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It was now the hour of the Rat, and Hong Du Il could feel his eyes start to water from exhaustion. It turned out that peace had an infinite more amount of paperwork than war, because at least war included intermissions of assignments, incognito.
He sets his head on the table for a brief moment, resting his clammy cheek up against a sheet of parchment, pushing aside the awareness that he had just smudged all his hard work from the last seventy minutes by doing so.
He closes his eyes, and sighs long and loud, before stretching his head up again to see that a visitor had snuck in while he was deep in lament.
“—Kim Hwan,” Du Il stammers as he swipes some ink off the side of his face.
Kim Hwan responds by making an impossible noise with his mouth that sounded like the way Du Il's calligraphy now looked upon the paper.
“Oh no,” Du Il winces, rustling around in a pocket for a handkerchief, “Not again.”
“I am in despair,” Kim Hwan wails, scrunching up his face and inhaling with a wet, thick sound through his nose, “How could this happen to me?”
“I can see that,” Du Il yanks the parchment out of the way just a moment before his friend collapses in an undignified, damp pile onto the desk, “What has gotten you so worked up, at this time of night?”
“Love,” Kim Hwan sniffles, “A wretched, wicked love.”
“Right,” Du Il reaches over and fits his handkerchief over his friend’s disgustingly drippy nose, “Of course. But I thought you had come to terms with the situation, regarding the maid.”
“Not the maid,” Kim Hwan cries out in frustration, with an expression that implied that Du Il should really have known that fact already.
“Right,” Du Il shakes his head and stretches out a fresh roll of paper, because he could tell this was going to take a while, “Of course.”
He feels a little annoyed, envious of all the free time his young yangban friend had on his hands. He often did not have time for lunch, much less love. How idle must Kim Hwan be, he thinks to himself, to have a whole lineup of ladies?
“She must be a woman of great manner,” Kim Hwan muses without invitation, “to have such an ethereal elegance about her.”
“Right,” Du Il concentrates on copying over his work without looking up, “Of course.”
“She must be from a noble family,” Kim Hwan continues without encouragement, “to have been blessed with such stately stature. She towers over me, like a goddess from above, and all yearn for is to be held in those stalwart arms.”
“Right,” Du Il dips his brush in the ink, before looking up and scrunching up his face, “Of… course?”
“I must go to her at once,” Kim Hwan stands abruptly and slams his hands on the desk, “Where is she?”
“Er,” Du Il blinks, “Why would I know the answer to that?”
“Because,” Kim Hwan scoffs, clutching at his chest and sliding his eyes shut in reverie, “You were the one that introduced us to begin with, were you not? What an insightful friend you are, to know that my affections would be wasted on a mere maid.”
“What,” Du Il mutters as he watches some ink drip over his fresh handiwork, “Are you talking about?”
“Why,” Kim Hwan explains with a dreamy smile, “I am talking about Her Highness’ confidante, of course—the Lady Jong Cheol.”
“Oh no,” Du Il says breathlessly as the brush drops to the table with a clatter.
——
It was the hour of the Snake, and Jang So Yong could not locate their royal husband.
He was not in his chambers, he was not in the library, he was not in the study, he was not at the lake, he was not holding court—and he had not shown for the brunch Jang So Yong had lovingly prepared.
They felt a little slighted, because they had overcome a significant amount of nausea (and self-consciousness) this morning to make their way into the kitchen to prepare pancakes and their best attempt at a Joseon-era virgin mimosa, and now that there was nobody here to appreciate their efforts, they felt embarrassed and well—emasculated.
Feeling barefoot and pregnant was one thing—being barefoot, pregnant and stood up was another.
“I’m gonna kill your dad when I see him next,” Jang So Yong grumbles as they rub over their belly while shoveling a slightly too large mouthful of pancakes into their mouth, “Just you wait. You have two moms anyway, we got you covered, especially since one of them is actually a superior father.”
Jang So Yong is a third of the way through their unborn child’s absentee father’s stack of pancakes before he shuffles into the room, looking harassed instead of appropriately apologetic.
“Dude,” Jang So Yong waves a spoon in their husband’s face as he sits across from them, “Where the hell have you been? I had too many pancakes while waiting for you and now I’m definitely gonna get heartburn.”
“I apologize,” their husband replies, looking distracted instead of properly contrite.
“You’d better,” Jang So Yong sighs and holds out a bowl of punch, knowing full well that they had no intention on following through with the previous promise of murder. “Took me forever to juice the tangerines, don’t let this go to waste.”
Cheoljong upends the contents of the bowl into his mouth in one go and then gestures to the empty vessel, “Thank you for the pancake.”
“Nope,” Jang So Yong shakes their head and wishes that they could control the way their lips were turning up at the corners, “Do not pass ‘Go’ and do not collect $200.”
The king is so preoccupied that he does not even ask for clarification, simply ladles himself another bowl and sips at it dejectedly.
