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The rhythm of life in the Palace has changed so quickly. Jo Yeong muses on the thought, listening with half an ear to the nightly review of the next day’s schedule. Before, days slipped by without name or number, as if the court were a calm pool in the rushing events of the modern world.
Now, he thinks, he could tell that it’s Thursday simply by the energy in the air. Officially, of course, the court knows nothing about the king’s weekly absences. But those absences can’t be entirely hidden in a house full of servants, and the tension in the palace has started to ratchet upward from each Monday’s relief on his return.
The muffled patter of the rain barely reaches inside the king’s study, but Jo Yeong can feel his inner countdown creeping later, matching the growing impatience in the king’s drumming fingers as Lady Noh reaches the end of her recital.
"... you’ll be meeting with the Cultural Ambassadors Committee at two; they want your input on the criteria for scholarships this year. Then you’re scheduled to speak at the dedication of the Children’s Gallery at the Royal Museum at five."
Lady Noh takes a breath, waiting. This, too, is familiar: the weekly battle of wills over the king’s weekend jaunts.
"Hm." The king’s eyes narrow as he looks up at her from where he’s sitting behind the desk, but he keeps his voice mild. "Shuffle the committee meeting earlier in the day, and move my appearance at the museum to 4:30. "
"Your Majesty," Lady Noh starts, and then sighs, hands twisting nervously in her sash. For once, she doesn’t leap immediately to argue, and Jo Yeong’s attention sharpens.
This can’t be good.
Even the king seems to brace himself. "Is there something else?"
Lady Noh nods slowly. "There are rumors."
"Oh?"
"We've been as discreet as we can about your schedule, but it's impossible to hide that you haven’t been willing to attend any event between Friday afternoon and Monday morning for months now." She frowns down at her hands. "The Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival just announced their schedule for next spring, and they’ve moved their charity gala to a Monday night! They aren’t the first, either. People are starting to notice."
The king drums his fingers on the desk again. "You said there are rumors."
"They think you're seeing someone."
Jo Yeong barely manages to strangle his laugh into something enough like a huff of breath to pass unnoticed -– in other company, at least. Lady Noh shoots him an impatient look, and the king smirks.
"That's true enough, isn't it?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." Lady Noh has far too much dignity at the moment to roll her eyes at the king, but she somehow communicates that she’d like to without moving a muscle. "We can make an unofficial announcement to that effect, and let the press know that you'd like to keep her out of the public eye. It will buy you some time."
To find a more permanent solution floats in the air, unsaid but clearly implied.
"They'll want to meet this mystery woman, sooner or later."
"Mm." Lady Noh agrees. "We could arrange for a few appearances with an appropriate young lady--"
"No."
The denial comes out sharply, and Lady Noh lowers her head automatically.
"Your Majesty." Her acquiescence is entirely and perfectly formal. "Your people just want to see you happy."
"They do see me happy." The king’s tone turns sly. "Five days of the week!"
"You know what I mean!" Her formality drops like a stone, and she slaps at his arm in annoyance. "Your people aren't the only ones who'd like to see you settle down."
The king laughs and pretends to cower away from her. "Yeong-ah, defend me!" he calls, turning playfully toward him.
Jo Yeong refuses to be drawn in. "Why would I? I agree with her."
Lady Noh thumps the king once more while he’s distracted, and then glares at him when he rubs his arm as if it hurt.
"I don't know why I put up with either of you," he grumbles.
"Your Majesty--"
"I’ll think about it," he says, cutting her off.
"Hmph." She studies him for a moment, then relents. "I suppose that’s the best this old woman can hope for."
[]
Jo Yeong tries to make his escape when Lady Noh leaves for the night, but the study is far too large and he’s not quite willing to sneak out just to avoid –-
"A word."
-- a conversation he’d rather not have. But he squares his shoulders and comes back from the door, because it’s clear that his king needs someone to tell him the obvious: he needs to stop sneaking around outside the country every weekend, and maybe find a way to marry the woman he’s in love with while he’s at it.
Even if that’s the last thing Jo Yeong wants to say.
"You agree with Lady Noh." The king is still pretending that this is all a light-hearted joke, his half-smile urging Jo Yeong to join in as he pokes him playfully in emphasis. "You. Agree with. Lady Noh."
Jo Yeong refuses to play along, staring off into the middle distance as if he’s being taunted by an over-sized toddler and not a rational adult trying to get a rise out of him.
Which works, for once, because the king actually sits himself down and gets serious. "You know that I can't just bring her here."
"Of course you can." Jo Yeong doesn’t shrug, but it’s a near thing. "The door still works both ways. If you're worried about unbalancing the universes, her doppelganger can go to the other world to replace her."
"And leave her family behind?" The king shakes his head. "Neither of them would agree to that."
"Only one of them has to be asked."
"Captain Jo!" The king laughs, as if it’s funny. "Would you kidnap one of my subjects? Send her off to another universe, with no hope of return?"
This isn’t just stubbornness, Jo Yeong realizes. This isn’t just the king wanting to keep his personal life out of the spotlight. He doesn’t understand.
"Yes." It comes out flatter than he means it to, but it had never occurred to him that the king could think these constant trips were the same as his previous, intermittent adventures, over by the time most people found out about them.
The king isn’t around to feel how the court drifts in his absence like a boat without a rudder, wondering when the news will finally get out that their king simply leaves them. He doesn’t see the growing resentment in people’s faces when he abandons them, over and over again, like the kingship is a job he can clock out of.
The government may run the country, but the king -- the person, the position, all tangled up together -- the king is the people’s heart.
"You aren't joking." The king’s eyes narrow in puzzlement. "You should be joking."
It isn’t a question, so Jo Yeong doesn’t bother to answer. His mind is racing.
"You're making me nervous, Yeong-ah." Some time when he wasn’t looking, the king had gotten up and now has a hand heavy on his shoulder. "You know I'm happy."
The damning thing is, Jo Yeong does know it. The last few months, the king has been lighter than Jo Yeong has ever seen him, as if a weight has been lifted from him. Being in love, traveling somewhere that the weight of the kingdom isn’t on his shoulders -– it’s obviously good for him. Even if he’s travelling to times and places where Jo Yeong can’t follow.
"I'm glad." He lets the words drop into a less formal register, because he wants to be clear. He is glad; he’s glad that his friend is happy, personally, in a way he can’t be invested in the king’s happiness.
"So glad that you're willing to commit crimes?" The king tries on a half-hearted grin, trying to steer them back into less dangerous territory. "I haven't seen a universe where you're a gangster, but I'm beginning to wonder about you."
Jo Yeong wants to let him make light of it. He doesn’t want to put that weight back on his friend. But the situation is untenable, and the king needs to know. Responsibilities don’t just disappear because you want them to.
"Your Majesty," he starts, and then swallows around the lump in his throat.
The king visibly braces himself. "Go on."
Jo Yeong swallows again before he can say it. "Your people deserve more than a part-time king."
He knows the words hit home when the king’s face shutters entirely. "You may go now, Captain," the king snaps, as cold as any overt get out could ever be.
Jo Yeong bows sharply. His hand is on the door when the king speaks again.
"Yeong-ah."
Jo Yeong turns, and finds the regret written all over his friend’s face. "I'll see you in the morning."
It’s as close to an apology as he’s likely to get, and he takes it. As always. "Good night, Your Majesty."
