” Jongho finally chokes out, breaking the silence.
Yeosang sighs, his eyes fluttering closed. “My parents want to marry me off,” he says, his voice monotone, his eyelids trembling.
“Oh,” Jongho replies, not knowing what else to say. Yeosang’s adam's apple bobbing above his loose collar. The quiet way his knuckles poke out slightly, away from the rest of his hands.
“They’ve betrothed me to her. This princess,” Yeosang continues, avoiding eye contact with Jongho and looking up at the ceiling. “I’ve not seen or met her.” The pale skin of his neck, thin enough for Jongho to just barely see the muted blue of his veins.
“I’ve never wanted to marry,” he says frantically, the tempo of his speech increasing with each passing word. “I’ve never wanted to be a husband. They’re trying to get rid of me; they’re sick of me. They don’t want me here. They’re trying to ship me to another kingdom for good.”
He opens his eyes and once again looks at Jongho, pleading.
“You don’t want to marry,” Jongho repeats, fully aware that he sounds like an idiot, but unable to say anything else.
Yeosang shakes his head, looking— for the first time since Jongho has known him— frightened.
“Then you won’t have to,” he finds himself saying.
Yeosang manages to snort out a laugh even though he’s flushed and blotchy and teary-eyed. “I do have to.”
“You could run away,” Jongho says, and pauses. He thinks for a moment, then amends: “We. Could.”
Yeosang’s face suddenly becomes serious. His eyes narrow. “We?”
Jongho nods.
All of the sudden, Yeosang stands up forcefully, his chair wobbling in the process. “Why?”
Jongho stands up too, feeling the indescribable need to look him in the eye. “Why not? There is no future for me here.”
Yeosang moves closer to Jongho, suddenly crowding his space. They’re not too different in height; Jongho is taller, but only just. They’ve never been this close.
“Do not say things like that,” Yeosang says, shaking his head and blinking away the tears that keep forming in the corners of his dark eyes. “Do not.”
“Even if I mean them?” Jongho asks. He’s never shared eye contact this intense with another person before. It sends something jumping in the deepest pits of his stomach.
“I—” Yeosang starts, then stops, his voice cracking. The words that leave his mouth next are no louder than a whisper. “How could you possibly mean them?”
Jongho should tell him how the months they spent in each other’s daily company were the most meaningful of his life. He thinks that he should let Yeosang know that, in his presence, for the first time since he’s been alive, he feels seen in a way so strange and new that it frightens him. He needs Yeosang to understand that he’s past the point of no return.
So he does what someone who’s past the point of no return would do, and kisses him.
Jongho has kissed before. Before he came to the palace, he’d had his fair share of fledgling romances with girls who lived in the village near his uncle’s house. He’d kissed them away from the prying eyes of their families, and they’d been giggly and shy, and it had been nice.
Kissing Kang Yeosang is not nice.
Soft and hard, gentle and rough; kissing Kang Yeosang is all things, at once.
Yeosang’s hands in Jongho’s hair and Jongho’s tongue in Yeosang’s mouth: these are things Jongho feels. He could kill Yeosang’s parents for wanting to marry him off to someone else. The mere idea that this boy in his arms could ever be in anyone else’s makes him almost want to laugh. Yeosang is his; at least for a moment.
And then all of the sudden, dizzy and staggering, they pull away.
“Even now,” Yeosang says softly, echoing what he said the first time he had come to the stables to ride, “you truly do not say much.”
Jongho’s lips twitch. “But you still manage to understand what I mean.”
His hands remain braced on Yeosang’s shoulders, gripping tightly on each side. If someone were to walk in the room right now, they would certainly not be able to tell whether he was pushing him away, or pulling him in.
In a typical Jongho fashion, he forgoes words once more, simply leaning in again. And as their lips meet for the second time, all questions are answered and all concerns are addressed. Jongho finds himself nodding into the kiss, nodding yes, yes, yes, what else could I mean but yes? And Yeosang nods back, understanding implicitly, unquestioningly, completely.
Still connected, their hands clumsily exploring each other’s bodies, they stumble their way to Hongjoong’s bed. Jongho smiles to himself, pleased in knowing that finally he’s able to give that scoundrel Hongjoong a taste of his own medicine, as he guides Yeosang down onto the goosefeather mattress.
