Chapter Text
1.
Today, Officer Kim Soleum is on duty.
He wakes, washes, eats. He gathers his tools, dons his red robe, and reports to the head clerk. There is no time to ponder over the tears he had found dampening his cheeks that morning.
Today he is to sort and file the piles of notes that make up the daily records of the palace and ready it for review. It is a task that would require him to be stationed at the royal secretariat office all day, or better yet, sorting personal memorandas at the home of one of the head recorders.
He thinks it is the head clerk's mercy, granting him this. A duty so well suited to him, one that would occupy all of his time for the foreseeable future, one that would allow him to hide away from the palace without reproach.
The way the head clerk had sent him off with a pat on his shoulder had all but confirmed it.
A part of him resents that he has been pushed to this, that what is happening is obvious enough for his colleagues to run interference for him. But mostly he is relieved that it is plain enough to see, that it isn't a delusion that his mind, overtired from sleepless nights, have concocted to torment him even in the light of day, and that his colleagues care enough to help him in this small way.
But he is relieved that at least today, neither Ryu Jaekwan nor Officer Choi would be able to find him.
He has no idea what bad luck he incurred, no idea whose ire he earned. As good as he is at his job, he's still a tiny fish in a very big pond. He does his best not to think about it.
The day is long, the work is tedious. After the sun sets and the evening meal has been eaten, everyone returns home to seek their beds. Kim Soleum undresses, washes, lays his head on his pillow.
He does his best not to think about his accommodating colleagues, about the eyes on his back as he walks past the palace grounds.
But when Kim Soleum closes his eyes, the dreams start.
2.
A long time ago, when tigers smoked long pipes, a young woodsman walked through a bamboo forest, afraid.
"Mountain lord, guide my path," he prayed, "I beseech you, guide me home," for the darkening shadows and the hollow clanging of the bamboo trunks frightened him.
The towering bamboo trees loomed over him, threatening to close like the bars to a cage. He walked through the forest with trembling knees, wanting nothing more than to see his little hut on the horizon and spend the rest of the night sitting by the stove with a bowl of his mother's soup. So desperate was he to get home, that his strides grew longer and his feet moved more quickly in the hopes of reaching his hut before the day fell to true night. But the mountain path was treacherous, and it held no mercy for even the young and scared. The woodsman's foot caught on an unseen obstacle, and he stumbled.
Startled, he squeezed his eyes tight, bracing for a hard fall. But the fall never came.
"Watch your step, child. The road is treacherous and your mother is waiting for you."
Something large had braced the young woodsman at the waist, breaking his fall. It held him there until he was steady, backing away out of reach once he'd had his feet under him again. The young woodsman squinted his eyes in the dark, trying to see what had just saved him from injury.
He looked down the path ahead of him, down towards home. In the shadows of the bamboo trees and the gloaming night, all that he could make out was a head, big and furred. Two rounded ears, four legs. A long swishing tail.
And then, the shine of great big, golden eyes, gleaming with hunger.
3.
Today, Officer Kim Soleum is not on duty at the royal secretariat office.
The head clerk had looked apologetic when he'd informed him of the change, but nothing could be done at this point. Kim Soleum is only an official of the 8th rank, it is already too much for his higher ups to have indulged him as they have. After all, they too still wear only a single crane on their chest, just like him. They would have been risking demotion or worse if they continued.
So Soleum wakes, and eats. He washes, packs, and makes his way to the royal lecture halls.
Today, the King will not be attending. The King has not attended the Confucian lectures for some time now, and rumours have credited this to the the arrival of a new concubine to the royal palace. Hence why Kim Soleum has been assigned to recording the events of the lectures today, as a junior historiographer.
It is good practice for the real thing, as his seniors say. And the goings on of these sessions do need to be recorded, even if in not quite as stringent detail as morning court with The King. Although the King's absence is expected, all of his most important vassals will be in attendance, and though no one would ever say it to his face, most of the business of running a kingdom usually happens when The King isn't paying attention.
"Bow!"
