He ate with his cheeks puffed out so full they bulged, and yet not a word out of place escaped him, and he ate neatly without losing composure. He wore old, worn-out clothes and was performing the role of a servant — yet there was an air of having received proper instruction that showed in small habits, actions, and manner of speech.

The most naive thing of all was perhaps that he did not know this himself, and so it never even occurred to him to hide it. But he didn't want to describe him simply as naive. What word would be fitting?

Most of the words that suited him would be feather-light and swaying things — and he had never been in the habit of using such words…

"You're not eating? Should I finish it all?"

"Eat it all."

"…You should eat more when you're tired. There's nothing you can do without the strength that food gives you."

Yunseo placed a large piece of meat in Hwi's bowl and stared at him with wide eyes, clearly intending to watch until it was eaten. He had no appetite, but knowing that if he refused, the small creature would natter and pester him endlessly, he obediently put it in his mouth.

The meat's juices burst as he chewed, seeping in with an unexpectedly pleasant sensation. Hwi took his time chewing it, his gaze resting on Yunseo, who was smiling contentedly and turning back to his own meal.

After finishing the meal and stepping out of the tavern, the sky had already been tinged with a faint sunset. Yunseo stopped for a moment and gazed at the distant horizon, and so Hwi too followed his gaze up to the sky.

A gentle breeze brushed his cheek. His keenly honed senses absorbed the surrounding scenery with sharp clarity. His brow was just about to furrow when a small exclamation came from beside him. Hwi watched Yunseo from the corner of his eye. Focusing his edge-sharp senses on Yunseo, those corners seemed to round, becoming somewhat more at ease.

A loose strand of hair fluttered in the breeze. He traced the round curve of his ear and his gaze caught on the long lashes, then moved. The eyes warmed by the light, their pupils so full of something — in an instant he was curious what they held, so he followed again — yet it was only a plain and unremarkable sky.

"Thank you."

Just then Yunseo said quietly. Turning his head at the sudden expression of gratitude, he found Yunseo biting and releasing his lip with a bashful look.

"For yesterday. You helped me, didn't you? I'm alive thanks to you."

It was wholehearted gratitude — leaving aside the ugly violence and the harsh words generously and without complaint. At the sensation of tingling in his fingertips, which came back again and again, Hwi put one hand behind his back.

"When I first met you, sir, you rescued me from among those bandits, too. I can't tell you how fortunate I was."

"…"

"I hope that someday I might be of great help to you, sir."

Yunseo looked up at Hwi with a somewhat sheepish look — and yet with eyes that, even unbeknownst to himself, held a certain expectation. Facing that Yunseo, Hwi was suddenly struck by one question.

Was what shone in those eyes a pure and tender affection?

Or was it blind devotion like a newly hatched chick meeting its mother for the first time — a raw, nascent first love?

Hwi reached out abruptly. As his fingertips touched Yunseo's cheek, Yunseo flinched — but did not pull away from the touch. Yunseo's eyes trembled, and the corner of his mouth could not stay still, twitching. His heartbeat grew faster, singing like a chirping bird.

Savoring the soft texture and warm heat and lively pulse that came through skin to skin, a feeling of satisfaction rose from somewhere deep within — and at the same time, a bitter sensation like being pricked with needles slowly killed that feeling.

Even knowing the truth, will you still call it fortunate that you have me? Looking at me with such warm eyes.

The sound of the tavern door being flung open broke the long chain of thought in an instant, and Hwi withdrew his hand. Yunseo, flustered, wiped his own cheek with the back of his hand.

"Was there — was there something on it?"

Hwi didn't answer and turned away. The hand he had clenched rang — thud, thud, thud. Whose heartbeat he was holding in it, he couldn't say.

* * *

"Your Majesty."

Hwi, who had been reviewing dispatches from the capital, looked up at Sangji's call. He had arranged for Yunseo's every move to be reported to him through Sangji, so he immediately set the dispatch down.

"A noble concubine has met with a woman and is in conversation, it is reported."

"A woman?"

"She is the person who was following Your Majesty some days ago — she disguised it as a coincidence, but it appears she approached the noble concubine intentionally."

The tip of Hwi's eyebrow lifted slightly. He knew who was being spoken of. She ran a teahouse and was registered in a certain unusual village — that much had been confirmed, but the purpose of the surveillance was still being investigated.

"Her purpose?"

"She says she is searching for a lost child. It seems she had also followed Your Majesty some time ago out of suspicion."

"A child."

Hwi tapped the table with his index finger. A woman he had met in a rough village along the way came to mind. Two people had now lost a child — it could no longer be dismissed as an ordinary coincidence.

"Search through the local moneylenders and bandit groups in this area first."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Ah. The shrine as well."

"Yes."

He flicked his hand to dismiss Sangji. But just as he was about to pick up the dispatch again, Sangji came hurrying back inside. In her hand was a slip of paper sent by carrier pigeon.

"Your Majesty. It is reported that the noble concubine is being pursued by men sent by the Minister of Personnel."

