Thanks to that, he’d ended up giving way to Hae-gang. Forget getting used to it — he’d been about to chant a litany of *never do this again*, but he felt helplessly drained.
Go Hae-gang was a strange person. Somehow… he made one think it might be all right to grow helpless — made one want to just let him have his way.
***
“Your Highness, it’s Minister Hong. May I open the door?”
The carriage had arrived at the Yeolliwon residence quite a while ago. But no matter how long they waited, the carriage door showed no sign of opening, so the coachman glanced back over his shoulder, then climbed down and headed in through the gate. Since it was the carriage carrying the newlywed couple, whose rank was immeasurably high, all the coachman could do was go fetch the steward.
And so Chamberlain Hong Cha-hyeon came out and cautiously announced himself. All the while, the carriage remained silent. There was no sign the door would open from inside, not even the faintest movement. Now Jihwan’s heart began to flutter a little — what if something had happened?
Jihwan hurried to the carriage and took the door handle in hand. And calling out once more, “I’ll open it, Your Highness,” he flung the door wide.
Jihwan’s gaze went past the open door, and in the next instant he hurriedly bowed his head and assumed a formal posture. It was awkward, not knowing where to rest his eyes — for there were indeed two people inside… but it had been so quiet he’d assumed they were asleep. At least the lower one, as far as one could see.
Mok-young sat in a perfectly straight posture, but Hae-gang was clinging to him, arms wrapped around his waist. Like someone hugging a big, cozy bolster. But what he was holding wasn’t some bolster — it was his real wife, so anyone witnessing it could only feel embarrassed.
Hae-gang, sensing the presence outside, didn’t budge. He wasn’t asleep — he was simply leaning against Mok-young. Having leaned in once, he’d found Mok-young’s cool energy so pleasant that now—
He didn’t shove him off by force, but he felt no desire to unwrap those arms and let him go either. Hae-gang, still buried deep against Mok-young’s chest as though hiding his face in it, didn’t move a muscle — looking for all the world like he was playing dead.
Mok-young just let out a small sigh. The reason the carriage had been so deathly quiet until a moment ago was that Mok-young had simply given up trying to push Hae-gang off. This headstrong patient — who for all that knew how to throw his weight around and threaten, and seemed unlikely to heed a word anyone said — was easier to give in to than to wrestle with. Perhaps Mok-young was already, little by little, getting used to Hae-gang.
“We’ve arrived.”
Even so, he couldn’t keep the chamberlain standing outside forever, nor keep showing him this spectacle, so Mok-young spat out the words.
“I know.”
Hae-gang answered right away. But he showed not the slightest intention of moving.
“Are you going to keep the chamberlain standing out there? He’s watching.”
“I know.”
“Are you listening to me?”
“Mm.”
“I may live by the creed of never laying hands on the old and the weak, but I wouldn’t count on it too much.”
“Then I won’t count on it too much — just a little.”
*This brat, deep in his illness as he is — just how spoiled was he, raised coddled in Namwi’s palace?* The thought flashed through Mok-young’s mind. In truth, Hae-gang had grown up in the exact opposite of the environment Mok-young imagined, but his behavior was so willful that the misunderstanding was unavoidable.
“Your Highness, Physician Cheong-i is waiting.”
Jihwan, unable to bear it any longer, slipped in a word. Mok-young’s gaze turned briefly toward Jihwan outside the carriage. His eyes twitched ever so slightly. The thought that the words “Seol Yong is waiting” could move Hae-gang struck him as oddly vexing. He recalled how, a while ago at the training ground , Seol Yong had grabbed and stopped Hae-gang when he’d tried to reach his hand toward him — and the indescribable discomfort of that fleeting touch seemed to wash over him again.
And Hae-gang really did move. Mok-young was momentarily speechless, and could only stare back into Hae-gang’s face as he, still languid, smoothly raised himself to look at him.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Was that his own heart pounding? Mok-young swallowed dryly for no reason, watching Hae-gang’s gaze slowly drift elsewhere. As if to belie the stubborn, idle bickering they’d just been having, Hae-gang rose and stepped down from the carriage.
“Damn it — he’s my wife… so whose orders does he follow better?”
When it came down to it, it was he who’d slighted him on their wedding night, and he who’d been busy avoiding Hae-gang. Feeling a groundless resentment at this moment, Mok-young clicked his tongue inwardly, but couldn’t let it show.
They were a couple in name only, after all. Unexpectedly, Hae-gang seemed intent on going beyond that and becoming the real thing—
—he seemed intent on going beyond that and becoming the real thing. But, his heart softening for a moment, he’d just let him hold him and lean against him.
