Soft enough to be mistaken for the wind — yet Eunuch Won must have heard, for he opened the outer door, entered, and stood in attendance.
"I shall play baduk with Irang."
His glance toward the baduk board sitting in the corner had lasted only an instant. He had looked away at once — how had he known?
Did the Crown Prince have four eyes, perhaps?
Or was he a touch more extraordinary for being possessed of a divine soul?
Hui-seo could not hide his amazement and bewilderment. Meanwhile, Eunuch Won pushed the tea things aside and set down the baduk board.
"Since Irang is the senior, the senior will naturally yield the black stones to this junior — won't he?"
"Y-Your Highness…."
As the Crown Prince kept speaking of their senior and junior bond and calling him 'senior,' Hui-seo stammered, unable to hide his dismay.
What blasphemy was this?
Perhaps because his voice trembled as though he might burst into tears at any moment — the Crown Prince, smiling faintly, took the bowl of white stones.
Only then did Hui-seo realize he had been teasing, and pouted without thinking. Of course, this too was a rather blasphemous thing to direct at the Crown Prince, so the moment he realized it, he smoothed his expression. Then he carefully drew the bowl of black stones toward himself.
Along with tea, baduk was one of his grandfather's long-standing pastimes.
So Hui-seo would watch over his shoulder, and when something eluded him, he asked Hui-won to teach him directly.
Though Hui-won had gone up to Sangyang the year Hui-seo turned twelve, so he never properly studied under him — still, if there was anything he had learned from his brother, it was these two things. Which was why, when the Crown Prince asked what he had learned from Hui-won, his gaze had drifted unthinkingly to the baduk board.
Never dreaming it would lead to this.
"……"
Rolling a black stone in his palm, Hui-seo gazed at the board, his eyes grave as he looked down at the black and white stones set out before him.
As he hesitated, worried that trading moves with his meager skill might itself be a discourtesy, the Crown Prince let him lay handicap stones first.
And not two or three — five.
Meager as his skill was, it wasn't quite beginner level. On the foundation of what he'd learned from his brother, he'd played often with his grandfather over the years and learned game records from him. He'd wondered if this much would be enough, but as they traded moves he could tell — even this was not enough……
Hui-seo's houses had already been broken many times. The Crown Prince never seemed to place his stones with particular care, yet whenever Hui-seo came to himself, every one of his liberties was blocked.
Or else the house he'd painstakingly built would be shaken by stones that had crept in unawares.
His moves were as clever as they were cunning — enough to make one's hair stand on end.
Of course, Hui-seo also exerted himself and broke the Crown Prince's houses once or twice, but not nearly enough to bring victory.
Letting out a groan, Hui-seo stared holes into the board.
The tide of the game had turned long ago.
He wasn't exactly hoping to win, but he didn't want to lose emptily either.
Then he'd have to save that one at least….
Hui-seo glanced up briefly. The Crown Prince sat in a perfectly straight posture, looking down at the board.
But it looked less like he was reading the game than simply gazing at it. No tension, no deliberation to be found anywhere.
Lowering his gaze again, Hui-seo deliberated and placed a stone with care. The Crown Prince, seeing it, tilted his head with a soft laugh.
"Irang. Know what?"
"Yes?"
"You and Munhak truly resemble each other."
It couldn't be helped — what he'd grown up watching was Hui-won's baduk, so of course their styles would be alike.
"Upright… yes. Too upright."
"……"
"And too honest."
But listening to him, it didn't sound like he was talking only about baduk. Hui-seo had no chance to wonder, though — the Crown Prince's stones had blocked his liberties again.
"Your moves are so easy to read."
Hui-seo groaned.
"By this point you might well throw down your stones and quit — and yet you do your best."
Of course he did — it was the Crown Prince before him. If anything, he was abashed at how poorly he played.
He said Hui-seo's play resembled his brother's, but Hui-won would never have crumbled this miserably.
"…Forgive me, Your Highness."
Interest only arises between evenly matched players — with Hui-seo such a weak opponent, the Crown Prince could hardly be enjoying himself.
At some point his black stones had been completely surrounded by white; looking down at them, Hui-seo murmured carefully.
"Was it no fun…?"
The Crown Prince looked sideways at the cowed Hui-seo.
For quite a long while.
"No."
The Crown Prince, rolling a white stone in his hand, dropped it back into the bowl and answered.
"I found it quite enjoyable."
This dull, dragging game — really?
The words rose to the tip of his throat, but remembering that this was the Crown Prince, Hui-seo barely managed to swallow them.
"Trading moves, one by one. Talking together."
In truth, Hui-seo, consumed with worrying over where to play, had been poor company.
All he'd done was answer the Crown Prince's questions, and even those answers were nothing much.
Remembering it, Hui-seo bit his rolled-in lips. Earlier he'd been too buried in how to play to think straight, but thinking back now, his answers had been woefully perfunctory.