[]
In the morning the topic is... if not forgotten, then settled enough to get by. They move through the king’s schedule like a well-oiled machine. The king stays on topic, the rest of the guard handle the usual logistical bumps with a minimum of disruption, and Jo Yeong is able to stay at the king’s right hand.
If the king is a bit more distracted than usual, none of the committee members seem to notice.
After a night’s sleep, Jo Yeong has decided to be grateful that Lady Noh chose a Thursday night for her intervention. There’s no way to be sure what kind of crazy plan the king would come up with on his own, given time to stew on it. Instead, he’ll take the problem to Jeong Tae Eul, an infinitely more practical person, and she’ll be able to make him see sense. Eventually.
They finish the dedication at the museum exactly five minutes after five, and Jo Yeong takes the king to the bamboo grove shortly thereafter.
And then he’s gone.
[]
The apartment in Seongjeong is just as empty.
Jo Yeong never spent a lot of time here before. His schedule bent around the king’s, with a few days off here and there to see his parents, train other guards, maybe see old acquaintances. He could go weeks without seeing these walls. But the king’s regular weekend trips have long since freed him of all the tasks that used to pile up, and now the days just stretch in front of him.
Maybe he should pick up a hobby. If only he knew how to do that.
So he goes to the beach instead. The weather has cleared, cold but beautiful, and a full moon shines down brighter than the city lights behind him. Bright enough to catch occasional glimpses of dark shadows bobbing in the water, surfers taking advantage of the well-lit night.
The path along the water takes a turn at the southern end of the beach, near the rise that leads to an old temple. Jo Yeong finds a bench tucked into an overhang, sheltered from the wind, and settles in to watch the ocean.
The whole world feels empty when the king is gone.
At first, Jo Yeong had assumed that these weekend escapades were temporary. A kind of cross-reality courting that would end when the king and Jeong Tae Eul found a balance and came home together. He couldn’t imagine another ending.
But that wasn’t how the king talked about it. He didn’t say, Be patient, or Don’t rush me. No, it was I’m happy, as if Jo Yeong is supposed to wish him well of all this.
When Jo Yeong was little, he asked his mother why he couldn’t call the king by name. It was somewhere around here -– she loved to visit the temple up on the bluff, and he loved to run in the sand, so they came down here together a lot -– and he remembers her holding his face in her hands when she answered his childish question so seriously.
The king’s name is too holy for people like us. Only the gods can say it.
For all the years they spent together, and all the ways the king proved himself annoyingly human over and over again, Jo Yeong never forgot those words. A king carries something holy, something essential to the soul of the nation.
Sometimes he thinks he can see it, an energy around the king that people respond to. He’s seen the king put it on deliberately; sometimes, it seems to come whether the king wants it or not.
Jo Yeong would never have admitted to believing it, of course. But the manpasikjeok is part of his life now; no one can argue that magic isn’t real. So the king is holy. This is merely fact.
But Jeong Tae Eul calls him by name. The syllables fall from her tongue with affection, but sound nothing like a prayer. This is also merely fact.
The wind changes direction, whipping around the edge of the overhang and ruffling his hair.
Jeong Tae Eul is a good choice for queen. She’s stubborn and brave and willing to call the king out on his bullshit. There is not a single ounce of deference in her.
The jealousy is only a distant pang. He knows it’s going to hurt, watching the king love someone else. But Jo Yeong made his peace with that a long time ago. He’ll stay, and keep them both safe for as long as there’s breath in his body.
Maybe someday he’ll find his heart finally returned to him, enough to give it to someone else. He thinks he might like to have children. Eventually. It would make his parents happy to see the family carried on.
But it seems less and less likely as the years go by and he does nothing to change the direction of his life. It feels like fate. Maybe that’s all fate is, really: a path you refuse to leave.
[]
Things drift on that way for weeks. The last of the fall rains scatter into the brilliant chill of early winter, with the last stubborn leaves still clinging to the trees. The king continues to leave every Friday, and return on Monday slightly off-balance. Whatever discussions he and Jeong Tae Eul are having, they are not coming closer to settling his mind.
Lady Noh cedes the field of scheduling battle entirely, a meekness everyone involved views with open suspicion. This is a detente, her silence says. Not a surrender.
[]
The pattern breaks on a sunny Monday morning, when the king comes back smiling and more pleased than Jo Yeong has seen him. The king ditches his morning appointments to grab Jo Yeong for a ride around the grounds.
"I’ve been neglecting Maximus," he says. It’s a blatant lie, and only the flimsiest of excuses to drag Jo Yeong with him. But even the most transparent of excuses will work for kings, especially when the household is so grateful that his mood has so vastly improved.
It’s quiet. The horses’ breath steams in the early-morning chill, their hooves crunching slightly through an early frost. They ride in silence for a while, nothing but the jangling of the tack and the soft whickering of horses pleased to leave the barn.
Eventually, the king speaks. "I’ve decided to let Lady Noh make the announcement. That I’m... dating."
"I’m glad to hear it." It may not be a permanent solution, but it will help prepare the people for the marriage. It’s progress, at least, and Jo Yeong will take any hint of light at the end of this tunnel.
The king glances at Jo Yeong over his shoulder, almost nervously, then looks straight ahead again. "I’ll need to be seen with someone, of course."
"Ah." Jo Yeong feels his heart sink with trepidation. That’s not a good sign. Certainly not one that suggests that Jeong Tae Eul plans to join the king any time soon.
"You’re free tomorrow night, aren’t you?"
Neither of them were, but he’s sure Lady Noh would reschedule a war summit to accommodate this plan. "Of course, Your Majesty."
"Good." He grins over his shoulder briefly. "Then I can take you to Yoha tomorrow night."
"I’ll make sure the restaurant is cleared for you and your guest," Jo Yeong replies absently, mind jumping to the logistics. He’ll need to decide which of the guards to bring; there’ll be enough confusion when the king’s "date" turns out not to be the woman he marries. Careful choices now will minimize the cost later –
But he does notice when the king stops his horse, and Jo Yeong has to stop, too.
"You."
"Hm?"
"You’ll be my guest tomorrow night." And then he grins, like he’s getting away with something.
"Your Majesty--"
"Come on, Yeong-ah. This is perfect." He’s practically bouncing at the cleverness of his plan. "I won’t have to pretend to like someone, and there won’t be some disappointed person afterward to keep quiet. I can just spend time with one of my favorite people, and everyone wins."
"Ah."
As a plan, it’s... viable, Jo Yeong has to admit, even as his pulse picks up in horror.
The internet is a crazy place, but he’s seen enough of the rumor mill to know there are people ready and willing to view the two of them as a couple with the least bit of evidence. There are a few photographs that make the rounds, from when he was younger and before he learned to school his face. Some are more recent, with people breathlessly playing on the idea that Jo Yeong is one of the few people the king lets touch him. Social media would go wild.
"I thought you’d be more enthusiastic," the king complains. "Wasn’t this your idea?"
"Lady Noh’s."
"But you agreed," the king points out. "Do you not want to be seen with me? Wait, you aren’t seeing anyone else, are you?"
"No, but--"
"Then it’s fine, isn’t it?"
"I--" Jo Yeong can’t find the words for the betrayed shouting in his head.
