It felt like Baekhyun had only just lain down on the giant bed when a manservant was coming into the room, yanking back the heavy brocade drapes and allowing early morning sunlight to stream into the room.

Baekhyun hissed and burrowed further under his blankets, the bright light stinging his sleep-deprived eyes.

“It’s time to get up, young master,” said a slightly accented and slightly amused male voice.

Baekhyun groaned from beneath his mound of covers. “What time is it?”

“A quarter til six, young master,” came the same slightly amused voice.

Baekhyun groaned again. It wasn’t even six am yet! He definitely wasn’t ready to start this day.

But the manservant – who, Baekhyun noticed when he finally came up for air, was thin and dark-haired with a sly sort of smile – wouldn’t let him rest. “If you want anything to eat, young master, you’d better get a move on. Your training starts at six thirty and you won’t have much time to rest.”

“T-training?” Baekhyun repeated uncertainly. “What training?”

But the manservant wouldn’t tell him anything more.

By six thirty, Baekhyun had been dressed in clothes that nearly fit him – they were a little too big in some places and a little too tight in others, but overall they were mostly his size – and had scarfed down a simple breakfast of eggs and toast in a little sunroom on the eastern side of the house, full of green-leafed plants and natural sunlight. Then the manservant – Baekhyun learned along the way that his name was Yixing – led him to a lounge at the back of the monstrosity of a house, a room with dark paneling on the walls and a study area set up. There he met his tutor.

Slave driver might have been a more accurate word for the man. He was tall and thin, with an even fouler expression than Mr. Ji, who had come to fetch him from Mangyang the day before. He was dressed impeccably and carried with him a lingering smell of cigarette smoke and aftershave. Baekhyun didn’t like him one bit.

The tutor, who went by Mr. Shin, was fierce, demanding, and intolerant of any mistakes. He started Baekhyun’s day with a lesson in etiquette. Baekhyun had always thought of himself as a decently well-mannered boy, but Mr. Shin seemed to think he was lacking even the most basic of manners. They practiced greeting those who were better than him – which seemed to be everyone. Then they practiced greeting those who were beneath him – which, according to Mr. Shin, would be everyone once he officially took over the Kim legacy. After that they practiced table manners, and there were so many spoons and forks to choose from that Baekhyun was totally lost. In a moment of frustration, he asked Mr. Shin if he could just use a pair of chopsticks. Mr. Shin had gotten quite red in the face and looked for a moment as if he would hit Baekhyun, but in the end he just barked out orders for a five minute break and Baekhyun gratefully went in search of the bathroom.

After lunch had been eaten in the same lounge, Mr. Shin resumed the lessons. He produced an enormous piece of paper – more like old-fashioned parchment, really – and unrolled it on Baekhyun’s desk with a flourish, using textbooks to weigh the curling corners down.

Baekhyun looked down at the paper in confusion, then back up at his tutor. “What’s this?” he demanded.

Mr. Shin’s lips pressed into a thin line. Despite being a tutor, he seemed to despise Baekhyun asking any sort of questions. “This is your family tree,” he finally said, quite stiffly.

Curious, Baekhyun peered down at the parchment. He found his own name after a moment, listed as Kim Baekhyun. He felt a sort of anger pulsate through his body at that.

“They got my name wrong,” he said, a bit loudly. “My surname is Byun, not Kim.”

Mr. Shin just sniffed disdainfully.

Using his finger, Baekhyun followed the family tree up to his parents. Only his mother was listed, Kim Sohee. His father was listed as being unknown. He looked up to tell Mr. Shin that everyone did, in fact, know who his father was, but Mr. Shin wasn’t looking at him, and a part of Baekhyun knew that it would be for no reason anyway. Nobody cared who his father was.

Returning to the paper, he followed the line up past his mother, to her parents. They were listed there quite clearly: Kim Hyojun and Nam Mooyi. So the old woman he’d met the night before, the one who had clearly thought so little of him…that must have been Nam Mooyi. His grandmother. His mother’s mother.

