Archive of Our Own ^beta

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“For your sake, I sincerely hope this is all a poorly conceived jest. I’ll even let you have it at my expense this time.”

“I can’t say that it is, Dominus. I’ve sworn an oath not to lie.”

“A brothel, Chistopher? Is that the best lodging you could find?”

“It is the only lodging that could accommodate your company. Besides, it was not I who made these arrangements.” 

Hyunjin frowned. “Then who is to take credit for this atrocity?”

“Our magnanimous Imperator, of course.”

A sigh. “Of course.”

“He’d written to me a few days ago, but–”

“And you didn’t think to inform me?”

“–you’d already retired by the time Marcus had arrived at camp to deliver the evening mail.”

The Legatus clicked his tongue. “You should have awoken me.”

Christopher shrugged, waving him off with a hand. “Perhaps. Or maybe my desire for my friend and commander to get a single decent night of rest outweighed your obsessive need to know about everything.”

The answering glower on Hyunjin’s face would have petrified a lesser man into stone. But Christopher Bahng was no lesser man. 

“If necessary, I would have sent for you. But I speak the truth when I say that it was a redundant piece of writing that offered no knowledge we didn’t already possess. It detailed the territory we’ve now claimed–the very territory we spent nearly an entire lunar cycle spilling blood upon. That we perhaps know better than our own home, for gods’ sake. He enlightened me to the new land ownerships and charters that have been drafted. And of course, the resulting discourse that erupted amongst dissenting lords. What else?” He looked to the side, mind roving over other information the Emperor had disclosed as he tapped at his bottom lip. “Ah, yes. He offered his sincerest congratulations on a war well fought. And then he informed me of a little update to our itinerary. This little update. According to him, it is a reward for our tireless efforts in battle.”

“Sounds to me that it was necessary, Christopher. You should have told me about this beforehand, not as we’re encroaching upon the threshold of an environment most foreign to me.”

“You could have done nothing. You still can’t do anything, as it stands. It is our Caesar’s command.” 

Hyunjin sighed heavily. “Well it seems more a mockery of our endeavours than a reward.”

Christopher nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “I’m inclined to agree. But he considers it an esteemed endowment. It is difficult to be granted entry into the Purple Hyacinth for any one soul–and here we are, a company of a hundred.”

“Should I be grateful for it?”

His Tribunus gazed earnestly at him. “No,” he spoke shortly. “But you and I both have an intimate understanding of how he revels in his authority. Especially when it comes to his divine prerogative.”

“I imagine he wielded that privilege rather egregiously in order to do this.”

“You already know he did.”

“Humour me, will you?”

“Curious?”

Hyunjin shook his head. “Killing time.”

Christopher scoffed, full lips curling into a weak grin. Undoubtedly, his closest companion was a stoic individual, serious and reserved and intense in a way that would shake even the most hardened of men. He very seldom was the type to fall into frivolity or carelessness, and even more seldomly would he even allow those things passage to find him. Christopher would wager that the mere concept of gaiety feared Hyunjin Hwang, the fiercest Legatus Legionis known to the history of the Holy Roman Empire. So it was always a nice change of pace when he gave into his more childish tendencies–which, more often than not, manifested in an unbearably dry humour and boarlike stubbornness.

But he’d always been like that. From the moment he’d met Hyunjin shortly after his thirteenth name day, he was quick to learn of the peculiarities surrounding the untalkative boy. The quiet calculatedness, the sharp intellect, the strange affinity for perfection in every aspect of life, no matter how trivial. 

It was no wonder why the Emperor was drawn to him, or why he considered him a formidable contender to lead his legions amongst their ragtag group of military trainees. 

And it was no wonder why they became the best of friends shortly thereafter. Their goals and interests were aligned, their sense of righteousness on par with one another. They shared a certain outlook on life, the kind that seemed rare and unusual. Yet Christopher could say with great confidence that Hyunjin was the most exemplary companion he could have asked for. 

Because the thing about Hyunjin is that while he was all of those things that many considered unsavoury, he was also excruciatingly human. Christopher had seen that humanness in the moments he needed to most. When he was overcome with grief and burdened with heartache, left with no one to turn to. 

Yes, to acquaint oneself with Hyunjin Hwang was to accept the existence of a very particular breed of person, but he was Christopher Bahng’s dearest friend and always would be. Upon the battlefield and in the halls of their capitol. In life and in death. 

So, ever indulgent of his wishes, Christopher complied. After all, they had naught better to do than converse and make sense of their perplexing lives. 

“He had Seungmin inquire after the matron–a Florentine woman who is referred to, by and large, as Madam Amalthea. Unfortunately, he could not get in touch with her, but he was able to come into contact with some of her associates. He asked after her availability, but more than that, he aspired to ascertain her willingness to serve soldiers of the imperial army. At first, she refused such an undertaking, claiming that she’d already made arrangements with some lord and his vassals. Though it eventually mattered none, as our Caesar offered her a king’s ransom to make it happen despite her imposition. She was, naturally, more than happy to offer her rooms and…services, in turn.”

Hyunjin scoffed distastefully. “Of course she would be. It was either accept the Emperor’s request or die.”

“She made the right choice, then. Let us hope the same can be said for our Emperor.”

“That remains to be seen. Though I find myself continuously disgruntled by our Imperator’s presumptuousness.” He raked a hand down his face. “He is no fool, but I daresay his ignorance has invited blindness. What use of such a benefaction do I have? Shelter? That’s what our castras are for! You know I care not for grandiose gestures when we’ve taken to the road. I could sleep upon a haystack, and it would be more than enough. We’ve no need for-for those things.”

“I’ve no doubt that he believes to have done us a favour,” Christopher retaliated calmly. “In a way, as loath as I am to admit it, he has. We had neither the time nor the means to set up camp. We even had to divide our legions amongst the other Tribunes for these very reasons. You know this better than anyone, Hyunjin.”

“Be that as it may, you are no stranger to my stance on these establishments. I find it quite discourteous that he would sequester me here, a place that defies my integrity, when I’m certain other, more appropriate arrangements could have been made.”

“I know of your sentiments, amicus, but he does not. Quite frankly, I don’t think he really cares if it makes you uncomfortable. He enjoys these things, as do many others. Men in your own legions, in fact.”

Hyunjin pulled his mouth into a tight line. Every reminder of the true rottenness of mankind was an unwanted one. A smear on his probity. 

Because while these things were commonplace in their society, and while the greed of men was widely accepted, Hyunjin was not granted the liberty to simply do as he pleased beyond closed doors. Behind them, he was his own Emperor, the master of everything. But beyond them…beyond them he was just a pawn. 

Though he was a pawn with a very specific, very crucial role. He did not only represent himself–a respectable, law-abiding citizen–but an entire nation. A nation that could only exist and further prosper because of strength. Strength in diligence and determination, in honour and valour. Rome was not built upon sloth, nor was it built upon concupiscence.

It was built upon the backs of people like Hyunjin, who came and went to defend her beauty with dignity and pride. Hyunjin had been chosen to now embrace that role, and that meant that it fell upon his shoulders to uphold the divine image of the Holy Roman Empire. There could be no room for error, not the smallest sliver. If it were to ever be revealed that the Legatus Legionus spent a clandestine night at a renowned brothel–even if he had absolutely no intention of participating in any form of barbary–he’d be ruined. 

It was disgraceful. It was scandalous, because these things, these places…they had no place in his life. 

And the truth is, he’d never want them to be. But now that he was being forced into their path, he dreaded the possibility that he’d be eternally tied to the place that was explicitly designated for them. Because not only would he now have to conciliate the fact that that building itself stood for everything he abhorred, but there was also the concern that the reputation he so painstakingly built from adolescence would be smeared. 

Everything he sacrificed, all the blood and the sweat, the inconceivable pressure for perfection—it would all come down to this singular moment. And it would all be set to flame. 

But he was no fool. 

Life wasn’t so severe for the common man as it was for the Legatus. Nor was it so rigid and disciplined. 

Though he himself was averse to the sex trade, he was cognizant of the delight it instilled in others. He was no fool to believe that his men had no knowledge of establishments such as these, or that they were foreign to the idea of sex houses. Quite the contrary, he was acutely aware of their experiences with places like this, just as he was of their choice in leisure when they were not encumbered by military training or active warfare. Usually, they’d pursue the fulfillment of these desires in more…local facilities. The seedy old brothels that boasted their cracked facades and crumbling foundations in the city centre. That were open to the public, offered very little resistance, and prided themselves on their ample…selection. 

He could only imagine the exhilaration they felt knowing that they’d be privy to the highest quality of whore for a night. It was almost too damning a thought. 

For the work we do, us men deserve the fine things in life, they’ve said to him, time and again, a tit in one hand, a chalice of wine in the other. 

To the Legatus, that was a load of ox shit. There was more to being a man than paying for a woman’s companionship. Things that actually held stock and value conducive to mental and physical advancement. For such a stance, he’d been dubbed The Man of Stone, The Ice God…

The Iron Cock. 

It was a running joke amongst his legions. Mere hushed whispers that they’d not dare to speak to his face, for the fear he inspired within all was not to be trifled with, but Hyunjin knew everything. Everything. For where he hadn’t any eyes, he had ears–and that ensured that nothing went past him, especially when it came to his men. Especially when it came to their personal affairs.  

However, this very well did. Had he been made aware of these arrangements prior to their arrival, he’d have demanded something–anything–else. Hells, he’d even take the stables over this, with their potent smell of horse manure and the prickly dryness of hay to cushion his back. Surely, his steed would be a more adequate companion than someone who’d been paid to offer him company.  

But, as Christopher had said, there was nothing he could have done then to change the course of their future. Nothing he could at present, either. Hyunjin was a powerful man, but what was a powerful man when he was at the mercy of an Emperor ordained by the gods?

What was a powerful man if he could not help those who needed a voice the most?

“I don’t care if a whore is meant to be bought. They are people. Like you and I and our Emperor are people. They are not commodities. I will not stand for it.”

Christopher nodded solemnly. 

“It is inhuman, Christopher. It is cruel.”

“Indeed it is, my friend. But such is the world.”

A quiet breath, a moment of silence. “Indeed it is,” he murmured, parroting the Tribune’s words. “And I fear we are the ones who make it so.”

“Undoubtedly.”

Hyunjin’s eyes flicked back to his companion’s. “Does that make me cruel, Chris?”

A furrow cleaved itself between Christopher’s brows. “I…” he started, a sigh heavy on his tongue. “I don’t believe the two are mutually exclusive. But I do believe that one cannot exist without the other.”

Before Hyunjin could retaliate, he beat him to it. 

“However,” he continued, “the cruelty of the world is not a reflection of you, Hyunjin. War, famine, the human condition itself…invites cruelty into our world, and it is mankind that must learn to adapt to it.”

“And those that bring such desolation to it? Does that not make them cruel?”

“The adaptation to it can evince itself in a number of ways. Cruelty begets cruelty, but it can also foster empathy. And you, my friend, have no shortage of empathy—even if it only shows itself when you deem it appropriate. I have the utmost faith in your judgment of character, so I know your empathy to be the most genuine of things on this earth. A man who is cruel would not be capable of that.”

The Legatus seemed unconvinced. “I’ve killed men, Christopher. Countless men. Sons, fathers, husbands. Do you think they, too, were infected by the cruelty of the world? Or do you think they were imparted with mine own?”

Christopher shook his head, dispirited. “We cannot think about those who would not think of you.”

Hyunjin’s throat went dry. 

“I know why you’re saying these things, Hyunjin. But you cannot consider yourself cruel for following your Caesar’s command. It’s your job.”

“I’ve done his bidding for years. I have served this nation with everything in me, and I have accepted the deeds I have committed. But if I go there, I will be.”

He sounded so incredibly worn. 

“If I go there, I will be just like him. Just like them.”   

“No, you will not.” Christopher leaned over to place a hand on his bare knee. He squeezed, fingers curling around the bony protuberance beneath tanned skin. “You and I? We’re exceptions, not the rule. Men seldom think of those who do not share their palate for lust and blood.”

In a perfect world, Hyunjin imagined they would.  

But how could such a world exist, when men already endeavoured to take whatever they wanted without repercussion in this one? 

Why did he fight so hard for what others held no true value for?

That could only be answered through this: the ego of man. But even that was no true answer. It offered neither insight nor clarity to the motives that governed their existence upon this celestial plane. The ego of man was an incomprehensible concept, wrought with corruption and duplicity and confusion. To understand it was nigh impossible, to know of it was itself an anathema.

