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The chaos starts when Kwon Sehyuk openly announces that he will marry Ju Hamin when asked what he will do with the former crown prince. Actually, the chaos starts when Kwon Sehyuk starts a coup against Ju Hamin’s father and forcefully takes the throne after his murder, but Ju Hamin’s personal life is thrown in disarray the moment Kwon Sehyuk pulls him close to his chest with that trademark smug smile.
“I think I’d rather die,” Ju Hamin flatly says, not even surprised at the shit that comes out of this bastard’s mouth.
“Did you forget about the promise you made?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You were seven, and you said you would make me your bride when we grow up. I’m plenty grown, as you can see.”
“…”
Ju Hamin cringes when the memory surfaces in his head, but he doesn’t refute the Emperor’s claim. He did promise that, once upon a time, when he was a naïve child, and he didn’t understand how the world quite worked. Damn. Did Kwon Sehyuk truly keep that memory close to his heart this entire time?
“Was Master Hamin only playing a cruel prank on me?”
Ju Hamin takes a moment of silence to think about what he can possibly respond to a person with not a single bone of reason in his body.
“…Neither of us can be brides. We’re both men,” is what Ju Hamin settles on. It should be the easiest concept for even the simplest minded of men to understand. “I’m sure the court will warn you that such a union is technically unlawful.”
Kwon Sehyuk turns to the said court members surrounding them, all of whom are watching with widened eyes, grabbing Ju Hamin’s arm as if he were nothing more than a trophy, shouting, “Do we have any objections?”
Ju Hamin wanted to slap the man silly, but he couldn’t break out of Kwon Sehyuk’s strong grip. The difference in their physical prowess is too strong, much to his own detriment.
It’s not his fault that Kwon Sehyuk grew up to be a monster. Ju Hamin doubts there’s many in the kingdom who are stronger than the man who overthrew the Emperor.
A marquis bravely steps forward, shrewd face glaring at Ju Hamin. Apparently his dislike of Ju Hamin is greater than any fear for Kwon Sehyuk. Or perhaps the nobleman finds the thought of two men becoming the royal couple too distasteful to keep quiet about his opinions.
“Sir, if I may—”
The man doesn’t even finish his sentence.
Faster than Ju Hamin can process, Kwon Sehyuk runs up to the maquis, unsheathing his sword in record time, and slices the man’s body in half, as if his blade is simply cutting through water. Blood splatters on the floor and on the two noble men who had the misfortune of standing close to the incident. Ju Hamin is, once again, not surprised by the turn of events.
He knows Kwon Sehyuk too well, he laments. The court doesn’t understand that this mad dog really cannot be reasoned with.
“Any more objections?” Kwon Sehyuk asks, the echo of his voice filling the deafening silence following the scene.
Ju Hamin raises his hand. “I object.”
“Of course, you do. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be any fun.”
Only a crazy bastard like Kwon Sehyuk would dare describe this entire situation as “fun”. On the other hand, Ju Hamin really wishes he was anywhere but here, but alas, now he’s trapped as the new Emperor’s fiancé, and he knows that Kwon Sehyuk planned this all out for that type of outcome.
Ju Hamin starts to question if the man really killed his father out of revenge or if it truly might have been for the goal of simply messing with him again, just like old times when they were little kids, and Ju Hamin doesn’t doubt that the act of something so grand as killing the current Emperor was probably something that Kwon Sehyuk would describe as “trivial”.
Ju Hamin frowns. “You’re such a tyrant.”
“I’ll give you until the end of the year to fall in love with me.”
Ju Hamin brightens at the hopeful prospect. “Then, you’ll let me go?”
Kwon Sehyuk smiles, shattering any illusion of optimism within Ju Hamin. “I’ll take what I want regardless of your feelings towards me.”
At this point, using the word “tyrant” would be an understatement.
Their engagement is announced to confused fanfare. Ju Hamin barely has time to focus on it since he’s flooded with paperwork that Kwon Sehyuk couldn’t be arsed to even look at, of course it’s all handed to him instead.
His bastard father ran the kingdom in a very specific strict way that Ju Hamin could not bring himself to imitate. He’s not a tyrant like his father, and Kwon Sehyuk could care less if the kingdom burst into flames as long as he gets what he wants.