They stay there for a long time, kissing and licking and biting each other where it feels good to do so. Their clothes somehow make it into a crumpled pile on the floor next to Hongjoong’s bedside table, and their hands find themselves meandering over the soft and hard planes of each other’s skin.
Not many words are spoken throughout the whole affair. Even Yeosang—articulate, expressive, voluble Yeosang— seems to understand the impact that silence can have at a time like this. Instead, they communicate in small, unspoken cues— a frantic nod or a slight shake of the head; the guiding or placement of a hand. Jongho feels glad to be able to teach some of his own language to Yeosang.
They continue into the early hours of the morning, until they realize they’re too impossibly tired to do anything else. Overheated and exhausted, the two boys fall into each other one final time; Jongho’s arms moving as if on their own to encircle Yeosang’s shoulders, and Yeosang’s head instinctively moving to rest on Jongho’s chest.
As Yeosang’s eyelids begin to flutter closed, Jongho lets out a small sigh. He murmurs slightly, as his own eyes close: “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
And Yeosang, believing him, nods.
~~~
Jongho and Yeosang leave the tailor’s quarters just before sunrise. Jongho tucks the key inside one of the sconces on the wall, and leaves as though he was never there.
That evening, they meet in one of the larger utility closets in the long, dimly-lit corridor by the kitchens, and devise a plan.
Per the king and queen’s orders, Yeosang is no longer allowed to leave the castle.
“My skin,” Yeosang explains bitterly, looking down at his hands as he vigorously picks at a hangnail. “They want it fair for the wedding.”
Jongho, forgetting himself for a moment, snorts. He lifts his own arm, tanned a deep brown from long days spent outside. “They’d hate me.”
“They’d hate you, definitely. But I think they’d find other, more pressing reasons,” Yeosang says softly, with a hint of darkness in his tone.
Jongho grabs Yeosang’s hand hesitantly, still astounded that this is something he’s allowed to do. The contrast between his own callused hand and Yeosang’s soft one makes him laugh.
“Good thing they’re never going to meet me, then,” he says, his eyes glinting.
They decide that the utility closet will be their meeting place. Hongjoong’s room is too risky to be a regular rendezvous spot, as sometimes he has visitors come for dress fittings and the like. Jongho’s stable is off limits for obvious reasons.
Yeosang’s task will be to find out as much about his parents’ plans as he possibly can. So far, the king and queen have kept him almost fully in the dark about his own future. They’ve told him there is a princess, and that he is to be her husband, and that’s the whole of it. In order to craft an effective escape plan, they need to have a rough timeline of events. Jongho certainly wouldn’t want to create an elaborate plan to steal Yeosang away a month from now, only to find out that the wedding is set for this Thursday. The thought pains him.
Jongho’s task is slightly more complicated. In order to leave the kingdom, they’ll need papers— documents validating their identities, citizenships, and occupations. Running away is all well and good until the guard at the border realizes your traveling companion is second in line to the throne.
So he will need to somehow procure new identities for them both— and good ones, at that. Having the speed of their horses will buy them some time before the kingdom is alerted of the prince’s disappearance, but not that much. And after everyone knows that the prince is missing, security at the border will tighten like a noose.
He tries not to dwell on the fact that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Instead, he dwells on the things that he does know. Yeosang is here with him and he is very pretty, despite it all. Despite the tremor in his voice and the dark, purple circles under his eyes, he emits an ever-present glow that both calms and thrills him.
Yeosang finally extricates his hand from Jongho’s, wiping dust off his trousers as he stands up. “If I am not at dinner tonight they will become suspicious. And they hate me enough as it is.”
Jongho frowns. “You know, if I ever have children of my own… I do not think I will look to your parents for advice,” he says.
Yeosang just rolls his eyes and continues to gather his things.
“I’m sorry,” Jongho says, realizing that what he said isn’t helping. “Now isn’t the time.”
Yeosang drops his leather bag and sighs. “No, I’m sorry. I’m being difficult. I just—” he takes a big, trembling breath, “—I do not want to have to run away. It’s the last thing I wish to do. I wish that they could just— that they could just love me, and— and accept me—and— that—that things were not—as they are.”