It’ll be fine, he tells himself. They can eat in a restaurant together; they’ve done it before, without problem. Jo Yeong can ignore the rumor mill entirely, so it won’t matter what people say about them. They just have to be seen together. Nothing is changing.
Finally, reluctantly, he nods. "I suppose so."
"Good!" The king turns in the saddle, attention already shifting away. "Come on, then. We should get back before Ho Pil sends out a search party."
[]
Jo Yeong is familiar with Yoha, of course. The rooftop restaurant is one of the king’s favorites, with its panoramic views of the capital. The décor is decidedly European, all burnished bronze and dark wood shimmering golden in the candlelight. It’s lovely.
It’s just that his familiarity is usually from another angle. He’s spent more time in the kitchen than the dining room, making sure that the security detail keeps an eye on the staff entrances and monitors all the comings and goings while the king is present. Jo Yeong has literally spent more time inspecting their walk-in freezer than sitting at one of their tables.
That’s going to change tonight.
The restaurant is blessedly empty, a security precaution that Jo Yeong is distantly grateful for. At least the only witnesses to this train wreck will be his co-workers and underlings, who can be stationed far enough away that they won’t be able to overhear anything damning.
Though they can see the king pull Jo Yeong’s chair out for him, an event that leaves him frozen in surprise for far too long before he can make himself sit down.
"Don’t--" Jo Yeong re-words the protest in his head. "You don’t have to do that."
"We’re on a date, aren’t we?" The king’s smile is teasing, and Jo Yeong’s heart sinks.
This was supposed to be a friendly dinner. Something they’ve done a million times. They were only here to spread rumors. Oh, no one in the security staff would dare, but no matter how discrete the restaurant claims to be, clearing the floor like this will cause talk. Yoha had to cancel on rich and important people at the last minute, and they would have had to give them a reason. Dozens of people will know that the king came here and demanded privacy for a special dinner. That’s the point.
Whatever the king is thinking, they don’t have to act like it’s a date; it just has to look like one.
Which it does. Jo Yeong can see their reflection shadowed in the floor-to-ceiling windows. The candlelight shines gently off the king’s hair and shimmers on the scattering of dark embroidery on his blue coat. Jo Yeong is wearing his nicest non-black suit, a deep brown painted velvet-soft in the warm light. They look good together.
They fit. And he knows they always have -- they’ve worked together for almost as long as he’s been alive -- but it looks different in this context.
It’s alarming, to have his half-built longings brought into the world like this. He’s going to be seeing this in his dreams for years.
The menu is barely enough of a distraction.
"Yeong-ah. Do you remember that Italian food stall by the university? I would come get you after tutoring sessions and take you there."
"Of course I remember." Jo Yeong has to smile at the memory. It was the king’s first year of university, and Jo Yeong was still in high school. It was exciting to sneak away from his dormitory, even if all they did was hang out in the king’s neighborhood (under the watchful eyes of the guards).
It was also the year he’d realized that his terrible crush on the king wasn’t going away. When the king didn’t leave him behind, despite how easy it would have been to abandon his young friend, Jo Yeong had hoped... but it’s just how the king is, possessively affectionate with the people close to him.
Jo Yeong says none of that. "You raved about their dumplings."
"The capeletti," the king points out, sighing nostalgically.
"I could barely get you to talk about anything else for months," Jo Yeong teases.
"Hm." The king’s smile is soft. "You always got them with kimchi broth."
Jo Yeong nods. "It was the least terrible thing they had."
"What?"
"What?"
"I thought you loved the food there!"
Jo Yeong snorts out a laugh. "You loved the food there. I was never fond of Italian food."
The king sets his menu down sharply. "You never told me."
He makes it sound like a personal betrayal, and Jo Yeong has to raise an eyebrow at this teasing. "Why would I ruin your fun?"
But the king just stares at him, and it’s starting to make him uncomfortable.
Oh. "I’m sure the food here is much better," he tries.
"Mm." But the king still seems dissatisfied.
"Your Majesty?"
"This isn't how it's supposed to go." The king waves a hand, gesturing at-- them, the restaurant, the whole charade. "This is supposed to be romantic."
"It's supposed to look romantic," Jo Yeong corrects. "We don’t need to be convincing."
"I'll have you know," the king points out testily. "Many people already think we're together."
"Mm." Jo Yeong grabs for his wine and takes a long swallow, mostly so he doesn’t have to answer.
The king watches him for a minute, then reaches over slowly to take the glass out of his hand. It is very much like watching an accident in slow-motion: Jo Yeong sees each move happening, but can’t seem to do anything about it. The king takes the glass, sets it down in its place, and then wraps his fingers around Jo Yeong’s instead.
His hand trembles like a frightened bird. He wonders if the king can feel his pulse pounding.
He tries to tug away, automatically, when the waiter comes back for their order. But the king doesn’t let go. Jo Yeong feels his cheeks flush at the brazen affection, but he can hope it doesn’t show in the low light.
The waiter’s eyes widen before his professionalism takes over, but his eyes cut over to Jo Yeong approvingly.
"What are you doing?" Jo Yeong hisses, as soon as the waiter leaves, trying again to pull his hand away.
"But we’re on a date!" The king tries to send him an adoring look, but cracks up when Jo Yeong glowers at him.
"Can’t you behave properly for five minutes?"
"No." The king grins, unrepentant, but he lets Jo Yeong have his hand back. "You know I’ve always been a romantic. You’ll just have to put up with me."
That’s exactly what Jo Yeong is afraid of.
[]
Jo Yeong uses his authority shamelessly, and succeeds in driving the king back to the palace alone. For the sake of his own peace of mind, if nothing else, he has to speak up.
"Let’s never do that again."
"Yeong-ah!" The king catches his eye in the rear-view mirror, surprise and a vague hurt shadowing his expression. "You can’t break up with me after one date. What will people say?"
"They’d say that you’re utterly impossible to deal with, and they’d be correct."
"I’m beginning to get the impression that you don’t want to date me."
"I don’t." Jo Yeong can’t imagine a more perfect torture than to sit across from the king as he smiles dotingly, falsely, for the sake of rumors.
"Liar," he laughs, then turns serious. "But I still need to buy time. What else can we do?"
Jo Yeong can’t imagine surviving that long with his sanity intact. But he can’t say no to the entreaty in the king’s voice. If he thinks of it as a public relations problem, the solution is-- he can’t even say simple in the privacy of his own mind, but at least it would be less terrible.
"Maybe we can stage photographs, and leak them over time," he offers. "I’ll talk with the publicity team."
"Hm." The king tips his head, only vaguely mollified. "We should still do something for Christmas."
Jo Yeong reluctantly agrees.
[]
Through careful planning and a lot of stonewalling, Jo Yeong manages to postpone everything for the next few weeks. The palace media team are busy with the public relations extravaganza of the Foundation Festival, and Jo Yeong only has to avoid a dozen phone calls and two supposedly-coincidental encounters with Lady Noh.
But eventually, his luck runs out, and Myeong Seung Ah hijacks his calendar for the photo shoot. She also sends him a thirty-page document detailing the story behind his new fake relationship with the king. Apparently, someone decided that the principals could not be trusted to answer off-the-cuff questions correctly without a cheat sheet.
Either that, or she’d found a captive audience for her fanfiction. Jo Yeong isn’t sure.
