Seungho stared back, chest rising slow, the heat beneath his skin simmering from calm to something more dangerous. His mouth curved—not the soft smile, not the gentle one, but the one he wore in battle. The one that promised ruin and worship and something like joy, all at once.
“I don’t snap,” Seungho murmured, his voice dropping low, rough with hunger and threat and invitation all braided together.
He leaned in, closing the distance, letting Haneul see every fleck of fire behind his eyes, every pulse of want in his jaw.
“I burn.”
A single breath, heavy and thick as a promise.
“Follow me, Haneul. Shadow me. Make trouble. Press every button.”
He let the words hang, slow and deliberate, his own voice gone soft at the edges, as if the whole palace was shrinking to this single, narrow space between them.
“I want to see what kind of fire you create when you try to drive me mad.”
Haneul’s eyes went wide—one heartbeat, two, and then that wickedness snapped back, doubled. He tossed the towel in Seungho’s face with the smug grace of a deity demanding tribute. It slapped Seungho’s cheek—a wet, icy, ridiculous sound—and then hit the floor, a flag of surrender and challenge both.
He didn’t pause. He just strode away, all decorum gone once more. utterly unashamed, bare as the moment of his birth, all scars and muscle and long, elegant lines, braid swinging behind him like a war banner in the dawn.
Hethrew open the king’s wardrobe with a flourish that would have embarrassed a queen, carved doors crashing back against the wall. Within—power and wealth: fire silks, obsidian weaves, robes stitched with dragons and flames, palettes of blood and gold and deep wine, the regalia of a conqueror.
Haneul stared, eyes going wide with something like horror.
He sifted through the fabrics, poking at them like spoiled meat. He lifted a deep burgundy robe embroidered with phoenixes and glared.
“What—?” he muttered, voice rising with every color he named. “Grey? Brown? All dark… Boring… Are you seventy?!”
A charcoal overcoat went sailing behind him, discarded without a backward glance. Haneul, gloriously naked and lit by morning, stood one foot on a pile of priceless robes, braid swaying, scowl deepening.
“Ugh! Don’t you have anything in sky blue? Gold? White?”
Seungho stood, still shirtless, still streaked with frost, watching this display with a blend of awe, amusement, and deep, existential attraction. His arms folded across his chest as if he could keep the heat contained by will alone.
“That’s ceremonial attire from the Royal Flame Tribunal,” he said, voice even, eyes sharp.
Haneul blinked. “It’s brown.”
“It’s volcanic ash silk. Rare. Ancient.”
“It’s ugly,” Haneul shot back, wrinkling his nose.
A pause. Then, with a tilt of his chin, all challenge:
“You want sky blue?”
Seungho stepped closer, each movement unhurried, predatory. He pulled open the bottom drawer—a compartment rarely touched—and lifted out a robe: sky blue silk, soft as cloud, hemmed in faint gold, folded with reverence, untouched.
Haneul’s eyes went wide, as if the king had produced a bar of sunlight.
“What is that?!”
“A gift from a southern diplomat,” Seungho replied, careful, almost gentle.
“Why haven’t you worn it?!”
Seungho looked him up and down—slow, lingering, lips curled in a private, dangerous smile.
“I was waiting for someone who’d actually look good in it.”
