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Choi Han hacks away at a beast that opens its maws, on the offensive. The God of Death is not looking, preoccupied with another transmigrated entity that’s arrived in its home world and so when Choi Han goes to strike its throat, the monster ducks, leading him not to the right but left. After decades, Choi Han is as directionless as he is numb to it all. He heads left, following the path that’s open to him, aimless, and in a butterfly effect that no one could have foreseen he ends up not in the Henituse County but in the Stan Marquisate instead.
Cale and company are gathered in a hotel room, huddled up as much as the room allows. It’s a huge space, plenty of room to go around but of course the kittens insisted on staying close, therefore Hans is there, and not to be left out, a dragon floats invisibly above Cale’s shoulder.
Ron the servant is serving him lemon tea as Cale glances over him, terrified. He picks up a map, poring over it. He doesn’t mind the kittens curiously peeking in around him, swishing their tails.
“Is that where we’re going next?” the red kitten Hong blinks when Cale’s hand points to the Stan Marquisate a distance away. They had already chosen their destination before they left the county, the count having given Cale much pocket money and his stepmother a comfy carriage and many staff so he doesn’t feel uncared for.
Cale had not declined these offers, taking them all in stride as they boarded their carriage. He has plans for the Marquisate, those which had come into play the second he’d heard word that he was going to be invited to the supposed ball of the year, and so he’d plotted. He’d schemed.
Cale nods to Hong’s words now, drawing a thoughtful finger from the Stans’ to their current location. It’ll be a trip of three more days, but it won’t be long and before they arrive he has to prepare.
“Shhh,” he distantly shoos off the kittens as he takes a lazy recline in his chair. The servants make themselves sparse, knowing what’s coming next, and when Cale absently cards a palm over the kittens’ heads they purr, huddling close and mewing.
Cale fishes out the communication orb, as polite a smile he can muster making its way onto his lips.
He doesn’t hide how excited he is to see the Crowned Prince on the other end when the orb connects, a bright, “Oh Great Sun of the Rowoon Kingdom!” falling from his lips much to the consternation of the prince, though he hides it with a sunny smile of his own.
The two chat away into the night, making plans, scheming, one upping one another. Cale disconnects the call eventually, dropping the smile. He tells the kittens, “You have to be careful of scammers out there. Like him. Absolutely vicious,” while the kittens and Raon all shake their heads in dismay.
As the carriage draws into the Marquisate, Cale absently rubs the sleeve over his right wrist without thinking about it. It’s a habit, one that is remnant from when he was in Korea, though it isn’t out of place now, what with this world having soulmates of its own, evident in the same manner.
Cale spares a moment to think about the absurdity of having words drawn into your skin, the first words this supposed destined person will ever say to you.
He’s never believed in soulmates, has never put much stock into the matter. In fact when he first saw those words manifesting onto his skin and read them, he had given up for good on ever having a perfect match to love him forever and ever, and what not.
“Is it hurting?”
“Your soulmark?”
The kittens chirp as they crowd closer, placing their palms close to Cale’s person. The carriage is drawing to a halt so Cale waves them away, ignoring the mutter of “Weak human,” pressed into his hair from a stubby nose digging into his scalp.
Cale exits the carriage with all the smarmy cockiness and arrogance a guy of his station is supposed to show in public. He therefore enters the Marquisate ball without drawing too much attention, just as he wants as he blends into the already large crowd teeming inside.
The plan is simple. Cale is planning to live a long and painless life, therefore he needs a way to secure his safety. The protagonist of this story, Choi Han, for some reason never showed up at the Henituse estate so he can no longer rely on him to fight the war.
Cale has no intention of fighting the war, therefore the only alternative is to make sure the war never begins in the first place.
The prime step to doing that, is to have all the pieces on the chessboard, turned so he can see them, and hide behind them, playing right into his hand.
“To think that piece is some paint on a stretch of canvas,” Cale laments as he approaches the great pedestal in the center of the ball. It’s a gallery kind of affair, with the Marquisate having pulled out all the stops to show off how powerful they are, how stupendous and blah, blah, blah. One of the markings of their power is a priceless piece of art. They are hung up all around the room but it is clear which one is the centerpiece. Cale looks up at the pious looking woman perched under the command of an angel. It’s said to have been gifted to the Stans by the Royal Family many generations ago, so far that no one knows the exact origin of the painting. But that information isn’t what’s important.
Cale passes by the painting with only a brief expression of impressed admiration and nothing else. Too much and he risks drawing attention to himself and he can’t have that, not when he’s about to steal it and promptly blame someone else for the deed.
Already there exists some commotion, a bit of raised voices, some people in the crowd turning their faces to look. Venison stan looks particularly benevolent today, the picture of grace, which means he’s utterly pissed off, much to Cale’s satisfaction.
At Venion’s side there’s a man that looks vaguely familiar, or like he should be familiar, with a dark hood, broad shoulders, a sword strapped securely to his side. He wears a ratty cape and a dark ensemble, but Cale because he sees no other reason why he should be familiar, passes him by too, drinking from his flute of champagne.
As he drinks and drinks and mingles with some people who feel brave enough to indulge him in the crowd, the commotion grows more apparent. There’s a second when someone shouts, they all blink, and the picture placed on the pedestal shifts, just a fraction of an inch to the left.
Raon appears invisibly on Cale’s shoulder, radiating malice, almost vibrating with it as he stares. He’s done his job, Cale is pleased to see, and he pats him.