But the indignity of reading how his feelings had supposedly ‘blossomed’ over the past year isn’t quite enough reason to refuse to cooperate. So he finds himself shivering in the pre-dawn darkness of the royal family’s hunting lodge in Namwon with Myeong Seung Ah and a rack with a truly ridiculous quantity of clothing.
"I thought we were taking photographs, not outfitting a battalion."
At least she has the grace to act abashed. "It has to look like these were taken on different days. You can’t wear the same thing in all of them."
"Maybe I wear the same thing every day."
"When you’re working, yes." She rolls her eyes at him impatiently. "But we want people to think you’re seeing each other outside of work."
Jo Yeong eyes the rack skeptically. "I wouldn’t wear most of this outside of work, either."
"That’s because you dress like a gremlin," Myeong Seung Ah mutters under her breath.
"Excuse me?"
It was one time, one time that he showed up to an emergency in his oldest sweats. One time, and no one in the palace will let him live it down.
Myeong Seung Ah pretends neither of them said anything at all, and starts fiddling with her camera instead. It’s a professional one, with a full telephoto lens attachment, so at least there will be high-quality fake-dating photos for the media team to leak.
"None of this is real, right?" she says finally. "So give the people their fantasy romance."
[]
The first photos are supposed to be a night scene, taken post-date, so they have to get them done before the sun rises. They’re also supposed to have been taken during the summer, and Jo Yeong misses his coat fiercely as his breath clouds in the cold air.
"Relax," Myeong Seung Ah calls to them from her spot behind a rain barrel, twenty feet away. She’s certainly taking her fake-paparazzi assignment to heart. "Just act normal."
Which is easier said than done. Jo Yeong has spent his entire adult life protecting the king, not dating him. ‘Normal’ just isn’t going to cut it. Jo Yeong knows he’s too stiff; but the king isn’t much better, standing three feet away with a confounded expression on his face.
"This is easier when I’m supposed to smile for the camera," the king mutters, finally moving closer. "I’m not used to ignoring it."
"You ignore the press all the time," Jo Yeong points out, trying to figure out how stand so that neither of them has their back to Myeong Seung Ah’s hiding place.
"No, I snub them. It’s different."
"Maybe act like normal people who like each other?" is the called suggestion, which is just ridiculous enough to make Jo Yeong unwind a bit.
"You do like me, don’t you?" the king asks, leaning in slightly. "Don’t say no."
"Hm." Jo Yeong keeps his face impassive. "On a typical day, I only think of murdering you twice. Maybe three times."
It makes the king laugh. "I always knew you had a vivid imagination."
If Jo Yeong ignores the clicking, he can almost pretend they’re just out for a stroll. In the cold, without a jacket, but he can pretend.
"I like this color on you." The king hooks a finger in the cuff of the bright blue shirt Jo Yeong is wearing. "You should wear it more often."
"It attracts too much attention."
"That’s why you should wear it."
The clicking stops. "Can you get closer together?"
"Ah." The king tilts his face away from the camera for a moment, and raises an eyebrow at Jo Yeong where it can’t be seen, and it’s abruptly humiliating.
There really is no reason for him to be awkward here, other than the obvious -- and having his feelings be obvious is the last thing he wants. This photo shoot was his suggestion! He can damn well commit to it.
"Sure. I can get closer." He steps in until there’s only a few inches between them and tilts his face upward. He can feel the warmth of the king’s breath on his cheek, and he closes his eyes, suddenly blinded by his audacity.
"So you do like me after all," the king murmurs teasingly.
"Good! Let’s do the next set."
Jo Yeong stands frozen for a long moment, heart pounding, until the king pulls away.
At least it’s too dark for his blush to show.
[]
After that, Jo Yeong stops fighting it. It’s a simple thing, to walk with the king, and smile with him, and laugh. It’s easy to look happy to be with him.
Jo Yeong can’t remember how many times they’ve changed clothes at this point, or how many more they have to do. The lodge was a good choice for the backgrounds; Jo Yeong hardly recognizes the corners they’ve been using, and he’s worked here for years. No one will be able to tell they were all taken at the same place.
It’s late afternoon by the time they end up in the arboretum. Myeong Seung Ah has finally relented enough to let them dress for the weather -- You can’t fool gardening aunties, they’re relentless -- and Jo Yeong is giddy with gratitude that he gets to wear his own coat and not some absurd thing inflicted upon him by the royal publicists.
He hadn’t realized quite how many plants could be coaxed to bloom so late in the year. The air is too cold for the scent of the blossoms to carry, but the bright colors peek out among the green whenever the path turns a corner.
Myeong Seung Ah ducked behind a carefully tailored shrub a while back and waved them on ahead. Jo Yeong has carefully lost track of her in the garden. It’s easier to pretend, that way.
Besides, the king took his hand when they started walking, and Jo Yeong can’t focus on anything but the way the king occasionally rubs his thumb across Jo Yeong’s fingers. It’s the thoughtless habit of someone accustomed to holding hands, and Jo Yeong has to bury a wave of jealousy.
The king used to twitch away from anyone’s touch but his, and now it’s so easy for him. He probably spends his whole weekend holding hands, enough that now he hardly notices what he’s doing--
Jo Yeong tightens his grip for a moment, and the king turns to him, questioningly. But Jo Yeong just shakes his head. There really is no good explanation for his thoughts.
He starts to slide his hand away, but the king doesn’t let him, tugging him back. Jo Yeong thinks about insisting, but -- isn’t this his day? Can’t he have this, if only for the moment?
It feels nice, to think the king wants to hold his hand.
Distantly Jo Yeong knows why the king chose him for this. There’s no one else the king is willing to touch casually. He couldn’t do this with a stranger, or with one of Lady Noh’s carefully vetted young men or women. It would be so obviously fake.
But oh, he wants so badly to believe this is real. Even if it feels like it’s going to kill him when it’s over.
"Have you given any thought to how we’re going to break up?" he asks.
"Break up? Who said we’re going to break up?"
"People who are fake-dating have to break up sooner or later." Jo Yeong pretends to be interested in a creeper vine trained around a stone pillar. "I’m sure the media team will decide on the story, but it will look strange if I stay with your security detail afterward."
This time, it’s the king’s grip that tightens. "Then it looks strange. You don’t get to leave me, Yeong-ah."
"Ah." Jo Yeong has to turn his face away, to hide the thrill those words elicit. "I don’t want this to make things awkward between us."
"How could we possibly be awkward?" The king asks, suddenly sly. "You already told me that you imagine murdering me twice a day."
"On a typical day," he points out.
"And on other days?"
Jo Yeong smirks slightly. "I think it would be treason to say."
"Hm. I think I should report you to the head of my security."
"I agree. That would be wise."
And the king throws back his head and laughs, the late afternoon sunlight glinting off his hair. "See? I think we’ll be fine."
Jo Yeong realizes that at some point in all of this, he’d lowered his speech. He doesn’t know exactly when, which should alarm him. But the smug look on the king’s face says the man is pleased about it, and it does fit with-- this.
If they were really dating. Sneaking off to take a walk together in the garden. Jo Yeong hasn’t spoken casually to the king since he was a child, but he would, if this were--
If this were real.
The king pulls him to a stop under an arched trellis filled with vine leaves turned crimson with the season.
The king ducks his head, almost shyly, and pulls a jewelry box from inside his coat.
"I brought you a present."