Soleum bends low as prompted, eyes fixed to the ground like the other officers. He does not look up, not even when a flash of blue silk appears in front of his shoes, seeming to linger for half a heartbeat, before moving past. He only straightens when the figure takes his seat and even then does not lift his eyes above the rich embroidery on the chest of those blue robes.
The four-clawed dragon.
Crown Prince Ryu Jaekwan has arrived.
The prince always attends these lectures. He is attentive. He is diligent, virtuous, and — as the palace ladies whisper with blushes behind their hands — he is beautiful. He sits with his back perfectly straight, gaze focused on the speaker, occasionally lifting an arm to take notes.
Officer Choi on the other hand…
Soleum glances at him through the sides of his eyes, not daring to actually look at the man. Officer Choi is wearing his signature smile, the one that makes all of the court ladies risk everything to sneak second and third glances at him. Soleum doesn't blame them, with the rumours flying around about Officer Choi's relationship with the Crown Prince.
Nobody knows what is true and what is a fabrication. Neither of them had ever confirmed the whispers of them having sworn brotherhood to each other, nor had they bothered correcting the salacious allegations about them being secret lovers. Not that Kim Soleum is interested in that at all. It's just hard to ignore them living as he does in the capital.
It does not help that Officer Choi always attends these lectures at the crown prince's side, even if he has no clear business being here and seldom pays the speaker much attention. He settles himself into a corner. He lounges, yawning intermittently into his palm. He plays with his sword tassel.
And today. Today, he watches Kim Soleum.
On his part, Kim Soleum keeps his head down. He is here to transcribe the debates, to record the movements of his betters, the people who will dictate the country's fortunes, scribing their names into history.
He does not write his own name. He does not write about Officer Choi, who wears two embroidered hopyo on his chest, doing nothing at the lectures except looking at a rank eigth official with a meaningful gaze.
He does write about Official Park's visible anger at the crown prince's dismissal of his opening arguments. A note about Official Kwak's amused look over it, the muttering of the lower ranked officials. The final annals will most definitely not take any of these notes into account, but he finds them useful.
Those big brush strokes on the tapestry of history don't come out of nothing, and if someone pays enough attention to the patterns that come before, they can see that these small moments, the almost incidental dribbles of ink, are the ones that precede the big ones. That's how historiographers like Kim Soleum survive. It's their job to pay attention. Because even the most benevolent of kings are at best uncomfortable with having their every move scrutinised and recorded. And kings do not often stand to suffer things that are uncomfortable to them.
So of course Kim Soleum had noticed when Prince Jaekwan started taking an undue interest in him. He had noticed and been determined to avoid it like the plague.
But that was easier said than done when his livelihood depends on being in the general vicinity of the royal family at all times. It scares him sometimes, how hard it is to escape. When he had studied for the exams, he had thought that the money and prestige from an official postition would give him more freedom, not less.
He wishes that they would leave him alone. He spends his waking hours hiding and sleeps restlessly, dreaming of things he has no memory of in the morning. Officer Choi looks at him like that, lashes heavy with questions, with expectations that he can't comprehend, and it fills Kim Soleum with a jittery restlessness. He thinks this must be how the animals Officer Choi hunts down during those competitions feels. It's as if he had marked Soleum as the next rabbit for the palace kitchens with that gaze.
Kim Soleum takes up his pen again as the conversation in the hall shifts to state affairs, determined to not let his fear show. He keeps his head down, even as things get heated and the hall descends into thinly veiled name-calling, until another clerk comes and taps him on the shoulder. His reliever.
Soleum nods in thanks and gathers his things, standing up to leave. It takes everything in him to slow down and not look like he is running away. He has to leave, wants to do so quickly, but he is an officer of the kingdom, no matter his low rank. He will do so with dignity.
He sees Officer Choi's mouth thinning in displeasure out of the corner of his eyes.
Good, Kim Soleum thinks vindictively. He is no rabbit.
He exits the hall quietly, bee-lining for the side entrance. The commotion in the hall has pickef up enough that no one should notice him slipping out through the servants entrance. He nods at a passing colleague and chances a glance over his shoulder, only to quickly whip his head back around to his front at what he sees.