He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about her. He was certain already that he hated her, and it took a lot for Baekhyun to hate someone.

His finger went up again, past his grandparents and up to his great grandparents. Kim Jiho and Ahn Dahae. There were the names as plain as day, but he couldn’t imagine what they had been like. If this palace and his cold reception were anything to go by, they probably hadn’t been very good people. Then he noticed the day of death for his great grandmother. He quickly did the math in his head.

“How did my great grandmother die?” he asked, surprising both himself and Mr. Shin. “It says here that she was only twenty-seven when she died. That seems awfully young.”

Mr. Shin sniffed again as if he thought the question were beneath him, but in the end he answered. “She died giving birth to her youngest daughter, Hyomin, who is, incidentally, your great aunt.”

Baekhyun quickly scanned the family tree again, this time following it down. He found his grandfather, Kim Hyojun, and branched out. His grandfather had had two sisters, Hyojin and Hyomin. There was a date of death listed for Hyojin, who had been the middle child, but the space beside Kim Hyomin’s name was empty.

“Is my great aunt still alive?” he asked. He wondered where that question had come from.

“Yes,” Mr. Shin replied. “She’s with the family doctor right now. She’s got a bad back and often requires treatments.”

Baekhyun didn’t know why this information sent him reeling. Maybe the knowledge that he had a great aunt sort of cemented the fact that he had a whole family that he knew nothing about. Burning with curiosity now, Baekhyun settled down to study the family tree closely, starting with those that were still alive.

His great aunt, Hyomin, was a widow; her husband had died just a few years before. The two had only one son, who would be Baekhyun’s second cousin, Kim Junhyung. Junhyung had married a woman named No Siyoon, and they were both still alive. So were their two sons, Jongdae and Jongin, who were roughly the same age as Baekhyun.

His great aunt Hyojin had died, as had her husband. They’d had two children. The first was a boy named Junho whose wife, Lyulin, had died before she was thirty. They’d had a child, Baekhyun’s third cousin, Minseok. The second child’s name had been scratched off the family tree, making his or her name illegible. Despite the name being scratched off the parchment, there was a child listed under the spot where the name had once been: Kim Junmyeon. Another third cousin, Baekhyun mused to himself.

That seemed to be all that remained alive, he realized. His grandmother; his great aunt Hyomin; his second cousins Junhyung, Siyoon, and Junho; and his third cousins Jongdae, Jongin, Minseok, and Junmyeon. That was all that remained of what had clearly been a well-established family.

Baekhyun continued up the list, past his great grandparents. His great-great grandparents were listed, as were his great-great-great grandparents. In fact, the family tree traced his lineage all the way back to his great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Kim Hoik, who had been born in the early 1800s. It was sort of mind-boggling to look at this parchment unrolled before him and realize that these were his ancestors, his family.

Mr. Shin pointedly checked his watch before snatching the family tree from under Baekhyun’s elbows. “That’s enough for today,” he said shortly, carefully rolling the parchment back up and replacing it in the plastic tube he’d gotten it from.

Baekhyun hardly dared to home; his head was pounding with the amount of knowledge he’d already tried to stuff into it that day. “We’re done with lessons? I can go?”

“We’re done with lessons, yes,” Mr. Shin said nastily. “But you are not free to go. Certainly not. There is much to be done. It’s off to the tailor with you.” He eyed Baekhyun’s ill-fitting clothes with something skin to disgust.

Yixing, the Chinese manservant who had apparently been assigned to attend to Baekhyun, was waiting for him just outside the lounge. “This way, young master,” he said, bowing.

Baekhyun obediently fell in step beside him. “Yixing, what can you tell me about this family?” he asked curiously, wondering about all the young deaths and the name scratched off the parchment. He focused on that, on the person who apparently was no longer considered part of the Kim legacy. “What about the person whose name isn’t on the family tree anymore? The father or mother of Kim Junmyeon?”