“And if we reject this benefaction,” continued Christopher, sitting back, summoning Hyunjin from his introspection, “the consequences we’ll be forced to suffer will make you regret denying him in the first place. He takes things to heart, our Imperator. And we both know what he’s like when he takes things to heart.”

Oh, yes. He most certainly did. 

Their Caesar was notorious for holding the fiercest of grudges. Generally, such grudges resulted in public upheaval and abdication at the least, bloodshed and death at the most. But no matter the offence, it was best not to cross him–friend or not. He showed no leniency for anyone.  

Not even the man who won his wars for him. 

Not even the man who’d given his soul to him.

He shut his eyes, drawing a deep breath. 

There were times, much like this one, where Hyunjin despised how level-headed Christopher was. How frustratingly rational and considerate of all angles he was. Even after being subjected to the same form of exhaustion as Hyunjin had been. 

Hyunjin was just…tired. He was so tired. His bones spent, his muscles fatigued. No matter how many times he’d face warfare, the sights and smells would never become easier to stomach. He, like any other man who’d bore witness to such horrors, had learned to become indifferent to it, but he knew something within him died every time. His body may be whole, and it may not be hewn upon the earth like those who’d fallen before him, but his mind was fractured in ways only those who had a shared experience in this plight would know.  

He deserved a break befitting his sacrifices. He wanted to go home. See his family, reunite his stallion with his mare and foal, and perhaps, most importantly, rise to the light of the sun and the chirping of birds. 

But putting him in this situation was doing the exact opposite. Forcing him to seek shelter in a gilded cage made to enslave human beings, and being expected to enjoy it…did nothing but embitter the Legatus. 

He fell into quiet. 

“At the very least,” said Christopher, sitting back, “we should be grateful that the Purple Hyacinth is a private business. Our Emperor himself has spent many a night within those walls. I imagine that’s why he was so keen on sending us there.”

But of course, Hyunjin knew of their Imperator’s insatiable taste for pleasures of the flesh and his overindulgence of the extravagant. Though it had never been as much of a thorn in his side until now. 

The quiet persisted. The heavy clang of hooves upon uneven terrain and the faint murmur of distant voices helped to fill it, but nothing was louder than the noise in Hyunjin’s head, produced by the thoughts that refused to be drowned out.  

Then, after a while: “Tell me about this place. This…Purple Hyacinth.”

Christopher drew a breath. He would do this. For Hyunjin, he would. “Well…as far as brothels go, it is rather reputable. Customer satisfaction is high, patronage is regular–and, as I mentioned before, incredibly exclusive. It is well funded as it is well tended.”

He studied the Legatus’ face for any changes, but there were none to be found. 

“If it’s any consolation,” he continued, “I can assure you now that it is nowhere near how you’re imagining it to be. From an objective standpoint, I believe you’ll find no reason to complain about the brothel itself.” 

“So no street rabble, I take it?” Hyunjin questioned, though the satirical expression on his face belied genuine curiosity. 

“None, Dominus. Security is held to a high caliber there. And so is discretion. No one will know, Hyunjin. That I can promise you.”

Resigned, Hyunjin hummed noncommittally, resting his chin upon his knuckles as he gazed out of the window in their carriage. “You sound rather certain, Christopher. Tell me, is the Purple Hyacinth a frequent haunt of yours?”

Christopher rolled his eyes. “I am not a patron, if that’s what you’re trying to imply here. I’ve only ever visited. Two, maybe three times at most.”

“Ah. So you are speaking from personal experience, then. I suppose that ought to convince me that this is acceptable.”

The Tribunus sighed. “I’m trying to make this easier for you, Hyunjin. I’m trying to help.”

The Legate swept a hand across his face, pushing stray tendrils of hair that had moulded to his cheek from sweat. Christopher saw the shift, then. Imperceivable, to an untrained eye, but he was nothing if not practised in the art of Hyunjinism. 

When he opened his mouth, it was to the slight surprise of the Tribunus when a soft “I know,” was murmured quietly by an emburdened Hyunjin. And when reunited with his gaze, Christopher noticed the exhaustion where there was previously indignation. They held that eye contact for what seemed an eternity, but Hyunjin turned away just before Christopher was able to peek past his defenses. 

Yet as he watched Hyunjin stare unseeingly out of the window for the second time, his gaze softened. “I know what you’re feeling, Hyun,” he murmured in an attempt to cajole the Legate. He couldn’t find it in himself to crucify the man when he knew the kind of heart he carried. Hyunjin, in spite of what the world was made to see, had a good heart, and an even better head upon his shoulders. He felt things deeply, but not irrationally. He held things to certain standards, but not without reason. His ire now was not because of Christopher, but rather the prospect of being sojourned in the type of place that defied his every virtue. And to Hyunjin Hwang, virtue was everything. “I know It’s not optimal. I know that. But there is a silver lining in this situation. It’s one night of your life.”

“I don’t care.”

It made no difference to him if it was one night or a hundred. 

Christopher sighed, but he was not deterred. “Just think about it. I’m sure Madam Amalthea considers it an honour to host us. Do not let your personal feelings on the matter steer you to ungratefulness.”

“Oh, worry not, amicus. I’m plenty grateful towards the woman who was so easily persuaded by the prospect of gold.”

The Tribunus held back the exasperated click of his tongue. And there, lingering amongst the resignation to his fate, was that boarlike stubbornness he so adored. 

Gods, this was going to be a long night. Thankfully, the goddess Minerva had blessed him well with an abundance of patience. 

He steeled himself with the intent to appeal to his displeased companion once more. “The faculty and staff there are exceptional.”

Boredly, “is that so?”

“Absolutely. And Madam Amalthea’s hosting is second to none. A delicious feast will be set for us upon our arrival. You’ll be welcome to a private bath, medical aid should you need it, and our benevolent Caesar has personally seen to it that you’re settled into one of the finest suites they have to offer. You don’t need to indulge in the business aspect at all. You can keep entirely to yourself.” 

He gazed thoughtfully at the man sat before him, at the careful indifference lining his soot-stained face. Maybe somewhere on his handsome features he’d be able to deduce a hint of understanding, but Hyunjin remained an immovable sculpture.

New plan, then. He cleared his throat. 

“Once we resume our travels to Roma first thing on the morrow, I’m sure this night will fade into forgetfulness,” he dictated firmly. “It shall live on as an insignificant memory you’ll not have to reminisce over ever again.”

“Hm,” grumbled the Legate, pouting most childishly, a direct juxtaposition to the great esteem of Rome’s finest warrior. 

Christopher was running out of options, now. 

“Perhaps you should take Madam Amalthea up on her offer,” he then counselled. Hyunjin shot a ruthless glare at him from beneath scorned brows. “No, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t mean it in…that context. But her stores of wine are vast. Unwind a little with a nice drink or two…or three. Hells, drink yourself to oblivion if you so choose. We have concluded a gruelling war after many moons spent away from home, in case you’ve forgotten. We all deserve to celebrate, revel in the success brought to us by our forces.”

Hyunjin straightened his posture. “I will not celebrate my victory in a whorehouse.”

“It was a mere suggestion.”

“Keep them to yourself.”

Christopher nodded smugly, the ghost of a grin haunting his lips. “As you wish.”

Hyunjin said naught more, and neither did the Tribune, having officially exhausted all courses of action. 

Eventually, the carriage came to a halt. Through the dirt-speckled glass of the window, Hyunjin could see the accursed Purple Hyacinth looming just ahead. Outward appearance alone dictated an…acceptable establishment–that much he could begrudgingly admit (but only within the confines of his own thoughts.) 

Opulence and grandeur were imbued into every block and column of marble, every hand carved curve and line in the tympanum’s facing which, upon further inspection, depicted flora and fauna of all kinds, interwoven with beautiful maidens and dashing young men. Velvet drapes in rich hues of plum and maroon lined the grand entryway, and the detail in their golden-threaded embroidery was further enhanced by the large, wrought iron wallchieres mounted onto the door surround, ablaze with flames of bright ochre. 

The doors were of solid wood; thick and impervious to the comings and goings of the outside world. Hyunjin was wary of what he’d find beyond them, for his mind deemed the moment opportune enough to conjure images of scantily-clad women, offering their bodies to passersby without regard to decorum; of the heinous, indecent sounds perpetrated by unchecked coitus. 

He contained the dire want to expel the minimal contents of his stomach. 

The hour was late, the sun had dipped the remainder of its rays beneath the horizon. Stars unveiled themselves, and suddenly Hyunjin was faced precariously with the reality of this inconceivable ordeal once he took notice of the richly dressed figure waiting for them upon the landing. 

Just one night. 

Yet even that was asking too much of him. 

But then…he thought of the dirt and grime caked onto his skin and armour, the sweat soaked into his tunic. He thought of the grease in his hair, the dried patches of blood on his hands and knees, the superficial wounds on his face and the gash on his shoulder. He remembered Christopher’s words, those heavenly words which assured him that he’d be provided the opportunity for a private bath.

He thought of the exhaustion–both physical and mental–pulling at the edges of his consciousness as if begging him for reprieve. He thought of the prospect of a real bed, with pillows and downy linens spread over a plush mattress; the awaiting meal, warm and hearty with roasted vegetables and freshly prepared lamb to fill his belly. He thought of his favourite white wine. 

How long it had been since he’d had any of those things. Luxuries he was always forced to forget while executing his duties. 

With a heavy sigh he righted his paludamentum, skewed from travel, and took into arms his spatha which he then sheathed into the scabbard at his side. Then, without looking back, he exited the carriage, making haste down the few steps leading to the cobblestone road. 

“Dominus Hyunjin,” greeted what he assumed to be the fabled Madam Amalthea. She bowed her head in respect of the great presence before her, much to Hyunjin’s satisfaction, and there was a slight smile on her painted lips. “Such an honour to welcome you and your company to my humble establishment.”

Madam Amalthea, contrary to what Hyunjin had initially envisioned, was a rather striking woman. She was neither young nor old, yet there was a seasoned quality about the woman, prevalent most through the way she carried herself. Though petite of stature, she had a defiant gleam to her dark eyes, and an unshakable conviction to the set of her brow. Her hair, equally as dark as her eyes, was coiffed in perfect rings atop her head, with a few stray coils framing her face. 

Her body was adorned (rather modestly, all things considered) with a tunic made of a deep purple silk, the colour of Cesanese grapes. Brooches encrusted with jewels connected the front and back pieces, and a thick band of gold circled her waist. Looped loosely about her shoulders, perhaps to stave off the evening chill, was a shawl of the same fabric. 

He merely nodded his head in acknowledgement of her greeting, too overwhelmed, too–out of place. He stared past her shoulder, at the establishment she was the proud proprietor of. There was a heaviness in his stomach, immovable and unforgiving, as he stared at the building with eyes unobscured by dirtied glass. He was taking it in, studying its outward façade when something caught his gaze. 

A face, staring directly at him from atop the small balcony above the tall entrance. Hidden by a sheer veil, he could not fully discern the features that watched him so brazenly, but it was clear that the face had not intended to be discovered. Expressive eyes widened as the veiled figure hurried to conceal themself behind a curtain, though Hyunjin could still see their head peeking at him from beyond its edge. 

Peculiar. 

“The honour is ours, Madam,” Christopher supplied for him, taking her hand and laying a chaste kiss upon her knuckles. “Christopher,” she giggled softly, “how wonderful to see you again. It has been an age.” 

Hyunjin, suddenly broken from his trance by the introduction of Christopher’s voice, raised a questioning brow at the pair, watching the exchange with scrutinising eyes. 

“You as well, Madam. I apologise for my Lord’s unsociable behaviour. He’s grown weary from our travels, you understand. I promise he’s not usually this prickly.”

In no mood to entertain his Tribune’s tasteless attempt at humour, Hyunjin’s eyes flicked back to the balcony. 

But it was empty. 

For reasons entirely unknown to all logic and reason, he felt himself fall into disappointment. 

The matron of the Purple Hyacinth nodded sympathetically. “Rest assured I take no offense. I am more than certain that the Legatus has earned his right to reticence.” Her eyes strayed back to the man in question, their unending depths glimmering with an all-knowing glint. Turning back to Christopher, she said, “I have prepared fifty rooms for your men. I hope they will find no issue with having to share them in pairs. However, they are free to any area of the Atrium. But I will ask that they keep away from any areas marked by purple hyacinths, as they are either reserved by our patrons or the private quarters of my workers.”

