Chapter Text
Jaemin stands here today in the insufferable fever of mid-summer to watch a man die.
Out in the courtyard, in the piercing brightness, dust rises like a heatwave—visual aftershocks from where boot-clad feet hit the ground.
Dum-dum-ta. Dum-dum-ta.
The beat of a war drum, a dancer’s rhythm, the pounding of Jaemin's pulse behind intentionally disinterested eyes. Before him—them—their little entourage, the soldiers march into place. There is the scrape of metal on metal: weapons being drawn, positioned, mounted.
It’s all a farce. Thick embroidery on heavy fabric in the blazing heat, the makings of a battle they have already won. A rivulet of sweat trickles down Jaemin’s neck under the collar of his hanbok. They are better off than everyone else at this affair—having been afforded the privilege of standing under the palace eaves—but the shade is weak, dilute.
It does not help when it’s hot in a way that is suffocating. Like some cosmic force has personally wrapped its hands around his throat.
Karma, maybe. An act of divine retribution.
Perhaps, Jaemin thinks idly, smile pristine, I am already in hell.
The man standing next to him, some lower-level eunuch from his attire, looks over at Jaemin with a politely painted-on expression of his own. Who he is, what he does, Jaemin neither knows nor cares.
“Ah,” the man remarks anyways, his gaze tracing down the remnants of a long bruise on Jaemin’s forehead. “Lord Na must be very pleased to see that justice will be served today.”
Jaemin could respond, but what a waste of an unsettlingly beautiful grin to talk through it. Instead, he counts the beads of perspiration forming on the man’s nose—ah-one-and-ah-two—eyes crawling into and over every crevice of pockmarked, heat-flushed skin.
How easy it is to take up space that isn't his. He doesn’t even need to move.
The eunuch holds out for long enough that Jaemin is mildly impressed, but in the end, turns away ever so slightly. A futile attempt to avoid drowning in the rapidly curdling silence.
(Jaemin wins.)
Oh? Jaemin thinks, beaming, leering, the art of forcing eye contact with someone who refuses to look at you. So you know it’s impolite to stare?
“Indeed,” Jaemin finally says after a few more torturous seconds, graciously turning back to face the scene before them as he does. In the distance, three figures begin to approach. The public, thronged about in them in a loose semi-circle, parts silently to make way.
The eunuch takes a quiet breath of relief.
“So incredibly pleased,” Jaemin barks suddenly, just to hear him choke on it.
Far becomes near. The trio stops a few meters from the bottom step of the palace: a pair of soldiers dressed in crimson red and, dragged between them, a young man with his hands, arms, and legs bound together.
The soldiers push the prisoner forward. Nothing to break his fall, he lands hard on his front, dull thud into dry earth.
Stillness.
No one moves. No one breathes.
For one moment, they are all dead.
For the second, incredibly, the prisoner manages to rock himself up onto his knees. Pulls himself together with nothing but the force of his own fury.
When he raises his head, there is a lightning strike of dissonance. Beneath the grime, the hollowness in his face, anyone can see that he is of fine breeding. Youthful, elegant, and innocent-looking, fair in a way that only the wealthy and educated can be.
A murmur ripples through the crowd.
The man gives no indication that he hears it. The man looks straight towards the palace, the planes of his face cut hard and white by the unrelenting sun. He scans the array of nobility fanned out in front of him. Searching, searching, searching—
Found.
Renjun locks eyes that are black, black, burning, with Jaemin’s.
Jaemin has made many hushed enemies in his time—those that resent him behind his back, that whisper in the halls after he has passed, too cowardly or powerless to do anything more.
Renjun does not do that because he is neither of those things. Renjun binds them together in broad, searing daylight with a stare that is nothing but an abyss of unadulterated hatred. Jaemin has never seen an expression like that. Pits of dark fire, peering into endless wells, like their reality is merely a painted screen that someone has stabbed two holes through to reveal the void beyond.
It is violent, almost beautifully so, in a way that would make anyone who is not Jaemin recoil.
Unfortunately, Jaemin is Jaemin. His smile does not falter.
Crack. A swift blow to his head from one of the soldiers and Renjun goes down again. Jaemin hears it like it’s the crunch of his own skull. His ears ring. From the side, the executioner steps forward to dig his blade into the back of Renjun’s neck.
Someone begins to read off the royal decree. Their voice is everything it should be in a moment like this. Grand. Impassioned.
Damning.
Hwang Injun. Treason. Capital punishment.
Those are the only things Jaemin hears and nothing that he doesn’t already know. Jaemin doesn’t listen any more closely because he’s too busy watching Renjun scrape his head just far enough above the dirt to seize Jaemin’s line of sight one last time. There’s a trickle of blood down the side of his throat where the motion forces the blade deeper into his skin. His chest heaves.
It doesn’t suit him. Not the rags he’s clothed in, the ropes that bind him like livestock, the filth that mats his hair together. Where is the Renjun that dressed in fine silks? That spent hours in the market flitting from one stall of curiosities to the other, features round and wit sharp and beauty worn so plainly that it made him all the more alluring?
