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Chapter Text

Jongdae set the textbook down with a thunk. His eyesight blurred as the Chinese characters began to swirl on the page, thin black strokes merging with the doodles on the margins.

Looking around the room, he found all of his classmates stooped over their desks, studiously jotting down notes and highlighting paragraphs through the free cram period.

Rueing the day he decided to take Chinese, Jongdae was two seconds away from flinging his textbook into the nether when the girl in front of him turned around.

“Shhhh!” she hissed, Jongdae’s arm flexing midair. He shrank back, mouthing an apology.  Groaning internally, he prayed for the clock to move faster, a miracle he would kill for.

The walk back home provided a relative sense of peace for him, plugged in and singing softly into the air. It was a warm summer night, the sticky humid heat of the day falling back in favor of a slight breeze. 

The smell of fried donuts and spicy chicken permeated the air as Jongdae descended down into the train station, and the urge to stuff himself to forget about school-induced stress made him grope around for his wallet.

“Where are you?” Jongdae muttered to himself. “Aha!” 

While brandishing his wallet and following his nose to find the food booths, Jongdae stopped abruptly, transfixed by a peddler with an assortment of trinkets laid on top of a worn blanket.

“Well come on boy! Take a look around,” the old man said with a mischievous voice, beckoning him closer.

Fried donuts forgotten momentarily, Jongdae warily crept closer, eyes darting around. Peddlers selling their wares in this specific train terminal had a reputation, loudly drawing customers in and then ripping them off. He usually paid no heed to their hawking, but something about this collection of trinkets pulled him in.

“I….I’m just going to look around,” Jongdae began apprehensively, but the old man waved him off.

“Oh nonsense, I won’t scam you boy,” he chuckled. “Take your time and look around. I’ll even throw you a discount,” he added. “You look like a depressed student.”

Hmph. But Jongdae relaxed anyway, bowing in thanks. Crouching down and actively beginning to shop, his eyes were immediately drawn on an hourglass encased in a disk within a larger ring, altogether a pendant looped on a chain.

Picking it up, Jongdae felt a tremor down his spine as he flipped it over, watching the sand trickle down to the bottom.

“It’s like a Time-Turner,” Jongdae marveled, thumb brushing gently over the intricate carvings. 

The peddler snorted. “It is not a Time-Turner,” he told Jongdae pointedly. “A proper time machine wouldn’t have to rely on such gimmicky rules and useless restraints.”

Jongdae looked up, scrutinizing him. “You know Harry Potter?” 

Yes, it had a massive following in Korea — as with the rest of the world — but for an old man like him to know it?

“Harry Potter, my ass,” the peddler grumbled. “As if magic worked like that.”

“Magic?” Jongdae inquired, interest piqued.

“Can’t tell you too much boy, only that,” he pointed at the necklace, “is not a Time-Turner.” 

“Ohhkay.”

“Besides,” he said. “That disk won’t budge and start spinning like that movie.”

True to his word, Jongdae lightly flicked the disk, but it would not move. Figuring it was time to start haggling, he opened his mouth, only to have the peddler beat him to it.

“Eh, for you I’ll part with it for 10,000 won. You’ll probably have more luck with it than I’ve ever had throughout my years with it.” His eyes twinkled as he thrust out his hand for the money.

Not sure if he was being scammed or not, Jongdae forked over the bills, also uncertain as to why he had spent half his pocket money on a necklace that didn’t even work. 

Jongdae rose with his new purchase, and after bidding the peddler a good night, he stumbled on over to wait for his train to arrive.

Tiptoeing around the silent apartment, Jongdae crept into his room, gently closing the door shut. He heaved a sigh, setting down his backpack. He was too tired to take a shower, changing out of his grimy-feeling uniform into a comfortable tee and pants.

Ever the proper Korean student, Jongdae pulled his books onto his desk, the new necklace momentarily forgotten. Cringing upon the sight of his Chinese textbook, he turned on the small desk lamp.

Working late into the night was never his strength, and Jongdae soon found himself nodding off. Yawning, he stretched his arms, bones popping from its long-neglected position. The clock read 2:46.

Giving up on his studies, Jongdae pulled out a leather-bound notebook out of his backpack, remembering the necklace and tugging it out as well. Grasping both close to his chest, he walked out into the living room, careful not to disturb his sleeping family.

The moon was shining brightly through the half-closed curtains, throwing patterns of light onto the wooden floor. Abandoning his plan to cozy up on the sofa, Jongdae stepped out onto the balcony, brushing past the curtains to bask in the moonlight. A cool wind wafted through his hair and face, rejuvenating and wiping away the remnants of fatigue.

He made himself comfortable on the wicker chair placed outside, drawing up his knees to place the notebook on his thighs. Looping the necklace carefully around his neck, Jongdae opened up the notebook, flipping past pages of unfinished lyrics and drawings. Humming into the night, he pulled out the pencil tucked in the spine of the notebook, starting to sketch the necklace.

It was only with the closer inspection did Jongdae realize that the engravings on the ring were in fact, Chinese characters. It was as if the entire universe was pointing at his incapabilities with the language. Trying to translate, no less copy them onto the paper only reinforced this suggestion, and Jongdae threw up his arms, cursing.

The necklace bounced off his chest, then seemed to nestle closer to his heart as the moon shone directly on it. Jongdae heard a soft crack.

Frowning, he closed the notebook, bringing the necklace closer to his eyes. The outer ring had dislodged into two pieces, and there were now two rings encircling the central hourglass. Jongdae flicked it, and the pendant began to spin.

The moon’s light suddenly waned, and Jongdae looked up, noticing with alarm as a blood-red flush began to creep up the sides of the moon.

“The hell—”

The pendant only spun faster, and the wind around him became sinister, wrapping Jongdae in a vortex.

Vision blurring, Jongdae heard screams, and any coherent thoughts disappeared when he blacked out.

He stirred to more screaming and had to wince as a pounding headache raged across his temples.

A stampede of straw shoes passed him, and Jongdae whirled around in confusion as he pulled himself off the ground. Wobbling unsteadily on his feet, he froze as he took in his surroundings.

He no longer stood in his apartment fifty floors in the air, instead finding his bare feet on firmly packed earth. There were houses in close proximity, some designed in the traditional styles of the past while others looked more primitive with simple straw-thatched roofs.

And even more alarmingly the sun had replaced the moon, although the former was becoming eclipsed in broad daylight.

A crowd of people had gathered in front of him, and Jongdae had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. 

They were dressed in hanbok, muted cotton befitting the dress of poor peasants. Jongdae anxiously pinched himself. He needed to wake up, if this wasn’t some period drama that he had accidentally stumbled upon, then it had to be a dream. He would wake up, slumped over his desk, and realize everything had been just a— 

More screaming. The sun had been fully eclipsed by the moon, and the villagers were absolutely beside themselves as the sky darkened.

“What’s wrong with the sky? WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE SUN?!” 

“It’s what you all deserve for stealing my crops, dumbasses.”

“No no, the gods are cursing us, I tell you. The king hasn’t complied with the Zhang emperor.”

Meaningless conversation floated past his ears, and Jongdae desperately clasped the pendant. He tried to flick it again, but to no avail. It had budged shut once more, the two rings merging into one.

Making a questionable decision, Jongdae glared straight into the sky.

“Bullshit! Not a Time-Turner, my ass!”

The villagers turned to gape at him, but Jongdae couldn’t care less. He swore he could hear the old peddler laughing at him. 

“Shit,” he muttered, feeling woozy. He swooned, and the villagers’ whispers turned into gasps as strong arms caught him from collapsing.

“You okay, young man?”

Jongdae sat up and groaned, the world shifting into focus as faces crowded his line of vision. He flinched back, and a worn hand shooed away the faces to give Jongdae some space.

“What’s wrong with his hair?” whispered a little girl. “And his clothes too,” she added, scrutinizing Jongdae up and down.

He self-consciously brushed his buzz cut, a sacrifice to support his hairdressing friend’s dream.

“I, um…..got it cut?” Jongdae tried. The owner of the voice who had woken him surfaced in his peripherals, a graying man whose topknot was as disgruntled as his disposition. He thrust a bowl in Jongdae’s way, which he accepted cautiously. 

“Drink it,” he curtly said. Jongdae obeyed, drinking down the warm fluids that eased his throat and stomach. His headache finally cleared, and he took this chance to look around the cramped room.

Jongdae’s eyes widened. 

It was not a dream, and the people crowding around his covers were still dressed in hanbok. The absence of modern appliances made an eerie sight, and Jongdae had to take a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down.

Broth man eyed Jongdae curiously. “I take it you aren’t from here?”

All eyes around the room looked at Jongdae expectantly.

“You’re right,” Jongdae began hesitantly. He needed to get his lies straight. “I must have lost my way, and the arrival of the eclipse threw things off.” Jongdae waved his hands vaguely.

“An eclipse you say,” Broth man mused. Jongdae stiffened. Had he said the wrong thing?

Broth man continued. “Funny for you to understand its implications. Have you heard any news from the capital?”

Jongdae shook his head.

“And so young.” He lifted Jongdae’s chin. “What’s your name, young man?”

“Jongdae…..sir.”

“Hmmmmm, Jongdae.” He took the bowl from his hands. “You can call me Doha.”

Jongdae bowed. “Nice to meet you, Doha.”

“Here, Jongdae.” A matronly woman motioned to a set of neatly folded clothes next to his covers. “These are for you,” she said, still staring at Jongdae’s clothes. “You stick out like a sore thumb.”

Jongdae bowed again. Nobody in the room seemed to want to leave, unanswered questions sitting in the air. Fidgeting, Jongdae took the offered clothes onto his lap.

Doha took the initiative. 

“Don’t you all have things to do?” he inquired. Everyone scrambled at his words. Only the little girl remained, shyly peeping out of Doha’s sleeve.

“Introduce yourself to Jongdae,” Doha instructed the little girl, who began to wriggle out of Doha’s arms in response.

Jongdae sent a friendly grin. “What is your name?” he asked gently, poking her knee.

She giggled. “My name is Sooah,” she chirped, enunciating each syllable.

Jongdae waved. “Hi, Sooah!” 

“Jongdae,” Doha began seriously. He stopped then, sighing as he mulled over his words. Gathering Sooah into his arms, Doha brushed the screen door open.

“Come outside when you have dressed,” he gestured at the clothes.

The door shut, giving Jongdae privacy. It wasn’t what he was sure he needed, because the idea of being alone to dwell with his panic was freaking him out. Jongdae felt his smile drop from his face, trembling at the thought of his predicament. 

Not wanting to keep Doha and the others waiting, Jongdae stripped down to pull his new clothes on. After folding his covers into a neat stack, he crept out the screen door, wincing at the luminosity of the moonlight.

“How long was I asleep?” Jongdae murmured, sitting down on the wooden platform above the steps. The courtyard was empty, and Doha and Sooah were nowhere to be seen. Jongdae relished in the quiet, relaxing in the familiarity of the night. 

But the stars shined brighter here than home, and that threw Jongdae into a pit of misery. He had to find his way out of here, to make it back home and restore his sense of normalcy. Jongdae didn’t know what year he had been transported back, nor if he was in the same place from where his apartment stood hundreds of years into the future. 

Even as he was stranded, Jongdae didn’t dare to move an inch from this vicinity, lest the time-traveling struck again and he would land in the future’s counterpart of where he stood.

Speaking of time traveling, he grasped for the Time-Turner around his neck. Predictably, it would not spin. 

Accepting the futility for now, he reached into his large sleeves to pull out his notebook. It had been miraculously left untouched from the time jump, and even the pencil remained tucked into one of the pages. Jongdae stared at the sketch he had been working on until whatever had happened. The lines of the drawing seemed amplified with the moonlight, and Jongdae felt an odd sense of déjà vu.

A pair of straw shoes dropped at his side, and Jongdae jumped when Doha appeared beside him. He stuffed the notebook back into his sleeve.

“For you,” he grunted, staring at Jongdae’s feet. Jongdae followed his gaze, the comparison of his unblemished, albeit dusty feet with Doha’s tanned and wrinkled ones. Without Sooah to act as a buffer, Jongdae could feel Doha’s silent questions, although he was patiently waiting for him to speak first.

Jongdae slipped the shoes on, testing its scratchiness against his soles. Despite pulling on his best poker face, he avoided Doha’s eyes.

“You materialized out of thin air, Jongdae,” Doha said quietly. “The others didn’t see it, but I did.”

He whipped his head around to look at the older man. Jongdae clutched his head, his resolve crumbling. How would he describe being Marty McFly-ied into the past?

“I…..I can’t explain,” Jongdae whispered. “I don’t know what happened myself but,” he heaved a deep breath. “I’m not…..from here.”

“No shit,” Doha chuckled. 

“You wouldn’t believe me anyway if I tell you,” Jongdae muttered.

“Try me.”

But no matter how he imagined starting his story, every scenario resulted negatively; Jongdae was sure that Doha would chuck him into the nearest madhouse.

“If you can’t tell me, I won’t pry anymore,” Doha said, noticing Jongdae’s fight or flight response. “But I have to have your word. This secret of yours, will it cause harm to any of the villagers?”

Jongdae shook his head minutely. 

“Never,” he vowed. “I promise I came here with no ulterior moves. I just want to go home.”

Doha nodded, patting him on the back.

“Wherever your journey takes you, young man, I hope you can get to your destination safely.” He stood up, offering his hand. Jongdae took it and hoisted himself up, surprised by the older man’s strength. 

They stood face to face, and Doha suddenly looked at Jongdae anxiously.

“Wherever you are from, you must know that it is not safe here,” he whispered.

Jongdae furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“Our king is refusing to pay tribute this year to the Chinese. He is an incompetent fool, and we must all suffer for it.” Doha said angrily.

“And so the Chinese are….displeased?” Jongdae asked, unable to comprehend.

Doha scowled. “Of course they are. And on top of that, they don’t bother to patrol their borders anymore. We have bandits infiltrating the country, kidnapping people and conducting raids, everywhere.”

Jongdae shivered.

By fate, there was an ear-splitting scream. Doha bolted up and ran out of the courtyard. Jongdae, having no choice, followed.

They sprinted down the dirt road, Jongdae soon overtaking Doha. Their surroundings were eerily deserted, and Jongdae could not find any sign of Sooah or any of the other villagers. They skidded to a stop with the sound of a blow on flesh, rounding a corner to spot the villagers huddled together within a circle. Menacing masked figures crowded around them, barking orders.

“Shut up!” one of them roared. They slammed the hilt of a sword onto somebody’s head, and Jongdae heard a sickening crack. 

Doha pressed his index finger against his lips. Jongdae shook his head frantically toward the older man, raising his hands up in a universal gesture of what are we going to do? 

“This is too bold, even for them,” Doha hissed. “Raiding a whole village at once?!”

Jongdae remained silent, unsure of how to respond. He desperately wished once more that this was all just a dream, that in any second, he would just fucking wake up— 

There was a sudden clamor, a war cry of sorts as one of the villagers stood up abruptly and charged toward his captors. He barreled into one, the momentum sending them both down as the other bandits stood back in shock. Before they could make a move, the villager had emerged victorious in his tussle, brandishing the fallen weapon. This was enough to shake the other villagers out of their reverie, and a battle emerged as they tried to take advantage of the surprise attack.

“Jongdae, hide!” Doha pushed him back. 

Jongdae refused to back down. 

“Let me help you,” he told Doha determinedly. But Doha shook his head.

“I appreciate the offer,” he said, pulling out a dagger. Jongdae’s eyes widened. “But you will just get hurt.” Doha jutted his head out toward the ongoing fight, swords clashing and blood spilling. “Go help round up the children then, and get them out of here.”

Realizing that it was not up to negotiation, Jongdae nodded. Doha set his hand on his shoulder, giving him one last cursory glance before jumping into the fray. Jongdae had to admire Doha’s agility, despite his age. He was whipping through, jabbing at the bandits with a grace that aided him to avoid the blows that came his way. Jongdae tore his eyes away from the scene, attempting to find the children with the limited viewpoint he had.

“Psst, here!” A hand tugged at his sleeve. Jongdae turned around to find Sooah gazing up at him, terror in her sparkling eyes. 

He immediately picked her up, sheltering her face from the bloodshed. “Sweetheart, where are the others?” Jongdae whispered to her urgently.