“Of course, Madam. My boys are good at taking orders.”

She smiled again, nodding resolutely as she watched Hyunjin from the corner of her eye. His eyes reeked of superiority, of distaste, and…something more. Curiosity, perhaps. Intrigue, possibly. And though his reputation preceded him, it was an altogether different experience to be subject to the Legate’s taciturnity in such an intimate manner. It was a curious thing, the ego of men. She was sure, despite the long years she’s spent in the presence of every form of man known to the world, it would remain an unexplainable phenomenon for all of eternity. 

“Then, let us away, my Lords. I shall help you all settle.”

Christopher nodded, gesturing for her to lead them inside with a gentle grin on his lips. The Legatus had yet to meet her gaze for a second time. 

She smirked inwardly to herself as she turned on her heel, leading them inside. 

Oh, yes, she thought. Unexplainable. 

Of that there was no doubt. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Hyunjin believed in doling credit where it was due. 

And so, for what it was worth, Madam Amalthea certainly presented an image that would be deserving of it. She certainly lived up to the esteem Christopher regarded her with, at the very least. 

But she still had yet to prove her full quality to Hyunjin. 

However, the Legate could deny it no longer once he’d stepped into the Purple Hyacinth that Madam Amalthea oversaw a lucrative business, for the quality of his lodging left him in want of nothing. The property was stunning–an architectural feat that reflected the organic beauty of life and the artistry of Roman culture. Not too ostentatious to be distasteful, but not too humble to be uninspired, either. It was apparent that Madam Amalthea held aesthetic beauty to a high standard, but she also had a keen eye for functionality. Everything had a purpose, even the things Hyunjin imagined would be superfluous.

The meal they’d been offered was nothing short of a gargantuan feast befitting the Emperor himself. Perfectly curated venison and wild boar, pheasant, lobster, oyster, and shellfish. Fruits beyond measure, fresh and bursting with sweetness–grapes and figs, pomegranate, and berries. Melons, peaches, dates. Cakes and honey bread. Fruit tarts. Porridge. 

And most importantly, the endless barrels of wine. 

Hyunjin would be remiss in admitting that he may have indulged, if only a little. If only to settle the nerves and weather the storm of panic in his gut. 

The suite he was given, too, was…impressive. It conformed to the overall motif of refined elegance that he certainly felt at home amongst. It was spacious, decorated beautifully, and well-furnished; the bed was overly large–circular, much to his surprise, reminding him of his own–and dressed with clean, thick bedding, throws, and an inordinate amount of pillows to fulfill his whimsy. Above the seating area was suspended a grandiose lamp, lit with at least a hundred candles encased in votives of glass. Candelabras forged from brass, differing in size and shape, were spread throughout the room, supplementing the homely glow that seemed to overtake the suite. Warm, inviting. Bright but not overly so. 

Beyond an arched doorway covered by a heavy curtain, was the bathing room. While it was a fraction of the size of any communal bathhouse he was accustomed to, it guaranteed full privacy and offered infallible serenity. Featuring an oversized marble tub placed beneath the window and a separate room for the latrine, it was his own little respite from the constant presence of others. Hyunjin could find no reason to complain.  

But best of all was the view from the terrace, spanning from one end of the room to the other. The Purple Hyacinth was situated a little ways away from the main city, offering a brilliant landscape for him to wonder upon. The city was alive with nightlife, the markets bustling, the bars teeming with liveliness. From here, he could see the stars in their pin pricked brilliance, he could, dare he say, almost smell home upon the small gusts of wind filtering into the suite. 

He breathed it in, that fresh air. Unspoiled by the smell of death and decay, the iron of blood or the muskiness of the earth, it was a balm Hyunjin had not realised he’d needed so desperately. 

War, as the saying went, was the province of men. For an Empire as formidable as Rome was, it required just as much bloodshed to maintain it. 

Hyunjin lost men. Good men. He had to bury them where they fell upon the battlefield, with the honour and respect their bravery and courage deserved, and once they returned, would have to inform their families that they’d been robbed a son, a father. A brother or husband. He’d have to offer his sincerest condolences. He’d have to shoulder the pain of their grief and carry it with him for as long as it would remain. 

But such was the reality of the oath he made. When the Emperor chose him as a young boy, having noticed the determination and fearlessness blazing behind his eyes, it had become his life’s duty to lead their great nation into a glory so vast it would go down in history, never to be forgotten. For the most part, he had accomplished just that, and had even obtained some for himself. But not without a price. Hyunjin had given his life for Rome. He’d given his soul for Rome. 

But his duty was not yet fulfilled. His work would continue until the very last breath fell from his lips.

Is that legacy what brought him here tonight? To this gilded cage? Not for him, no. But fundamentally, inherently. Was this not the place of slaves in which he was made to seek refuge for a fleeting moment? 

This room was opulence corporealized, it was everything money could make perfect. This building, too. The people in this building. All the same. 

No matter how pretty and polished its halls or palatial its enormity, it was just a brothel. A house of sin and debauchery. 

A gilded cage. 

And perhaps, at the root of everything, that is why Hyunjin loathed it so. Hyunjin Hwang was not a bird to be ogled and caressed. Not an object to be kept in one’s possession. He could not be contained, could not be beaten into a different shape. His strength was his resolve and his resolve was in his pledge to live honourably. He could never, would never, understand how a society like theirs continued to support the subjugation of its most vulnerable citizens. Nor would he understand those who benefited from such a system, one where human beings were made into things. Because what did people do with things? 

They bought them. 

Displayed them. 

Showed them off. 

And when they grew bored, and the novelty of a new, pretty thing wore off, they tossed it away. And if that thing were fortunate enough, they’d find themselves in the path of a new buyer who’d empty their pockets to obtain them. 

Then the cycle would continue. Over and over, until that thing no longer was. 

It was the type of captivity that killed you slowly, from the inside out. That watched your deterioration, from the outside in. 

Like a bird whose wings had been snapped. 

Hyunjin could not survive the confines of a cage, no matter how shiny it was. 

To him, it was the most disgraceful way of life. The most tragic. 

A knock upon the door disturbed him from his macabre thoughts. He turned towards it, eyes narrowing in mild contempt. He’d ordered Madam Amalthea not to disturb him for the rest of the night, so why…

“Enter.”

The door swung quietly on its hinges, revealing a slight form to his gaze, holding a tray packed to the brim with a number of items he could not be bothered to index. The intruder bowed their head before him, deep and reverential. And while it was not the first display of proper decorum since he’d become known to this place, it was still a stroke to his ego to see that basic manners and etiquette were common in those under Madam Amalthea’s employ.

But this particular being…he’d seen before.  

The figure from the balcony. 

His eyes swept over them, cataloging their being in its entirety, though a majority of their face remained hidden by the veil. Fair skin stretched over a delicately fine structure, decorated in navy silks and gold embellishments. 

“What do you want?” he demanded. 

“The Lady Amalthea summoned me to serve you tonight,” answered the figure, stepping into the room. 

Hyunjin stood aghast at the timbre through which the voice responded to him. If he had forgotten the reality of where he was lodging this night, then this was a reminder so ferocious it felt like a slap to the face. It was utterly blasphemous, the implication brought forth by its sonorous quality. Enough to forge raw iron in his core. He felt it churn his blood into molten lava, smouldering, destructive, all-consuming. How dare she? The question ricocheted through his mind. How dare that damned bitch offend me so callously? 

There was venom in his words when he seethed, “your matron would defy my orders and further insult me by sending a male whore into my midst?”

The veiled man kept his gaze downcast. “I am merely following orders, Dominus. My Madam informed me that you would not be seeking the company of an escort. However, she encouraged me to see to your bathing preparations, and to any wounds that require my attention.”

“I can see to them myself.”

“You do not have to, my Lord,” the man retorted simply, shutting the door behind him, causing the Legate to further bristle with rage. “Not when it is my duty to aid you. Besides, an extra set of hands will be beneficial for dressing any injuries unseen to your eyes.”

“Your duty?” Hyunjin spat in disgust. “What does a common whore know of duty?”

The man lifted his head, and in an instant their gazes locked. Eyes the colour of honeyed molasses stared at him so intently, so earnestly, seeming to almost pierce right through him the way his spatha would flesh. It was unsettling to be the target of such scrutiny, even to a man who’d witnessed unspeakable horrors in the relatively short span of his life. 

“As much as you, my Lord.”

It was spoken so softly, so harmlessly, that Hyunjin could do nothing but stand there, utterly aghast. His lips parted in desperate search of a riposte, but there was nothing he could say to assuage the uneasiness settling into his gut, or the severity of his claim. The molten lava hardened to rock in his veins. Sat heavy, the way coal would. Cold and lifeless.

“You’ve quite the cheek,” he rebuked, voice a deathly sort of quiet. 

“I come not to dishonour you, my Lord. Or to besmirch your reputation. I am aware of your glorious deeds to this country, just as I am aware of your greatness.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I am, as you say, a common whore who has impeded upon your solitude, inconvenienced you at a time of desired peace. But if I do not serve you, then I shall have to find slumber upon an empty stomach.”

Hyunjin listened, suddenly enraptured by those dulcet tones that spoke to him such solemn truths. 

“My duties may not to you seem so grand, may not seem deserving of respect, or drenched in honour, but there is a kinship between those that I am made to perform, and those that you are. Whether you believe it or not, we are both slaves to a certain system, and slaves can do nothing but obey those who hold true power.”

After a moment of quiet, filled with quiet contemplation and a deep deliberation, “what is your name?”

The man’s eyes flicked downard again, as if fearful for what would become of him. 

“Felix, my Lord.”

Felix. 

“How old are you, Felix?”

“One and twenty, my Lord.”

Young, marvelled Hyunjin. Too young, in fact, to be involved in such business. 

Hyunjin himself was a mere seven years older than him, but there was a certain youth about Felix that reeked of an undeniable innocence. A certain naïveté that came from a life so sheltered as this. Which begged the question…

“And how is it that you've found employment in a pleasure house?”

Felix stilled completely. “I…”

His discomfort was an entity that seemed almost alive–taking reign over his voice, killing it as it attempted to command his tongue. 

“Answer me.”

Felix’s eyes fluttered restlessly, apprehensively. “I…I cannot say, my Lord.”

“Cannot or will not?”

“It matters very lit-”

“Look at me when I address you.”

Felix’s eyes snapped to his, wide and uneasy. “F-forgive me.”

“Do not forget who stands before you,” cautioned Hyunjin. “I have very little patience for disrespect, and even less tolerance.”

“I have not,” countered softly Felix, fingers curling into his palms. “Dominus.”

“Then you will give me an answer.”

“I cannot.”

“Do not make me ask you a third time. In fact, you will do well to remember not to evade me again. That is an order.”

Felix’s delicately arched brows knitted together wimpishly. Hyunjin was hardpressed to not equate the man–no, boy– to a frightened young fawn, ready to flee at the slightest move and into the cover of safety. Away from Hyunjin, from his terrifying gaze and petrifying aura. He stared at him with pleading eyes, but the Legatus would have none of it. 

With a sigh that reeked of defeat, Felix ultimately relented. 

“I bestowed my trust unto the wrong person,” he murmured stoically, “and they repaid me by taking advantage of it.”

Hyunjin let the admission sink into his skin. Let it roll around his tongue until the taste of it soured. 

“Who is this person you speak of?” he then asked, eyeing the boy with an impassive sort of curiosity. 

It was evident that Felix would rather plunge the spatha at Hyunjin’s side into his own chest, but he was helpless to do anything but conform to the Legate’s demands.

“A person you are raised to put unquestionable faith in,” he answered lifelessly. 

Hyunjin glowered at the younger, as if to warn the boy not to test my limits.  

“My…my u-uncle,” he breathed, concealing the tremor in his voice behind a shield of contrived bravado. “I was left in his care after my parents had perished. I was young, my elder brother had gone to the capital to learn, and so my uncle was the only kin I had left to rely upon.”

“And he was to exercise that reliance by bringing you here?”

Felix shook his head. “No, my Lord. I fear, perhaps…perhaps it would have been better if he had done only that.”

His next words made Hyunjin’s breath catch. 