And then the king pauses, looking down at the box with an expression Jo Yeong can’t read.
"Oh, that’s good," Jo Yeong hears from somewhere nearby, a voice he studiously ignores.
"This is a terrible cliché."
"It’s romantic," the king says, but he sounds vaguely distracted. As if his heart isn’t in it, for the first time all day.
"As I said."
But Jo Yeong takes the box and opens it. Inside is a brooch, a hammered gold plum blossom dotted with pearls. It isn’t -- quite -- the royal crest. But it isn’t subtle.
Jo Yeong’s fingers tremble too much to take it out of the velvet case.
So it’s the king who takes it out, and carefully secures it to the front of Jo Yeong’s coat. When he’s done, he rests his hand over it, surely able to feel the pounding of his heart.
"You should wear it all the time." The king seems to shake off his thoughts, and his lips quirk up in a playful smile. "That’s a royal command. You have to do it."
"Of course, Your Majesty." Jo Yeong makes sure the words come out with perfect formality, and it earns him another laugh.
The king shifts closer, hands sliding down to catch on either side of Jo Yeong’s waist. After a day of gradually moving together, it doesn’t feel the least bit awkward.
It feels like fate. Damn it.
"Yeong-ah..."
The king’s face is so close. Jo Yeong can feel the king’s breath on his cheek. It would take almost nothing to step even closer, to press them together. They’re practically embracing now.
This is a bad idea, he tells himself.
It feels like it takes every ounce of will that Jo Yeong has not to. But that will is rapidly wearing away like sand before the tide. He should step back while he still can, he thinks, even as he knows he won’t.
"Yes, Your Majesty?"
He shivers at the breathlessness in his own words, and he knows the king can feel it from the way his fingers dig into Jo Yeong’s sides. The king tilts his head even closer, his lips practically brushing Jo Yeong’s ears as he drops his voice -- his words soft enough that he couldn’t be heard even a few feet away. Something just for the two of them, and not for their audience.
"If we were really dating, what would you do with me now?"
The words spark all the way down, and Jo Yeong feels them catch fire. Distantly, he knows this is going to hurt eventually… but some fates can’t be turned aside.
He slides his hands up to catch the king’s face, palms burning.
"This," he says, and leans in to press his lips to the king’s.
It’s nothing more than a touch at first, despite the warning klaxons sounding in his head. Tentative and soft, barely a kiss at all. Jo Yeong pulls back an inch, waiting for-- something. Permission, maybe, or at least a response to let him know he hasn’t trespassed too badly.
What he gets is a soft noise from the king, something surprised and wanting, before he’s tugged back into a far more certain kiss.
Jo Yeong’s brain shorts out, leaving him with a series of disconnected impressions: the roughness of the king’s coat against the palms of his hands, the heat of his breath on Jo Yeong’s cheek. The way the kiss turns possessive as the king’s hands slide down further.
The light in the king’s eyes when he pulls back slightly, and smiles so softly.
The clicking of Myeong Seung Ah’s camera.
Jo Yeong shoves himself back, heart pounding, and the king’s arms drop.
He looks over his shoulder. Myeong Seung Ah is standing on the path behind them, openly taking photos even as Jo Yeong turns to look straight at her.
She’d seen that. Everyone would see that; that was the point of this whole day. The photos.
Everyone would know.
When he turns back, the king’s expression is shuttered, but Jo Yeong can still read one thing there: dawning comprehension.
A wave of pure mortification pours through him. "You got that? Good."
"Yeong-ah--"
Jo Yeong turns on his heel and strides back the way they came, refusing to look behind him. "We should get going."
[]
Changing back into his uniform afterward feels like trying to shove a flight of birds into a sack. Bits of himself keep flying out to rattle around the room in flashes of memory: the warmth of the king’s hand on his. The rumble in his voice.
Jo Yeong’s hand creeps up to touch his lips, where he can still feel the ghost of that kiss.
He yanks his hand away impatiently. This isn’t his first kiss, for all that’s he’s acting like it is. Like some kind of lovesick fool.
[]
As it turns out, his half-formed plans to avoid the king until the next day are pointless: the king leaves before Jo Yeong even makes it out of the changing room. Instead, he takes an awkward helicopter flight back to Busan with Myeong Seung Ah and a silence between them thick enough to cut with a knife.
By the time they make it back to the palace, the court is aflutter: the king has locked himself in his study and refused entrance to anyone. It’s the first time he’s done that in months, and the servants are no longer so accustomed to his moods. Everyone is thoroughly off-balance long before the king sneaks out for the weekend.
[]
Myeong Seung Ah sends him the disk from the camera that weekend. The complete set, unedited, along with notes about which ones she suggests they release and when, with what rumors and explanations. She makes it clear that it’s his job to send them to the media team, not hers.
It’s a kindness. She’s letting him choose which images to hide away, which ones are too… expressive.
Jo Yeong starts drinking before he even opens the first one, and gets roaringly drunk going through them.
Myeong Seung Ah did an excellent job; he’ll have to recommend her, if she ever leaves them to become a photographer. Even the awkwardness that he remembers so clearly looks real, like people only starting a romance might look.
With so many different universes, surely there is at least one where this is real. The start of a true romance: two people who work together slowly feeling something more. In an infinite number of alternate universes, surely there is at least one where he gives his heart, and gets one in return.
Somewhere in the middle, he realizes: he should never have let himself have that kiss. It feels like a crack in the earth beneath his feet, a before and after too far apart to touch. Jo Yeong doesn’t think he’s going to be able to put himself back together.
He had thought before that it would hurt to see the king and Jeong Tae Eul together, but he’d survive. With what he’s done, he knows it’s impossible for him to stay. He’s too compromised. He’d slip, sooner or later. If he’s lucky, no one would get hurt -- but it’s his job to make sure that doesn’t happen.
He’s going to have to leave, and he did this to himself.
He’ll stay until the king brings Jeong Tae Eul through, he decides. Planning for the wedding will take months, even with Lady Noh’s stealthy oh-maybe-someday arrangements. He’ll have plenty of time to leave before then. He’ll stay long enough to see things settled, and leave with a clear conscience.
He imagines watching the wedding on tv, so far removed from the people involved, and breaks down crying. If only he’d left well enough alone, he could have stood with them.
Jo Yeong scrolls back to the beginning of the photo gallery, and finishes drinking himself into oblivion.
[]
Jo Yeong manages to pour himself back into his professional shell by Monday. He’s still not quite right; he catches the flicker of uncertain glances from the other members of the guard when he walks in early that morning. Or maybe they’ve just heard the rumors. Seok Ho Pil is the only one with her head on straight; he’ll have to make sure she’s promoted properly when he leaves.
Jo Yeong quietly hands her the lead on all of the security arrangements for the next few days, and she takes the assignment without asking for an explanation. She doesn’t send him home, though, and he’s grateful that she isn’t going to make his unsteadiness public.
His determination to keep up at least the appearance of normality carries him all the way to the edge of the bamboo grove with the rest of the team, waiting for the king to arrive. The clouds have gathered, gloomy, dropping a faint dusting of snow on everything like a hint of salt on the ground.
They wait longer than usual.
When the king does make his way out of the grove, he looks-- tired. Determined. Less like a man fresh from vacation and more like one about to start a hard task.
Jo Yeong figures he’ll make this easier, and bows a greeting sharply enough that the rest of the security team does as well. "Your Majesty."
