Chapter Text
“The Morning That Won’t End”
The first time, he doesn’t notice.
It’s only a morning. Ordinary. Cold light spills across the palace floors, pooled silver over marble. The corridors smell faintly of old paper and polished wood. His footsteps echo in the same familiar rhythm.
Jo Yeong is waiting outside his chambers, of course. Hands behind his back. Uniform crisp. The faintest nod when Lee Gon opens the door, still fastening the last button of his jacket.
"You're early," Gon says. It's half-greeting, half-habit.
Yeong doesn't respond with words, just the quiet tilt of his head—the one that means I’m always early. The one Gon has come to rely on more than his own reflection.
There is nothing strange about this.
Nothing yet.
---
They walk the halls together, as they often do. Not speaking. Their silence is not uncomfortable; it never has been. Sometimes Gon fills it with stray comments about books, math problems, or palace logistics. Today, he says nothing.
Something feels... static.
Like the air is too still. As if the morning is holding its breath.
But Gon dismisses it. There is a national security briefing at ten. A lunch with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. A speech he’s been avoiding writing. He doesn't have time to indulge the feeling.
He does not see the way Yeong glances at him, once, as if expecting something else.
---
The security briefing unfolds in the West Hall. Papers. People. Voices too sharp for the hour. Gon sits with his hands steepled, his expression impassive.
His mind drifts.
Not to the intelligence updates or the border reports. But to Tae-eul, whose last message came seventeen days ago. "Doing well. Hope you’re sleeping." It had been polite. Careful. Like the soft click of a door closing.
Gon hadn’t replied.
He does not know if that makes him cruel or simply tired.
---
By evening, he is restless.
He walks the gardens alone, without telling Yeong. The guards are always nearby, but it’s not the same. There is no commentary on security patterns, no silent awareness at his side. Just wind and the scent of wet grass.
He ends the walk early. Heads back in.
---
It happens in the hall.
A scream—distant, shrill. Then the shouts of guards. Running.
And then a sharp sound, like metal cracking open the sky.
By the time he turns, it’s too late.
---
A figure charges through the corridor, face covered, blade in hand. Gon reaches for the weapon at his hip—he barely has time. Everything is too fast, too loud.
But then—
Yeong.
He’s there.
He shouldn’t be—he was posted at the northern gate—but he’s there, and throwing himself between Gon and the blade, and Gon doesn’t understand how or why because Yeong was—
“Yeong—!”
Blood sprays. A choked breath. The sound of something breaking.
Yeong collapses against him. Gon catches him automatically, both of them sinking down to the polished floor. The red is already soaking into Yeong’s shirt.
His breathing is shallow. His mouth opens once. No words come.
“Stay with me,” Gon says. “Jo Yeong. That’s an order.”
Yeong blinks slowly. There’s something soft in his expression, like regret. Or maybe acceptance.
And then—
Nothing.
---
Gon dies two hours later. An arterial nick. Missed in the chaos.
The doctors try. They really do.
---
The next morning:
Light spills across the palace floors, pooled silver over marble.
Jo Yeong is waiting outside his chambers. Hands behind his back. Uniform crisp.
Gon opens the door, still fastening the last button of his jacket.
Yeong gives a small nod.
"You’re early," Gon says.
Yeong tilts his head, just slightly.
The same way he always does.
---
Should I continue ?
Is there anyone reading lol.