It takes eight months for the king and Jeong Taeeul to break up.
The truth is: Jo Yeong saw it coming.
The truth is: both of them will be happier like this.
She is the one who breaks it off. Cleanly, gently, with as much grace as one can muster with this kind of thing. His Majesty returns to the palace the same night, and Jo Yeong is the first person he tells, still raw with it.
The relief tastes sour at the back of Jo Yeong’s mouth. He should be ashamed of himself. There is no reason for him to feel relieved, and yet here he is, standing in parade rest, drowning in it.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” he says. He’s not.
Jeong Taeeul will forever be one of the most important people in the king’s life—that is a fact. Jo Yeong can’t begrudge her that. He understands the connection they have, the fated pull. He admires her deeply, in his own way, despite the shaky beginnings of their acquaintance.
But this relationship—it could never last. Not when His Majesty loved the idea of a person rather than the woman standing in front of him. Not when, in the end, he loved the idea of being in love with that person more than the actual thing. It was making them both miserable, the longer it went on. The weight of it, the difficult balance to maintain. The short visits and the stretches of time in between. Being apart more often than being together.
They stay friends, as much as one can stay friends with an ex-lover. Jo Yeong wouldn’t know. All of his sexual encounters have been infrequent, one-time, anonymous, pre-vetted, involving thorough background checks on his end and, at times, NDAs. He has no experience in this area.
But, as with everything else in life, time smooths out the lines in the king’s face, and when he returns from one of his now much less frequent journeys through times and spaces, his eyes are no longer glassy and red-rimmed.
Lady Noh complains, grumbling that the kingdom will never see His Majesty wed now, and orders more talismans to be delivered to the palace. Jo Yeong finds most of them during his daily perimeter checks. The two of them share knowing looks when they pass each other in corridors afterwards, but nothing is being said out loud.
Jo Yeong has a routine he follows. He wakes up at four thirty in the morning, runs ten kilometers, showers, eats breakfast and dresses. Body armor under the shirt, standard-issue pistol in the holster, a knife at the ankle. Buttons up, no tie. The earpiece goes in his ear the moment he crosses the gates of the main palace.
The royal residence rarely sleeps. When Jo Yeong crosses the hallways, there are already members of staff roaming around, nodding in greeting as he goes. The king might be resting for the night, but the work of running a kingdom never ceases.
At precisely six in the morning, he relieves the guard on night duty and receives a report from Sub-captain Seok or Lieutenant Park. Most nights, there is nothing. Some nights, they report the king’s bouts of insomnia—a new development, and not one Lady Noh is particularly fond of. Jo Yeong is inclined to agree.
Tonight seems to be one of those nights.
When Jo Yeong comes into his office, Lieutenant Park is already there, waiting for him. She stands at attention when he enters, relaxing into parade rest when he says, “At ease.” Then, “Status report.”
“No suspicious activity on palace grounds, Captain,” Lieutenant Park says. “But His Majesty is still up. He was asking for you.”
Jo Yeong lifts his eyes from the pile of reports left on his desk. “Where is he?”
Lieutenant Park straightens her posture. “In the study. He’s been up the whole night.”
Jo Yeong nods. “Understood,” he says. “Dismissed. Sub-captain Seok should be here momentarily. You should go home.”
She nods, then turns to leave. As soon as she’s gone, Jo Yeong pushes himself away from the desk and goes to see the king.
He finds him in the study just like she said, playing a game of Go with himself. As soon the door closes behind Jo Yeong with a soft click, His Majesty’s head snaps up, a pale smile stretching across his lips.
“Yeong-ah, come play with me,” he says. Commands, perhaps. Pleads, maybe.
Jo Yeong inclines his head respectfully. “Your Majesty,” he says. “I’ve been told you’re not sleeping again.”
It’s early Saturday morning.
Of course.
“Captain Jo,” His Majesty tries again, tone light and teasing despite the words. “Should I just order you to sit down with me and play a game of Go with your king? It’s the weekend. We have nowhere to be.”
“You have a lunch with the head of the Children of Corea Foundation at noon,” Jo Yeong reminds him, entirely sidestepping the issue. “And then you’re planting trees with the Clean Air Cooperative at three.”
The king’s face sours. “Remind me to have a stern talk with whoever is making these weekend plans for me.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Jo Yeong keeps his face carefully neutral. “That would be yourself.”
The king huffs, then blinks a few times, like he’s fighting against an onslaught of exhaustion. “Come, sit,” he says. “There’s still some time.”
If there is one thing Jo Yeong has known from the age of four, it’s that the king’s word is the law. He speaks things into existence just by uttering the words, and other people follow, because that’s what it means to serve a king. A good, just king. That’s what it means to obey.
“Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong says stubbornly. “You should sleep. When you don’t sleep, Lady Noh doesn’t sleep, and at her age—”
“Do you really think,” the king interrupts him, “that I haven’t tried? It’s just one of those nights. It’ll pass, you don’t have to worry. Lady Noh shouldn’t worry, either. I’m fine. And besides, I’m always handsome, even when I’m tired.”
Jo Yeong’s gaze falls to the floor, away from the king’s expressive face. “Of course, Your Majesty,” he says reflexively.
To his surprise, the king laughs. “Ah, so you agree I’m handsome?”
Jo Yeong pulls himself together. He looks up, straight at the king. “That’s what they’ll say in the history books, Your Majesty.”
Another laugh escapes the king’s mouth, but this one sounds almost startled. “Am I really going to have to ask you three times?” He shakes his head. “You didn’t used to play so hard to get.”
Jo Yeong swallows. Jeong Taeeul’s name is at the tip of his tongue. He swallows it down and says nothing. Instead, he crosses whatever space is left between them—the safety of distance—and sits down opposite the king.
As always, he defers to His Majesty in his choice of the pieces. As always, His Majesty picks white.
Jo Yeong is a passable Go player, having spent most of his youth and adolescence alongside His Majesty, attending the same lessons with an array of royal tutors, some of whom thought it was imperative for the king to be well-versed in all the traditional strategy games. Chess. Go. Janggi. Several others from around the world that the king doesn’t favor as much and Jo Yeong has forgotten most of the rules of. His Majesty is much better, though, and their matches rarely end in Jo Yeong’s victory.
That is fine. He is not there to win against the king—only to provide a suitable challenge.
“Yeong-ah, it’s your move,” His Majesty says. Jo Yeong doesn’t startle, but he looks up sharply to see that the situation on the board has changed yet again. He must have missed the moment the king has made his move. “Something on your mind? You keep spacing out.”
Jo Yeong clears his throat discreetly. “No, Your Majesty,” he says. “I’m fine. Forgive me.”
The king smiles, leaning back in his chair. “It’s a friendly game of Go, not a war strategy meeting,” he says. “You’re not committing treason by missing your move. Though you might be committing treason by ignoring your king.”
Jo Yeong inclines his head. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he says solemnly. “I will make preparations for the beheading.”
The king tilts his head to the side, considering. “Have you always been this insolent? I feel like you’re getting worse with age. Or Jeong—” He cuts himself off, then finishes, “Or at least some people’s attitude is rubbing off on you. I don’t like it.”
All of that said in the same teasing tone His Majesty has used with Jo Yeong for as long as he can remember. His Majesty doesn’t have a line to toe, after all—that’s Jo Yeong’s job. Whether the king decides to get too close is not up to him. Jo Yeong can only plant his feet, steadfast, and remain in place.
Unstoppable force. Immovable object. That’s all they are in the end.
The game lasts for a while, and ends as expected in Jo Yeong’s defeat. He is capable of putting up enough of a fight that the king is satisfied with his win. Before the king can suggest a rematch, Jo Yeong looks up at him and says, “Your Majesty, it’s already light outside. You should go to bed. Sleep for at least a few hours before we need to go.”
The king seems to consider this, flipping a black stone between his fingers. “And where will you be?” he asks.
“Right outside,” Jo Yeong says. “As always.”
That’s where his place is—never quite within touching distance, always a door separating him from His Majesty at his most vulnerable moments. Jo Yeong has been doing this long enough to understand why that is. You can’t get too close to who you’re protecting. That’s how you lose the awareness of the big picture.
The king sighs, dropping the stone back into the bowl with a loud clack. “Fine,” he says. “But don’t tell Lady Noh it was because you asked, or she won’t let you rest. I just decided to do it on my own, because I have good judgment as befits a king.”
Jo Yeong has to look down to smother a smile. “Of course, Your Majesty. I will wake you up when it’s time to go.”
Lady Noh appears from around the corridor’s bend when Jo Yeong has been standing outside the king’s bedroom door for two hours and thirteen minutes. She waves off the two court ladies trailing her, then asks, “Is he asleep?”
“It would seem so,” Jo Yeong says. He turns his head to the side, listening in for noises, but the bedroom is quiet. “It’s been happening more and more often.”
Lady Noh heaves a deep sigh. She looks older than she is when she worries, and she’s been worrying a lot these days. “Ah, well, it’s a good thing he’s sleeping now. I should call the royal physician again, but I know he’ll just refuse to see her. I can hardly believe sometimes how stubborn he can be, even after all these years. But you would know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
Jo Yeong meets her gaze head on. Out of everyone in the palace, the two of them have known His Majesty the longest, and they know him best. They might not always see eye to eye on many things, but they understand each other where it counts.
“I will talk to him,” Jo Yeong says and watches Lady Noh’s face soften.
“I didn’t mean to burden you, Captain,” she says, uncharacteristically gentle. “I just wish he were—better. Healthier. Time does cure all ills, as they say, but I’m an old woman and want to see him happy again before my time comes.”
“His Majesty still has a lot of time, then.” Jo Yeong looks at the proud set of her shoulder, the clarity in her eyes.
Lady Noh smiles. “You’re too kind, my child.” Then, before Jo Yeong can swallow past the tightness in his throat, “You’ll wake him up when it’s time for him to go, won’t you?”
Jo Yeong nods, then looks at the watch. “Another hour at least. I’ll have the wardrobe staff sent in as soon as His Majesty up.”
The touch of Lady Noh’s hand is a surprise. She squeezes Jo Yeong’s forearm, her grip surprisingly strong for someone seemingly so frail. “I don’t say it often, but you’re good to him,” she says.
Jo Yeong’s jaw strains, his body tensing. “I’m just doing my job,” he says.
That’s what he always says. Maybe if he repeats it enough times, he will eventually believe it, too.
Jo Yeong is nearly fifteen when he understands the horrible feeling in his chest. It’s been there since—always, he realizes, breaking out in cold sweat, his palms clammy as he wipes them on his pajama pants. He’s been suspecting that he might be—that he might want different things than most boys his age for a while now. But there’s a difference between understanding that in theory and realizing in practice what—who—he actually wants.
No one can ever know, he decides that night, sitting in his bed in the dark with his heart in his throat. Nausea sloshes in his stomach. Jo Yeong breathes through it until his heartbeat slows down enough that he can’t feel the furious pounding reverberating all the way up to his ears.
Deep down, he knows this: he will take this secret with him to his grave.
It’s simple. Jo Yeong never thinks about it. He doesn’t allow himself to even entertain the idea. He pushes all the feelings down—down until nothing remains but the kind of devotion a subject should feel for his king.
In the mornings, he runs instead of getting into the shower. In the evenings, he studies or trains until he’s too exhausted to think about anything at all. On the rare occasions he does take care of himself, his mind is carefully blank.
It doesn’t matter. As long as he never thinks about it, never acts on it, never allows it to influence him, it doesn’t have to matter.
“Ah, Captain, I was just looking for you.” Myeong Seungah materializes in front of Jo Yeong just as he’s on his way to the king’s study.
That usually spells trouble. The last time she came looking for Jo Yeong specifically, his photo with His Majesty back from their Naval Academy days caused all kinds of rumors on the internet.
Jo Yeong is aware of the things people say, of course. It is his job to know about everything that might be a potential source of danger to the king. He’s no stranger to the idea that some people think there is something more going on between himself and His Majesty, as ludicrous as it sounds.
The first time Jo Yeong came across the speculation, a tendril of cold dread had slipped down his spine, leaving him frozen. He could feel the mortification all the way to his back teeth, sour and bitter, like he’d bitten into an unripe persimmon.
Had he slipped somehow? Did someone find out?
Even now, when Jo Yeong knows better, every time the rumors resurface he waits with that same terror for someone to figure out the truth. One day, he thinks, someone is bound to realize. It’s hard to stare into the sun for so long and not shield your face against the shine.
“What is it?” he asks. “I’m just on my way to His Majesty.”
Myeong Seungah nods. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say,” she tells him, pushing a manila folder into Jo Yeong’s hands. “I have some photos from the recent photo ops at the Millennium Foundation for His Majesty to sign off on before they go to print, but they told me he’s not seeing anyone at the moment. These are really urgent, so if you could—”
Jo Yeong breathes a secret sigh of relief. “I’ll take these,” he says. “But I can’t promise anything.”
She laughs quietly. “I think you’ll be fine.” It’s a strange amount of confidence for someone who’s just said His Majesty is refusing to see anyone. “Just have someone drop them off with the media team once His Majesty signs off.”
The king is poring over books at his desk when Jo Yeong enters.
At the sound of the door, His Majesty’s head snaps up. “I said no one was—” he starts, then stops. “Ah, Captain Jo. I was wondering who was brazen enough to completely disregard my orders. I should’ve known.”
Jo Yeong bows. “Your Majesty,” he says.
“What’s that?” The king peers at the folder in Jo Yeong’s hands.
“Something that will require a minute of your time and bring you hours of uninterrupted peace in return,” Jo Yeong says. He takes a step forward and puts the folder on the desk. “From the Royal Public Affairs Office.”
The king raises his brows knowingly. “You mean Miss Myeong.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re telling me it’s more important than trying to solve the Pierce-Birkhoff conjecture?” His Majesty continues. Still, he reaches for the folder, opens it, flips through the contents. Jo Yeong will take that win.
“To the running of your kingdom, yes,” he replies. “It’s difficult for me to say otherwise.”
That startles a laugh out of the king, who reaches for the royal seal to stamp his approval on the release forms.
“They really got my good side here, don’t you think?” he asks, shoving a photo right under Jo Yeong’s nose. “Don’t I look handsome and regal?”
Jo Yeong says nothing. He’s already fallen into this trap once. He will not admit once again something that the king knows very well already.
He does wonder, though, what prompted this bout of math-fueled isolation in the first place. Then he remembers the date. A year, to the day, since His Majesty crossed over into the Republic of Korea for the first time.
Ah. That explains it.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong says once the king is done, taking the folder back with a sharp bow. “I will be just outside if you need me.”
He turns to leave, but before he can so much as take one step, the king says, “Wait. Give the photos to someone else to hand them over to the Public Affairs and come back. I could use a sounding board.”
The voluntary seclusion lasts only until the end of the following day, and the king’s mood improves after that. Still, the insomnia persists, and on some mornings, Jo Yeong arrives at the main palace to find out that His Majesty has never gone to bed at all.
“I need to get out of here,” he tells Jo Yeong on a Sunday morning in late October. His eyes are bloodshot, but the king is restless, pacing back and forth across the study. “Can we go somewhere?”
Jo Yeong closes his eyes, slowly counting to ten.
Getting the king out of the palace is always a complicated operation that requires forward planning. The king, of course, wants to go now.
“Can’t you just go to bed, Your Majesty?” Jo Yeong pleads, futile as it is. “You’ve been up all night.”
It’s not even light outside yet. The line of the horizon is barely tinged a lighter shade of gray.
“Let’s go somewhere, just the two of us,” the king says, sidestepping Jo Yeong’s pleas altogether. “You don’t have to bother any of the other guards, we can take an unmarked car and—I don’t know. Go somewhere and eat hotteok on a park bench.”
The kind of situation Jo Yeong hates the most, then. The kind you can’t plan for, because the king’s whims are as changeable as the weather.
Jo Yeong exhales a measured breath. “No one is selling hotteok at this hour, Your Majesty.”
The king leans into his personal space, too close for Jo Yeong’s comfort. It makes him want to think about impossible things.
“Well, how do you know?” he asks, a smile spilling across his face. “Have you ever tried to find some?”
Jo Yeong has to concede that he hasn’t, because he’s a normal person who doesn’t go out at half past six in the morning to go looking for a food stall that sells hotteok at this time of day. The king takes it as tacit agreement, though, and fifteen minutes later they find themselves in a nondescript SUV, driving through the streets of Busan. Nobody who looked at it would know that the car is bulletproof.
“Yeong-ah, don’t be mad at me,” His Majesty says from the backseat while Jo Yeong navigates the traffic. “I’ve just…become used to it. Leaving on Friday afternoon and coming back on Monday morning. So it’s easier if I can just get out of the palace for a little while every now and then.”
The tight set of Jo Yeong’s jaw softens. When he glances into the rearview mirror, he finds the king looking back. Jo Yeong’s gaze turns away, his fingers flicking on the turn signal as he moves to overtake the Kia in front of them.
“People at the palace would be more assured if you slept and went on your adventures well-rested, Your Majesty,” he says, pulling the car back into the right lane.
From behind him comes the sound of the king’s laughter, quiet but unmistakable. “Ah, so you do worry,” he says in a sing-song. “I knew you cared, Captain Jo.”
The back of Jo Yeong’s neck feels hot under the scrutiny. It’s an absurd reaction to a factual statement. From the age of four, Jo Yeong has never cared for anything more than the king’s well-being. At first, he cared about it the way a child cares about a friend, unaware yet of the difference in status between them. Then, the way a shield cares about its bearer—steadfast and unyielding. And then—no. That is the one thing Jo Yeong never lets himself think about.
He doesn’t know if he’s more annoyed or impressed when they find a food stall selling hotteok before seven in the morning. The woman is just finishing setting up for the day when Jo Yeong pulls up at the curb in one smooth maneuver and kills the engine.
He pulls the handbrake and unbuckles his seatbelt. Pops the door open, one foot out on the pavement, and turns around in his seat, looking at the king over his shoulder.
“Please, stay in the car,” he instructs. “How many do you want?”
The smell of freshly fried dough wafts inside.
The king looks between the food stall and Jo Yeong, his brow raised, an absolutely gleeful expression on his face. “See?” he says. “What did I tell you? You never know what you’ll find if you just go looking for it.” Then, “Get me two. And get yourself some, too. I don’t want to eat alone.”
Jo Yeong opens the door wider, then slams it behind himself before anyone has a chance to peer inside. The windows are tinted, but there is still room for error.
This early in the morning, the autumn chill settles into his bones, slipping in under the layers of clothes and the body armor. It’s been an unusually cold autumn in Busan this year, feeling more like Seoul than the royal capital. Perhaps that means an unusually cold winter in store for them as well.
“Good morning,” Jo Yeong says politely as he approaches the food stall, reaching for his wallet. “I’ll take three.”
The stall owner nods, reaching over to put the pancakes on the griddle, then freezes when she looks up. Her eyes widen in recognition. “Oh, you’re—”
“Please,” Jo Yeong interjects, already running several scenarios in his head. “The food?”
The woman glances to the side—right to where Jo Yeong has left the car.
“Ma’am,” he begins before she has a chance to say anything else, “how much will that be?”
She takes another peek as she puts the food inside a paper bag, trying to get a better view over his shoulder. Jo Yeong hurriedly counts off the six thousand won and places the banknotes on the little plastic tray.
“Thank you,” he says. Grabs the bag and turns on his heel as fast as he can without arousing suspicion. He only breathes a sigh of relief once the car door slams shut behind him.
“She recognized me,” he informs the king as he starts up the car. The inside smells like fried dough and cinnamon and almonds now. Warm and comforting, and everything Jo Yeong is not. “We need to go somewhere else to eat.”
The king, to his surprise, doesn’t protest. Instead, he only hums in agreement, strangely quiet all of a sudden.
They end up on Songdo Beach, sitting on the low stone wall that lines the little square which overlooks the water. They’re too late to watch the sunrise. Jo Yeong has never been more grateful. That would’ve made it seem too much like something that doesn’t bear thinking about.
He makes no move to sit, content to stand guard while His Majesty gets to enjoy the moment of reprieve. The king pats the space right next to him and beckons Jo Yeong closer.
“Come, sit, Captain,” he says. “The pancakes are getting cold.”
Jo Yeong obeys. That’s how he ends up sitting far too close to the king while the little voice in his head keeps whispering about distance and propriety and etiquette. But this is where His Majesty wants Jo Yeong to sit.
The pancakes are good, still piping hot when Jo Yeong bites into His Majesty’s piece, the taste of cinnamon sugar and roasted almonds spilling over his tongue, burning the roof of his mouth. Only then does he nod, letting the king know the food is safe to eat.
“Be careful, Your Majesty,” he says. “They’re still very hot inside.”
They spend a while watching the play of light on the water, eating their hotteok in small, cautious bites until all that’s left is the greasy residue on their fingers and mouths. Jo Yeong carefully avoids looking to the side all the while, acutely aware of the warmth that the king’s body is giving off. It seeps into Jo Yeong’s skin and stays there, warming him up even more than the food.
“Do you ever wonder,” the king asks once the silence prolongs itself into what feels like infinity, “what you would be doing if you weren’t doing this?”
“No,” Jo Yeong’s mouth says before he can so much as turn the question over in his mind. “My place is by Your Majesty’s side. I’m right where I want to be.”
The truth is, Jo Yeong has never known anything else. For as long as he can remember, he’s understood that his life doesn’t belong to himself, but to the crown. To the king. He can’t even begin to imagine doing anything else. There is a void of meaning where the rest of his life would be.
After the first time he’d got shot in the line of duty, the doctors at the Royal Metropolitan Hospital referred him to a psychologist before he could be allowed back on active duty. She asked him the same question, and Jo Yeong bristled at the very idea.
At the time, he was impatient to get back and annoyed by the bureaucratic setbacks. He wasn’t even seriously injured. The body armor absorbed most of the bullet’s kinetic energy, leaving him with a nasty bruise and a dislocated shoulder which the orthopedist they called for a consult popped back into place in less than thirty seconds.
Now, though, he thinks he understands. What she was really asking about was choice. She couldn’t know that Jo Yeong would choose His Majesty each and every time, even if he wasn’t beholden to the crown.
When the king says nothing in response for a long while, Jo Yeong eventually chances a look to the side. He finds His Majesty staring back at him.
“And what if I weren’t the king?” he asks. He leans back, propping himself back on his hands, palms flat against the granite. “What if you didn’t have to protect me?”
I would still choose you, Jo Yeong cannot say.
“This is my life,” he says instead. “I have no wish for another one.”
Open air events are Jo Yeong’s most bitter enemy. They take eons to prepare for and are always unpredictable. If someone were to try to hurt His Majesty, there are too many approach routes to account for all of them, even with thorough perimeter checks and strategic sniper team placement. They can cover the roofs and the obvious exits or hiding spots, but sometimes all it takes is one disgruntled person looking out the window of their apartment through the scope of their own rifle.