When he straightens up, the king is staring at him. Jo Yeong stares back, strangely unable to look away.
"Captain Jo." The king steps toward him finally. "You’re out of uniform."
"Your Majesty?"
The king steps close, and Jo Yeong freezes. He doesn’t know if he’d pull away, or step closer still -- no, he’s really not steady at all yet -- but the king just taps the lapel of his coat once and steps back.
The pin.
He’d put it away. Surely, whatever joke the king had made at the time, it was inappropriate for Jo Yeong to wear it.
"Don’t tell me you lost it already?"
"Of course not."
And the king nods as if that’s settled. "Come on, then."
It takes Jo Yeong a moment to move after him. Thankfully, the rest of the team has already fallen in line, so his misstep manages to go unnoticed.
Surely it was inappropriate for them to continue this charade. Jo Yeong had assumed that Jeong Tae Eul would put her foot down, and put a stop to this.
Unless the king didn’t bother to tell her. Or she didn’t care, because it meant so little. There’s no need for her to be jealous of him, after all.
Jo Yeong pushes the thoughts away fiercely. It doesn’t matter. He just has to get himself together.
He hurries to catch up with the others before they reach the car.
[]
Jo Yeong is grateful he handed off the week’s planning to Seok Ho Pil, because the king barely lets him out of his sight all morning. Thankfully, they’re running around to the appointments the king missed last week, so they don’t have time to talk.
Until the king pulls him aside when they return to the palace after lunch.
"You really haven’t lost it, have you?" he asks.
"No, of course not."
The king perches on the edge of the desk. "And yet you’re still not wearing it. Explain this to me, Captain."
"I didn’t think it was appropriate."
"To wear with your uniform? I’d already said it was."
Jo Yeong stares at him in dismay. Surely the king isn’t going to make him say it? "It was only-- for the photos."
"Ah." The king takes a deep breath. "Do you not want to wear it?"
Yes, yes he does, and no, he absolutely does not. Neither of which is an answer he can actually speak aloud. "Your Majesty," he protests.
The king taps out a short rhythm on the desk. "I could buy you something you’d like better. Would you prefer diamonds?"
"No, that’s-- it’s." Jo Yeong closes his eyes and counts to ten. Twice. "Stop teasing me."
If it comes out more pleading than insistent, that’s hardly his fault.
And the king sighs. "I take back my command. You don’t have to wear it." Then he catches Jo Yeong’s gaze and holds it, seriously. "But I’d like it if you did. Would you wear it for me?"
Jo Yeong wants to say no. This is tearing me apart. But he’d have to explain why, and he can’t do that. If the way he’d kissed the king last week hadn’t been enough to embarrass himself into an early grave, then those words coming out his mouth would surely finish him off.
So, eventually, he nods. The smile that breaks over the king’s face is like sunrise, and Jo Yeong can’t regret the decision.
[]
Everyone notices; the hammered gold is blaringly obvious against the black that he usually wears. Jo Yeong watches their eyes flicker over to his shoulder and away. No one is bold enough to ask, until Lady Noh stops him in the hallway and stares.
"I never thought I’d see that again," she says.
"This?"
"It was his mother’s." Her face softens in memory. "A courting gift, from his father. He didn’t tell you?"
Jo Yeong shakes his head, speechless and faintly horrified. This should have gone to Jeong Tae Eul, not to him. It shouldn’t be used for something false.
Jo Yeong isn’t sure what his face is doing, but Lady Noh just nods in sympathy. "It’s a difficult time for all of us, Captain. I hope you can forgive him for putting you through this."
"I--" he flails for a moment, and falls back on formality. "Of course."
"Mm." She pats his shoulder. "Time heals all wounds, they say."
By the time Myeong Seung Ah has the audacity to take him aside and compliment him on sense of narrative continuity, Jo Yeong has had enough.
"It’ll be more believable if they see the pin in other photos of you," she tells him approvingly.
"What pin?" Jo Yeong asks, jaw tight.
"... that one?" she says, pointing weakly at his lapel and clearly wondering if he’s lost his mind.
"I have no idea what you’re talking about." He stares hard at her and doesn’t break eye contact until she falters. It feels good to leave her gaping.
It shouldn’t matter. He’s been the king’s since he was a boy, twice over. He’s worn the formalities of his office for more than a decade. But this--
He’s wearing a royal family heirloom. Something that should rightfully have gone to the woman the king is going to marry. What was the king even thinking, to give this to him as a prop for their fake relationship?
It makes no sense. But Jo Yeong isn’t going to ask -- he’s half-afraid the king might actually answer, and there are so many things he can’t bear to hear right now.
[]
He does, in fact, make it to Friday evening.
By the time he’s following the king to the bamboo grove, Jo Yeong can almost taste the breakdown coming for him. He feels brittle, explosive, as if the least thing might send him raving into the night.
Maybe he’ll take a trip. He has two days; he could go to Baekdusan, spend the weekend in one of the silent meditation spas. He has got to do something to clear his head before Seok Ho Pil sends him away for being too distracted. It might be good to get away from everything for a bit.
He’s too busy thinking about his plans to notice that the king has stopped on the edge of the grove, waiting for him.
"Yeong-ah?"
"Ah."
The king holds out a hand. "Come with me?"
Jo Yeong blinks at him, bewildered. "I don’t understand."
"I think the three of us need to talk. Don’t you?"
Ah. Jo Yeong would rather face a hail of gunfire than have a conversation about –- this. He knows his place; he doesn’t need to hear it from Jeong Tae Eul to know that he’s trespassed.
"There’s nothing to talk about," he protests stubbornly, keeping his eyes on a point over the king’s shoulder.
"Fine. Then we can just drink, and not talk." The king huffs out a nervous laugh. "You don’t have to make this so difficult."
"I’m the one making this difficult?" Jo Yeong is mortified to hear his voice crack, but he can’t-- he can’t--
"No, you’re right." The king runs a hand through his hair, suddenly impatient. "We can still call this off. Cancel the photos, find someone else--" and his voice wavers, but he powers through it. "If you want. If that’s what you want."
"No." Jo Yeong is already shaking his head. He can’t do that to the king, who hardly lets anyone touch him. And, to be honest, he doesn’t think he could watch it with any equanimity at all, the king with someone else -- someone who doesn’t even care. "No, it’s done, they might as well be useful."
"But you’re embarrassed. Aren’t you? You want to pretend it never happened."
It. What a euphemism. It would make him laugh, if it didn’t hurt so much. "What other choice is there?"
The king’s face settles into something he can’t read. "Come find out."
[]
Jo Yeong thought that it might be strange and awkward, seeing Jeong Tae Eul again, but he doesn’t have the time to wonder about it.
He and the king have barely stepped through the portal when her face lights up. "Jo Yeong!"
She barrels into him with a hug, knocking him back a step and then laughing at his slightly dumbfounded expression. "What? Last time I saw you, none of us were sure we’d survive."
By the time he’s caught his balance, she’s already stepped back again. "I didn’t have a chance to thank you, for keeping this idiot alive."
Jo Yeong blinks at her for a moment, trying to catch up. "It was my honor."
"You see? That’s how a hero is supposed to sound." Jeong Tae Eul knocks her elbow into the king’s ribs without looking. "None of this bragging about saving the universe."