Sooah brought her head up from the crook of his neck. “I don’t know. We all ran when the fighting started,” she said with a tremble. “Will…will Uncle be okay?”

Jongdae carefully brushed back her wispy hair. “I don’t know, Sooah.” He chanced a look back at the battle, but it was a disorganized mess, and now Jongdae couldn’t tell who was on what side. 

“New plan,” Jongdae muttered. He pressed a kiss on Sooah’s forehead, an attempt to show her that she was safe. The girl didn’t seem much consoled, but nevertheless, Jongdae secured her tightly in his arms before taking off down the road.

It was a blur of houses and walls before Jongdae became hopelessly lost. He had tried to retrace his steps from earlier, but it was fruitless as Jongdae rounded the same corner twice.

Sooah was in a state of shock so Jongdae was reluctant to ask her, but the little girl stirred suddenly and pointed down an alley. He breathed a sigh of relief.

The path took them back into the house he had woken up, the gates slightly ajar from when Doha had crashed through them earlier. After setting Sooah down on a raised platform, Jongdae looked around restlessly. He wanted to go back and help, but leaving the Sooah behind did not sit right with him. His dilemma was answered when a villager limped through the gates, helped by two teenagers.

“Please watch over Sooah,” Jongdae pleaded at the older-looking girl, who nodded as Jongdae ran out. He was accosted by a woman with a dangling child around her neck and two others down by her side. He scooped them up, the mother’s face crumbling with relief. They ran together back to Doha’s, and Jongdae deposited the two children down before making his way back out at a breakneck speed.

Jongdae had brought back five more straggling groups back to Doha’s house when he had his first encounter with a bandit. The main group seemed to have splintered as a result of the fighting, and Jongdae had run directly into one pulling a shrieking girl. 

Without thinking, Jongdae launched himself onto the bandit, kicking and punching with all his might. And while he had caught him off guard, the burly man regained control, seething at Jongdae while deflecting his blows.

“Go!” he yelled, and the girl scrambled off her feet and ran in the direction he had come from. The bandit roared at the sight of his captive getting away, and kicked Jongdae down. His masked face loomed over Jongdae, who had gotten the wind knocked out of him.

The man forcefully pulled Jongdae up by the shirt, fists shaking in anger as he punched him hard with his free hand. Jongdae’s head rolled back, and he tasted blood.

“Well you’re better than nothing,” he growled, looking at Jongdae up and down. He drifted in and out of consciousness as the man hauled him up onto the saddle, placing him astride as he mounted the horse himself. He bound Jongdae to his chest, his wispy form dwarfed by the bandit’s. 

The horse kicked up to a canter, and Jongdae couldn’t stop the dread from infiltrating his stomach.

He awoke to a fire crackling, rising once again to an unfamiliar setting. 

It was dawn, and his kidnapper was nowhere to be seen. Hope latched onto Jongdae as he took in his surroundings; he was in a clearing amidst a wooded area, with plenty of dense undergrowth and a bubbling brook to be heard. He rose unsteadily to his feet, only to find his wrists bound and tethered to a nearby tree.

Jongdae groaned. He felt nauseous, and coupled with that blow to his head, he knew he probably wouldn’t have been able to get far without his binds.

As he tried to get into a cross-legged position, stomping footsteps announced the return of the man. Jongdae shrank back in fright as he loomed closer, a bulky giant of at least six feet with corded muscle around his enormous biceps. He had shed the black getup, and when he turned his face, there was an angry burn scar running down one cheek.

“What….what are you going to do with me?” Jongdae asked feebly. 

 Burnt man stared back at him impassively. He stroked the flames, coaxing out the embers. “Drop you off at the highest bidder,” he said nonchalantly.

Jongdae stared back in horror. “How could you?” he cried. “You’re okay with— selling off your own countrymen?”

Burnt man bristled. 

“Watch your tongue boy,” he warned. “There’s nothing worth saving in Goryeo.” He gripped the pommel of his sword, but Jongdae refused to flinch. 

“I don’t know what happened to you, or what made you turn your back, but I refuse to believe that everybody who inhabits this country is at fault. The bad deeds of a few should never condemn the innocent majority,” Jongdae pleaded.

His kidnapper let out a withering laugh, a hacking sound that sounded like trauma, anger, and guilt all rolled into one. Before Jongdae could perk up at this sign, the burnt man crushed all his hopes. 

“Your thoughts reflect a time long past now. Don’t try to entertain ideas of disillusioned hope anymore.” He turned and began to pack. “And that is not a threat.”

Jongdae mulled over the man’s last, ominous words as they settled into a silent journey. He didn’t want to pepper him with any more questions on where they were heading, nor did he want to plead his case on the slight off-chance that he would let him go. But by now, Jongdae had no idea where in Korea he even was, and there was no way to get back to the village with Doha.

Doha. Jongdae hoped he and the others were safe and had defeated the bandits. His heart ached to remember Sooah’s smile and shy giggles, a world seemingly miles away from the bleak atmosphere of his current imprisonment, and galaxies away from his true home back in the present.

Aimlessly, he wondered if they were still in South Korea. If they were heading north, then there was a chance that they had already reached the borders of the future DMZ. Jongdae laughed mirthlessly. It was a sobering and depressing thought.

Burnt man was unresponsive to his outburst, and he took this as a positive sign. Jongdae was lonely, sad, and homesick, so to comfort himself, he opened his mouth to sing.

The notes crystallized in the air, softly flowing from his lips as Jongdae immersed himself into the song. He pulled on his fear, his grief of being torn from his time, and his growing hysteria, translating into emotion that fueled the message of the lyrics. He felt more at ease as the song jumped into the bridge, deftly moving through the delicate runs. His last note wavered, uncertain at the edge of a precipice, and Jongdae finally opened his eyes to look out into the wide landscape.

It was breathtakingly beautiful. The wooded lands had merged into soft peaks in the distance, clouds shrouding the tops. Nature had bloomed to her fullest here, and Jongdae let out a soft sigh, content to marvel over the pretty scenery. He tried his best to ignore the Burnt man’s hard lump of chest behind him.

They traveled a week like that on horseback, stopping once or twice a day to rest both the horse and themselves. Jongdae had asked the man once in regards to their destination, which he had replied with a gruff, “You’ll see.” Jongdae did not bother to ask again after the first time, grateful enough that he had continued to let him sing without complaint.

He had taken to explore the grooves and edges of his voice, not having anything interesting to do while they were on horseback. He tested his range, traveled up and down his tessitura, and tried to smooth out the passage between his two registers. He was sure the wildlife were giving them a wide berth due to the amount of noise he made daily.

On his way to his presumed doom, Jongdae prayed nightly for them to run into anyone, anybody who could possibly take pity on him and release him from his captor. 

But no human was ever spotted on their path however, and soon his optimism dwindled.

Jongdae was dozing when he was shaken awake roughly. He jolted, alarmed at the drastic change from wilderness to humanity. 

They were trotting down an actual road now, winding straight toward a large arched gateway. It was enormous, almost two stories of solid brick. There was a wooden platform perched on top, and dozens of armed soldiers could be seen pacing.

They were let in without much ado, but Jongdae shriveled in at the sight of civilization after so many weeks of isolation. It was midday, and a bustling market had already been set up on the sides of the road. But other than the sensory overload, another pressing issue had presented itself to Jongdae.

His auditory senses were assaulted with Chinese. 

“Fuck me.”

Burnt man left Jongdae alone atop the horse, trusting him not to run away. Or perhaps he knew Jongdae wouldn’t be able to get off the animal by himself anyway.

Rapid-fire Chinese floated past his ears this way and that, taunting him. He was pleasantly surprised to find out that he wasn’t completely ignorant; his brain was helpfully sorting through the dialogue, although ninety-nine percent was lost in translation. 

But hey! If Jongdae ever managed to get back home, he would be sure to help his scores if he was immersed in the culture long enough.

“Hello [gap] the [gap] sun three [gap]?”

“No, I have to [gap] the Emperor.”

Jongdae scrunched up his eyebrows. He needed a lot of work. 

The two holding the conversation continued, unaware of Jongdae’s eavesdropping. He gave up, choosing to fiddle with the Time-Turner instead. It was covered with a slight layer of grime, which Jongdae rubbed off with his equally dirty clothes.

Burnt man made his way back to the horse.

“Get off,” he instructed him.

Jongdae threw him a withering look. Of course the asshole wouldn’t help him. Sure he was about to break his ankles, Jongdae threw himself off the horse.

“So dramatic,” was the only response he got.

Jongdae huffed. 

“See how you would feel if you think you are about to be sold off like cattle,” he grumbled, nevertheless following the man into the building. 

It was more of a shack really, stepping through the threshold to find dust motes attacking his face. Jongdae sneezed. 

When his respiratory system ceased its whining, Jongdae finally noticed the man dressed in an elaborate embroidered robe. He was sitting down on a chair, two attendants surrounding him almost protectively. One of the pair was even fanning their master with a delicate peacock- feather fan. The obvious opulence was at odds with this shabby environment.

Burnt man gestured to Jongdae before bowing, indicating he should do the same. Jongdae stooped hesitantly.

They started to converse, leaving him in the dark.

“I have a [gap]. [Gap] Goryeo.” Burnt man said to Fancy Robe. “I want [gap] time [gap] good [gap].”

He supposed it was long overdue for him to be calling his kidnapper ‘Burnt man’ after spending so many weeks together and now this new unknown figure with an equally asinine name. But Jongdae was petty.

Fancy Robe appraised him. His speech was refined and clear, making Jongdae’s life easier to understand.

“The [gap]. I asked for [gap] not a [gap].” He brandished a finger, wagging it at Jongdae.

Before he could figure out whether he was supposed to be offended or not, Burnt man smoothly intervened. He pacified Fancy Robe, and whatever he said seemed to have worked because now the latter fixated on Jongdae with a different light.

“What did you say to him?” Jongdae hissed.

But before Burnt man could reply, Fancy Robe replied with accented Korean.

“Sing for me.” He adjusted his robes and assumed a more comfortable position on his chair. As Jongdae looked at him bewildered, Fancy Robe motioned for his attendant to stop fanning. “What are you waiting for?”

“Use that one. The one you sang the first time.” Burnt man nudged him. “It was pretty.”

“Well it’s nice of you to finally give feedback,” Jongdae grumbled. As if he hadn’t spent half the journey trying to get a rise out of him.

Guessing it probably wasn’t a good time to be a smartass, Jongdae opened his mouth. It was hard to replicate the emotions he had the first time around; he decidedly was feeling less inspired in this shady setting.

He must have done well, or at least he hoped, because Fancy Robe was nodding as he finished.

“Good enough!” he said in Korean. Jongdae held back a snort. Fancy Robe gestured to one of his attendants, who procured a silken bag and handed it to Burnt man.

It clinked as it landed on his hand. Jongdae’s outrage was long overdue, but he stamped it down.

“Thanks for leaving me in a foreign country,” he said sarcastically, a farewell. “I hope you get eaten by a bear on your way back.”

Fancy Robe threw his head back, roaring with laughter. Burnt man guffawed himself, in a good mood after receiving his payment.

“See you around, boy,” he winked, knowing full on well that they would never meet again. Burnt man stepped out the door and mounted his horse, and that was the last Jongdae ever saw of him.

He felt totally naked as silence settled in the room.

Fancy Robe steepled his fingers under his chin. “Well boy, what’s your name?”

“My name is Jongdae,” he said in Chinese. Jongdae wondered whether throwing in a wild card like this would help his case.

“How fluent are you?” Fancy Robe questioned, still using Korean.

Jongdae shrugged. “I can speak conversationally,” he answered. “But my reading and writing is atrocious.”

Fancy Robe switched to Chinese.

“How long have you been learning then?”

“Three years,” Jongdae said primly. It wasn’t much, but the rigidity of the Korean schooling system ensured he had picked up something. The abuse sustained on his Chinese textbook back home indicated that.

“Well Jongdae,” Fancy Robe drawled, “My name is Wang Xian. I’m [gap] to the imperial [gap].”

Jongdae boiled like an egg. 

The water was so, so hot. He felt like his skin was going to melt right off his body, but it did a handy job of stripping it of the dirt and grime. 

When he stepped out of the wooden tub, Jongdae toweled off before putting on the new set of clothes. His only possessions, the notebook and his Time-Turner, were carefully stored away into a pocket after Jongdae yelped when he realized he forgot to take them out of his dirty clothes. The servant then whisked them away to be promptly burned.

“Smelly,” she plugged her nose, gingerly picking them up. She also said something else after, but Jongdae only nodded and pretended to understand.

He was brought by Wang Xian’s attendants to another room, where the man himself was seated, pouring himself tea. He gestured for him to sit down on the other side.

“Well, Jongdae,” he said, “[Gap].” 

Jongdae didn’t manage to hide his confusion fast enough, so Wang Xian sighed, switching to Korean.

“I said I’m going to be talking about your role here now.” He leaned back into his chair, sipping from his cup. “I asked Sieon for some celadon pottery but he brings me a human instead. Now I have no idea what to do with you.”

Sieon. Now Jongdae had a name for the face he planned to bash in every night in his dreams.

“Sing?” Jongdae asked hopefully. Amongst other things, particularly the glaring language barrier, he didn’t know how useful he could be to his employer.

Or owner. Jongdae scowled.

“Yes that,” Wang Xian told him cheerfully. “Quite a nice voice you have. Pity I can’t take you directly to stay at the palace.” Answering Jongdae’s unspoken question, he raised an eyebrow. “Unless you’re willing to be castrated?”

Jongdae spluttered. “What?!”

Wang Xian chuckled. “Well, the Emperor wouldn’t want whole men running about in the proximity of his women.”

He winced at the crude innuendo. “Yeah no, I’m okay.”

“You sure? As a eunuch, I think you would be successful. Your voice, coupled with your looks, is sure enough for you to attain prestige quickly enough to rise through the ranks.” Wang Xian was, for all intents and purposes, teasing him now. “As long as your hair situation is remedied,” he added, eyeing Jongdae’s slightly-grown-out-buzz-cut.

He paled.

“Alright kid, I’m just playing with you,” he shook his head in amusement. “I think I’m going to have you tail one of the servants in my household for now. Let’s see if we can accelerate your Chinese in that time.”

It turned out Wang Xian was the governor of his province. Quite an influential one at that, if what Jongdae heard was true.

He was given his own room and freedom to roam around the estate, except for when he had to follow his daily duties of tailing the servants. Jongdae was then put in the custody of Mai, an older, no-nonsense lady in charge of the running the kitchens of the household. Her face was always red from the perpetual heat of the fires, and she didn’t speak an ounce of Korean.

Jongdae’s day always began by rising at the crack of dawn, a practice he grumpily acclimated to. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he would trudge down to the kitchens where Mai would send him off to chop wood or draw water from the well. After that, she would assign him to whatever was needed to be done that day, whether that meant washing rice, preparing meat, or even inspecting grains to make fermented wine. He definitely wasn’t legal back home, but this was imperial China and Mai had no qualms of dealing with the aftermath of a tipsy teenager.

At this point, Jongdae was awake enough to form words, so he would attempt at a conversation. When things weren’t so busy, Mai and the other servants would indulge him, pointing out various objects to teach him vocabulary.

In the afternoons, he was forced to listen in with the lessons of the young lord of the house. Jongdae rarely saw Wang Xian, but his son he saw on a daily basis, and they had soon developed a little camaraderie. 

The boy’s name was Zitao, and he had taken to look back at Jongdae whenever his tutors would expel a long monologue of something dull and dreary. Zitao looked at him askance even now, begging Jongdae silently to do something, anything to stop the boredom.

Jongdae raised his eyebrows, sticking out his tongue. He understood one out of a hundred words spoken at a given lesson, and at this point, he was just there to hear the proper pronunciation and intonation. Zitao at least understood what they were talking about.

Jongdae also didn’t understand why Wang Xian was so invested with him; the latter also forced his son to provide free-talking lessons to Jongdae after their lessons. Today, the boy gleefully jumped on him, hollering into his ears with words that he knew Jongdae wouldn’t understand.

“YOU BRAT!” Jongdae bellowed back at him in Korean, and Zitao — naturally very intuitive — started to mimic him. 

