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“You shouldn’t be here.”
His voice comes out warbled, thick. Even in his own ears it doesn’t have the weight of force it needs to mean something. Instead, it falls short and the other only watches him. A tense moment of silence, broken only by the crackle of the fire in the hearth as the first of the logs splits open with a tiny puff of ash. San suspects that. While he tries, this is no more than a phantom. Another dream he’s having of an imagined reunion as Wooyoung leans against the frame of the balcony doors. He’d always felt like that might have been too much for his station in the house, which he wasn’t even sure of, but then this was just a dream. What if it weren’t even his room?
“You shouldn’t be here.” He tries again, and yes, this time it has more heft to it, the words. They sound a little more like they mean what he says, even as he draws the covers up around him. Part of him longs to throw them over his head as he had done child when some shape in the night had frightened him.
This repetition breeds only the scoff of amusement from the phantom before he crossed over to San’s bed. “Are you afraid your lord and master will find you with a man in your chambers?”
Well. San’s mouth opens, closes; opens again. There are several answers, broken down into yes and no . ‘Yes’: because he hasn’t much to go off of where his lord and master is concerned. In the months that had passed since his arrival to the modest castle, he hasn’t seen hair nor hide of the man. A viscount, if San remembered right. A man that had been away to war in the time he’d been forcefully employed. His only knowledge was that he was — is ; there isn’t much news of his demise, let alone any news so San supposes he is still alive — a very generous and accommodating man. As far as San is concerned. But it would be just his luck that this generous master would walk in to check on a favored servant and find him in such a compromising situation.
Compromising in that he was associating with an enemy of the crown.
The ‘No’ was more that he couldn’t bring himself to fully care about. In a place that was only vaguely familiar to him, Wooyoung’s face is one that he has wanted to see for so long. Aches for when the work has ebbed and he finds himself sitting in front of a tub full of suds and undergarments. The No of it all is that this is also impossible. The Wooyoung — living, breathing — he wants is long gone. Probably disgraced even in the wake of his death. He’s not too certain; Jongho was quick to remove him from the capital. Stowed him away in a wagon and got him all the way out to the middle of nowhere, before — before that decree sent him straight to this very castle only three months ago.
He swallows thickly for a moment, realizes he hasn’t answered this ghost. “I’d not want to trouble my lord with trivial matters of his servant going insane.”
“You losing your mind is a trivial matter?” The question is fired back after the lift of a brow, a tip of his head in a way that is so much like Wooyoung, his heart stutters in his chest.
It’s foolish, stupid. A dead man doesn’t walk these halls to come see him. Doesn’t show up at his balcony, calm and collected as he is. San has no other answer to give him, but: “You shouldn’t be here.”
The same words uttered once more as if they might somehow save him. Somehow dispel whatever it is that is happening. But Wooyoung draws closer, the same discerning look given to him as when they’d first met a year ago. His gait relaxed, even with his arms crossed over his chest. His shirt is open some, the ties loosened as if he, too, were on the edge of considering sleep. Or maybe he was just up to his usual antics; the peek of collarbones that he’d often teased San with. Licks his lips, even, as he lifts a hand to rub at his chin and consider how to handle this situation. If this could be called a situation .
“Why can’t I be here?”
Now a question tossed San’s way. An easy one, but it feels like he’s waiting for something else.
“Because you…you’re supposed to be dead.”
There’s this moment. A moment where the expression on his face drops. The glib look of someone that had won gone for just a second. Then, a hardening of his eyes that lasts just as long as the first look, and there’s that passion that San so loved. But it’s gone — just like that. Just as Wooyoung had done when he was alive. San swallows again, stares down at the way his feet stick up under the quilt. It’s cold at night here; the castle airy and perfect for the summer heat in the day, but somehow so cold and dreary in the evening that he has to cover himself twice over. Or maybe it’s just that he’s cold.
