Mok-young’s answering voice was as usual, and the general’s heart, always cherishing his subordinates, could be felt in it. A faint smile crossed Daeho’s expressionless face. Baekho, who had always enjoyed observing the human world, was in fact greatly enjoying playing adjutant to a man of such genuinely fine character — a rare find.
“You’re the one with the needless worries, General. I’m not the one who needs worrying about right now, am I?”
Daeho’s voice softened considerably. He wouldn’t presume to mention knowing of the two’s mating, but it seemed worth broaching, obliquely, that the general’s husband was unwell.
“I’ll finish up the rest of the work, so hurry on home, General.”
As Daeho saw it, Mok-young was a man of strong responsibility, a model warrior. So even while worried inside, he would stubbornly hold his post. His time to head home was approaching anyway, but wouldn’t it be better if he could hurry his steps even a little? And Dan Mok-young, who unexpectedly had no knack for cutting corners, was the sort who couldn’t easily say he was worried about his wife even when he was — he needed a little push at the back.
“Then… I’ll leave it to you.”
Mok-young didn’t refuse Daeho’s suggestion. He hesitated a beat before answering, but in the end he rose from his seat, and Daeho only smiled lightly and nodded once. Inwardly he thought, so he really was quite worried — but showed nothing of it.
Mok-young didn’t bother asking Daeho how he knew his wife was gravely ill. Right now, in all of Bukanseong, the ones drawing the most attention were not the emperor but the Ghost King and his bride — word that the bride was very ill could easily have spread. Besides, knowing his own focus was unusually scattered, his keen adjutant Daeho could hardly have missed it. So keen he could even read his commander’s heart — nothing to do but find it admirable.
Arriving at Yeolliwon and just passing through the main gate, Mok-young felt a heavy silence. It seemed Hae-gang still had not opened his eyes.
It had been a full day. No — a day and half a day more. He heard that not long after he had left for work yesterday, Hae-gang had taken to his bed and lain down — and still had not opened his eyes since, and Mok-young could hardly fathom what manner of thing was happening; his chest only felt stifled. And with the prince so, the other household members too moved with unusual calm and quiet, restraining any commotion.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The snow piled up over the past days had been cleared to some extent, but the cold-laden dirt ground rasped unusually loud underfoot. Step by step, Mok-young crossed the courtyard toward where Hae-gang’s room was. Though he knew he couldn’t see him right away, knew he couldn’t even watch over his sleeping face from beside him, his feet carried him there all the same.
“You’ve come, my lord.”
And just as he stepped into the corridor of the building where Hae-gang’s room was, Hong Jihwan, who happened to be walking over from the far end of the corridor, spotted Mok-young and greeted him. He seemed to have just come from Hae-gang’s room.
Not knowing what to say, Mok-young kept his mouth shut and only nodded lightly.
Should he ask how Hae-gang was, ask whether there was any sign of him waking, ask just what was wrong and where it hurt — in truth, if he opened his mouth there were too many things he wanted to ask, and so it was all the harder to move his lips.
“My lord, if you don’t mind, might I offer you a cup of tea?”
Jihwan asked obliquely, studying Mok-young’s expression. The middle-aged man was seasoned and calm, and Mok-young, reading his consideration, nodded without difficulty.
Jihwan led Mok-young to a nearby reception room — not far from Hae-gang’s room, a place from which he could rush over at once if Hae-gang woke. This too was Jihwan’s kind thoughtfulness, and perhaps also a hint that Hae-gang might open his eyes before long.
Mok-young was soon seated at the table in the neatly appointed reception room. Mentioning that Hae-gang often drank tea here, Jihwan said he would bring the tea shortly if Mok-young would wait a moment, and left the room again.
Left alone, Mok-young rested an arm on the table and slowly surveyed the room. And before long, his gaze came to rest on the seat opposite. It was empty, but in Mok-young’s mind the image of Hae-gang sitting there, drinking tea, naturally took shape.
An image he had never once imagined formed of its own accord. It struck him anew how much he still didn’t know about him, and his heart was weighed down heavily once more.
He hadn’t wanted to know, at first. When the marriage was decided, he had thought only that it was the emperor’s command and could not be refused, and he had never even held the expectation of sharing deep feeling, however long Hae-gang might live. So even feeling such emotions should have been uncomfortable for Mok-young. He could have blamed Hae-gang — why act so willfully and put people in such difficulty?
But all blame was futile, and now he felt only… the desire to know.
He wanted to know about Go Hae-gang. What kind of person he was, what daily life he led, and how he had grown up to have such a willful, brazen disposition, and so on. The last item was only a grumbling sort of question, born of finding his antics endearing, but the rest was a deeply earnest feeling.
Whether he lived a day or a year. Or whether they came to share far more time. The recognition that Hae-gang had become his person began to bloom, stealthily, inside Mok-young too.
“I knew something like this would happen.”