An earlier encounter than expected. He had already been informed by report that men hired by the Minister of Personnel were drawing closer. When Jeongju had asked what to do, he had answered to leave it. Continued peace would only seem unnatural, and Yunseo himself had been finding it strange that no pursuit had come after him.

Hwi clicked his tongue low and rose, stepping outside.

He climbed to the rooftop and headed in the direction Sangji indicated, and soon he could see Yunseo running desperately to evade his pursuers.

Turning into an alley to find a way out, Yunseo's expression was desperate. His sharp eyes wide open and his jaw set hard enough to look pointed as he clenched his teeth — all traces of youth stripped away — he ran with his legs pounding as though they might break, driven by a single will to never be caught.

Hwi leaped lightly from rooftop to rooftop following Yunseo, and observed with a kind of fascination the resolve carved into the corners of his eyes — the resolution to fight to the last. He took in every single change as that resolve gradually became tinged with despair. His fingertips burned with tingling. He clenched his hand tightly, then opened it, and jumped down below the rooftop.

The sound of running footsteps drew closer. Strangely, it felt as though Yunseo was coming toward him. Strictly speaking, Yunseo was running with everything he had precisely to flee from him — and yet.

He reached out and grabbed Yunseo's arm and pulled him in. The wildly pounding heartbeat struck his ear. Wide-open eyes turned toward Hwi. Hwi, savoring the something that bloomed like a spark between the resolution and the despair, brought Yunseo inside with him.

Dealing with those men would not be difficult, but Hwi grabbed the nearest cloth and threw it over Yunseo's head. How to put it — a strange impulse had come over him, simply wanting to protect this moment as it was.

Yunseo, blinking in bewilderment, created a strange atmosphere in contrast with the red cloth. Eyes that gave the illusion of a dewy gleam. A softly risen nose bridge, and beneath it a rounded nostril. Lips of a faint red that looked as yielding as his fingertips.

Even though the intruders' voices were drawing near, only Yunseo's chirping pulse held his ear entirely captive. The only thing that entered his eyes was Yunseo. The only thing he wanted was—

The moment their lips touched, Yunseo's breath and warmth came flowing in. The fingertips that had been tingling all along blazed with ecstasy.

The desire he had suppressed found its complete form and went into a frenzy. It was this sweet — could sweetness be this dizzying?

Yunseo's mouth was warm, and every time the soft flesh met the tip of his tongue, desire blazed up ferociously. A covetousness surged in him — to conquer every corner of this small cave and make it entirely his own. His sacred energy seethed and roused the accumulated poison, sending aching pain flooding through his chest — yet Hwi, instead of plundering Yunseo's protective star, crushed his own power down.

He did not want to give it to anyone. Even if that meant his own sacred energy.

The faint and fragile sound Yunseo let out struck him deep in his core. Yunseo's skin under his fingertips was sweet beyond sweetness. All five senses receiving him melted with that sweetness, dissolving the sharp and sensitively raised edges.

The whole world was filled with Yunseo. With his sounds, his breath, his warmth, his movements. Had the world ever been this rapturous? Hwi tilted his head, wanting to press deeper, just a little more, into Yunseo.

Then — Yunseo pushed Hwi back and drew away.

His hand nearly shot out to pull Yunseo back, but he barely held himself in check and did not let his gaze go from him. Suddenly, a question poured over his shoulders and scattered.

Was it the light I wanted, or was it that young man himself?

Perhaps separating the two in the first place was foolish. His sacred energy, his desire, and his emotions all raged savagely — and not knowing where this unfamiliar and unknown road would lead him, Hwi could only arrive at the conclusion that he had to step out of this moment.

He stepped forward and Yunseo stepped back. At that distance, the desire to grab him on the spot and bind him so he could not go anywhere squirmed. Hwi barely looked away from it and led Yunseo back outside.

All the way back, Yunseo's heartbeat kept on chirping — and the road to the guild hall was, for the first time in his life, laid out before Hwi as a road of flight. A road to move away from Yunseo.

"Stay put."

Coming out of the guild hall, catching his quickly rising breath, Hwi bit down hard on his back teeth.

Should he check the protective star?

If he checked and it was suitable — should he take him?

The corners of Hwi's eyes twisted. The breath flowing between his lips shot out like steam from a boiling kettle.

To break the will of a young man who was so desperately trying to escape his shackles, and take him by force? And what would be gained from that? Without obtaining either his heart or his protective star fully, was he planning to get down on his knees before Yunseo and beg?

Even a scoff wouldn't come. And the greater problem was that even if the protective star proved unsuitable, the foolish desire to take him in regardless and seat him by his side still remained.

The affection that passed between Yongrin and Eternal Spring Flowers was complex and drawn out. The protective star could itself become affection, and affection could also fail to overcome the protective star. All the more so was the relationship between a dragon-descendant and an empress more messy, not less — not in the slightest bit hopeful.

He had not walked this nauseating road all this time in order to become a foolish ruler who had lost his reason. So it would be the right choice, as the Son of Heaven of a nation, to let him go—

"Your Majesty."

Jeongju approached and looked over Hwi's complexion. Hwi composed his expression and turned to Jeongju.