What a shame. Like coming across a bed of flowers trampled, a prized songbird with its wings snapped. Renjun was made for a life of beauty and art and a better conclusion to his story than the one that hangs heavy over his head now.
He had it too. Would’ve continued to have it, if not for one mistake.
(Delicate hands burst out from between the bars of an iron cell to grab onto Jaemin’s robes—vicious pull, a sudden jerk forward—Jaemin’s vision explodes into stars. Sharp pain down his forehead, rough metal on skin, then bone. Stagger backward. Breathe. Raise an arm to tell the guard to stand down.)
Treason, the official cries out once more into the square, sound surging up to the heavens.
Traitor, Renjun snarls silently through cracked lips against the ground, through blackened eyes that refuse to let Jaemin go. Traitor, traitor, traitor—
The word, the sin, crawls up Jaemin’s spine. If Jaemin were a better person, he would’ve let Renjun see it. Something resembling a sliver of regret, something righteous and sweet for him to hold onto as the sword falls.
Even without it, though, Renjun is a fighter to the bitter end. His heart on one sleeve, raw spite on the other.
One mistake. Renjun dies staring it—him—down. His name first, his victories second—the third thing you learn is this: you do not trust Na Jaemin. Na Jaemin who lives, grin blinding, perfect, invincible.
Jaemin, Renjun. Renjun, Jaemin.
An unstoppable force versus an immovable object: which one wins?
Whichever one Na Jaemin happens to be that day.
⏳
Jaemin likes Jisung. Adores him, even. Coos over him like a mother hen, in a way that is extremely unbefitting of a lord and their servant. Jisung may squirm and turn red whenever Jaemin starts pinching his cheeks in front of the other court officials, but Jaemin doesn’t. In fact, their disbelief, the barely suppressed contempt that oozes from the cracks in their facades—it only spurs him on.
Jaemin plays no instruments, sings no songs, but Jaemin performs.
(Our baby Jisungie, he croons gleefully, pulling on Jisung’s face until his weak protest of my lord is unintelligible. Every last turned-away sneer is met with a garish smile, a blatant, open-handed dare.
Try to stop me, why don’t you?
No one ever accepts. Jaemin revels in it.
By this point, Jisung has usually collapsed in on himself, long limbs shriveled up like he could blink out of existence if he only tried hard enough.
Once in a blue moon, Jaemin will feel bad about it.
He laughs, quieter, petting the back of Jisung’s head indulgently. You’re just so cute, aren’t you?)
And Jisung is cute—Jaemin will maintain that for the rest of his life—but recently, he’s been getting on Jaemin’s nerves.
He still certainly does everything that Jaemin asks him to, and efficiently enough. Where he lacks in grace, he makes up for in loyalty and devotion, shuffling continuously in and out of Jaemin’s study with sealed pouches and heavy wooden boxes and bundles tied in twine. Never once does he question what they are for.
This is all fine. This would all be fine, if it weren’t for the fact Jisung can’t stop sniffling the entire time. He refuses to even look at Jaemin directly, hiding red-rimmed eyes into his own shoulder every time he has to hand something over or, heavens forbid, speak to Jaemin.
Jaemin simply sighs, irritated, and waves Jisung off to the next task. In any other household, this type of insolence would get him whipped, but Jaemin knows it’s his own fault for spoiling him.
(There was only one person who ever indulged Jisung more than he did, and now they’re dead.
Jaemin supposes that is his fault as well.)
This continues for days. Jisung stops crying openly in front of Jaemin, only to start moping about silently instead. Jaemin has to forcibly pull the words out of him—everything that is not yes, my lord or no, my lord becomes impossible.
And sometimes, Jaemin will still catch him with eyes too bright to be dry, no matter how quickly Jisung scrubs at them. Those moments, Jaemin can read what Jisung is thinking, as easy as if the words themselves were written across his face.
Why didn’t you help him? Why didn’t you save him?
Why, my lord? I thought you loved him as I did.
Jaemin had made sure Jisung was not there when it happened. Three days prior, he’d been sent into the next town over, with an itinerary of nonsense errands long enough to keep him away until after the blood had dried.
And still, it was not enough.
It’s a lazy, airless afternoon that Jaemin marches into the servants quarters with the intent of dragging Jisung out to a meal. The few others he keeps jolt into deep bows, puppets with their strings cut, when they see him.
Jaemin ignores them. As if they don’t already know that Jaemin is a fickle, unconventional being. More tempest than human, he storms past in a bluster of tassels and satin, up wooden steps and towards the back of the wing where Jisung’s room is.
Yet, when he finds Jisung, he stops short. As a tempest, this is where he fails.
It shouldn’t be possible, but Jisung doesn’t seem to notice Jaemin. Kneeling in front of his bed, he repeatedly opens and closes an impeccably crafted folding fan.
It’s hard to tell from here, but Jaemin knows the fan’s guard is carved with an intricate swirling pattern, that the painting on its face is delicate and fine. There is a knotted cord that falls from its rivet and onto Jisung’s knee: heavy, well-made, strung with several beads of jade.
A luxury good, one no servant could ever afford.
Open. Close. Open. Close.
Jaemin hears the rustle of silk. The way Jisung’s breath stutters with it.