“I’m going to kill you,” he growled in Chinese this time, and the boy just cackled. Zitao sprung away from his hands, and Jongdae released a torrent of curses, a lovely mixture of Chinese and Korean. 

He finally caught Zitao, tickling him until he started to leak tears from laughing. “I win,” Jongdae told him ominously. The boy just aimed a kick to his face.

Jongdae stopped carrying his Time-Turner around. He wasn’t going to be able to get back home any time soon, and besides, did it really matter when he returned? Time was relative, but no matter how much time he spent here, he could always go back to the present where he left it. 

That probably wasn’t the case, but Jongdae refused to dwell on it.

In a way, this time away from home was cathartic. He was suspended in a moment where college examinations weren’t looming, the definite future he wanted in music muddled by expectations. Jongdae had all the time in the world to gather his thoughts. Literally a millennia. 

That was the estimate he placed this particular dynasty. His history lessons were hazy, but Doha had called Korea, Goryeo. Seven hundred years at the minimum, a thousand at the max.

He had just finished his free-talking lesson, or rather, horsing around with Zitao, when Wang Xian dropped the bomb.

“We’re going to the capital.”

Jongdae squawked, remembering what had been discussed during that first conversation.

Wang Xian chuckled. “No castration.”

Zitao piped up. “Can I come too, Father?” he eagerly asked.

“I’m afraid not, my son,” he told his son, laying a hand on his head. “You have to protect the house while we are gone.”

Zitao grumbled mutinously, but didn’t continue past this. Jongdae marveled at the power of filial piety; Wang Xian was pretty laidback in parenting for Asian antiquity, letting Zitao run amok, but at the end of the day, the boy was obedient to the will of his father.

Zitao noticed Jongdae’s shit-eating grin at seeing him bested. “I bet you’ll get castrated anyway.” 

“You brat!”

“Pig!”

“You’re the one who eats like one.” Jongdae grinned, ridiculously happy for beating a kid in a word fight.

Wang Xian sighed. They were both terrible influences on each other.

Jongdae felt his life become uprooted once again. He bid goodbye to Mai and the rest of the servants, thanking them for everything. Jongdae and Mai had developed a close relationship, and the ruddy woman kissed his cheeks before packing him off with lots of snacks for the trip.

Zitao was the last of the house to see them off, surprising teary. Jongdae only laughed at his face, before tenderly giving him a hug.

“I’m going to miss you brat.” His voice was muffled in the boy’s hair.  “Be good okay? When I come back, you better have finished the Analects.”

Zitao kicked his shin. “Like you could ever.”

Jongdae laughed, and then they set off for the capital. The entourage consisted of him and Wang Xian, the two attendants from when they had met, and five other guards and servants. They traveled by horseback, stopping at the more high-end inns for the evening. Jongdae’s equestrianism had grown considerably since he had first come into China with Sieon, so he was granted his own horse.

Jongdae also had improved enough to strike a full conversation in Chinese without too many gaps littering his understanding. 

“Why are you taking me along with you?” he asked Wang Xian one night.

He shrugged. “To sing, of course.” 

Jongdae pursed his lips. “Really? That’s it?”

“One of the reasons we are headed to the capital is because the Emperor’s birthday celebrations are coming up,” Wang Xian told him. “And I’ve heard you practice. I want to show off your voice in front of the court.”

Jongdae flushed. “Wow,” he said blandly. 

“And contrary to what Zitao says,” Wang Xian added amusedly, “I will not let you become castrated.”

Jongdae relaxed with that.

They arrived at the capital in two weeks.

Jongdae couldn’t remember much from that night, dead on his feet as the group passed through what was likely to be a bustling city in the day.

Without much fanfare, they entered the imperial grounds. Wang Xian bid them goodbye as he headed toward the upper wings for a meeting with the fellow governors, while the palace servants escorted Jongdae and the others to their quarters. Jongdae, too exhausted to do much but fall straight into the blankets, moved to do so, but Shen — one of the guards —  pulled him away from where he had curled in like a potato.

“Come drink with us,” he commanded.

And after way too many cups of wine, no time at all to adjust to the sudden alcohol intake, he groaned his way back to the shared room. Head spinning and feeling nauseous, Jongdae tossed and turned. He couldn’t get used to his new bedding, and sleep would not come to him in his drunken state. And it was freakishly hot.

Lightly padding out to the gardens he had spotted his way in, Jongdae found himself a bench and plopped down. The gentle breeze was finally able to cool him down slightly, and he found he could relax with the soft-smelling flowers permeating the air. 

It was a perfect moment he wanted to capture.

Jongdae pulled out his notebook. Ideas for lyrics always came at the most random moment, and he would not miss a good opportunity to write some down in the heat of a moment.

Humming to a melodic progression, he wrote out a phrase, the sight of Korean startling him for a second. To trip himself up even more, Jongdae threw in an English word too.

The result was rubbish. He lost his momentum, silently laughing at the mess he had created. Jongdae scribbled it out. 

Trying to restore concentration became useless as the drone of the crickets got seemingly louder. He settled to resume humming, predictably reverting to singing. Soft enough to not wake anyone, Jongdae expelled his pent up frustrations into the air. 

“It’s so loud,” he chanted, practically rapping. “Wow, it’s so hot too. Jesus-fucking-Christ, I’m going to die.”

“Who’s fucking who?” A voice inquired, and Jongdae jumped five feet into the air. He was sure that it was God himself, coming down to slap Jongdae for taking the Lord’s name in vain.

“Oh my fucking god.” He turned around, looking up at a man in a white bedsheet peering down at him. Jongdae exhaled. “You scared the hell out of me!” He squinted at the man’s attire. “What are you out here looking like a fucking ghost?”

Ghost man ticked off his fingers. “That’s the third time you’ve said ‘fuck.’ Haven’t you heard that cursing is a sin?”

Jongdae snorted. “Who said that? Confucius?”

Ghost man looked at him apathetically.  “No not Confucius. I said that.” He scratched his head. “Although maybe Confucius did too.”

“Well fuck man.” Jongdae doubled over laughing. “You said it twice too.” It was only then when he realized why his brain was tingling. “Hey, Korean! You’re speaking in Korean!”

Ghost man looked at him unimpressed. “Wow, couldn’t tell. I wonder if you thought you were speaking Chinese too.”

“Shut up,” Jongdae wheezed. “Why are you wearing a bedsheet?"

The man looked down at his clothes. No, hanfu. Mai had taught him the distinction well.

 “These aren’t bedsheets,” he sniffed. “What kind of ghosts are you seeing over there anyway?”

“Ones in bedsheets,” Jongdae chortled. The heat was getting to him again, and he needed to rein in his impulsivity before he said something stupid. “Can you take my shirt off?”

“What?!”

“Lookie here Ghost man,” Jongdae whined. “I’m really hot right now. Like, burn through my skin hot.” He took the man’s hand to press it against his face. “Hot, hot.”

Ghost man blushed, yanking his hand away from him. “Are you drunk?” Jongdae pouted.

“No shit genius!” He tried pulling his hand again. “Gimme gimme!”

He was met with a firm no.

“Pretty please? I’ll sing you a song!” Jongdae announced. “Then you’ll give me your hand and take off my shirt okay?”

Ghost man didn’t respond, but he launched himself into the song anyway. It was a lovely Chinese ballad he had picked up during his time with the Wang household, and he thought that it would appeal to Ghost man better. Even in his drunken self, Jongdae made sure to hit his notes effortlessly. He lost himself in the melody, forgetting for a moment where he was and the sole audience member. When he finished with a flourish to let the final note reverberate in the air, Jongdae opened his eyes.

“Did you like it?” he purred.

Ghost man stared back with his mouth slightly open, eyes suddenly filled with something sparkly. “Wow.”

“Hand!” he shrieked eagerly. Ghost man finally acquiesced, and Jongdae squeaked with happiness. “Now the shirt!”

He was met with a firm poke to the head. “Nope. I never promised you, did I?”

“That’s not fair. I sang you a song!” Jongdae protested indignantly.

“And it was beautiful.” Ghost man smiled warmly. A prominent dimple appeared on his face.

“Ooh,” Jongdae cooed unexpectedly. He stuck his finger into it, making it deeper. Ghost man froze with the sudden contact. Jongdae himself felt some small clarity return, cocking his head to look at the man’s face fully in the moonlight.

“Wow you are super pretty!” he exclaimed. Humming to himself, Jongdae fumbled for his notebook, perching it on his legs as Ghost man watched on curiously. He pressed it open, finding a new page and withdrawing the pencil. “Don’t move Ghost man.”

His subject opened his mouth to object, but Jongdae shushed him as he waved his pencil around. He finished the sketch in record time, hand wobbling slightly due to inebriation, but the end result managed to capture the essence of the man in the bedsheets.

“Tada!” He showed off the drawing proudly. Ghost man took the notebook gingerly, studying the drawing. Jongdae had captured him with thin strokes of graphite, smudging shadows and light together into a light sketch that looked remarkably like the man. Even if he had nearly punctured a hole in the paper to emphasize the dimple.

“Here,” Jongdae invaded Ghost man’s space by leaning in too close, reaching uncomfortably around to sign his name, a messy scribble in Korean. “Here,” he repeated. “This is my name. Jongdae,” he pronounced it cutely.

“Jongdae,” he exhaled. “You have no sense of personal boundaries.”

Jongdae giggled. “What’s your name?”

Ghost man hesitated, looking very reluctant to give it away. Jongdae whined and pouted, tugging his hand to gesture at the drawing. “I need to know your name so that I can write it down here,” he insisted, pointed toward the set of empty space next to the sketch. “I always label my portraits,” he added, tacking on an attempt at puppy eyes.

Ghost man groaned. “It’s Yixing,” he said exasperatedly. He repeated to himself in Chinese, muttering under his breath as if he had committed a crime by telling Jongdae. 

“Eeeh…” Jongdae struggled to write it out phonetically, his drunken mind further clouding his brain. “Sing….. shing….. xing?”

Yixing covered Jongdae’s hand with the pencil, helping him write it out. Well, since Hangul wouldn’t be invented for another couple hundred years, Yixing helped him write it in Chinese, teaching him the proper intonation. 

“Ah, Yixing!” The man formerly known as Ghost man jumped, looking at Jongdae cautiously. As if testing to see his recognition, Jongdae would later realize belatedly. But the drunk, dumb, inebriated Jongdae had no idea, so he just smiled brightly up at him, patting the man on the cheeks. “I like your name, Yixing.”

Yixing blushed. Totes cute.

Jongdae felt resistance leaving his body, falling into Yixing’s lap as he collapsed backward. Yixing automatically raised his arms to steady him.

Jongdae tilted his head up. Yixing stared back down at him, pure bafflement dancing across his features. “You’re too hard,” Jongdae complained. Yixing’s eyes widened at the innuendo, a reaction in which Jongdae pounced at. “Not like that you perv,” he giggled, smiling as his eyes crinkled at the corners. “Strong muscles.”

The man seemed paralyzed above him. Yixing opened his mouth then promptly closed it, gaping like fish. “You’re too soft,” he tried to counter, poking Jongdae. “And skinny.”

Jongdae whined. Sleep finally tugged at his eyelids, just when he had encountered something nice to look at. As he struggled to stay awake, Yixing slowly brought his finger down, tracing his fluttering eyelashes. 

Sunlight streamed through the shutters, blinding him. Jongdae groaned, feeling like Zeus when Hephaestus split his head open. 

But instead of being greeted by a strong, powerful goddess, Jongdae was met with a massive hangover. Athena must have cursed him for drinking so much last night. If it was possible for a stupid Time-Turner to send him back into time, one decidedly not from the wizarding world of good ol’ Potter, who was to say the Greeks weren’t fibbing?

“Am I still drunk?” Jongdae voiced his thoughts aloud. He was saved from his growing confusion when the sliding doors opened.

“Hello?” A girl his age head poked her head in. “You Jongdae?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” When the girl shook her head and looked at him quizzically, he realized he spoke in the wrong language. “Sorry, yes. I’m Jongdae,” he said to her apologetically in Chinese.

She brightened. “Great! Nice to meet you Jongdae.” Entering the room, she wrinkled her nose at Jongdae’s rumpled state. “I’m supposed to take you to meet the others, but I think I’ll let you change first.”

It took Jongdae a little while to comprehend what she saying. The girl waited for him patiently, surprisingly accommodating for his disordered mind to sort itself out. Jongdae rubbed his eyes, finally understanding what she was talking about.

Wang Xian had told him last night to follow a certain Yueru the following morning. She would introduce him to the troupe of performers rehearsing for the Emperor’s birthday banquet, a group that Jongdae would join as a singer. He grimaced at the thought of socializing. But it wasn’t her fault that Jongdae made stupid decisions last night. 

“Yueru?” The girl nodded. She was really pretty now that Jongdae focused properly on her, a rosy complexion framed with delicate features and a head full of shiny half-up locks. He averted his eyes before she caught him checking her out.

Jongdae stood up, joints popping as he stretched. His head swayed even worse, and after a few seconds of teetering unsteadily on his feet, Jongdae reached for a new set of clothes. Yueru excused herself to wait outside while he changed.

She gave him the rundown as they strolled through the palace, explaining that the Emperor’s birthday was coming up in less than a week, and that the whole capital and court would be honoring him with a massive banquet. Due to Wang Xian’s insistence, the organizers had managed to squeeze a slot in for Jongdae to sing.

Jongdae didn’t know whether he should gag or cry.

He spent the rest of the week working himself up with a minor panic, a little scared anticipating the crowd and brevity actually singing for the imperial family. Never mind the fact that he loved to perform and singing was the last constant thing left in his life; Jongdae felt scared shitless to think of possibly forgetting lyrics or even fudging the pronunciation of the song he was going to sing. 

Yueru and the others helped him out immensely, for which Jongdae would be eternally grateful for. Despite her being busy with her own solo dance routine, Yueru would sit down with him to point out any irregularities in his pronunciation whenever he practiced in front of her. Jongdae tried to return the favor, monitoring her choreography and leaving remarks to help her gauge her positioning. 

The whole group of performers got a lot closer that week, spending long hours together fretting over their performances and gorging themselves with food snuck out in preparation for the feasts. Jongdae had the time of his life discovering the new flavors of the foreign cuisine, sampling so many different snacks that he would wake up in the mornings with a full stomach.

“How is your waist that tiny?” Yueru complained, elbowing him with her pointy elbows. “You eat like a pig.”

Jongdae grunted. “That name’s been taken,” he informed her, smiling at the thought of Zitao and his obnoxious face. Yueru snorted.

It was the morning of the Emperor’s birthday in no time. Jongdae woke up with practiced ease, his everyday habits coupled with grogginess preventing him from freaking out. The day passed by in a blur, a flurry of last-minute preparations by the servants. The eunuchs also stormed around, working to prepare the impending logistical mess of the imperial harem and court in one place.

Jongdae had blanched when he had seen them two nights ago, dismissing Yueru’s questioning look by attempting to school his face into nonchalance. But somebody must have told her, because the next time they ran into a eunuch, Yueru’s face had split into a grin, sending him an evil look and making a snipping motion. Jongdae cursed Wang Xian.

Around noon, they were sent to change into their appropriate costumes. Jongdae donned a long silk shirt that covered his pants underneath, a matching white ensemble that was paired with a belt and a brocaded hanfu that fished around his ankles. Before he could leave, a servant clutching a small pot pushed him down, lining his eyes carefully.

The celebration had already begun by then, and Jongdae waited with the rest of the performers as they watched the different acts exit with trepidation. 

Yueru had bounded over to him, and they sat next to each other to wait for their respective performances. “Hey, we’re yin and yang!”

She was stunning in a black getup, skirts swaying to her every movement as they clung tightly to her form. Yueru showed her sleeves off to Jongdae, swatting the translucent material on his face in a fake bid to cool him down.

When Jongdae tried to fling his own sleeves at her, she darted out of reach. “You’re going to ruin my makeup,” she whined.

“You look like a ghost,” Jongdae pointed out. “Your face is going to be a desert with that much powder.” He felt a sudden sense of déjà vu.

“Shut it,” Yueru said annoyed. “At least I don’t look like a panda.”

“You have chili peppers on your forehead.”

Yueru actually punched him. “They’re plum blossoms!”

“Huh,” Jongdae pretended to think. “Okay tomato cheeks.”

