Yeo Eun-do rattled on — a low post wouldn’t even require the main examination, and with His Majesty so interested, permission would surely be granted soon. He was meddlesome by nature, but this was probably his own way of showing goodwill toward Hui-won.
“I gratefully accept only the thought.”
“Why? Did your brother fail to pass?”
Seeing Hui-won hasten to decline, Yeo Eun-do guessed at the reason in his own way.
“No. It’s just that we will be going down to Anseo before long.”
“At a time like this?”
Yeo Eun-do’s voice rose a notch — as if to say: going down now, when the Crown Prince’s attention is fixed on him, does that make any sense?
“Grandfather is so firm in his resolve to return to our family home, and my brother…”
he had not yet grown enough to be sent out into the world on his own. If there was one consolation, it was that Hui-seo followed the Crown Prince closely and attentively; but since Hui-seo could never defy their maternal grandfather, in the end he would follow behind him. Thinking of Hui-seo dogging the Crown Prince’s steps, Hui-won narrowed his eyes.
It was hardly strange for a child starved of affection to follow the Crown Prince. Only, remembering afresh that the boy was starved of affection left a newly bitter taste in his mouth. For all the affection he had tried to give, had it not been enough?
Hui-won often thought of his younger brother. Unlike Hui-won, who retained at least faint memories and recollections of their parents, Hui-seo—raised in their father’s household—had not even memories, let alone recollections. Before Hui-seo was born, their father met a mountain spirit while crossing the mountains and lost his life. The news shocked their pregnant mother into premature labor, and after a long and grueling labor she bore Hui-seo, then succumbed to childbed fever and breathed her last.
Believing his life had been built atop that death, Hui-seo was forever watching for cues. He minded their grandfather, who had lost his daughter because of a stranger, and Hui-won, who had lost both his parents because of a stranger. And so, unable to beg outright for affection, he had always hungered for it. He opened his heart easily to any kindness, and was forever helplessly taken in by tenderness steeped in falsehood, never knowing it for deceit. Which was precisely why Hui-won worried all the more.
For he could not tell whether the root of the Crown Prince’s interest in Hui-seo was pure goodwill, some design, or merely a whim of fancy. If that interest sprang from design or whim, and His Highness turned his back on Hui-seo again… the boy would surely be deeply wounded. Before it came to that—before Hui-seo grew fonder of the Crown Prince—it might be better to send the boy back down to Anseo. He had kept putting off their departure with one excuse or another, uneasy at not being able to watch over the sickly Hui-seo, so prone to illness, and their aged grandfather from close by. But now his wish that Hui-seo, who had at last opened his heart, not be hurt weighed heavier, so they would have to go.
Hui-won absently fingered the jade pendant Hui-seo had given him, sorting his thoughts.
“Jawon.” Knowing how rare an opportunity the Crown Prince’s favor was, Yeo Eundo sighed as though he understood it all. “Have you no ambition for office? If you did, you would do better to remain in Sangyang.” Unable to hide his regret, he pressed his point once more. “Well, I don’t often speak of such things… Ah, here’s the fork in the road. Which way are you headed, Master?”
Hui-won deliberately blurred his answer with a vague manner, turning the arrow of the question back on Yeo Eundo now that they stood before the fork.
“I must go this way.” Talkative and meddlesome as he was, Yeo Eundo’s tact was just as keen, and he saw that Hui-won did not welcome further exchange on this topic.
“And you?”
“I must go the opposite way.”
“A pity our roads diverge. Tsk.” So rather than add anything more, he obligingly played along as Hui-won willingly turned the talk another way.
“It can’t be helped. Until next time.”
“Yes, take care on your way.”
After seeing off Yeo Eundo, who strode away with a small bow, Hui-won waited until he had turned one more corner and vanished from sight before taking the other road.
“……”
The talkative man was gone, but the mountain air had not lifted. He had been thinking of Hui-seo all along, even before meeting Yeo Eundo.
“Haa.” Hui-won sighed and looked up at the sky. Heavy with clouds, it was overcast enough that rain at any moment would surprise no one.
“……”
The carriage must have reached Soseok by now. Hui-seo, who had waited endlessly for that carriage to come, would board it with a face all flushed. Hui-won could picture it without seeing. He swallowed a sigh.
***
The night-touched wind was humid. The massed clouds looked darker than when he had left the house gazing up at the sky. Rain coming, perhaps.
“Is something amiss?” As he lifted the lower hem of his robe, his steps slowed, and the eunuch following behind asked in puzzlement.
“Ah, no. It’s nothing.” Hui-seo shook his head and quickened his pace again. The eunuch, who had stopped for a moment, followed after him.
It felt strange and new. It was his first time on this road, and with his famously poor sense of direction he had been hard-pressed just to follow behind Wol Taegam or the other eunuchs who brought him the first few times—yet now here he was, walking ahead like this. He had grown so accustomed that, to exaggerate only slightly, he could walk it with his eyes closed.