*If that’s how it is, he shouldn’t go dashing off just because the physician or whoever calls!* He knew well enough it was only natural since he was ill, yet a petty sulk welled up anyway. And as that feeling struck him as strange again and he felt childish, a drop of odd bitterness seemed to burst in a corner of his heart.
“…Tch.”
Mok-young finally clicked his tongue once and got down from the carriage after him. Now his insides were so tangled he couldn’t sort them out. He felt as though, swept along by his willful wife, he’d lost his own way.
“Would you wait outside for a moment?”
And Mok-young, following Hae-gang toward his room with the thought of naturally having a word with him since they shared the residence, stopped short at the door. The one who blocked his path this time was Yun Seung-gyeom, the guard captain in charge of Hae-gang’s escort guard.
“The physician is about to examine His Highness and prescribe medicine. It won’t take long. Pray, don’t take it too unkindly.”
Seung-gyeom’s words and manner were courteous. But Mok-young couldn’t help feeling displeased. His wife was ill and the physician was examining him — what reason was there that he, his spouse, couldn’t go in and sit beside him? No — why should he feel so displeased about such a thing?
It weighed on his mind, but that very concern felt strange and awkward, so Mok-young could only press his lips shut without showing it.
The mask had somehow found its proper place again, covering half his face, and as he silently turned and merely looked back at him, the Ghost King’s aura felt so chilling that Seung-gyeom inwardly flinched. But still, as the guard captain who’d long served by the patient’s side, he didn’t lower his guard.
“I know it displeases you. But His Highness is far from home in a foreign land, so in all things we must be cautious — I beg you, husband of His Highness, to understand generously.”
Seung-gyeom raised both hands in a courteous bow, lowering his head, and added an explanation so Mok-young might better understand the circumstances. Though Mok-young showed nothing, to any other’s eyes he could only look like a man displeased at being blocked from entering his wife’s room.
In any case, Seung-gyeom’s explanation did have reason to it. Hae-gang, a prince, was in the capital of another country — one that until recently had been a blood enemy. He’d come for a state marriage for the sake of alliance, not as a hostage, but his person had to be guarded with extreme care, and since he carried an illness, what medicine he took, what the examination found, and so on were properly top secret.
It wasn’t as though they meant to hide it even from his wife — but this was precisely what laid bare that they were “a couple in name only.” Hae-gang and those around him still didn’t trust Mok-young. No matter that they’d shared the wedding cup and the Son of Heaven of Northern Wei had proclaimed their marriage before all — how could they trust the enemy’s general, married only a few days?
The wariness — which even he had judged unreasonable and tried to draw a line against — kept thrusting its face forward, and Mok-young could do nothing but fall silent.
“Very well. Then see that he rests comfortably. He seems to have overexerted himself in many ways today.”
In the end, Mok-young left those words behind and turned away. Even his parting words were vague. *He seems to have overexerted himself.* As for where exactly Hae-gang was so ill, what deep sickness he suffered — there was no way to know, so Mok-young silently waited. The sight of him wielding his sword so gracefully at the training ground had been wondrous enough to make one doubt one’s eyes, and there was no way to know what frailty lurked beneath that wonder — and that pressed on his chest in an ordinary, suffocating way.
“General, your face… aren’t you going to look in on him?”
Seung-gyeom, watching Mok-young’s retreating back, belatedly hurried to stop him. That the two didn’t share a room or a blanket was something the close attendants naturally knew. They just kept silent. Those who weren’t close instead grew curious about the couple’s private life, stealing sidelong glances, and gossiped that the General and the Prince weren’t all that affectionate — but Seol Yong and Seung-gyeom, and Jihwan and a few other trusted retainers, closed their mouths, eyes, and ears, pretending not to see.
Mok-young paused at the call and looked back. His stiff expression had softened, and he let out a small hollow laugh. But with the mask covering half his face, his expression didn’t properly show.
“I’ve already seen my fill, so it’s fine.”
Leaving only those words, Mok-young turned, and this time nothing stopped his steps.
As he’d said, hadn’t he stayed right beside him the whole carriage ride? Thinking about it, since the marriage, this was the first time they’d been together for so long. The meal too. The dinner with his parents at the family home a while ago was the first time in a long while the two of them had sat at a table together — that was it.
Whether he was too indifferent, or Hae-gang too unreserved, he couldn’t tell. Or else… perhaps Hae-gang was someone about to die soon, and he didn’t want to give his affection.
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