"It's because you looked just like Seokjae oppa does when he looks at Yeongju unni."
They were servants of the Soseok house. Hui-seo, who had no idea what Seokjae's face looked like when he gazed at Yeongju, had been neatly taken in.
"I only happened to see it once — Seokjae oppa likes Yeongju unni. But you really must pretend you don't know, young master. If word got out, oppa would surely eat me alive."
Su-a shuddered all over, but Hui-seo could make no reply.
Instead he turned her words over and over in his mind.
The very expression Seokjae wore when he looked at Yeongju — and Seokjae, who loved Yeongju.
I was thinking of the Crown Prince….
Then that would mean—
"Young master?"
I….
"Are you warm? Your face is all flushed — surely you're not coming down with a fever."
No. It isn't.
It can't be.
"Ah, no, that's not it…."
"Is Hui-seo inside? It's Hui-won."
He waved his hands hurriedly to quiet Su-a's fluttering when a voice calling for him sounded from outside.
"Is that His Lordship?"
It was Grandfather.
"Y-yes? Yes, Grandfather…."
Su-a rose in place of the flustered Hui-seo and opened the door to receive Grandfather. Grandfather paused at the sight of the table laid out, then stepped inside.
"You were still eating."
"Ah, no. I was just finishing up. Please, sit here."
"…You call that having eaten?"
Grandfather frowned, taking in the table not even half cleared.
"I ate a hearty breakfast."
There was no reason to confess the truth and cause them worry.
Su-a, who knew he had skipped breakfast, narrowed her brows in silent protest, but he pretended not to notice and had the table taken away.
Su-a, too nervous to dawdle before such an elder, carried the table out on trembling legs.
Only then did Grandfather take the seat Hui-seo had offered. Hui-seo, too, collected his scattered wits and sat across from him.
"What brings you here?"
Grandfather had never once sought out Hui-seo's quarters since his coming of age, which made the reason for this visit all the more puzzling.
"……"
Grandfather looked at Hui-seo in silence.
"Hui-seo."
Only when Hui-seo began to squirm under that gaze did Grandfather open his mouth.
"Is it not time you began preparing to return to Anseo?"
"…Yes?"
"More than a month has already flown by since Hui-won's wedding. Your brother and his wife should be enjoying their newlywed days, and the house in Anseo has stood empty too long. I think it best not to delay any further. Have you brothers not shared enough of a reunion by now?"
Hui-seo's lips moved, but no sound came. There was something he wanted to say, but he could not grasp what it was.
"I came to deliver this word. Now then…."
"When — when do we leave?"
"We depart within three days."
"…That is too sudden, Grandfather."
Hui-seo, who would normally have obeyed, could not bring himself to. It was too sudden.
"You have little baggage to pack; what need to drag it out? …Settle what needs settling."
His purpose in coming achieved, Grandfather rose without lingering. Hui-seo should have risen to help him, but his body would not obey. As though he had never expected much of a farewell from Hui-seo, Grandfather left the room without another word.
"…Three days."
Only three days.
Hui-seo repeated the remaining days to himself, then covered his face with both hands as if to hide it.
Hui-seo could not keep still for a single moment and paced his room. Even Su-a, who had fearfully slipped back in, sensed the ill mood and quietly backed away out of sight.
Meanwhile the sun that had hung at midday sank toward the west, and red dusk light fell slanting through the lattice.
At that, Hui-seo stopped his circling of the room and headed outside.
"Is there anything you would have me do?"
As Hui-seo paced back and forth in the courtyard, a servant approached and asked.
"…No, nothing."
Even as he shook his head, his gaze stayed fixed on the main gate, with no thought of moving.
"Young master, you are home?"
The one Hui-seo had been waiting for had just come home. Hui-won, crossing the gate, spotted Hui-seo dashing toward him and smiled.
"Brother."
"It puts me in mind of when you were little. Every time I came home you'd come dashing like this and dangle from my legs."
Hui-won, lost in memory, stroked Hui-seo's hair. On any other day Hui-seo would have waved it off, embarrassed at the childhood story — but now the words didn't even reach his ears.
"Grandfather told me today, all of a sudden, to prepare to go down to Anseo."
His face said the matter was urgent.
"So he told you today."
Hui-won showed no surprise.
"…Did you know?"
He had naturally assumed it was Grandfather acting on his own. But seeing Hui-won's air of already knowing, Hui-seo was seized by a strange sense of betrayal.
"I did."
"Since when, then…."
"Come, sit down first."
Thinking the rest of the talk would take a while standing in the courtyard, Hui-won bid him sit.
"I haven't known long either. About three days… it was near enough a command. You know his temper. Since Grandfather said he would tell you himself, I couldn't step in and speak first."
"……"
"Are you hurt?"
Seeing Hui-seo silent and still, Hui-won took his hand as if to soothe him.
"Your hands are so cold."
"…Could you not speak to Grandfather for me, brother?"