Jo Yeong’s men are always stretched thin on those occasions. It doesn’t matter how many people the Royal Guard employs—they could always use more when the king moves out in the open for any prolonged period of time.
“Try not to get an ulcer before you’re thirty,” Myeong Seungah says as Jo Yeong goes over the schedule for the annual military gala for the thousandth time. The Ministry of National Defense was, as always, advised to hold the event indoors if they wanted His Majesty in attendance. As always, they refused.
(“You can’t have a parade indoors, Captain,” the Secretary told Jo Yeong to his face. “You should know, considering your military record.”)
When Jo Yeong doesn’t react, Myeong Seungah continues, “You know, it would look bad on your bill of health.”
Jo Yeong looks up from the blueprints of the area that surrounds the Song Sanghyeon Plaza. “It’s too late,” he says. “I’m thirty.”
Myeong Seungah narrows her eyes, leaning over the table to reach for the plate of cookies someone left out earlier. “Since when?” she asks. Suspicious. Doubtful. Like she thinks he’s lying.
“First of January. Today. Whichever you prefer,” Jo Yeong says. He notes another point to set up a roadblock prior to the king’s arrival. “What are you doing in my office?”
“It’s your birthday?!” Myeong Seungah stares with her mouth slightly open, the cookie half-forgotten in her hand. She’s probably trailing crumbs over the table.
“Please, lower your voice,” Jo Yeong says. “And answer my question.”
She eats the remaining cookie in one bite and leans over the table. “No, no, no, Captain. You answer my question first. Is it seriously your birthday?”
“Yes,” Jo Yeong says, impatient. It’s six hours until the festivities are set to begin. He has better things to do than ponder his age. “Now, are there any work-related questions you’d like to ask?”
“Yes, actually.” She pulls out her tablet and opens an app. “We need to know where the photographers can set up so they won’t get in your way. Are you seriously working through your birthday just like that? No plans for later?”
Jo Yeong resists the urge to roll his eyes. “His Majesty has a dinner planned with the Minister of National Defense and Secretary of the Armed Forces,” he says. “We won’t be back until late.”
Myeong Seungah makes a sad face, her lips pulling into a downward turn. “Well, that’s a bummer…”
“His Majesty’s safety is more important than anyone’s birthday,” Jo Yeong concludes categorically, making final notes before he folds the blueprints back into a more manageable square. “Your photographers can set up to the right and left of the stage. We will have designated area for the press, and we can set up another spot for them closer to the platform. They’ll be instructed where to go once they arrive.”
Myeong Seungah dusts off her hands, then pushes herself away from the table. “Thanks, I’ll let them know,” she says, already on her way to the door. “We’ll also have drones flying to capture the overhead footage, but that’s already been cleared with Lieutenant Park. And hey, Captain Jo—” She turns back to face him once she’s in the doorway. “Happy birthday.”
When Jo Yeong returns from his briefing with Sub-captain Seok and Lieutenant Park, there is a lone cupcake waiting for him in the break room, put under a glass cloche, with the name attached on a post-it note.
For the birthday boy, the note reads, followed by Jo Yeong’s name in Myeong Seungah’s neat handwriting.
Jo Yeong snatches the post-it away, hoping no one else has seen it. There is no reason to make a spectacle out of something he’s already deemed nonessential. After a moment’s hesitation, though, he grabs the cupcake as well and brings it back to his office. He appreciates the gesture, misguided as it is.
At three p.m. sharp, he enters the king’s dressing room, where His Majesty is already being attended to under the watchful eye of Sub-captain Seok.
“Dismissed,” Jo Yeong says as he crosses the room, watching Sub-captain Seok bow sharply and turn on his heel to leave. Then, Jo Yeong takes his place at the king’s side, observing the way the attendants dress him in his military uniform, the jacket heavy with insignias.
“So? What do you think? Don’t I look dashing?” the king asks once his dress shirt has been buttoned almost all the way up. His Majesty takes over for the last two buttons. A reflex from the before times; a habit of a lifetime.
The wardrobe attendants all murmur their assurances, smiling and nodding. And yet, the king’s not satisfied.
“Captain Jo?” he says, his tone teasing. He leans over, still standing on the raised platform in front of the mirror. Like this, he towers over Jo Yeong even more than usual. “Don’t you think I look particularly good in uniform?”
Jo Yeong presses his lips together. “That’s what they say, Your Majesty.” Then, “We should leave within the next ten minutes.”
“You’re no fun, Captain,” the king complains, stretching his arms out as the attendants finally put on his jacket and wrap the belt around his waist. “But fine, I’m ready to go.”
Jo Yeong brings his wrist comm up to his mouth. “Bring the car around. We’re moving in five.”
By the time the dinner at the Ministry of National Defense winds down to a close, it’s nearing ten in the evening. Jo Yeong dismisses the rest of the security detail as they move to the underground garage, then takes one of the unmarked cars and drives the king back to the palace himself.
It’s been a long day. His Majesty is quiet as they navigate Busan’s night traffic, looking out the window each time Jo Yeong glances at him in the rearview mirror. Maybe today the king will sleep soundly, tired as he is. Jo Yeong still has things to take care of before he leaves; they shouldn’t take more than an hour or two, but perhaps it would be easier if he slept in his office tonight.
The silence persists as they arrive at the palace and Jo Yeong escorts His Majesty all the way back to his rooms, then bows and turns to leave.
“Yeong-ah,” the king says, breaking the silence for the first time in a long while. Jo Yeong stops in his tracks, turns around to face His Majesty. “It’s still before midnight.”
Jo Yeong nods. “Do you still need me for something, Your Majesty?” he asks, straightening his posture.
“Did you think I would forget?” His Majesty asks, tilting his head to the side. He turns around for a moment to rummage in his desk drawer; when he faces Jo Yeong again, there’s a small, midnight blue velvet box in his hands.
Jo Yeong’s breath catches in his throat. He stays perfectly still as the king crosses the last of the distance between them.
“Happy birthday,” His Majesty says. “And sorry for making you miss most of it.”
Jo Yeong’s heart keeps pounding against his ribs, his pulse a wild, frantic thing. His resting heart rate is usually below fifty; this feels like a heart attack. The king is close—too close, all of a sudden, pressing the velvet box into Jo Yeong’s hand.
For a moment, Jo Yeong just stands there limply, clutching the box in his palm.
“Well?” His Majesty prompts. “Aren’t you going to open this?”
“You didn’t have to,” Jo Yeong says reflexively.
He doesn’t say, I stopped celebrating birthdays the year I took over as the Captain of the Royal Guards.
Instead, he opens the box, then snaps it closed the next second. “Your Majesty, I can’t accept this,” he says firmly. Somehow, he finds it in himself to look the king in the eyes. Maybe if he keeps doing that, the contents of the box will disappear.
“Of course you can,” His Majesty says, nonchalant. “I’m the king, and I’m giving it to you.”
Jo Yeong takes a step back. He opens the box again, and there inside, encrusted with tiny diamonds and sapphires, rests an ornamental lapel pin in the shape of the Changnyeong Jo clan family crest. The kind of heirloom that, once bestowed by the king, would be passed down from generation to generation. But Jo Yeong does not intend to have children. One of the twins, then, and then their children could inherit it.
“Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong protests again.
“Do I really have to command you to accept your birthday gift?” The king raises his eyebrows, looking at Jo Yeong expectantly. “Are you seriously going to make me do it? Because I will. Yeong, just take the pin.”
Jo Yeong inclines his head politely. A capitulation. A concession. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
But when he moves to close the velvet box, the king frowns. “Are you not even going to wear it?” he asks, taking a step forward. “Come on, give it to me.”
Jo Yeong obeys and watches, eyes wide and throat dry, as His Majesty pulls the pin out and comes closer to fasten it to the lapel of his suit jacket. The king’s hand lingers for a moment. Jo Yeong’s eyes flutter close, then open again.
“Now come on,” the king says, completely casual, pulling Jo Yeong by the wrist. “I bet you haven’t even eaten anything.”
Jo Yeong hopes his stomach won’t betray him now, the thought of food twisting his insides at the mere mention. The last thing he’s eaten was half of the cupcake Myeong Seungah left for him. The other half is probably going stale in his office.
When the king brings him into the kitchen, which stands dark and empty at this hour, Jo Yeong expects him to throw a pack of ramen at him. Instead, His Majesty gestures for him to sit and goes to rummage through the cabinets and search the fridges.
“Your Majesty, it’s late,” Jo Yeong protests. “I can eat something once I get home.”
“Liar,” the king says cheerfully. “You’re just going to crash here and sleep on the couch in your office. Don’t forget that I know you, too.”
As if Jo Yeong could ever forget. He should be grateful that His Majesty doesn’t seem to notice the way Jo Yeong’s eyes are always trained on him. If he does, maybe he thinks it’s just part of the job. Or maybe Jo Yeong is that good an actor, after all. He’s managed to fool the man who knows him better than anyone else in this world—in all the worlds.
On the other side of the kitchen island, His Majesty, still in full uniform, pours water over dried seaweed in a glass bowl, and washes the rice to put it in the rice cooker. He pulls some beef out of the fridge, followed by a tall jar that’s labeled oxtail broth, and some side dishes stored in ceramic containers.
“Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong says once he realizes what the king is doing. “I don’t—”
“Captain Jo,” His Majesty says sternly, cutting the beef with confident, practiced movements, “you are going to eat seaweed soup on your birthday, and you are going to enjoy it, is that understood?”
Jo Yeong hides a smile in the palm of his hand, but he knows it must still be there in his eyes when he looks back at the king. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he says. There’s no stopping this, he realizes, because once the king sets his mind to something, he’s very difficult to be persuaded otherwise.
Jo Yeong wants to enjoy this—a quiet moment after hours—but there is something unbearably domestic about it that makes his shoulders tense, fight or flight response activated. He can’t allow himself to indulge in this. Not when he’s spent so much time cultivating the perfect amount of distance.
After a while, which he spends carefully looking either just to His Majesty’s left or down to the cutting board, the smell of freshly made food begins to permeate the room, reminding Jo Yeong that he’s starving. His stomach makes an undignified sound, but it’s too late to cover it up. The king looks up from where he’s bent over the pot, tasting the soup before he adds more seasoning, and the look in his eyes is triumphant.
“Ha! I knew you were hungry,” he says. “Just a few more minutes now.”
The food is delicious, and not just because Jo Yeong is starving. It’s been years since he last ate seaweed soup on his birthday, and the rich broth spills across his tongue, coating the inside of his mouth.
The king, still full after dinner, doesn’t eat—instead, he leans over the counter, propping his chin up on his hands, and watches Jo Yeong eat. The rice is light and fluffy, the kimchi is just the right side of spicy, and the radish salad has the perfect balance of sweet and sour.
“So?” he asks, balancing on his heels, swaying back and forth like an overexcited boy eager to impress. “Is it good?”
Jo Yeong swallows a mouthful of food. “It’s uncouth to fish for compliments, Your Majesty,” he chides. Then, “It’s good.”
The king laughs, delighted, piling the dirty dishes into the sink for the morning kitchen shift to deal with. “You should eat more,” he says. “You’ve been looking really tired lately.”
Jo Yeong’s eyebrows shoot up. “I don’t think someone who sleeps three nights a week should be the one to comment on that, Your Majesty,” he says.
He expects a reprimand, but His Majesty just laughs again. “What, am I not allowed to be concerned for my Captain of the Royal Guard?”
Jo Yeong’s jaw clenches, then unclenches with difficulty. The king is oblivious, of course. He’ll never know what kind of havoc he’s wreaking on Jo Yeong’s heart.
It’s been difficult, ever since the king’s schedule returned more or less to normal, for Jo Yeong to maintain the same kind of composure. The same kind of distance. His Majesty, with nothing else to occupy his mind, has turned his attention to the closest person, and Jo Yeong finds himself troubled by his own emotional response.
He’s been keeping a tight lid on it for so long it’s become a seal. And yet, these days, the king’s proximity gets under Jo Yeong’s skin like never before—at least not since he turned twenty-two and assumed his position as the head of His Majesty’s protection detail. He must be constantly on his guard, consciously keeping his walls up when the king does everything he can to tear them down without even knowing.
But if there’s one thing Jo Yeong knows about protecting someone, it's this: you can never get too close. Once you’ve crossed that line, it’s already too late. You’re compromised.
It’s the question he asks himself each and every day as he dresses. He stares into the mirror while he combs and styles his hair, and he asks himself:
Are you too close?
Are you compromised?
The day he answers in the affirmative will be the day he lets Hopil take over his duties as Captain of the Royal Guard. Whatever happens to him afterwards will be of secondary importance. He has been tasked with keeping the king safe, in one way or another, since the year he turned four. That also means keeping His Majesty safe from him, if need be. That’s an eventuality he’s prepared for. Every bodyguard worth their salt understands this.
“It looks good on you,” the king says in a conversational tone a moment later, once it becomes clear Jo Yeong is not going to answer. “The pin. It was the right choice.”
“An expensive one.” Jo Yeong puts the spoon away. “You really shouldn’t have done this, Your Majesty.”
The king looks at him with a challenge in his eyes. “And who’s going to tell me off? Apart from you, I mean. Lady Noh?” He purses his lips. “Well, I suppose she is going to see it tomorrow, so—”
“I can’t wear this to work, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong interrupts. “It’s not the royal emblem. It reflects too much light, and—”
“Your aviators reflect light.” The king rolls his eyes. “Come on, are you seriously just never going to wear it? It was a gift. From your king.”
Jo Yeong closes his eyes, counts to ten.
“I will consider it,” he says. Pushes his chair away from the kitchen island to stand. There’s no point in prolonging this moment, but there is something else that needs to be said. “Thank you.” He gives a small, polite bow. “For the gift and for the food.”
“Please, don’t,” are the first words out of Jo Yeong’s mouth the following day, when Lady Noh gives him a strange, slightly suspicious look.
She says nothing, but her eyes stray to the lapel of his black suit jacket where the pin sits, shiny and conspicuous.
“A birthday gift from His Majesty,” Jo Yeong explains. “He insisted.”
Lady Noh makes a face, narrows her eyes and purses her lips. “I see,” she says. “Happy belated birthday, Captain. The palace has been working you hard, I have to admit. It’s nice that His Majesty remembered.”
“He made me seaweed soup.” The words tumble out before he has a chance to stop them.
It must be the mostly sleepless night getting to him. He tossed and turned for so long on the couch in his office that he started to wonder whether the king’s insomnia might be contagious.
At the admission, Lady Noh’s eyebrows shoot almost all the way up to her hairline. “His Majesty cooked?” she asks.
Jo Yeong feels like he’s just stepped on a landmine. “I think he felt guilty for making me work late,” he says. “You know he enjoys cooking from time to time. Especially when someone else does the dishes.”
Lady Noh doesn’t seem convinced, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she gives Jo Yeong a once-over and points to her watch. “You’re almost late,” she informs him. “The new recruits must be waiting for you.”
Orientation day always comes and goes in a rush. Each year at the end of November the Royal Guard recruits new members from among the best and brightest that the Royal Military Academy has to offer. Army, Navy, Air Force, the Marine Corps—everything goes. Each year, only ten get in across the entire country. Out of those ten, only two will ever get to serve as His Majesty’s personal security detail. Jo Yeong conducts the orientation for all of them all the same.
They’re waiting for him at the Royal Guard headquarters, already briefed by Lieutenant Park, standing at attention when Jo Yeong enters. He’s read the dossiers. They’re all impressive—young, skilled, lacking any bad habits instilled in them by their previous commanding officers. The Royal Guard will be able to mold them into whatever shape Jo Yeong needs them to be.
“I assume you’ve all been briefed,” he begins, coming to stand directly in front of them. “I’m Captain Jo Yeong, in charge of His Majesty’s personal security detail and head of the Royal Guard. You’ll be answering directly to me. Follow me.”
He takes them on a tour of the main palace, a blur of black among the golden splendor of the royal residence.
“Ooh, is it time for the ducklings, Captain?” Myeong Seungah peers around the corner and waves at them, smothering a laugh when some of them look at each other with confusion; two of them wave back. The next moment, she zeroes in on the lapel. “Nice pin,” she says, lowering her voice but only just. Jo Yeong doesn’t like her tone at all. “I see my cupcake wasn’t the only birthday gift you received. Mine didn’t come with several diamonds attached, though.”
Jo Yeong tamps down on the urge to sigh. Wearing this was a mistake. “Miss Myeong, did you need something?” he asks, keeping his voice carefully flat.
She has the audacity to smile at him. “Just saying hello,” she says cheerfully. “Carry on.”
They’re nearly done with the tour of the publicly accessible parts of the palace. There is only the Royal Wing left—His Majesty’s private rooms, Prince Buyeong’s quarters, guest rooms for the visiting members of the royal family. Most of the recruits will be assigned here in the following weeks at one point or another—not to the king’s rooms, but the rest of the wing. It’s a boring, tedious post. Lots of standing around, lots of waiting. If they can’t do this, they won’t be able to cut it at all.
“Watches change here on the full hour,” he informs them, turned with his back to the main hallway, facing the group. “First watch is zero hundred hours to four hundred hours. Second is four hundred hours to eight hundred hours. I assume you can figure out the rest. Sub-captain Seok is in charge of assigning watch posts for all of you for the duration of your probationary period. You’ll be assigned your posts in pairs. The assignments are final, and—”
“Your Majesty!” All the recruits suddenly stand at attention, then bow in unison.
Jo Yeong closes his eyes briefly, turning on his heel just to be faced with the king, looking well-rested and sunny-faced, creeping into the hallway. His Majesty’s hands are clasped at the small of his back.
“Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong says pointedly. “Did you need something?”
“Oh, you know, I’m just saying hello,” the king says, looking at the newest crop of recruits over the top of Jo Yeong’s head. Then, just like everyone else he’s met today, His Majesty’s eyes fall to the lapel of Jo Yeong’s suit jacket. “Ah, so you are wearing it. Good. It looks nice on you.”
Jo Yeong feels hot under the collar of his shirt, the flush spreading up his neck. He can’t even begin to tell what this exchange looks like in the eyes of the new recruits.
“Your Majesty, are you really this bored?” he asks. Behind him, someone gasps almost inaudibly. “Perhaps I should suggest that the Secretary of the Royal Office schedule more meetings for you on the weekends.”
The king laughs. “I didn’t know you were already at the part where you demonstrate how not to address your king,” he says.
Jo Yeong tenses. “Your Majesty.” He inclines his head, but the king clasps him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture. Jo Yeong’s skin burns where they touch. He swallows, clears his throat.
“Come by the study once you’re done, okay?” His Majesty says. Finally, he removes his hand from Jo Yeong’s shoulder. The memory of that touch feels like a brand. “And you,” he addresses the new recruits, “be good to Captain Jo. He works very hard to keep me and everyone else here safe, and he should get to sleep at least from time to time.” With that, he turns his attention back to Jo Yeong. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you slept in your office again, just like I thought you would,” he says, lowering his voice. “I can eat something once I get home, my foot. You’re such a bad liar, Yeong-ah.”
This time, Jo Yeong holds His Majesty’s gaze. “It made no sense to go back that late into the evening,” he says. “Now, if that’s all, Your Majesty, then with your leave, I have an orientation to finish.”
“The study, remember,” the king repeats, pointing a finger at him, like Jo Yeong has ever forgotten a single thing the king said to him. “Now carry on.”
Once the king is gone, Jo Yeong turns back to the group of recruits. He scans their faces, but they’re mostly carefully blank. Good.
Still, the echo of the conversation haunts him as the orientation winds down to a close. They return to Jo Yeong’s office, where they’re outfitted with earpieces and standard-issue pistols, and when he asks if they have any questions, one of them—Kang Hyesu—raises her hand.
“Should we expect His Majesty to always be this…forward?” she asks once Jo Yeong gives her the go-ahead.
“No.” He looks back at her without blinking until she looks away. “And, regardless of how His Majesty addresses you, you are expected to always respond with the highest degree of politeness and formality. Now, if there are no other questions, Lieutenant Park will outfit you with everything else you need to start working and assign you to your stations until new duty rosters are sent to your email addresses by end of day today. Dismissed.”
Once the new recruits are gone, Jo Yeong takes a moment to sit down and press his fingers to his temple. He has a pounding headache, like the beginnings of a migraine.
Still, the king needs him.
He gives himself exactly two minutes to swallow a painkiller and wait for it to begin working. Then he closes the door behind him and goes to find His Majesty in his study.
The first thing that reaches Jo Yeong’s ears upon opening the door to the study is shrieking. It sounds strangely familiar, and he has only a moment to realize what’s happening before another voice calls, “Oppa!”
Next thing he knows, he’s holding an armful of a very excited Eunbi, who clings to his neck and clutches at his shoulders. Kkabi follows soon after, hanging off him like a little koala bear.
Jo Yeong’s chest tightens. They’re both still that age when they don’t shy away from showing and responding to affection from other family members. This, to Jo Yeong’s infinite exasperation, apparently includes also His Majesty.
“I can’t believe you didn’t even come home for your birthday!” Eunbi says with all the reproach a nine-year-old can muster. “But Gon-oppa called daddy and said we should come visit to give you a nice surprise. We even made birthday cards for you, but you never showed…”
“Eunbi, for the last time, His Majesty is not your oppa, he’s your king,” Jo Yeong explains with a deep sigh, crouching with one knee braced against the floor to properly face her. “You shouldn’t speak to him or about him like that. And…I’m sorry that I couldn’t come. I had to work.”
“See? I told you,” His Majesty says. Jo Yeong blinks when he realizes he’s not talking to him, but rather to Eunbi. “It was all my fault for keeping him away from you. I made him work a lot, and we finished up late.”
Eunbi purses her lips, unconvinced. “Did he at least get a birthday cake?”
Jo Yeong needs for his sister to stop talking immediately. It’s too late, though, and the king laughs.
“He didn’t, and you’re right, that’s a grave oversight,” he admits, to Jo Yeong’s mortification. “But I did make him some seaweed soup. That has to count for something, right?”
Eunbi narrows her eyes, considering. “I guess. But, Gon-oppa, we almost never get to see him,” she says with a pout. “He’s working too hard.”
“See?” the king says once again, but this time it’s directed at Jo Yeong. “Even your sister thinks you’re working too much.”
“Your Majesty, please, don’t turn my own siblings against me,” Jo Yeong says. He gives the king a pointed look. “They’re enough of a terror as it is already.”
“Oppa!” Eunbi protests, but all she gets in return is His Majesty’s hand ruffling her hair.