The king puts on an exaggeratedly studious expression. "Is it bragging when it’s true?"
"Yes," Jo Yeong and Jeong Tae Eul say in unison. Jeong Tae Eul grins at him, a conspiratorial light in her eye.
The king laughs out loud in delight, and Jo Yeong thinks: maybe this will be all right.
[]
They end up in the 1990s, in the republic’s Busan. It’s the kind of miracle that ought to move him more, Jo Yeong thinks as they walk down the path. But it feels more like walking on a movie set; not quite real.
The King and Jeong Tae Eul have clearly been to this time before, or possibly to one nearby, he thinks, from the brief flurry of half-spoken discussion as they find their way into town. This turns into a taxi ride to a glitzy hotel and booking the penthouse suite.
The hotel staff don’t even blink at the ragtag group of them.
Jo Yeong pauses to take in the lobby while they check in. It’s somehow shabbier than he would have expected. He has to admit that he doesn’t know what passed for fancy in 1990s in the kingdom, but he thinks Busan is poorer in this world than he’s ever seen it.
"Come on." Jeong Tae Eul interrupts his maunderings with a tug at his sleeve. She leads him toward the elevator, rambling on. "We'll order room service and drink all night. They have pretty good beer here. Unless you'd rather have gukhwaju? The owner's cousin runs a brewery in Haeundae, it's really good."
"Beer is fine."
"Hm. We’ll get some of the gukhwaju, too. You should try it."
She and the king bicker over what to order through the entire elevator ride, and into the suite. Jo Yeong slips away to scan the rooms -- clear, as he’d expected -- and listens to their conversation with half an ear. He thinks he might be used as an excuse more than once -- no, no, the squid, Yeong-ah should try that, too -- but doesn’t object.
By the time the food comes, he thinks maybe he should have. The hotel staff bring in more than a dozen carts and a literal mountain of dishes, before disappearing back out the door.
"We can’t possibly eat all of this," Jo Yeong says, somewhere between disbelief and despair.
"You have to keep your strength up when you’re drinking." Jeong Tae Eul hands him a beer and starts opening the trays.
[]
Jo Yeong deliberately loses track of how many beers he’s had. The gukhwaju is too sweet for his taste when he tries it, though both the king and Jeong Tae Eul seem happy with it. But the beer really is excellent. So is the makgeolli, and the soju, and the smoky local cheongju the staff brought as a gift for them buying so much alcohol in the first place.
He’s also lost track of the story Jeong Tae Eul is telling. Something about Myeong Na Ri, he thinks, and maybe a car trip to the mountains? It involves a tent in the rain and melted ice cream, and he finds himself laughing along even though he has no idea what’s supposed to be funny.
He hasn’t felt this relaxed in weeks.
"Ooh." Jeong Tael Eul pokes the king’s arm. "Do you think that ice cream shop is open yet? The one with the fancy sandwiches?"
Jo Yeong looks around at the detritus of the meal around them. "How can you possibly eat anything else?"
"Hey!" She leans over the table to swat Jo Yeong’s arm, but he shifts away and she misses.
"Hm." The king eyes the two of them with amusement. "I can find out."
Jo Yeong lurches to his feet to go along, and finds that he’s not as steady as he’d like to be. The king snickers at him and pushes him back down to the floor. It’s pathetically easy to do.
"You’re drunk, Yeong-ah. Stay here."
"I can go," he insists.
"It’s only on the next block, if it’s even there at all this year. I’ll be back before you know it."
Jo Yeong sinks back against the couch. "How are you less drunk than me?"
And the king laughs. "Because I’m not trying to keep up with her."
They both turn back to Jeong Tae Eul just in time to see her throw back another shot of chongju. She wipes her lip absently before she notices the two of them staring. "What?"
The kings laughs out loud. He leans over to kiss her cheek before he goes.
Jo Yeong pours himself another shot instead of watching. He doesn’t want to get maudlin, not now.
He’s drunk enough to tell the truth, he thinks. Which is a dangerous thing, maybe, but he really does need to say something to Jeong Tae Eul. She hasn’t brought up the pin he’s still wearing; she hasn’t brought up the fact that he kissed the man she loves. And he’s grateful for that, but he needs her to know--
"Lt. Jeong. I am so sorry for my behavior." He screws up his courage to keep going. "I overstepped. I promise you, it won’t happen again."
She stares back at him, eyes slightly glassy. "I thought you didn’t want to talk."
"This isn’t talking," he points out.
"Mm." She pours shots for both of them, and downs hers right away.
"I mean it," Jo Yeong insists, suddenly hit with how much he needs her to believe him. "It won’t happen again."
"Why not?" she asks shortly. "Do you think I’m jealous?"
Jo Yeong blinks blearily at her. "Of course not. Why would you be jealous of me?"
"Oh god." Jeong Tae Eul buries her face in her hands. "Why are we talking?"
"We’re not," he insists.
Jeong Tae Eul glares at him. "Fine. You’re right, I’m jealous, but not because you kissed him."
"What?"
"You don’t understand what it’s like." She turns her glare absently on the half-finished plates around them. "I’m not going to marry him. How could I? I can’t."
Jo Yeong thinks he might be a little more drunk than he thought. "Of course you’re going to marry him."
"Do you know, he’s never once offered to come to me?" Jeong Tae Eul sighs impatiently. "He has an heir, he could let them have it. He doesn’t have to be king."
Her words make a slick sickness well up inside him. It’s true; the king could abdicate. Jo Yeong had never even considered it as a solution to-- to this-- he’d never thought about it. He feels a distant, scrabbling panic.
"Oh, stop looking like somebody died." Jeong Tae Eul snaps at him, waving a hand drunkenly. "I just said he wouldn’t."
Jo Yeong downs the shot in his hand and reaches for another. It had literally never occurred to him how badly this could go, and he’d contemplated the possibility of the king dying on one of these trips.
It’s terrifying.
"And I won’t, either." Jeong Tae Eul is still talking. "So it doesn’t matter if I’m jealous. That’s what I wanted to tell you."
They’re both too drunk for this. The king should never have left them alone together; the only hope is to drink enough that they can’t possibly remember any of this later--
Jo Yeong refills her glass, and his own. When he downs his, so does she. The room is starting to smear around the edges.
"Can you even imagine me as a queen?" she snorts, slamming the shot glass back to the table.
"Yes." Jo Yeong admits baldly. It feels like that’s all he’s done for months -- imagined her standing beside the king, laughing with him in the mornings. Imagined their wedding--
"I'd rather put a noose around my neck." She wraps both hands around her neck as if she were trying to strangle herself. Jo Yeong shudders and makes a warding-off gesture without thinking about it.
She really doesn’t understand. Or maybe she grasps just enough to be afraid, and that’s –- also enraging. That she could be offered a gift from the gods, and a life with the man she supposedly loves, and still run the other way.
"No, seriously. They'd take away my gun, and my badge, and my name."
"But you could say his," Jo Yeong tries. It’s a gift, she needs to see that--
Jeong Tae Eul snorts. "I already do."
Jo Yeong shakes his head, suddenly furious. "So you want to spend weekends with him, and never stand beside him. Never share his burdens. You're that selfish?"
"Yes!"
They stare at each other for a long moment as her shout echoes through the suite.