Jaemin turns around and leaves without another word. He has a perfect meal at a lovely restaurant and is waited on with the utmost courtesy. He orders every last one of Jisung’s favorite dishes and leaves none leftover for him, even though it all tastes like nothing on the way down.
⏳
(“Oh?” Renjun says, coming up next to Jisung, materializing out of the never-ending deluge of people flowing past.
Jisung startles at his sudden appearance, squeaks like he’s been caught red-handed. The market is busy and alive around them, a sea of nonstop motion. Jaemin steps out of it too, and watches amusedly from where he’s anchored himself to the next stand over.
Renjun giggles lightly. Several people turn to take a second glance at him before they too are swept away by the crowd.
“Were you looking at this, Jisung-ah?” Renjun points at one of several exquisite fans before them.
Jisung ducks down, sheepish. “Y-yes, Lord Hwang. I was just curious.”
“None of that,” Renjun says, shaking his head. “You’re, what, a couple of years younger than me?”
“Yes, Lord Hwang.”
“Hm.” The corners of Renjun’s lips curl up ever so slightly. “Just call me hyung, then.”
Jisung’s eyes grow three sizes. “I couldn’t—”
“You can,” Renjun says, signaling the stall owner over as he does. “And you will.”
Before Jisung can object further, Renjun picks up the fan and runs fine-boned fingers over it appraisingly. “Pretty, isn’t it?” A deft flick of his wrist and the fan snaps open; he flutters it back and forth to feel its weight.
Jisung nods vigorously, like he’s afraid to get the answer wrong. “It is.”
Renjun hums and closes the fan, his other hand reaching down to pull out his coin purse. With a smile, he tells the owner, “This one please.”
Jaemin nearly laughs out loud at the look on Jisung’s face. Large hands come flailing out when Jisung finally realizes what’s happening, trying in vain to wave away the transaction.
“Lord Hwang, I—”
“Ah, Jisung,” Renjun sighs. “What did I just say?”
Jisung clams up immediately, but Renjun doesn’t seem keen on letting him get away with it. While he is counting out the money, he asks, “Well?”
Jaemin can see how Jisung’s eyes helplessly follow the motion of each coin, then the handoff of the pile to the owner. Renjun turns to Jisung, waiting expectantly.
Jisung shuffles in place. Takes a deep breath as he prepares to fight the lifetime of social mores that sits on his shoulders.
“H-hyung,” Jisung finally says, a small, timid thing. Renjun looks pleased. Then, even smaller and shyer, Jisung mumbles, “I can’t accept that.”
Here, Renjun blinks. Feigns surprise. “Who said it was for you?”
Jaemin actually does laugh at that, and loud too. Renjun turns toward the sound, sunflower after sun, his expression bright and full of mirth. A string of apologies immediately start pouring out of Jisung’s mouth, one forgive-me-for-assuming’s and this-lowly-one-has-mispoken’s after another.
Renjun just reaches out and grabs Jisung’s wrist. Guides Jisung’s open hand towards him, places the fan in his palm, and closes his fingers around it.
“I was just kidding, Jisung. I have more than enough of these for myself.”
“But—” Jisung starts.
"Accept it,” Renjun cuts in. “And that’s an order. I’m going to be upset if you don’t.”
The finishing blow, and a dirty one at that. Jaemin lets out a low whistle. Jisung is done for.
And indeed, not a second later, Jisung folds into a deep bow. “Thank you, Lo—” He catches himself. “Hyung,” Jisung tacks on, shaky at the edges. “Thank you, hyung.”
Renjun takes the opportunity to raise his eyebrows at Jaemin, a preening little would-you-look-at-that, before helping Jisung straighten up again. “You’re welcome, Jisung.”
So it’s a competition now—and for his own servants' affections no less. Jaemin sends a lopsided grin in Renjun’s direction, even though he knows it will go unseen. Bring it on, Renjunnie—
“Excuse me,” a new voice interrupts.
Jaemin turns to see a young man, roughly his age, with a rather striking, cat-like face. It is tempered somewhat by the extremely bored expression he wears on top of it.
“If you’re not going to buy anything,” he drawls, “I’m going to have to invite you to move along.”
Jaemin registers the bluntness first, the accent second—a much thicker version of the lilt that had colored Renjun’s words when he’d first arrived. A traveling merchant, then.
Jaemin does a quick scan of his wares—earrings, hairpins, jewelry—many in a style slightly different from what Jaemin is used to seeing on the royal consorts, but nothing special—
A gleam. Light glinting off metal.
Two simple bracelets in a set: one silver, the other gold.
“Those,” Jaemin says abruptly, pointing to them. “I want those.”
The merchant looks over Jaemin’s shoulder to where Renjun and Jisung are now crowded over a vendor selling rice cakes, then back at him with a smug, knowing look.
Perfectly polite, Jaemin repeats, “The bracelets, please.” His eyes narrow in warning.
The merchant isn’t bothered by it in the slightest. “Of course,” he replies.
Soon after, Jaemin is sent on his merry way. Renjun flashes him a warm smile when he rejoins them; Jisung whines when Jaemin steals one of his rice cakes and then the fan to inspect it.