He starts to cry. Jongho hugs him. He tries to pour all his feelings of tenderness towards Yeosang into the hug, as he softly strokes his silken hair.
“I know,” Jongho murmurs. “I know.”
~~~
Forging documents proves to be more difficult than Jongho had expected. Even if he had already had the advantage of years—decades, really— of knowing how to read and write, he thinks that he would still be struggling.
He can write well enough, now, after countless hours spent under Hongjoong and Yeosang’s tutelage, but reading is another beast entirely.
He’s staring at his own birth certificate that he managed to scrounge up from the old leather satchel of papers that he had arrived at the palace with—one of his three small pieces of luggage— almost two years ago. Before he died, his uncle had made sure the satchel stayed with Jongho at all times, despite not bothering to mention what the contents contained.
For the first time, Jongho sees his name spelled out on an official government document. The certificate states the date, time, and location of his birth. He sees his village name in writing for the first time in his life. His parents' names. Seeing it all laid out in front of him stirs something unnameable inside of his body.
He focuses on the task at hand: copying the exact text, but with new, fake names for himself and Yeosang. Then, of course, he will need to find a way to get these new forgeries stamped with the official kingdom seal, but he figures he’ll address that only when he absolutely has to.
He finds it easy enough to copy the words he sees with the fancy quill and ink he’d had Mingi get from Hongjoong, but where he consistently falters is getting the letters to look poised and official. The finesse simply is not there.
Frustrated, he throws the quill down. It leaves a long streak of black across the piece of parchment.
He finally enlists both Mingi and Hongjoong for help, but doing so means he has to explain his plan to them. And explaining his plan means he has to explain that he’s leaving.
“I’m finding it difficult to follow your reasoning,” Mingi says, his lips involuntarily moving to form a small pout. “Why do you have to leave?”
“I must leave because Yeosang must leave,” Jongho says, attempting to keep emotion out of his voice as much as possible.
Hongjoong, sitting on a stool in the corner of the stable, has been quiet the entire time.
“But why must Yeosang leave?” Mingi asks, his eyes getting larger and rounder by the second.
“His parents have him betrothed to a princess in some other kingdom. They’re sending him away to marry her there,” Jongho says. “If he goes—”
Hongjoong cuts him off. “Then he’s not coming back.”
Jongho nods. Hongjoong and Mingi look somber in a way Jongho has never known them to be. It saddens him. To have to grieve his life while he’s still living it.
After a minute of general silence, marked occasionally by a sniffle or two from Mingi, Hongjoong says, matter-of-factly: “Well of course we’ll help you. It was never a question.”
And they do, really. It turns out that Mingi, of all people, has excellent penmanship.
“My hands are extremely steady,” he brags, copying the magistrate’s handwriting from Jongho’s real birth certificate onto his new one with a strange ease. “From the blacksmithing.”
Hongjoong rolls his eyes. Jongho just laughs. He already misses them, and he hasn’t even left yet.
It turns out that Hongjoong has a friend in the castle who works in record-keeping. They can’t tell him what they’re doing, for liability reasons, but he respects Hongjoong enough that he turns a blind eye when he happens to notice his official seal has gone missing for a few hours.
Hongjoong even works some indescribable magic with fabric dye and coffee grounds to stain the parchment so it looks old and worn, as though it had truly been produced 20 years ago.
And just like that, Jongho and Yeosang have documents that will let them leave the kingdom without a trace.
Jongho sees the sun setting on the western horizon, watches it dip down to rest behind the hills he loves and knows. The light on the hills has always been the same, a dependable thing on which he’s come to rely for comfort and assurance; a reminder of his place in the world. He wonders why, today, the sunset seems to contain colors he’s not yet seen.
~~~
One week and three days after they saw each other last, Yeosang calls upon Jongho for an urgent meeting in the closet by the kitchens. They find each other frantically in the dim light, hands touching and tangling in each other’s hair. Yeosang pulls him in and they kiss, and kiss, and kiss.
Between kisses, gasping for breath, Yeosang says: “They want the wedding to be next week. Sunday. There are arrangements for me to leave the kingdom the morning after next.”
Jongho just smiles into the kiss.
“Why are you smiling?” Yeosang asks and pulls away, his already sharp eyebrows furrowing. “Did you hear what I said?