While preparing the tea, Jihwan recalled the conversation he had shared with Seolyong yesterday morning. Morning it was called, but it had already been late morning. It was nearing noon, and Seolyong had just come out from tending to Hae-gang, who had taken to his bed early.
“I knew something like this would happen” had been said with Seolyong’s usual irritation, but Jihwan knew a helpless fondness lay beneath it. The depth of that worry, though, he could not know. Jihwan being an ordinary human, he could only understand it as: the prince, whose strength drained quickly to begin with, had spent a great deal of it all at once on the wedding night, and that was why this trouble had come. He did wonder how it had come to this when the general himself was said to be unwell too — but the affairs of newlyweds were not things one should try to understand, so he had let it pass.
“How could we stand in the way of marital affection? Our prince is a man, after all, it seems.”
“Marital affection, what nonsense. Since when were they so tender? Lord Hong, you really are easygoing. How can you just laugh off everything concerning His Highness like that?”
“If I don’t laugh it off, would His Highness ever properly listen to us?”
“He at least pretends to listen.”
“Physician Cheong already does plenty of nagging. I’ll just play the nice one.”
“Come to think of it, Lord Yoon and Lord Hong are both terrible people. Making me play the villain all alone.”
At Seolyong’s grumbling words, Jihwan had only smiled quietly. Outwardly, Seolyong looked younger than Jihwan. And by rank too, Jihwan stood higher, so it would have been proper for Seolyong to speak to him with deference — but Jihwan saw no need to stand on formality over Seolyong speaking comfortably to him.
The physician who had appeared out of nowhere and saved Hae-gang when he had nearly died. He was said to belong to the palace, though there were aspects of him that invited doubt. But even then, Jihwan had not pressed him insistently about his identity. Living long in the palace had made him quick-witted — no, in those days Jihwan too had been a young eunuch, and precisely because of that, out of a certain gambler’s instinct, he had believed Seolyong would save their prince, and backed him. And it had truly come to pass, and not standing on formality with Seolyong was his own way of showing gratitude.
That divine-like man looked the same after fourteen years. As though he alone slipped past the years.
“It seems His Highness likes him very much.”
“Our prince is a man who doesn’t even know the first character of the word ‘affair,’ isn’t he? So we must be understanding for him.”
“I’d like not to know that about His Highness.”
“Did you know, come to think of it, that you two have a subtly similar streak?”
“I don’t. I absolutely don’t. Lord Hong, you really… you’re worse than Lord Yoon.”
Jihwan’s recollection ended at the sight of Seolyong’s retreating back, grumbling even as he went off again to brew a medicinal decoction. The tea preparations for “the one His Highness likes so very much” were just finished too, so Jihwan took up the tray bearing the tea set and headed for the reception room where Mok-young waited.
“Have I kept you waiting long, General?”
As Jihwan asked, opening the door of the reception room and entering, Mok-young slowly turned his head to look back. Without saying anything in particular, Mok-young only shook his head lightly. He might not have waited long, but the depth of worry within him was plain to see.
Jihwan too went to the table without another word. He set down the tray he had brought and quietly poured a cup of tea and placed it before Mok-young. Only then did Mok-young let fall a single “Thank you.” But he didn’t readily drink — he only fiddled with the cup, rolling it in his hand. With the mask he always wore out of habit, he would have to take it off first to drink the tea, yet he reached for the cup first, as though he had no mind to drink — and in that behavior his unease showed plainly.
Jihwan pretended not to see, pressing his lips together hard once, then releasing them. He had made up his mind about something. The tea had only ever been a pretext.
“His Highness is a strong man, for all he looks otherwise.”
Jihwan sat in the empty seat, set a cup of tea before himself as well, and opened his mouth. Mok-young glanced at Jihwan, and the hand fiddling with the cup paused briefly.
“It has been over twenty years since I began attending His Highness. In all that time, do you think this is the first or second time something like this has happened? But each time, he opened his eyes on his own.”
Jihwan drank a sip of tea and held a gentle smile at his lips. Whether from years or from a naturally calm disposition, Jihwan radiated a particular warmth. And now, offering comfort in his own way to His Highness’s spouse, his voice carried all the more kindness.
“His Highness was exceedingly robust until the age of thirteen. Born an extreme yang person, yes, but even among such, he stood out without peer. No one paid any mind to His Highness’s talents, but there’s a saying, isn’t there — an awl in a pouch will always poke through.”
Mok-young naturally lent his ear to each story Jihwan drew out. He had just realized that this middle-aged eunuch, who had attended Hae-gang at his side for over twenty years, had made up his mind to tell him about the prince. And the words “no one paid any mind to His Highness’s talents” struck his ear at once.
With such handsome looks, born an extreme yang person, his talents extraordinary — and no one paid him any mind? From that single remark, Mok-young could guess at once what position Hae-gang had held in the imperial family. He had wondered how preciously he must have been raised to grow so brazen — but it seemed the opposite entirely.
He didn’t know the particulars, but that that sunshine-like presence of his had been disregarded… just how suppressed a life had he lived?
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