Forget Officer Choi. He is not brave enough to meet the Crown Prince's eyes.
He feels the weight of the Crown Prince's gaze on his back all the way out of the side doors and into the courtyard. And when he changes, washes, and lays his head down on his pillow, he tries his best not to think about it.
4.
Tonight, Kim Soleum dreams.
He sees Choi angry. He sees Choi desperate.
He sees Choi bleed.
This Choi — Agent Choi, he remembers — has a scar on his neck and fierce heartbreak on his face.
"Explain it, Grapes," he snarls. He has Kim Soleum pinned against a wall, hands on either side of his head. "Because I don't get it. I don't get why you think you can—!"
Agent Choi cuts himself off, overcome, and Kim Soleum watches as his expression twists.
He is Grapes, this he understands. What he doesn't understand is the fear on Agent Choi's face, the angry grief that drags the corners of his eyes down.
It ages him, and for some reason he wants to press his thumbs there, ease the wrinkles away. Agent Choi is handsome, he thinks, and he'd be even more so if he isn't so sad.
Without thought, his, Grapes', mouth opens.
"I believe what I can and cannot do is none of your concern, Agent."
Grapes does not flinch, so he isn't allowed to when Agent Choi punches the wall beside him.
"That's what you believe, is it?" Agent Choi's chest heaves with the weight of his anger, his anguish. "That's all we were to you? None of your concern?"
Agent Choi is scared and that confuses him. The Choi he knows is the bravest man in the kingdom, famously diving headlong into battle with his signature smile. But the Agent's fear is an open wound on his face, looming over him, over them both, like a sticky shadow.
And yet even then he is gentle. His hand when he takes a hold of Grapes' shoulder is careful, trembling. He is bleeding, red dripping from the scar on his neck, the hole in his chest, and Kim Soleum knows this is a dream, but Officer Choi is in pain, and his touch is careful and tender.
Neither Kim Soleum nor Grapes knows what to do with that.
"We're losing you, aren't we?" Choi's head bows low, lower and lower, until his brow hits Kim Soleum's shoulder. "Why? Why won't you stay?"
His hands take fistfuls of the strange jacket Grapes is wearing, clinging like a child.
"What are you so afraid of that Bronze and I can't beat for you?"
Kim Soleum swallows. Everything. He is afraid of everything, of losing even this fleeting dream to the darkness.
He knows in his heart that Grapes feels the same.
"Can't you stay?" Choi asks.
He sees Ryu Jaekwan at the door, eyes heavy with the same question.
"I—"
5.
The woodsman walked along the shadow dappled path, axe slung over his shoulder.
"Are you not lonely, Mountain Lord? Do you not seek companionship?" he asked.
"Are you not my companion?" The mountain lord rumbled, his voice like gravel falling over boulders, the deep groaning of stones older than time.
"I am just a human," the woodsman replied. "One day I will die and you will no longer be able to walk this path with me like this. Such is the fate of mortal beings."
"Like leaves falling to the roots, mortal bodies indeed are prone to rot. But souls do not decay like flesh do."
Because the mountain lord had taught the woodsman about dharma in their years of companionship, the woodsman understood.
"It would be a great blessing to me if we would meet again. Perhaps I would be reborn as a butterfly in my next life and stay in the forest with you."
"A man dreaming to be a butterfly?" The mountain lord laughed, the sound like tumbling river pebbles. "How do you know that you are not already one now? A butterfly dreaming the life of a man."
"That a mere butterfly could have such a splendid dream, would it no longer seek to fly?"
"Could you, old friend, learn to never fly again?"
The woodsman pondered the mountain lord's question for a long time. "I think that once a bird takes to the skies with its own wings, it can never forget how to fly. It will always yearn for it again."
The mountain lord looks at the woodsman with it's great big golden eyes. "And you, old friend? Will you always yearn?"
The woodsman knew what the mountain lord is truly asking, for they have spent decades upon decades walking the forest together. He knew his heart almost as well as his own.
"I will not leave you, mountain lord."
"Your mother is gone, the handle of your axe has almost rotted away. I have driven away the other tigers and beasts. All this mountain has left is me."