That means hours of his life sacrificed to making sure things are still running somewhat functionally after the disappearance of his father. He wakes up early in the morning, eats a quick breakfast, and then proceeds to spend hours cooped up in his office, usually never leaving the room until the sun has long set. When he reaches the bottom of a stack of papers, he’ll take a look out the window and realize how late it already is.
“Fuck…” Ju Hamin complains. This is the price to pay for the death of his father? What a shit deal, if you ask Ju Hamin. Who wants to be king with the amount of work that needs to get done every day?
At least it’s something he’s capable of. He remembers the days of his childhood when his father wanted nothing more than for him to become one of the greatest swordsmen in the empire, even though he had little to no talent for it. Then that father had the gall to blame him even though he slaved day after day in that courtyard because his father forced him to, and his father was always upset at the fact that Kwon Sehyuk would always be a better warrior than his own son.
I’m glad you’re dead, old man, Ju Hamin bitterly thinks when recalling those days.
His bastard to-be-husband sneaks up behind him while he’s walking to his office in the hallway. Any nearby servants immediately flee the scene, not wanting to draw the Emperor’s ire or attention. Ju Hamin understands that sentiment strongly. He also would not want to be caught in this man’s radar if he had the choice.
“Master Hamin,” Kwon Sehyuk says with his trademark smirk. The one that means he’s up to no good, but he’s never up to any good, Ju Hamin supposes.
“Please, don’t call me ‘master’, your majesty. You’re higher ranked than me now.”
“Shall I call you ‘wife’ then?” Kwon Sehyuk bends down and nuzzles his head in between the space besides Ju Hamin’s neck, his hair tickling Ju Hamin’s cheek.
“Can’t you be a normal person and just address me as husband,” Ju Hamin sharply snaps at him, though he doesn’t make an attempt to push the man away. This is as obedient as he’ll get, Ju Hamin recognizes. Even unruly dogs need to be rewarded every now and then.
“But you’re the empress,” Kwon Sehyuk teases.
Ju Hamin mutters curses under his breath. Kwon Sehyuk pretends not to hear him. Instead, the Emperor rubs comforting circles on the back of his hand with his thumb, and they stay like that for several seconds.
“Your hand is small,” Kwon Sehyuk comments, tracing his fingers over Ju Hamin’s, specifically rubbing at the golden band on his ring finger. “I always wondered why your Father insisted on making you learn swordplay with these delicate fingers of yours.”
“That’s because he was a bastard.”
“Would you consider me to be a bastard?”
“You’re the biggest bastard of them all.”
Kwon Sehyuk chuckles in his ear, his deep voice causing shivers to run down Ju Hamin’s back. Ju Hamin is suddenly more conscious of their close proximity to one another.
“If you were anybody else, you would’ve died a long time ago. Slander is punishable by death according to the current laws.”
“I only spoke the truth. It’s not slander, in that case.”
“Of course, wife.”
“I think I’m going to throw up if you call me that again.”
One night, Ju Hamin falls asleep in his office with his head on the desk. In the morning, he wakes up with Kwon Sehyuk’s imperial coat draped over his body. Ju Hamin proceeds to throw the article of clothing out the window. Kwon Sehyuk’s punishment is making Ju Hamin sleep in the same bed as him for an entire week.
Even when Ju Hamin accidentally dozes off in his office a couple more times, Kwon Sehyuk will slam the doors open and carry him over his shoulder to their bed, even as Ju Hamin kicks his legs in protest.
They don’t stop sleeping in the same bed after the week is over.
The wedding itself is small, and Ju Hamin barely has any people he can call friends to begin with. His pale skin has an unhealthy sheen in the sun, much to Kwon Sehyuk’s displeasure. He greets the two acquaintances he’s familiar with, both of whom whisper to him if he’s truly fallen in love or if this is merely for his survival, and how is Ju Hamin even supposed to respond to that. He’s known Kwon Sehyuk the most out of anybody in their entire kingdom.
They say love is a choice. He thinks Kwon Sehyuk knows him well enough to be making an informed decision to marry him out of his own free will. Ju Hamin, on the other hand, feels like he lost a long time ago.
The absence of the Duke’s third son is apparent to Ju Hamin. He used to send letters to Ju Hamin but stopped when Kwon Sehyuk took the throne. Ju Hamin knows the letters haven’t been intercepted—it just seems that man lost interest as soon as his father was overthrown.
How bittersweet.