“He sold me, my Lord. His parting words, as he listened to me beg for him to reconsider, were that I was worth a hefty sum more than he’d ever expected. His pockets had never been as heavy as the day he traded me for coin, so what reason did he have to look back?” His lip trembled as he spoke, but his voice remained steady.

“What became of him?” he queried. 

Felix’s gaze turned apathetic. 

“It has been ten years, and I have not once seen him since that day. Some say he grew ill and died during his travels beyond the borders of the empire, others say he was murdered after acquiring a substantial debt from gambling. Either way, any sympathy, any love I ever held for that man turned to dust the day he abandoned me. I care not what fate befell him.”

A singular tear fell from his eye, darkening a small patch of fabric over his chest. Hyunjin felt…well, he felt disconcerted, to say the least. How could kin turn betray kin so dispassionately? Hyunjin’s own uncle had passed in the last war, however he himself was an uncle to his sister’s sons. He could never fathom selling either of them for the mere benefit of a fleeting wealth. It was…it was an ungodly prospect.

“What of your brother?”

Felix balanced the tray on one hand, and used his now freed hand to wipe the tears from his eyes. He smiled wanly, achingly, as he thought of his remaining blood. “I heard of his success in the academies. He progressed at a commensurate rate, proving himself to be a prodigy, and was favoured among his peers by his mentors. I’d been told that he’d even caught the attention of the Emperor, and was offered a position he could not refuse.”

And then the smile faded. 

“I knew if…if he learned of our uncle’s misdeeds, of my fate…he would throw it all aside and come to my rescue. He’d always been my fiercest advocate and protector. But how could I let him do that, knowing he’d worked so hard, for so long? What kind of brother would I be, if my selfishness kept him from unleashing his fullest potential? From living the life he’d created for himself?”

Hyunjin felt a lump form in the back of his throat. 

“I could not. I would not. And so, even as it set my soul aflame, I asked Madam Amalthea to pen an anonymous letter for him, detailing the unfortunate circumstances of my and our uncle’s untimely demise.”

The Legatus was left with nothing to say. No witty remark, no jest at the behest of a boy who’d faced the worst of betrayals. 

He stared at Felix. 

For just a moment, he felt a fissure form in the armour he surrounded himself with, coaxing a pang of respect for the man standing before him from its unwavering confines.

For just a moment , he regretted the drivel he spat from his venomous, presumptuous mouth. 

And for just a moment, this moment, he could admit that Felix had been right. 

We are both slaves to a certain system, and slaves can do nothing but obey those who hold true power.

Power. What qualifications delineated true power? And what qualifications were required of the people who wielded it?

Did they have to sell their hearts? Or perhaps, their souls?

Hyunjin knew a bit about that. 

Felix, he could deduce, had sold his soul for the simple goal of living to see another day. Hyunjin had sold his soul for the glory of their great nation. 

The only caveat, however, was that Felix had been forced to. There may have been a time where his soul was intact and whole, an entity belonging solely to him. A time where it was untainted and pure and filled with light. But Hyunjin? Hyunjin had willingly paid the price of legacy with his own. His soul, contrarily, had been fractured from the moment he was born, and he’d been losing pieces of it ever since. 

Their differences were as stark as night and day. And yet, as Felix had said, there was a kinship between the two of them. 

The horizon. Where night and day bled into golden light.  

How deeply he had struck Hyunjin. How effortlessly he had succeeded in undoing him. Never in his life had anyone dared to impart him with such unsparing verses, for never in his life had anyone the courage to. So long he has spent in the company of men who would rather bite their tongue and bow their heads in thoughtless reverence, that he had almost forgotten what it was like to be challenged. Sure, he may have found challenge in the physical–upon the battlefield or the training grounds–but very seldom did he find it in such well-spoken locution. Christopher was a blessed exception to this, as he was as sharp of wit as he was skilled in wielding a blade, but Hyunjin ached for more. The pieces of his soul ached for more. 

But he could not allow such a sentiment to control him. The very truth of this conundrum was that men would much rather defeat him through combat and weapons than with the sharpness of intellectual debate. 

And yet, here stood this boy, barely at the cusp of manhood, who had done just that. Who had shown deference to him, but not thoughtlessly.  Not carelessly, and without the comprehension of exactly who he offered that deference to. 

Because Felix was afraid. He was very afraid. Afraid of what the Legatus was capable of, of what he had already shown to be. He was afraid of his mere presence, and yet there was courage in his fear. A righteousness that sang volumes of his character. He spoke out of neither arrogance or conceit, but of a stout insightfulness that transcended all manner of thought. Despite his youth, and despite the naïveté that Hyunjin had previously assigned to him, Felix seemed to have a deep understanding of the world that the men in Hyunjin’s purview did not. But more than that, he had an understanding of human nature. 

And that in and of itself was a dangerous thing. 

Knowledge could wound just as fatally as a spatha or gladius. It could pierce even deeper, in fact. Beyond the heart of man, and into their soul. But Felix had not used it as a weapon. 

He used it as a simple, undeniable truth. 

One that Hyunjin had not been prepared to hear, but needed to all the same. 

We are both slaves… 

Was a pawn so different from a bird, Legatus? From a slave?

He sighed softly as his gaze continued its keen study. 

Felix’s eyes were depthless. They were the very basins of human emotion, wrapped in gold and steeped in a lifetime of experiences. Hyunjin found that he’d never before seen such eyes, he wondered if he’d see such eyes ever again. 

For a while, neither of them said anything. But Hyunjin supposed, in a way, that silence said more, did more, than he ever could. It offered salvation from the cyclone of thoughts and emotions swirling within him, and a respite from Hyunjin’s own arrogance.  

Then, once it became too deep, too far, too much, he murmured a simple command. “Come help me with my armour,” he said, looking over his shoulder as he turned his back to the younger man. 

Felix, relief palpable in those honeyed faculties, nodded vehemently. It was clear that his emotional distress was allayed in the name of servicing the Legate, and if that was what allowed him to come back to himself, then Hyunjin would capitalize on it. He placed the tray on a small table by the door, and rushed to his side, ever so eager to fulfill his duties. 

Much like Hyunjin himself. 

A prickle of a foreign, unnameable emotion tickled his gut. And he, the arrogant slave, ignored it. 

Felix began first with unclasping the fibula at Hyunjin’s shoulder, which released the silken fabric of his paludamentum into his awaiting arms. He folded it into neat quarters with utmost dilligence before setting it aside, to be joined by the rest of the Legate’s wares for cleaning. His sword followed, and then his armour. 

Once Hyunjin had been stripped to his inner tunic, Felix stepped back from the taller man with a quiet hum. 

“The water for your bath ought to have finished heating by now, my Lord. I will call upon you once it is filled and ready.”

Hyunjin nodded brusquely, watching the boy’s retreating figure with keen eyes before it disappeared behind the curtain. 

He released the breath he’d imprisoned within his chest. His hand weaved through his hair, slicking it back until a rogue tendril decided to retaliate against his efforts and land upon his forehead. But he was too tired to care, too occupied. 

Felix.  

To think that Hyunjin would find such an individual in a place like this seemed more unlikely than witnessing the birth of the universe. He knew well enough of the basic fundamentals that went into operating an institution akin to the Purple Hyacinth–such as the standards and qualifications that these establishments required of their employees. He knew that there was a specific type of person that was pursued for these jobs, and he knew it was those very people who would be leveraged for the greatest profit and gain. 

Vulnerable people. Whether that was through physical or mental or emotional means was entirely inconsequential. Vulnerability, in any form, meant the high likelihood of submission , and what better place for submission than a brothel? What better place to use one’s submission as an accessory to control?

Brothels, pleasure houses, whorehouses…whatever one deigned to call them, the fact of the matter remained that they had all mastered the art of exploitation. 

Like wolves chasing a lamb, they sunk their teeth into those unfortunate souls that, more often than not, were uneducated, outcasts of the family, the disgraced sons and daughters. The ones who were hopeless, lifeless, aimless. 

Desperate. Afraid. 

And now, Hyunjin was being forced into reconciling the dire reality that these qualities applied to children as well. Children. Innocent souls who had no place in these man-made hells.  

Because Hyunjin was also privy to the knowledge of the caliber of man that ventured into places like this, that sought the commodities offered in places like this, that took advantage of places like this. He was fully aware that despite the virtue and decency a number of his men may portray, they often fell victim to their more primal urges. Though, Hyunjin would argue that there was no victimhood to be found in men who harmed others for their own pleasure. The only victims to their carnality are those who were forced into the path of it. 

It was the one thing out of his control. He could beat them into submission when it came to serving their Emperor and the state, but he could not counsel them into being upright human beings outside of those limitations. That is something that could only be obtained through an intrinsic want for goodness. He saw that, too, in greater volumes amongst his legions. The genuine desire for rectitude. And because of that, he had hope that not all men were spoiled. 

But Felix’s uncle certainly was. 

Spoiled. Rotten to the core. 

The boy’s story ran circles in his mind, and no matter how many times it scaled the tracks of his skull, it seemed not to tire. It seemed incapable of succumbing to exhaustion and teetering away into insignificance.

Hyunjin knew then and there that the things which had been divulged to him would remain with him forevermore. Like sap from a tree. Sticky and unforgiving. 

It has been ten years, he had said. Ten years. 

He was only one and twenty. His own blood had given him away–no, vended him like cattle–when he was a mere child. A child, sold into slavery of the most deplorable nature. A child, who had sacrificed his life so that his elder brother could live his own. 

Who knew of the pains he suffered, the traumas he accumulated, the abuse he underwent in all that time?

Who knew of the ways he’d been reduced to a meagre plaything, demeaned and dehumanised, and yet forced to remain docile and quiet? 

Pretty and pliant. 

No longer a soul forged from the light of Apollo. Instead, a shade cast into the Underworld. 

And Hyunjin had…

He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. 

The world may consider him etched from stone, but he was not inherently cruel. Or maybe he was, and that belief was an attempt to vindicate himself of any guilt that would take the best of him. He was inclined to believe that beneath his hardened exterior, something very human still remained. Something just as fragile. Just as capable of making mistakes. 

“My Lord.”

Hyunjin gasped, eyes immediately flying to the lithe body in the doorway, watching him with doe-like eyes that seemed almost ashamed for startling him out of his reverie. 

“Whenever you’re ready,” Felix said, disappearing back into the bathing room. 

The Legate swallowed, shaking his head of his thoughts as he followed after the boy and past the curtain. The first thing he noticed was the scent wafting through the air–something light and fresh and distinctly floral. Gardenia, perhaps, interspersed with jasmine and honeysuckle. He breathed it in, giving it the space it needed to replace the scent of death that clung to his lungs. 

More candles had been lit to counteract the budding darkness, steam swirled along the surface of the tub, and in the corner, awaiting the Legate’s next command, stood Felix. 

“I can do this part myself,” he announced, not unkindly, fingers reaching towards the hem of his tunic as he stepped towards the tub. 

“W-wait.” Felix stammered, causing Hyunjin to pause in his trek. He turned on his heel, raised a questioning brow. 

“Your shoulder, my Lord.”

Hyunjin’s eyes fell to the aforementioned shoulder. He had completely forgotten the sizable gash he’d been imparted with by their opposition’s general. The blade had torn through his tunic, through his flesh, staining both fabric and skin in a garish shade of maroon. But he knew it wasn’t a threat to his overall wellbeing, for the one who’d gifted him the wound had fallen before he could even pierce into muscle. 

“I can stitch it for you, if you’d like.”

“I don’t believe that will be necessary,” he assured, letting his gaze trail to Felix. “‘Tis a mere nick.”

“At least allow me to check, in the case it is…more than a mere nick. My Lord.”

Hyunjin’s gaze flicked back to his injury, then to Felix, then back to his shoulder. “Very well,” he conceded, “If it would please you to do so.”

“My Lord’s comfort and wellbeing are my main priorities this night. It very much would.”

The Legate stared intently at him, nodding slowly. “Then…have your way with it. Where…?”

Felix gestured to a little bench adjacent to the window. “I shall retrieve my supplies. Please, if you will, remove your tunic and…get comf–make yourself at home.”

He was gone before Hyunjin could fully process the request. 

But he obliged nonetheless, making haste towards the bench and seating himself upon it. As the…escort (?) had prompted, Hyunjin rid himself of his tunic and cast it aside, leaving him in naught but his subligaculum to preserve his modesty. 