"Are you lonely," asked the woodsman.
"Yes," said the mountain lord. "You have lingered here for a long time, waiting with me for so long that you have forgotten your mortal form. But you will be called to the flame soon, and I will remain the lord of this mountain."
The mountain lord was correct. Even then, the woodsman felt the call coming from the south.
But he could not leave the mountain lord, not while he remained here waiting alone.
"The game has yet to be finished," he said, gesturing towards the half-played baduk board. "It is white's move."
"I wish he would hurry." The mountain lord huffed, and gazed longingly at the empty seat across from him. "Will he come tomorrow, do you think?"
The woodsman laughed and stroked over the stripes on the mountain lord's great head.
"Perhaps he will."
6.
Tomorrow meets him endless, desolate as a setting sun.
Ryu Jaekwan walks over shifting sands, walks as his shadow grows long beneath him. His footprints stretch out behind him, washed away by the surf.
He watches the gulls dive, dipping into the water before soaring back up into the orange sky. He feels the banked fire inside him shiver a little in longing, but after so long the sensation is faint, fading away like the heat of the day.
Ryu Jaekwan is alone.
Tomorrow he will return and watch the sky again, a lighthouse in the dark.
7.
Today, Kim Soleum is not fast enough. They corner him in a secluded hallway.
He looks around, hoping to catch the eye of a passing servant. But they had picked their moment well. It's practically unheard of for any prince to move with such little fanfare, but Ryu Jaekwan has always been humble, having only the minimum of the required entourage, and today he seems to have left even his guards behind.
Officer Choi, although belonging to the military, doesn't exactly count. His learning companion, his confidant, born to a distant relative of the royal family. The Crown Prince has never sent Officer Choi away, even when he behaves insolently. Everyone more or less acknowledges now that Officer Choi belongs not to the military but instead to Ryu Jaekwan.
He is so used to seeing them from afar in crowded halls that it is strange seeing them like this, barely an arms length from Soelum and alone. The air around them is a little different, thick and heavy. Something about it, about the look of them standing side by side like this, brings the memory of heat and steam to Kim Soleum's nose. Like glowing iron, fresh from the forge and hungry for water. This moment in the hallway feels molten and dangerous.
Officer Choi leans in, pouting. "Why have you been avoiding us? It's hurting my feelings."
Kim Soleum bites back the curt replies that want to fall out of his mouth, and bows instead.
"This one apologises if he has done anything to offend. Officer Choi and His Highness will have to tell this one what he can do to make amends."
It's a dangerous thing to say, especially with the look on Officer Choi's face right now, but to not say it with the Crown Prince also here would be impertinent. He only hopes that they don't ask anything too debasing of him, though knowing what he does of the nobility, he doesn't expect much on that front.
But the Crown Prince only frowns.
"We have shared so much together, you need not humble yourself before us. At least not when we are alone."
Kim Soleum blinks. "Pardon this one's insolence, Your Highness, but this is the first time we have exchanged words. Perhaps you have this lowly one mistaken for someone else?"
"Someone else?" Officer Choi laughs. "Who else could you be?"
He does not know what to say to that. His gaze shifts between the two nervously.
"You don't remember, do you?" says the Crown Prince, something like devastation in his eyes. Soleum has never seen him from such a close distance before. His eyes are really as beautiful as they say. "You don't remember being ours."
Kim Soleum takes a step back, then two, ears ringing.
"Wha— He has the traces! How could he not remember!"
Ryu Jaekwan watches Kim Soleum tremble. "I don't know."
Soleum clears his throat. He does not know what they are talking about, but his heart had started to beat faster and faster in his chest. "Esteemed sirs, this one does not—"
"Your dreams," Officer Choi cuts in, eyes narrowed and intent. "You see us, don't you?"
His dreams? How does Officer Choi know about his dreams, when Soleum himself doesn't remember them?
"I— I don't—"
"Do you not feel it?"
The Crown Prince steps closer, one step, two. Kim Soleum forgets himself, the single crane embroidered on his breast, and looks him in the eyes.
"Do you not feel the call? We see you stare into the horizon for the sunrise. We see you watch the skies."