“Looking for someone?” Kwon Sehyuk asks when Ju Hamin’s eyes scan the crowd once again.
“No,” Ju Hamin denies. He’s bad at lying though, and he knows Kwon Sehyuk can see right through him. They know each other too well at this point. Isn’t there people who warn that knowing a person too well is a detriment?
“He never cared about you,” Kwon Sehyuk whispers in his ear. “You were nothing more than a toy to that man, and he only stuck close to your side because of your Father.”
Well, that’s obvious now, isn’t it? Ju Hamin doesn’t cry, even if he wants to, because he refuses to show weakness at a place and time like this. Not as his wedding.
“What about you? Why have you always stuck close to me?”
“…You have a nice ass.” Kwon Sehyuk squeezes his butt to prove a point. Ju Hamin wants to kill him so, so badly. His life be damned, this is a special purgatory for the likes of him, and death might be more merciful at this point.
“You’re so vulgar.”
“Thank you,” Kwon Sehyuk says.
“For the record, you didn’t have him executed, right?”
Kwon Sehyuk hums. Ju Hamin spends the rest of the day wondering if he’s just worrying for nothing or if the man did meet an unfortunate fate due to Kwon Sehyuk’s insanity. Just because someone’s an asshole doesn’t mean they deserve to die.
His father had always called him soft. Unfortunately, he was right, but now he’s dead, so at least he doesn’t have the ability to gloat about it.
They pointedly don’t have sex even after officially becoming Emperor and Empress. It’s actually a testament to Kwon Sehyuk’s patience and tolerance because the man constantly reminds Ju Hamin of how horny he is. The night of the wedding, Kwon Sehyuk almost attacked him into the bed, and Ju Hamin was somehow able to barely fend off the insatiable man.
“You said you would give me until the end of the year.”
“I’m horny.”
This bastard. A vein from Ju Hamin’s head almost bursts in annoyance at his newly wedded husband’s childishness. This is the man he vowed to stay with until death.
It’s honestly respectable that Kwon Sehyuk even listened in the first place. Although, he still thinks about how Kwon Sehyuk is “only giving him until the end of the year”. At this rate, should he just run away?
No, that’d be useless. That blood hound would be able to track him down no matter where he went.
The tipping point comes after three months after Kwon Sehyuk took the throne, only a mere month after their official holy-unholy union together. Kwon Sehyuk doesn’t stop ravaging his mouth like a predator claiming its prey, and he’s a bit more forceful that night than usual when he climbs on top of Ju Hamin and pressed him against the soft bed sheets.
“I’m at my limit. How much longer are you going to make me wait, Master Hamin?” Kwon Sehyuk whispers in his ear.
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Wife.”
“Do you want to die?”
“I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if it were by these lovely hands.” Kwon Sehyuk leaves little light kisses on his hands, which are free of any blemishes. Ju Hamin looks down at Kwon Sehyuk’s hands, which in contrast, are littered with scars that aren’t able to quite heal fully.
It’s a lifetime’s worth of hardships that have been carved into this rough skin. A life that Ju Hamin couldn’t possibly imagine.
Kwon Sehyuk notices his lingering gaze and raises a hand close to his mouth. Hesitantly, Ju Hamin presses one, and only one he can’t emphasize enough, kiss on the faded scar that’s the longest of the bunch. Ju Hamin flushes red immediately after, feeling stupid for having done something so silly.
“Master Hamin…”
Kwon Sehyuk buries his head in the crook of his shoulder, gripping Ju Hamin tightly like he’d fly away if the man ever let him go. “It’s really not fair. I want us to fuck so badly, it’s all I think about now…”
First off, that really shouldn’t be Ju Hamin’s problem. Secondly, why is Kwon Sehyuk so bad at romance? That was worse than any cheesy romance novel he could think of. The only reason Kwon Sehyuk proposed to him after taking the throne was because he doesn’t know how to properly court someone.
“As a citizen of this kingdom, I’m concerned if your thoughts are only filled of… that all day. You have a kingdom to run.”
“Sex,” Kwon Sehyuk clarifies, as if any clarification is needed.
Don’t slap him, Ju Hamin has to calmly remind himself. He clears his throat. “I suppose, as your husband, it is my duty to—”
Kwon Sehyuk doesn’t wait for him to finish, ripping off his clothes with a hungry look in his those yellow eyes.