A pair of lustrous bands in a small lacquered box. Of all the things that Jaemin keeps from Renjun, this is the only one that will not hurt him.)
⏳
The moon hangs round and distant in the night sky. Guided by its watery light, Jaemin staggers down quiet, darkened streets. Everyone knows that Na Jaemin is always smiling, forever baring teeth, but as the world spins around and around and around him, he finds that, right now, he really can’t stop.
There’s a house before him, curved roof tiles, some pithy phrases about life or prosperity inscribed down the outside gate. Presumably, it’s his house—his tiles and his worthless pithy phrases—but truth be told, he can’t make out any of the finer details, no matter how hard he tries to force his vision whole again. Jaemin knows there’s an insightful metaphor in there somewhere, something hilariously ironic about superficial differences and how, in the end, he is exactly the same as all the others.
But Jaemin decided to drink himself stupid tonight, so what he thinks instead is this:
Wouldn’t it be funny if this was the Hwang manor?
A lurch forward. Jaemin slams a hand onto the stone wall beside him to keep his balance. His thoughts, however, are not so easily held.
Wouldn’t it be funny if I belonged there? Wouldn’t it be funny if I’d been Renjun’s servant? Wouldn’t it be funny if I’d been someone else instead? Wouldn’t it be funny—
Liquor and bile burn up his throat. Jaemin empties his stomach on the side of the road.
It turns out it isn’t the Hwang manor.
(Loud bang through heavy wooden doors. One of his housemaids yelps shrilly in surprise.
My lord! someone says, distressed. Air displaced as that someone rushes to his side.
Jisung, Jaemin registers distantly. He shoves away the hands that had come up to steady him, rips in with a snarl that says stay back.
Oh, my baby Park Jisung, Jaemin thinks, stumbling alone through room after room of a too-big house. Would you still reach out if you knew?)
And then Jaemin is sitting in his own study. No recollection of how he got there, only the knowledge that he has.
On a low mahogany table before him is a jug of rice wine. In his hand, a small porcelain bowl. He stares into the cloudy liquid as he sloshes it about, considering. Some of it spills onto his robes.
It’s a bit premature. Jaemin had planned things out for a reason. Bound journals of instructions for what Jisung should do in the aftermath, a guideline for every contingency. He fumbles for them now—maybe he had written one on the best course of action after discovering your master has unexpectedly given himself lethal alcohol poisoning.
His hands close on something curved instead. It’s not the bracelets (Jaemin doesn’t keep those where he could reach so easily) but a small scroll.
Jaemin frowns when he pulls it out. There are many things in this room and Jaemin knows the location and purpose for all of them. For the scroll, he can’t think of either.
When he unfurls it, questions become answers, and Jaemin finds he does not like any of them. He rips the scroll down the center and tosses it aside.
It’s a bit premature, but Jaemin no longer cares. Jisung will just have to pick up the pieces by himself.
Jaemin raises the bowl and drinks.
⏳
(Throbbing pain, blood trickling down his face under where Jaemin has plastered his hand to the wound. The moment he can see straight again, he turns on his heels and leaves.
Renjun cannot follow him up those damp stone stairs, but his rage does. Jaemin feels it on him like a wild dog, maw sunk into the flesh of his ankle.
“Na Jaemin,” Renjun screams, earth-shaking. “I pray you have to live forever with what you’ve done.”
The sky rends open at his request.)
⏳
Fortunately for Jisung, Jaemin wakes up the next morning. The ache that cleaves Jaemin’s head apart, however, makes Jaemin wish that he didn’t. He squints against the brightness that filters in, fluffy and diffuse through oil-paper windows.
Someone has replaced the wine with a pitcher of water and a bowl of still-steaming ox-bone soup. Jaemin’s stomach turns at the smell of it. He forces himself to take a drink of the water, a sip of the soup, then lies down flat on his floor mat.
One arm over his eyes, Jaemin goes back to sleep.
(Later, much later, he will pick the torn scroll off the ground. When he holds the halves together, Jaemin will see an image of himself, painted with loose and easy strokes of dark ink. In it, his smile is too honest. The squish of his eyes is too genuine.
Jaemin throws it out.
It’s not Renjun’s best work.)
⏳
“My lord,” Jisung gasps one day, bursting out onto the deck of the inner courtyard. Jaemin is hanging his legs off the edge of it, observing the passing clouds when he arrives.
“My lord,” Jisung repeats. Distraught, anxious, out of breath. “Is it really true? I heard that—”
“Yes,” Jaemin says, even though much of what Jisung was about to tell him likely wasn’t.
Silence. Jisung is either gaping at him like a dead fish or has fainted from shock.
Jaemin doesn’t bother turning around to check, nor does he care exactly what rumor has trickled down from minister to consort to servant.
The only thing that’s important is that it has—the tides finally, irreversibly turned. Jaemin frowns up at the sky as he ponders it. A minor miscalculation. He thought it would’ve happened sooner.
The royal court is a slippery place after all, floors slick with blood and deception. And Jaemin has many enemies.
In hindsight, he thinks he made it almost too simple, had practically placed the opportunity in their hands, ripe and sweet. His name already so irreversibly tied to Renjun’s—how easy it would be to shift the story just slightly to the left. Even easier when Jaemin never fit the narrative to begin with.