Unable to make a comeback, Yueru sneered. She had to leave a couple minutes later, so Jongdae squeezed her hand reassuringly. Yueru adjusted her bodice, smiling down at him as she stood up. “You can eat my [gap] Jongdae.” 

She cackled at his confused expression.

He was unable to watch her performance, but Jongdae knew she would smash it out of the park. Yueru treated dancing like he treated singing: a way to express your soul and convey it to an audience through a tangible conduit. They both poured so much effort and love into their art forms, and that was how Jongdae learned how to create a strong stage presence. Yueru was good enough that only a solo would do her justice, and Jongdae was glad that his friend would shine so brightly on stage.

He could hear the thunderous applause from here when the sound of the drums faded.

Jongdae slowly ascended the steps through the open gates. The banquet had been built into the large, open square in front of the steps of the central palace — the residence of the Emperor. The noise level was low as Jongdae crept through the gates, most of the court chattering amongst themselves with the interlude between the performances.

The whole place was decorated festively, streamers hanging parallel down the square. Beautifully colored lanterns and flowers were abundant, and Jongdae could smell the wafting of all the delicious food placed on tables.

A makeshift stage had been erected in the center, parting the sea of tables and seats. Bolts of silk were unfurled, hanging on pillars surrounding the upraised platform. They billowed gently in the early evening air.

The crowd quieted as Jongdae climbed onto the stage. He didn’t look up at the Emperor’s table, choosing to close his eyes instead. 

He jumped headfirst into the song, trusting instinct and muscle memory. 

Jongdae hadn’t known what kind of song choice would be the best fit in this situation. He had no allegiance nor impression of this Emperor, no sense of reverence. A historical figure was all that he really was for Jongdae.

But music was universal. He hoped he could make the man feel something.

In order to do that though, he needed to pull emotion from a source. He wasn’t feeling particularly sad or anxious, so Jongdae mentally scrolled through his cache of the most heartbreaking movie moments he had collected for this specific reason.

He imagined he was Rose, watching the ocean take away Jack forever. As Anakin, falling away from the light as he choked Padmé. Forrest losing Jenny just as they finally became a family.

Jongdae began to belt as sorrow coursed through his mind. His voice echoed across the square, powerfully ringing in everyone’s ears. If anyone had been dozing at this point, they were now fully awake, sleep fried right out of their minds as Jongdae pulled them into his song.

If anyone was wondering why he was trying to make everyone cry at this excessive birthday party, Jongdae wished to convey that it was okay to let those tears fall. To stop building up the dam and let everything out before it pressurized toxically. It was important to acknowledge this in the little moments of time, and to Jongdae, birthdays were also the remembrance of how strong a person was. It was the physical sign that they were able to conquer their demons year after year, growing as they lived to tell the tale.

As the song climbed down from its climax, Jongdae crooned softly. He wanted to imbue hope into the last few notes, singing sweetly to coax it out of his listeners. 

When Jongdae finally opened his eyes, he looked straight up. The court was still stunned into silence, but they unfroze into a roaring crescendo of applause. 

But Jongdae couldn’t believe his eyes.

At the center of the elaborate banquet table set above him, sat the imperial family. But the figure who was clearly the Emperor, resplendent in his golden robes and a shining headpiece, stared down at him. 

Jongdae’s earlier déjà vu punched him in the face. He vowed to never drink again as memories of that sticky night floated into existence.

It was Ghost man. 

Jongdae felt embarrassment rise in him for the hundredth time again. He was going to scream.

After dropping into a low bow to avoid looking at the Emperor’s face, Jongdae dashed away as politely as possible, running away like he had committed a crime. Which in a way he did.

He didn’t know how many cultural taboos he had broken, but karma was going to bite him in the ass for drunk-flirting with a married man.

“Eww,” Jongdae groaned. He anxiously stuffed his face with food at the small party the servants had thrown, cringing as he relived the moment again. People kept coming up to him, praising his performance; small talk in which he had escaped by emphasizing his full cheeks.

He wanted to find Yueru, accost her so that he could scream out his frustrations, but Jongdae stopped himself from doing so. She was surrounded by a circle of admirers, talking animatedly about her performance with mesmerized eyes trained on her. He didn’t want Yueru to be detracted from her successes tonight. 

Which left Jongdae alone with his thoughts. 

“Kill me now,” he muttered under his breath, alarming nearby partygoers. 

There was a tap on his shoulder.

“Excuse me?” A eunuch stood there, hand poised from where it had made contact with Jongdae. “Can you come with me?”

Jongdae felt his heart drop to his stomach. “Is anything wrong?” he stuttered, unable to meet the eunuch’s eyes. 

To his surprise, the eunuch smiled at him warmly. 

“Not at all. Quite the opposite.” He motioned for Jongdae to follow him. “In fact, I must extend my awe for your performance. I don’t believe I have ever heard anyone sing as you do.” The man regarded Jongdae with reverence.

Jongdae ducked his head, shy at the praise. “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “I hoped you felt comforted by it.”

They weaved through the lower levels of the palace, passing through areas where the festivities were still in full swing as well as places where clean-up had begun. The eunuch, Yao, had only told him that an upper-level figure he served had wished to see him. 

Upper-level most certainly meant royal. 

Their surroundings reflected that as they climbed up more steps. Jongdae marveled at the beautiful architecture, sweeping designs of dragon motifs on the upturned gabled roofs. It was a pity that he couldn’t see the colors this late at night. They also passed through an incredible garden, with so much more splendor than the one that terrible, drunken night.

It was designed to flow like a landscape, artfully placed ponds swimming with fish and rock ledges. Trees were rooted alongside the terraces as well, and holy shit — was that an island in the middle of the lake?

Jongdae wanted to live here.

Yao, unfortunately, took another path that led away from the garden. Stuck on that garden, Jongdae failed to notice that they had entered a residence until Yao opened a screen door. 

He carefully took a step in, the eunuch closing the door after him. The wooden paneling on the floor was smooth and slippery, and Jongdae practically glided. They stopped in front of another door, guarded this time by several maids and eunuchs.

“Your Grace,” Yao announced. “I have brought him here.”

A lilting voice responded. “Send him in.”

Jongdae ran outside, away from the residence. He careened off the path and into a corner, curling into himself as he pressed his palms into his eyes.

“This is the worst nightmare I’ve ever had,” Jongdae muttered, half-heartedly voicing his old thoughts. “The fuck did I do to end up here?”

“You’re always cursing when I find you,” a voice accused, and Jongdae struggled to see through the film of tears in his eyes. “Oh shit, are you crying?”

Jongdae’s heart dropped when he finally made out the face.

“Oh, it’s you. Go away.”

Yixing—no the Emperor, wasn’t too affronted. He squatted down to Jongdae’s level. “Who made you cry?”

One of your fucking wives. Jongdae wanted to say. He didn’t though, choosing to ignore the Emperor instead.

The man chose to poke Jongdae instead. “You seemed to be awfully touchy when we last met. What happened to bowling me over?”

Jongdae seethed, sadness momentarily forgotten. “That’s before I found out that you were the fucking emperor,” he pointed a finger at him accusingly. Jongdae suddenly flinched, remembering his place.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he bowed his head. “Please don’t take those words to heart, I had a lapse of judgment.”

The Emperor looked at him sadly, before schooling his expression. “If you’re so sorry,” he said coolly, “tell me why you’re crying.”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty, I cannot.”

The Emperor frowned. Jongdae almost changed his mind, before he remembered why he couldn’t tell him.

“I command you, Jongdae.” 

Jongdae spluttered. Was he joking?

“I’m not joking,” the Emperor said, reading his mind. He shot Jongdae a cocky smile. “Tell me.”

“I’m a foreigner—” Jongdae began, but he cut him off.

“In my land.”

Jongdae pulled his hair. “You might have to punish me,” he said abruptly.

The Emperor tilted his head. “Why?”

“Please,” Jongdae begged. He wanted to cry again. “You’re better off not knowing.”

The Emperor’s face softened. He gently took a hold of one of Jongdae’s hands. 

“I give you my word, Jongdae. I won’t let anyone punish you, and whatever words will be kept in confidence.”

Jongdae exhaled. It would be good to get it off his chest, let somebody know. But that somebody shouldn’t be that person’s….significant other.

“One of your wives. She called me into her quarters.” His face burned.

The Emperor swore. “Who?” he asked murderously, lifting Jongdae’s tearstained face. “Did she touch you?”

Jongdae shook his head. “No, no.” He moved away from the Emperor’s grasp. “I ran out before she tried anything.”

“Who was it, Jongdae?” he questioned again, gentler. When Jongdae refused to reply, the Emperor finally looked around his surroundings. He must have realized where the path led from, because the anger was back in place. “Consort Li.”

Jongdae wiped his eyes. “If she holds the title of Consort, that means she’s pretty high up, right?”

Realizing belatedly and surprised that Jongdae had studied the harem hierarchy, the Emperor froze. 

“I can’t punish her without dragging you in as well. And her family is influential in the higher districts in the capital.” 

“Yeah well, what’s new,” Jongdae grumbled under his breath. He watched the Emperor turn red.

“How dare she,” he seethed. “How dare she lay a hand on you!”

“Why aren’t you mad at me?” Jongdae voiced his thoughts. “Shouldn’t you be punishing me?”

The emperor looked at him confusedly. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not a eunuch,” Jongdae told him obviously. “And it’s my word against hers.” He didn’t know why he pointed that out.

The Emperor didn’t even bat an eye. “So? She had no right to impose her power like that. All these women are getting out of control.”

“Hey wait—”

“The amount of money that is drained from the treasury to support their lavish lifestyles is getting ridiculous. This is how they pay me back for feeding, clothing, and housing them—”

“They’re your wives,” Jongdae interjected. “Regardless of your economic woes — and as emperor, you should establish better control then— this is your family you’re talking about.”

The Emperor’s face indicated that that was a foreign concept. “Family? We’ve just been talking about somebody who tried to assault you! You don—”

“Yixing,” Jongdae got his attention with that. He heaved a deep breath. “You’re right, you can’t condone what she did.”

“Then what?”

“But this place is so fucking toxic, have you ever thought of that? You have your consorts fight daily, tearing at each other for your affection. Have you ever considered how cutthroat all of this is? All of them are your wives, but you’ll never show enough interest that would match theirs, and they can’t even find comfort elsewhere, because they belong to you.”

The Emperor was silent.

“I hate that Consort Li was desperate enough to resort to those measures.” Jongdae tucked his head into his knees, the fight dying out. “And that’s why I can’t hate her for what she did.” He felt the Emperor’s eyes on him. “It still doesn’t mean what she did was right though,” Jongdae added.

The air was frigid.

“Where you’re from,” the Emperor smiled sadly, “it must be a lot more progressive.” He sat down on the ground, uncaring of dirtying his robe. “But there is only so much I can do as emperor, bound by tradition.” He side-eyed Jongdae. “You’re one hell of a character.”

And suddenly the tense moment was broken. Jongdae hid a smile.

“I’ll take your words into consideration. Even the fact that this is somehow my fault,” the Emperor mused. “But you must know that there are a shit ton of them.”

“Wives,” Jongdae corrected. “I think you should show some respect toward your wives whose whole life has to revolve around you.”

The Emperor winked. “Are you jealous?”

“You’re kidding,” Jongdae deadpanned. 

He laughed, and the sound lifted Jongdae’s spirits. “All joking aside, you have to let me know,” he implored.

“What?” 

“If she does anything as remote as bothering you again.” 

Oh. 

“Okay.” 

The Emperor bumped his shoulder. “I don’t like seeing you cry.”

Even though the memory of the consort was still burning in this mind, Jongdae couldn’t stop the tingling sensation from his touch. It traveled across his back and burned down his spine, stopping at his stomach where it generated waves that roiled anxiously. 

If the man next to him noticed Jongdae flustering, he didn’t show it. In fact, the Emperor kept his eyes closed, relishing the silence. His features were ethereal in the moonlight, glowing skin that was unblemished. Jongdae tried to crane closer. Did this guy have any pores?

The Emperor’s eyes flew open. Jongdae flung his head back, almost dislocating his neck. 

“Like what you see?” he grinned, showing off his dimple.

Jongdae almost whimpered. He couldn’t form an articulate response, and his rolling gut became a tsunami. “Your Majesty—”

“Don’t call me that,” the Emperor whispered. His gaze turned dark, alluring. “Not a lot of people know my real name.” This time, he got closer. “But somebody here forced it out of me.”

Jongdae gulped. “Emperor….?” he tried, voice wavering. Memories of that night still numbed him with embarrassment.

But the Emperor was not deterred. “No, Jongdae,” he breathed. His face was inches away now. “Call me by my name.”

“YIXING!” Jongdae smacked the Emperor’s face in his haste, pushing the other man away. Yixing pulled back, disoriented. There was a pink hand-shaped mark on his face.

Jongdae’s mouth fell open. He was going to get his ass handed to him.

Much to his surprise, (and relief), Yixing only laughed.

“How would I hand your ass to you? Isn’t it glued to your body?” He shook his head good-naturedly. “Your language is strange.”

Jongdae was mortified. Not only had he voiced his thoughts aloud, which were in Korean, he seemed to have forgotten that the Emperor could speak it perfectly too. 

Jongdae’s new development of a lingual identity crisis did not help the host of problems already building in his life.

He could no longer bear to look at the smack mark, so he flipped Yixing’s hair to cover his face. The desired effect was impossible to achieve; the long hair got caught on the silver headpiece on his crown, raining onto his forehead in chunks. Yixing yelped.

“Sorry,” was Jongdae’s response, but he made no move to fix the mess. 

Yixing poked his head out of the curtain of hair. “What’d you do that for?”

Jongdae tried to maintain a stoic expression. “Just felt like it,” he lied, shrugging. 

Yixing attempted a large hair flip, ducking his head back. It worked, and the hair managed to return back to its original half-up half-down state. He blew at some flyway strands. “You know,”  Yixing began, “if I wasn’t so intent on cheering you up, I would hand your ass back to you.”

Jongdae looked at him wide-eyed. He burst open like a clam, laughing uproariously. Clutching his stomach, Jongdae couldn’t believe he had been so flustered earlier. 

“He’s twenty-six?!”

Yueru raised her eyebrows. “You literally sang for his birthday.”

When the Emperor was nine, Jongdae was in diapers. 

But that wasn’t really right. If he wanted to be really specific, Jongdae was a speck of matter that would eventually come hither into biological cells, approximately a thousand years later. When the Emperor was nine.

“Hmm,” was Jongdae’s noncommittal reply. They ate peaches together under the overhang of a willow tree. It was part of another fabulous garden, this one in the mid-levels of the palace. Jongdae longed to go and show Yueru the one he saw briefly the night of the Emperor’s birthday, but it was apparently the imperial garden. 

Aka off-limits.

Unless Jongdae had a reason to be there or was invited personally by an upper-level figure, that world was barred to him. Jongdae nursed the rejection by stuffing another peach in his mouth. 

“Eww,” Yueru frowned, pinching his side. Shirking her duties to tutor Jongdae, Yueru flopped down completely, laying an arm across her eyes. 

Now that the big banquet was over, things were beginning to return to normalcy. Wang Xian had claimed that he would stay a few more days, but those days began to merge into weeks. The asshole hadn’t bothered to let Jongdae know what he should do with all this time. 

Yueru did in fact work in the palace as a full-time entertainer, employed with the other performers for events like the banquet. Jongdae didn’t know where he fit in amongst the troupe, but he settled in with them nonetheless.

People came up to him daily to commend his singing, random strangers popping out to give small gifts to him. Jongdae didn’t know what to do with all the attention. Yueru claimed he was starting to build a massive fanbase. He pretended he didn’t understand what she said.

“Look at all your fans,” she cooed. Jongdae craned his neck, spotting a cluster of maids giggling. Crowds had started to gather whenever Jongdae practiced, becoming concerts that wouldn’t disperse for hours. He was grateful for their support; singing continuously helped keep his mind off of a certain dimple.

But these stalkers were kind of annoying. 

“It’s always those three,” Jongdae groaned. “Don’t they have anything better to do?”

“Yeah, I don’t get what’s so special about you either.”

Jongdae flung his fist.