Now, the Legatus Hyunjin was not averse to nakedness, nor was it something he felt the need to shy away from. He was tall and broad, lined by a marblesque sort of musculature that he’d laboured for years to lay onto his bones. His body was a reflection of all he’d faced, all he’d overcome, and it was something he took immeasurable pride in. Something he very much boasted in the few moments he could. 

If he were in the company of his men, he’d not have hesitated to remove the remainder of his undergarments, but something about baring himself in Felix's presence made him feel… uncertain. Not because he felt some sort of ill-begotten sense of self consciousness, or because of the younger man’s occupation, but because of that strange, unnameable emotion he stirred within him. And the lingering unease from his account on the circumstances that brought him here. 

Plus, he’d rather not send Felix any mixed signals, for it still held true that he had no desire to indulge in any of the Purple Hyacinth’s exclusive services–least of all with a man. Even if the man in question was…captivating, despite the fact that he had yet to see the full scope of his face. 

He scoffed internally, disgusted with himself. What in the world possessed such a thought into his mind? A man? Captivating?

Impossible. A man cannot find another man attractive. Such a notion was against the very code of nature itself. Commonplace as it may be in their culture. 

He turned his head to the side, letting it lean against the marble as he gazed out of the window. He wondered what Christopher was doing. Had he succumbed to exhaustion or–a grimace formed almost immediately upon his lips. 

No…no, I most certainly do not wonder what Christopher was doing.

It hadn’t escaped his notice the familiarity with which his Tribune greeted Madam Amalthea, or the manner in which she’d greeted him, sans the use of any formal titles she ought to have considered. How bizarre. How impertinent. 

Nonetheless, however Christopher decided to spend his evening, Hyunjin just hoped that he spent it well, because once they returned home the grueling task of training and imperial dutyship in court would begin anew. 

A rustle caught his attention. He turned towards the sound to find Felix slipping past the curtain once again, tray balanced on the palms of his hands. He walked cautiously and gracefully, his footing as delicate as the gossamer fabric draped over his frame. 

Despite all efforts, Hyunjin’s eyes betrayed him. He could not, for the life of him, force them into cooperation, into line. Averting his gaze from the spectacle before him seemed an impossible task. 

Perhaps it was made to be that way. After all, Felix’s purpose in this place was to appeal to the eyes of men. And a man, Hyunjin most definitely was. 

Felix set the tray down onto the open space next to him, and began to gather the materials he’d need to tend to Hyunjin’s wounds. There was a knowledgeable diligence behind his every move and a practised calm behind every shift of his eyes. If he was discomfited by the sight of blood and torn flesh, he did well to conceal it. But it appeared his indifference was the result of a keen understanding of the body. As if he were well versed in the art of healing itself. It was fascinating to witness.

It was also fascinating to witness the way he refused to look Hyunjin’s way. The Legate bit back a smirk, certain that he could see the barest dusting of a blush along the bridge of Felix’s nose. At least, upon the small sliver of it he could see unobscured by the veil. 

Am I making him uncomfortable?

Surely, in his line of work, the sight of a naked body was little cause for bashfulness. More than likely, there was an uncomplicated reason for it. Perhaps Felix had never serviced someone of such a high standing as the Legatus Legionis of Rome, and had simply grown nervous in the shadow of Hyunjin’s reputation.

Or perhaps, holding the knowledge Hyunjin did now…perhaps there was something more sinister at play. 

He watched Felix. Watched him. Studied him. Took inventory of every little detail he could find. 

Truth be told, if he had not been exposed to Felix’s voice, he’d have believed him to be a woman. He was lissom in a way that juxtaposed the type of man Hyunjin had known all his life–neither brawn nor might. He was not tall, and his features far from rugged and classically masculine.

Felix was poised and elegant, fine-featured and…delicate. Skin like ivory, eyes like caramelised molasses, wide and doe-like. Hair a confounding shade of white that reminded Hyunjin of sun-drenched marble. His body was thin and limber–agile, like a dancer’s would be. His hands were petite, arms sculpted, and shoulders narrow. His chest was flat, but he had a waist that seemed too fragile, and hips that seemed to create the illusion of a feminine figure.

No matter his appearance, however, it was evident that he was no woman. He was a man, through and through, so maybe the best way to describe such a confounding human being was not through the use of either female or male verbiage, but rather through terms delineating androgyny. 

The beauty of both.  

Hyunjin only wished that he could see his face in its entirety.  

Because maybe then he’d be able to make sense of the more troubling aspects of Felix’s appearance. 

Circling his left bicep was a cuff of gold, swirling and intricate, but upon the skin of his arms and wrists, were marks that seemed too reminiscent of the print of fingers. Some were barely there, mere shadows on a pale expanse, but others seemed more intent on marring the canvas of his body. Red and purple. Too hard. Too deep. 

Made to hurt. 

To last. 

Hyunjin’s brows furrowed. 

And all the while, the younger man was none the wiser to the turmoil bubbling deep within Hyunjin’s chest. He simply cleaned the wound with a thick concoction of ground herbs, catalogued the severity of it with critical eyes, and threaded a needle with such ease it’d have impressed Hyunjin had he not found himself already drowning in Felix’s presence. 

He didn’t even flinch when it pierced his skin, or when Felix began to weave it between the crevasse in his tissue. He couldn’t, not when he was too fixated on those marks. On those depleted eyes. 

His gaze fell to his shoulder. Felix’s fingers were deft as they worked to mend that which had broken. Smudges of Hyunjin’s blood stained his fingertips, yet he was unfazed by the garish sight of open flesh. His focus remained dedicated to his task, and his attentiveness was evident in the outcome–the stitches he made were neat and clean. They were…well, they were nearly perfect. Could have been the work of a seasoned doctor. 

“You are quite skilled,” he remarked, hissing quietly as Felix sutured a particularly deep section of the wound. “I hadn’t expected it.”

Felix winced, sparing an apologetic glance towards the elder. “Is that why you were so reluctant to accept my aid, my Lord?”

Hyunjin hummed thoughtfully. “If I’m to be honest, that was only partially the reason. My denial was borne through more of a…need for independence. I don’t like to rely on people when I don’t have to.”

“That…” Felix paused, drawing a deep breath. “That seems a lovely privilege.”

The Legatus could almost feel the yearning behind those words. 

“Something tells me you’re the same way,” Hyunjin noted. “I imagine a desire for independence is what has allowed you to excel with, well,” he lightly shrugged his shoulder. 

A frail smile lifted the corners of Felix’s lips. 

“My brother taught me to read,” he began softly, dabbing at a dribble of blood that leaked from a stitch with a clean cloth. “When I first arrived here, I…found myself in need of a distraction. I suppose Madam Amalthea noticed that I had an affinity for literature, as I had read through the few books I packed with me a fair number of times. And so one day, she brought me to a room. Tall and wide and lined with a fair number of shelves, it was–her own personal library, much to my immense joy. It’s rather extensive, really, and she granted me permission to use it whenever I wanted to so long as my duties had been completed for the day.”

Hyunjin listened silently.

“In the early days, if one needed to find me, more often than not I'd be there. So I read everything I could get my hands on. Every novel, every guide, every tale, every textbook. I worked my way through her collection, soaking every word up like a sponge. Most of what I know came from the knowledge within those pages, which is why I suppose my skill sets are so diverse. Healing, as well as human anatomy and physiology, however, were particular interests of mine. I naturally gravitated towards such titles.”

“You learned to stitch wounds from simply reading books? Just how much time did you spend in that library?”

Felix exhaled breathily. “As I said, my Lord. The early days allowed me to spend much of it there. Eventually, to put that knowledge into action, I took to practising on the skins of fruits and vegetables. But the longer I spent under this roof, the less time I could keep for myself. And the older I got, the more demanding my workload became. Soon enough, the skills I acquired to sate curiosity became the very skills I’d need the most for my own wellbeing. It’s…easier, that way. Not as many probing questions. Not as many prodding fingers.”

“Easier?” Hyunjin parroted, a disbelieving murmur. If she could not provide her employees with a guarantee of safety from bodily harm, at the very least, he’d expect Madam Amalthea to provide her staff with basic human necessities. Now it was coming out that Felix managed his own health? Picked up the pieces of himself that others left behind? All by his lonesome?

Felix nodded, but offered no further explanation. “I don’t even remember the last time I ventured into the library. Must be over a year or two by now. Maybe even three.” 

He laughed self-deprecatingly, and it sounded painfully exhausted. “My hands have forgotten the feeling of pages, and have instead become the masters of flesh.”

Hyunjin began to grow a great dislike for the matron of the Purple Hyacinth. 

“Is Madam Amalthea truly as gracious as you make her seem?” he spat bitterly. “She may have thrown you a meagre bone, but it’s clear that bone was contingent upon your acquiescence to your new role. And now you’re telling me you nurse your own wounds and heal your own aches. Don’t think I’ve also neglected to remember you mentioning that you’d slumber upon an empty stomach if you didn’t serve me tonight.”

Felix froze just as he knotted the last stitch. Bloodied fingers hovered above the puckered line now spanning across Hyunjin’s shoulder, twitching ever so slightly as he stared at his work. 

Say something. 

But he just continued to gaze listlessly at Hyunjin’s arm. 

Say something. 

Felix cut the extra thread with a small blade, piled his used materials onto the side of the tray, and stood to his feet with a shaky exhale. 

Hyunjin was left staring at the space he previously occupied, lips coming to a disappointed close. 

Your silence disturbs me. 

He lifted his head, following the younger man with his gaze as he crouched before a small basin to rinse his hands of Hyunjin’s blood. 

“We must all earn our keep.”

If he hadn’t focused his every sense on the boy, he’d have missed the faint confession. His eyes remained affixed to the back of his head, to the long of his snow white hair that cascaded down to the middle of his spine. 

“At the end of the day, my Lord, this is a business. And Madam Amalthea? She owns it. As such, businesses need funds. They cannot operate on good word or rapport alone.”

“So then what are you? To this business? To these operations you speak of? To her?”

Felix sighed. “I am an item that she purchased to augment her business. To…make it better.”

“And still, you consider her a saviour.”

“She could have turned me away,” said Felix, “she could have turned a profit by selling me again. She still can, truth be told. Gods know that she’s been propositioned to do so time and again. But instead she took me in, gave me a home. She puts food upon my plate and water in my cup. For that alone, I am eternally indebted to her. And seeing as I have neither the riches nor resources to offer her in exchange for her wardship, I must turn to the only thing I do.”

“Yourself,” Hyunjin murmured. 

Felix turned his head to the side, nodding stiffly. “It is not a life I would have envisioned for myself,” he admitted, “I imagine, should things have transpired differently, my brother would be appalled to discover his little brother a whore. But I suppose it’s better than being condemned to a life in the streets. Or perhaps…in the hands of the men who endeavour to own me.”

He stood again, drying his hands with a cloth. “Well, it matters little now,” he breathed, walking towards the Legate–or rather, the tray still sitting at his side. He let his fingers graze a number of jars and vials, eyes narrowing in thought as they lingered over each one. It appeared he was in search of something specific, though Hyunjin remained ignorant as to what. A breath of relief eliminated the growing frustration as he finally located the object he sought–a roll of woven cloth, tied at the middle with a leather string.

“The gods clearly willed me to lead this life, and thus I’ve made my peace with it.” 

The furrow deepened upon Hyunjin’s brow. 

Felix untied it, unrolled it, and there, upon the fabric, laid a few stems of dried herbs and flowers. Taking them in hand, gentle as a whisper, he began to pluck a few leaves and petals from their stalks. And then, he walked back to the tub, and sprinkled them gently over the surface of the water. 

He watched them scatter, watched them find their place amongst the swirls of steam and smooth ripples. And in his hand, the dried husks of what remained. 

Hyunjin was perturbed, fingers curling upon his thighs into loose fists as he acquainted himself with the feeling of a sealed wound. He rolled his shoulder, allowing the strange tautness of his skin to give way to full movement.

But he was grateful, too. For this. For Felix’s gift and his willingness to offer it to him, who hadn’t deserved it.  

He continued to watch the younger man, utterly transfixed. Magnetised not only by the tragedy of his life but the sheer grace of his being. And Felix, once again oblivious to the Legate’s internal unrest, had unstoppered a small vial and poured a few drops of the substance held within into the bath. It smelled like something fresh. 

But Hyunjin could pay it no attention. He could only grapple with cognising that which Felix revealed to him, because Hyunjin needed to trust in the belief that the gods could not possibly have ordained an innocent to such turmoil. 