Jongho just grins. “I heard you. But I got them. Our papers. We can leave whenever we want.”
Yeosang freezes. “You got them?”
Jongho nods. Yeosang’s brown-gold eyes are trembling, and Jongho watches as they grow shiny with a thin layer of unshed tears. Jongho reaches up with shaky hands and wipes them.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Yeosang asks, voice strangled with everything he’s holding inside of him. “Leave behind your life, your friends—”
Jongho shuts him up with a look. “Of course I’m sure. I have never been more sure of anything in my life,” he says, bracing himself on Yeosang’s shoulders. “As for Mingi and Hongjoong… they understand. They will follow when the time is right. The king’s laws are becoming more repressive by the day. They know there is no future for any of us here.”
Yeosang takes a long, ragged breath. His shoulders shake with the impact of it.
“Everything will be alright, hyung,” Jongho says softly, needing Yeosang to believe him. He’s not even sure if he believes himself, but he needs Yeosang to.
“Everything will be alright,” Yeosang repeats, slowly. He takes one more ragged breath, collects himself, and says: “We can leave tomorrow night. I’ll need the day to get everything together. Is that enough time for you?”
“More than enough,” Jongho says with a soft smile. “I have nothing, remember?”
He’ll need their horses and their fake papers of course, but other than that, everything Jongho owns can fit into one leather rucksack.
“You have at least one thing,” Yeosang reasons playfully.
“What’s that?” Jongho asks.
Yeosang takes a page out of Jongho’s book and just kisses him hard and fierce; for once in his life, saying nothing. But Jongho hears his words as if they had been whispered to him, and only him, echoing in his ears like a silent prayer.
~~~
The next night, Jongho, still reeling from the tearful goodbye he had shared with Hongjoong and Mingi earlier that day, waits for Yeosang in his stable.
As he waits, he thinks of Mingi, who had promised that he would do everything in his power to lead people in the wrong direction when asked about their whereabouts, and Hongjoong, who had told him that he’s already working on his own escape plan. His best friends in the world. He finds comfort in the thought of them eventually joining him and Yeosang when the time is right, though he aches at the thought of them here, alone. He vows to write to them when it’s safe to do so.
As he sits nervously on one of the milking stools, next to the small leather bag that holds all of his worldly possessions, he thinks about everything that has happened in his life leading up to this point.
He thinks of his parents, a topic which he generally tries to avoid, for fear of opening a door he’ll never be able to close. But right now, he lets himself fling it open, lets himself knock the door clean off its hinges.
He thinks of the mother that he never knew; wonders if she resents him, resents his giant head, from wherever she is. Selfishly, he hopes she doesn’t, though he’s not sure if he’d blame her if she did. He thinks of his father, who he did know, at least for a little bit. Would he be proud of the person Jongho had turned out to be, or would he be ashamed of him for running away?
Strangely, he thinks of Haneul, the first person he ever kissed. They had been fifteen, and Jongho had been so scared. The last he heard, she had gotten married to a farmer. He hopes that he loves her, and is kind, and gentle.
Finally, he thinks of Yeosang. Sweet, delicate, royal Yeosang who talks like he’s scared of losing his voice. Who lights up when Jongho raises his eyebrow to show that he’s listening; truly listening.
Yeosang who’s risking everything, surrendering his wealth and power and royal status, for a chance at being truly happy. Jongho wonders if his father was happy, risking his life every other week on his dangerous fishing trips. Jongho can’t imagine being happy in that position. So then why did he still do it?
He remembers something he said to Yeosang, a time that seems like forever ago, back when the air had still been warm.
Here, you can be either one of two things. Someone who works to make others richer, or someone who gets rich on the backs of others. I invite you to attempt a life without choosing one or the other.
Had he been setting them up for failure by suggesting that they run away? Is he simply leading them from the depths of one lion’s den straight into another? All he wanted was a chance at something different. There has to be something else out there for them than… this.
He’s fully wrapped in his spiraling thoughts when he hears a tender knock on the door. The sound brings him back to that first time Yeosang had come to see him; the beginning and end of it all. He had been so nervous then, but it’s different this time. He steels himself, the thought of Yeosang outside waiting for him, just for him, floods his body with a foreign confidence that he readily accepts.
