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There was a boy in the stable.
Now, theoretically, this was not so unusual. Someone had to care for the horses after all, and it wasn’t going to be Yeosang or his brother, who were too busy with all the important affairs of the court and whatnot to really have time to come out here day by day to make sure the creatures were fed and cleaned and exercised.
No, if anything was unusual, it was that the young prince Yeosang was here, at a time that wasn’t his scheduled riding lesson.
“May I help you, Your Highness?”
His features, thought Yeosang, were all sharp— narrow, feline eyes; high cheekbones; a strong, pointed nose. But his expression was soft, almost vulnerable with earnest curiosity and nothing more. His voice, too, deep and slightly rounded at the edges from what must have been an accent once upon a time (before working here, perhaps) was gentle and coaxing.
His hand, curved against the snout of the horse that Yeosang was partial to— named Byeol, for the star-shaped mark on her neck— was so delicate in its touch that it almost seemed to be not touching the horse at all.
“Your Highness?” prompted the stablehand again. Yeosang startled, so caught was he in his thoughts, but he didn’t show it, gaze flicking calmly to meet the boy’s. “Did you want to ride?” asked the boy, stepping away from Byeol and towards the other end of the stable, where the tacks and saddles hung. He reached for Yeosang’s. “Byeol’s just finished eating, so I’m afraid you can’t take her, but one of the others should be all right. I could saddle Ruby for you. She’s just as good to ride as Byeol, if a little excitable.”
“Thank you,” said Yeosang quickly. “But I didn’t come to ride. Please, don’t trouble yourself.”
The stable boy froze. “Oh. My apologies. I shouldn’t have assumed.” He carefully returned the gear to its place. Yeosang couldn’t see his face, but as he turned, Yeosang glimpsed red-tipped ears.
“It’s quite alright. You were trying to be helpful,” Yeosang assured him, smiling softly to set him at ease. There were a lot of employees at the palace, so it was no wonder Yeosang hadn’t met this particular one before. Yeosang couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed about it anyway, though he couldn’t have explained why if he tried. “What’s your name?”
“Choi San, if it pleases you, Your Highness.”
“If it pleases me?” Yeosang echoed, amusement curving his lips. “Would your name change if it didn’t?”
San blinked, caught momentarily off-guard. He seemed unsure about whether he was permitted to laugh or not.
One of the things Yeosang despised about being a prince— too many people thought twice about whether they could behave normally around him. It wasn’t as bad as it was for Seonghwa, who wasn’t just a prince but the prince, heir to the throne as he was, but…
“You’re allowed to laugh, you know. I’m only a person, same as you. My jokes are still jokes.”
San cracked a small smile. It made his eyes crinkle into moon-bright crescents, revealed lovely dimples in his cheeks. “Forgive me. I didn’t want to offend you, Your Highness.”
Yeosang rolled his eyes. “No one ever does. For the next time we meet, then, and for the rest of this meeting, let me tell you now: I would be entirely all right— appreciate it, even— if you would treat me the same as you would any of your other peers.”
San’s eyes glinted with something a little like the bottled starlight (or whatever it was) in Hongjoong’s tower, lined up on his shelves behind colored glass, brilliant and warm even from a distance. “Very well, Your Highness.”
/////
“You know, San,” Yeosang said dryly, waddling with the weight of the full bucket of water clutched in his hands. “When I told you all that time ago to treat me as you would anyone, that didn’t mean you could foist your chores on me.”
“I’m hardly ‘foisting’ this on you and your fancy vocabulary,” snipped San, in a carefully measured, softened voice, the words directed not to the prince, but to Nal in her stall. Ruby and Byeol had been bathed yesterday, their coats shiny and sweet-smelling. Today was Nal’s turn, evidently. “You said you were bored and offered to accompany me as I did my chores. And I asked if you minded.”
“I mind, now. You didn’t warn me it would be so heavy.”
“Well, maybe you would mind a little less if you set that down.”
Yeosang did so, though his eyes were narrowed in a glare. Anyone else, it would have drawn short, would have caused frantic backtracking, apologies, and a quick disappearance. On San, it had no such effect. In fact, the stablehand gave no indication he even knew it was fixed on him, though he must have.
“Shh,” murmured San, stroking gently at Nal’s back. She nickered softly, blinking at him slow and considering. His hand, which Yeosang knew was calloused, rough and warm at the palms, unlatched the door and pulled it open with something akin to reverence, and then, with the grace of a dancer, San slipped into the stall with Nal. “Come now,” he cooed, twisting his fingers into her mane and tugging ever so faintly. She’d already been brushed, so all that was left was to rinse and soap her. “Let’s get you clean.”
Nal was not impressed, evidently. She snorted and flicked her tail, and then turned her heavy gaze on Yeosang. As if to say, Who does this guy think he’s talking to?
Yeosang chuckled quietly. Who indeed.