Felix had to be mistaken. He had to be. 

Yet as he continued to watch him, a sickly thought snuck into his mind like a relentless thief. Threatened his carefully curated understanding of the world he lived in–the one he lended a hand in creating. 

There was no fight in this boy named Felix. No spark of resistance or defiance. He bore the rotten fruits of his labours like strokes of paint upon a canvas. Spoke of himself as if he truly believed that he was what they’d made him to be. 

A thing. A toy, an object, a–

“I am an item that she purchased to augment her business. To…make it better.”

Hyunjin felt…gods, he felt qualmish, to say the very least. But more than that he felt vexed. Beyond all measure and doubt, beyond all reason. 

Felix was so eerily resigned to such a morbid fate, to this destitute reality he called life, that it angered Hyunjin. Brought rage to a barely contained simmer beneath his skin. 

But why? Why had this incensed him so?

And that’s when it occurred to him.

It was that resignation, that acceptance, that forbearance–

Why have you surrendered?

Felix turned around, baring those eyes once again to Hyunjin’s studious observation. 

“It is ready for you, my Lord.”

A beat of silence, thick and cloying against the roof of his mouth.

Your surrender has done you an injustice.

“Join me.”

Felix immediately paled. 

Hyunjin’s eyes widened, taken aback by his own reckless audacity. “No, that–do not misunderstand. I only meant…well, if–you’d said you wished to… help.”

He was utterly scandalised by his own idiocy and utter lack of propriety. 

You are the Legatus Legionis of Rome, for Jupiter’s sake. You do not stutter like a bumbling fool, much less invite a man into your bath because of it!

Felix stared back at him ingenuously, waiting for some sort of clarity, some sort of explanation. A sigh from the embarrassed Legate followed soon after. 

“I’ll not have you go to bed hungry,” he avowed softly. “Not if it is something I can control…if only for this night.”

But what Hyunjin would not know is that this selfless consideration would put an end to three days’ worth of hunger. 

The man Felix had last serviced was…displeased, by his denial to make real a certain fantasy. He’d been compensated and sent to another, but not before he demanded that Madam Amalthea deliver a just punishment befitting his transgression. 

He was to starve for seven days and seven nights, unless he were to prove himself before then. His matron struggled to adhere to those terms when they’d been presented, but she was helpless to counter them. The man was too powerful to act against. 

Though, very few were as powerful as the Legatus Legionis.

They surveyed one another. Again. Hyunjin longed to look upon his face. Again. 

Those eyes…

He didn’t even understand why, but he knew that it was a desire he needed quenched. He needed to know what lay beneath that swathe of chiffon, past the vague shapes he could see through its translucence. 

I wish to see you.

Why do I wish to see you so?

It was…quiet. And in that quiet, something ineffably profound. 

Say something.  

“I’m rather adept at washing hair.”

A breathy laugh–disguised as a scoff, of course–was expelled by the Legatus. “I’ve plenty of it.”

Felix nodded his head once, letting his gaze fall to the floor as his hands continued to clutch the bare stems. Hyunjin took that as his opportunity to remove the remaining fabric from his body and slip into the water.

The relief was immediate to his muscles and bones. 

The slight stinging, too, came synchronously. Those tiny wounds and scrapes that went unnoticed along his skin burned from the heat, yet that discomfort was rendered almost entirely negligible, perhaps due to the herbal essences Felix had added to the water. Or perhaps, because this was the first time in a very long while that Hyunjin was treated to a proper bath. With warm water and essential oils to soften and cleanse his skin, with candles to light up a relaxing atmosphere, and most importantly…solitude. 

Though that solitude was quick to wane once Felix’s delicate fingers slipped through the knots in his hair, reminding him that he was not, in fact, alone. 

Yet, it did not bother him nearly as much as he’d imagined it would have. 

Felix’s company was…it was…

I believe the word you are grappling for is invigorating. 

Invigorating, yes. 

Felix’s company was invigorating in ways he could have never fathomed. He reminded him, oddly enough, of Christopher. A smart tongue, a sharp wit. Interminable knowledge and an acute ability to comprehend. 

When he thought of it like that, well…

He swallowed thickly. 

Shame. 

Felix’s fingers in his hair, against his scalp. He could forget that shame, if only for a fleeting moment.  

His eyes fell shut at the touch, and his body melted deeper into the waters. But before he could submerge his arms, Felix guided his wounded limb to rest atop the rim of the tub. His eyes flew open, lips poised for a question that was silenced by the younger man’s genteel voice. 

“It would be wise to keep the wound dry, my Lord,” was the explanation he offered. 

Hyunjin nodded slowly. He supposed that was a good point. 

“Lay your head back,” Felix murmured, resuming his ministrations.  

He leaned his head against the lip of the tub, baring his neck to the younger man, yet forgoing all sense of vulnerability that would come from such a gesture. His eyes fell to a close again, and in his mind, blessed silence. Not even the loud of his incessant thoughts dared to intrude upon it. 

It stayed that way for what seemed an age. Just him and the quiet, the nimble fingers scraping along his scalp and taking with them the tension in his skull. 

Yet he could not relinquish that which had taken hold of him. 

His eyes fluttered open. At first, they landed upon the ceiling, where he was met with the sight of the intricately detailed moulding he’d previously neglected to observe. Certainly, this place left nothing to the imagination, for its every space and crevice was filled with a handcrafted beauty that Hyunjin was sure went unnoticed and unappreciated by those who routinely found themselves beholden to it. How jarring, truly, to ponder how many pairs of eyes gazed upon this ceiling from this exact position. How jarring, truly, to ponder how many of them failed to consider what they were seeing. Beauty, yes, but also an account on their Empire’s history, carved into marble and stone.

Beautiful. 

Beautiful and grand, like he’d always considered it to be. 

He let his gaze trail down, beyond the tub and to a cluster of light. It latched onto a candle, half-melted, and watched unseeingly as a tear of wax slipped down the side of it. Though now the quiet in his mind began to thunder with the thoughts he could no longer quell. 

Hyunjin lifted his head, turned it to the side. 

Felix’s face was pulled into a fragile sort of confusion, chin tilted ever so slightly to the side as his fingers came to a standstill. “My Lord…?”

The Legatus’ stare was severe. And just as it was severe, it was inescapable. 

“I am sorry,” he murmured after a moment. 

A barely audible gasp was his immediate answer, but more telling was the way Felix’s brows drew together, forging a line between them whose depthness rivalled that of his eyes. “Whatever for, my Lord?”

“My insolence.”

The hands slipped from his hair and landed soundlessly against the tub. He said nothing, but Hyunjin had already prepared himself to fill that nothing with something. 

“I spoke from a place of malice and unjust judgment. You did not deserve to be the target of my indignation, not for a single reason, for you were never the cause of it.”

The furrow between those unbelievable eyes softened. He shook his head, disturbing the gossamer chiffon draped across his face as it accompanied the movement. “I’ve been treated and told far worse, my Lord. Trust me when I tell you that the offenses you’ve claimed for yourself are inappreciable. You’ve nothing to seek my forgiveness for.”

“Do you truly believe that? When I could see the hurt in your eyes, hear the pain in your voice? Do you truly believe that you must shoulder the cruelties of others simply because you’ve been told to?” 

Felix severed his gaze from Hyunjin. “I do,” he admitted demurely, “I do, Dominus, for I…I am nothing. A speck upon your greatness. The Legatus owes nothing to a lowly whore, the world owes nothing to a lowly whore, and thus, I am undeserving of your apologies. So do not bestow them unto me. Please.”

Hyunjin prayed that his ears were deceiving him. “Nothing?” he whispered disbelievingly. “You’re nothing?” 

Felix’s face remained downcast. 

“Look at me,” urged quietly Hyunjin.

Honeyed molasses eyes found the dark of his once again. 

“The gods do not create life for folly. Each one serves a purpose, each one has meaning and value. Even if it seems little, even if it seems inconsequential. Even if…” he inhaled deeply, “even if it entails having to sell your body so that you can fill your belly and slumber upon a proper bed.”

He could almost see the shame in Felix’s eyes, if only because it mirrored his own. 

“But that does not mean you are nothing. And more than that, it does not give any soul the right to make you feel that way. I was callous and inconsiderate of your circumstances, and I am ashamed to admit that I allowed my…emotions…to steer my untoward behaviour. So, please, forgive your Legatus for his ignorance, and trust him when he says that he will never repeat such offenses again.”

Felix’s fingers curled around the edges of the tub, barely brushing against the surface of the water, yet close enough to the skin of Hyunjin’s arm that if he moved but an inch, they’d touch. 

A shuddering breath, and then: “I have heard many tales regarding the Legatus Legionis Hyunjin, who carries the family name of Hwang.”

Hyunjin waited for him to continue.

“The narratives are ruthless, merciless. They speak of him as if he’s more monster than man. They speak of him as if he shares the same malice vested in our Imperator. The bloodlust, the hunger for power and riches. They make him seem a coldhearted murderer and irredeemable bigot, paint him as an untouchable god among men.”

He dipped a finger into the warm water, but his eyes remained fixed onto Hyunjin’s, unwavering and resolute. 

“They speak of him as if there is no soul within the vessel of his body.”

He swallowed, thickly and with hesitation. Hyunjin, too, felt breathless in weighted anticipation. 

“But they never…” his breath hitched as his finger came to an abrupt halt. “They never spoke of his humanity. They never mentioned the heart beneath that monstrous exterior.”

“And now?” questioned Hyunjin, praying that he didn’t appear too eager, “do you still consider those tales as truths?”

Felix drew his fingers back from the surface of the water. “Do you?” he whispered in turn, brows knitting. 

Hyunjin blinked. Did he? 

He knew vaguely of these stories Felix referred to, and of the way he was described within their prose. He surmised that it was only natural for such a description to accompany the iron-clad image he portrayed to the world. Though his only qualm was that such an image was but a mere fragment of his entirety. 

He knew himself to be more than just those things, just as he knew how little truth was held within a number of them. 

“I suppose I have no choice but to,” he ultimately decided. “I am the Legatus of Roma, the greatest empire in existence. It is a title that must be carried with a certain representation. It allows no room for misconception.”

“Even if it makes you into something you are not?”

“‘Tis a cross I have to bear.”

“It sounds utterly enervating.”

Hyunjin laughed through his nose. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

Felix’s gaze flickered with something nearly tangible–Hyunjin was almost able to capture it before he let it fall back to the water. “As have I.”

The Legate’s brows unfurled, and a frown formed upon his lips. 

“Felix,” he said, fingers ghosting over the skin of his wrist. “You are not what they’ve made you to be.”

When next he met Hyunjin’s eyes, for what seemed the hundredth time that evening, there was a sheen that hadn’t been there before. Tears? 

“Neither are you.”

And there it was. 

Neither are you.

“Does that make me cruel, Chris?”

“...the cruelty of the world is not a reflection of you, Hyunjin.” 

He could contain it no longer. 

“Let me see your face,” breathed Hyunjin, adjusting his position in the bath.

Felix froze, eyes widening for a fraction of a moment before they flicked back to the safety of the water’s surface, now rippling from the Legatus’ fervid movements. 

“You can refuse, if it discomforts you.”

“No, that’s not–no. I just hadn’t…hadn’t expected this…from you, my Lord.”

“Then…” Hyunjin drew a breath, willing the younger man to acquiesce to this simple behest, “will you indulge your Legatus?”

Felix’s eyes trailed towards the far end of the tub, where light flickered against the walls and cast shadows along marble and stone. After an agonising stretch of what was no more than a few minutes, he offered his acceptance with the barest of nods.  

Hyunjin hesitated a second, ensuring that his eyes hadn’t cheated him before uncurling his hand from around the lip of the tub and reaching towards Felix’s ear, where there was a small clasp keeping the fabric draped across his face. 

Time passed as if it were suspended in a thick vat of molasses. Hyunjin’s breath hung upon the precipice of his impatience and desire—to finally see the face of the man who had beguiled him from the moment he’d laid eyes on his elusive form upon the balcony was his utmost priority. 

His fingers trembled as they dragged the chiffon down, over the chiselled curve of his cheek and the delicate bridge of his nose. 

“You’ve been kissed by the sun.”

Felix’s lips–full and pink and plush–parted for a breath. “My Lord?”

Hyunjin swept his gaze over this face. 