Wooyoung clears his throat, jerks his head. Blinks as if to steady himself. “Well, that is one reason.” So simply stated. “But not correct.” There’s a light of mischief in his eyes as the grin spreads over his face once more and he wonders what could possibly be wrong in that. The phantom — San wouldn’t go so far as to get his hopes up and say that this was Wooyoung. He wouldn’t go beyond the realms of a fantastic dream. The phantom points to a spot beside San, brows raised in question before he speaks again. “Do you mind if I sit there? There’s too much space between us.”
Then: “I want to have a good look at you.”
There’s nothing to have a good look at. San’s face has been scrubbed clean, hair very neatly braided back. He’s washed up, dressed in only his night gown. No, there’s certainly not much to look at, but San can only comply when he pulls the covers back. A half-hesitated action that he’s not sure of, even when the deed is done. Wooyoung is already unlacing his boots when he looks up. Just barely resists the urge to pat the spot beside him as he usual did. Settles instead for smoothing his hand over the pillow and scooting aside a little more. He wants to give this phantom as much space as he can allow. It — he — seems to notice and a wryness takes his smile.
The act of crawling across the bed (much too big in San’s opinion) was a simple one, but the phantom made it into such an affair. A slow, measured thing where he locks eyes with San the whole time. He could only stare back, enraptured. Wooyoung would have surely done this, down to the way he stretched out over the covers. Head resting in his hands, he stares up at San as if he is the only thing that matters. He has — perhaps for a moment — the thought that if this is a dream and this is nothing , it might feel real if he reaches across and touches the other. The phantom must have the same idea, because he does just that. Rests a hand at San’s thigh, the warmth of it sending shivers up his frame. No; this is not real.
He decides it as he lays down in bed, facing this Wooyoung. The phantom watches him closely, quietly for a moment.
And then, San asks what he’s been meaning to for some time: “How are you here? If you are… real and not a ghost or me losing my mind, how are you here? ”
He wants, so desperately, for it to be real. But Jongho has told him before not to worry in that tone that held far too much pity. Sympathy that bordered on grief, and he wonders for a moment if that is no more than what this moment is. A long stretch of his grief giving him a measure of peace or a moment of torment before it threw him back to reality. Perhaps there is an urgency to his tone as he asks it, some vestige of his hope that maybe this is reality and Wooyoung is really here. Which presents its own sort of problems, but he can handle those as they come.
Wooyoung’s grin is the very one he remembers so vividly. A stretch of his lips as if he’s convinced another noble his cow shits gold again, as if he’s tossed the sun into the sky and wishes to be marveled at for it. San can give him that attention easily, readily. Chases the need to. “Well, you see—”
San doesn’t actually pay attention to the words, more the way his mouth moves around them. The dance of his voice from laughter to mockery. It’s why he misses all those important details and finds himself lulled to sleep. What he does catch is the barest, rawest whisper of “Good night, Sannie,” and his only response is a sigh mixed into a soft sob before he falls into the depths of unconsciousness.
“He’s not awake yet? Heavens; he’s usually up before us! ” San can recognize the pitch of the voice, the melodic way panic seems to dance in the words before he even opens his eyes. He struggles to do that as the door creaks open and footsteps sound over the floorboards. Soft taps that end abruptly with a heavy backstep. An apology sputters out and it’s the very pointed phrase my lord that forces his eyes open at once. “I didn’t realize you’d returned —”
“Late last night.” Wooyoung’s voice is thick with sleep, a grunt sounding as the bed shifts and San’s heart is in his throat. “I thought I told Jongho to warn everyone.” There’s no question in his voice.
Wooyoung had, once, played the part of some prince from an unpronounceable, nonexistent stretch of land at a gathering of nobles, and it was with this same tone he’d used to command the attention of the party that he speaks to the servant. When San looks up, it’s the same unimpressed expression, too. A carefully crafted veil that is so easily believed. That he almost believed. Mildred stutters something unintelligible before her face pales further as she catches sight of San, as if she’s just realizing that this is his room. That she’s found her master in his room and something clicks into place that sends her deeper into a panic.