“She isn’t a finicky little foal anymore, San-ah. I hardly think she needs to be babied,” said Yeosang.
“I know,” said San, lips pursed, almost— but not quite— pouting. “But she’s practically my baby. I raised her.”
“Humans don’t typically have animals for children, you know.”
“Oh, come off it.” San tugged a little harder, and this time, Nal allowed herself to be led to the washing area. Her steps were plodding and languid. Beside her, San seemed to be in slow motion, a drastic change from his typical helter-skelter rush, his quick, dagger-sharp movements. “Would you mind passing me the sponge, Your Highness?” he asked, the title tinged with irony.
They’d dropped that formality long ago. San was merely mocking Yeosang for his spoiledness.
“I might,” sniffed Yeosang, just to be difficult. When San turned, a sigh gusting past his lips, however, the sponge, dipped in water and wrung of its excess, was already held out, waiting in Yeosang’s palm.
San stared, and then fixed Yeosang with a flat look. “You’re insufferable.”
Yeosang only smiled, innocent as a child caught with his fingers in the pie. “Takes one to know one, doesn’t it?” He stepped closer before San could retort. “Show me,” he said, voice low. He didn’t clarify.
He didn’t have to.
San dropped into a crouch, by Nal’s leg. Yeosang followed suit. “Like this, you see?”
/////
“Tell me again,” Yeosang breathed, giddy with the wine in his veins, with the sight of the castle gardens spread out before him— them. His grin stretched wide enough his cheeks would ache, he knew, if he kept it up much longer, but he wasn’t sure he cared enough to tamp it down, right now.
“Again?” laughed San, tugging Yeosang towards him, away from the roof’s edge. They’d snuck up here tonight, away from the trappings of a birthday ball Yeosang had not wanted, from a social world San was not welcome in— at least officially. Seonghwa liked him well enough. Even let him sit in on council meetings, sometimes, where he provided input from the common folk themselves. “I love you.”
Seonghwa was downstairs, no doubt, playing damage control for them; his polite smile was likely firmly on his face, too tight to be breached, as he turned down ladies and lords, as he answered their inquiries with no more than an excuse of Yeosang being ill and a brisk though friendly dismissal.
Yeosang had never done the same for Seonghwa. Had not had an opportunity, though he would have in a heartbeat had he ever been asked. But as crown prince… Seonghwa had always been far too dutiful. He would never abandon even so menial a responsibility as court festivities, not even for Hongjoong.
“What are you thinking about?” San murmured, his arms coming around to rest over Yeosang’s waist, warm, warm, warm against the chill of the night. He nosed gently at the line of Yeosnag’s throat, and Yeosang tilted his head to accommodate him. “You asked me to talk, but you are too far off in your head to hear me.” The reproach in his words was gentle. So painstakingly gentle. As he was with everything until he could not afford to be.
“Seonghwa,” answered Yeosang. “I have you with me. I can leave the court behind, however temporarily. He cannot. And neither can he have Hongjoong by his side as anything other than a member of the council, the sorcerer of the castle. How much must he ache?”
San said nothing for a long moment. Then, with one hand, he tilted Yeosang’s chin to face him and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Seonghwa’s heart is with his kingdom first. As is Hongjoong’s. They are together in that. They might not love as openly or as often as you and I might—” He broke off to mutter, in an exasperatedly fond voice— “and certainly not as often as Mingi and Yunho—”
Yeosang huffed a giggle.
“—but I am sure they are more than content.”
Yeosang mulled that over, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. It was true, he supposed. It must have been. Yeosang had seen it in the quiet brush of his brother’s and Hongjoong’s hands as they passed each other in the corridors, each on their way to some vital task. Had seen it in the way their letters passed back and forth said nothing more than any other letter between a king and his servant— except for the way they were written, in penmanship so fine and careful it was almost as if the writer at the time, whoever it may have been, was afraid the paper would break if not touched with the sweetest, most tender of scripts. As if each plain word was a jewel laid upon his lover’s body. As if each letter, each swoop of his quill, was a kiss, a caress.
“Tell me again,” Yeosang repeated, much more at ease.
“Did I not just?” San teased, turning Yeosang in his arms and beginning to sway them to music they couldn’t even hear, this far from the celebration and revelry.
Yeosang allowed San to lead the dance, though his steps were somewhat clumsier, self-taught as he was. Though like this— back turned to the edge of the roof and the long drop to the unforgiving ground beneath— he was scared, deep inside the primal part of himself.
He could fall like this. If San let him go when his feet were unsteady. If San chose to push him.
“Do it again anyway.”
“Very well, Your Highness,” sighed San, bemused, playful. He tilted their heads together, narrowed the space between their mouths to less than even a hair’s breadth. And Yeosang tasted it more than he heard it, really, when he said, “I love you.”
“Good. And I, you.”
San beamed at him. “Good.”