All jokes aside, those three girls wouldn’t quit. The normal crowds Jongdae drew, and by extension Yueru with her dancing, gave them space and applause at a respectful distance. They didn’t try to follow him everywhere, encroach on his quarters, or even bother his friends with scathing glances.

“I think one of them tried to poison me yesterday,” Yueru remarked. “I swear I found a rock in my soup.”

“W—what?!”

“They’re jealous,” Yueru said conspiratorially. “They think I’m their competition or something.”

“For who?”

“The Emperor.” She kicked him. “No, you dummy!” They watched the trio surreptitiously. “Wanna try something?”

“Absolutely not!” Jongdae shrieked. Yueru was prone to stupid decisions.

“C’mon man,” she whined in English. The language exchange had gone both ways.

Jongdae avoided answering by munching on another peach slice. They had been a gift by Yao, who had found Jongdae the day after the emperor’s birthday to apologize for his lady’s actions.

“If Her Grace’s intent was known to me from the get-go, I wouldn’t have brought you to her,” he had told Jongdae. They had sat together in the shade of a pavilion, the basket of fruit between them. “You have every right to refuse, and I know that no words will undo her wrongs, but I hope you can accept this as an apology from me for orchestrating part of it.”

Ever the graceful boy, Jongdae thanked him. They shared a peach together, and Yao wisely steered the conversation away from the consort.

“After you ran out, I tried to follow you immediately. I was hoping I would know what to say when I found you, but I found someone else already doing it for me.” Yao winked at him. “The Emperor has quite the interest in you.”

Jongdae blushed immediately, “It’s not interest,” Jongdae stuttered, “Yix— no, His Majesty just…does not like to see people cry,” he finished lamely. 

Yao snorted. “On the contrary, I think he does.”

“What?”

“Nah, son. I won’t bore you.” Yao slapped him on the shoulder. “Anyway, if the Emperor has chosen to be your protector, I don’t think I’ll have to worry too much.”

Protector?

“Is it unusual?” Jongdae asked hesitantly. “For the Emperor to act this way?”

Yao regarded him curiously. “Depends on how you define ‘unusual.’”

“Should I discourage him?” Jongdae looked away. If he was being honest with himself, he did like the attention. But if it would only attract more trouble…

The eunuch gave him an incredulous look. “Have you been listening to what I was saying?” he demanded. “If you catch the Emperor’s eye, you have protection!”

“Nothing’s free in life without a catch,” Jongdae mumbled in Korean.

“What does that mean?”

“How do I know His Majesty doesn’t have—,” Jongdae struggled with the vocabulary, “ulterior moves?”

Yao smiled at him sympathetically. “I guess that’s for you to find out.”

Yueru kicked him again, jolting him from his reverie. “Earth to Jongdae!”

He swatted her away. “What, what!”

Yueru pointed across the pond where the girls had sequestered. “Do something about them!”

Jongdae didn’t know the proper method to banish stalkers, but he gave them a cheery wave before giving what he hoped was the politer version of the finger.

“What are you doing?” Yueru groaned. “That’s only going to encourage them. You don’t acknowledge their presence!” 

In hindsight, that was probably true. Jongdae remembered his mom’s obsession with the late-night crime shows. Although these girls didn’t really amount to serial killers.

The stalkers gasped in delight. They giggled amongst themselves again, cooing.

Jongdae grimaced.

Yueru stood up, brushing off her skirts.

“Well I’m outta here,” she told him, patting his head. Jongdae tried to duck out of her reach. 

“And leave me alone with them?” he whined, constantly maintaining a second line of sight on the girls to keep them from trying anything stupid. It was a necessary habit; they had caught Jongdae off-guard a countless amount.

“I told the cooks I would help out tonight,” Yueru said glumly. “Me and my stupid mouth.”

“Don’t eat everything!” Jongdae called out as she turned to walk out of the gardens. Yueru gave him a finger over the shoulder, something she had definitely learned from him.

The stalkers dispersed shortly after, likely forced alongside Yueru to help prepare for tonight’s dinner. 

Soon Jongdae was alone in the quiet expanse of the garden, basking in the evening light. He toyed with the empty bowl, drawing circles in the grass.

A sudden shadow loomed in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” Jongdae yelped alarmedly. 

Lo and behold, Yixing had materialized and sat down on the ground beside him. He looked stunning in what Jongdae supposed was a casual look, shiny blue robes accented with silver embroidery. His hair was pinned up completely n his headpiece, a recent style change to probably to prevent another flippity incident.

Which spoke volumes on exactly how much Yixing popped in and out of his life.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Jongdae prodded him. “Stop bothering me, you’re like an annoying puppy.”

Yixing always approached him alone, void of the enormous retinue that Jongdae had associated with rulers in the dramas. It made him seem ordinary, completely unbefitting of an austere emperor.

“And you are doing exactly what to have my unwarranted visit considered as ‘bothering’? I don’t see you doing anything better than I am,” Yixing scowled at him.

“You said ‘unwarranted,’ not me,” Jongdae pointed out. He gestured to the air emptily. “Aren’t you supposed to be running the country?”

Yixing frowned. “No, why?”

Jongdae's eyebrows shot up. 

“You’re the Emperor,” Jongdae minced his words carefully. “Was that not part of your job description?”

He tossed his head back lazily, and Jongdae’s annoyance was momentarily ceased as he gulped at the pale throat bobbing. “My officials handle that for me.”

He soured immediately. What? 

In hindsight, this explained a lot of things. How readily available the Emperor seemed to be, finding ways to corner Jongdae in his everyday life. But if he was so hands-off with governance, did he even know about the situation in Goryeo?

“You’re telling me, as emperor, you don’t care about the wellbeing of your people? Have you ever run a census on your people? You just blindly place trust in your officials?”

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” Yixing began mild-mannerly. “I’ve known those people my whole life.”

Jongdae bristled. “That’s exactly how corruption starts!”

But Yixing would not be antagonized. “I think that’s pushing things,” he said calmly.

“Did you know I was kidnapped from Goryeo? People up in power over there are making dumb choices as usual, uncaring how it affects the common people,” Jongdae fired off, knowing he was simplifying the problem. But he didn’t care. “Of course it’s our country that has to get their shit together, but your government is not doing much to help. As long as you all get your dues, it doesn’t matter how it’s done does it?” Jongdae felt tears spark in his eyes, homesickness for a place that wasn’t really home. All the anger rushed out of him, and he deflated into himself.

Yixing watched him quietly, and when he deemed Jongdae calm, he reached out to pull him into his arms. Jongdae fell without a fight, sobbing quietly. 

It was so fucking unfair. He missed his family and friends. Instead of being normal back home, Jongdae was stuck in time, dealing with politics and history that made no sense to him.

“You’re so strong, Jongdae,” Yixing whispered in Korean, and he cried harder. “You continue to amaze me, and I learn something new every time. Maybe I should make you in charge,” he teased.

Jongdae turned his head into his chest, pinching him for saying that. As his sniffles subsided, Yixing patted his back rhythmically. 

“I’ll think about what you said today,” he told him softly. “Thank you for letting me know.”

Yixing stole him away for a trip outside the palace a few days later.

“Let’s go,” he whispered, coyly taking his hand. Jongdae could only nod.

It had been his idea really, to explore the city with Yixing. He wanted the Emperor to meet the real people. But it backfired because Yixing clearly knew more about the capital than he did, smoothly taking over his plan.

Yixing confidently blended in with the crowd, pulling along a shy Jongdae. It was nighttime, and nobody paid much attention to the two as he pointed out the special landmarks and history of the capital. 

Jongdae listened to every word attentively. The lanterns barely illuminated the streets, but Yixing’s face was bright, a halo in the darkness. It made his heart race, while his mind began to conjure up senseless phrases.

When I see you, who is like an innocent child

I start to laugh too for no reason

I’m going crazy, I wanna be greedy

Even holding you and telling you I love you

“Hey,” Yixing said suddenly, brushing Jongdae’s hair behind his ears. “What are you thinking about?”

Jongdae blushed, tugging at their conjoined hands. Yixing still hadn’t let go. “Nothing much,” he lied, shrugging. 

He leaned in close, mouth hovering close. If Jongdae moved his head just imperceptibly, their lips would meet. “Is it dirty?” he asked seductively.

“Nope!” Jongdae pushed him away. Yixing laughed, and at that moment, Jongdae fell completely.

Jongdae got to know all the servants and staff in the imperial palace, making quick friends with his affability. He greeted everyone by name daily, creating bright smiles on their faces with his singing and boisterous laughter.

“At this rate, you’ll have the whole palace falling in love with you,” Yao had teased. He still checked up on Jongdae occasionally, bringing him more gifts. Jongdae blushed.

“That’s not true!” 

“It sure is!” Yueru hollered from the hallway. “Everybody coos over you.”

Even Wang Xian had deigned to give him a visit, asking how he was settling in too many weeks late.

He took another day trip out of the palace with Yueru, sightseeing the markets and the different districts across the city. The official reason for why they were out was to pick up some fabric for performance troupe’s upcoming set, but Jongdae and Yueru diverged from that path.

They giggled at an ox taking up half the street, ambling past the canal to skip rocks across until they were chased off by a broom. Yueru also stole —ahem didn’t return a couple of coins found on the ground, which they happily spent on snacks.

When they arrived back at the palace, the place was alight with whispers.

“What’s going on?” Jongdae wondered aloud. Yueru pursed her lips as she eavesdropped on the surrounding conversations.

“The Emperor is restructuring the bureaucracy,” Yueru reported. “The assembly is reconvening as we speak. He’s vesting more control into his own hands.” 

Yueru’s face was twisted in a strange expression, but Jongdae didn’t notice. 

His heart swelled and he smiled widely. Yixing had listened! 

But he suddenly felt a twinge of worry for Yixing. He knew that in this day and age, absolutism reigned. But those in power wouldn’t take so lightly to have their power taken away. 

And every man had the potential to be fallible in the face of so much power, even somebody as wonderful as Yixing. He never wanted to see him become corrupted.

The nervousness followed Jongdae as he bid Yueru goodnight, choosing to spend the evening fretting in the gardens, his chosen haven.

That’s how he ran into Yixing, decked out in full imperial glory of lavish gold and followed by a massive entourage. Jongdae felt cowed in by the grave faces taking up the full hallway. He met Yixing’s eyes, the normal warmth he reserved for Jongdae flickering impassively.

Shit. 

The flash of recognition was too late as his eyes traveled up to the Emperor’s face. Jongdae probably broke a dozen codes on proper conduct.

He stooped into a bow immediately, mumbling an unsteady “Your Majesty.” He tried to move out the way for them to pass, but a cold voice stopped him.

“What are you doing here, boy?” 

Jongdae lifted his head to the sound of the demand, finding it in the face of a man dressed in the red hanfu of a eunuch. But his high ranking was easily denoted, voice carrying so much authority and confidence as he placed himself right in front of Yixing.

Fuck, he probably should’ve kept his head down.

“Forgive me, sir,” Jongdae bit his lip. He tried to speak as clearly as possible. “I am still unused to the routes through the vast palace. I must have gotten lost.”

“Must have?” The eunuch sneered. He backhanded Jongdae across the face. “Don’t tell me you must have not recognized the Emperor either.”

Jongdae clenched his fists, face stinging. “Yes, sir.”

“You insolent boy.” When the eunuch raised his hand again, Yixing stepped in. 

“That’s enough, Jin,” he said quietly. Jin’s hand fell, face narrowing as he retreated back to the emperor’s side. To Jongdae, Yixing dismissed him with a nod.

He scrambled to the side as Yixing led the procession down the hall. Rage and humiliation greeted him when he was left alone, too angry to be upset at anything now. Jongdae wanted to punch someone.

He couldn’t as well go back into his quarters, where everyone would see the slap on his cheek and worry. Any of his friends, Yueru, Yao, and even Wang Xian would fret.

Jongdae knew who could comfort him but that was the last person he wanted to see. 

His mind wandered as his feet took him to the gardens. The heart wanted what it wanted.

But Yixing was waiting for him there.

Jongdae wanted to tell him to fuck off, but he knew that he could never say to him. He wanted to collapse into his arms instead, but his pride wouldn’t allow for that.

So Jongdae stood stiffly as Yixing cupped his cheek worriedly. He hoped he didn’t look as kicked to the curb as he felt.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he exhaled. “Jongdae, please say something.”

He just looked at him stonily. As Yixing’s eyes became more fervent, Jongdae couldn’t help his outburst. “I know I can’t mean much to you, but do you really have no power? 

Yixing was stunned into silence. Jongdae tensed, wondering if he had finally gone too far. He wanted to look down, but he pushed away the cowering instincts, facing the Yixing head-on. 

But Yixing gave him no response, so he turned around to go.

“Stop,” Yixing commanded, voice low. Jongdae felt a shiver down his spine, but he didn’t stop moving, traveling farther and farther away.

His hand was suddenly seized, anchoring him. Yixing turned him around with considerable strength.

“You mean everything to me,” he whispered fiercely. Jongdae’s eyes widened; that was not the answer he expected.

“You represent everything that’s good about this place,” he told him, lacing their hands together. “I find myself smiling more since you have entered my life, Jongdae. And I know I have so many faults, but I swear to you I am trying.” Yixing made eye contact. “You’ve provided me with better advice and honesty than most of the people around me have bothered my whole life.”

Jongdae stared at their conjoined hands. His traitorous heart was singing, but he stamped it down. “Then why did you let him push me around today?” he murmured sadly.

Yixing’s face crumpled. “Jin has been my…. mentor my whole life.” When Jongdae’s outraged expression appeared, he added, “He had no right today, I know that. But it’s hard for me to change that mindset where I can reprimand him.”

Jongdae didn’t give a diddly squat on his excuse. He was the emperor, likely the most powerful man on this side of the hemisphere. He had sat his ass on the throne long enough to know where his responsibilities started and ended.

“To think I was about to warn you today to not be consumed by power,” Jongdae told him scathingly. “You should instead actually try some.” He pulled his hand away and marched off.

Jongdae didn’t know what hurt him more: Yixing’s excuse to standby and watch Jin slap him around or the fact that he didn’t run after him.

“His Majesty has five children, I think. At least five.” 

Jongdae choked. “You sure he’s twenty-six?”

Wang Xian raised his eyebrow. “Yeah, why?” 

“Isn’t that, um… a lot of kids?”

“Nope,” he replied, looking at Jongdae strangely. “You know, you have the opposite reaction than most. Most question his virility because he has less than ten after this long.”

Okay. Too much information. Wang Xian laughed at his sour expression. 

They were situated in one of the many training fields in the palace, Wang Xian practicing his archery while Jongdae lounged on steps.

“Shouldn’t you be practicing your singing?” Wang Xian inquired, drawing the bow. Jongdae fixated on the arrowhead, avoiding the question as the shaft was released. It spiraled in a perfect arc, hitting the long-distance targets ahead.

Jongdae’s motivation was shriveled up, his next performance would be in front of the imperial court again for the lunar year festivities. It was a sobering thought; he had been in the capital for approximately four months. Half a year lost in time. 

He gritted his teeth to prevent negative thoughts from surfacing.

On an even brighter note, Yixing had been avoiding him after that…confession of sorts. But so was Jongdae.

“I am,” he grumbled. He drew circles in the dirt.

“Want to talk about it?”

Jongdae shook his head mutedly. Wang Xian frowned at his gloom. He gestured to a servant near to come to them.

“Give it to him,” Wang Xian commanded. She handed Jongdae a cloth package. He opened it to find his notebook, the Time-Turner also nestled within. The servant retreated and Wang Xian drew his bow again. 

“If you’re going to mope then I want you to be useful while you’re at it.” Wang Xian told him nonchalantly. He aimed and released the arrow, achieving another bullseye.  

He opened it, flipping through the pages. The Jongdae who had filled these sheets seemed a million miles away, full of immaturity and naivety. 

The pencil was just longer than his middle finger, whittled down with knives in the absence of a sharpener.

Jongdae felt a strange stirring his heart. Tears welled in his eyes, which he quickly wiped away. Wang Xian gave him space, releasing arrow after arrow.

Picking up the pencil again, Jongdae found a clear page. Aimlessly and with no purpose, he started writing again. 

“I’m going to leave to go back home after the lunar year,” Wang Xian spoke up after a while. “You’re free to choose if you want to stay or come back with me.”

Jongdae looked up confused. “But don’t I have to go wherever you go?” he asked.