Think about it, the whispers say. When has Lord Na ever done anything noble?
Officials trail him in groups from a distance. Courtesans murmur agitatedly when he passes by. Couldn’t they have been working together? A glance, a glare, needles in his skin. They were close, weren’t they?
It was all a ploy. A grab for power. It’s so obvious now, isn’t it? Someone rams into him as he turns a corner in the palace halls and disappears before he can see who it was. He just wanted to save himself, they chant. How heartless. How cruel. That poor Hwang, laid below his feet as a sacrifice.
He should’ve known what we did: you do not trust Na Jaemin.
He will always be a traitor.
Jaemin sighs and draws himself up to his full height, stretching out numb legs. When he turns around, he finds that his first guess was right. Jisung is staring at him in dead-fish disbelief, looking a bit as if the world were ending.
“Come on, Park Jisung,” Jaemin says, knocking Jisung’s chin up to close his mouth. He grabs him by the back of his collar as he walks past. “Have a meal with me.”
⏳
(“Renjun,” the man says. “But I presume it’s easier for you to call me Injun. Hwang Injun.”
They are sitting at one of a few tables outside an inn, several dishes scattered between them. It’s unseasonably warm for a spring day. Jaemin stretches out, pours himself like plum syrup into the dappled sunlight.
“Pleasure to meet you, Renjun,” Jaemin replies, completely butchering both vowels in his name. Renjun looks at him as if he’s finally realizing just how much of an annoyance Jaemin is going to be.
Green leaves, still new and tender with the season, sway around them them. Jaemin notes how it brings out the yellow-gold undertones embroidered in Renjun’s robes.
“And you?” Renjun prompts, setting his chopsticks down to take a sip of tea.
Jaemin smiles and leans in, eyes roaming across Renjun’s features. It’s hard to spot, but over the course of a few seconds, a barely-there flush colors the tips of his ears pink. Luckily, Jaemin is nothing if not observant. “Oh?” he says. “What about me?”
Renjun sighs to himself, in a you-have-to-be-joking kind of way. “Your name,” he says. Below his breath, he mutters, “Obviously.”
Jaemin's grin grows obscenely wide. What good fortune it was that he came this way. It is not often you find someone as interesting as Renjun—charming accent and foreign silk and star-like eyes—simply sitting beneath a camphor tree, waiting to be talked to.
“My name?” Jaemin echoes playfully. Renjun nods, cheek rounding out as he chews. Jaemin wants to bite it. “Perhaps you’ll find that out next time. A little intrigue makes things more interesting, wouldn’t you say?”
Renjun rolls his eyes. Swallows. “At this rate, I’m inclined to say there won’t be a next time.”
Jaemin has heard enough lies to know that this is one of them. He pouts. “Well, then you could at least offer me some of what you’re eating to make my efforts worthwhile.”
Renjun glances down at his food. “What I’m eating?” he asks, parallel to how Jaemin had repeated Renjun’s own question earlier.
Jaemin plays along. “Mm-hm,” he hums, cutesy, sing-song. He opens his mouth wide, waits to be fed like a baby bird. It’s a good thing Jisung isn’t here, because Jaemin knows he would’ve cringed so hard he threw up.
Renjun laughs a bit at that and starts moving a piece of pork belly towards him. Before it passes Jaemin’s lips, though, Renjun redirects it towards his own, shockingly fast.
“Tell me your name,” Renjun says, popping the meat between his teeth, smiling victoriously. “And maybe I’ll buy you something to eat.”
An instant spark, a wave of excitement down Jaemin’s spine. The beauty has some bite, it seems. Jaemin drums his fingers on the side of his own face, intentionally gives Renjun a visual indication that he’s considering the offer.
His name for a meal from Renjun’s own pocket. Not a bad trade—not exactly a loss—but also not quite the win that Jaemin wants either.
So instead, Jaemin shifts back into a more dignified position. “Nevermind that, then.” Long eyelashes slightly lowered, head tilted just so. Jaemin is more than aware that he’s attractive and he’s going to make that Renjun’s problem. Pink gets brighter, flush creeps higher. Satisfaction coils in Jaemin’s chest.
“Tell me, Renjun,” Jaemin says, “What brings you here?”
The way Renjun lights up is both brilliant and surprising. Jaemin’s struck gold, which he’s good at, but rarely is it so close to the surface. Renjun wears what he values just under his skin.
That is dangerous. Jaemin files the information away for later.
“You see—” Renjun begins animatedly, his food forgotten before him.
Jaemin listens, curious, and…it’s not what he’d anticipated. The usual story goes like this: a rich young master with nothing better to do than to fulfill his wanderlust travels the world, playing with beautiful people and beautiful things.
But what Renjun talks about is something else entirely—new ideas about local government and land distribution and lowering the barriers to ministry offices. Changing things for the better, Renjun says firmly.
Smart, educated, well-spoken—here, they are not too different. Where they are, though, is how Renjun glows from the fire of his own passion. He is achingly idealistic. Pure, unlike Jaemin, who has grown up tainted by the royal palace’s shadow, bruises from the heavy lineage he bears on his shoulders.