Ryu Jaekwan lifts a hand and presses it against Kim Soleum's chest. His palm feels like it sears through the silk blend and through the flesh, pushing a fistful of flames right into the crevices of his heart.
"Do you not feel us? In here?"
Kim Soleum shakes under that touch, that gaze. For a moment he does not see Ryu Jaekwan the Crown Prince as he stands before him. Instead, there is a flame, feathers dappled by shadows of a bamboo forest. And then he blinks and it's gone. He sees blue silk and a four-clawed dragon again, except it feels wrong now, like the princely regalia doesn't fit right despite having been made to fit Ryu Jaekwan's body exactly.
Soleum's chest burns.
"P- Please excuse this one, Your Highness," he says, bowing. "This one's superiors is expecting him to report back."
Officer Choi clicks his tongue. "Just tell them you were with us, they'll back off about it."
Kim Soleum holds his bow, not moving an inch, until he hears Ryu Jaekwan sigh.
"Then please, before you go, take this with you."
The Crown Prince hands him an amulet made of tiger eye quartz. It is warm, smooth to the touch, like it has been thumbed over many times.
"Show this to the guards at the gate of my palace and they will permit your entry. Perhaps soon...?"
Kim Soleum wants to do give the amulet back. He looks at Ryu Jaekwan, watches as the man worries his lower lip the longer he remains silent.
"Can I refuse," he asks. He risks everything in that question. Officer Choi would be well within his rights to strike Kim Soleum down where he stands for his impertinence towards a member of the royal family.
But he does not, and somehow, Kim Soleum had known that he would not.
He is not Ryu Jaekwan, not someone who had grown alongside Officer Choi from boyhood. He only knows Officer Choi from tales of battlefield valour, where he had struck down hordes of enemies who had come to besmirch his friend's imperial authority.
But somehow Kim Soleum knows that Officer Choi is gentle, and that Ryu Jaekwan would not order him to take his sword up against Kim Soleum, and it is that which scares him the most.
He can't stay here. He needs to leave.
He asks again.
"Can I refuse?"
Ryu Jaekwan's face falls, his beautiful features drooping in visible hurt.
"Of course," he says. "Of course, you may refuse."
He steps back, giving Kim Soleum room to step around him.
"I apologise if we have caused you any distress by accosting you so, I just…" The Crown Prince seems to gather some sort of resolve and determinedly meets Soleum's eyes. "If one day you should need us, I hope you will come."
Kim Soleum bows again. "I shall endeavour to do so, Your Highness."
He will never, ever use the amulet. This he swears to himself.
8.
One day, they would be children together, laughing at their endless tomorrows.
The days would be long, the breeze warm. They would spend their afternoons rolling around in the grass, just three boys with their bikes and a summer that stretches on forever.
"Do you think that we'll be friends forever and ever?" Choi-hyung would ask.
"That's impossible," Jaekwan-hyung replies. "We'll die when we get old and get eaten by worms."
"Worms?" Soleum gasps.
"Yeah!" Choi-hyung shifts onto his side, wiggling his fingers. "Little slimy worms are gonna crawl all over you and eat you up, starting with the squishy bits! Like your eyes!"
"Hey, don't tease him," Jaekwan-hyung scolds, but neither Soleum or his Choi-hyung pays him any mind. Soleum is busy giggling over the tickles that Choi-hyung's wiggly fingers are giving him on his tummy.
He would love his neighbour hyungs one day. They're older than him and go to the big kid school, but they go out of their way to collect him in the afternoon so they can play together. They always let him pick an ice-cream first, they wait for him to catch up when his shorter legs can't quite keep up. When he falls over Jaekwan-hyung blows on the parts that hurt and rinses them clean using his water bottle. Choi-hyung gives him piggy back rides whenever he starts to look a little sad.
Forever and ever is a really long time, but he thinks it would be ok if his hyungs are with him.
"Hyung, do you really get big and muscly when you're a grownup?"
"Some people do, if they work hard," says Jaekwan-hyung.
"I'm gonna work hard then," Soleum decides. "So that I'll be strong enough to carry Choi-hyung on my back."