San is having a crisis of his own. There he is, in his nightgown rucked up and the covers wrapped firmly in his grip. He’s not certain he can say that this was something he had ever dreamed of in his reuniting with Wooyoung. Mostly, just being able to see him is enough. But this is more than that. Wooyoung glances down at him, a smile spreading over his lips that lights up his whole face and San gives one in kind before he remembers.
Remembers that he told this man he was dead and that this same man was also the lord he served.
He bolts upright and nearly knocks his head against one of the bedposts in attempting to get out of it. Mildred has already scurried off, no doubt to tell the others of what she has seen and San can’t blame her. This is quite the scandalous affair. His hair askewn and sleep-puffy cheeks, he stumbles out of bed and onto the floor, onto his knees with his head bowed. “I’ve made a grave mistake.”
“San—”
“It was a moment of insanity and it won’t happen again—”
“ San! Will you please come back to bed?”
There’s a moment of tense silence — maybe it’s just tense on his part and Wooyoung is just tired — before San crawls back into bed. He keeps a careful distance between them, eyes on the sheets beneath them. Until Wooyoung turns his head and he is left with no other option but to bask in the glow that is Wooyoung in the morning. The soft touch of sleep is fading as his eyes take on more alertness, searching his own expression. But the smile on his face falls and his confusion is an open, bare thing. San’s eyes betray him in trailing the way Wooyoung’s tongue flicks out over his lips as he pushes himself to sit upright in the bed. In the light of the morning, with the sun streaming through the open balcony door, he can see him clearly. The smooth skin that would have been at his collarbone is marred with raised skin, pink with freshly healed scars.
A lump forms in San’s throat as he tries — and fails — to remember what Wooyoung had told hours before. It must show on his face because Wooyoung chuckles. No, he laughs. He’s always thought the sound was not that far off from the nervous sounds of the hyenas that had been the circus troupe where they first met. Beasts that hunched and bared their teeth when he passed. But there’s affection in this sound that makes it so endearing, he can forgive the way the man sprawls out again.
“You didn’t hear a thing I said, did you?”
“Yes, well —” Oh, he has no excuse to give and this only amuses Wooyoung further.
Sniffling, he wipes at an imaginary tear before he’s pulling San down into his embrace once more. “Well, I’m certainly not a dead man now, am I?” There is little time to answer; San is far too starstruck with this being real and Wooyoung has other plans as he leans in to press a kiss to his lips. “A rich, dead man, as it were.”
“How?”
“I told you how.” There’s something fond in the exasperation that makes San melt further. “I was pardoned for ‘exemplary service’.” The smile on his face fades some, but not for long. “They gave me this beautiful castle and told me to piss off.”
That — those are the words of a man born from the lowest of low. Never a secret how he felt about the crown, even moreso when he’d decided it would be a good idea to steal from them. Steal him. San’s expression darkens. “Did they…did they send you to the Reaches?”
“You mean where they send dashing young men like me to die? Oh, yes, they did, but they didn’t think I would do such a good job as a cutthroat.” Wooyoung shrugs as if this is nothing, wraps one hand around San’s. Threads their fingers together before turning the back of San’s hand to his waiting lips to press a kiss to it.
It must become nothing fast, because there is no more than a breath between that and: “And then they had no need of a pretty young thing like me out in the cold unforgiving world, so they gave me a reward.” A pointed look away to the room around them, and San remembers the rest of this reality.
Wooyoung is a man with a title now. A man that will probably have to concede to the social norms in some manner, even if how he managed to receive that title wasn’t all that normal to begin with. It would, as was already witnessed, be a subject worth gossip. The room, even, suddenly seems too much all over again. The wide bed, with its carved bedposts and the canopy of silk and velvet. The lamb’s wool rug by the yawning maw of the fireplace. The too much of it all hits him at once like it had when he’d first been shown the room. His hands shake and his pulse races, loud and feverish as he looks up at Wooyoung.