“No, Jongdae. You can go anywhere you want,” Wang Xian said gently. “You’re free now.”

Freedom. He could go anywhere he wanted, leave this palace, get away from the capital. But to what avail? Even if he made his way back to Goryeo, nothing would really change. 

But life was simpler during his stay at Wang Xian’s. 

“Yes,” he said firmly. “I’ll return with you to your home.” He wound the Time-Turner back around his neck. 

Jongdae’s decision was reinforced when Consort Li cornered him in a hallway.

“I don’t know how you got to His Majesty’s ear,” she snarled, gripping his face as her thugs held him captive. “But now the whole court has ostracized me.” Her sharp nails dug in, a crazed look to her eyes. “You bastard, I offer you an opportunity, and this is how you repay me?”

Jongdae’s vision tunneled, but his anger kept him alight.

“I did not want nor ask for anything!” Her men pulled him harder, and pain began to seep into his shoulders. “There is a concept called consent, Your Grace,” he whispered harshly. “It seems you have never mastered that idea if you have to constantly prey on those weaker than you.”

She slapped him across the face, by now a popular punching bag. Then she snapped her fingers, one of the thugs letting go of him to deal a blow to his stomach. Jongdae wheezed as the wind got knocked out of him.

She grabbed his face again. “You can still beg for forgiveness,” Consort Li taunted him. “Just grovel at my feet, my dear.”

Jongdae coughed instead, body seizing up. “I’m sorry,” he said instead, watching her eyes grow wide in surprise. “I’m sorry this place turned you into this, and you can’t find your way out. I’m sorry you’re hurting, but you’re taking it out on the wrong people.” He breathed heavily. “I hope that one day, you can let go of the pain and anger, and find yourself again.”

Consort Li stared at him, shocked. “How dare you,” she sputtered. She let out a scream, throwing a vase nearby off of its pedestal. Crashing to the floor, it broke into a million shards.

“Don’t pretend to understand me,” Consort Li whirled around in a fury. She raised her hand to strike him again.

“Unhand him, Consort Li.”

She froze, and Jongdae turned his head to stare at the owner of the authoritative voice.

It was another woman, but her presence stopped everyone in their tracks. The thugs holding Jongdae loosened their grip imperceptibly, and Consort Li’s retinue bowed low.

Dressed in majestic golden skirts and followed by massive procession of attendants and eunuchs that put Consort Li’s to shame, the lady came closer. Her hairstyle itself spoke of her high standing, voluminously piled high and adorned with countless ornaments and jewels. But the command she radiated came from her bearings, a powerful aura transcending her clothing.

“Your Majesty,” Consort Li lost her wrath, groveling herself.

“Why are you here?” the Empress asked her cooly.

“This boy,” she said saccharinely, “has insulted me, for which I am exacting punishment.”

The Empress raised her eyebrows. “I did not ask for what you were doing. I asked, why are you here?”

Consort Li glared at Jongdae angrily, fists balled tightly.

“From my knowledge,” the Empress said conversationally. “The Emperor’s decree banned you from the wings of the upper palace. Is this a show of insubordination, Consort Li?”

She gritted her teeth. “Not at all, Your Majesty,”

The Empress stared her down mirthlessly. “Good,” she said, bored. “Don’t let me ever find you here again.” The sign of dismissal clear as day, Consort Li scrambled up, throwing one dark look at Jongdae again before leaving with her retinue.

Jongdae rubbed his arms, taking stock of the new bruises. He watched the Empress warily before looking down, unsure of where she stood in the spectrum of Jongdae haters. As Yixing’s wife, and he had plenty to fear if she discovered their relationship.

Or lack thereof. 

She tipped his chin up silently, forcing Jongdae to meet her eyes.

Suddenly, he felt very guilty. As loath he was to admit it, he was harboring feelings for a married man. He couldn’t bear to think how he would feel if he were in the Empress’ shoes, or really anybody in the harem vying for Yixing’s attention.

The Empress let go, finding interest in Jongdae’s Time-Turner around his neck. She fingered the pendant, trying to flick it as he had a long time ago. Unsurprisingly, it did not budge.

She frowned. “Is this broken?”

Jongdae shrugged. 

“Looks foreign in design. But it’s written in our language…” She studied Jongdae. “You are from Goryeo, no?”

He nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Hmm.” She relinquished her grasp on the pendant. “You may go.”

“Your Majesty,” Jongdae bowed low. Before he lost his nerve, he whispered, “Thank you.” 

The Empress only looked at him impassively. 

The sound of crying woke Jongdae up from his reverie. He stood up from the bench, setting his notebook aside and stretching. Stumbling his way through the gardens, he craned toward crying, which had become incessant.

Rounding a corner in the path, Jongdae found the source to be the sobs of a young boy. With no adults nearby seemingly watching over the boy, Jongdae chose to come closer and stoop down to his eye level.

“Hi,” he said brightly. “What’s wrong?”

The boy sniffled. He looked at Jongdae warily, clearly taught to keep strangers at bay. Jongdae noticed the high standard of the child’s clothing; he filed it away to contemplate later. The boy crouched on his knees, drawing pictures in the dirt.

“Oof,” Jongdae said, sitting his bum down. Teary eyes followed his movement, and Jongdae made himself comfortable, leaning back cross-legged. “Wanna see my drawings?”

The boy wiped his face, nodding hesitantly. Jongdae dusted his hands, pulling out his notebook. He showed off the modern binding before opening it up, sure that it would fascinate the child. 

He copied Jongdae’s posture, sitting down crossed-legged to watch him attentively. Jongdae started to flip through the pages, showing him all the sketches he had compiled together.

“What is that?” He pointed to a rather unfortunate blob with googly eyes.

“That,” Jongdae began solemnly, “was my Chinese teacher. But did you know?” he whispered conspiratorially.

“What?” The boy leaned in curiously. Jongdae gestured him to come closer.

“He wasn’t really good at teaching it,” Jongdae whispered into the boy’s ear. In hindsight, it was true. He had improved leaps and bounds since coming back in time; his teacher’s dull attitude probably explained why he didn’t like it too much at school. Jongdae mimicked his teacher’s Korean-accented pronunciation, finally drawing a smile out of the child.

“You aren’t from here?” the boy inquired quizzically. 

Jongdae shook his head. “Nope!”

“Then where?”

“I won’t tell you.”

“Hey!”

They continued to banter back and forth, and Jongdae poked the boy’s stomach for every ‘no’ he gave.

“TELL ME!” he shrieked, collapsing in a fit of giggles.

“Not if you don’t tell me why you were sad,” Jongdae answered cheekily.

The boy’s jaw dropped, realizing he had been set up. Jongdae snickered. He pouted, tugging Jongdae’s sleeve lightly. “I got lost,” he admitted. “I know I shouldn’t cry over nothing, but everything here is so…..big.”

“Awww, come here.” Jongdae nestled him in his lap. “It’s okay,” he soothed him, wiping away the fresh tears. “I’ll protect you here.”

The boy hiccuped, snuggling closer into him. 

“And hey,” Jongdae lifted his chin. “It’s not a bad thing to cry okay? It’s good to let things out sometimes.”

His chin wobbled. “That’s not what Father says,” he said quietly.

“Who is your dad? Do you want me to go teach him a lesson?” Jongdae demanded in a mock scary expression.

The child blanched, but he subsided into a tiny smile when Jongdae continued to make funny faces. Then realization struck. “Wait….you don’t know who I am?”

“Should I?” Jongdae asked cheerfully.

The boy shook his head immediately. “No, it’s okay! You don’t need to know who I am.”

Oh?

“Okay, Mr. Secretive. My name is Jongdae,” he bowed in greeting. The boy reciprocated the gesture.

“Show me more drawings, Jongdae,” he commanded imperiously. Jongdae snorted.

“Bossy bossy,” he loudly whispered. They spent the next few minutes, turning the pages as Jongdae provided commentary for background and context. The content soon turned to song lyrics, and Jongdae jumped at this opportunity to sing, serenading the child with lovely words from his hand-composed songs. He didn’t know if the boy could understand, as most of his lyrics were penned in Korean, but he continued nonetheless, trying to provide comfort and ease away the fears that had plagued him earlier.

He clapped as soon as Jongdae finished his last song, eyes widening almost comically.

“You are a really good singer, Jongdae!” The boy flashed a wide grin, prompting an appearance by a set of familiar dimples.

Before Jongdae could dwell on those implications, the child shyly said “Thank you,” in Korean, making his heart turn into goo. He smacked the boy’s cheek with a big kiss, making him yelp and squirm in his lap.

Jongdae’s laughter rang like bells in the wind, carrying itself to a nearby pavilion. A large entourage watched them from afar, unbeknownst to the duo.

Soon the heat became unbearable, so Jongdae took the boy into his arms to escape. 

“You’re so heavy,” he complained. “I think you’re going to have to give me a massage after this,” Jongdae groaned obnoxiously. 

The boy immediately threw him a worried look, sitting up in his arms to knead his shoulders. Jongdae laughed at him, marveling over how cute he was, pounding tiny fists into his back. But it soon became painful.

“Hey, ow ow!”

He looked at Jongdae shrewdly. “Serves you right,” he mumbled under his breath.

Jongdae blew him a raspberry. 

“So Mr. Secretive, where are your parents? I think they would be worried by now, don’t you think?”

The boy tucked his head into Jongdae’s neck. “I don’t wanna go back in,” he whined. 

“What do you mean ‘I don’t wanna’? You want to live outside in the pond with me?” They continued to bicker their way out of the imperial gardens, heading toward the shade of the nearest building.

“You better tell me where your parents are. Or I’m going to unleash these deadly fingers on you again,” Jongdae threateningly poised his hands to the child’s ribs.

“Never,” the boy declared defiantly. 

“You leave me with no choice then.” Jongdae started to tickle him. “I’m not going to stop until you tell me where your parents are!”

The resounding giggles stopped them from noticing they were walking straight into a crowd of people. Jongdae finally looked up to see the Empress and her retinue. 

“Your Majesty!” As he bowed low, he failed to notice the boy’s grin drop from his face. All of the other consorts and attendants stared at Jongdae in shock when he rose, or rather, the child he had in his arms. 

“Mother,” the boy sighed unhappily.

Jongdae squinted at the sea of women. “Which one?”

The boy pointed to the expressionless Empress.

“You’re the Crown Prince?”

He nodded. Jongdae swore internally.

This little shit had played him like his dad.

Jongdae gave the Crown Prince the stink eye as both them sat in front of the Empress. The little boy had the audacity to smirk, but his fluttering hands indicated his true feelings as he fidgeted nervously in the presence of his mother.

“Yifan,” the Empress began sternly. “What did I say about running away from your lessons?”

Jongdae tried to hide his smile, remembering another boy with a penchant for skiving. “You told me you were lost!” 

“Well, I lied!” Yifan shot back, sticking his tongue out. “Why’d you fall for it?”

The audacity—

Jongdae raised his fingers, and the Crown Prince yelped immediately. “Don’t you dare,” he warned Jongdae. “I’m the Crown Prince of this nation! My father will— HEAR ABOUT THIS!” Jongdae tackled him and began to tickle.

The court ladies’ mouths opened in shock. But Yifan’s resounding giggles dampened any immediate hostility.

“Damn right, your father will hear about this,” Jongdae told him bossily. “I’m going to tell him that you skipped your lessons today.” 

Never mind that they weren’t on speaking terms.

Yifan’s face transformed with horror. “You wouldn’t!” he exclaimed. 

“Watch me,” Jongdae sniffed. But all joking aside, he had no idea how Yixing acted around his children if the thought of him telling his father provoked such a strong reaction from Yifan.

“Yifan,” the Empress stopped another retort from forming in the boy’s mouth. “Jin…is abrasive, but that’s the way he has always been. And I know,” she added soothingly, noticing her son’s downtrodden face. “Even when I was a young girl, he was a cruel man.” The Empress lay a tender hand on Yifan’s face, the first emotion Jongdae had seen on her.

“Jin is your teacher?” Jongdae asked, shocked. Yifan nodded. “What did he say to you?” The anger was already boiling in his stomach. 

The Crown Prince looked down at his lap, hands folded timidly. 

“Yifan?”

“Nothing much,” he mumbled. “He said that I would never please Father enough and that I should be stripped of my title.”

The actual fuck?

“That is absolutely not true,” he told Yifan fiercely. “His words don’t determine your worth, alright? No one can make you feel inferior without your consent, Your Highness.” 

He totally stole that from somebody famous.

But Yifan cracked a tiny smile. But Jongdae couldn’t shake the memory of his misery just a moment ago. 

“Why is no one asking why Yix—, sorry His Majesty, allows Jin to be around his son?”

The Empress widened her eyes. “Leave!” she commanded, dismissing all of her attendants. “Jongdae,” she warned after they had left. “He has spies everywhere. You must be careful of your words.”

He threw his hands up in the air. “Your Majesty, forgive my forwardness, but tell me how that makes sense to you. He’s a tyrant!” 

“Literally,” the Empress told him coldly. “Why do you think the Emperor was so disinterested in the matters of the state? Jin has maintained control from the start of his reign, and only now is Yixing doing something about it.”

Jongdae stared at her in shock. “So he just let him push him around?”

She shook her head exasperatedly. “Who knows? We’re not close as you may have seen. All I know is that he played no role in the bureaucracy, at least not until you came.”

“I—”

“Oh don’t try to deny it,” she snapped. “The whole court knows he has an interest in you, and your words have enough sway in them to convince him to do things he has never done before.”

Jongdae looked down into his lap miserably. “Forgive me,” he said softly. “I know it’s not right for me to be in this position. It is an insult to you and all of the other consorts.”

The Empress sighed heavily. “But as you have said, it is an insult to me and all of the other consorts. I don’t have a sole right to the Emperor just as anybody else does in the harem.” She gave Jongdae a wry look. “Besides, Yixing doesn’t swing that way anyway.”

Jongdae choked. Yifan thumped his back helpfully.

Unhelpfully, the Empress pointed out, “You’re not a eunuch but you practically have free rein over the grounds. I think that speaks enough about the irony of his situation?”

“Yes, yes. I understand, Your Majesty,” Jongdae stuttered.

“Father’s in love with you,” Yifan said cheerily. “But he’s not very good at telling you.”

The l-word jolted Jongdae, twisting his head automatically in vehemence. “Absolutely not.”

“He’s moping right now,” the Crown Prince told him matter-of-factly. “I watched him this morning.”

Jongdae shifted uncomfortably. Making eye contact with the Empress, Jongdae blushed and fidgeted. “I would do anything to….ease this situation, Your Majesty."

“I don’t need his attention to be happy,” the Empress retorted. “I went past that stage a long time ago.”

And her words were true. It was strange to see the lack of any malice expected from a scorned wife; the Empress exhibited independence instead, taking as much control she could from her station, keeping the court and harem in line.

“But I want to do more,” she confided in Jongdae one day, sitting together in an open-air pavilion. He was amazed that she kept him around, with his tenuous connection to her husband and the most pressing condition that he wasn’t a eunuch.

“I value your honesty,” she told him matter-of-factly. And that was all there was to it. No rumors really persisted in the palace due to Jongdae’s popularity, and the Empress was efficient in quashing nonsense. 

He supposed Yixing was kept out of the loop though. Pettily, he hoped for him to get jealous.

They watched Yifan speak with his new tutors. After Jongdae’s outburst, the Empress had had a change of heart, firmly marching over to her husband and demanding Jin be released from his role in the Crown Prince’s education.

“He didn’t even bat an eye,” she gleefully recounted. Jongdae snorted out loud, but his heart secretly hurt at the mention of Yixing. The Empress seemed to sense this, and she cocked her head. “Maybe you should talk to him.”

Jongdae avoided giving her an answer. 

But the Empress, Yueru, and even Wang Xian were often busy with their respective duties, so Jongdae spent his days with Yao when he wasn’t practicing for the upcoming banquet.

“I’m starting to have hope for these reforms,” Yao told Jongdae optimistically. “Never before have I seen His Majesty so proactive with bureaucratic affairs.”

“I’m confused. Why did he start to shirk his duties if he trained for all of this as a Crown Prince?”

Yao shook his head. “You must not know,” he realized. “The Emperor was never meant to rule.”