His hyungs are always keeping him safe from nasty kids and mean adults, but they're still kids too, even if they are older than him. He wants to help them.
"No way! A little bean sprout like you?" Choi-hyung laughs. "I'm gonna be carrying you forever!"
"No! I'm gonna be big, and tall, and way taller than you, hyung!"
"Impossible! You're so tiny like a grape! I'll squish you!"
"You can't!"
How is he supposed to protect his hyungs if he gets squished?
"You know, Sol-ah," says Jaekwan-hyung. "Your Choi-hyung and I are in different grades and it's hard to play together at school sometimes. When you start elementary school you'll make lots of friends and play with them instead. So maybe—"
"No!" Soleum cries out. "I wanna play with Choi-hyung and Jaekwan-hyung!"
Jaekwan-hyung hushes him, stroking his head. "I'm not saying you can't, just that you might not want to keep sticking to us if you have other friends."
Soleum feels himself tear up. "…Does Jaekwan-hyung not want to play with Soleum anymore?"
Choi-hyung gathers him close, tucking Soleum's head against his chest. "Of course we want to play with you, Sol-ah! We love our sticky little rice cake! We never want you to go away ever!"
Soleum nuzzles his nose against the fabric of his Choi-hyung's shirt, feeling a little better with the familiar smell.
"Why would you say that to him, Jaekwan? Look, he's upset."
A sigh. "I just thought that maybe—"
"No. Sol-ah's ours. He's always going to be ours. Just like how we'll always be his hyungs."
"But…"
There is a long moment of silence. Soleum doesn't know what his hyungs are talking about, but Choi-hyung always gives such great hugs. He's content just sitting still in his arms like this.
"What did we say we're gonna do when we grow up, Jaekwan?"
"… We're going to be big and strong. We're going to do whatever we like."
"Yes. And?"
"And we'll live together someday, all three of us. Somewhere safe where people don't want to hurt us."
"Yeah," says Choi-hyung, a smile in his voice. "Someday."
Soleum likes the sound of that.
9.
Someday, when things like heavenly tigers and flaming birds, kings and knights, are nothing but dreams in the minds of man, Kim Soleum will wake to an ordinary morning.
He will wash, eat. Pull on a jacket and sling a bag over his shoulder to step out of his room. He will walk through the hallway and out of the busy hotel lobby. And when his boots hit the pavement, he will head east.
It will have taken a long time for him to get here, long months of overtime to build up his annual leave. He would have sold his car, not that it had gotten much use anyway, and saved what he could to fund the trip. All to follow the call to this bustling city.
East. His feet would take him down winding alleys, through bustling markets, past throngs of people living their lives under the cloudy summer sky. He would walk across the city, the final leg of his journey across the world, ducking under fabric awnings and into shadowed alleys. East. He would go east to follow the call, and he would go alone.
He would find no discomfort with either of those facts, neither his solitude nor the tug deep in his belly would be new to him. It would be just as it has always been for as long as he could remember. Questions without answers. Dreams, without wakefulness.
Everything would be just as empty and hollow, tasteless, colourless, until he finds it, painted on the stone of the city's ancient eastern wall and forgotten.
The scales, blue lapis. The horns, golden amber. The brushstrokes old and vivid despite the age of it, like it hadn't been painted at all but instead printed and baked into the stone. He wouldn't understand it, having lived as he had, would not feel how the blue is actually the blue of the wind running its fingers through his hair, or the gold is the gold of sunlight bouncing off a raindrop as it falls down from the heavens.
But he would know it like he knows his own name, the sound of his own heartbeat. He would know it like he knows how his skin would sometimes feel too tight, like a shirt one size too small.
The moment Kim Soleum touches the painting he would know colour, tongue tingling with salt and ozone.
And every day after that, he would finally understand that he had not just been alone. He had been lonely.
10.
Every day his reflection in the mirror is the same.
Choi doesn't walk anymore. He paces. He stalks. He haunts the world, unending and eternal in a way that nothing should be.
He is caged, like nothing should be.