Jaemin, Renjun, and the tenuous link that begins to form between them. Things begin to differentiate, layers of oil in water. The good, the neutral, the bad.
The good: Renjun is an anomaly in Jaemin’s world. He says the unexpected, blooms vivid in ways unanticipated. Jaemin feels alive before him—and that is something he has not been in a very long time.
The neutral: Jaemin gives Renjun his undivided attention, nods along and hums affirmatively, even though he doesn’t particularly agree or disagree with anything that Renjun is saying. He constructs the most appealing version of himself to give to Renjun: one that says, I’m on your side, when he is indifferent at best.
The bad: Jaemin knows how this will end. From the moment the word ‘reform’ left Renjun’s mouth, death took its place on his distant horizon. Avoidable, if Jaemin could convince Renjun to turn around and go back to where he came from.
Jaemin does not do that. Jaemin does much worse.
When Renjun pauses for breath and more tea, Jaemin says, smile dazzling, “I could help you, if you’d like. You should come with me.”)
⏳
“Another order of this, please,” Jaemin says, pointing to a half-full plate of pork belly.
(Images flicker to the forefront of his mind: a dead man and an as-good-as-dead man sharing a conversation on a spring day.)
Jisung groans, slumping in his chair. His chopsticks are splayed beside his hand like a symbol of surrender. “My lord, please. I really can’t eat anymore.”
Jaemin tsks, loud and reproachful. Jisung cowers. “I thought this was your favorite,” Jaemin says, ruthlessly piling another piece onto the three still in Jisung’s bowl.
“It is, but—”
“Waiter,” Jaemin calls out. “More of the tteokbokki as well. My servant says no one else’s can even compare.”
In Jaemin’s peripheral vision, Jisung looks like he’s about to cry.
The moment the waiter is out of earshot, Jisung reaches out towards Jaemin to take his hands. Head bowed low over the table, he says, “I’m begging you, my lord. No more. I—” He gags dramatically. “I’m going to be sick.”
Jaemin scoffs. Removing himself from Jisung’s grasp, he instead goes to ruffle Jisung’s hair viciously, knocking the topknot lose from the crown of his head. It flops miserably to the side, as defeated as the rest of him.
“You little brat,” Jaemin says, swatting him lightly for good measure. “Since when do you not know how to show gratitude?” He picks up his own chopsticks and taps them aggressively, a clink-clink-clink against the porcelain of Jisung’s bowl. “Don’t waste what you’ve been given.”
Jisung lets himself fall with a heavy thunk onto the table.
In the end, Jaemin doesn’t make him finish it. When they walk out of the restaurant—Jisung dragging his feet behind him—several long, fixed stares follow them out too.
No matter, Jaemin thinks, flicking the sleeves of his hanbok behind him in the same way you would brandish a sword. Unless they deign to accompany him to the underworld, there will soon be nothing for them to look at.
⏳
Jaemin watches the sun rise through the windows of his study. The day is shaping up to exceedingly clear. There is not a single cloud in the sky.
“My lord?” Jaemin hears. The words, carried on Jisung’s voice, are worn and familiar. Its hushed quality, the way it trembles under the weight of what is about to happen—that is new, if not unexpected.
Jaemin turns to where Jisung is standing on the threshold of the room. Maybe it’s a trick of the early morning light, but he looks younger than ever today. “Yes, Jisung-ah. Come in.”
Jisung enters. Light steps around a set of stiffly woven baskets sitting in neat rows, and even then, he yelps as he accidentally knocks into one. The small wooden nametag tied to it clicks against its neighbor’s.
Jaemin sighs loudly. Jisung tries to straighten it one last time before hurrying to kneel in front of Jaemin. There is a basket for Jisung, too, but more important is the large box that sits heavy between them. Dark glossy wood, white pearl inlays.
Jaemin unlatches it and turns it around, open, to face Jisung. “The book, first,” he says. “Take it.”
Jisung does. There are also enough riches tucked into the box to support him and his entire family for several lifetimes, but Jisung doesn’t even look at them. He only stares down at the bound pages clenched tight between his tremulous fingers.
“Everything you need to know is in there,” Jaemin says dismissively. “But if you do nothing else, there are three things I need from you. Recite them to me now, quickly.”
Jisung remains mute for a few more seconds. Thick paper, blue thread, the beginning of a quickly hastening end.
Then, he says, voice pounded as flat as he can manage: “First, give Head Maid Bae her items. Ensure she understands her instructions. Help her see that everything is distributed properly.”
Jaemin nods. “What else?”
“Second, take all gathered documents and writings to courtyard. Burn them. Make sure the fire is put out afterwards.”
“And?”
Jisung takes a deep shuddering breath.
“Jisung-ah.”
Nothing.
“Park Jisung,” Jaemin presses. “I need to know that you know.”
“Third,” Jisung spits mechanically. “Go home. Live happily. Do not look for you.” A pause, unwieldy and unyielding. “Do not look back at all.”
“Good.”
They unravel once more into nothingness. It’s on Jaemin this time.
Suddenly, he asks, “Is the fan with you?”