Jongdae frowned. “I don’t understand…”

“This Emperor was the second-born son to his father. It was His Majesty’s older brother who served as Crown Prince of this nation, up until his untimely death before ascension. The last Emperor, the father to the two princes, passed a year later, and the role was thrust upon the new, barely trained Crown Prince when he was only sixteen.”

Jongdae’s mouth fell open in shock. That explained a lot of things, and suddenly he felt horrible for giving Yixing flack over something had never chosen. “Why…did His Majesty’s brother pass so early?”

Yao shook his head. “Nobody knows,” he confessed. “No explanation was ever given, and his younger brother replaced him as Crown Prince immediately.” Yao gave him a curious look. “I’m surprised you didn’t know about this, even in Goryeo.”

Jongdae froze. “Yeah well,” he provided feebly, “it was a hectic life.”

Yao didn’t push him any further. “But it was definitely under suspicious circumstances,” he continued, “I always thought it was strange, the way it was handled.”

Jongdae shivered.

He and Yueru walked down a hallway, coming back to their quarters after a long day. It was dark out, and Jongdae tried not to flinch at the shadows lingering under the lanterns.

“You’re so jumpy,” Yueru commented. “You okay?”

Jongdae nodded. But the conversation with Yao had unsettled him, and now he couldn’t stop thinking about the possible monsters lurking the walls of the palace.

It was more than awkward when Jongdae tried to pay his respects to the dead Crown Prince, running into Yixing in the midst of his own rites toward his brother.

He put on a brave face, bowing before sitting down beside him. Yixing was accompanied by only by a single eunuch, decidedly not Jin to Jongdae’s relief.

“I didn’t know, Your Majesty,” Jongdae said simply. “I’m sorry for my words.”

Yixing was motionless, but he gave a shallow nod acknowledging his presence. He resolutely stared at the grave. “You can go,” Yixing quietly ordered the eunuch. 

Jongdae took out the rice wine he had filched from the kitchens, carefully uncorking the bottle to set it in front of Yixing. At his silence, Jongdae carefully pried Yixing’s hand from the ground, trying to gently set it on the neck of the bottle. 

“I can help you,” Jongdae whispered softly. “Tell me what to do.”

At that, Yixing finally turned to look at him. “Anything?”

Jongdae’s heart began to race. The contemplating tone of Yixing’s voice was betrayed by his predatory gaze, pinning Jongdae to the ground as he struggled to give an adequate reply.

“Yes,” Jongdae breathed. He was a firefly caught in amber.

With the consent, Yixing arbitrarily dropped his head into Jongdae’s lap. Jongdae let out an involuntary oof. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but this was definitely not it.

“You’re so heavy,” Jongdae remarked, trying to hide his dismay. At that, Yixing cracked one eye open, blowing air into his face. The conversation then stagnated, and Jongdae struggled to find the words to say to him. 

“How are you?” was all he came up with, cringing.

“As good as it can get,” Yixing answered, gesturing toward his brother’s grave. “I miss him.”

Jongdae’s heart wrenched. “What was he like?” he asked cautiously, brushing through his hair. Yixing shuddered, and Jongdae didn’t know if it was from the sensation or grief. He stilled immediately.

“It’s okay, don’t stop,” Yixing murmured quietly. To his question, Yixing seemed to gather his thoughts before replying. “Han would have been the emperor you envisioned,” Yixing sighed. “A benevolent ruler to his people and looking after their best interests. Han was destined for greatness from the start, and everyone believed it.”

“But what was he to you?” 

He startled awake, eyes piercing into Jongdae’s. “He—” Yixing choked. “Han was my brother. He made sure I was okay when our mother passed, and took care of me whenever he could. My brother taught me how to shave, and he would help me when I had trouble with my lessons.”

Jongdae took his hand.

“But most of all, he told me his ambitions of our future together, him as emperor and me right by his side. We built those dreams together, and he deserved so, much better.”

He was crying now, and Jongdae held him close. “What happened?” he asked gently.

Yixing shook his head. “There was nothing wrong with him, and he was never sick. The day before he died, he promised me that we would go out to the country together and I waited for him in the morning.” He gripped Jongdae’s hand tightly, faltering. “But he never woke up,” he said brokenly.

Jongdae kissed his forehead. 

“He would have been proud of you,” he told Yixing fiercely, staring straight into his despairing eyes. “You might have never been meant for his role, but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have done him right in the end. Look at what you have accomplished now!”

“What I’ve accomplished? Tell me, what have I accomplished?” Yixing said scathingly. “I’ve neglected my duties from the day my brother died. I have had corrupted officials running my country, and people are kidnapped from their homes. You were just as affected by my incompetence, Jongdae!”

“But you have changed,” Jongdae said softly. “Don’t tell me you are the same person you were a year ago.”

He scoffed. “And the extent of that is? What is there to be proud of, when I can’t even protect the person I love!”

Jongdae’s fingers carding through his hair froze again. Yixing tore his body up off him. 

“My brother will hate the pliable person I have become. So fucking passive and useless,” Yixing raged. “Don’t try to make me feel better, Jongdae, because—”

Jongdae grabbed Yixing’s collar and smashed their lips together. He hoped to hell he hadn’t misread the confession.

It was awkward at best, but Yixing immediately pulled him closer. Jongdae’s clear inexperience hampered any progress from the initial lip-locking, so Yixing quickly took control. He placed his palm on the back of Jongdae’s neck, gently tilting him up and deepening the kiss.

He didn’t know how to explain it. Yixing had the ability to take him into another place, where it was just the two of them in the world

Jongdae soon gasped for air, breathing heavily as Yixing brushed his lips down his neck. “I don’t think your brother,” he panted, “would appreciate this very much.”

Yixing slithered his hands into Jongdae’s hair. “I have no doubt about that,” he rasped. “Han was a prude.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jongdae bowed in the direction of the headstone. “I mean no offense, Your Highness.”

Yixing snorted. “Stop that, my love,” he chastised. “If my brother is not cursing my name in heaven, he is probably cursing at us for taking so long.”

“Excuse me? Since when was this my fault?”

Yixing avoided answering by capturing his lips again.

“Nobody would tell me where you were,” Yixing pouted. “One servant looked me in the eye and told me she didn’t know where you were just as we both heard your voice echo from the hallway.”

Jongdae scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “I’m…sorry? I guess they thought I was in trouble.”

Yixing grinned. “Nobody, not even Yifan, has the whole palace wrapped around their finger. Of course, it is you Jongdae.”

Jongdae blushed. “Speaking of your son,” he tried to detract from the conversation, “you visit him regularly right?”

“Ah yes, I forgot you got chummy with him and Luyang,” Yixing grumbled. “Yes love, I see him every day.”

“Oh, that’s Her Majesty’s name? It’s gorgeous!”

They bickered all the way down to the gardens. Coincidentally, that was where the Crown Prince nodded off to his lessons as his tutor spoke animatedly.

“Yifan!” Yixing boomed, and the boy jerked awake. His downright frightful expression relaxed upon realizing it was his father but then tensed up again for the same reason. Jongdae gave a cheery wave.

The tutor scrambled up, bowing at the Emperor profusely. Yixing dismissed him with a hand and the man quickly packed up his belongings. Jongdae in the meantime settled next to Yifan.

“Whatcha looking at?”

“Mathematics,” the boy said sourly. Jongdae gagged too.

They kept Yifan company as he struggled to finish his work, Jongdae chiming in occasionally when he thought he knew the answers. Yixing rolled his eyes.  

When the Luyang showed up, Yixing and Yifan were throwing paper airplanes at each other, while Jongdae doodled into his notebook. 

She sighed at the mess but climbed up herself to join Jongdae. “Took you long enough,” she smirked into his ear.

Jongdae yelped.

He skipped back to his quarters, trying not to whistle as he careened into several unlucky people milling the halls. Even the roadblock created by couriers transporting immense packages didn’t sour his mood, even though it forced him to take a detour through the kitchens.

It took him through a rarely used path down the halls, dusty and dimly lit. He walked through slower here, cautious of the doors slightly ajar and gloomy artifacts dotting in between.

“His Majesty asked me to open up an inquiry into his brother’s death!” a voice ranted from one of the doorways in the hall. Jongdae immediately tensed, body reacting on high-alert.

“I don’t know what prompted this sudden interest, but I need you to make sure you properly disposed of the evidence,” the same voice said. It was odd, the way Jongdae seemed to suddenly develop spidey senses. It screamed and kicked at him to run, but his body edged closer, curiosity and dread creating a potent mixture.

“No! I killed him for you, what more do you want?” a decidedly higher voice spat back. Jongdae froze his creeping footsteps. “Our deal only covered the poisoning, and I did what you’ve ordered! I’m done with this, and I’m done with you.”

With that, somebody stepped out of a doorway in front of him, and who Jongdae saw sent his heart crippling down to his knees.

“Jongdae?” Yueru asked in painful realization, staring at him nervously and eyes darting between him and the doorway.

No, no, no.

“Please say it’s not true,” he begged, “Yueru, you didn’t kill him did you?”

She faltered, and the answer was clear on her face.

“No,” Jongdae repeated, in a daze. The revelation took a steeper downturn when Jin stepped out behind her.

“Well,” he drawled. “This complicates things.” 

“No!” Yueru whirled around to face him. “This is between me and you.”

“But I think he knows,” Jin’s sardonic smile twisted Jongdae’s stomach. He couldn’t focus on Yueru’s betrayal, not when Jin stood there looking like his nightmare. “Don’t you, Jongdae?”

He swallowed. “I don’t understand. Why would you need to murder him?” Playing dumb was pointless; he had to take the chance to uncover the truth. 

Not that there was a possibility they would grant him such an explanation. 

Jin’s face was blank, but there was savagery lurking in his eyes.

“Yixing was pliable from the start, young and naive. But not Han. He knew who was really in power as his father’s consciousness slipped away. He had to die before becoming emperor.”

Jongdae’s mouth fell open. He didn’t think the answer would come out so easily. 

“Both of you will be punished for your crimes,” he blurted out. He looked Yueru in the eye, the guilt so obvious in her face. “Why did you do it?”

She looked down. “I needed the money for my family.”

Jongdae recoiled back violently. “Was it worth it?” he whispered harshly.

Yueru’s tears said it all. “No,” she said simply.

Jongdae couldn’t figure out what to do. If he hollered for the guards, would they listen? Jin was Head Eunuch, this authority only beneath the Yixing and Luyang. Yueru was an unknown entity, remorse leaving her more emotional than Jin.

“Enough,” Jin snapped. He eyed Jongdae coldly. Before any of them could react, he withdrew a knife from his robes and lunged.

“Don’t hurt him!” Yueru screamed, putting herself in front of Jongdae. Jin reeled back in anger.

“Get out of my way, you wench.” He pushed her instead, and Jongdae watched in horror as she collapsed against the wall.

“Yueru!” As he made an attempt to get to her, Jin grabbed him roughly and held Jongdae in from of him. The knife’s serrated edge pinned his throat.

Jin had no way out. The end of the hallway was crowded; the commotion had attracted the attention of nearby attendants. Jongdae tried not to focus on the knife but at Yueru, who did not stir. 

A couple of guards came running down the hall. “Sir?” the head officer asked hesitantly, eyes darting between Jongdae and Jin.

“What should I do, Jongdae?” Jin murmured into his ear. “Shame that the Emperor has laid a claim on you. I can’t dispose of you with so many witnesses.” Jongdae shuddered as Jin hummed thoughtfully. “Kill the girl—” he said suddenly, and to Jongdae’s surprise, the officer nodded obediently. “—and all the witnesses. But we leave with the boy and anybody loyal now.”

“RUN!” Jongdae bellowed at the attendants down the hall. The guards immediately gagged him, some of the group chasing after the witnesses. 

Jin slapped him again. “Shut up!”

“What’s going on?!” 

Jongdae stopped struggling, sagging in relief as Yixing and Luyang came into view. The odds of this were astronomical, but they were both here. This nightmare would finally stop. 

Even the guards froze uncertainly, their targets hiding behind the royals.

“Jongdae,” Yixing said horrifiedly. He tried to make a run for him, but Luyang stopped him. 

“No!” she hissed. “They’ll harm him!”

“Nobody will be harmed if Your Majesties comply with my demands,” Jin postured mockingly. “I wouldn’t dare harm him!”

Yixing shook his head in anger. “Enough, Jin! This is the last straw. I will have you stripped of your position if you don’t unhand him now!”

Jin laughed. “You think I care?” He caressed Jongdae’s face with his knife. “No, Yixing.” He finally poised the tip of it level with his neck. “You will let us leave the palace now or I’ll kill him.”

“Why are you doing this?” 

“Because,” Jin said primly. “I’ve had the last straw.”

They were at a standstill. Neither side could take the first strides. 

But then Yueru arose from the dead, disoriented and clutching the wall. Everyone in the room trained on her movements and Yueru quickly took stock of the situation. Upon finding Jongdae gagged and tied, she let out a cry of distress.

“Yueru! So glad for you to join us,” Jin clucked. “Come here.”

Yueru refused to move. Her eyes darted about the room, trying just as hard as Jongdae had to find a way out. He watched the panic transform into resignation on her face. His stomach flipped; what was she going to do?

Yueru steeled herself, meeting his eyes and giving him a sad smile.

“You must capture us alive, Your Majesty, no matter what it takes,” she said abruptly, levelly meeting Yixing’s eye. “I am a traitor to the crown by killing your brother, and so is Jin who ordered me to do it.”

Yixing did not move.

Jin growled, and he flung the knife to her. Jongdae wanted to scream, but he could only gag as his best friend fell, the handle embedded deep in her chest. 

Chaos erupted, the soldiers loyal to the royals arriving just now to attack Jin’s cohorts. His guards incapacitated with the fighting, released him. Jongdae fell into a heap on the floor, crawling toward Yueru. 

Her listless eyes stared up at the ceiling. “No,” he muttered dazedly, shaking her shoulders. But she was already dead.

Jin had managed to evade capture, and Yixing went on a warpath.

Luyang kept Jongdae company when the Yixing convened the assembly. The whole court was to be told of Jin’s treachery, all forces dispatched to find them. Then next order of business was to open up an official investigation into the death of the former Crown Prince.

Yueru’s body was taken away by officials. Jongdae felt numb as he watched her go, mind still unable to comprehend her crime. But whatever he felt, Yixing was undoubtedly feeling worse.

The celebrations for the new year were canceled in the light of the recent events, and Wang Xian visited him to bid him goodbye.

“I would think your mind has changed?” he had inquired knowingly. Jongdae nodded, blushing. He was sad to see him go, but Wang Xian had dallied enough in the capital. Part of the delay was probably his fault too.

“Give this to Zitao for me?” Jongdae passed him a sheet of paper torn from his notebook. The boy was already bound to have all the materialistic things available in this time, so Jongdae drew him a little squiggly monster instead, labeling it simply with Brat. 

Wang Xian snorted when he opened it.

Other changes to the palace included Yao taking Jin’s place, upon Jongdae’s recommendation. Yixing reluctantly agreed, only because he was half tempted to completely destroy the position. Luyang put a stop to that from moving forward.

As evil as Jin had been, there needed to be a Head Eunuch running the affairs of the palace.

Yueru’s involvement with the murder plot was uncovered when the alleged box of evidence was found. She killed Han with arsenic, an amount high enough to end his life immediately.

Yixing could only cry that night, and Jongdae stayed with him, singing him to sleep. 

“Don’t go,” he whispered.

Jongdae would never again return to his quarters.

Jongdae felt light hands caress his face, pulling him away from his dreams. He didn’t open his eyes, wanting to relish in the touch a little longer. Pretending to be asleep, he turned to his side, making soft noises as his lips made contact with silk. Jongdae recognized the texture as Yixing’s sleeve, so he snuggled closer, pinning him down with the excuse of searching for warmth.

Jongdae heard him sigh, breathless and almost wistful.

“I have to go, my love,” he whispered softly. Jongdae squirmed, about to frown before he realized he would blow his cover. Yixing stroked his bangs back, sweeping it to the side and kissing his forehead.

“This won’t do,” he heard Yixing mutter. Suddenly, there was a telltale brush of a dagger being drawn, and Jongdae’s eyes flew open as he realized Yixing’s intentions.

“Don’t you dare,” he chided as he caught Yixing’s wrist poised to cut the fabric. His eyes widened.