And in his dreams, Kim Soleum can see the way it pulls at the corners of Choi's eyes, dulls his stripes. He sees how Choi's bones ache as he sits by the window and waits.
Kim Soleum knows what Choi is waiting for. He understands it, like hunger, like pain. Like his own name.
No creature is meant to walk the forests of the world alone, especially not creatures such as them, three parts to a whole.
Kim Soleum dreams, and—
11.
Today Kim Soleum wakes.
He pauses, letting the collar of his sleep shirt soak up the hot tears streaming down his face. They seem to come endlessly, and Soleum lets them, breathing hard with the weight of the grief behind them.
Kim Soleum has tried to grasp that fleeting sorrow every day, but it is like trying to keep a handful of dry sand in his fist. He fails to retain anything but the tiniest of grains, and the more he tries, the more slips through his fingers.
Today is the same. The memory of the pain trickles away with every blink. Yet instead of relief, or comfort, he feels hollow, just like every other morning he wakes in tears without knowing why.
But today, Kim Soleum dries his tears, and clenches his fist tight. And then he stands.
He washes his face, dresses. He heads out to receive his assignment for the day.
He takes the work from the chief clerk, bows, and tucks it inside his robes.
And then Kim Soleum walks east, clutching the quartz talisman Ryu Jaekwan had given him to his chest. It doesn't take long to arrive at the gates, and upon seeing him, the guards let him through right away.
He has no capacity to feel discomfited by that, not when in his ears there is a whisper, the faintest trace of an echo. When there is the a hint of smoke in the air, acrid like iron in his nose. Kim Soleum holds himself stiffly, chin tucked to his chest and his fist clenched tight around those sensations. He doesn't want to lose them. He doesn't want them to vanish and leave him empty again.
He puts one foot in front of the other, following the pull he has been trying to ignore for almost a year now. He lets it guide him, pushes aside the fear, lets himself follow.
When he next lifts his head, he sees Officer Choi sitting underneath a tree. And he is looking at Soleum.
He seems startled. His eyes are little wide, though it is impossible that he hadn't seen Kim Soleum's approach.
Maybe he is surprised that Kim Soleum had come at all. Soleum himself is surprised by it still. But his reaction seems to Soleum still a little bit extreme.
"Are you holding your breath?" Soleum asks.
"Yes."
He tilts his head. "Why?"
Choi swallows. "To be honest, it feels like you'll run away if I move too quickly."
Soleum snorts. "I am no rabbit."
There is a half played game of baduk in front of Choi, but it doesn't seem like a move has been played for a long time, fallen leaves and petals littering the surface of the board. Soleum seats himself down across from him on the other side, black. He places down a stone to continue black's dogged attack on white's retreating forces.
"No, you are certainly not," Choi mutters. He makes no move to reprimand Soleum for willfully taking a seat without permission in the presence of a superior, only continuing to look at him in wonder.
They sit together for a long moment, holding each other's gaze. Soleum is unaccustomed to a silent and still Officer Choi. He recognises now what people have been saying about Choi's features being straight out of a heroic poem. The way the wind runs its fingers through Choi's hair, sweeping it back to bring his handsome face more fully into the sun. He could have been a warrior of Silla, a favoured son of heaven. He truly is—
"Beautiful," Choi says.
Kim Soleum startles a little. That was what he was thinking. How did he know?
But Choi is reaching a hand to Soleum's cheek.
"I don't remember the first time you looked at me," he says, thumb tracing over Soleum's cheekbone. "But it must have been just like this. Your beautiful eyes shining just like this."
The look on Choi's face is one that Soleum recognises from across halls, through a full room's worth of people. Longing, in the way that would have him recognise Soleum even if he were dressed as a beggar in a filthy alley.
Soleum cannot say that he would not recognise Choi in turn, covered in mud on the most chaotic of battlefields. The hollow part of him that sees Choi and knows Choi had after all led him here, as naturally as shrugging on a jacket on a cold winter morning, or picking up a spoon to eat a meal. His emptiness, his lonely sorrow, had been for lack of him.
Of them.