Jo Yeong’s throat feels tight.
“Be nice to him,” the king says, pointing to Jo Yeong with his chin. “You’ve come all the way here to give him your birthday cards, haven’t you?”
The birthday cards are clearly handmade and they leave red glitter all over Jo Yeong’s dress pants, but he gives each of the twins a kiss on the forehead and a hug. He has another pair of pants in his office, just in case. He can sacrifice this one to the twins.
“You should take the rest of the afternoon off,” His Majesty says. “I told the kitchen to make them some lunch, and you’ve been working hard enough.”
Jo Yeong thinks of the stacks of papers in his office, the carefully constructed schedule that will fall apart the moment he touches it. “Your Majesty, it’s orientation day, and—”
“Wow, so daddy was right,” Eunbi says in a sulky voice. “You really do like Gon-oppa more than your own family.”
Jo Yeong freezes. Blood rushes in his ears, loud, almost deafening. His heart pounds in his chest, in his throat.
When he glances up, His Majesty is giving him a questioning look, his eyebrows raised. “What do you—”
“It’s nothing,” Jo Yeong says, swallowing thickly. He can’t remember the last time he interrupted His Majesty. “I’ll take a long lunch, then see them off. I’ll get them out of your hair now.”
With that, he grabs each of the twins by the hand, intent on dragging them out of the study as quickly as possible.
“Yeong-ah,” the king calls after him. “If there’s a problem—”
“There is no problem.” Jo Yeong bows. “I’ll leave you to your work, Your Majesty.”
At the beginning of September, Jo Yeong requests leave to visit his parents for Chuseok. It’s just the five of them this year. The extended family up in Changnyeong are doing their own thing this time, and the drive would be a hassle anyway, considering that Jo Yeong must be back at the palace on the eve of the following day.
The twins get underfoot from the moment he enters the house, already filled by the aroma of the food his mother must have been cooking for hours. They have a cook who comes in on the weekdays, but on weekends and holidays, his mother takes over the kitchen duties.
Eunbi and Kkabi nearly topple him over right in the entryway, hanging off his waist and grabbing for the bags where they know the gifts are as Jo Yeong attempts to take off his shoes. “Let your brother breathe.” Their father shakes his head, taking the bags from Jo Yeong but otherwise leaving him to his fate.
These days, Jo Yeong visits his parents once or twice a month, and never for long. Having him stay the night is an almost unprecedented occasion.
“His Majesty sends greetings,” he says, settling in in the living room while the twins tear through the layers of wrapping paper to the side. “And gifts.”
It’s a pleasant visit overall, the five of them sitting at the same table that nearly sags under the weight of the food. Jo Yeong can hardly remember the last time they gathered together like this—he was on duty at the palace last year, and didn’t get to visit at all. The year before that was most likely the same.
“It’s so nice to have you here,” his mother says. “His Majesty is working you too hard these days. The twins get to see you more often than we do, because His Majesty has a soft spot for them, but it’s good to finally see the whole family together.” His parents share a look across the table, and then his mother continues, “You should be thinking about these things, too, you know? A family? You’re not getting any younger. You should be looking to settle down eventually.”
Jo Yeong stares into his plate, his shoulders tight. He has been lucky so far, not to have his parents question his intentions of continuing the family line.
“I’m in no position to marry anyone,” he says simply, looking up to lock eyes with his mother. “That’s not going to happen. I serve His Majesty. I can’t in good conscience put someone second to that.”
He’s thankful that his father, forgoing tradition, has opened a bottle of his favorite whisky. Jo Yeong takes a long pull from his glass, lets it burn down his throat.
His father sighs, taking a sip from his own glass. “I really do wonder sometimes if we did the right thing, letting you two meet when you were still so young. You really love him more than your own life, don’t you?”
Jo Yeong’s head snaps up and he freezes, his eyes meeting his father’s gaze across the table. He feels caught out, exposed, raw like a nerve.
It’s—impossible. No one is supposed to know. Certainly not his family.
Jo Yeong remembers himself at fourteen, desperately trying to fight the feelings he could barely comprehend, let alone manage. Then at fifteen, resigned to his fate and terrified that someone was going to find out.
He’s always thought he did well in hiding it. But now his father is staring at him like he knows, and Jo Yeong can’t even look away. His heart keeps pounding in his throat. His limbs are frozen, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“I’m not blind, son,” his father says when Jo Yeong offers him nothing in return. “But this is no way to live a life. The late king was my friend, but I could never have done for him what you do. Not to that extent. You should be more than just your job, Yeong-ah. When was the last time you met someone you wanted to take home? When was the last time you met someone, period?”
Jo Yeong’s jaw clicks. His gaze falls to his knees.
He’s always known that he’s just a satellite circling a celestial body. A moon orbiting a planet, forever tidally locked. There’s no way for him to turn his face away from the one thing that always remains in his view.
The conversation ends there, but his father finds him later—long after everyone else has gone to bed—sitting in the kitchen in the dark. He sits down next to Jo Yeong but doesn’t turn on the lights, a mug of warm water in his hands.
“You have to understand that we worry,” his father says. “I was in the military for most of my life; I know what it’s like to take risks. But this is—this is something else.”
Jo Yeong looks at him—older than he remembers, with more silver hair at his temples. In that, at least, his parents are right. None of them are getting younger.
“You didn’t push me into this,” Jo Yeong says quietly. “If that’s what you think. I chose him on my own. I would’ve chosen him even if you didn’t tell me to go cheer up the crying boy publicly mourning his father.”
It’s just as hard not to believe in fate as it is to believe in it. Jo Yeong doesn’t think that his place in the universe has always been predetermined, but he also knows that he’s exactly where he’s meant to be. Even if it means he has to put his heart under lock and key.
It’s hardly the greatest sacrifice anyone has ever made.
“Son…” His father sighs. “Do you really think he’s—”
“Please, don’t.” Jo Yeong’s hands tighten their grip around the mug. “I can’t—I can’t talk about this.”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” his father says. “You can’t even say it. If it’s that hard to speak it out loud, how hard is it to live?”
Jo Yeong swallows. He’s had a decade and a half to perfect not thinking about it. He didn’t think it would be his father who’d open the dam.
“I’m going to bed,” he announces, pushing himself away from the table with a quiet scratch of the chair against the floor. “And, father…you don’t have to worry about me. I know what I’m doing.”
“So,” the king says, leaning against the door to Jo Yeong’s office later in the evening, once Eunbi and Kkabi have been safely escorted back home, “what was that all about? Are your parents really not happy with how much you’ve been working lately? Because I agree with them.”
Jo Yeong keeps his face carefully blank. “My father made a joke when I went to see them for Chuseok,” he says. “She misunderstood.”
“Oh?” His Majesty makes himself comfortable against the frame. He crosses his arms over his chest, an amused expression on his face. “So you don’t like me more than you like your family?”
“Your Majesty…” Jo Yeong sighs. “Did you need something?”
“How did it go with the rookies today?” the king asks, sauntering into the room to take over the couch, spreading out comfortably all over the cushions. “Did we get a good crop this year?”
“They look younger and younger every year,” Jo Yeong says. This, at least, he can talk about without feeling like he’s stepping over a minefield. “But they come highly recommended.”
His Majesty laughs quietly. He pulls the Rubik’s cube Jo Yeong keeps on the shelf and starts to solve it with quick, practiced movements, barely looking at it. “It’s not that they look younger and younger, Captain Jo. It’s just that we’re getting older.”
“You sound almost like my father, Your Majesty.” Jo Yeong shuffles the papers on his desk around. He’s not doing anything anyway, his attention trained on the king.
“And Lady Noh,” the king adds. “You wouldn’t believe the persistence this woman has. The moment she drags my uncle into this, it’s all over for me, Yeong-ah. I’ll have no choice but to leave the country and fake my own death unless I want to be set up with every eligible woman under the age of thirty-five. You’ll help me, right? We can go on the run together.”
Jo Yeong’s jaw clenches. “I have a duty to the crown, Your Majesty,” he says, keeping his tone light. “I’m afraid I’ll have to turn you in.”
“You wound me, Captain Jo.” The king touches his palm just over where his heart is. “I thought you were on my side.”
“I am, Your Majesty,” he says. “I just don’t think the life of a fugitive would suit you.”
Right then, an alarm goes off on his watch. A reminder he set several weeks prior.
“Oh?” The king perks up. “Anything important?”
“I have a mandated firearm license renewal scheduled in half an hour,” Jo Yeong says. “I should get down to the range soon.”
The king considers him for a moment, then throws the solved Rubik’s cube for Jo Yeong to catch. “It’s been a while since I got any shooting practice in,” he muses. “Maybe I should brush up, too, just in case.”
If it were up to Jo Yeong, His Majesty wouldn’t have to fire a gun again for as long as he lives, but he can hardly say that out loud.
“As you wish,” he says instead. “We can go as soon as you’re ready, Your Majesty.”
It’s a long way from the main palace down to the Royal Guard quarters. Jo Yeong’s office and the command headquarters are located adjacent to the royal residence, but the training grounds and sleeping facilities for those who don’t live off-site have been allocated on the opposite side of the palace complex.
They make their way across the grounds, just the two of them. There are people they pass on their way, because the palace never sleeps, but no one stops them before they can reach the shooting range. Lieutenant Song is on duty, and he bows deeply when he sees the king approach.
“Your Majesty,” he says.
“I’m here for my firearm license renewal exam,” Jo Yeong informs him. “You’ll supervise.”
Lieutenant Song stands up straighter, then chances a glance at the king.
“His Majesty is here to practice,” Jo Yeong says. “You can leave that to me.”
They’re led inside the building, where they’re outfitted with safety goggles and noise-cancelling headphones, then Jo Yeong leads them on through to the range proper, which stands empty at this time of day.
He takes his position and pulls his pistol out of the holster. A quick check: magazine out, slide pulled to inspect the chamber. The movements are quick, practiced, a second nature by now.
Safety on, magazine in, pull the slide to load the round into the chamber.
Safety off.
He fires ten rounds, reloads, fires ten more. Clicks the safety on, pulls the magazine out, clears the chamber, listening to the round that slides out hit the floor. Sets the pistol down for inspection and takes three steps back for Lieutenant Song to step in.
“Exemplary as always, sir,” he says, looking at the target—nothing below a nine. “I have the forms back at the office, if you’d like to step out for a moment?”
Jo Yeong pulls the goggles off, hangs the headphones on the divider between the shooting stations, then follows Lieutenant Song out.
They deal with the paperwork quickly; Lieutenant Song is an efficient and conscientious worker, and his organization skills are unparalleled. Still, when Jo Yeong returns the pen he’s borrowed and turns to leave, he opens his mouth to say, “With permission, sir, but—what is His Majesty doing here?”
Jo Yeong gives him a look. “He said he wanted to practice. You can go now. I’ll supervise His Majesty and lock up once we’re done.”
Lieutenant Song inclines his head. “I still have some paperwork to finish, so I’ll be here a while, sir.” He looks over his shoulder, then back at Jo Yeong. “Unless I should—”
“That won’t be necessary,” Jo Yeong interrupts before Lieutenant Song can finish the sentence. He pushes the door handle, steps into the hallway to return to where he’s left His Majesty waiting. “Carry on, then, Lieutenant.”
The last time His Majesty fired a gun, they were at Cheonjongo and Jo Yeong had snapped a boy’s head for the king minutes earlier with no hesitation. This is the way it should be, Jo Yeong thinks. A king in peacetime shouldn’t know what it feels like to have blood on one’s hands. It’s for people like Jo Yeong—those who swore to protect the crown and the person wearing it with their lives.
At heart, His Majesty is a scholar, not a warrior. He has the courage and the nerve, but he lacks the instinct that makes people like Jo Yeong good at what they do. He’s brave, but he is not ruthless.
Good, Jo Yeong thinks. Good. It’s all as it should be.
The king is a decent shot, overall. He’s also very much out of practice, and Jo Yeong carefully refrains from commenting once His Majesty puts his pistol away and pulls off his headphones, then says cheerfully, “Well, there’s always the next time.”
They end up walking back to the main palace under a darkened sky. When they breathe out, the air turns to mist.
“You’d tell me, right?” the king asks out of nowhere, shoulders almost brushing against Jo Yeong’s as they walk. “If something was bothering you—or your family? You’ve been by my side for so many years, so maybe there’s a way to—”
“Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong interrupts, “do you want me to relinquish my duties as Captain of the Royal Guard?”
The king looks appalled at the suggestion. “What? No! I just said—I thought maybe you’d like to use some of the perks of being the Captain. You have capable people to delegate to. You’ve been putting a lot of strain on yourself these days, Yeong-ah. No, no, you don’t get to deny that. You shouldn’t be lying to your king’s face, you know.”
“Like I said,” Jo Yeong says with conviction, “I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.”
Winter sun shines in his eyes. It’s a clear day, minimal wind. Good visibility. Jo Yeong walks the perimeter for the last time, makes all the checks.
“All clear,” he speaks into his earpiece. “Take positions. His Majesty arrives in twenty minutes.”
He takes the car back to the palace, driving through the streets of Busan. A lot of the traffic has been already diverted in anticipation of the Founding Day celebrations, but there are masses of people gathered at the sides of the road, crowding in to see the king.
Jo Yeong dials Sub-captain Seok’s number from the car. “Have His Majesty ready,” he says. “ETA seven minutes.”
It’s a quick enough thing to switch vehicles once he arrives, sliding into the front seat of the king’s armored SUV. “Let’s go,” he instructs the guard in the driver’s seat. “We’re ten minutes out.”
They drive through the main arteries of Busan to roaring applause, people leaning over the safety barriers, shouting and waving flags.
“I still think I should’ve gone on horseback,” His Majesty says from the backseat. “That’s what my grandfather did when he proclaimed the end of absolute monarchy.”
“We’ve discussed this, Your Majesty.” Jo Yeong shakes his head. “Unless they make a bulletproof horse, this is out of the question.”
When he glances into the rearview mirror, he sees the king’s sullen expression.
“You’re no fun, Captain Jo,” His Majesty says.
“I know.” Jo Yeong checks the watch. Three minutes out. “That’s what keeps you alive.”
It all goes off without a hitch. There are speeches, a 21-gun salute, respects paid to those who lost their lives to the ruthless machine of the absolute monarchy. There are wreaths and flowers, exhaled puffs of wintry breath dispersing like a fog in the air.
It’s a cold, sunny day. Sharp the way a serrated knife to the gut is sharp.
Jo Yeong never lets himself breathe until it’s over, and this is not over yet.
His Majesty smiles, looking to the side at Jo Yeong. “Just five more minutes,” he says under his breath. “And then we can go. You can relax now.”
There is no way for Jo Yeong to explain to His Majesty that he can never fully relax when he is with him. He understands his duty: to always remain on alert. To never let his guard down. This is what it means to serve the king with his life.
Jo Yeong looks away, scanning the crowds. There’s sun in his eyes, reflecting off his aviators, and—
The gunshot rings out like a bomb.
The first bullet goes clean through his shoulder. The second one penetrates body armor. Jo Yeong can feel something tear in his abdomen. Familiar pain. The taste of copper on his tongue.
The world sways in front of his eyes.
He’s crouching, he realizes. Protecting His Majesty with his body, caging him in. There’s blood—his own, not the king’s, he thinks. That’s fine. An acceptable casualty. He’s bleeding all over the king’s white coat.
More shots, static in the comms. Then, “Perpetrator has been apprehended. Threat has been neutralized. Weapon recovered at the scene.”
Reality slips away from him for a moment. He opens his eyes, finds himself facing the sky. Above him, the king’s face, wide-eyed and full of horror. Hands pressing down on the wound, slick, slippery.
“Yeong-ah,” His Majesty says. “Yeong-ah, stay with me. I need you to keep your eyes open. Help is on the way.”
Jo Yeong blinks, coughs. His eyelids are—heavy, leaden. They close and open. A blur. His Majesty’s face loses contours.
More coughing.
“No, no, no, don’t close your eyes,” the king says, voice desperate. One of his hands comes to cradle Jo Yeong’s face, tender. “I—I command you. I command you to keep looking at me. You have to do as I say.” Then, louder, “Where is the ambulance?!”
Jo Yeong looks, keeps his eyes open. Above him, there’s the sky. The king’s face, smeared with blood.
And then—a cold sensation. Touching his eyes, his lips. Melting against his skin. Soft, gentle.
The sun has gone out. Over their heads, snow beings to fall.
He wakes up to the steady beeping of a heart monitor. When he opens his eyes, it’s almost dark outside, and the lights are on. The room he’s in smells like someone tried to kill the underlying antiseptic smell with expensive home fragrance.
A hospital, then. The Royal Metropolitan Hospital, most likely.
Jo Yeong shifts on the bed, turns his head to the side only to discover that he’s not alone.
“Oh, you’re awake, thank god.” Myeong Seungah flings herself off the plush couch that stands in the corner of the room and towards Jo Yeong as soon as she notices that his eyes are open. “Maybe now His Majesty will be persuaded to rest.”
He clears his throat, eyes squinting against the bright light. She notices, and reaches to dim the bedside lamps. He was right—the familiar wood-paneled walls and the expensive fixtures orient him. The VIP wing at Royal Metropolitan.
“His Majesty is here?” Jo Yeong asks. His voice is hoarse, raspy and deeper than usual. His throat feels raw inside. Intubation, most likely.
Myeong Seungah nods. “He’s sitting with your parents in the VIP cafeteria,” she informs him. “They had to clear the whole place.”
Good on you, Hopil, Jo Yeong thinks distantly. He’ll make a fine replacement when Jo Yeong resigns one day.
Then, he realizes something. “My…parents?” he asks, blinking slowly. His brows knit tightly in a frown. His parents were on vacation, last time he checked.
“They flew down as soon as the news broke,” Myeong Seungah tells him. “You gave us such a scare! They had to remove part of your spleen! You were bleeding so much… His Majesty had—”
“Yeong-ah,” the king’s voice sounds from the door, quiet, a little out of breath.
Jo Yeong’s head whips around to the king standing in the entryway, eyes bloodshot and hair in disarray.
“Your Majesty…” Jo Yeong attempts to sit up, groans when the movement makes his body erupt in pain.
“Don’t be stupid,” His Majesty says. “Just lie back down.”
Jo Yeong’s parents are not far behind. They come into the room before he has a chance to say anything else. Both of them look equally exhausted. His father seems like he’s aged ten years in the span of—
“How long was I out?” he asks.
“Five days,” the king replies before anyone else has a chance to open their mouth. “They kept you in an artificially induced coma for four of those. You lost a lot of blood.”
“And you are—” Jo Yeong swallows, “unharmed?”
There’s nothing to indicate otherwise, not even a band-aid on the king’s face, but one can never know for sure.
“I’m fine,” His Majesty says. “But you—it was a close call. Don’t ever do that again.”
Jo Yeong swallows. “That’s what I’m there to do, Your Majesty,” he says. “This just means I did my job well.”
A shadow of some complex emotion crosses the king’s face, there one second and gone the next. But that’s the truth. That’s all Jo Yeong is, in the end. A body to stand between the king and whatever should want to harm him. He’s known that about himself for a long time.
It’s not the first time he’s been injured on the job. That comes with the territory. It is the first time—apart from that night at Cheonjongo—when he came close to dying. He understands that, intellectually. And yet, the relief he feels is not for himself.
His Majesty has not been harmed. That’s the most important thing.
Even at four years old, Jo Yeong understood that truth. He understood why making the crying boy smile was so imperative. Why the comfort he could offer was essential to the happiness of more than just the king.
Jo Yeong grew up always keeping that truth right before his eyes.
It was a foregone conclusion that he would take over as head of royal security as soon as he finished his military service. The day his appointment was confirmed, he sat down in his new office and put a military knife on the table in front of himself, trying to gather his courage.
He needed to find out for sure. Just so he knew he wouldn’t lose his nerve when the time came.
That was how the king found him some time later, the knife still in its sheath.
“Are you insane?” His Majesty asked, horrified.
Jo Yeong just looked up at him. “It’s better that I find out now,” he said. “You have no use for a bodyguard who can’t do what’s asked of him.”
“No,” the king said categorically. “I’m taking this. I forbid it, do you understand?”
Jo Yeong’s chest tightened. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said.
He has learned since then what a knife to the ribs feels like. A bullet to the shoulder. The truth of his purpose remains unchanged.
“Stop it,” the king says. He sounds angry for some reason. “Stop saying that.”
When Jo Yeong looks away, he finds his parents staring between the two of them, wide-eyed, perplexed. Like they understand something he doesn’t. It’s difficult to say what it is, though. Jo Yeong’s head is full of cotton wool.
They’re interrupted a moment later when a doctor comes in, then ushers everyone, including His Majesty, outside. Once they’re alone, she turns to Jo Yeong.
“You’re a very lucky man, Captain Jo,” she says. “Five minutes longer getting to the hospital and it would’ve been over. But like I said, you’re lucky. There should be no permanent damage, and you should be able to resume light activity in three to four weeks.”
Jo Yeong shakes his head. “That’s too long. I have duties to attend to.”
She raises her brows from behind the tortoiseshell frames of her glasses. “I’m sure you do, Captain,” she says flatly. “But unless you want to be back here in a week, you’ll take it easy for the foreseeable future. You’re not an easy man to faze, so I’ll be frank. You coded on the table. Take the month off. I’ll speak with His Majesty if you don’t want to listen to me.”
Jo Yeong says nothing to that, electing to stare at the wall opposite the bed instead. The doctor, gentle but no-nonsense, checks his vitals and looks through his chart, then adjusts the IV drip.
“No, wait, I don’t want—” he starts to say, just in time for everything to become blurred and a little buoyant. The world before his eyes begins to sway, and the inside of his mouth feels like it’s full of lint.
When he wakes up again, it’s the middle of the night, and only a lone table lamp in the corner by the couch illuminates the room. It gives off a soft light, so warm it’s almost orange, and so low it leaves the room in semi-darkness.
His Majesty is dozing off beside him, his sleeping head nudging at Jo Yeong’s hip on the hospital bed. One of his hands is resting less than an inch away from Jo Yeong’s own.
There’s no one else.
Jo Yeong’s head is swimming, his body pumped full of drugs. He can barely string a thought together. His tongue feels big and clumsy in his mouth.
He must make a sound, because His Majesty startles, straightening in his chair. There’s a crease left on his cheek by a fold in the duvet covers.
“Yeong-ah,” the king says, his voice raspy with sleep. “Are you in pain?”
Jo Yeong shakes his head, not trusting his mouth not to spill out his secrets. He hates how the drugs are making him feel—loopy and loose, peeling the protective layers away. Too exposed.
“What are you doing here, Your Majesty?” he asks a moment later, then watches, heart pounding against his ribs, as the king reaches for his hand to cover it with his palm. “It’s late, you should be sleeping in your own bed.”