So he opens the door, and there he is, Yeosang, wearing the common clothes Hongjoong had stolen for him. He’s put something on his face to cover his birthmark, and put something in his hair to stain it a dark brown.
But Jongho takes one look at him and his first thought is that they’ll never make it.
Even dressed in plain clothes and with his brown hair, Yeosang looks royal. The roughspun fabrics clash with the delicate porcelain of his skin, and the dull beige of his shirt seems to somehow bring out the gold in his eyes.
Jongho brushes these thoughts away; he has no other choice. There’s no turning back now.
He pulls Yeosang into a tight hug, and they go over the plan one last time. Their horses, two common brown mares, are outfitted in simple leather, so as not to draw any unwanted attention to themselves. Everything Yeosang wanted to bring fits in a medium-sized bag that they can affix to his saddle.
Jongho slips the gold Yeosang had been able to steal from his parents in a concealed pocket underneath his own saddle. It is likely that the guards at the border will search their bags, but unlikely that they would go so far as to look underneath their saddles.
“So this is it,” Yeosang says, a strange lilt to his voice.
“This is it,” Jongho agrees.
And then they leave just like that, not entirely sure how to say goodbye to the only lives they’ve ever known in a way that’s real, or that counts, so they don’t.
They ride in silence to the edge of the kingdom, past the fields bracketing the castle and past the western hills and past the same woods through which they rode so many times. Jongho is sad to leave them behind, these simple things that he loved. But it was never the simple things that made him want to leave.
They make it to the gates in a little over an hour. Jongho knows vaguely what lies outside— yet another territory governed by yet another ruler. But the truth remains that here, in his own kingdom, Yeosang cannot live freely. And now that Jongho thinks about it, neither can he. His position at the castle had ensured that he’d had shelter and food, but had never paid him. He never would have had the means to leave and seek employment elsewhere, even if he wanted to. He could never have saved enough gold to buy even a modest house, or to have horses of his own.
“State your purpose,” says one of the two guards standing by the gates.
“We’re pilgrims,” Jongho says.
“Going where?”
Jongho hands him the note that Mingi had written for them, a list of step-by-step directions to a far-off shrine that one of his fellow blacksmiths had once visited. They had figured that they were less likely to get turned away at the gates if the guards believed that they were two pious men on a dedicated religious pilgrimage rather than two lovers on the run from the king.
The two guards examine the piece of parchment with the same amount of suspicion they would use for any other mysterious cloaked travelers in the middle of the night. Finally, they hand it back to Jongho.
“Papers?” the other guard asks.
Jongho passes those over too, his heart pounding fast and hard in his chest. He imagines Yeosang’s is doing something similar, if not worse.
The guards look back and forth at the two of them, scrutinizing. Without giving the documents back, the two guards approach them and begin to search their bags. They had expected this, obviously, but it doesn’t make Jongho any less sick with nerves. He gently soothes his horse as she bristles at the brusque touch of the guard.
For five long, painful minutes, Jongho clenches his jaw and holds his breath as the two men inspect every visible part of them and their horses. Even though he and Yeosang had packed and repacked their belongings with careful intention, taking great pains to ensure nothing in their bags could possibly incriminate them in any way, Jongho still fears the worst.
But the search is over almost as soon as it had begun. And before they even realize what’s happening, their papers are returned, and they find themselves getting ushered through the gate. It closes behind them with a loud creak, and then a thud. And then it’s silent, and they are alone.
They’re alone, which means they made it through the gate, and out of the kingdom.
Jongho feels a strange weight shift inside of his ribcage. He looks at Yeosang, whose eyes are glittering with tears. Jongho reaches for him, taking his small hand in his own slightly larger one. He rubs his thumb with a gentle softness he didn’t even know he possessed, and gives him a look that he hopes speaks for itself. It does, and Yeosang, in Jongho’s language, replies.
So as not to be suspicious, they keep riding. They can’t afford to waste any precious time by celebrating their small victory. That can wait. What matters now is putting as much distance between them and the king.
They ride faster than they’ve ever ridden together. Their races in the forest seem like child’s play now, when there’s nothing but the road ahead of them and everything they left behind is lashing at their heels.