“You’ve been kissed by the sun,” he repeated in an awed murmur, tracing his thumb along Felix’s cheekbone, along the little flecks and specks dotted over pale skin. “I’ve only ever met one other that–” 

His eyes widened. 

The brother who’d gone to the capital to learn. Who’d captured the attention of the Caesar. Earned a place in court, in the army. 

The letter. The sudden demise of a life barely begun. The quiet. The unnatural distance and the near-complete shutdown. The memories of times long past. The heavy smiles that gave way to even heavier tears. 

“My little brother, Hyunjin. He’s gone.”

“Christopher.”

Felix’s lips trembled upon hearing the name. 

Hyunjin's eyes continued to search through every diaphanous feature and facet. His thumb, frozen in place, could not be convinced to remove itself from that dappled expanse.  

“Christopher…my Tribune. He is your brother, isn’t he?”

Felix remained quiet, but Hyunjin knew he was right. It was like a feeling…an instinct. 

“You must tell him.”

The freckle-faced man shook his head, dislodging a few tears that clung to his lashes. He had resigned himself to Hyunjin’s acute sense of perceptiveness, just as he’d resigned himself to the life of a caged bird. There was no use in denying the truth. “I cannot.”

“He has mourned for you. He grieves for you, every hour of every day.”

Felix wiped at his eyes, inadvertently pushing aside the Legate’s hand from his cheek. “That is why I cannot, my Lord. He can shoulder the grief of my loss, but he cannot bear the burden of my living.”

“That is lunacy.”

“It is reality.”

Hyunjin was, again, incapable of looking away. Perhaps it was true that he didn’t want to, because Felix was so…

“That is why you were on the balcony.”

Felix nodded, face tinted red from the ache in his chest. “Madam Amalthea had informed me of your arrival. She said I’d be able to see him before he took to his quarters for the evening. I hadn’t anticipated being caught.”

Hyunjin’s mind raced with innumerable possibilities. Flashed with the image of Felix scrambling to hide once he realised he’d been discovered. 

“You’ve not seen your brother for a decade?”

“I-I have, my Lord. Though only twice.”

“Here?”

“Yes,” his gaze fell to his wrist, where Hyunjin’s fingers had been just moments ago. “He comes not to indulge in bodily congress, but rather to indulge in poetry. Madam Amalthea reads to him, and she leaves her door ajar enough so that I can sit outside and hear his voice when he speaks.”

Hyunjin felt a sting in the base of his throat. Surely, he hadn’t been brought to tears by this revelation? Surely, surely…

“You must tell him.” he implored again, fingers nudging against the ridges of Felix’s tendons. “You must…”

Because only he knew of the torment his friend endured. 

Only he knew of the way Christopher cried for endless nights, lost sleep for countless weeks.

Only he knew of the way he clutched that wretched letter to his chest until it disintegrated into fibres. 

Only he knew of the way he overcompensated for his grief by throwing himself headfirst into training and his studies. 

Only he knew…only he knew.

Why hadn’t he connected it sooner? Even as the truth stared him in the face, how could he remain ignorant to its existence? 

“Felix…”

“You must not tell him, my Lord. It would destroy him.”

“It already has.”

“Then let us prevent more destruction. This is my life now. I cannot be saved, and he cannot get his little brother back. The Felix he knew is dead.”

Hyunjin recoiled as if he’d been struck. 

“My fate has been sealed. I don’t belong in his world anymore…if I ever did.”

Hyunjin would hear nothing of it. “I can take you away from here. Far away. I can reunite you with your brother who has never stopped loving you. You don’t have to suffer this anymore.”

Felix’s face pinched in pure agony. Tears escaped him in reckless abandon, and even then Hyunjin could not help but find himself in awe of the sight. 

“If only it were that easy, my Lord.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said it yourself. There is no room for misconception.”

The perplexity must have been clear on Hyunjin’s face, so Felix took it upon himself to relieve him of it. 

“How would it appear if the Legatus Legionis arrived at the capital with a whore by his side? Especially when it is common knowledge that he is to wed any one of our governors’ highborn daughters?”

It would be a scandal. There is no doubt about it. 

“The people would tear me to shreds, my Lord. They would hate me without even knowing me, seeing only the whore who’d managed to ensnare the Legatus and fill his head with venom.”

They would. They may even do worse. 

But…

“I don’t care,” maintained Hyunjin, steadfast and determined. 

Felix smiled wistfully. “Yes, you do. Do not deny it, my Lord. I may not be formally educated as you, but I like to believe that I am not inherently stupid enough to believe that you’d be willing to besmirch your reputation so recklessly.”

“I am struggling to understand. Do you not care for the happiness your brother may stand to gain knowing that you are alive?”

“I can only consider that which he stands to lose, my Lord. And it is a far deal greater than an ephemeral joy. His career, his livelihood…his accomplishments and achievements…he’ll throw it all away for nothing.”

The Legatus was officially at a loss for words. 

Even now, as he was offered a way out, a lifeline, Felix would rather uphold his sacrifice for the sake of his brother. He would rather bear this hell he called life, than risk his brother losing the prestige he’d accumulated in his own. 

What a rare human, what an exceptional soul. 

And Hyunjin–greedy, selfish, Hyunjin who wanted it all–was torn. Torn between the desires of his mind and his heart. Torn between rationality and sentiment. 

He did not know Felix the way he knew Christopher, but he did know that Felix was right. Christopher would no longer remain impartial to reason if it became known to him that his brother still drew breath. And worse? He would level the earth if it ever came to his knowledge the horrors he’d faced in all that time. He’d become a ravenous beast, bent on vengeance and retribution for his dear brother who suffered immensely at the hands of savages. 

He would lose himself. And after he’d do away with that, he would lose everything else. 

What a perverse travesty. 

Perhaps the gods were cruel. Perhaps they were no better than man. 

Separating two brothers like this. It was cruel. Laying the odds against them for any possible reunion. Cruel. 

Cruel, cruel, cruel…

“You must promise me, my Lord. the truth of my relationship to your Tribunus will not leave this room. You must promise me this. That is all I ask of you. Please.”

“I…”

“Please,” beseeched Felix, “I beg you.”

And maybe he had been bewitched by the stars in his eyes and on his cheeks. Maybe he’d been enthralled by his otherworldly beauty that no man should have ever been capable of possessing. Maybe he’d been enraptured by the intellect and the wit, the inordinate capacity to put those that he loved leagues above himself. 

Because Hyunjin found himself nodding along to Felix’s desperate pleas, albeit reluctantly. 

“You’ve forced me into a difficult predicament. Your brother is my friend, my comrade. By all rights, I should put his needs above yours.”

Felix nodded solemnly. “I know,” he whispered upon a breath, “forgive me.”

But the stubborn Hyunjin persisted. “However…Christopher can adapt to anything. It is an insufferable quality of his that I revere greatly. Who is to say that he’ll resort to extremes? There is a likely chance he’ll be persuaded to act rationally if reminded of the stakes that bind him.”

Those honey eyes were crestfallen when he said, “you know that he will not. ‘Tis not in his nature.”

“How can you be so sure he is of the same nature he had been when you were a pair? Your brother is a man now. Hardened and shaped by war.”

“He is my brother before he is any of those things, my Lord. Christopher is as Christopher was. That is something that not even the passage of time can alter. Would you not agree?” 

“I would.”

“Then you must understand my encumbrance. Even–even if there is the slightest possibility that he will stay his hand from delivering my retribution, nothing will undo the fact that his brother is a whore. It would become the soft underbelly of his armour, vulnerable to attack and derision.”

Hyunjin hissed through his teeth. 

“Please, my Lord. Don’t make this more difficult than it has already been. I can only bear so much.”

The Legatus only stared at him. He’d not grown tired of staring at him. He doubted, at this point, that he ever would. 

A hefty sigh escaped his lungs, burdened with purpose and laden with a heavy sort of commitment. “Very well, Felix. Your secret will be safe with me, so long as it is yours to keep.”

The tension along the younger man’s shoulders released immediately. “My Lord, you…you’ve no idea the relief you’ve imparted me with. Thank you.”

Hyunjin, however, was still plagued with conflict. Was he making the right choice? Was his acquiescence to Felix’s pleas a blatant betrayal of Christopher’s trust?

He didn’t know. 

As he gazed at Felix’s dismally hopeful face, the further that uncertainty bled. But there was certainty amongst it, some form of recognition of a greater truth.

Sad. 

That’s what it was. 

Felix was beautiful but sad. And that sadness is what had ultimately reminded Hyunjin of his own insignificance. This was not about him, this was not about fixing an issue he had no hand in creating. 

This was about Felix, and the transcendent quality of his love and respect for his kin. 

This was about a life that had done nothing but exist for others, and had not the faintest idea of what it was like to know that kind of commitment in return. 

“I…”

Felix’s expression was expectant, yet Hyunjin could not deliver the words to abate that expectation. He cleared his throat, brows furrowing, and turned away. He settled back into place, and his eyes–his eyes fell back to that cluster of light that seemed only to glow brighter in the span of their absence. 

Where has your tongue gone, Legatus?

The water was still so warm. His skin, however, had yet to prune. 

Felix’s hands reached for a jug and a cloth and a bar of a solid cleansing oil. 

It has been tangled beyond repair. 

And, as if nothing transpired, the two continued on their previous course. The Legatus was in need of a bath, and Felix had been tasked to ensure that it was the most fulfilling bath he’d ever received. Hyunjin had again draped his wounded arm over the tub’s edge, yet this time he’d folded it towards his body so that his wrist could go limp, and the tips of his fingers could be submerged. 

A gentle pressure against his nape urged him to lean back again, bare his neck again, close his eyes again. He hadn’t exactly expected the light trickle of water that cascaded through his hair, from its every root to its every end, but he did not allow the tender action to disrupt him. Instead, he took advantage of it, of the calm, the tranquility. And once Felix’s hands joined the equation once more, he was certain he had reached the heavens. 

At some point, he knew not when, he drifted off, surrendering himself to Felix’s practised ministrations until at last, the suds had been washed and his hair had been restored to its former glory. Free from the traumas of the battlefield, of the dirt and the sweat and the blood. 

When he came to, his skin had been rubbed clear of its grime, and his face felt emancipated from the markers of war. 

He felt renewed, he felt reborn. 

And yet, there was a new weight upon the tatters of his soul. 

Felix and Christopher and the many intricacies of destiny and of fate. The probability of the improbable. It had brought him here, to this place, to this remarkable being. Damn it all, had their Caesar done something right for once? Was it fate, or the overzealous rapaciousness of their divine leader? 

Was this meant for the Legatus Legionis? Was he meant to cross paths with that figure on the balcony who stole a moment for himself to catch a glimpse of his elder brother, whom he had to surrender as he did his freedom?

He turned his head aloft, and there he was. Still kissed by the sun, still blessed with a woeful pulchritude. And like every other moment he’d been subjected to it, he was left powerless to sever his gaze.

He stared and he stared and he stared. He stared until he was convinced Felix would feel the burn of his eyes for the rest of his life, stared until every position of every sun-kissed mark was burned into his eyelids, every angle of every feature, every colour of every fleck in his irises. 

He stared even when a voice in his head told him it was wrong and indecorous. Immoral. Undignified. 

But who was here to judge him for it? The Emperor? Christopher? The gods? 

No. 

It was just him. Just him and his covetous gaze and the subject that had captured it. 

The subject who’d embedded himself into his very skin. 

Through a hushed whisper, the Legate asked the boy, “does it always hurt?”

The inquiry was a personal one, but Hyunjin presumed, all things considered, that it would not be a deterrent. All boundaries had already been crossed this night, they had been thoroughly challenged. 

Felix squeezed water from the sponge in his hand. “Not always,” he said, quiet and calm, unfazed by the sudden, nongermane ask. “Sometimes, they seek my pleasure as well as their own. But…since I know you to expect honesty, my Lord, I feel those moments are the ones that cut the deepest.”

Hyunjin turned the information in his head, over and over, but it refused to settle. “And what of the ones who leave those?” he further questioned, nodding his head at the bruises upon his skin. 

Felix glanced at the abominations littering his body and sighed. “They consider it a charming addition to my submission.”

The Legatus frowned, feeling that damned unnamable emotion coil tightly in his stomach. Only this time, it was encapsulated with rage. But not towards Felix, no. Not him. Only towards the men cowardly enough to raise a hand against him and those who only did what was required of them. 