A faraway look clouds over Jisung’s face. He is thinking of Renjun. By the transitive property, Jaemin is as well. “Of course, my lord.” Jisung lifts the fan out from where it had been strapped to the sash around his waist.
Something floods over Jaemin. Heavy, like he wears a weighted blanket, gravity woven over his limbs. It is not bad, per say. Stillness feels nice every once in a while, even if it is forced.
Outside, pink gives way to lovely light blue.
A bright day in a busy market, the two of them on the heels of a man who whirls through the streets in silk the color of sea glass. It is something they will never be able to have again. Asking about the fan was unnecessary. A misstep.
Damage control. Jaemin does the only thing he can now: he diverts. “And if you need help,” he says, “who do you go to?”
Jisung comes back to him slowly, one grief replaced by another. “Lee Jeno, of the Jeonju Lee Clan.” That one they both know is in the book, page twenty-seven, followed by scripts of what to say should Jisung ever need to entreat them.
A final attempt to make something out of nothing. The ashes settle.
They are done here.
Jaemin stands up; Jisung follows. Reaching out, Jaemin pats Jisung’s shoulders, then tugs on his cheek one last time for good measure. “Aigoo,” Jaemin chuckles. “Well then, Park Jisung,” he says, letting go. “You’re dismissed.”
A bow. A thank you. A graceful exit.
This is what should happen, but it is what doesn’t.
Jisung lurches forward instead, colliding with Jaemin with a soft thump. Arms come up in a clumsy embrace, but tight, like he is hoping he never has to let go. He sniffles loudly over Jaemin’s shoulder. “Thank you, hyung. I’ll miss you. Tell Renjun-hyung I miss him too, if you see him.”
It is too much all at once. He feels himself nod. He feels himself hug Jisung back.
Inside, his mind picks one thing to focus on in all the noise: hyung. If not for Renjun, would Jisung have ever thought to call him that? Would he have ever dared?
It is incredible how his influence bleeds into them, into Jaemins carefully drawn borders, like ink on wet paper. Renjun is gone, yet somehow everything is still about him.
They separate after what feels like an unimaginably long time. Jisung closes his box, finds his basket, and puts it in. Lifting his endowment with one hand, he picks up Head Maid Bae’s with the other, and walks out. Jaemin can see the tears dripping off the curve of his jaw, catching in the light, but he doesn’t look back.
Jaemin lets out a breath.
As he makes his own way to the door, he glances one last time at the remaining baskets. The Na family estate, parceled and partitioned and given away to those that serviced it. The house empty besides them, everything that could be converted into copper coins long since traded away.
Gone. The way it should’ve been long ago.
Jaemin leaves.
Walks away from the city center, and doesn’t stop walking until he has left it entirely. Buildings grow sparser, then disappear. Rooftops and awnings give way to a forest canopy. The roads narrow and branch apart. Jaemin picks one at random to follow, turns off of it sharply. No rhyme or reason. Just until he feels like he has gone far enough.
(Far enough turns out to be a long way away.)
Eventually, he comes to a small clearing. A patch of grass, a gap in the trees above from which blue sky and sunlight stream in. A few large stones are scattered about. Jaemin perches on the edge of the flattest one. It’s as good a place as any.
He didn’t take much with him when he left, only the essentials. A flask of water. A small, sealed sachet of fine yellow powder. Two metal cuffs, one gold, one silver.
Jaemin tears the sachet open with his teeth, mixes the powder into the flask, and takes a few lazy laps around the clearing as he shakes it together.
When it’s done, Jaemin lays himself down, right on the grassy spot in the center. Bird song whistles through the leaves. There is a nice breeze today.
He pops the top of the flask open and pours the whole thing down his throat without ceremony. It tastes absolutely horrid, but then again, he doubts that poison was ever meant to be enjoyable for the person drinking it.
As he swallows around the bitterness on his tongue, Jaemin sweetens it by thinking about how the royal court will howl at this. Should they find him, they’ll know he died a soft, comfortable death. Sure, perhaps they’ll do something grotesque to his body afterward to make a point, but they’ll never have the satisfaction of doing it while he was alive.
And if they don’t find him, even better. How furious they’ll be, to think that a traitor of the state could simply disappear from their grasp. No family to punish, no loved ones to torture in his stead, no inheritance to rip away from Jaemin’s nonexistent descendants.
No ability to hurt him in any way that matters.
Jaemin wins. Even in death, Jaemin wins.
Sunlight warm on his skin. Jaemin puts one silver-banded hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat slow. He raises the other straight up, sees the glimmer of gold on his wrist—what it may have looked like worn, had he ever given it to Renjun the way he once thought he would.
Renjun’s voice echoes in his head. In another lifetime, perhaps he would’ve been able to hear something loving and tender in these last moments. Thank you, Jaemin-ah, he’d say, eyes curving, smile adoring. For the bracelets, maybe. For being good to him.
Instead, Jaemin hears, I pray you have to live forever with what you’ve done. His name spit like a curse.
It’s only natural.
Sorry, Renjunnie, Jaemin thinks, watching the sunlight catch on the gold cuff as he tilts it this way and that. That won’t be happening.
Then he is gone.
It appears that you’ve lost.