Held fast by Hui-won, who was fiddling with his hand, Hui-seo looked up at him.
"I don't want to leave for Anseo yet."
He only wished to stay a little longer, if it could be.
"I've only just been reunited with you, brother — if I go now, it will be a long while before we meet again."
"Hui-seo."
"I'm only just growing close to Hwang Su-a, and then…."
The Crown Prince's face flashed past like an afterimage.
I don't want to part from the Crown Prince like this. Of course I will miss you, brother, and Su-a — but unlike you two, whom I am certain I will meet again, the Crown Prince is not the same.
For once I return to Anseo, there will be no seeing him again. Even if I came up to the capital now and then, would he remember someone with whom he once briefly crossed paths? And he, after all, was only the younger brother of his teacher, nothing more.
But to me, the Crown Prince was….
"Could you not ask Grandfather to put off my return home just a little longer? If you asked, brother, Grandfather might listen."
He did not wish to stay forever. Grandfather, set on returning to Anseo, was stubborn by nature, and his will was not easily bent.
So he only wanted to stay a little longer. But his own plea would never be heard — the only shoulder he could lean on was Hui-won. If it was Hui-won who spoke, Grandfather would at least pretend to consider it.
"Me?"
At the earnestness in his little brother's upturned eyes, Hui-won sighed.
Hui-seo bit his trembling lip. In his eyes, until now so composed, anxiety showed. Even when Hui-won had to go up to the capital, he had never clung to him whining for his own way. He had always agreed meekly, and stayed behind alone.
For such a child to throw a fit for the first time —
What, then, could be the reason?
Was it that he hated parting from the brother close at hand? That he preferred the capital, Sangyang, to Anseo?
Or was it something else….
That he did not want to part from the Crown Prince?
"Hui-seo."
Swallowing a groan, Hui-won steeled his heart. Sending down his little brother — who in his eyes would always look young — still worried him, old as Grandfather was.
But this was for Hui-seo's sake.
That the Crown Prince's interest in Hui-seo was unusual was no longer anything new within the palace. But when it became known that the Crown Prince had sent medicinal ingredients on the occasion of Hui-seo's visit, the nature of that interest grew somewhat ambiguous.
True, the Crown Prince's favor was not exactly the stuff of loyalty —
No one dared say it to his face, but he knew there were those who whispered, speculating when the Crown Prince would take Hui-seo as a concubine.
"I'm sorry."
For Hui-seo's sake, he had to be sent down to Anseo a day sooner rather than later.
"Grandfather has made his decision — could I bend it?"
His compliance with Grandfather's command came from that reason.
"As I said before, you know his temper as well as I do."
Whether what was in Hui-seo's heart was loyalty or affection, he could not tell.
But the Crown Prince had a woman already chosen to be his Crown Princess. The Queen's niece, the cherished only daughter of the Chief Councilor. As long as she existed — no, as long as the Crown Prince was the Crown Prince — Hui-seo could never be his only one.
He had always lived at the mercy of affection, and he would have to go on living so.
"And to speak the truth, I too think it best not to delay the return to Anseo any longer."
Hui-won did not have the strength to stand quietly by and watch his little brother's misfortune — to watch this child carry loneliness for the rest of his life.
"Brother, why…."
Hui-seo's pupils trembled faintly.
"Am I — a bother to you, being here?"
"How could you think that."
Flustered, Hui-won shook his head in denial.
"But…."
He swallowed back the words on the tip of his tongue — If that weren't so, why would you think it better for me to go back to Anseo?
"Look at me, brother."
"……"
"Hui-seo, hm?"
Hui-seo, head bowed and motionless, suddenly caught sight of the jade pendant hanging at his brother's waist.
The jade pendant Hui-seo had once fastened on him — he had never once taken it off, though among his visiting gifts there must have been far more precious jade pendants.
"Do you mean not to look at your brother?"
His brother's affection was unchanged. In such a world, there was still a place for Hui-seo. That jade pendant was the proof, and so Hui-seo could finally lift his head.
"There, you're finally looking at me."
"……"
"Hui-seo, you have never been a bother to me, and you never will be. How could you ever be a bother to me—"
"—a bother?"
"Then why…."
"There are rumors about you going around the palace."
After hesitating, Hui-won finally spoke. Hui-seo froze. He had taken the Queen's appraising air for a mother's concern for the Crown Prince — but that was not it.
"It was I who lit that spark, it seems; it will never go out, and will always follow at your heels."
"………"
"I hope I can be your destined bond."
Hui-won did not spell it out at length. As though it were nothing at all. But Hui-seo read between the lines.
"…Is it difficult for you too, brother?"
"What do you mean by that."
"Do those rumors trouble you, brother?"
He asked again, though he could read nothing in his brother's face.
Rumors were ghosts that would, in time, carry the truth to the Crown Prince's ears; and Hui-seo's own brother Hui-won had his name on the rolls of the Crown Prince's tutorial office.
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