“I wouldn’t be able to sleep in my own bed,” His Majesty admits. He keeps staring at Jo Yeong with a strange expression.
In the low, golden glow of the lamp and with the dark sky outside, the room feels like a microcosm in its own right. For a moment, nothing exists apart from the two of them. Just the puddle of light on the floor, and the king’s warm palm covering Jo Yeong’s hand, and the strangling feeling in his chest that he never dared put a name to, not even in the privacy of his own mind.
He wants this kind of closeness, this kind of tenderness so much that it hurts all the way down to his teeth. His throat feels tight, his chest caught in a vise, ribs crushed under the weight of his longing.
That’s what it is. That’s what it’s always been.
Jo Yeong is defenseless against it, left vulnerable by the state he’s in. The words nearly spill from his mouth, but the voice at the back of his head whispers, He can never know. You made a promise.
He can never mention it. He can never act on it. Not even now, in his compromised state.
Guilt drowns him like bile. Someone has just tried to kill His Majesty in broad daylight. What Jo Yeong wants is entirely inconsequential. He shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts, but the king’s palm still covers his hand, fingers curling around the edge of it, and the familiar, comforting scent of his cologne cuts through the fog in his head.
He wants—so many things that it chokes him, leaves his throat tight and his eyes stinging.
It’s the drugs. Jo Yeong is not himself.
“Where are my parents?” he asks, just to distract himself.
“I sent them home,” His Majesty says. “They’d been here the entire time.”
“And what about you?” Jo Yeong asks. “Why are you still here?”
The king looks taken aback. “You almost died,” he says, like that explains anything.
Jo Yeong gives him a wan smile. “But nothing happened to you,” he points out. “So everything went as planned.”
To his surprise, His Majesty’s face shutters. He looks—hurt. Haunted. “I told you to stop saying that.” His fingers press more insistently into the soft center of Jo Yeong’s palm.
“What do you want me to say, then?”
The king swallows. Jo Yeong watches the movement of his throat.
“That you’ll stay safe,” His Majesty says.
They’re talking in circles. It’s too late for that—it’s the middle of the night, and Jo Yeong’s head is full of fog.
There’s no argument to be had here, either, if the king refuses to accept the simple truth: that it’s Jo Yeong’s place to die for him. That he can never stay safe, for as long as he does this. He’s made his peace with it a long time ago.
Jo Yeong gives him another faint smile. “I’m afraid lying to the king is a punishable offense, Your Majesty.”
He fires the security team that had been working crowd control from his hospital bed the following day.
You have endangered His Majesty for the first and last time, he writes in the email. You are relieved of your duties effective immediately. For offboarding instructions, contact Lieutenant Park Inyoung.
The king, at least, is back at the palace. He left before Jo Yeong woke up this morning, but he’d slid a piece of folded paper under Jo Yeong’s phone.
They’re telling me I can’t reschedule the meeting with the American Secretary of Commerce just because you’re in the hospital, it reads. What’s even the point of being a king if I can’t be in charge of my own schedule?
Jo Yeong ignores the strange pang in his chest. He has a report from Sub-captain Seok waiting for him in his inbox. His eyes fall on the sentence that reads, Assailant has confessed to acting with the intention of avenging the death of the traitor Lee Lim. He was recently released from prison after serving a sentence of twenty-five years for the conspiracy to commit treason.
Jo Yeong’s jaw tenses; he can feel the oncoming headache.
How many more heads will they have to cut off even though the serpent is already dead? How long will the ghost of Lee Lim haunt them from beyond the grave? How many are there who remain loyal to him despite his death?
For everyone else other than His Majesty and Jo Yeong himself, Lee Lim died over two decades ago. How, then, are there still people who wish His Majesty ill in his name?
Instruct the Internal Security Office to pursue the leads, Jo Yeong writes back. Make sure he acted alone.
There is another message waiting for him when he finishes. This one is from Myeong Seungah.
You were trending on social media, she writes. Sorry about this.
Attached is a link to a website. Jo Yeong taps on it, then freezes with his hands clutching the tablet in an iron grip and his heart in his throat.
There’s a photo that takes up the entire screen—someone must have snapped it amidst the chaos. There were so many reporters on the scene, so many cameras pointed at them. It was inevitable that someone would capture the whole thing on film.
That’s not what makes Jo Yeong taste his own heartbeat at the back of his mouth.
He’s known for a while that there are rumors about him—about the nature of his relationship with His Majesty. He’s aware of the stories people write on the internet, the gossip they share. How each and every photo of the two of them is scrutinized for clues pixel by pixel. How the tabloids love to air out their supposed dirty laundry, belaboring the sordid details of their imagined affair.
It always makes Jo Yeong feel faintly queasy, tiptoeing too close to the truth for comfort, but there is plausible deniability. He would never allow himself to betray even a fraction of what he’s feeling while they’re out in the public, in danger of being photographed. It’s easy to dismiss the gossip, because there is nothing to it. Jo Yeong would not allow for any credible suspicion to arise.
But this—
The photo is a picture of His Majesty, surrounded by his security detail in the midst of all the commotion, carrying Jo Yeong in his arms. Jo Yeong’s blood is smeared all over the king’s white coat. There’s more on His Majesty’s face, his hands. But it’s the king’s expression that makes Jo Yeong stop in his tracks. His Majesty looks—
No, he tells himself. Don’t.
He keeps staring down at the photo. Jo Yeong remembers none of this. He must have been completely out of it by then, worn out by the blood loss, so he didn’t know. Didn’t know that it was His Majesty who carried him out. Who rushed him into the oncoming ambulance.
An insistent emotion rattles around his chest—a familiar buzzing, the kind Jo Yeong always stomps on whenever it rears its head. It’s been there, always ready to make itself known, ever since that sour-tasting realization back when he was fifteen. Ever since that sleepless night that he’d spent feeling nauseated and terrified of his own feelings before telling himself, Enough.
He’s been so good at managing it. And yet, here he is, coming completely undone. A decade and a half of repressed yearning coming to the fore.
It’s torture.
Every time he glances back at the screen, he can see himself, cradled in His Majesty’s arms. So close to the thing he wants, and yet incapable of reaching out to grasp it. Worse—knowing that he is not allowed to reach out.
Jo Yeong swallows with difficulty.
In the end, it was His Majesty who saved his life. This is the kind of debt Jo Yeong will be paying off for the rest of his life.
Eventually, a knock on the door shakes Jo Yeong out of his stupor. His mother’s face appears in the gap, peering into the room, and then she enters. His father is nowhere to be seen.
“Is His Majesty gone?” she asks, glancing around.
“He had other engagements,” Jo Yeong says.
“He had to be persuaded out of putting you in the Royal Suite, do you know that?” she says. Jo Yeong’s mouth turns dry, tongue sticking to the roof of it. “He wouldn’t leave the entire time you were in surgery. We weren’t here, but they told us he just sat in the hallway and refused to so much as go wash up or change his clothes. The doctors thought at first that he was injured, because there was so much blood on him. Yeong-ah, what’s going on?”
Jo Yeong refuses to look up at her. She’s always been good at reading his face. He can’t afford that right now.
“I think it just—startled him,” he says quietly. “It came out of nowhere. He was in shock.”
His mother lets out an exasperated sigh. She fusses for a moment with the flowers left by Myeong Seungah and the bouquet delivered on behalf of Lady Noh, but Jo Yeong knows she’s buying time. “That’s not what I asked,” she says at last.
“There is nothing going on,” he tells her mulishly.
“Your father and I do speak to each other, you know?” She sits down at last, taking the chair His Majesty fell asleep in yesterday. “You don’t want to talk about this with us, fine. But talk to someone. That’s all I ask. You’ll be assigned a therapist anyway. You know it’s standard protocol. You can talk about it with whoever they assign.”
He won’t, because there is no way for him to tell someone, I’ve been in love with His Majesty since I was fifteen. Maybe earlier. It’s hard to tell when you’ve loved someone almost your entire life.
There is no protocol for this. No rules to account for it. If Jo Yeong were a bit smarter, a little less stubborn, he would resign from his position effective immediately. But he can still do his job—there are two gunshot wounds in his torso to attest to that. And he knows no one can protect His Majesty better than he can. No one who knows him the way Jo Yeong does.
“Fine,” he lies easily. “I will.”
They discharge him on the fifth day after he wakes up. There’s a lot of grumbling from the doctors, and they leave him with strict instructions: at least a week more of bed rest before he can resume light activity. At least a month off work. Mandated therapy twice a week for the first month.
Jo Yeong spends that first week back at his parents’ house, languishing in the guest room that used to be his. Getting bored out of his mind. Trying not to pull on his stitches too much when he walks a little too energetically around the room.
At first, the king wanted to persuade him to stay in the private wing at the palace.
“No,” Jo Yeong said categorically as he slowly, gingerly packed his belongings into the overnight bag his mother had left. “Absolutely not, Your Majesty.”
“Why not?” the king asked, visibly exasperated. “You’d have the best medical care this country can offer. You’d have people there to help you round the clock. What’s so bad about that?”
Jo Yeong closed his eyes. “I wouldn’t be a guest of the crown, Your Majesty,” he said quietly. “I’m another member of staff. Head of your security detail. They can’t see me like this. It’s not for their eyes.”
The king’s face soured. “You let Myeong Seungah see you like that. Why not others?”
“Technically,” Jo Yeong said, zipping up the bag, “you let her see me like that. She was already there when I woke up.”
That was the end of that conversation, but even now Jo Yeong can’t shake the feeling that His Majesty fails to understand one fundamental truth. No one at the palace can see weakness in the one who protects the king. They need him to be the rock against which the storm waves will crash and break before they reach the shore. Unstoppable force. Immovable object. It always comes back to this.
It’s bad enough that they’ve seen him shot in front of so many cameras. They already know that he is a fallible man. For some, that’s enough to shake their faith in him. And Jo Yeong is not only responsible for the king’s safety. He’s also the man who lets the nation sleep soundly, knowing that order is being upheld. The commitment he’s made is so much bigger than just one person, even if it’s the person Jo Yeong would gladly die for without a moment’s hesitation.
So Jo Yeong refused, and the king relented, only to now sneak out in the evenings to knock on the front door of the Jo family house.
The twins are, of course, delighted. Their parents grow more and more perplexed each time. Jo Yeong is—dealing with it.
“Should I microchip you, Your Majesty?” he asks the day before Christmas Eve, when his father opens the door to reveal the king, tall and flushed with the cold, leaning against the frame. “So Sub-captain Seok doesn’t lose you again?”
The king has the audacity to laugh. “I think Hopil knows exactly where to find me.”
Jo Yeong exhales slowly through his nose. “You shouldn’t be walking around without your protection detail,” he says, settling down in a chair by the electric fireplace—his parents’ most recent frivolous addition to the home décor.
His Majesty makes an innocent face. “I’m not walking around anywhere, though. And you’re here. I’m with the head of my security detail.” He gives Jo Yeong a sunny smile. “No safer place to be.”
The week gradually turns to two weeks. Jo Yeong is healing, but not as fast as he would like, and he finds that he doesn’t mind being at home as much as he’d thought. The holidays come and go. Jo Yeong attends his mandated therapy sessions twice a week and says very little of substance, to his therapist’s infinite frustration. He’s fine. If she wants to believe otherwise, she is welcome to do that. He’s known for the longest time what his purpose is. He just did his duty. He’s fine. Still mending, bit by bit.
And so time moves forward. Jo Yeong turns a year older on New Year’s Day. The king still sneaks out of the palace every other day to spend the evening at Jo Yeong’s childhood home.
“Yeong-ah, why is His Majesty here all the time?” his mother whispers one night as they put away clean dishes. The clink of the glass drowns out their voices. “I don’t really mind, but why? Don’t you think it’s strange?”
The truth is, His Majesty has been acting strangely for weeks. Ever since Jo Yeong got shot, he’s been noticing the little peculiarities in the king’s demeanor. There are the visits, during which the king remains unfailingly polite to his parents and amused by the twins’ antics. The pleas for Jo Yeong to promise that he will stay safe in the future. The stares Jo Yeong catches every once in a while, lingering even after His Majesty has been found out. The king offers to help Jo Yeong’s mother clear the table, which she always refuses, and he talks to Jo Yeong’s father over expensive cognac after dinner, and lets the twins walk all over him, sometimes literally.
“I think he feels guilty,” Jo Yeong replies. “He’s trying to compensate for getting me shot. His Majesty probably thinks it was his fault, even though I was only doing my job. You don’t have to worry; it will pass once he moves on to the next thing. There’s the Lunar New Year coming in a month. The preparations for that should keep him occupied.”
His mother doesn’t look convinced.
Once they’re done, Jo Yeong peers into the living room. His father is alone, dozing off over a book, glasses slipping down his nose. Then, he hears voices coming from upstairs. Quietly, Jo Yeong climbs the stairs and sneaks down the hallway toward the twins’ rooms.
There’s a light on in Eunbi’s room, and the door has been left ajar. When Jo Yeong glances inside, he finds both twins huddled together under the covers on Eunbi’s bed, His Majesty sitting at the foot of it, reading from a book.
Jo Yeong’s chest constricts. He can’t name the feeling that rattles between his ribs. The king is easy to listen to, modulating the voice when he reads out the dialogue. It takes Jo Yeong a moment to recognize the story—Nutcracker and Mouse-King.
The twins are putting up a valiant fight against sleep, but their eyes keep falling shut. Still, each time His Majesty’s voice trails off, Eunbi shakes herself awake and wheedles another page out of him.
“Gon-oppa, you’re so much better at reading bedtime stories than my oppa,” she says after the third time this happens. A yawn opens her mouth wide, and then she rubs furiously at her eyes. “He never does the voices.”
The king laughs. “Your oppa is good at a lot of other things. That’s why he leaves reading bedtime stories to me.”
Eunbi nods sagely. “Can you live with us forever?” she asks, sounding so much younger than she is. “With mommy and daddy and oppa?”
Jo Yeong presses his lips together. His heart is in his throat. He swallows, feeling his Adam’s apple shift beneath his skin.
He should go. This isn’t meant for his eyes, but his feet refuse to move. Hidden in the hallway, shielded by the door, Jo Yeong watches as His Majesty laughs and reaches to pat Eunbi on the head.
“Ah, but who would rule the country then?” he asks, still laughing. It makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. Jo Yeong has to bite the inside of his cheek.
“I think you could still do it from here,” Eunbi says with all the conviction of a ten-year-old. “Then oppa could stay here, too.”
His Majesty’s eyes flicker down to the mattress. “You really miss him, don’t you? I know I’ve taken him away from you, and I make him work too hard, and—”
“But oppa really likes you,” Eunbi says.
Jo Yeong takes a step back. He needs to go, he needs to—
The creak of the floorboard beneath his foot sounds like a gunshot in his ears. He watches, frozen for a fraction of a second too long, as His Majesty’s head whips around to stare at Jo Yeong.
“Yeong-ah,” the king says, moving to stand.
Jo Yeong springs into action. He shoulders his way into the room and looks at the twins, carefully avoiding His Majesty’s gaze. “Is this nice?” he asks. “Pestering His Majesty to keep reading to you when you can barely keep your eyes open? Say thank you and go to sleep. Kkabi, you have your own room. You can barely fit in this bed now. Come on, let’s go.”
He takes his brother by the hand and leads him out of the room, refusing to look back despite His Majesty calling after him.
Jo Yeong reports back on duty the very next day. He’s still shackled to his desk, because he can’t wear body armor for longer than half an hour without starting to feel discomfort. But at least he’s out of the house and back at his own place. It’s been nearly three weeks since he was discharged. That’s enough.
The first person to greet him is Lady Noh, who comes by his office with ginseng tea and a disapproving frown.
“Captain Jo, is this wise?” she asks. Jo Yeong is not sure what she’s really asking.
The second person to come through his door is Myeong Seungah, who takes one look at him and says, “Oh, thank god. His Majesty has been insufferable.”
“You shouldn’t speak about His Majesty like this,” Jo Yeong says automatically.
“I wouldn’t have to if he hadn’t been so insufferable.” She shrugs. “But weren’t you supposed to be gone for at least a month? Not that I don’t appreciate it, but—”
“I feel fine,” Jo Yeong interrupts her. “I can be more useful here.”
It’s not even a lie. The investigation conducted by the Internal Security Office has yielded no tangible results. They have concluded that Han Minjae was most likely acting alone, but until they know for sure, Jo Yeong won’t be sleeping soundly. So his intention is to hole himself up in his office and look for more leads, catch up on his paperwork, draw up evaluations for the new recruits.
That resolve lasts until around noon, when His Majesty storms into Jo Yeong’s office, trailing a mildly perplexed Lieutentant Park.
“Captain Jo, are you deliberately ignoring your doctor’s orders?” he asks, leaning against Jo Yeong’s desk.
“Your Majesty.” Jo Yeong bows, putting all the degrees of formality between them. When he looks back up, the king seems almost hurt.
It makes something unpleasant slosh around Jo Yeong’s stomach, but this is the only way. In his childhood home, His Majesty had looked comfortable and warm and approachable. Jo Yeong has been swimming in dangerous waters for far too long. It’s time to go back to the shore, put more distance between them.
“You can leave us,” the king says, looking over his shoulder at Lieutenant Park. She gives a polite nod and closes the door behind her. “Why are you here?” His Majesty asks as soon as she’s gone. “You’re supposed to be resting.”
“I think I’ve had enough rest, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong tells him. “I want to be of use.”
The king sighs, falling backwards into an upholstered leather chair. “You’re of more use to me alive and well,” he says. “Don’t strain yourself before you’re ready.”
Jo Yeong looks up at him. “I know my own limits, Your Majesty. As you can see, I haven’t even assigned myself to the active roster.”
His Majesty huffs, half-exasperated, half-amused. “I’m surprised, honestly.”
“I can’t put my body armor on for longer than twenty minutes,” Jo Yeong admits, staring into the varnished surface of his desk. “I shouldn’t be out in the field unless I can protect you.”
The king shakes his head. “I really should fire you for a week or two,” he muses. “That seems like the only thing that will stop you from coming to work.”
Jo Yeong gives him a flat look. “We can always find out,” he says. “Your Majesty.”
Just as he expected, it makes the king laugh. “Fine, no firing, then,” he concedes. “But only if you stay behind your desk until a doctor clears you for duty. And why do I feel like you’re actually insulting me right now?”
Jo Yeong smothers a smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I’m going on vacation,” the king announces two days later, barging into Jo Yeong’s office without so much as a hello. “And I’m taking you with me.”
It’s a slower time of the year, though things will pick up for the Lunar New Year. The announcement still sends the palace staff scrambling. The king refuses to budge. He orders them to prepare the royal residence north of Sokcho, located at the foot of the mountains, with a view of Seoraksan in the distance.
“Minimal staff. No cook,” he instructs Secretary Kim, who’s frantically taking notes on her tablet. “I can take care of the cooking myself. And no more than two guards patrolling outside.”
Jo Yeong frowns.
“What about inside?” Secretary Kim asks before he can open his mouth.
His Majesty looks over his shoulder to where Jo Yeong is standing by the door and smiles. “I’ll have Captain Jo with me.”
They leave Busan in an unmarked car the following morning, heading for the private airport where the helicopter is waiting to take them up north. Ever since the shooting, the airspace over the palace has been completely closed, so starting from the helipad is impossible. Jangmi is in the car with them, driving, while Jo Yeong sits in the passenger seat, refusing to glance in the rearview mirror.
“Captain Jo, are you pouting?” His Majesty asks once the silence inside the SUV has stretched out into a thin, taut line. “Jangmi, is Captain Jo pouting? He’s giving me the silent treatment again.”
“Captain Jo’s face is perfectly neutral, Your Majesty,” Jangmi reports earnestly. “I think that’s just his resting face.”
Jo Yeong closes his eyes, counts to ten, opens his eyes. “Just drive, please.”
There’s another car behind them—Lieutenant Park bringing up the rear. They left Hopil in charge of the main palace for the duration of their absence.
By the time they touch down at the landing pad by the residence, it’s beginning to snow. It’s a lot colder this far up north, and Jo Yeong briefly regrets not bringing warmer clothes. He has a winter coat on, but he mostly packed suits out of habit, and he wonders if the house has managed to warm up sufficiently in time for their arrival.
The winter residence is just as Jo Yeong has remembered it: a large, remodeled hanok, bringing together tradition and modernity, and much more cozy than the main palace. The housekeeper welcomes them with a deep bow.
“It’s been a long time, Your Majesty,” she says. “We’re so glad to see you here. Everything has been prepared according to Secretary Kim’s instructions.”
That, as it turns out, means that apart from the two of them, there is no one else at the house. No trace of staff, no one to pass them in the hallways. Once they leave Jangmi and Lieutenant Park in the guards’ quarters by the main gate, it’s like they’re completely alone.
That, of course, is fiction. The housekeeper lives on the grounds, and she will come by to straighten out the beds and clean while they’re out, and stock the kitchen pantry with all the food His Majesty might want to eat.
The king might be on vacation, but Jo Yeong isn’t. As soon as he situates himself in his room—close to His Majesty’s suite, for tactical reasons—he fishes his tablet out of his luggage and moves to the kitchen to work at the table.
His Majesty finds him half an hour later. He’s changed in the meantime—the cable-knit sweater is new, and he’s barefoot on the heated floor.
“Please, tell me you’ve packed some clothes other than suits?” His Majesty asks, coming around the kitchen island to rummage through the fridge.
“I’m in uniform, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong responds. There are still unanswered emails he needs to get to.
“Right, but what I’m asking is, why?” The king pulls out a pack of soft tofu, a bag of mussels, and a tray of mixed shiitake and enoki mushrooms, sets everything on the counter. “We’re on vacation, so—”
“You’re on vacation, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong corrects. “I’m still on duty.”
To his surprise, the king gives him a wide, easy smile. “Oh?” he says, teasing. “Are you so sure about that, Captain Jo?”
Frowning, Jo Yeong checks the roster. Sure enough, the status next to his name displays paid leave. It was approved by His Majesty himself the day before.
“Why?” Jo Yeong looks up.
“Why not?” His Majesty parries. “You’re here. I’m here. We might just as well enjoy ourselves before we have to go back. Besides, you’re still healing. It’s fine to take some time off.”
It feels dangerous to agree to that. Just the two of them alone in this big, old house gives an impression of intimacy. It threatens to upend the fragile equilibrium Jo Yeong worked so hard to keep in balance. Being away from the royal capital, removed from their daily routine, blurs the edges of want and duty. It would be far too easy for Jo Yeong to forget his place.
“Remember the last time we came here?” the king asks.