Hardened, surviving Wooyoung. He can feel his lip quiver and bites down to keep from crying out because this is real and this man is still out of his reach. The hot streak of tears has Wooyoung chasing him again, a dance of relief and despair skipping over his heartbeat as the other attempts to calm him. The crown will have decided on a wife for him. They will make pretty little babies and San will have to watch it all. Wash their stockings and darn their socks; play the nanny like he’d done once before. The first hiccuped sob breaks free as Wooyoung cradles San’s face in his hands and hushes him.
“What’s wrong? You were just smiling; did I upset you? I won’t talk about the Reaches anymore, I promise.”
San has no doubt that he won’t, but he can’t think past whatever beautiful bride is lined up for him, or what war they may send him out to next. With a title now he has a duty — that doesn’t involve San. Another broken sob and Wooyoung is pulling him into his arms again. It takes a considerable amount of time for him to calm down, somehow exhausted with so many realizations back to back that he can’t fight the attempts at comforting him.
“Would you like something to eat?” The soft tremor of nervousness in his voice, that San commits to memory immediately. His fists hold on tighter to the man, pull him closer than he already is. He presses his face in the crook of Wooyoung’s shoulder.
He come to another decision: if he will never have this moment again, he will be sure to mark this down in his memory.
From Wooyoung’s scent, earthy and with the undertone of leather and saddle oil, to his voice that no longer carried the weight of sleep. From the way his lips pressed together when San peeked up from the beneath his lashes to the way the warmth from his hands seeped into his skin. He would drink in every detail and savor it like it would be the last.
“San…did you really not hear everything I said?” A mix of realization and concern as Wooyoung attempts to pry San off him to lock eyes with him. Gazes trapped in one another before San’s darts away toward the wall. Wooyoung chases it, blocks the nothing San is staring at. “I explained everything to you.”
“You explained everything.” Echoed hollow like the empty halls.
(Maybe not fully empty; he tries to ignore it, but one of the floorboards squeak when you step on it toward the middle and it’s squeaked several times already.)
“ Everything. ” He was taking this so lightly, wasn’t he? San almost wanted to punch him, but that would ruin the moment. Would ruin the way their fingers interlaced, and Wooyoung’s thumb rubbed circles into his own. “Including the part where we’re married.” A pause, as he considers something. “You might have fallen asleep at that part. I know, the Reaches are so—”
“We’re married ?” It feels like a lie. It could be a lie. This could have all been one long ruse, though San knows better than to truly believe that.
Wooyoung nods emphatically, scoots closer. “Yes, very married. Officially, even. On paper and memorialized in all noble ledgers from now on.”
“That’s—”
“What I promised.” Finished early as Wooyoung’s hands moved to rest on his shoulders. What must he look like, eyes red and swelling from his crying and oh so very confused because he hadn’t paid attention before. “I said, I would give you land and you would never have to be with the troupe again.”
“I—” San falters, eyes widening and there’s the telltale burn of tears again. “We’re married. ” Hushed like a secret and uttered like it was taboo.
“Married. Divorce is nonnegotiable, I’m afraid.”
A watery laugh is San’s response to this. Like he would ever dream of divorce. The idea alone has him crying again and he hides his face behind his hands. How stupid. How easily all those quickly imagined fantasies had gone away. How easily the slate of grief had been wiped clean with a smile and an explanation. He might have been on the edge of hysterics; he could hear himself laughing, feel the way his shoulders shook with it.
“Divorce is nonnegotiable.” He echoes it in his laughter, falling back on the bed.
“Divorce is nonnegotiable.” Wooyoung joins him, his own laughter like the perfect accompaniment to his own as they pull into each other again.
He thinks he might still be asleep. Just a tiny part of him. Doesn’t realize even, that he’s voiced it until he hears the softest, sweetest, “Awaken, my love.”