They ride and ride and ride, the black night rushing past them in dark shadowy gusts, until they see the first cobwebby tendrils of daylight beginning to beam their way down to earth. And as the sun rises, Jongho sees the light on the hills; feels the sun on his skin. It is the same light, and the same sun, and the same skin as it always has been; only the hills are different. But the hills he once knew, the hills near the castle, were never his. Nor will these new hills ever be. But Jongho figures he’s still lucky to see them.
With the rising of the sun and the slowing down of their horses, Jongho is finally able to fully examine his surroundings. Flanking the road on either side are sprawling fields dotted with wildflowers, pink and yellow and white.
Eventually, they come to a stop. There should be about 30 miles between them and the kingdom now, and their horses are clearly tired. They’ll surely stop at the next inn they come across. They’ll need to barter for new horses there, as surely they’ll be targets once the king realizes which ones were taken. And surely they will need to rest during the day and travel by night, but only until they put enough distance between themselves and the kingdom. But these are concerns for later, Jongho tells himself.
He guides his horse off to the side of the road, and dismounts.
“We’re stopping?” Yeosang asks, his voice sounding hoarse from disuse.
“Yes,” Jongho says, guiding Yeosang’s horse off to the side. He helps Yeosang dismount, hands warming from just the smallest touch of his lover’s body.
They’re standing now, legs sore and wobbly from riding. Their horses graze in the nearby field, looking at home among the wildflowers.
“Do you think they’ve realized we’re gone yet?” Yeosang asks, swinging their hands back and forth between them as they meander slowly down the road.
“Hmm,” Jongho says, thinking. “No. Not yet. The sun is hardly up. And even when they find your bed empty, I figure we have until midday before they really start to worry.”
“I’m sure they’ll think we’ve just gone on one of our rides,” Yeosang says, with a small grin.
“And haven’t we?” Jongho asks, playfully, allowing himself to smile for the first time in what seems like days.
There’s a pause, and Yeosang appears to become suddenly serious. “Do you regret it yet?”
“Regret what?”
“Coming with me.”
“I think you forget that it was I who suggested we leave in the first place, hyung,” Jongho says, wishing Yeosang would understand how much he really, truly means to him. He needs him to understand that if a wildcat were to emerge from behind one of the trees right now, Jongho would do everything in his power to ensure that Yeosang would be the only one to leave the encounter alive.
Yeosang just snorts (a rather un-princely habit he picked up from Jongho long ago), and says: “People say all sorts of things. I’m simply wondering if you regret it.”
“Yeosang,” Jongho says, slowly, needing him to understand. He stops in his tracks and turns to face him. “I did not make this decision lightly. I planned for weeks. I helped forge our legal documents. Every step of the way, I knew I was doing the right thing.”
Yeosang just nods, avoiding eye contact. For the first time in his life, he seems lost for words.
But for the first time in Jongho’s life, he isn’t, so he simply grasps Yeosang’s shoulders with his hands, and continues: “My coming with you wasn’t just something I decided to do on a whim. I care about you. I’m committed to you.”
Yeosang’s mouth opens slightly, as if to say something, but then he closes it again.
“I made a promise that I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. I intend to see it through. I intend to be by your side. For as long as you… want me,” Jongho says finally, taking a deep breath.
They stand there in the meadow, the two of them, for a moment. Jongho thinks he must look slightly frenzied. He feels a soft breeze on the back of his neck, and thinks that whatever Yeosang used to stain his hair brown— walnut dye, maybe?— is already starting to fade. He sees the blonde straining to peek through; one good wash will probably return it fully to normal.
“I want you,” Yeosang simply says. “Forever.”
And that’s that.
Perhaps it is unwise, given the urgency of their escape, but they amble their way down the road at a relatively leisurely pace, loosely guiding their horses by the reins until they find the closest inn.
As the sun slowly finds its place at the top of the sky, Jongho lets himself feel it for everything that it is. There’s a harsh chill in the air; winter is well underway. He thinks back to the summer, when he first met Yeosang, when the days had been long and life had felt simple. Jongho had thought, then, that he knew his place in the world; thought he had to be content with it all because things simply were, and they had always been, and there was no use questioning it.
But here, for the first time, he can see a future for himself— a real future— and Yeosang is in it— in fact, he’s everything about it. It sits somewhere above the treeline.
Hand in hand, they walk towards it.