Jo Yeong nods. He was eighteen; His Majesty was twenty-two. It was the height of summer, and the branches of the peach trees in the orchard were sagging under the weight of the fruit. They spent most of their time outside, until their noses started peeling, their skin turned golden.
“Yeong-ah,” the king had said while they were sprawled out on the grass, “do you think this is what happiness feels like?”
Jo Yeong didn’t know how to answer that question at the time. He’s still not sure. Happiness shouldn’t feel like there’s an invisible force crushing his lungs with each inhale, should it? And yet.
“Come on,” the king says. He puts the knife down and washes his hands, then comes around the kitchen island to pull Jo Yeong toward the sleeping quarters. “You’re not spending your entire vacation stuffed into a suit. I can make it a royal command, if that will make you feel better.”
The king’s hand is warm around Jo Yeong’s wrist—big enough to envelop all of it, pulling Jo Yeong along. That’s dangerous, too; too close to all the things Jo Yeong carefully doesn’t think about.
“There’s no need,” Jo Yeong says, pulling his hand back until it falls out of His Majesty’s grasp. “I will go willingly.”
The king laughs as they make their way through the hallway. “Maybe try not to sound like you’re going to your own beheading?” he suggests. “Come on. It’s a good thing I didn’t pack light.”
Before Jo Yeong has a chance to second-guess this whole thing, the king opens the door to his suite and gives Jo Yeong a nudge. The royal quarters—unlike the rest of the house, which leans more modern—are furnished similarly to the main palace. Jo Yeong follows the king inside, who immediately begins to rummage through the dresser.
“Here,” he says, throwing a sweater onto the bedspread. Another. Two more. “Take these. I don’t want to see you in a suit, unless I’m taking you out to eat somewhere nice.”
Jo Yeong swallows. This—it doesn’t mean what it sounds like. His Majesty, of course, didn’t mean to imply—
“What? Why the long face?” the king asks. He closes the distance between them and moves in even closer, peering right into Jo Yeong’s face. “I can’t even take you anywhere nice now?”
“It’s your vacation, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong says. “You can do whatever you wish. And you know that I will follow wherever you go.”
The king sighs, exasperated. “No, it’s our vacation,” he repeats. “Just take the sweaters, okay? They should fit okay—the sleeves might be a bit too long, though.”
Jo Yeong bows. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
His room is only two doors down, and Jo Yeong carries the armful of sweaters back there, then spreads them out on his own bed. It doesn’t matter which one he picks. All of them carry the echo of His Majesty’s scent, despite having been freshly washed. The faintest whiff of his favorite cologne.
Jo Yeong releases a long breath, then yanks his suit jacket off with a little too much force. Winces when the scarred tissue on his abdomen pulls, a spark of stinging pain going through him. The shirt follows, button by button, and then the undershirt, tossed over his head.
For a moment, he stands half-naked in front of the mirror, assessing. He was lucky, all things considered. The surgeon who sutured him up was very good. Very meticulous. Give it a few months to a year, and the scars on his shoulder and just below his ribs should heal clean. No excessive scarring. No impaired movement. That’s the most important thing.
The sweater he picks is whisper-soft against his skin. A little too lose in the shoulders. A little too long in the sleeves. The cream cashmere feels like a hug around his body.
Nonsense, he scolds himself as soon as he catches his thoughts straying. It’s a sweater. It’s been too long since someone touched Jo Yeong with purpose. That’s all there is to it.
The seafood sundubu jjigae that His Majesty serves for lunch has just the right level of spice, warming Jo Yeong up from inside. They sit together at the kitchen island while snow continues to fall outside—big, white flurries drifting in the wind.
“We might get snowed in,” His Majesty says. He sounds delighted by the prospect.
“Please, don’t sound so pleased about this,” Jo Yeong says from above his own bowl. “If you make headlines because the next town over had to send over their snow ploughs while you went on an impromptu vacation and got stuck in your own residence, I’m sure it will make the Public Communications Department very happy.”
“That wouldn’t happen,” the king protests. “They love me here!”
Jo Yeong sighs. “You think people love you everywhere.”
“Well, don’t they?” His Majesty leans forward, propped up on his elbows. “I look at the polls too, you know? It’s been a while since the monarchy had such a high approval rating.”
“The reforms have been well-received, on the whole,” Jo Yeong admits.
Regulating the mining industry. Dealing with workplace harassment. The amendments to the Marriage Act. The last one, in particular, had Jo Yeong’s throat in a tight grip.
He could, if he wanted—
No. It doesn’t bear thinking about. He wouldn’t want that anyway.
“See?” His Majesty says, raising his eyebrows, flashing his teeth in a smile. “Then let me be happy about the snow.”
Jo Yeong concedes, because the king’s moods are always infectious. That’s another problem with being in His Majesty’s company. Over the years, Jo Yeong has attempted to protect himself against it, but he has never succeeded. He wonders sometimes—how much of that is the person-the king, and how much of that is the boy Jo Yeong used to call hyung.
“I can’t forbid you from doing anything, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong reminds him. “You’re the king.”
They relocate to the main living room after lunch, where His Majesty cracks open a biography he’s been reading in his free time. Jo Yeong, though, finds himself at a loss. Usually, he’s guarding the door in such situations, standing watch over the king. He has several books that have been loaded up on his phone for months at this point—the ones he didn’t manage to get to while he was still recovering at his parents’ house. But it feels wrong; he can hardly relax when years of training keep telling him he should be on high alert.
“Yeong-ah,” His Majesty says, cutting through the silence. He bookmarks his place, then puts the book away. “I can hear you thinking all the way from here. Relax.”
“I’m fine, Your Majesty,” he lies. “Please, don’t let me disturb you.”
Jo Yeong reaches for his phone and opens one of the books, not even looking at the title. Just so he can have something to occupy his hands, his eyes. His thoughts, if he’s lucky.
Eventually, he settles into himself a little more, allowing himself to relax infinitesimally. The book—a historical novel set in the Silla kingdom—turns out to be engaging enough. Every time Jo Yeong looks up, though, he finds the king hastily looking away.
“Is there anything you need, Your Majesty?” he asks after the fourth time. His eyes never stray from the king’s face.
“It looks good on you,” His Majesty says. “The sweater. You should wear lighter colors more often, you know? The ducklings wouldn’t be as intimidated.”
“That’s the whole point,” Jo Yeong explains. He doesn’t let himself acknowledge the other part.
“Do you ever wonder,” His Majesty says after a moment of silence, “if there are other universes in which we know each other? This can’t be the only one—it’s mathematically impossible. I was never able to check, though, because we—because I always avoided crossing paths with other worlds’ Lee Gons. So I’m just left wondering.”
On the long list of things Jo Yeong doesn’t think about, this is one of them. He cannot tell what would be worse: to know that in none of those universes they could ever be anything more than they are here, or to know that there was at least one in which they had a chance.
“Like you said, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong agrees, deciding to carefully not examine his feelings. “It’s mathematically impossible. So it must be true somewhere.”
In the afternoon, while the king is taking a nap, Jo Yeong sneaks out to the guard outpost by the main gate. It’s a small building—a little cramped, but comfortably furnished. There is a bedroom with two bunk beds, a bathroom, a small kitchenette attached to the main living space. In the back room, monitors line most of the wall across from the entrance, feeding CCTV footage to the hard drives where it is kept for at least a year before getting wiped.
“Captain Jo!” Jangmi jumps to his feet, nearly dropping his bowl of jajangmyeon. There’s some sauce in the corner of his mouth.
“Captain, I thought you were on leave,” Lieutenant Park’s voice sounds from behind Jo Yeong. “You’re not very good at resting, are you?”
“Any movement?” Jo Yeong asks, ignoring the blatant insubordination.
“Only if you count the deer,” Lieutenant Park says. “It’s the most peace I’ve had in a long while. No offence, Captain.”
“None taken,” he says, scanning the live footage, but apart from some wildlife in the more remote parts of the residence, there’s nothing. “You’ve been busy lately. I know I’m…off-duty, but please, inform me if anything happens.”
By the time he returns to the main residence, the king is still asleep. Jo Yeong finds him on the couch in the living room, the blanket slipping off his legs. Gently, carefully, he lifts the bulk of the knit, fingers sinking into the soft wool, and adjusts it over His Majesty’s body.
It feels almost sacrilegious, to touch the king in this way. Even now, with the evidence of Lee Lim’s treason vanished from his throat, His Majesty doesn’t let many people in very close. So particular about who can touch him, and when. Jo Yeong might be one of two people across multiple universes who enjoys this particular privilege, but even so, it’s a boundary he rarely crosses.
He's convinced he’s gotten away with it until he moves to leave, when he’s stopped by the king’s fingers wrapped around his wrist for the second time today.
“Yeong-ah,” His Majesty says, sleep-soft and a little raspy.
Jo Yeong waits, but nothing else comes. There’s only the king’s fingers—so much warmer than Jo Yeong’s chilled hand—lightly curled around Jo Yeong’s wrist.
“Yes, Your Majesty?” he asks quietly. Raising his voice louder would disturb the fragile moment.
“What would it take for you to stop calling me that?” the king asks. His mouth is slack, his eyes blinking slowly, chasing away the sleep.
Jo Yeong tenses. They’re entering dangerous territory. Even being here, just the two of them, feels like crossing a line. At least when His Majesty was sneaking out of the palace to visit Jo Yeong at his parents’ house, there were other people there to act as a buffer. Here, Jo Yeong is left alone with his desires.
“What else should I call you?” Jo Yeong asks. “You’re my king.”
“That’s not what you used to call me back when you were sneaking into my room three times a week to see if there were any good cookies left in the tin,” His Majesty teases, smiling softly.
Jo Yeong has to look away. “A lot of time has passed since then. Many things have changed.”
You can’t keep pulling me in closer, he thinks desperately. I’m already too close.
“But that hasn’t,” His Majesty insists. “Has it?”
Jo Yeong takes a shaky breath, steadies himself. “I will always follow you anywhere you go,” he admits. “Because you’re my king. That hasn’t changed.”
“Ah.” His Majesty lets go of his hand, pulls himself up, throwing the blanket to the side. “That’s right. What do you want for dinner?”
They end up cooking dinner together. By the time the king walks into the kitchen, trailed by Jo Yeong, the mood between them has shifted, the weight of their conversation left behind.
“Come on,” His Majesty says, gesturing to the wooden block set atop the granite counter. “Get chopping.”
“What are we making?” Jo Yeong asks. He rarely cooks, but he’s not hopeless in the kitchen, and he has good knife skills.
There are tomatoes laid out on the counter, a bulb of garlic, a couple onions, and a slab of some kind of cured meat.
“Pasta amatriciana,” His Majesty says. “I’m feeling like Italian today, and they had some guanciale in the pantry. Is that fine?”
Jo Yeong nods. He enjoys Italian food, even if it’s not his favorite, but the king’s enthusiasm for it more than makes up the difference. So he obediently chops the onion, getting teary-eyed in the process, and peels garlic until it stains the tips of his fingers with its scent. Next to him, His Majesty is dicing the guanciale with fast, practiced movements.
“Are you up for a walk tomorrow morning?” the king asks once they’ve thrown everything into a pot to simmer. “I know you’re not cleared for running yet, and it should stop snowing by then. At least that’s what the forecast says.”
A walk is the safer option, he has to admit. Out in the open, Jo Yeong can put more distance between them. Here, inside the residence, that distance diminishes to almost nothing.
His Majesty seems to always be in Jo Yeong’s space. It’s even worse now that they’re cooking side by side. His Majesty keeps accidentally brushing his shoulders against Jo Yeong’s; a few times, he reaches over Jo Yeong to grab an ingredient, leaving them nearly touching back to chest. This is all small, insignificant, but Jo Yeong’s entire body is pulsing in time with the beating of his heart.
They eat at the kitchen island again, more quiet than not, but Jo Yeong enjoys the silence. There’s something comforting about it—existing in the same space, sharing a meal. With His Majesty cooking, the kitchen transforms into something that almost feels like home.
But that’s letting the lines begin to blur. It’s so easy to take half a step too far. Jo Yeong needs to be on his guard.
They have wine with their dinner, too—a nice, smooth red hand-picked from the rack in the pantry. A selection from the royal wine cellar.
“So how was it?” the king asks once they’re done eating. “Did you like it?”
“It was good.” Jo Yeong inclines his head politely. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
His Majesty gives him a soft smile, the kind Jo Yeong should look away from.
This way lies danger—it hides in the handsome lines of His Majesty’s face, the curve of his mouth. Jo Yeong can barely stand it when the king looks at him like this. Jo Yeong has been starving for something that has little to do with food for most of his life. It would be an easy gesture to misconstrue.
Jo Yeong still wakes up at four thirty in the morning the following day. It takes him a few seconds to remember where he is and why the mattress feels so much softer than his own bed; why the room has a different smell to it.
The house is quiet and dark when he leaves his room. His Majesty will most likely be asleep for a while yet.
In the kitchen, Jo Yeong makes himself a cup of coffee and drinks it, sitting at the island in his sleeping clothes, scrolling through his phone. There are no urgent emails—nothing that couldn’t wait until he’s back, but Jo Yeong responds to what he can. Not like he has anything better to do.
A quick look through the news and social media is next. In his profession, there is no weapon better than knowledge. If Jo Yeong understands the moods of the people His Majesty rules—if he knows what they say and what they think, it’s so much easier to recognize where the tinder is about to spark.
It’s a surprisingly slow news cycle. Rumors of new European Union import laws that will be a hassle to adapt to on their end, but the nation seems suspended in hibernation in anticipation of the Lunar New Year.
The less official corners of the internet are a different story. Jo Yeong scrolls through the usual hashtags, where the internet romantics remain in a sustained frenzy after the news of their departure from the capital.
Okay, but just hear me out, okay?—reads one of the posts. So the King suddenly goes away on a TOTALLY unplanned vacation not even a month after Captain Jo gets shot??? And he takes Captain Jo with him???? And now we learn that they’re at some remote royal residence, just the two of them??? HOW ELSE are we supposed to interpret this?????????????
There is more speculation in this vein, more absurd conjecture. Jo Yeong scrolls through all of it, stone-faced. He can’t allow his involvement to cloud his judgment. It’s not true, but Jo Yeong needs to make sure there isn’t resentment festering beneath the words on the screen. Something that might turn into a threat to His Majesty’s safety. Unlikely—and yet.
“So what are they saying about us now?” His Majesty asks, walking barefoot into the kitchen. He’s still in his sleeping clothes, looking sleep-soft and not yet quite put together. Without product in his hair, it falls into his eyes, silky and shiny.
Jo Yeong feels completely naked all of a sudden, exposed. He can’t remember the last time the king has seen him like this, unpolished and undone. When they were children, most likely.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he says, slipping off the barstool. “I should go dress.”
The king waves him off. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He reaches for a small cup and fixes himself a quick espresso. “You’re on vacation. If you can’t lounge around in your pajamas while on vacation, then when can you?”
Reluctantly, Jo Yeong returns to his spot and reaches for his cup. It’s empty.
“Americano, right?” His Majesty asks, then busies himself with the coffee machine. Jo Yeong watches the broad span of his shoulders, trying not to feel anything at all.
It’s unbearably domestic—the casual clothes and unstyled hair, the early morning coffee ritual, His Majesty serving him instead of the other way round.
The grinder whirrs, and then the scent of freshly-brewed coffee fills the kitchen once again.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong says when the king hands him the cup. It’s big enough that he can wrap his fingers around it and enjoy the warmth.
“So how about that walk?” His Majesty asks, sitting back down to Jo Yeong’s right. Then he frowns at the already emptied cup sitting on the table. “Wait, what time did you get up?”
“I woke up as usual,” Jo Yeong admits. “Habit is a hard force to break, Your Majesty.”
“I can’t believe you, Captain Jo…” His Majesty shakes his head. The cup clinks against the polished surface of the countertop. “Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”
“It’s seven thirty, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong points out. “You’re hardly sleeping in yourself.”
“It’s nice outside,” the king says, looking out the window where the sun peeks out from between the snowy mountain peaks. The layer of frost that has settled overnight sparkles in the light. “Wouldn’t it be a waste of a sunny morning? It’s supposed to start snowing again in the afternoon. We should probably take advantage of the opportunity, you know?”
Once again, it’s impossible to resist the king’s infectious mood. Jo Yeong leaves his coffee half-finished, goes back to dress, and then they’re off, bundled up in their coats and scarves.
The frosty air outside is sharp and biting, nearly bitter when Jo Yeong inhales. It’s been a long while since Jo Yeong last saw so much snow, let alone took the time to appreciate the weather. Now, the crunch of the snow beneath their shoes and the air nipping at his skin helps him settle into himself, the tension in his core releasing as they leave deep tracks on the otherwise pristine surface of the snow.
After a while, the familiar twinge just beneath his ribs returns; Jo Yeong pushes through. His Majesty seems to be having a good time. No reason to ruin it.
It’s only once they’re climbing a steep incline that a sharp stab of pain almost trips Jo Yeong up. It nearly sends him falling before he finds purchase against a tree. A hiss, unbidden. A jagged splinter in the bark has split the skin of his palm. He rights himself, but it’s too late. His Majesty is already turning around.
“Yeong-ah?” He crosses the distance between them in long strides, his legs eating up the space until he’s right next to Jo Yeong. One of his hands goes around Jo Yeong’s waist—the other touches his elbow. “Are you okay? What’s happening?”
Jo Yeong straightens up, frees himself from His Majesty’s grasp. “I’m fine,” he says, “we can continue,” injured hand curled into a fist.
His Majesty raises his brows. “Show me your palm, Captain Jo,” he demands.
“I said I’m fine—”
“Your palm, Captain.”
Reluctantly, Jo Yeong reaches out, palm up, his mouth pressed into a thin line. Some blood is welling up along the line of the cut. It looks worse than it is.
“All right, then, we’re going back,” His Majesty announces. He reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls out a handkerchief to wrap around Jo Yeong’s bleeding palm.
“That’s unnecessary,” Jo Yeong tries to protest. The silk handkerchief is embroidered with the royal crest. As if to mock him, it blooms with red where it touches the tender heel of his palm.
“That’s for me to decide, don’t you think?” His Majesty says sharply, already taking point. “We’re going back.”
“You’re angry,” Jo Yeong remarks once they’re back at the residence. He doesn’t like to state the obvious, but he will make an exception for His Majesty.
They take their shoes off by the entrance, and then the king ushers Jo Yeong into the kitchen and disappears. He comes back with the first aid kit.
“Sit,” he commands.
Jo Yeong stares at the bloodied handkerchief, still tied around his hand. “I can take care of this myself, Your Majesty.”
This seems to infuriate the king even more. “What if I don’t want you to always take care of everything yourself?” he asks. His voice is colder than Jo Yeong has heard in a long time. “You got shot because of me. You almost died. You’re still recovering and clearly you’re not quite there yet. Why do you keep pretending when you’re with me? You don’t have to do that. Not with me.”
Jo Yeong swallows. Oh, but that’s when I have to pretend the most.
Gently, as if Jo Yeong might break, His Majesty takes him by the hand and unwraps the soiled handkerchief.
“Do you remember,” he says, reaching for the saline solution and a sterile gauze pad, “that summer when I was sixteen and we went up to Changnyeong to stay at your family house for two weeks?”
Jo Yeong’s eyes flick up to look at His Majesty’s face.
“You wanted to go climb the rocks out back by the stables, and fell, and broke your arm,” he says.
The king huffs an amused laugh. “Your grandfather was so mad.”
Jo Yeong grows quiet. He remembers it well enough. The shaking fury in his grandfather’s voice as he tore strip after strip off Jo Yeong in private, incensed at his lack of foresight. The bright, stinging pain of a slap. His Majesty never found out about that part.
It was right then at twelve, with his cheek still hot to the touch, that Jo Yeong vowed to never again forget what his purpose was.
“You missed the Coupe de la Jeunesse that year,” he says.
His Majesty’s touch lingers, long fingers stroking the center of Jo Yeong’s palm as if to assess the damage. He reaches for the antibiotic ointment.
“Why did you tell him it was your idea?” the king asks. “You should’ve just told the truth.”
“For my grandfather, that was the truth,” Jo Yeong says. He has to fight not to curl his fingers around His Majesty’s. “There was no point telling him otherwise.”
There is a reason they don’t keep in touch with that part of the family that much.
The king hums thoughtfully. “There,” he says, putting a band-aid over the cut. “Now come on, I’m making you breakfast.”
They settle into a routine of sorts. Walks before breakfast. His Majesty cooking, with Jo Yeong’s help. Afternoons spent together in the living room, reading or watching television, playing Go or chess whenever the mood strikes His Majesty. Jo Yeong’s secret visits to the guard outpost to do the work he’s not supposed to be doing in the first place. Catching up on years of sleep debt.
More often than not, His Majesty dozes off after lunch. In the bright light of day, it’s difficult to ignore how sleep makes the king’s features softer, more relaxed. It slackens his mouth and releases the tension from the line of his jaw.
Jo Yeong is usually ready with a pot of tea by the time he wakes up. They drink His Majesty’s favorite oolong from antique cups that are worth more than everything in Jo Yeong’s apartment put together, and Jo Yeong doesn’t look at the way His Majesty’s throat moves when he swallows.
By the sixth day, it becomes apparent he’s beginning to slip. He’s letting himself be swayed by the quiet intimacy, capitulating bit by bit. The distance between them, reduced to almost nothing. The longer they remain, the harder it is for Jo Yeong to resist leaning into the ease of it. But this was meant only as a momentary reprieve. Already he senses how hard it will be for him to return to the way they were.
He only needs to try harder. Remind himself of his training, of the walls he’s put around him for a reason. It’s the only way he can make his way out of this intact.
It’s late at night on the eighth day of their stay when Jo Yeong finally returns to his room. He fell asleep on the loveseat in the living room earlier, phone slipping out of his hand. By the time he’d woken up, the room was dark and His Majesty was nowhere to be seen.
He’s just stepped out of the shower, wearing loose sleeping pants and squeezing water out of his hair, when the door opens and His Majesty steps into the room. Stops in his tracks when he sees Jo Yeong in front of the floor-length mirror at the corner of the room.
“Sorry, I didn’t—” he starts, trails off.
“Did you need something, Your Majesty?” Jo Yeong asks. The watch on the nightstand shows half past two in the morning.
When he looks up, he finds the king staring, his mouth parted. Jo Yeong doesn’t try to cover himself. Doesn’t move when His Majesty crosses the stretch of the rug between them in a few long strides, until he’s standing within arm’s reach.
“I thought it would be bigger,” His Majesty says, his eyes on the scar on the side of Jo Yeong’s torso. He’s already beginning to reach out before he realizes what he’s doing, snatches his hand back. “It looks so small. But you almost died.”