“Revenge is a dish best served cold,” he reminds him as he turns his head and away.
It’s approaching their time to leave. They need to hurry up and close the case but when Cale scans the crowd he doesn’t see Ron. He doesn’t see Vicross either and his brows draw down, and Raon goes quiet at his shoulder like he sees it too.
Some more commotion comes at the entrance, a few guards have made their way over there. It’s going to be difficult to detangle themselves at this rate, Cale is sure of it. Something has gone wrong and now it’s all at risk of unraveling.
“Weak human,” Raon frets, eyes wide as he reports that Ron and Vicross are being detained by the guards amidst the noise. He digs his claws into Cale’s shoulder unseen but the man is already moving, striding past the centerpiece and toward Venion Stan and the unknown guard at his shoulder.
Cale clips his shoulder against a passerby so that when the man yelps, spraying champagne everywhere, he can dart, throwing himself against the guard. The guard startles, peeling away from his master. The blond turns as well, furious still and stunned, but Cale has wrapped an arm around the man in the hood, yanking it down only to splay himself dramatically in his arms and cry out.
“Oh my darling!” he spits in the face of Venion Stan before he turns to the dark haired, wide eyed – Asian? What? – man. “How sad that there is an – infinite amount of love in the universe, but not for us, my dear.” Cale covers his face with his hands in the impression of weeping.
The guards stare, the crowd stares, the blond, Venion Stan stares as well, and Cale plays up the act because in this world or his, the best drama is a soulmates’ lovers’ spat and as expected all eyes are drawn to him and the crowd is silent. The guards must loosen whatever they’re doing at the entrance because soon Ron and Vicross, harried but prim, approach their young master while hooking their hands under his arms.
“Our young master, Cale Henituse. He has had much to drink. I’m afraid we must depart at once. We apologize for the interruption; please excuse us.”
They begin to cart the redhead who is now pretending to have passed out towards the door.
Those words. Those words.
Choi Han reels as he stares down at the shock of red similar to the blood pumping in his heart and to his head. He’s shocked to silence and then frozen, processing those words again and again so he knows he hasn’t misheard.
It’s a phrase people don’t hear often, he can’t have been mistaken. Choi Han breaks from his stupor, taking a step forward and away from his master in the direction of his soulmate, words on his lips forming to say the only thing he can think of that will possibly stand out in that moment, to confirm, finally, whether it could really be true.
His soulmate is here.
“...do you know a country named South Korea?”
Cale pretends. Cale closes his eyes. Cale is passed out in the man’s then Ron and Vicross’s hold and he’s almost made it out, another success under his belt so close he can taste it.
He is so so close, almost there, but where the man should have let him go, shocked and disgusted at the redhead who smells like alcohol and has it all wrong, a strong gloved hand clasps over his upper arm to reel him back in.
The pair of lips that descends into his hair feel like desperation, and the voice that speaks into his skin comes out cracked.
“Do you know a country named South Korea?”
It’s a voice of disuse, so fractured, so hungry, so broken, that Cale opens his eyes before he knows it and when he registers what they actually mean, he can’t respond.
In part, he can’t respond because all of a sudden, he realizes he knows that face, the dark eyes, the round cheekbones, the straight nose, and the prim features which look dangerous like a hunter who’s found his prey and Cale must show something in his face because Choi Han’s expression shifts to something new and fragile and almost vulnerable.
“Now what’s—”
“I quit.”
Venion Stan stops in the middle of saying something which was probably magnanimous and meant to be stern when the guard at his shoulder speaks those damning words. He still hasn’t let go of the Trash of the Henituse County’s arm, and looks like has no intention of doing so any time soon, tugging until the pair of what are clearly Henituse’s servants’ eyes sharpen, meeting his now-former guards’. They do not wish to cause a commotion. It’s clear because although they don’t look the least bit happy about it, all three men, Cale Henituse included, aren’t adamant about breaking that hold.
Instead, Cale Henituse begins to make drunken infatuated noises, flinching a little (?) when the guard hoists him into his arms in a bridal carry and buries his face into his hair.
The redhead mutters something and then the four of them empty out the doors of the Marquisate mansion, the crowd gathered parting before them without protest.
Someone cheers. It spreads like wildfire and Venion has no words he can possibly say. Soulmates? If he intervened now, his reputation would go down the drain.
No one thinks of checking the painting in their midst at all, and Cale boards his carriage, eyes thoughtfully grazing over the hand that never leaves his wrist as he does so.
“You were supposed to fight a war,” Cale says.
Choi Han mumbles into his shoulder. “I’ll do anything you ask of me, Cale-nim.”
Cale shoots him a look. “I need you here now. To protect us.”
He thinks that the fact that Choi Han has showed up now proves the book he’s read is no longer reliable. Who knows how the events of it will pop up now; he’s maybe stopped a major war from ever taking place but this doesn’t stop something new from happening in a place he can’t be to hinder that too.
Choi Han’s face beams, the shadows of a dark look to his eyes dissipating like smoke in the face of a fan. He curls around Cale’s body tighter, sliding down to hug his waist. He rests his head on Cale’s thigh and Cale lets him, carding his hand through his hair. Before he knows it, their hands wrap around the other’s mark, forming a circle between them. Things between aren’t perfect, not even close, everything is new and uncertain and fragile.
But it’s a start.