Soleum turns, sensing some shift in the breeze, and sees Ryu Jaekwan standing there in the courtyard. The prince hastens over to them with an uncharacteristic lack of grace, throwing himself onto his knees beside the baduk board.
"You remember?" he asks, eyes taking in everything, Choi's trembling hand, the darkened bags under Soleum's eyes.
Soleum shakes his head. "I don't."
Both Choi and Jaekwan flinch.
"Then why—"
Soleum reaches out both hands, taking one of Ryu Jaekwan's in his and pressing Choi's more firmly against his cheek.
"Help me?" he says, turning his face into Choi's palm. He presses a kiss onto the middle of the palm, lets his lips linger there for a long blink.
Choi squeaks. It's rather adorable, Soleum thinks, the way the man flushes red and uses his free hand to cover his own face in fluster. Soleum breathes out a laugh as he watches him fret over such a tiny thing.
"You—! Why would you—! Agh!"
Choi shakes his head roughly, like a beast settling its fur. Then something in his eyes changes a little, sharpens.
"Sorry, Jaekwan. I know we said we were going to take it slow, but…"
He pulls Soleum closer with the hand still on his cheek, closer over the baduk board and halfway into white's territory. Soleum only has time to let out a small confused sound before Choi's lips meet his in a kiss.
It is nothing more than flesh meeting warm flesh, but it is everything. Soleum's eyelids drop shut and he sees green grass, sunshine. Hands clutching fistfuls of a blue jacket and a kiss just like this but sharper, bloodier, and whispered pleas for him to stay. Choi licks the seam of his lips and Soleum tastes stone, tastes iron, tastes home.
Tastes Choi.
They part, breathless with the weight of that single kiss. Even now with Choi's hand in his hair, everything Soleum had seen is slipping away, back into the realm of dreams, the space between one heartbeat and the next. But all Soleum can think of, all he sees right now, is Choi's eyes, big and golden.
"It's alright, darling," Choi hushes. "No need to cry. We're here now."
Cry?
Soleum reaches up and feels dampness on his cheeks. Why is he crying?
"Here."
Ryu Jaekwan takes hold of his chin and wipes away the spilled tears carefully with his sleeve.
He is so beautiful like this. Dressed casually without his usual blue robes, he still exudes virtue like a perfume. And in the dappled shade of the tree, with his expression intent like that, his fingers gentle…
Soleum can't help himself.
He reaches out with both hands, grasping those broad shoulders.
"Your turn, Your Highness."
He muffles Ryu Jaekwan's cry of surprise with his mouth.
Ryu Jaekwan is a man, just like Soleum is. Soleum had never fully believed that the ruling line is descended from heaven. But kissing Ryu Jaekwan truly feels like desecrating a relic. Soleum tastes sandalwood and incense smoke when he licks into Ryu Jaekwan's mouth, and each sweep pulls deep moans that echo like a prayer in Soleum's chest. When he closes his eyes this time, Soleum sees papers, an office that feels like home. Children, an older brother kissing the pain of a younger child's scraped knees away. All things sacred and true.
Soleum squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his fist around the fabric Ryu Jaekwan's cotton robe. He holds himself as still as he can, as close as he can, willing the feelings and images to linger. When their lips part, it is only because Ryu Jaekwan forces them to.
"Shh, it's alright," Ryu Jaekwan tries to soothe. "It's alright, we have all the time in the world."
But Soleum shakes his head. How is he supposed to live now forgetting this? How do they expect him to live without the memory of this, fire and smoke, iron and earth.
How can he expect them to keep him when he can't remember, when it all threatens to flow away from him again like spilled water? What will be left of them?
"All the time in the world," says Choi. He leans in, placing kisses on Soleum's wet cheeks and occasionally Jaekwan's. "All the time we need to make new memories together, hm?"
Ryu Jaekwan hums in agreement and strokes Soleum's hair back away from his face. "All the time in the world for you to be ours, and for us to be yours." A kiss on his forehead, and Soleum sees a flash of light, a blade being quenched in fire and flood. "We have all of this time to be with each other and do whatever we like."
Soleum sniffles and lets himself be held.
He likes the sound of that.