Jo Yeong swallows. “I got lucky,” he says. At last, he pulls the henley over his head. “Was there something you needed, Your Majesty?”
The king stands for a moment in silence, until he finally shakes off whatever has come over him. “I can’t sleep,” he says. “Come, have a drink with me.”
Jo Yeong should refuse. He needs to refuse. He feels—compromised. As compromised as he’s ever been since His Majesty’s life was placed in his hands.
“All right,” he says.
He follows the king back to the living room and settles in on the plush rug while His Majesty goes into the kitchen to bring their drinks. This time, drinks means cheongju and a haphazard assortment of snacks on a large tray.
It’s too late into the night to be drinking or eating, but Jo Yeong can’t find it in himself to mind. Instead, he reaches for the bottle and pours the wine into the cups.
He politely turns his head to the side to drink, letting the wine spill across his tongue. It feels silky, sweet when it hits the back of his mouth.
“It’s good, right?” His Majesty says, setting his cup down on the table. He’s barefoot again, wearing soft, loose-fitting clothes, and Jo Yeong has to look away.
He’s too close. There’s nothing but the table separating them. He could—
No. It’s treason to even entertain the thought.
“Yes,” he says. Before he can grab the bottle, His Majesty snatches it out of Jo Yeong’s grasp and pours for both of them.
The wine sloshes over the rim of the cup, splashes onto the varnish. Jo Yeong knows what they say about cheongju: quick to get drunk on, quick to sober up. It feels dangerous.
Around the third cup, His Majesty asks, “If I were to use Manpasikjeok again. Would you go with me?”
Jo Yeong stops picking at the vegetable pancake leftover from lunch. “I will go wherever I’m needed, Your Majesty.”
The king shakes his head, visibly frustrated. His index finger circles the rim of the cup, nail scraping against the fine porcelain. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “I meant it like—”
Like Lieutenant Jeong.
“I would go if you asked,” Jo Yeong says. Too quiet, too honest. “You should know that by now. I will follow wherever you go.”
His Majesty nods slowly, then leans against the back of the couch. He’s sitting with one leg up, pressed against his chest, the other stretched out on the floor. Loose and comfortable. Jo Yeong has rarely seen him this unrestrained. Being away from the palace has loosened something in the set of his shoulders. A responsibility to a nation, temporarily cast off.
“You know, I think that if I weren’t king, I would be teaching mathematics at some university,” he muses. “I would be the cool professor, don’t you think, Yeong-ah? All the students in my classes, thinking it was the most fun they ever had learning math. There must be a world like that out there.”
Jo Yeong imagines it. Lee Gon, PhD, Associate Professor of Mathematics, publishing papers and attending conferences. Teaching to a full auditorium, the first two rows filled with infatuated students doing their best impression of the classroom scene from the Indiana Jones movie. Attending faculty meetings. Doing whatever else academics are doing when they’re not teaching or grading, or doing research.
The cheongju goes down a little too easily, too smoothly. It’s a sign that he should stop. But when His Majesty pours him another cup, he inclines his head and drinks. The world before his eyes swims, just enough to make him feel pleasantly buoyant.
“I know you said you’re happy where you are,” His Majesty continues, “but if you had to pick—what do you think you’d be doing instead? Where would you be?”
If Jo Yeong took less pride in what he does, he’d be embarrassed to admit that he’s never really thought about this. He’s never had to; he’s always known exactly where he belonged.
“In the Navy,” he says. It’s the only thing he can think of. If his father were still an Admiral in that hypothetical world, Jo Yeong would have likely followed in his footsteps. The rest—nothing, just a big, black hole where Jo Yeong’s alternate life path should be. All of his roads start and end with His Majesty.
“You do look good in uniform,” the king says casually, picking up a piece of a scallion pancake. Jo Yeong’s fingers still around the wine cup.
“See, this is the place where you say, so do you, Your Majesty.” The king’s tone is light, teasing. He reaches over the table to snatch Jo Yeong’s cup and fill it again.
“Fishing for compliments is beneath your station, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong parries, but it lands flat. He’s too tipsy to keep open honesty in check.
“You wound me, Yeong-ah.” The king places a hand over his heart. A beat of silence. “You know, she told me once that no matter how much I loved her and our adventures, I would always put my people first, and she couldn’t compete with that. And when she said that, I couldn’t even tell her she was wrong. I couldn’t say anything at all. Because she was right.”
“That’s because you’re the king, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong says, serious. “You understand that your responsibility can’t lose to your heart.”
“What about yours, then?” His Majesty asks.
Jo Yeong swallows his first response. “I just do what needs to be done,” he says.
The bottom of the empty cup hits the table with a clink. Jo Yeong lets the cheongju burn down his throat, lets it spread all over his chest. Five more of these and he’ll be either drunk enough to say what he really wants to say or in no state to say anything at all.
“And if you could do whatever you wanted?” His Majesty asks.
“Please, don’t.” Jo Yeong’s voice fails. “Don’t ask me about these things, Your Majesty. You’re not keeping me here against my will.”
The king cocks his head to the side, curious. “Here?”
“At the palace.” Jo Yeong stares at the little ring of wetness left on the surface of the table by His Majesty’s cup. “In your life.”
They’re quiet for a while. His watch tells him it’s approaching four in the morning. It’s not unheard of for Jo Yeong to see this hour this side of the night, but it is rare these days. Not like those first months after he took over the duties of His Majesty’s head of security, when he slept rarely, in thirty-minute increments and with no small amount of guilt, consumed by the idea that the moment he’d left His Majesty out of his sight something would happen to him. He nearly ran himself into the ground before Lady Noh invited him for tea and a stern talk.
“You’re young and very inexperienced still, Captain Jo, so I’m only going to say this once,” she told him, pouring him a cup of ginseng tea. “You pose more danger to His Majesty like this than anyone who would wish him harm. You can’t protect him when you can’t keep your eyes open long enough to see the threat coming. You need to sleep. You hand-picked these men and women for a reason. You need to trust that they will protect His Majesty with their lives while you rest. That’s all you can do. You can’t be with him every minute of every day.”
“Understood,” Jo Yeong said and made changes to the roster later that day. The words smarted, but it wasn’t about Jo Yeong’s wounded pride.
“So if I used Manpasikjeok again,” the king says now, not content to let the topic lie, “where would you want to go?”
It doesn’t matter, Jo Yeong wants to say. I will go wherever you lead.
“Somewhere no one knows our names.” The words slip out before Jo Yeong can stop them—too honest, too open.
And yet, the king is nodding like he understands. Jo Yeong doesn’t want to ask why that is.
“It would be easier to protect you,” Jo Yeong says. Lies. The only person he’s protecting right now is himself.
He blinks, chasing sand away from under his eyelids. The bottle is almost empty now, the tray of snacks only slightly diminished. He can feel the alcohol sloshing at the bottom of his stomach, the buoyant feeling returned twofold now that he’s stopped drinking.
“You should sleep,” His Majesty tells him after a while. He’s even more loose-limbed now, leaning heavily against the couch, long legs stretching out. “I’ve kept you up long enough, Yeong-ah.”
Jo Yeong stares at the knobby protrusion of His Majesty’s ankle peeking out beneath the hem of his silk sleeping pants. He wonders when was the last time the king allowed himself to be truly seen.
That’s the thing about being gazed at by so many each and every day. It’s easy to mistake that for being seen—being understood as a human being, rather than the responsibilities of one’s office.
“Your Majesty, I—” Jo Yeong wrenches the remainder of that sentence from his own mouth, snaps his jaws shut so hard it makes a sound. At once, he feels startingly sober. “You’re right. I should sleep.”
He pushes himself up to his feet, surprised by how steady he is. Before he goes, he chances another look at His Majesty. Commits it all to memory. There won’t be another time. Jo Yeong cannot trust himself when he’s like this. He’s far too close to crossing the line.
Jo Yeong swallows, running the tip of his tongue against the back of his teeth before he says, “Goodnight, Your Majesty.”
Two days later, after another late night spent in the king’s sleepless company, Jo Yeong wakes up at six thirty in the morning. It’s still dark outside, but to the east the sky is beginning to take on a lighter hue.
There was fresh snowfall during the night. When Jo Yeong looks out the window, the pristine cover stretches over everything. He can already feel the crunch under his boots, the biting, bitter cold that will welcome them on their morning walk.
Still warm from sleep, Jo Yeong shrugs on a long cardigan—also on loan from His Majesty—and walks outside to the veranda that lines the inner courtyard. Above his head, there are curtains of ice hanging from the eaves, sharp enough to stab. His breath comes out in white puffs, then turning to nothing in the air a moment later.
He wraps his arms around himself, teeth chattering in the morning chill. The cardigan is thick, but even that can’t protect Jo Yeong from the frosty air. It still smells like His Majesty—like the fabric softener that the royal laundry puts in the wash, and the lingering traces of his favorite cologne. A little dark, a little woodsy. Just the faintest hint of moss underneath.
It would be enough for Jo Yeong to wrap the cardigan tighter around himself and close his eyes. Maybe then it would feel like—
No. He’s forgetting himself again.
For a long time, Jo Yeong has lived with his teenage resolve. It was simple, brute force, but it worked. He would never think of it, speak of it, entertain it even in his mind. An answer to a problem without solution. A compromise he could live with.
Now, Jo Yeong catches himself thinking about impossible things more and more. Half-formed thoughts he never would have dared. He needs to nip it in the bud.
Four days. There are four days left until they’re set to get back. Jo Yeong can survive for that long. Once they’re back in Busan, things will go back to the way they were. His Majesty in the spotlight, and Jo Yeong standing in the shadows.
He’s been mending over the course of their stay, growing stronger, more resilient. Returning to his former self. Once he’s completely healed, it will be much easier to become Captain Jo again. This lack of purpose is only temporary.
The housekeeper finds him out on the veranda some time later, leaning against the railing, breathing in and breathing out mist.
“Captain Jo?” she says, approaching him, a wicker basket in her hand.
It’s the first time either of them has seen her come around the residence. She’s usually much more inconspicuous, timing her visits to disturb them as little as possible. And yet, every other day they return from their morning walk to fresh sheets and clean towels, a restocked fridge and pantry. How she manages to do everything in such little time is nothing short of impressive.
“Oh my god, Captain, you’re going to catch your death out here like this!” she chides, coming up the steps to join him on the veranda, then holds out the basket to Jo Yeong. From under the flap, the scent of fresh pastries wafts into the air, warm and homey. “Here, take this, I was just coming to leave this in the kitchen, but I might just as well—”
“Thank you,” Jo Yeong says. “I’ll handle it from here.”
She nods, dusting off her hands. “Well, that’s it for me, then,” she says, smiling. “I’ll be coming by later to tidy up, but that can wait until I’m out of your hair.”
The housekeeper gives him a polite bow and disappears around the corner. Jo Yeong waits until he hears the distant sound of the front gate opening and closing, then moves to come back inside.
The house greets him with silence. The intimate tranquility of this place has made it deceptively easy to forget that there is a whole world out there which didn’t stop just because His Majesty wanted to take a vacation. Which still has expectations of him—of both of them. They’ve gone nearly two weeks without seeing another person, apart from Lieutenant Park and Jangmi, but that doesn’t mean they are the last people left alive.
The kitchen is still dim when he enters, but in the grey light of dawn, it’s easy enough for Jo Yeong to move around. He places the wicker basket at the center of the kitchen island and reaches into the cabinet to pour himself a glass of water.
Drinking slowly, he leans against the counter and debates not returning to bed at all. He wouldn’t be able to fall asleep anyway.
After quick deliberation, he fiddles with the coffee machine to make his morning coffee, then backtracks to his bedroom with the intention to dress.
He doesn’t make it quite this far.
The first thing he hears is the noise—faint, almost pained—before he realizes that the voice belongs to His Majesty. A moment of silence, and then again—quiet, distressed, coming from the other side of His Majesty’s bedroom door.
Jo Yeong acts before he can think. If something has happened to His Majesty, if he’s wounded or in pain— He crosses the remaining length of the hallway in long strides, stops just outside the door, hand poised over the handle, when another noise reaches his ears.
Quiet. Slick. Rhythmical.
Burning, Jo Yeong snatches his hand back. His skin feels too tight on him, his ears hot. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth.
On the other side of the door, His Majesty makes another sound. A soft moan, a sharp inhale of breath. Something else, whispered into the pillow, that Jo Yeong doesn’t catch.
He needs to go. He needs to not be here, listening to His Majesty pleasuring himself from the other side of the door. That in itself is a violation of so many rules, both codified and self-imposed.
There have been moments in his life where he imagined grimly standing watch over His Majesty’s bedroom on his wedding night. Somehow, in all that time, Jo Yeong has never realized how thin walls and doors could be.
He bites the inside of his cheek until it bleeds, feeling control over his body slip away from him. It’s been a long time since he last made the effort to find someone to fuck. That’s what this is—his body reacting to stimulus. He’s not going to think about it at all.
With the last of his strength, he wrenches himself away from his spot and marches into his bedroom, closing the door behind him and leaning against it with his entire weight. His eyes flutter shut. His palms are pressed flat against the wood.
Jo Yeong inhales, holds it in, exhales slowly. Measuring out his breathing until it doesn’t shake.
He needs to—go.
Ignoring the erection pressing against the fabric of his sleeping pants, he dresses quickly and pulls his running shoes from the bottom of his suitcase. His heart is in his throat, beating out an uneven rhythm without an excuse. He crosses the residence, pulls the shoes on in the entryway, and then he’s off, down the path that leads through the front gardens and out the gate, down the road that feeds into the motorway three kilometers ahead.
He makes it all the way there and only stops by the side of the path when he sees the main road between the trees, hears the rumbling of cars driving down in the direction of Sokcho. He’s winded, breathing hard with his head down, bent in half with his palms braced against his knees.
It’s been a while since he went running—not since he was shot. He feels each meter now in his legs, the muscles of his abdomen. Jo Yeong gives himself five minutes to rest with his back pressed against a tree, then doubles back to the residence, only stopping once he reaches the main gate, heaving.
“Captain Jo, are you okay?” Jangmi appears in the driveway. He’s looking concerned, approaching Jo Yeong like he would a wounded animal, and Jo Yeong snaps back up.
“I’m fine,” he says through gritted teeth. “Slightly overextended myself on the run.”
He makes the rest of the trek up to the house slowly, takes his running shoes off in the main hall.
“Where have you been?” His Majesty saunters out of the kitchen, looking half-worried, half-angry. “Have you gone for a run? Captain Jo, are you insane?”
Jo Yeong schools his features into something resembling calm, even though his lungs are burning and there’s a stinging pain in his side. “I’m fine, Your Majesty,” he says. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
The king narrows his eyes. “Now I know something is up. You’d never be this polite to me after getting a scolding.”
Jo Yeong gives himself five seconds to compose himself. “My apologies, Your Majesty,” he says, inclining his head. “I will attempt to muster something suitably insolent next time.”
The king takes a step forward. It takes everything in Jo Yeong not to take a step back for the first time in his life.
This has gone on for too long.
Jo Yeong needs to get a grip. It stops now. They’re not simply two men sharing a house on vacation. His Majesty is his sovereign. Jo Yeong serves the crown.
“Do you still want to go for our walk, Your Majesty?” he asks, straightening his posture. “I can be ready in ten minutes. I just need to—”
“Yeong-ah.”
Jo Yeong looks him in the eye. Refuses to capitulate, to look away first. “Your Majesty.”
“Are we really going to do it like this?” the king asks.
Jo Yeong presses his lips together, releases. “What does Your Majesty think we’re doing?”
The king hesitates. “Fighting?” A beat. “Are we? Fighting?”
Jo Yeong bows his head, eyes carefully trained on the floor. “No, Your Majesty. It’s impossible for a subject to fight with his sovereign.”
When Jo Yeong raises his head, His Majesty looks—hurt. The steel ring around Jo Yeong’s ribcage tightens. He goes to his knees.
“What?” There is a tinge of panic in the king’s voice. “Yeong-ah, no. No, that’s—no.”
He pulls Jo Yeong up until he’s back on his feet, gentle but relentless. “What’s gotten into you?”
“It’s nothing, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong lies. He can’t quite say, I don’t know how to feel so much after not letting myself feel anything for so long.
But that’s another lie, isn’t it? Everything Jo Yeong feels, each minute facet of it—it’s always been there in every interaction, every glance. Everything Jo Yeong has sacrificed and willingly given away in the service to the crown. He has never not loved His Majesty. Even when he was pretending, it permeated his every movement, every word he uttered in the king’s presence. It’s no different now.
He wonders sometimes if this is what other people see when they look at him. If there is something in Jo Yeong that makes them see right to the very core of him. His still-beating heart, held in His Majesty’s hands.
He’s been trying so hard to hide it. He should’ve known better. It’s the kind of thing you can’t outrun. It will always catch up to you sooner or later. It will always rise up to the surface.
Maybe it’s time to let it.
It won’t be like ripping off a band-aid. No, it will be slow. Jo Yeong will feel every second of it, just like he’s felt every second of those past sixteen years—acutely, torturous.
The stinging in his side turns stabbing, like he’s being run through with needles. He must make a sound—a quiet hiss, a grimace. A hand reaching out to steady him against the wall.
“Yeong-ah?” His Majesty crosses the last of the distance. His hands are on Jo Yeong, twin embers at the points of contact.
“It must have been still too early to go for a longer run.” Jo Yeong tells part of the truth. It’s easier than the whole of it. “I miscalculated. “
“You should lie down,” His Majesty says.
Jo Yeong shakes his head. “It’ll pass soon. We can still—”
“Don’t you even dare finish this sentence,” the king interrupts him. “We’re not going anywhere, except back to the kitchen for breakfast.”
They only have three days left after today. Three days to reestablish the distance Jo Yeong needs to protect His Majesty. He should take all the necessary steps back now. Anything else would be selfish. Foolish. Nothing good will come from prolonging this.
But the truth is, it makes no difference in the end, when what he feels keeps spilling out no matter how many steps back he takes.
Jo Yeong will pay for this either way. He can allow himself to feel everything he’s been repressing for the next three days. After they return to the palace, he will either learn how to stop loving His Majesty, or he will resign. Either way, they will know soon.
He follows the king back to the kitchen without another word and sits at the kitchen island while His Majesty prepares breakfast. There is short-rib soup and steamed eggs, mushroom pancakes and three kinds of kimchi out on the counter. His Majesty must have been busy while waiting for Jo Yeong to come back.
“Thank you,” Jo Yeong says simply when His Majesty puts a bowl of fluffy rice in front of him. He can see his reflection in the spoon, strange and distorted. It’s how he feels, stretched and pulled out of his usual shape.
By the time they’re done with breakfast, it becomes evident that something is not quite right. The stabbing pain becomes dull but never goes away, spiking again every time Jo Yeong makes a sudden movement.
“Captain Jo, go and get some rest,” His Majesty says when Jo Yeong winces as he gets off the barstool. “In case it wasn’t clear, that’s an order.”
Jo Yeong can’t find it in himself to resist. Gingerly, he returns to his bedroom, pulls the sweater over his head, then crawls into bed. He intends to catch up on his emails, but the warmth of the bed on a cold winter morning makes his eyelids heavy, and eventually he succumbs to sleep.
He drifts between sleep and waking for the better part of the morning and into the afternoon. There are dreams, too, vague and hazy. Bodies, entangled, no space left between them. Breath fogging up the windows.
Jo Yeong wakes up with a start.
Beyond the window, the afternoon is inching toward sunset. Gray clouds roil on the horizon, portending more snow.
The last time he slept so much was at the hospital, when they kept him pumped full of drugs. The pain in his side is mostly gone, though, just the slightest twinge remaining.
Jo Yeong pulls himself up on the bed, reaching for his phone.
“Did you know,” His Majesty’s voice comes from the door, faintly amused, “that you worried poor Jangmi so much he came all the way up here to ask how you were?”
Jo Yeong grunts, turning towards the king. “That counts as abandoning his post, and he’ll be disciplined accordingly, Your Majesty,” he says, voice flat, but the king laughs nonetheless.
“Oh, good, you’re back to normal,” he says. Then, “I made dinner. Well, it was lunch, but then you slept through lunch, and I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”
It’s like the earlier exchange never happened. Jo Yeong doesn’t know if His Majesty is pretending or if he’s decided to let it go completely. He’s not going to ask.
“I didn’t realize it was so late.” Jo Yeong sits up, lets the blankets pool around his waist. The cool air hits his bare chest, makes a shiver run down his spine.
“It’s fine,” His Majesty says. There’s a faint flush on his cheeks, the tips of his ears, like he’s just come in from the cold. “We have nowhere to be.”
“Just give me ten minutes, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong says, pushing the covers to the side. His legs swing down to the floor, toes sinking into the plush rug.
Just three more days.
Jo Yeong showers quickly and dresses, then joins His Majesty in the kitchen. It’s dark enough outside that the ceiling lamps are on, drowning the room in warm light.
“Let’s eat in the dining room today,” His Majesty says. He has the trays ready, loaded with food. They’re eating Italian again, but for something that was supposed to be only lunch, the meal feels rather elaborate. There is some kind of leafy salad served in a large acacia wood bowl, a big plate of risotto to share, and two plates laden with the kind of tender meat that looks like it will fall off the bone at a touch.
“What’s this?” Jo Yeong asks, bewildered.
“Osso buco,” His Majesty says, pushing his chest out with pride. “Veal shanks, braised in broth until they’re so tender they melt in your mouth. Best served with a saffron risotto. They’re very good, I promise.”
“No, I mean—” Jo Yeong swallows. “What is this? This isn’t reheated lunch.”
His Majesty only smiles in response. “Let’s just eat,” he says.
Just as promised, the meat is succulent, melting in Jo Yeong’s mouth. The risotto has the perfect consistency, the subtle taste of saffron coming through. The salad provides freshness with every bite, and the red wine His Majesty has paired with the meal balances out the flavors. It’s one of the best meals Jo Yeong remembers having.
Throughout, he expects His Majesty to ask—something, anything that would explain this strange turn of events. There are candles on the table. His Majesty is glancing at him between sips of wine.
“There’s panna cotta in the fridge if you want dessert,” His Majesty says once they’re done eating.
Jo Yeong shakes his head. “No, thank you.”
“Right,” His Majesty says. “You stopped liking sweets. When was it? When you turned fourteen?”
“I grew out of it, I suppose,” Jo Yeong responds.
Eventually, they relocate to the main living room, settling down on the cushions laid out around the low table. The king pours Jo Yeong another glass of wine, then one for himself.
“Your Majesty—”
“And there it is again,” the king says. “Is there really no way to convince you? What would it take for you to call me something else when we’re in private?”