"Look," she says, staring him directly in the eyes as if willing him to understand. "I know it’s wrong. I know he’s basically cheating on his country with me, you said that yourself. But I won’t give him up. And if that makes me the shameless homewrecker, then I’m telling you, I’ll be shameless."
Jo Yeong feels disgusted to even be having this conversation. "And you think I should pretend to date him, so you can -– what? How do you think this ends?"
"No." Jeong Tae Eul slaps a hand against the table. "No, I don’t think you should date him. I think you should marry him."
Jo Yeong stares at her, utterly speechless. The alcohol in his system makes her words tumble back and forth through his head for a moment until their meaning becomes clear.
Oh.
He’d thought, before, that Jeong Tae Eul was practical. He just hadn’t realized she was so ruthless, too. She’s solved all their problems quite neatly: if the king marries, the kingdom can keep its royalty even when he’s gone. She gets to keep sneaking away with the man she loves, and no one loses.
No one but Jo Yeong. And what does he matter?
She’s still talking, as if she’s trying to talk him into this. "You're right. He needs someone to stand beside him. Someone he trusts."
"Someone you don’t feel threatened by."
"That’s not the point, and you know it!" she snaps.
Jo Yeong looks away, refusing to answer. His heart is pounding; he can’t tell if it’s anger or fear.
"He has to marry someone." Jeong Tae Eul leans forward, intent and angry. "Tell me who else it should be, Captain."
"You."
"Won’t happen."
"How can you be so arrogant?" He snarls. "If not you, then Lady Noh has a list of dozens--"
"--But none of them love him."
She startles him into speechlessness again. Her voice softens slightly, and he’s heard this before. The sympathy when she’s trying to get a witness to talk--
"You do, don’t you? You’ve loved him the whole time."
"Of course I have. But that--"
A noise on the other side of the room pulls him to a halt. They both turn, to find the king standing there, staring in confusion at the two of them.
Jo Yeong has no idea how long he’s been there. How much he’s heard.
Fuck.
Jo Yeong can’t look at him right now. He can’t look at anything right now. He can’t put on a brave face and pretend none of this ever happened. Not right now.
Instead, he pushes past him out the door and out into the night.
[]
Jo Yeong gets very thoroughly lost, very quickly.
He’s lived in a different Busan his entire life, so the geography is vaguely familiar. But the streets and shops are strange, the people are strange. Even the air feels strange. Eventually, he stops trying to find his way and just lets his feet carry him downhill toward the ocean.
The fight with Jeong Tae Eul is a confused jumble in his head. The pieces he remembers barely make any sense together. She doesn’t want to marry the king; she wants him to marry the king.
She doesn’t know what she’s asking. But she does, doesn’t she? She knows how he feels. Does she think he could live like that, knowing the king doesn’t love him?
Cars pass by in streaks of light, fewer and fewer of them as he gets closer to the beach. The sounds of the city fade behind him as he keeps walking.
Maybe she thinks it’s no different, marrying someone or protecting them. Maybe she just doesn’t care.
It doesn’t matter what she thinks. It is different, so vastly different that it stretches out in front of him like the inky blackness of the sea.
One of them is a life he could have been happy with. But this... he can’t do this.
[]
Turning the corner of the path at Seonjeong beach, he somehow isn’t surprised to find his favorite bench occupied. This is where his feet take him, when they can: back to the king’s side.
They sit in silence for a long time, staring out at the ocean.
"I'm sorry," the king says eventually. "I thought. Well. It doesn't matter what I thought."
"Did you know?" Jo Yeong glances over at the king, but he’s not looking back. "When you asked me. Did you know?"
"That you love me? No." The king laughs softly, but it sounds sad, not mocking. "I didn’t know my own feelings, either, so it’s hardly surprising I missed yours."
"Lt. Jeong knew." Looking back, he thinks that Lady Noh knew, too. Maybe everyone knew.
"Under the circumstances, I think you can call her Tae Eul."
Jo Yeong snorts mirthlessly. "I don’t think so."
The king grows suddenly serious. "Please don’t blame her for the weight she cannot carry."
Jo Yeong can’t think of anything polite to say to that, so he doesn’t answer.
"It’s different in this world. Can’t you feel it?" The king turns to him, clearly hoping he’ll understand. "It isn’t the same, here."
And Jo Yeong doesn’t particularly want to be fair, not tonight, when everything inside him feels so scrubbed raw. But he does understand. "The gods are farther away."
"That’s... not how I’d put it."
"Really?" Jo Yeong shrugs then. "This world would never hold the Manpasikjeok. Not if you weren’t in it."
"Hm."
They sit in silence for a long time, as Jo Yeong sorts through his thoughts. They’re still a mess. But if his secrets are already out in the world--
"I’ve been in love with you since I was fourteen years old," Jo Yeong admits. It feels better, to make the declaration himself, than to let it only be words he blurted out during a fight. "And I was fine, knowing you’d never love me like that. It was enough to stand beside you. But I can’t do this."
"Is it too late, then?"
Joe Yeong blinks at him, confused. "What?"
"Is it too late for me to love you now?" The king looks down for a moment, as if afraid to make eye contact. But he squares his shoulders and continues. "Looking back, I can’t see a moment that it started. I knew I never wanted you more than a step away from me, but I didn’t call it love. I didn’t dare call it anything.
"I didn’t even see it, until I held my mother’s pin in my hand and knew I meant everything I was saying with it."
The king finally meets his eyes, and Jo Yeong sees the intensity there. "I love you. Please give me another chance."
Jo Yeong’s heartbeat stutters like a bird flexing its wings. "Say it again."
"I love you." With something like daring, he reaches over to take Jo Yeong’s hand in his. "Please give me another chance, Yeong-ah."
"You said it was all a lie." That part, Jo Yeong is sure of. Then again, he said the same thing. The question is whether he can forgive the king for not knowing –- and the answer is so clearly yes that it’s hardly worth asking himself.
"I was an idiot," the king says with the beginnings of a teasing grin. "You know that about me."
Jo Yeong looks down at their joined hands. He doesn’t quite believe this. He was so certain for so long; it makes more sense that he’s fallen into some alternate universe that only looks like his own.
And yet... he’ll take it. Whatever scrap of hope he can get, for as long as he can get it.
"You love me," he repeats, trying the words out. They sound good.
"I do. And I’d like to marry you, if you’ll have me."
Ah. Jo Yeong hadn’t quite gotten all the way there yet. He’d forgotten, for a moment: Jeong Tae Eul, the alternate universes. All the complications that would have to be dealt with.
"I know that it’s asking a lot," the king continues, as the silence stretches out.
"You’re asking me to let you -–" he stops, unsure of how he wants to end that sentence.
"Yes."
Is it cheating if everyone knows? Or is it just an arrangement?
He pokes at the place in his heart where he thinks he should be jealous, but there’s nothing more than a distant twinge. He has shared the king his entire life; that wouldn’t change even if Jeong Tae Eul weren’t in the picture. He has no idea how it would work, but he thinks... maybe it could.
"Very well. I give you permission to court me."
"Oh, it’s like that, is it?"
"Mm. If you expect me to accept a philanderer for a husband, you’re going to have to make it worth my time."
The king throws back his head and laughs, clearly delighted, and it makes Jo Yeong’s heart sing.
He may be sitting on the edge of a foreign ocean, in a whole other world -- but this moment feels like finally coming home.