“—Start slow, start slow!” Ju Hamin shouts, lightly smacking the man to no avail. He chooses not to respond when the other man makes fun of him for being a virgin.
“Take a break,” Kwon Sehyuk says when he barges into Ju Hamin’s office one day. His fingers reach up to his face, specifically feeling the bags under his eyes. “It’s an order.”
Ju Hamin sighs. “Since when did the dog start ordering the master around?”
“The owner should listen if he doesn’t want his dog to bite him.”
Ju Hamin gestures to the litter of hickeys littering the back of his neck. Unamused, he says, “You already bite me regardless. It’s not a threat at this point.”
“Should I bite your—”
“If you finish that sentence, I’ll slap you.”
“That’s considered animal abuse.”
Kwon Sehyuk pulls Ju Hamin’s chair back a little before sitting directly on top of his lap. He’s heavy. It’s uncomfortable for Ju Hamin, but he’s determined to remain focused on the paperwork in front of him instead of his husband’s shenanigans.
“…Should we switch positions?” Kwon Sehyuk asks.
Ju Hamin finds it much better to be the one sitting on Kwon Sehyuk’s lap—of course, as opposed to the opposite rather than not at all. The only confirmation that Kwon Sehyuk has a heart is the consistent pulse against his back.
They stay like that for several minutes.
“You know, you’re rather boring when you’re not serving me in bed. It makes me wonder how you were able to keep my interest all these years.”
“Do you really not have anything better to do than to annoy me while I’m working?”
Kwon Sehyuk licks his neck unexpectedly, garnering a shout of surprise from Ju Hamin, who drops the pen onto the document smearing ink over some words. “Actually, your reactions never get tiring. There’s that, too.”
“I’ll take a break,” Ju Hamin says.
“Should I take you to our bed?”
“It’s the middle of the day, you dog.”
“And? I’m the Emperor, I make the rules around here.”
Ju Hamin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that’s the problem. We’ve long established this.”
“What else would you have in mind, then?”
“Let’s just take a walk around the gardens. No funny business,” Ju Hamin warns when he sees the mischievous glint in his husband’s eyes.
“Fine. But later tonight, I can stick it in,” Kwon Sehyuk says. “As a reward for my good behavior.”
“Is sex all you think about!?”
Kwon Sehyuk eagerly nods with a smirk. Ju Hamin curses.
The truth is, Ju Hamin already fell for this dog bastard a long time ago, but he’d rather die than admit that. He genuinely did forget about the promise to marry Kwon Sehyuk all those years ago.
It was hard to find someone to love him in this world. That was the plain truth. As the Emperor’s son, there were very few people who cared about Ju Hamin more than the crown prince. He was the Emperor’s only son. He was an easy target for their manipulation and political games.
Ju Hamin didn’t know Kwon Sehyuk was a mere dog that his father picked off the streets—he simply thought Kwon Sehyuk was a boy who looked very cool when wielding the sword. He wished he could be as cool as Kwon Sehyuk when it came to fighting.
Kwon Sehyuk didn’t like him at first, but for some reason, warmed up to him little by little as more training sessions happened. They were close friends by the time Ju Hamin announced he would take Kwon Sehyuk in as his bride.
As they grew up, the distance between them grew larger and larger. Ju Hamin began to realize the true nature of the world around him, but strangely, his understanding of Kwon Sehyuk as a person didn’t change. He understood Kwon Sehyuk more as the years passed by, even if he didn’t get to see the boy as often.
Kwon Sehyuk has undeniably changed from the child he used to be, but Ju Hamin doesn’t feel that he’s too different from that boy.
Ju Hamin thinks it’s hard to both love and be loved. It’s why deep down, he does treasure Kwon Sehyuk. He’s the only one who Ju Hamin loves and the only one that Ju Hamin can accept love from, without worries or concerns of being taken advantage of.
And so what if that man used to be a mere dog? Dogs and men, they’re all the same if you strip them of everything.
“Master Hamin,” Kwon Sehyuk says with a particular fondness in his voice as they lay together in bed on a slow Saturday morning, a crack of sunlight streaming into the room between the small opening between the curtains.
“Ah…” Ju Hamin says in a flat tone. “I can’t feel my legs.”
Kwon Sehyuk smiles innocently.
Ju Hamin thinks there are dogs that exist that can’t be tamed no matter how much investment one puts into them.