Jo Yeong licks his lips. “It’s not appropriate for me to call you anything else, Your Majesty.”
“Even if I asked?” The king looks at him, imploring. “Even if I ordered you to do it?”
Jo Yeong’s heartbeat picks up. They’re treading dangerous waters. “I can’t.”
A beat of silence.
“Is it because of what Eunbi said?” His Majesty asks. Jo Yeong freezes. “I know you heard us. I just…” He shakes his head. “I don’t understand. I’m handsome. I’m charming. I’m literally the king. According to your sister, you really like me. But you always keep your distance. Even when we’re alone.”
Jo Yeong’s ears are ringing. His heart is in his throat. “I don’t understand,” he says with difficulty, “what it is that you want, Your Majesty.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” The king frowns. “I want to court you. I want to make you happy. I can’t stop thinking about your mouth. I want to—I want to kiss you.”
Jo Yeong stills. Takes a shaky breath. “Your Majesty, please,” he says quietly. “Don’t.”
His body is a line of tension, his throat tight. He can feel the frantic pounding of his pulse all over—in the tips of his fingers, his toes. His temples. The side of his neck, where his carotid artery is jumping.
“Why not?” His Majesty asks. “Because you don’t want it?” There is true desperation in his voice. Like he’s telling the truth.
That feels almost too easy. Too convenient. This isn’t a romance drama where feelings get reciprocated at the most narratively appropriate moment. None of that happens to real people. It’s a fantasy people indulge in to forget the truth.
But His Majesty has no reason to lie.
Jo Yeong closes his eyes, exhales. He never knew getting what he wanted would hurt this much.
“Please, don’t make me say it,” he pleads, voice quiet. “Your Majesty, I can’t protect you when I’m so close. This is my duty, to protect you, and—”
“And you’ll make yourself miserable for the rest of your life doing it?”
When Jo Yeong looks up, the king’s mouth is set into an unhappy line.
“I’m not miserable,” Jo Yeong protests.
“But are you happy?” His Majesty asks. He leans in—closer, too close. Danger, Jo Yeong’s brain supplies.
He licks his lips. Opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Then: “That is immaterial.”
“But it isn’t. Not to me. Don’t you understand, Yeong-ah? Don’t you know how I—” The king takes a shaky breath. His eyes are glassy, his mouth parted. “I—I was holding you in my arms, and you were bleeding out, and I thought, Not like this. I can’t go through this again. That was when I knew.”
The ringing in Jo Yeong’s ears intensifies, drowns everything else out. The shrill static of feedback in his earpiece. His movements are sluggish, but he remembers trying to get up, climbing to his feet. The sour taste at the back of his mouth. His Majesty’s hand around his wrist.
“Please, say something,” the king says, rising to his feet after him. “Yeong-ah. Aren’t you going to—”
Jo Yeong breathes in, holds it in for a moment, breathes out. “You’re my king,” he says with conviction. He holds onto that thought like a lifeline. His Majesty is easily swayed when it comes to these matters. In love with the feeling of being in love, now that he’s tasted it. He doesn’t mean— He can’t— “You’re not serious about this.”
“Don’t you think that’s for me to decide?” His Majesty asks sharply. “Why can’t you fathom that I could really be in love with you?”
“Nothing in life is that easy, Your Majesty.” It’s no use pretending anymore. The secret’s out. Jo Yeong is just here to pick up the pieces. “It’s not— It doesn’t work that way.”
“Even your parents know. Your siblings,” the king insists. His hand is still wrapped around Jo Yeong’s wrist, a warm constant. “Do you think I would be toying with them, too? Do you think I would be toying with you? Do you really think of me so little?”
“I think the world of you, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong says quietly. “It’s myself I can’t trust.”
His Majesty reaches for his other hand, joins them in the space between their bodies, clutching at Jo Yeong. “Why?”
“You belong to this nation,” Jo Yeong says. “You can’t belong to just one person.”
“The monarch belongs to the nation,” His Majesty agrees. “But I belong to myself. And I can belong to whoever I choose. That’s you.”
They’re so close. His Majesty must hear the thundering beating of Jo Yeong’s heart.
“Please,” the king says, breath leaving his lungs in a rush. He lets go of one of Jo Yeong’s hands to touch the side of his face.
Jo Yeong lets his eyes flutter shut, despite his better judgment. He leans in. It lasts a fraction of a second, but it’s enough for His Majesty to draw in a sharp breath. He cups Jo Yeong’s face in both palms now, pulls him closer.
For the first time since Jo Yeong learned how to hold a gun, his hands are shaking.
“Yeong-ah, please,” His Majesty says again.
No king should plead like this.
Jo Yeong closes his eyes and leans in. His lips part slightly. He’s trembling with anticipation down to his core, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he takes shaky breaths. His Majesty leans in as well, his warm breath ghosting over Jo Yeong’s cheek. Close—closer, until their lips almost meet. His Majesty’s thumb caresses the curve of Jo Yeong’s cheekbone.
“Yeong-ah,” he whispers.
It’s Jo Yeong who closes the distance. His Majesty’s lips are warm when Jo Yeong presses his mouth against them, breath mingling in between. His Majesty exhales through his nose, pressing in more firmly, still cradling Jo Yeong’s face in his hands.
The kiss starts out slow—soft and open-mouthed, a gentle slide of lips against lips. They prolong the moment until their mouths meet in earnest, noses brushing as breath escapes them in a rush.
His Majesty kisses the corner of Jo Yeong’s mouth, presses his lips to the side of his chin. Jo Yeong fists his hands in the fabric of the king’s sweater, pulling him closer, turns to capture his lips again. A sound escapes him, a desperate moan, and His Majesty deepens the kiss, tilting his head to the side and parting Jo Yeong’s lips. His tongue slips into Jo Yeong’s mouth, past the teeth, and Jo Yeong pushes up to meet him. The slow, slick slide jolts electricity down the column of Jo Yeong’s spine, like he’s just touched a live wire.
And then—His Majesty catches his teeth around Jo Yeong’s lower lip and tugs, then releases before his teeth can leave an imprint.
Jo Yeong makes a quiet, punched-out sound. He opens his mouth wider, licking into His Majesty’s mouth, pressing his lips against the king’s hard enough that it tingles when they part.
“Your Majesty…” Jo Yeong breathes out. Slowly, he uncurls one of his hands and slides it up the king’s chest, and then further up to cradle the side of his neck.
“No,” the king says, ducking to kiss Jo Yeong. “Try again.”
Jo Yeong swallows. “I— Hyung,” he says, low and hoarse.
In response, His Majesty pulls them both backwards, limbs tangling until they land on the couch. The momentum pushes Jo Yeong into his lap, straddling his hips.
His Majesty—no, Lee Gon surges up to kiss Jo Yeong, desperate and urgent, one hand rucking up his sweater to slip beneath the fabric. For a moment, hiss palm rests splayed across Jo Yeong’s abdomen, big and warm.
“You want this, right?” Lee Gon asks, pulling back a little, searching Jo Yeong’s face. “This is not just because it’s your…duty, is it? You want this, right, Yeong-ah?”
Jo Yeong pulls Lee Gon’s hand from under his sweater to press the open palm against the growing bulge in his pants. “Here,” he says. “You can see for yourself.”
He wants so many things in that moment. He wants to keep kissing Lee Gon, and he wants to sink to his knees right here and take him in his mouth. Bow his head and wring pleasure out of Lee Gon’s body, swallowing him down until the feeling of his cock in Jo Yeong’s mouth and the scent of him drowns out everything else.
Lee Gon is beginning to grow hard, too—Jo Yeong can feel it when he grinds down against him, pushing their hips together until they both groan.
They should probably stop. Think about it. Talk about it. There are years of longing and belated realizations between them, and it’s not as easy as two bodies moving to the same rhythm. And yet, the need to fall into Lee Gon’s body and let him fall into Jo Yeong’s in return tramples all over reason. There will be other days, other moments to talk about it. For now, it’s enough to have this—bodies speaking in the dark.
Lee Gon wraps his arms around Jo Yeong’s back, slipping his hands under his sweater to explore the planes of Jo Yeong’s shoulders, the line of his spine, the small of his back. They shift closer, gravity pulling them down. For the first time in his life, Jo Yeong stops resisting the pull.
They’re making noise—their heavy breaths, the wet sounds of them kissing, the quiet groans that keep escaping Lee Gon’s mouth. Jo Yeong is not an easy man to overwhelm, but right now he feels like he’s drowning. He closes his eyes, letting himself feel every sensation, every brush of skin against skin. Stops fighting altogether. Allows his body to open—like a hinge, a door unlocked. He feels, and feels, and feels.
His body is on fire, all nerve endings exposed as he allows Lee Gon to take him apart.
It doesn’t take long for the kisses to turn hungry, desperate. Maybe they reveal too much about Jo Yeong, about how starved he is for Lee Gon’s touch. He doesn’t care. He holds Lee Gon’s face in his hands, lips slipping in a slick slide against his open mouth. Their bodies slot perfectly against each other, attuned to each other, moving in sync.
“Yeong-ah, Yeong-ah,” Lee Gon keeps saying, tipping Jo Yeong’s head back to kiss the underside of his jaw, the protrusion of his Adam’s apple, the hollow of his collarbone. He leaves a wet trail with his mouth, sucks at the tender skin of Jo Yeong’s neck. The hands at Jo Yeong’s back keep moving, roaming, blunt fingernails dragging down his skin.
Lee Gon kisses him all over, tugs at Jo Yeong’s earlobe, pulling him closer, closer. They’re flush against each other, chest to chest. No space left between them. Lee Gon is hard under Jo Yeong, breathing like he’s just run five kilometers. For a moment, they look at each other, faces hovering so close it would take nothing for Jo Yeong to kiss him again.
The hand at the small of Jo Yeong’s back slides further down, slipping beneath the waistband of his pants.
“We should—” Jo Yeong starts, trails off.
They should move this to a bed—his own, Lee Gon’s; doesn’t matter. It would be the smart thing to do. This is a public space of the residence. Anyone could come in and see them. Jo Yeong has his people outside, and one of them could—
He pulls back, slides out of Lee Gon’s lap and goes to his knees in front of him. Gently knocks his legs apart. No longer just a subject kneeling for his sovereign.
When he looks up Lee Gon is staring down at him with his mouth parted, teeth grazing his lower lip. His eyes are dark. Hungry. Jo Yeong reaches for his belt.
He’s not going to break eye contact. By instinct he undoes the button and pulls down the zipper. He can feel the hard line of Lee Gon’s cock beneath the flat of his palm, can hear the hitch in his voice when Jo Yeong brushes the back of his hand against it with more intention.
“Stop teasing,” Lee Gon says. He sounds out of breath.
“I’m not.” Jo Yeong licks his lips. “I’m taking my time.”
Under, there’s plain, black underwear, fabric straining against the bulge of Lee Gon’s erection. Jo Yeong leans over him and pushes his sweater up to expose the well-toned stomach, the faint trail of hair from his navel to his groin. Presses his mouth against the skin there, leaving damp marks that disappear almost immediately in the warm air. Lee Gon shivers beneath Jo Yeong’s lips.
Once he reaches the elastic waistband, Jo Yeong keeps going. He peels off the fabric, letting Lee Gon’s cock spring free. It’s hard and flushed, wet at the tip. Jo Yeong’s mouth waters. Big enough that he can already feel the strain in his jaw, but this is what he wants. He wants his mouth sore and used, a tangible reminder of what happened. He wants to feel it for hours afterwards.
His own cock sits heavy between his legs, pressing against the zipper, but that can wait. Jo Yeong adjusts himself; the tips of his ears grow hot when he notices Lee Gon, staring at Jo Yeong’s kneeling form with intent.
“Lift your hips,” Jo Yeong says. His voice sounds hoarse already.
Lee Gon complies, and Jo Yeong pulls the pants and underwear down to mid-thigh and shuffles in closer. Lee Gon’s cock rests along the curve of his groin, hard and heavy. He’s thick enough that Jo Yeong’s thumb and forefinger barely meet when he wraps his hand around the base. Slowly, never breaking eye contact, he presses a line of kisses along the length of it, then drags the flat of his tongue across the head. More precome wells up, spilling across Jo Yeong’s lips when he kisses the tip. Lee Gon’s hips jerk up, knee knocking against Jo Yeong’s shoulder.
“Still taking your time?” Lee Gon asks, breathless.
“Mm.” Jo Yeong hums, then closes his lips around the head of his cock and sucks.
All breath leaves Lee Gon’s lungs in a loud whoosh. His head falls back, baring the long, elegant slope of his neck. Jo Yeong makes sure his lips are tight around Lee Gon’s cock, the head and part of the shaft just below the crown fitting snugly between his tongue and the roof of his mouth.
Jo Yeong knows he’s good at this, and he knows how to make it look good, too. He’s learned how to suck cock with a singular purpose, lips close-fitting around the shaft and his throat open, tongue working along the underside. He knows how to take someone apart only using his mouth, how to work them until they’re incoherent and shaking under Jo Yeong. Lee Gon will be pleading, too, by the time they’re done.
Jo Yeong doesn’t rush. He takes his time, sucking and licking around the head, dipping the tip of his tongue into the slit and pressing the flat of it to the frenulum. It’s been a while for him, but it’s like firing a gun—muscle memory, letting your body take over to do what needs to be done.
He spends a good while playing with Lee Gon, teasing him with a single-minded attention to each stretch of skin, each fold and vein, the silky smoothness of his cock. His hand rests the base all the while, stroking him slowly in a loose grip. He doesn’t want it to end too early.
Above him, Lee Gon is breathing heavily with his head tipped back, observing Jo Yeong from beneath half-lidded eyes. Jo Yeong looks back. He gets a steady rhythm going, head moving up and down as he begins to sink down on Lee Gon’s cock, lips slick with spit and precome to ease the slide.
“Oh god, that’s so…tight,” Lee Gon gasps in a strangled voice. His hands seek purchase on the couch, gripping the cushions.
Jo Yeong sinks deeper down, then pulls himself up, tilting his head to move his lips along the side, leave kisses pressed into the hot skin as he goes. The hand wrapped around Lee Gon’s cock tightens its grip and speeds up a little. Long, deliberate slides from the base all the way up to the tip, twisting along the way. Once, twice, three times, until more precome dribbles across Jo Yeong’s knuckles. He leans in to lick it clean, fits his mouth back around the cockhead.
This time, once he starts, he keeps going—down, down, past the strain in his lips and jaw, past the sensation of unbearable fullness when Lee Gon’s cock brushes against his soft palate, slipping further down his throat. It’s not until his nose pushes against the neatly trimmed patch of hair at the apex of Lee Gon’s groin that he stops, hands stroking the insides of his thighs.
“Oh god, oh god, I’m going to…”
Jo Yeong pulls back, hand coming back to squeeze at the base of the shaft. “Not yet, hyung,” he says. His voice sounds hoarse, used. Good.
He strokes Lee Gon for a while, keeping his fist loose, letting him breathe.
“How are you so good at this?” Lee Gon asks, looking a little poleaxed.
Jo Yeong licks his lips. “Practice.” Then, “I can pretend to gag a little if that’s what you’d prefer.”
Lee Gon throws his arm over his face. “How are you so—” he trails off, voice muffled by his sweater. “So—”
“That’s also practice,” Jo Yeong says, then fits his mouth over the head of Lee Gon’s cock again, hand stroking in time as he swallows him down once more.
This time he opens his mouth wider, trying to comfortably accommodate the girth as he begins to suck in earnest, sinking down and pulling back up. It’s a heady feeling—the sensation of the cock filling his mouth, Lee Gon’s scent all around him. It clings to his body, fills his nostrils, slips beneath his skin to stay there. The taste lingers, too, just as Jo Yeong imagined it would.
The slide is easy, smooth. Lee Gon gets so wet—something Jo Yeong couldn’t have predicted. He goes deep, as deep as he can, and holds it for a moment, swallowing around the length of the cock in his mouth. The movement of his throat must do something to Lee Gon, whose hips buck, hand flying to Jo Yeong’s hair. Like he wants to keep Jo Yeong there, swallowing down his cock, his nose pressed against his groin.
He pulls back and sinks down again, and again, until he feels the tell-tale trembling in Lee Gon’s thighs, sees the way his abdomen muscles contract, spasming.
“Yeong-ah…” He attempts to give a warning, pushing at Jo Yeong’s shoulder.
In response, Jo Yeong tightens his lips around the head and lets Lee Gon come all over his tongue, coat the inside of his mouth. He pulls away, swallowing with ease. Licks up the last little spurt that wells up at that.
“Oh my god,” Lee Gon says, dazed. He looks down at Jo Yeong, still kneeling between his open legs. “That was… God.”
Jo Yeong sits back on his haunches, licking his lips. They feel tender to the touch, his mouth and jaw sore. His cock strains when he shifts positions, reminding him that he’s been hard for a while. Palming himself through his pants, Jo Yeong swallows back a moan. He’ll give it another moment, then take care of himself, and—
“Come here,” Lee Gon says, pulling ineffectually at Jo Yeong’s shoulder. “Come here and kiss me.”
Jo Yeong goes. Climbs back into Lee Gon’s lap, careful not to jostle his softening, oversensitive cock too much, and leans forward. Just before their lips meet, Lee Gon reaches out and cups the curve of Jo Yeong’s jaw with his palm, thumb rubbing at the corner of Jo Yeong’s sore mouth, slipping inside. They kiss like this, filthy and open-mouthed, tongues curling together. There must still be Lee Gon’s aftertaste on his tongue, Jo Yeong thinks as he pulls back to suck more of Lee Gon’s thumb into his mouth.
God.
“I want…” Lee Gon says, trails off. His hand trails along the curve of Jo Yeong’s still-clothed cock. “We need to get back to my bedroom.”
“You need to dress,” Jo Yeong reminds him. “You can’t walk around like this.”
His hand sneaks down to tug at Lee Gon’s cock. He wants to make a point, but instead, he finds it half-hard again. His eyes flick down, then back up again.
Lee Gon shrugs, looking half-smug, half-embarrassed. “It’s all your fault anyway,” he says.
Back in the bedroom, Lee Gon pins Jo Yeong to the door as soon as it closes behind them. They kiss, messy and desperate, while Lee Gon works on the buttons of Jo Yeong’s pants and pulls the zipper down.
“I want to touch you,” he says. “Yeong-ah… You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to touch you, this whole time, I—”
“I know.”
If there is a person who knows all about longing and starving for another person’s touch, it’s him. Jo Yeong pulls Lee Gon closer, arms lifting to wrap themselves around his neck, tugging him forward where he meets Jo Yeong’s open, waiting mouth.
“I know,” Jo Yeong whispers, lips brushing against lips. “You can do whatever you want.”
Lee Gon’s eyes widen at that, a puff of hot air escaping his mouth. “It’s dangerous to say things like that.”
“As we know, I’m notoriously risk-averse,” Jo Yeong says quietly, as he reaches to pull himself out of his underwear.
The moment Lee Gon’s hand replaces his own, Jo Yeong understands that he’s severely miscalculated. The floating sensation returns as soon as Lee Gon wraps his fingers around the length of Jo Yeong’s cock and begins to stroke. Overwhelmed by the sensation, Jo Yeong swallows down a moan and surges up to kiss Lee Gon, hips jerking as he fucks into the sleeve of Lee Gon’s hand.
Lee Gon kisses the side of his neck, scrapes his teeth against the line of Jo Yeong’s collarbone, licks a stripe across the salty skin. “I want to make you feel good,” he says.
Then, before Jo Yeong can do anything, Lee Gon takes half a step back and sinks to his knees in front of him. It’s…sacrilegious. Jo Yeong looks at the top of Lee Gon’s head and thinks, This isn’t happening.
But the touch of Lee Gon’s lips along the line of Jo Yeong’s cock is real. The wet heat of his mouth is real, too, when he slips just the head inside. He looks up at Jo Yeong through his lashes, locking eyes with him as he sinks a little deeper.
It quickly becomes clear that Lee Gon has very little experience in this. He moves too fast, too soon, then pulls off, coughing.
“Easy,” Jo Yeong says. “There’s no rush.”
The second attempt goes better, with just a bit too much spit and a stretch where Lee Gon tries to establish a rhythm. That becomes irrelevant, though, the moment he grows more confident, more aware of how much he can take. His lips are tight around Jo Yeong’s cock, tongue licking at the underside as he moves his head up and down.
The inside of Lee Gon’s mouth is silky smooth, wet, so hot it lights Jo Yeong’s body on fire. He wants to close his eyes and throw his head back, letting himself enjoy the sensation. He wants to commit every second of this to memory, never averting his gaze.
“It’s good, right?” Lee Gon asks with a little self-satisfied smile, pulling away for a moment when Jo Yeong’s toes begin to curl against the hardwood floor. His body wants to follow, but he makes himself stay put; looks down at Lee Gon, who keeps staring at him, eyes dark and hungry. “It’s making you feel good, isn’t it?”
His mouth is so red already, looking tender to the touch. Jo Yeong reaches out before he can stop himself, his thumb smearing the slick mix of spit and precome all over Lee Gon’s lips.
“Yes,” he says. His hand reaches to curl against the curve of Lee Gon’s cheek, his jaw. His thumb strokes the line of his cheekbone. A strange mirror of the scene from the living room, except now it’s Jo Yeong who has a man on his knees before him. The man who kneels for no one, kneeling for Jo Yeong.
Thinking about it makes his chest tighten, a rush of awe moving through him. This, he supposes, is what it feels like to witness a cosmological event. The world upended, rules turned on their head. Unmoored and adrift—except Jo Yeong is forever tidally locked with Lee Gon. A moon orbiting a planet. A fixed trajectory. Unstoppable force. Immovable object.
“I want—” Jo Yeong says, voice leaving him before he can finish the thought.
But Lee Gon is nodding, rising to his feet. He pulls Jo Yeong towards the bed, stripping off his sweater and pants as they go. The underwear follows, and Jo Yeong admires for a moment the perfect lines of his face, the taut, chiseled abdomen, the slopes of his toned biceps.
“Now you,” Lee Gon says, already reaching to pull Jo Yeong’ssweater over his head.
In the next moment, they’re naked and kissing again, Jo Yeong back in Lee Gon’s lap. His hand sneaks between them and wraps around the length of Lee Gon’s cock, stroking him back to full hardness. If Jo Yeong can have anything—everything—then he knows exactly what he wants.
“Do you have—” he starts, then watches as Lee Gon stretches across the mattress and reaches around to the bedside table, fingers closing around a small bottle of lube and a strip of condoms.
Jo Yeong snatches the lube from Lee Gon’s hands and uncaps it with a quiet snick. He coats two fingers and reaches behind himself, watching Lee Gon’s eyes grow wide.