He realised then, through the waves of his fury and the chasm of his disappointment, that he and Christopher were one and the same. 

He, too, would choke the life from any man who’d abetted this unjust and barbaric treatment. He, too, would enact his vengeance until the streets ran red with it. 

So strong a conviction, for a man he just met. But a natural one all the same, because even though he did not know Felix, he knew Christopher’s little brother. 

Christopher’s little brother, who took after their mother, who loved to bake sweets and paint flowers upon silks and feed the stray cats in the alley adjacent to their home. Who loved to read with him at bedtime and laugh at the way his big brother’s hair curled in the mornings. Whose smile, as he so proudly boasted, could light up the world.

Through Christopher’s memories and recollections, Hyunjin had learned of a boy whose love for life could be felt through his every deed. 

He had learned of a boy who’d been robbed of that life, too soon and in a manner most loveless. 

But he hadn’t, had he? 

He was right here, a ghost made corporeal. A ghost that had never been a ghost at all. 

He’d been here all along, waging his own wars and weathering his own storms. 

“Am I wrong, then, to assume that you are in high demand?”

Teeth dug into a plush bottom lip. “I am one of very few male escorts here, but I am also one of Madam Amalthea’s most profitable hyacinths. You’d be surprised by the lengths men trek to defile another.”

“May I ask you something?”

Felix breathed a quiet, humble little laugh. “You’re seeking permission now, my Lord? I believe we’re far beyond that.”

“It would make me feel less vile, knowing you allowed it. Knowing I didn’t take it from you unwillingly.”

The faint smile on the freckled man’s lips was quick to wane, a slow demise that fostered no capacity for grief, but instead demanded reflection. The words uttered by the Legatus meant more than they said, offered more than they gave. All Felix had to do was accept. “Of course, my Lord,” murmured Felix his consent. “I am at your disposal.”

Well, Hyunjin supposed that was better than nothing, though the allowance left a bitter taste on his tongue. He’d ingested too much in this short time he’d spent with Felix, too fast, and now everything seemed unpalatable. “Your appearance mimics that of a woman,” he stated, carefully treading the terrain of this fragile camaraderie between them, “I wonder…I wonder why that is so, if it is known amongst your patrons that you are not.”

Felix watched a pair of bubbles float atop the water, swirling around one another, weaving in and out of the other’s path.

“You are an intelligent man, my Lord. You know exactly where you are, exactly what occurs within these walls.” Honey met coal, and in a hushed voice: “you know what men are like.”

More than most, he would wager. But maybe…maybe not as thoroughly as Felix did.

“They like pretty things. Soft and delicate things. The prettier I am, the softer, the more delicate, the more gold they spend. They care not for trivial things as sex, they care not for my lack of breasts or cunt, because a hole is a hole. Even if I am a man, a hole is all they see. It is all they want.”

Hyunjin’s own gaze drifted to the scene Felix had fixated upon. 

“I wish you would come with me,” he professed, watching the larger one trail behind the smaller. “I wish you would allow me to help you spare yourself of this torture.”

“Would that I could. Would that it were so simple a pursuit. If I myself, as you say, am not nothing, then nothing is all I have. I’ve nothing to give, nothing to provide. I’d be a burden upon you and upon my brother, and I will not, under any circumstances, let that come to pass.”

“You are young. You are skilled beyond measure. Your mind is unlike any other. It has more potential than this. Your life…has more potential than this. Do not withhold yourself from obtaining what can be yours. What you’re owed.”

Felix smiled smally. “I am honoured that a man of your standing thinks so highly of me.”

Hyunjin did not miss the tear that slipped from his eye. 

“But what life is worth living if it is a soulless one?”

The Legate’s brows furrowed ferociously. 

“I surrendered my soul years ago, my Lord. The Felix that wanted those things…he is nonexistent. He’s been destroyed, hollowed out like a carcass. Cursed to be beautiful…but sad.”

Hyunjin felt his breath halt in his lungs. 

“It is not your responsibility to save a single, wretched life, Legatus. For in this place, it is not the only one to be saved. Do not mourn for me as my brother did– does.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I’d consider it a terrible lapse in your incontestable judgment. The Legatus is renowned for his sharpness of mind, not his softness of heart.”

Never in his twenty-eight years upon this earth had Hyunjin been insulted so courteously. Had it come from the mouth of any other, he was sure he would find it much more difficult to ignore. “The Legatus can do as he pleases.”

Felix swallowed. “Only to the capacity a pawn is allotted,” he murmured, shaking Hyunjin to the very core. “He exercised that privilege when he asked me to trust that he would never repeat his offenses. But how can he now unspeak those words, and impose upon me the superiority of his rank? For the simple act of rejecting an unguaranteed future?”

“It is not unguaranteed,” Hyunjin argued, exasperated. “You hold precedence now that I’m aware of your direct tie to my closest companion. I will see to it myself that your future is fulfilled.”

“And if I wasn’t?”

“Wasn’t what?”

“Directly tied to your closest companion, my Lord. Would you still be as determined as you are now?”

All sense of aggravation fled from his body, anchoring him to the spot with the hollow it left behind. Hyunjin had not even considered it like that, truth be told. His innate need for justice had set in long before Christopher had even wedged himself into the dialogue. It had blinded him. 

Felix scoffed, but to Hyunjin it seemed more of a self-loathing pantomime borne from his silence. “Just as I thought. Your desire lies not with wanting to save me, but with saving your friend.”

The Legate opened his mouth, but there was nothing. Nothing. 

But how could he leach words from his throat when Felix himself didn’t even sound ruffled? He carried on with that harmonious timbre as if he were reciting verses from a sonnet, not turning the Legate’s world upon its head. 

What have you done to me?

“I am grateful for your loyalty to him, my Lord. You are precisely the type of companion I’d envisioned for my brother to call his own. Just and faithful, and with only his best interest in mind. I must thank you for your genuine quality as a human being, for I have seen it for myself tonight. And I must thank you for extending that genuineness to Christopher.”

Dryness pricked Hyunjin’s eyes, forcing him to blink rapidly against it. 

“But I cannot help you. The bed I have made has conformed to the shape of my spine, it can be used by no other. It would be best if you accepted that for what it is, instead of what it never should have been.”

Hyunjin’s eyes narrowed, just barely. Just enough. 

No. I will not. 

“Fate cannot be changed once ordained by the gods. Not even by you, my Lord.”

The Legatus was suddenly overcome by a chill. Was it the water, the inside of his chest?

Was it the despondency in Felix’s eyes? Those smouldering embers of hopelessness and resignation. 

But the thing about embers was that they could be sparked back to life anew. 

I will not let you surrender.

“Nonetheless, my success now is based on your satisfaction. So tell me, Legatus, are you satisfied? Do you like what you see? Did you enjoy what I gave?”

Hyunjin moistened his lips, curled his fingers into his palms. 

“I am not attracted to men,” he answered with renewed intent. 

“I had never assumed such a thing,” Felix replied in a similar tone, exchanging the sponge for the jug so that his hands had no excuse for idleness. “I merely asked if you were satisfied with me.”

“I am not attracted to men,” Hyunjin asserted again, “but I…” dark eyes flicked, for the briefest of moments, towards rose-coloured lips. “I cannot deny that you are beautiful. In ways those who touch you could never fathom. In ways they could never begin to understand.”

Felix paused, drawing a trembling breath as water dripped down his wrists. He could feel Hyunjin’s eyes on the side of his face, fervid, inescapable. Could feel them drag from his eyes to his nose…to his lips. 

“Did you hear me, Felix?” he asked, voice low as if he were admitting a sensual secret. 

Goose pimples erupted across the hyacinth’s arms. 

“You are beautiful. You are so beautiful that even a man who could never consider another as such has become enslaved by it.”

His fingers wrapped around that impossibly dainty wrist, effacing it entirely with ease. 

“I would take you from here, if it meant you would stop seeing it as a curse.”

“But you cannot.”

Hyunjin relished the warmth beneath his fingertips. 

“What if I commanded it of you?”

Felix’s head snapped towards him. “You would do no such thing, Dominus.”

“You may just force my hand.”

Brows drew helplessly together. “Why must you be so adamant upon this endeavour?”

“Because you intrigue me,” responded Hyunjin simply. 

“That is not enough.”

“Because you are a rarity on this earth.”

“Honeyed words from a man who knows nothing but war.”

“Because you are beautiful, and I wish to see your face in the light of the sun.”

Felix recoiled. “You feel too strongly for a stranger. For someone you called a common whore.”

The Legatus felt the heat of shame colour his cheeks. “Felix-”

“I do not hold it against you, my Lord. Do not fret. I just wanted to remind you that despite what you see in me, that’s exactly what I am. A whore. ”

“No-”

“I am a whore, Legatus Hyunjin. A common whore. I warm the beds and cocks of men who give my matron the heaviest sack of coin for it.”

“Stop this-”

“I am an embarrassment to my sex and to my family. To my brother who leads a valiant life in complete contrast to mine own. For that is what a whore’s life is. An embarrassment.”

“Felix. Stop this at once.”

“And you, the most accomplished man second only to our Caesar…who can afford the greatest of life’s luxuries, cannot afford such embarrassment.”

“Please.”

His grip on the hyacinth’s wrist tightened. “Please. Enough.”

“Let me go.”

“I cannot.”

Felix’s lip trembled against another wave of tears. “You will have to at some point.”

“Then I will return. Again and again. Until you stop refusing me.”

“And what if I don’t?”

Hyunjin stroked his thumb along the jut of bone at his wrist’s side. He tugged on the thin limb, just enough to pull Felix closer into his orbit, just enough to garner his full, undivided attention. “Then I shall have to try harder,” he murmured. 

The glance to his lips could have been the work of an overactive imagination, but Hyunjin Hwang was hyper aware of everything Felix–every movement, every erratic flutter of his pulse beneath his fingers, every tremor in his breath. 

It was not his imagination when he watched those eyes fall from his lips to his chest, bare and clean and glistening with wetness. It was not his imagination when he could feel his gasp upon the skin of his chin.  

Felix’s caramel gaze flicked back to Hyunjin’s, pleading and dolorous. “Your efforts will be wasted upon me.”

Hyunjin’s mouth curled into a fond, lazy grin. His hand rose to his cheek, contoured itself against fair, freckled skin.

“What would you know?”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Night bled into a bleak morning, and the next thing he knew, it was time to once again take to the road. 

He’d woken, well-rested but distracted; he’d dressed, clothing washed and armour polished; and he’d denied the offer of breakfast, forgoing the hospitality of his host to instead make haste to his carriage that awaited him. 

Christopher bade his farewells for him, expressed his gratitude for him, and when he joined Hyunjin in their transport, tilted his head in question while he tossed him an apple. 

“Surely, it could not have been so horrible.”

The Legatus swept his thumb over its shiny surface, returning the Tribune’s gaze with impassivity. “It was not.”

Christopher’s brows rose upon his forehead. “Oh? Is that so?” he questioned, smiling too brightly for the early hour. “Could have fooled me. It looks like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Hyunjin hummed, tossing the fruit to his other hand as he turned his focus to the landing upon which Madam Amalthea stood. She looked different in the grey light of dawn. Like she knew too much and said too little. “Not a ghost, no.”

And like an instinct, something implored him to look up, to lift his gaze until it was met with an all-too-familiar sight. 

Only now, he was dressed in pale green and ivory as he stared down at him. His face was hidden again, and his hair blew in the crisp morning air like a veil of smoke. But his eyes were bare for Hyunjin to study at will.

He could almost feel the warmth of Felix’s skin on his own–from the delicate rush of blood in the pathways of his wrist to the flush of heat on his face. He could almost trace the curve of each freckle upon his cheeks. Smell the rose on his hair. Hear his voice in his ears. 

He was so beautiful, but Hyunjin still endeavoured to see him in the light of the sun.

The horses neighed in response to the commands of their coachmen, signalling the beginning of the remainder of their journey. The wheels began to turn on the cobblestone road, filling his ears with the clack of hooves upon stone, but Hyunjin’s eyes…his eyes remained fixed upon that sight. He would not allow them to surrender it until it was nothing more than a speck on the horizon. 

Hyunjin felt distinctly that he was leaving something crucial behind, but he did not feel the pang of loss that ought to have accompanied it. 

He had no reason to. 

He would be back again. 

And when he did return, he would not be leaving empty handed.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───