⏳
(One day in the heat of early summer, Jaemin sits across from the head eunuch in an ornately decorated room, one of many nestled in the sprawling royal palace. Several soldiers line the back wall. A scribe sits at a low desk on the other side of a painted screen. Two of head eunuch’s subordinates stand behind him. One is stonefaced and refuses to look Jaemin. The other cannot help but glance at him every so often, as if he’s afraid Jaemin bites and will take his fingers off when he’s not looking.
Jaemin likes that. He makes sure to dart his tongue over the edge of his teeth every time they make eye contact.
A servant sets out two porcelain cups between Jaemin and the head eunuch and pours fresh tea. Wisps of steam curl off the surface. Incense smoke from the burner in the corner trails hazy patterns through the air.
Jaemin smiles. The head eunuch does not.
Neither of them drink.
A cordial conversation is what the invitation had said, but a cordial conversation this is not. They’re certainly not talking as much as sitting around and pretending that they respect each other. The eunuchs are waiting for something.
Jaemin drags a finger lazily around the rim of his teacup. “So, are we going to get on with it or—”
“Silence,” the two subordinates bark in unison.
Jaemin raises his hands up in mock surrender. “My humblest apologies,” he drawls and they go back to stewing the thick quiet.
Another few minutes pass, slow and sticky like poured honey. Jaemin sighs. Might as well drop the pretense and call it what it is: the preamble to an interrogation, and a pointless one at that. He supposes the optics would be better if they could get his confession, but the end result will be the same. They should have just sent a polite letter notifying Jaemin that he’s to be executed in three months time and saved everyone the hassle.
After all, Na Jaemin is a wildcard—too dangerous to leash, too dangerous to let exist unleashed. He’s outlived his usefulness.
Finally, another servant scampers into the room. In their arms, a neat stack of scrolls and documents that they lay on the table in front of the head eunuch.
Jaemin fights the urge to roll his eyes. Typical intimidation tactic, make the suspect believe there’s a stronger case against them than there is. He wouldn’t be surprised if a third of them were blank.
The head eunuch peels off several of the top pages to lay in front of Jaemin. Amongst them, a title to the house that Jaemin helped Renjun buy, several written testimonies from local restaurant and store owners about how he and Renjun are always seen together, and a copy of one of Renjun’s oldest published articles.
Jaemin scoffs. He’s read that article before. There’s nothing even particularly provocative about it: an exploration of alternative land distribution systems capped off by the vague sentiment that perhaps the knowledge could inspire change elsewhere.
It’s weak, but Jaemin knows much of being a court official is bending reality as they see fit.
So when the head eunuch finally begins saying, “We have reason to believe that you are sheltering and conspiring with suspected radical, Hwang Injun, to subvert the crown. This is a—”
Jaemin is able to speak the words, “Treasonous offense,” in time with him, grinning all the while.
The head eunuch’s face grows hard. “This is no laughing ma—”
Jaemin abruptly stands up, chuckling to himself as he does. The two subordinates stutter back. A clattering tells him the soldiers are about to draw their weapons.
The way they spook like a herd of sheep is hilarious, but its not what Jaemin came here to do. He turns in a slow circle, hands out in a placating gesture. “Relax, relax,” he says lazily. “I just wanted to stretch my legs. Besides, what kind of man would I be if I were to get violent in a cordial conversation, hm?”
“Lord Na,” the head eunuch says, voice growing angrier, “You are being accused of—”
“Treason!” Jaemin trills, ambling back and forth. All three eunuchs follow him tensely with their eyes. “I know, how exciting. It’s funny though, how you bring it up, because I also wanted to talk to you about treason.”
He bends down to scoop up a bound book he’d placed next to where he was sitting and tosses it casually onto the table in front of the head eunuch. The clatter of it shakes the teacups, splashing reflective droplets on polished wood.
“What is the meaning of this?” the head eunuch asks. Each word smolders with contempt.
“Go on now,” Jaemin says brightly. “Read it!”
The eunuch just continues to stare at the book, hand held halfway between it and his body, as if he isn’t sure if it’s more dangerous to do or not do what Jaemin says. Luckily for Jaemin, he wins either way.
“Or don’t,” he continues easily. “I’m sure you’ll hear all about it soon anyways, copies are already being distributed to every official, as well as the general public.”
There is another long moment of hesitation, but what he says gets the head eunuch to pick it up and start leafing through it. His two subordinates bend over his shoulder to get a closer look. Their faces begin to morph into expressions of disbelief.
Jaemin claps his hands together. “Ah, see, now you’re getting it. I’ve written quite the exposé there, haven’t I? It wasn’t easy getting all of Hwang Injun’s unreleased writings, but I dare say it was worth it. Treasonous intent like you wouldn’t believe—I couldn’t imagine what would’ve happened if these ideas of his were allowed to spread.”
Predatory gaze, knife-edge smile. Jaemin mock-shudders, then crouches back down, low, eye-level with the head eunuch. “You know, I was quite hurt when you thought I was conspiring with him, but I’m glad we could clear things up. Soon, everyone will know the heroic work that Lord Na did in service to the crown.”
If only everyone did not include Renjun.)