“Oh,” he says just as Jo Yeong breaches himself, sinking both fingers inside at the same time, his mouth falling open. “I thought—”
“Have you even been with a man before, hyung?” Jo Yeong asks, sinking further down on his fingers, feeling the stretch, the slight burn. It’s been a while for him, and never with anyone he took to bed. A luxury he could not afford.
Lee Gon grouses. “You aren’t the only one who was in the Navy, you know?”
Jo Yeong laughs, low and breathy; groans when the movement makes him clench around his fingers. “Stop making me laugh,” he says.
“I’m serious,” Lee Gon says, hands reaching out to mold themselves to Jo Yeong’s hips. “I mean, not this, but—things happen on deployment. You should know better than anyone else.”
For a second, searing jealousy spikes through Jo Yeong. He wants the name of the man who dared touch His Majesty—who dared touch Lee Gon like this and let Lee Gon touch him in return.
It passes as soon as it came. None of that matters. The only people in this room are Jo Yeong and Lee Gon.
“Enough,” he says a moment later, slipping his fingers out.
Lee Gon is hard again, his cock trapped between their bodies, leaking precome all over Jo Yeong’s erection and his abdomen. Blindly, he casts around for a condom, but Jo Yeong snatches his hand and brings it back to his hip.
“We don’t have to,” he says. “We can just—”
“Yeong-ah…” Lee Gon breathes out, wide-eyed, but he’s already reaching for the lube, slicking himself up with slightly trembling hands.
“Like this,” Jo Yeong says, rising up on his knees to sink down onto Lee Gon’s cock a moment later.
He rolls his hips against the stretch, gravity pulling him in. Lee Gon’s hands grip his thighs. It goes—slowly, slowly, until they both exhale sharply when Jo Yeong seats himself fully, the backs of his thighs flush against Lee Gon’s legs.
It’s so much—the incredible fullness, the quiet intimacy of the moment, with nothing but the air they breathe between them. Jo Yeong releases another shaky breath and pulls himself up, then sinks back down again.
Lee Gon surges up to kiss him, but it lands off-center, open and hot, catching just the corner of Jo Yeong’s mouth. Jo Yeong turns his face a fraction to kiss back properly, licking into Lee Gon’s mouth as he begins to move. He braces himself on his knees and grinds against Lee Gon, hips working in slow, deliberate circles, arms wrapped around Lee Gon’s neck.
“Yeong-ah, you feel so good,” Lee Gon says, hoarse, and Jo Yeong’s head swims.
It’s unlike anything he’s ever experienced—nothing like his own fingers, nothing like a toy. It’s overwhelming, electrifying, lighting up all his nerve endings as his body opens up, unfolds like origami.
Lee Gon pulls him in closer, palms splayed flat against the small of Jo Yeong’s back and along the line of his spine. He lets himself fall into Lee Gon even more, then tilts his head and kisses the spot on Lee Gon’s neck where the scar used to be.
A twin shudder runs through them at that. Lee Gon takes a sharp breath, and Jo Yeong kisses the same spot again, bearing down harder with his hips. His cock slides between them, slick with precome, drooling against Lee Gon’s abdomen.
They must look so good together like this. Jo Yeong is not one for false modesty. He knows he has a handsome face and a lean, athletic body. A nice, well-proportioned cock. And Lee Gon—Lee Gon is beautiful. He’s the kind of man who would turn everyone’s heads the moment he stepped into the room even if he weren’t king. What a pair they must make.
They’re both hungry for pleasure, chasing it with abandon, kissing between choked-off moans and fevered words. Jo Yeong has been on edge so long and now he’s slipping past equilibrium, something hot and molten unspooling in the pit of his stomach.
He shifts in Lee Gon’s lap, leaning backward on his hands, back arched and head thrown back. The change in the angle makes white light explode beneath his eyelids. His mouth is too slack, his mind too incoherent to form words. His cock strains between them, flushed a deep shade of red and leaking.
“Touch me,” Jo Yeong says, pushing past the buzzing in his ears.
Lee Gon complies immediately, wrapping his hand around Jo Yeong’s cock to stroke. His hips snap up, again and again, to meet Jo Yeong’s desperate thrusts. There’s sweat pearling at his hairline, his temples.
“Come on now, Captain Jo,” Lee Gon says. A spike of current runs through Jo Yeong’s body, all the way down to his toes. “Yeong-ah.”
Jo Yeong shivers, his body clenching around Lee Gon’s cock inside him. He moves faster, harder, pushing himself all the way up to his limits and then past them, meeting Lee Gon halfway, until he shudders apart. He can feel it all over his body—searing in its intensity, overwhelming. His toes curl, something hot and molten unspooling in his stomach as he spills all over Lee Gon’s hand. Some of it splashes against Jo Yeong’s stomach, his chest, all the way up to his clavicle.
His chest is heaving, his vision swimming. Jo Yeong doesn’t stop until the tight clench of his muscles tips Lee Gon over the edge a moment later.
They’re both trembling when Lee Gon pulls out and Jo Yeong collapses over him, cradling his body in his own, caging him in. Shielding him.
For a moment, they just breathe in unison, chests rising and falling. Then Lee Gon pulls Jo Yeong down for a sloppy, lazy kiss. Laughs into it, sweet and carefree.
Jo Yeong’s heart clenches, and then he realizes: all of these little moments now belong to him as well.
Jo Yeong wakes up to an insistent mouth kissing a trail up the side of his neck, a nose buried in the warm, secret place behind his ear.
“Captain Jo,” Lee Gon singsongs quietly. Another kiss. “Jo Yeong.” And another. “Yeong-ah.”
His arm is wrapped around Jo Yeong’s waist, pulling him close enough that he can feel Lee Gon’s erection pressing against the small of his back. He’s half-hard, too, his body stirring slowly now that he’s awake.
“Yes?” Jo Yeong doesn’t turn around. Tilts his head to the side to give Lee Gon easier access, and is rewarded with another kiss, pressed into his skin right over his pulse point.
They’re both naked under the sheets. Jo Yeong is pleasantly sore, feeling it all over his body; it’s a good feeling, the kind he’ll carry with him for the rest of the day. A reminder.
“I was just saying hello,” Lee Gon says innocently. “Can’t a man say good morning to the man he loves?”
Jo Yeong’s stomach swoops, a strange, fluttery feeling overtaking him. “It’s never just good morning with you,” he says. “Last time you were just saying hello, you ended up flirting with me in front of all the rookies.”
“Oh?” Lee Gon says. Jo Yeong can feel his smile, pressed into the wing of his shoulder blade. “Was that what I was doing?”
“What else was that, then?” Jo Yeong asks. “You wouldn’t stop pestering me about the pin.”
“But you wore it,” Lee Gon points out smugly. He nuzzles his face into the crook of Jo Yeong’s neck and nudges his legs open.
“You asked me to.”
Behind him, Lee Gon slicks up his cock, then smears whatever is left on his hand on the insides of Jo Yeong’s thighs. “Keep them pressed together for me,” he whispers into Jo Yeong’s ear, tugging on his earlobe as he slips into the tight grip of Jo Yeong’s legs.
Jo Yeong shivers at the slick slide of Lee Gon’s cock across the sensitive skin of his thighs. Lee Gon thrusts again, cock brushing against Jo Yeong’s perineum, the underside of his balls. It feels good—different from what they did yesterday, but just as overwhelming.
“Did you dream about me?” Lee Gon whispers with his lips against the shell of Jo Yeong’s ear. He sneaks an arm around Jo Yeong to wrap a hand around his cock.
Jo Yeong is completely hard by now, hips fucking into Lee Gon’s loose grip, jostled with each slow, shallow thrust. It’s slow and languid, unhurried. Like they have all the time in the world to stay in this bed, with no responsibilities beyond it. The epitome of a lazy morning fuck.
This, too, is new for Jo Yeong. He slept with other people, but he never spent the night. He couldn’t take the risk, make himself vulnerable in his sleep. This is the first time, in his thirty-one years, he’s ever shared a bed with someone through the night.
His own orgasm takes him by surprise, building slowly, surreptitiously, then boiling over in an instant: a cresting wave crashing against the shore. He exhales, the air forced out of his lungs, spilling down Lee Gon’s knuckles and onto the sheets.
Behind him, Lee Gon’s movements turn jerky, hips snapping frantically. He cradles Jo Yeong’s face in his palm, pulling it slightly forward so they can kiss. It’s slow and open, too, a little off-center, but Jo Yeong catches Lee Gon’s lips between his own and cranes his neck for better access. They’re still kissing when Lee Gon stills behind him, body flush against Jo Yeong’s back as he comes, making a mess of the insides of Jo Yeong’s thighs.
“Good morning,” he says with a sunny smile as soon as he can catch his breath.
Jo Yeong loves this ridiculous man, so much, hopelessly.
“I’ll have to give up my position as Captain of the Royal Guard. You do understand that, right?” Jo Yeong asks later, once they’ve showered, and then Lee Gon dragged him back to bed. He’s lying with his head pillowed on Lee Gon’s chest, drawing patterns on his skin with his fingers. “If you want me—if you want this to happen. I can’t be so close to you and protect you at the same time.”
Above him, Lee Gon makes a quiet, displeased sound. “Why not?”
Jo Yeong swallows. “I can’t…love you and protect you like this.”
It’s the first time he’s ever said the words out loud.
It’s a fact of Jo Yeong’s life. He loves Lee Gon. He’s loved him for nearly his entire life, in one way or another. He can admit it to himself now.
“But—this is not a new thing for you, right? Or am I wrong? So what’s different now?” Lee Gon asks. Jo Yeong shakes his head. No use pretending. “Just—stay a while, until you can pass your duties over to Hopil. Assign someone else to take your place on the active roster. Then we’ll think about finding you a new title.”
Jo Yeong frowns. “What title?” He sits up, sheets pooling around his waist.
“I don’t know…” Lee Gon props himself up on his elbow, looking up at Jo Yeong like he’s plotting something. “How does Prince Consort sound? It’s been a while since the kingdom had one of those.”
Jo Yeong’s eyes widen. He shakes his head. “Absolutely not,” he says. “You can’t be serious. You can’t.”
“Why not?” Lee Gon asks again.
“You can’t just decide to—” Jo Yeong says, exasperated. “No.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Lee Gon insists, following Jo Yeong’s lead to pull himself up into a sitting position. “Give me a reason.”
Jo Yeong closes his eyes and swallows, feeling like he’s been knocked over the head with something heavy. Maybe this is all a dream, and he’s just hallucinating this entire conversation. It would make more sense than the alternative. “For one,” he points out, “you’ve been in love with me for about five minutes. You can’t just decide to get married on a whim.”
“You’re wrong, though.” Lee Gon reaches out to thread his fingers through Jo Yeong’s, resting their joined hands against the sheets. “I think I’ve been in love with you this entire time.”
“That’s not true,” Jo Yeong says firmly. He knows that for a fact. “You were in love with Lieutenant Jeong.”
Lee Gon sighs, frustration evident in his voice. “You can be in love with more than one person in your life.”
This time, Jo Yeong looks away. “I wouldn’t know,” he says quietly.
Lee Gon inhales sharply. “You—”
Jo Yeong nods.
Lee Gon stares at him, looks right through him. “How long?” he asks.
“I realized when I was fifteen,” Jo Yeong admits. For the first time in his life, the memory of that night doesn’t threaten to choke him. “But it had been…since before then. I don’t know when, exactly. Perhaps the entire time.”
“That’s…so long to be in love with someone,” Lee Gon says. “Without saying anything.”
“Yes.” Jo Yeong licks his lips, eyes glancing down to where they’re still holding hands.
“So?” Lee Gon asks, persistent, stubborn to the end, as always. So used to getting his way.
“I’ll think about it,” Jo Yeong concedes. His stomach does a funny little jolt at the thought of being married to Lee Gon. But it’s too fast, too soon. Lee Gon loves to rush things, a body always in motion, but it’s Jo Yeong’s job to keep him grounded.
“I can’t believe you’re refusing my proposal.” Lee Gon stares at him. “Your family already has a history of marrying royalty, you know? No one would even be surprised. Hell, many people wouldn’t be surprised anyway. They already think we’ve been secretly dating for years.”
Jo Yeong shakes his head, half-exasperated, half-amused. Time to shift gears, then.
“Fine, okay,” he says, pretending to move to get off the bed. “Let’s go right now, why wait? Should I send for someone to bring my dress blues? Should I call the archbishop?”
“I thought you’d want a traditional ceremony,” Lee Gon says quietly.
Jo Yeong moves in an instant, pinning Lee Gon flat on his back. He leans down to kiss him, mostly to shut him up, but also because he wants to. Because he can.
“I said I’d think about it,” he repeats with emphasis. “I didn’t say no.”
It’s only later, once they leave the bed to get dressed sometime around noon, that Jo Yeong’s eyes fall on a paper bag tossed carelessly in the corner of a chair. It wasn’t there when they arrived. They haven’t left the residence since they arrived. The nearest 7-Eleven is in the next town over.
“Please, tell me this isn’t what it looks like,” he says, pointing to the bag.
“What do you mean?” Lee Gon’s eyes turn to look at Jo Yeong, very big and very innocent all of a sudden. Jo Yeong will not be fooled.
“I can’t believe,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose, feeling the oncoming headache, “that you drove into town to go into a 7-Eleven to buy condoms.”
“I’m the king,” Lee Gon says like that explains everything. “I can go into a store in my own kingdom if I want to. Besides…it’s been a while. All the ones I had on me were expired.”
Jo Yeong closes his eyes and counts to ten. “You should’ve sent someone. Where were Jangmi and Lieutenant Park, by the way? Why didn’t they stop you?”
“They followed me at an appropriate distance in an unmarked vehicle. It was all according to protocol,” Lee Gon informs him with a sunny expression.
“Right.” Jo Yeong relaxes his jaw. “They’re both fired. I’m firing them.”
“But they’re my bodyguards,” Lee Gon protests. “You can’t fire them. Besides, I’m the king.”
“It’s a good thing, then, that you’ve delegated all security personnel decisions to me, Your Majesty,” Jo Yeong says, watching with satisfaction the confused, half-startled, half-aroused reaction from Lee Gon. “Please, tell me that at least you didn’t get photographed?”
“I don’t think so?” Lee Gon says. “I wore a mask and a cap.”
As if on cue, Jo Yeong’s phone chimes with an incoming message. It’s Myeong Seungah, writing to tell him: Congratulations, Captain! Attached is a photo of Lee Gon, looking comically out of place at the 7-Eleven in his beautiful cashmere coat. He’s wearing a black surgical mask and a baseball cap and yet still standing out, like a celebrity running from a scandal. The photo is sharp enough to catch the lubricant bottle and the pack of condoms he’s placing in the bag.
Without a word, Jo Yeong thrusts the phone into Lee Gon’s face. He at least has the decency to look contrite, however briefly.
Myeong Seungah follows with another message a moment later: We’re the only ones who have them, don’t worry! Enjoy the rest of your vacation!
“See?” Lee Gon says, peering into Jo Yeong’s face with a smile. “It’s all good. We don’t have to rush with the announcement.”
Jo Yeong shakes his head.
Impossible.
They spend most of the remaining three days in bed, until they’re both sore and aching all over. Jo Yeong’s neck is covered in bruises in the shape of Lee Gon’s mouth, and his lips are tingling, tender to the touch. There’s no part of Lee Gon’s body left unexplored, and the same is true for Jo Yeong. He’s pleasantly exhausted. Exhilarated. But a part of him still dreads the return to Busan. This place has cradled them outside of space and time—its own microcosm, a world in its own right. It’s easy to pretend nothing could touch them here. Out there is a different story.
The last night before they have to go back, Jo Yeong allows himself to be laid out on his front and fucked just like that, splayed wide open, gripping the sheets. He’s never done that, either—allowed himself this kind of vulnerability, this kind of trust. But with Lee Gon, he can do that. Lee Gon already knows all his weak spots.
Afterwards, they sleep until morning.
At six thirty, Jo Yeong turns off his alarm and slips out of bed despite Lee Gon’s protests.
“It’s still early,” Lee Gon complains, pushing his face into the pillow.
“We have to pack,” Jo Yeong says. “Which means I have to pack, because you haven’t packed a bag in your life.”
This gets Lee Gon to sit up on the bed. “Again with the slander. I was in the Navy, you know, and I did have to learn how to pack a backpack while on deployment.”
“Fine,” Jo Yeong says, turning on his heel. “Prove it, then.”
Lee Gon shakes his head. “And I thought you were disrespectful before.”
Jo Yeong does end up packing for both of them, but only because they get sidetracked when Lee Gon pulls him in by the drawstrings of his sleeping pants to make out for ten minutes. By the time Jo Yeong puts a stop to it, it’s already time for Lee Gon to make breakfast. The helicopter is scheduled to touch down at eight.
Back in the room he hasn’t used at all for the last three days, Jo Yeong pulls out his suit. Dresses fast. Jo Yeong might no longer be a military man, but he still wears a uniform.
“Hmm, something’s missing,” Lee Gon comments, leaning against the door.
He leaves for a moment, then returns to drop something small and shiny into Jo Yeong’s palm. Jo Yeong freezes for a fraction of a second, afraid that he’ll look down at his open hand and see a ring. Instead, he finds a pair of cufflinks. They’re silver, understated for Lee Gon’s taste, but unmistakably belonging to him. The plum blossom of the royal crest is immediately recognizable, intricately carved into the design.
“There.” Lee Gon reaches for one of the cufflinks and slots it through the holes in Jo Yeong’s sleeve. “Much better.”
Jo Yeong doesn’t protest.
He intends to sit out in front during the flight, but Lee Gon pats the leather seat next to himself. “Indulge me, Captain Jo,” he says.
Jo Yeong raises his brow but acquiesces. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”
The airspace above the palace is still closed, so they touch down at the same private airport they started from two weeks ago. There are already two cars idling on the tarmac. Before Jangmi can reach for the keys, Jo Yeong snatches them out of his hand.
“I’ll drive,” he says. “You go with Lieutenant Park. We will debrief once we arrive.”
“Admit it, you just wanted to be alone with me,” Lee Gon says once they’re driving back to the palace. He leans forward, resting his face against the driver’s seat headrest.
“Please, sit back.” Jo Yeong sighs. “There’s a lot of traffic.”
“You’ll move into the palace, won’t you?” Lee Gon asks, refusing to move. “You already practically live there, but maybe you could sleep somewhere nicer than the couch in your office. We could open up the Queen’s Wing—we’d have to rename it, of course, but I don’t think that would be much of an issue, so—”
“You’re serious,” Jo Yeong says, disbelieving.
In his peripheral vision, Jo Yeong sees Lee Gon frown. “Of course I’m serious? Why wouldn’t I be serious?”
Jo Yeong spends ten seconds fighting with himself. “It would be strange if I suddenly moved into the Queen’s Wing without an announcement,” he says. “People would talk.”
“We can always give them something to talk about,” Lee Gon says. “Something that would actually get them talking. Lady Noh would be delighted. She’s looking more and more frail by the month, and she really wants to see me married. You wouldn’t want to disappoint an old lady, would you, Yeong-ah?”
Jo Yeong overtakes the car driving in front of them. “Emotional blackmail doesn’t work on me,” he says. Then, “Fine. I will move into the palace, but not the Queen’s Wing.”
He can’t believe he’s actually saying this. Talking like this is real. Permanent—as permanent as things can be in the human life.
“And then we’ll make an announcement,” Lee Gon says. “I don’t want to hide you; I’ve had enough of that.”
“There are things to take care of first,” Jo Yeong reminds him.
“Fine,” Lee Gon agrees. “But afterwards.”
Jo Yeong nods, looking straight ahead. “Afterwards.”
The palace looks unchanged when they arrive. Jo Yeong is first out of the car, scanning the surroundings. He doesn’t have his comms on him, but the instincts remain unchanged.
“Welcome home, Your Majesty,” Lady Noh says, bowing to greet Lee Gon outside the main entrance. “I trust your vacation has been restful.”
“I don’t know about that,” Lee Gon admits, tossing a glance in Jo Yeong’s direction. “I’m feeling pretty worn out. No, no, no,” he rushes to reassure once he sees the frown between Lady Noh’s eyebrows, “that was just a joke. I’ve never felt better.”
“I am glad to hear that, Your Majesty,” Lady Noh says, then turns her gaze to Jo Yeong. “Captain Jo, a word.”
Lee Gon clearly wants to stay behind to eavesdrop, but between Lieutenant Park and Sub-captain Seok, they manage to steer him inside.
“Walk with me, Captain,” Lady Noh says. Slowly, they make their way to the back of the palace, crossing through the royal gardens They’re still green, but not yet covered in bloom. Once she ensures their privacy, she says, “I’m sure you’ll have many questions about how to handle the transition. It’s quite an unusual situation, and one that will require many adjustments on the part of the crown as well. But before any of that happens, I think we need to have an understanding, Captain. Being by His Majesty’s side is a lifelong commitment. You have to be sure. Loving the reigning monarch is never easy. And that, too, is for life.”
Once the initial surprise passes, Jo Yeong allows himself a smile. “That will not be a problem,” he says.
He didn’t think the news travelled quite so fast inside the palace—but then again, he should’ve known. No matter how well guarded the secret, Lady Noh would know about it.
“We’ve been by his side since the beginning, haven’t we, Captain?” she continues. “We might have had our differences over the years, but we’ve always put him first. I will be glad to see you support him still. I will sleep more soundly, knowing that you’re always by his side.”
Jo Yeong bows deeply, his throat strangely tight. “I will do whatever I can to live up to the trust you’ve put in me, Lady Noh. And protect him for as long as I live.”
“Good,” she says, reaching out to take his hand. “You’ve done well, my child.”
Jo Yeong returns to the palace with his head spinning. Everything has been happening so quickly, without a moment’s respite. One day he was His Majesty’s bodyguard, hiding the better part of himself away. The next, he was receiving Lady Noh’s blessing.
Lee Gon’s in his study, flipping through the stacks of correspondence. “Did she give you a hard time?” he asks when Jo Yeong steps in.
“No,” Jo Yeong admits. “She gave me her blessing.”
The fragile, new thing between them didn’t disappear the moment they stepped inside the palace, after all. All the worries, for nothing. Jo Yeong’s restless heart, finally at peace.
“So you’ll move into the palace?” Lee Gon asks, reaching out to draw Jo Yeong closer.
“Yes.” Incapable of resisting the pull, Jo Yeong goes.
Lee Gon smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “And the wedding?” He rubs at the knuckle of Jo Yeong’s ring finger with his thumb.
Jo Yeong presses his lips together, allowing the warmth to spill freely inside his chest. “I’ll think about it,” he says. “Maybe.” Then, “Autumn would be nice.”