Haneul squinted, as if Seungho’s emotional honesty were a riddle designed to make his core flicker gold in alarm. “Then why are you so weird this morning?”
He was radiant. He was wild. He was feeding Seungho with one hand, and pushing at his boundaries with the other. Every action, every deflection, every outrageous request—“throw me again later”—was a dare and a prayer.
Seungho tried for dignity, failed. “Because someone force-fed me a half-eaten bun before I’d even opened my eyes. You’re going to give me indigestion.”
“You’re welcome,” Haneul said, biting into a honeyed cake, juice running down his chin. “Now stop moping. Tell me a story.”
“A story?” Seungho echoed, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah. Make it bloody. Magic. War. No boring courtly stuff. Something about you—when you were wild.”
So Seungho told it. Quiet, low, while Haneul’s golden core glowed under his stolen robe and the crumbs piled up between them: of a warlord who burned down provinces just to keep the darkness insidefrom winning, of a man who was never touched until one night a snowstorm sent something wild and blue-eyed crashing into his world.
Haneul listened, arms crossed, pretending boredom. But the truth—the real truth—flared bright in the stubborn way he leaned in, the way his knee pressed against Seungho’s thigh, the way he grinned at the punchline: “You. You were the thing that touched me.”
He could not sit with that for long. He launched into a rant, arms wide, voice raised—imagining an even wilder, more explosive ending. “Wouldn’t it be better if we just—BOOM—blew up the world and then rebuilt it? You know, something epic.”
And then the tray tipped. Food flew. Dried persimmons bounced. Dumplings rained from the ceiling. A bun slapped against Seungho’s bare chest and stuck, a biscuit landed in Haneul’s braid, and for a moment, even the gods of fate seemed to be laughing.
Haneul froze, caught in his own chaos. Then, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, he started eating the food off Seungho’s skin.
Seungho, covered in sugar and crumbs, deadpanned, “Epic.”
Haneul’s grin could split the dawn. “Right?!”
He brushed crumbs from Seungho’s chest like it was a sacred duty, hummed as he chewed, eyes wide, then—kneeling astride Seungho’s lap, half-naked, hair shining, all arrogance and nerve—he leaned in. The world stilled.
“Want to finish the story with me?” he whispered. Not just about the breakfast. Not just about the morning. He meant all ofit—every battle, every stolen bun, every bruise, every night in the king’s bed. “Together?”
Seungho let the hand in Haneul’s hair linger. He brushed a crumb from his cheek, then pressed their foreheads together.
“Only if you promise not to throw the tray next time.”
But Haneul was already reaching for another biscuit, shoving it in Seungho’s mouth with an incorrigible smirk.
“It’s stale,” Seungho muttered, chewing.
“Shared food tastes better,” Haneul sang, sliding closer, settling into Seungho’s lap, arms around his neck, head tipped back against his collar. “You’re warm. Stay warm. I’ll do the fighting.”
“Then yeah,” Seungho whispered into his hair. “I’ll finish the story with you. But next time…” He nuzzled the braid, breath warm. “We aim for the second floor balcony.”
Haneul exploded—wheezing laughter, biscuit in his lungs, doubled over in Seungho’s lap, coughing and shrieking with joy. He pounded Seungho’s chest, hiccuping, hair flying, the whole bed a battlefield of sweetness and riot.
Seungho stared. Watched. His heart, his core, his world—all detonating with the impossible, fragile miracle of Haneul’s joy.
Haneul choked, wheezed, wiped a crumb from Seungho’s chest and grinned. “Let’s try it. I can TOTALLY handle the balcony. You’re just chicken.”
Seungho’s grip tightened. He leaned close, voice molten, smile slow. “You think you can survive a twenty-foot drop and three spins, little storm?”
Haneul’s eyes shone. “Yes.”
“Then get dressed, Sky,” Seungho growled, heat licking every syllable. “We train at noon.”
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CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT– The Sky Always Lands on His Feet
The sun hadn’t even warmed the frost from the palace tiles when the chaos began.