“What’s up with you, man,” Jang So Yong reaches over to flick a thumb and forefinger against Cheoljong’s forehead, “Not even gonna tell your pregnant wife why you kept them waiting? Speaking of your pregnant wife, I decided I’m going to need an epidural. Which means we’re gonna have to figure out how to invent it.”
“Of course,” the king agrees mildly instead of arguing or asking them to elaborate.
“Okay,” Jang So Yong says slowly with their eyes narrowed, “Also going to go with a water birth. And I’m gonna need a young priest and an old priest. And during delivery you’re gonna need to do a handstand and whinny like a horse every twenty seconds for the whole duration of the labour. It’ll make me feel supported.”
“Certainly,” Cheoljong murmurs into his bowl of juice.
“I also want a divorce,” Jang So Yong purses their lips and crosses their arms.
“Absolutely,” the king replies too quickly.
Jang So Yong digs a finger into the puddle of maple sap on their plate, then drags the now sticky finger down the king’s nose. “You better have a very good explanation for why you just agreed to ditch your—and I cannot stress this next part enough—pregnant wife just like that.”
“Er,” Cheoljong finally sets the bowl down, swiping at the mess on his face, “I apologize, my Queen. I am… preoccupied. Of course I would never. Please forgive me.”
“I’ll consider it, once you tell me what is more important than—again, this is a very key detail—your pregnant wife.”
“Nothing,” the king beams pointedly, reaching for So Yong’s hand, “Not a single thing.”
“Just tell me what’s up, my guy,” Jang So Yong jerks their hand out of reach, “because I know you’re still thinking about it.”
“Ah,” Cheoljong relents sheepishly, “I am experiencing a case of mistaken identity.”
“Uh,” Jang So Yong raises their eyebrows, “Other than yours truly, you mean?”
The king nods, exhaling quietly through his mouth, “I suppose it comes with the territory of donning a disguise.”
“By disguise, do you mean your Clark Kent outfit? Because that’s how effective it is, which is to say not at all.”
“I do not know what that means,” Cheoljong shakes his head affectionately, “But your relative Kim Hwan is under the impression that your close friend Jong Cheol is a woman.”
Jang So Yong spits out the mouthful of punch they had just begun to swallow, ducking their head just fast enough to avoid spraying all over the king’s face. “Kim Hwan thinks—oh my God, yes, amazing, what a marvelous idiot. Give him my regards.”
Cheoljong huffs gently and wiggles his lower lip, threatening to pout.
Jang So Yong wipes off their face with their sleeve before clutching at their sides in laughter, banging a fist on the table in amusement, “Oh, this is just too good. Is this my reward for carrying your child? Worth it.”
“Even more frustrating is the fact that he seems to think I am a woman dressing as a man for a great cause,” the king continues sulkily, “and he is determined to understand what that cause is. He will not stop, with his barrage of questions. I am having to hide—in my own palace. What am I even supposed to say?”
“Oh,” Jang So Yong rubs their fingers over their eyes, because they had laughed so hard they started to cry, “Those types of guys are the worst. Insisting they’ll commiserate with you even if it kills them. Like you ever asked them to. Good thing we don’t know anyone else like that.”
“I am sensing that you do not have any sympathy for me regarding this situation,” Cheoljong sighs, defeated.
“Au contraire, Hua Mulan,” Jang So Yong snickers, “I only have the greatest of empathy for you at the moment. Can you not feel my sincere compassion? Why didn’t you just tell him that you’re the King?”
“I did,” the king dips the ladle into the bucket of punch then lifts it directly to his mouth. “It did not go well.”
“You know that has no alcohol in it, right?” Jang So Yong reaches over and takes the ladle away, tsking softly, “Define not going well.”
“He said that the King was a man,” Cheoljong grits out through his teeth, “and that I may be able to fool the undiscerning eyes of others, but to him there was no possibility a woman this beautiful could be anything other than a goddess.”
“OhmyGod,” Jang So Yong wheezes out and flops backwards onto the floor, curling up in laughter again. After a full minute, they stop abruptly and sit up with a pensive expression, “Although, yeah, I can see it. You’d definitely need some makeup, and some fake tits, but you might be able to pull it off. I did think you were kind of feminine when we first met.”
“I—do not want to—pull it off—I am not—” Cheoljong grips the edge of the low table with his fingers and leans over it to glower at his Queen.
“Let me have this, you just told me you were late to our date because my dumb cousin was chasing you around crushing on you like a schoolgirl.” Jang So Yong traces their pinky into the pool of syrup on their plate again and then sucks off the sweetness on the end of their finger, blinking innocently.
“I hardly think he has a—crush—would he not be a school...boy?” The king droops his shoulders and closes his eyes, deflated.
“Don’t sweat the small stuff—oh, that’s right, he called you a goddess. Safe to say the train is out of crush territory straight into True Love Station.”
“I am glad my suffering is amusing to you,” Cheoljong mutters under his breath, “my Queen.”
“Oh yeah, age old tradition. There’s even a specific term for it,” the Queen smiles sweetly, “Go get your dictionary; you’re gonna need to write this next one down.”
— Fin.