“I knew you weren’t asleep!” he accused Jongdae. 

“Yes, yes, stop trying to change the subject.” Jongdae perched his head on his hand. “You were going to cut your sleeve weren’t you?”

Yixing stared at him helplessly. “I didn’t want to disturb you! It’s not morning yet, and I know you were up late because of me.”

Jongdae wasn’t convinced. 

“So you were trying to emulate that old emperor? The one who did the same thing to not disturb his lover?” Jongdae tried to look as intimidating as possible.

“How…..how you would know that story?” Yixing said flabbergasted.

“Hmph, not important. And besides, why ruin a good piece of clothing?” He rubbed the luxurious fabric, ignoring the way Yixing’s embarrassed gaze turned dark.

“You know why,” he growled, pouncing on Jongdae. He grabbed his face, roughly kissing him as Jongdae fell back into the pillows. He kissed him back fervently, biting his lip to open up his mouth. But then Jongdae pushed him off, gasping.

“Don’t distract me,” he whined. He grinned, relishing in making Yixing suffer.

“I know how their story ends, Your Majesty,” Jongdae said softly. “His lord dies young, and the other is left to die by his own hand, doomed by politics.” He pulled his own lord to him so that they lay facing each other. “I love you,” he said fiercely, “and I am a superstitious brat. Let’s avoid inviting bad mojo okay?”

“What’s a mojo?” Yixing asked confusedly.

Jongdae giggled. He kissed his nose, transfixed at the way his dimples would carve deeper into his face. “It’s like, magic? Or even luck I guess,” he said to answer Yixing’s question.

“Hmmm, I see.” He enveloped Jongdae into his arms. “I promise I won’t invite any more bad mojo.”

As they kissed, Jongdae tried not to cry. They weren’t okay now, but they had each other. Both of them would be okay.

When morning dawned through the curtains, Yixing was not there.

Jongdae woke up blearily, anxiously rustling through the blankets. There was an uneasiness stirring in his stomach, a crippling feeling that was not helped by Yixing’s sudden absence.

“Yixing?” he called cautiously. When there was no response, Jongdae’s mind sharpened. He dressed quickly, trudging outside to the adjoining parlor. 

Yixing was there, facing away from him as he was surrounded by a group of attendants who pulled on different armor pieces onto his body. Jongdae’s nervousness spiked as more and more parts were added. 

He wrung his hands. He didn’t want to call attention to himself, so he remained quiet. 

The attendants stepped back when they were finished, the whole process eerily reminiscent of Iron Man getting into gear.

For war.

Yixing turned around, immediately zeroing in on Jongdae scrunched up in a corner. He dismissed the attendants, then walked briskly walking toward Jongdae, crushing him with a rough kiss.

Jongdae’s hands found purchase in the sharp ridges of the armor, clutching Yixing desperately as he continued his brutal onslaught. Yixing’s arms squeezed him tight, cradling his head and back as Jongdae’s stomach swooped lower. 

But soon the hard panels of steel became too much, digging into his skin painfully. Jongdae gasped for air so Yixing let go of him regretfully. He didn’t give him much time to breathe before he hoisted Jongdae’s legs on his hips, driving them against the wall.

Before he could attack him again, Jongdae placed his hands on his cheeks. “Don’t shut me out, Yixing,” he murmured. “What’s going to happen?”

Yixing slumped, resting his forehead on Jongdae’s. “There is an uprising,” he divulged. “It’s Jin. He has taken control over a northern province, and his followers are stirring up anti-imperial sentiment. They are encouraging violence among the people,” Yixing growled.

“Why do you need to go?” Jongdae asked fearfully.

His face was dark. “I’m going crush Jin myself.”

“You can’t punish them, okay?” Jongdae implored. He didn’t like the sudden anger growing in Yixing’s eyes. “The ordinary people,” he clarified, noticing Yixing’s outrage. “It’s not their fault that Jin might have twisted them with his rhetoric.”

Yixing laughed bitterly. “Of course that’s the first thing you ask of me. To guarantee the safety of the traitorous commoners.” He looked Jongdae in the eye, before brushing another kiss on his lips. “Your selflessness puts all of us to shame, and I can never say no to you.”

Jongdae broke out into his first smile since waking up this morning to an empty bed. “I love you too,” he told him softly.

Yixing’s dimple deepened. “You’ll be the death of me,” he announced, peppering more kisses. Jongdae scrunched up his face, all smiley. Then he dropped the bombshell.

“I’m going to go with you.”

Yixing looked at him horrifiedly. “Absolutely not!” he yelled, dropping Jongdae to his feet. “I spoke too soon. I can say no you.”

“What’s there a reason for me to not go with you?” Jongdae argued. “My safety? Come on, that’s bullshit and you know it. You’re telling me your army can’t fend off a couple dozen rebels?”

Yixing slammed his hand against the wall. “Those couple dozen rebels took over an entire province!”

“Only because they’re sparsely populated,” Jongdae insisted. “And they were the ones who were hit the hardest when you ruling hands-off. Of course, they would welcome the rebels in with open arms!”

“Jongdae, are you hearing yourself? Those commoners will amount to substantial numbers.” Yixing grinned victoriously, thinking he had won the argument.

“No, dummy,” Jongdae said imperiously in Korean. “Those commoners will never amount to anything when you bring the Empress with you too.”

“What—?”

“Let me finish! Isn’t she from the north? The people’s loyalty to her family might be enough to dull down any anger.”

Yixing spluttered. “How would you kno—”

“I talk to the Empress, you know!”

“So now you’re risking Luyang’s safety too?” Yixing said sarcastically. “Why Jongdae, you have a lot of holes in your reasoning today."

“Why don’t you let her have a say for herself? She has a right to know what’s going on. What, were you going to leave her in the dark?” Jongdae goaded.  

Yixing pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jongdae…” he groaned.

“Please, my love,” Jongdae beseeched. “Allow her to be the Empress of her people. Her role as a mediator will prevent a lot of violence.”

Yixing exploded. “Fine! Then why do you need to go?” he demanded.

“To make sure you won’t ruin the Empress’s efforts and resort to anger,” he retorted. “You’ll get out of everyone’s way when I’m there to distract you.” He smiled cheekily. “I’m the glorified babysitter.”

They reached the province in a matter of days, setting up an encampment on the side of a river. Whilst Yixing was busy in directing the soldiers, Jongdae accompanied Luyang during her practices in the makeshift training ground.

“I’m going to shoot him if he excludes me in the meetings with his generals,” she darkly muttered under her breath. Jongdae agreed. 

Luyang drew her bow aggressively and let go.

“Holy shit.” Jongdae clapped enthusiastically. The Empress was incredible, hitting bullseye after bullseye in her noticeably toned down attire. A massive hairstyle was replaced by braids pulling away from her temples, minimal jewelry, and a simple tunic and pants.

She winked at him, in a good mood after shooting some targets. “Want me to shoot something off your head?”

“Uh, no!” Jongdae yelped indignantly. He made a run for it as Luyang cackled, running straight into a stone-faced Yixing. “What’s wrong?” he asked urgently.

Luyang caught up to him and immediately adopted her Empress persona when she noticed the tense atmosphere. 

“You need to come with me for the negotiations,” Yixing said to her tersely. Luyang crossed her arms, gesturing him to tell her more. He acquiesced reluctantly, updating her on the situation.

“Our spies have reported that it has been weeks since Jin has disappeared in the ranks of the insurgency. But the rebels have agreed to meet us at noon tomorrow, and we are forced to comply with their demands in order to obtain Jin’s whereabouts.”

Luyang furrowed her eyebrows. “So they have turned on Jin?”

Yixing shook his head. “It is not clear. We are still waiting on intel from the spies who have infiltrated their ranks.”

“And the plan of action after that?” Jongdae questioned. “What will happen if the negotiations fail?”

“Then we attack,” Yixing said grimly. “We cannot risk any more time for the insurrection to grow.”

As they fell asleep together that night, Jongdae asked the question that had been bothering him the whole day.

“This is so unlike Jin. He’s crafty and manipulative, but he likes taking acknowledgment of his crimes. Why would he be hiding?”

Yixing rolled over to face him. “I don’t know, love,” he admitted. Brushing his lips on Jongdae’s forehead, he snuggled deeper into their blankets. “I don’t want you to worry about it, okay? You were right; bringing along Luyang was a good idea.”

Jongdae relented, placated. “Of course I’m right,” he muttered. He toyed with the Time-Turner around his neck.

Yixing’s attention was piqued, fingers carefully prodding the stuck rings. “Is this supposed to spin?”

Jongdae watched him out of the corner of his eye. He half-heartedly thought what it would be like to tell him everything, to confess the whole story. With Doha, he couldn’t. 

But this was Yixing……

“Yeah it is,” he told him heavily, many words left unsaid.

At dawn, two runaway rebels were showed up on their doorsteps.

Luyang interrogated them herself, stone-faced as they cowered in front of her.

“We swear, Your Majesty!” one of them wailed. “We didn’t cause this!”

“That’s not what I asked for,” she replied coldly. They shriveled in fear, and Jongdae felt awed himself as he stood behind an attentive Yixing. He had let her take the reins, figuring they would be a lot more receptive to the Empress. “Where is Jin?”

The other rebel, a nondescript younger man, looked confused. “Jin? Who’s Jin?”

“What do you mean, who’s Jin?” Yixing demanded suddenly, pulling forward to the rebel. He blanched at the sight of his Emperor clad in his dark armor, emanating danger. “Where are his followers?”

“Your Majesty, I don’t know what you are talking about!”

“Does that even make sense to you?” Yixing sneered. “Jin is the most wanted man in this nation, and he cannot make it out this far without anybody turning him in. He has to have somebody supporting him.”

The rebels ducked their heads low in submission. “The leaders kept everyone in the dark about most of the plans, Your Majesty!” they begged. “We swear on the lives of our families!”

“Pathetic,” Luyang said disdainfully. “What’s the point of generating rebellion if you were going to desert them anyway?”

“Guards,” Yixing growled viciously. “Take them away!” 

Jongdae’s eyes widened, watching them cry out in desperation and groveling at the feet of the Emperor and Empress. Luyang herself turned her head in contempt.

“They will be questioned and tried, Jongdae,” Yixing told him immediately, noticing his expression. “I am not an unfair ruler,” he added quietly, looking a bit hurt that Jongdae had assumed the worst.

“I know,” Jongdae reassured him. “Please don’t let me get in the way of anything. I trust the two of you to act in the best interests of your people.”

Yixing’s eyes softened.

The deserters did end up having some useful information to pass. They warned that the rebels would have a contingency if negotiations soured, most likely a surprise ambush on the convoy’s path back to camp.

Yixing and his generals planned accordingly, although Luyang remained uneasy as they made their way to the rendezvous site.

“There’s something wrong. If Jin has truly disappeared as our spies suggest, how do the rebels know where he is? And is it not strange how those rebels turned themselves in the night before?”

Jongdae considered her words. “So he’s still working with them?”

“But our spies….” she speculated. “Why would their information be wrong? Jongdae, I—”

Whatever she was about to say was cut short, because they had arrived, and the rebels were already waiting for them. 

Jongdae heard Yixing’s voice echo in his head. So now you’re risking Luyang’s safety too? He winced. 

This plan was stupid in hindsight. Jongdae didn’t know how the ministers had let both Yixing and Luyang leave the capital. Fortunately, Yixing would pretend to be a mere general during the negotiations. 

Jongdae didn’t know how they would cover for the Empress.

“Greetings, General.” There were three of them, masked and covered head-to-toe in black. The masks were unnerving, grotesquely shaped into bloody animals. Hints of teeth could be shown from the slits for the mouth, and Jongdae shivered.

In a hastily erected pavilion, and Yixing sat in a chair in front of the rebels. Luyang chose to stand instead, darkly staring the rebels down. They were a fearsome-looking duo.

“Stand down your forces,” Yixing began without preamble. “If you’ve been harboring the eunuch called Jin, the Emperor commands you to hand him over.”

“What’s in it for us?” the one in a jackal mask asked, inspecting their nails. Yixing bristled.

“Your prize will be mercy. If it has to be the imperial army who will flush him out,” Luyang threatened, “your heads will hang in the morning.”

The second rebel, donning an eagle mask, whistled. “Jin this, Jin that. I don’t suppose you might tell us how he offended you so much? Asking out of pure curiosity, of course.” Their lips stretched into a smile, yellow teeth behind the mask.

“No,” Yixing said tersely. 

“Well I guess we’re out of options then,” Jackal-face said noncommittally. “Die or give up Jin.” He leaned back lazily. “Nothing else?”

“Don’t push our buttons,” Yixing hissed, standing up. “We’re done here!”

“Not so fast, Your Majesty.”

The last of the trio was a dragon, and he uncovered his face, revealing a cruel grin.

 Jin.

Jongdae felt the blood drain from his face. His neck tingled from where he had been pinned by his knife. Of course, the rebels had lied. Jin was always at the heart of the rebellion.

“Hello Xingie,” he taunted. “Look at you, all dolled up and looking just like your brother.”

Yixing swore, reaching for his sword. But it wasn’t there; they had gone through the reluctant procedure of setting down their arms.

Jin raised his hands, a mock attempt at submission. “Calm down now,” he winked at Jongdae. “I have nothing left to lose, you know?”

Yixing suspiciously followed his movement to Jongdae, fingers whitening on his empty belt.

I have nothing left to lose.

Jongdae saw the glint of silver before they all did. 

He saw it with startling clarity. Jin would aim for the neck, and Yixing’s armor didn’t protect him there.

No!

His mind was made up in less than a second, body moving in the speed of light as he thrust himself in front of Yixing. 

A cold blade stabbed through him.

Everything fell in slow motion as Jongdae looked down at the silver handle protruding his chest. Blood began to drip onto the floor as he fell backward. 

Yixing’s horrified face swam into view as he caught him, sinking down together. His armored body was tough on Jongdae’s back, who could feel every nerve alight as his body burned.

The sluggishness ceased and the world rushed back into clockwork. Jin was still screaming as he was carted away, Luyang’s arrows impaling his back. Jongdae shivered, nosing his face into Yixing.

This was it. He was going to die.

“Don’t say that,” Yixing growled.

He couldn’t see straight.

“Don’t punish the people,” Jongdae said suddenly. “It was not their fault. Remember what you promised me?”

“Stop talking,” Yixing choked out, pressing into the wound to apply pressure. “You’ll lose more blood.”

But it was too late. The pain had even started to fade, exertion to keep breathing easing.

Shaking, Jongdae put his hand on top of Yixing’s. He gently tugged at Yixing’s fingers, pulling it away from his chest.

“The people will be blessed to have the greatest emperor sit on the throne during their lifetimes.” Jongdae cupped his hand on Yixing’s face. “A wise and just leader, he’ll promote compassion and empathy.” Yixing shuddered, covering Jongdae’s hand with his own. It was scarlet with his blood.

“Yifan will grow up to be a fine emperor, just like his father.” Jongdae traced his cheekbones. “Maybe a better one,” he added teasingly.

“And you’ll be there to see him,” Yixing begged. “You will live, and see everything come true, just like you predicted.”

“I don’t belong in this time, my love,” Jongdae breathed, finally confessing. He didn’t know if Yixing would understand. “Promise me one more thing,” he repeated.

Yixing let out a guttural sob. “Yes, yes. What is it, Jongdae?” With his other hand, he brushed back Jongdae’s hair.

“That you will find your happiness,” he implored. “Even if it hurts so much at first, okay?” Jongdae wiped away the tears glistening in Yixing’s eyes. “Yixing?” he asked. “I want you to answer me.”

“Okay.” His tears were unstoppable now.

Jongdae smiled heartbreakingly. “Attaboy,” he whispered.

“I need more time,” Yixing held Jongdae close, muffling his cries into his hair. “I love you so much.”

Jongdae used his last reserves of strength, pushing Yixing down so that he could see his face. “I love you more, Your Majesty,” he said tenderly.

Another rattling breath. “Let’s meet again, in our dreams,” Jongdae told him in Korean, coughing up blood. “Even if you forget in the morning, know that I will always wait there.”

Light was suddenly eclipsed, shadowing the sky. 

Jongdae’s eyes closed on its own accord.

He fell into nothingness as Yixing roared.