And that, before the Crown Prince himself.
"So I would like to play baduk with you like this, often."
Hui-seo, who had been about to apologize, blinked. Straining to keep any stupid "huh?" from slipping through his lips.
What had he just heard?
"That is — if Irang accepts."
His gaze had a strange power to hold one's eyes, and his voice was kind. In Hui-seo's eyes, countless emotions bloomed.
Bewilderment, anxiety, curiosity — or perhaps a flutter of excitement, things like that.
That he nodded.
"…Yes, Your Highness. Gladly."
Perhaps that was why.
"Good."
The Crown Prince smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling.
The moment his cold gaze softened, Hui-seo forgot his impropriety and gazed into those eyes.
He felt he would not forget it for a long time.
Knock, knock.
At the touch tapping his shoulder as if to shatter his reverie, Hui-won turned his head sideways.
"Master Haksa."
It was Yeo Eun-do, who had been his superior during his brief stint at the Hallimwon after placing first in the examinations.
"What could you be thinking so intently about, that you don't hear me calling anxiously?"
He looked at Hui-won as though beholding something quite strange.
"What — thinking of the wife you left at home? Missing her that much?"
Recalling that Hui-won was newly married, only about a month wed, Yeo Eun-do asked with a smile.
"How can you say that. You're teasing me."
"It's just so unusual. Anyone who knows you would think as I do — that the new bridegroom sits there dazed, thinking of the pretty bride he left at home."
It might have sounded like a rebuke, but judging by Yeo Eun-do's expression, it wasn't.
He seemed to find it quite amusing that Hui-won was showing an uncharacteristic side.
"…To be caught like this is embarrassing. You must keep it secret."
That his wife was beautiful was an undeniable fact, but it was not the cause of his reverie now. But still, he judged there was no need to drag it out with denials, and readily agreed.
"What is there to be embarrassed about? These are the good days — indeed, the very best days."
Yeo Eun-do laughed heartily.
He delivered a long speech on the importance of self-cultivation and ordering one's household, and Hui-won chimed in appropriately.
That must have been why. Yeo Eun-do's words grew long. Only then did he recall that, despite his quite solemn appearance, the man was very chatty.
"By the way — they say His Highness has been keeping Woo Munhak's younger brother close of late."
What came out after all the idle talk was his younger brother Hui-seo's name — a name that had been circulating ominously in the palace of late, and the protagonist of his current reverie as well.
'Brother, brother! Guess where I've been? You'll be surprised when you hear.' The Crown Prince's words on the wedding day had sounded meaningful, but he'd thought little of it.
Until he heard Hui-seo's words when the boy came out to greet him — after he'd spent the customary seven days at his wife's family home and returned with his bride.
'I've been to the palace. To His Highness the Crown Prince's palace.' The Crown Prince had summoned Hui-seo to the palace.
And not just once — ever since the first summons, once every three days.
"Of all people, His Highness himself. Truly astonishing, is it not?"
Yeo Eun-do clicked his tongue in amazement. Hui-won fully understood his reaction.
The Crown Prince was fundamentally indifferent to others. There was nothing he specially cherished and kept within his circle — whether person or thing, it was all the same.
Some praised such temperament as truly the makings of an emperor — for the Son of Heaven must embrace all his subjects, yet love no one.
But with the first exception come, everyone in the imperial palace was on alert over the Crown Prince's movements — more precisely, over Hui-seo's existence.
"Even His Majesty is quite interested."
Even the Emperor.
"It's surely just a passing amusement."
He answered calmly, but inwardly he was troubled.
"What need for such modesty between us?"
Yeo Eun-do shot him a look.
Hui-won had enjoyed the glory of marrying the daughter of a high official, a match made by the Emperor's own hand. And now that even his younger brother was monopolizing the Crown Prince's attention, Yeo seemed to take his reserve for false humility.
But it was nothing of the sort.
Hui-won smiled bitterly.
A powerful man's favor is a double-edged sword. It can cut others, but it can also wound oneself.
If Hui-seo were even a little cunning, he wouldn't be worrying like this.
But the boy was not born with a nature that could harm anyone — if anything, he'd only harm himself.
That alone was worrying, but what troubled him was the Crown Prince's true intentions.
'He is such a beloved kin to my teacher — this disciple must look after him as well.' When he had carefully broached the subject of Hui-seo, the Crown Prince had returned the same words as on the wedding day, in an indifferent tone.
He'd gone on to say that Hui-seo felt like a cute younger brother and he wanted to keep him close — yet as far as Hui-won knew, the Crown Prince had never once shown affection even to Prince Seo, born of the same mother.
And yet, whether such a man could truly be generous to Hui-seo merely for being his teacher's younger brother — that was not easy to answer.
"In any case, this is an unparalleled opportunity for your brother."
"……"
"Has he taken the preliminary examination? If he's passed
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