The palace bathhouse was all marble and steam, lanterns glowing soft against the morning mist. The bathhouse steam clashed with the cold creeping in through the east-facing windows. Haneul sat on the rim of a hot pool, picking at a scab on his knuckle, oblivious to the world and very much enjoying the private warmth, the quiet, the lack of Seungho’s giant shadow looming at his back. He wore nothing but damp skin and a glower.
He did not notice Chaeun enter until she was too close—until she was lowering herself into the water with a sinuous ease, dark hair coiling on the surface, her eyes sly and measuring.
He blinked. She smiled.
“Pretty, aren’t you?” she murmured, kneeling beside him, her smile lush and slow as honey. “Are you lonely here, wild thing? Don’t you miss the touch of someone soft, someone who knows what you need?”
Haneul blinked again, brain full of static. “What?”
She laughed, low and honey-sweet, and slid closer until her thigh pressed against his. She reached up, slow as a snake, grabbed Haneul’s wrist and pressed his palm to her breast—full, bare, warm as summer.
Time stopped. Haneul’s mind went blank.
A heartbeat. Two.
Then all hell exploded.
His eyes went huge, mouth opening in a wordless gasp of pure animal panic, frost crackling across his chest and shoulders. He jerked his hand back, stumbled, slipped, elbowed her nose on accident—then, seeing her smirk, he panicked harder and punched, a wild, uncalculated right hook that connected with a wet crunch. Blood spurted, bright as plum blossom, and Chaeun’s wail echoed off the marble.
“WHAT THE FUCK—” Haneul shrieked, scrambling backward, limbs flailing, knocking over a stack of towels and a brazier of coals in the process.
Chaeun clutched her nose, blood running between her fingers, kohl streaking down her cheeks. She tried to stagger upright and slipped on the bath’s edge, sliding gracelessly into the water with a shriek.
Haneul, terror-stricken, did the only thing that made sense: he headed for the nearest exit—an open window overlooking the lotus pond. He was halfway out, dripping and wild, when the doors slammed open and Seungho thundered in, cloak flying, eyes blazing.
He took in the chaos—steam, blood, sobbing courtesan, Haneul naked and hanging from a windowsill.
There was a moment of pure, stunned silence.
Then Haneul yelped, “I DIDN’T TOUCH ANYTHING, SHE DID IT FIRST!”
Chaeun sobbed, “He broke my nose—she—he—he just punched me!”
Danbi appeared in the doorway, perfectly composed, one brow arching in amused disbelief. “Did you really just punch my best courtesan?”
Haneul, now fully panicking, tried to scramble out the window. Seungho grabbed him by the ankle—just in time to prevent a full swan dive into the lily pond.
“Let go! She attacked me! She put my hand on her—on her—what the fuck was that?!”
Seungho, deadpan: “You’re not supposed to punch the courtesans.”
“I treat everyone the same!” Haneul shouted. “Men, women, goats—if you grab me, I punch you! That’s equality!”
Danbi sighed. “This is what happens when you let wild animals indoors.”
Seungho’s gaze snapped to her—deadly, crimson, the promise of war. He stalked forward, cloak flaring behind him, and in a heartbeat he was between Haneul and the world, every inch the mountain.
His voice dropped, cold and sharp. “Get out. Both of you. Now.”
Chaeun stumbled to her feet, clutching her face, eyes full of shock and humiliation.
Danbi, poised as ever, tilted her chin. “He’s dangerous, you know. Untouchable. Maybe he isn’t worth—”
“Do not,” Seungho growled, “speak as if you know his worth. Or mine.”
Her smile flickered, brittle now. “I was only helping—”
“You were testing me,” he spat. “Using your own to bait him, hoping he’d slip. He is not yours. He is not a thing to be handled, displayed, or humiliated.”