Of course, it was only the road to the Eastern Palace—hardly enough to claim mastery—but in any case, the road was not the only thing that had grown familiar in this time.
“You’ve come, young master.” The Eastern Palace’s people had grown fairly familiar with his face, and as luck would have it, Choi Sanggong, who had been the Crown Prince’s wet nurse, greeted Hui-seo. A faint gladness lay on her face. “But young master, whatever shall we do? His Highness is not at Gyeongchun Palace just now.”
To think he had ridden all this way by carriage, only for the palace’s master to be absent. Hui-seo blinked his large eyes. Should he say he would come in? Or should he wait first? Not knowing which conduct was proper, Hui-seo could not rashly open his mouth.
“He was urgently summoned to the main hall by His Majesty’s call and seems to be delayed. But he will return before long, so may I show you to the study?” As Hui-seo only opened and closed his mouth, not knowing what to do, Choi Sanggong, seeing him, repeated that answering “I will wait” was by no means against propriety.
“Yes.” It had been three days since he had seen him. Loath to turn back just like this, Hui-seo nodded brightly, his face lighting up. Choi Sanggong smiled as if she knew him well and stepped aside.
The study he reached following Choi Sanggong looked no different from usual. A desk gleaming without a speck of dust, books neatly arranged to one side, a go board, the paper’s distinctive scent and the fragrance of ink. If there was one difference, it was the absence of the one Hui-seo had come to see. The empty seat of honor felt forlorn, and—feeling pointlessly forlorn, he glanced back, but Choi Sanggong had already shown him in and left, and Gong-an stood beyond the closed lattice door, so Hui-seo was alone in the study.
“……”
After a moment’s hesitation, he sat in his usual seat. When would His Highness come, he wondered. Choi Sanggong had said he would not be late, but since it was the Emperor’s summons, she could hardly promise rashly. Still, I hope he comes soon…. He muttered absently at the empty seat, then rubbed his cheek, embarrassed for no reason.
“Habits are frightening things….” It was a far cry from his first days in the palace, when he had been at a loss with longing. He had ached so earnestly he had even tossed with fever through the nights, and now he waited desperately for him alone to come.
Hui-seo was fond of the Crown Prince. There had been times when His Highness’s majesty took his breath away, times when he felt the weight of the difference in their stations, and times when he had found his causeless kindness baffling… but one thing was clear. To be precise, he liked his attention, his kindness, his warmth. Even his at times excessive generosity. The atmosphere, solemn to the point of rigidity, had been an important clue to the character of the Eastern Palace’s master. So when he first set foot in the Eastern Palace, Hui-seo had been able to grasp the Crown Prince’s temperament to some extent. A man upright to the point of fastidiousness, allowing not an inch of slack. Yet to Hui-seo alone he was singularly generous.
One day, his mouth running ahead of him, he had unthinkingly blurted out his curiosity. “Your Highness, you are the divine beast’s proxy, are you not? Then can you truly command the divine beast?” He had asked, remembering a childhood rumor that one who possessed the divine beast could command the mountain gods. At the small gasps from behind him, Hui-seo easily realized he had crossed a line. “Alas, I have no such talent. If I could command the divine beast as the rumors say, I would have shown Irang at once and won his favor.” As Hui-seo fidgeted, eyes darting, awaiting a scolding, the Crown Prince merely spoke as though it were nothing, showing no sign of reproach. It must have been from then that the Eastern Palace attendants began treating Hui-seo with singular warmth. The reason was unknowable, but one thing was certain: the Crown Prince plainly held Hui-seo in particular affection, and the attendants had keenly noticed it.
An exception. A truly simple word—and all the more so because, Hui-won aside, he had never been such a being to anyone. Hui-seo, pointlessly winding a loose thread around his finger, turned his gaze to the go board. Looking at the empty board, he replayed the moves he had been assigned last time. Winning was beyond hoping for, but he wished he could become a worthy opponent…. Beneath the dimly filtering light, Hui-seo sank deep into thought.
Rumble. What woke him was the faint sound of knocking at the lattice door. Hui-seo started, eyes flying open. “So you’ve finally woken.” He must have dozed off without realizing, for why else would his eyes have closed? And the late hour—he must have been sitting there blankly for some time. A familiar low voice reached him through his drowsy haze, and Hui-seo looked up, startled.
“Y-Your Highness…?” At some point the Crown Prince had come and settled into the seat of honor, watching Hui-seo. Unable to believe his eyes, Hui-seo blinked again and again.
“Did you sleep well?” the Crown Prince asked with a laugh. “You must have been tired.”
“N-no. I wasn’t sleeping. I was just… resting my eyes for a moment….” At Hui-seo’s stammered excuse, the Crown Prince’s smile deepened. His eyes, curved like crescent moons, were beautiful. And in that moment, more than ever, he resembled the divine beast of the Soseo painting.
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