Yixing glanced back at him, half amused and half terrified. “It’s really not my place to speak of such matters, sir. And, if you don’t mind my saying so, you’d do well to keep your mouth shut about such matters.”

This was the first time anyone had spoken to Baekhyun like he was a real human being – albeit with the sirs and young masters still thrown around – so Baekhyun was inclined to listen to him. So he nodded and quit asking questions, although his curiosity knew no bounds.

There was a tailor and his assistants waiting in the lounge in Baekhyun’s rooms. He was dressed to the nines, as were his two silent and stony-faced assistants. “Get undressed,” the tailor instructed Baekhyun immediately, gesturing to a little stool in the middle of the room. “And stand here, please.”

Baekhyun hesitated, looking at the two assistants as they bustled about the room. They were both girls, and they didn’t look much older than Baekhyun was. He cleared his throat. “Should we do this privately?” he asked uncertainly.

One of the girls stifled a little titter at his bashfulness, but his question only seemed to annoy the tailor. “They’ve seen a lot more, trust me,” the tailor said, looking Baekhyun up and down a bit condescendingly. “Undress. We’re in a hurry, you know.”

Yixing helped Baekhyun undress – even though he was perfectly capable of doing it himself, thankyouverymuch – and then he stood on the little stool in nothing but his boxer briefs, resisting the desperate urge to cover himself up. Baekhyun was quite modest; no one besides his parents and his grandmother – his real grandmother, that was – had ever seen him this .

Nobody spoke much as the tailor moved this way and that, measuring Baekhyun in places he was sure didn’t really need to be measured. Eventually he finished and he left, snapping his fingers at his assistants. They hurried after him, all without a word, nobody looking back.

“What was that all about?” Baekhyun muttered, stepping down off the stool.

It had been a mostly rhetorical question, so he was a little surprised when Yixing answered him. Mostly people here just told him to keep his mouth shut and do as he was told and not ask questions. “He’s in a hurry,” Yixing explained, helping Baekhyun into his button-up shirt. “Madame wants a new suit made for you to wear tonight.”

“Tonight?” Baekhyun repeated incredulously, doing up the buttons on the shirt. “How on earth can anybody make a suit in a few hours?” Then he stopped. “Wait, what’s tonight?”

“Your first official family dinner,” Yixing said, and the little smile he gave Baekhyun was almost saying good luck, you’re going to need it. “You’ll be officially introduced to the family, and they to you.”

Baekhyun sighed, sitting down on the little sofa to pull his shoes back on. “They’ll all hate me,” he said glumly. “They all already do. I don’t even know why I have to be here. I just want to go home.”

“You’re the heir,” Yixing said simply, reaching up to smooth down Baekhyun’s shirt almost absently.

Baekhyun sighed. “But what about the others? There are other Kim descendants, right? Why can’t one of them do this?”

Yixing sat down beside Baekhyun without being invited; he was clearly more comfortable with his role than the other servants in the Kim palace. “The Kim legacy only goes through the firstborn, you see. That’s just the way it has to be. Your grandfather was the firstborn, and, as he only had one child, she was supposed to be the next heir. But of course she died before that could happen, and her first child, you, has to become the next heir.”

“Well I don’t want it,” Baekhyun said sullenly. “Can’t I just refuse to do it? I’m sure one of the others would love to be the family heir.” He remembered the well-dressed boys who had stared at him derisively the night before; he’d bet anything that those were his cousins.

“They’d love to, but it doesn’t work that way,” Yixing said simply. “And try running away. You wouldn’t get two feet outside that gate. Like it or not, you’re stuck here now.” He clapped Baekhyun on the shoulder in a friendly sort of way. “You’d better get used to it.”

He got to his feet and headed for the door.

Baekhyun was surprised. “Wait, where are you going?” He hated the sound of desperation he heard in his voice.

Yixing smirked. “I have other duties to attend to, you know,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll be able to amuse yourself for a few hours. I’ll be back at six to help you dress for dinner. Just don’t get into any trouble.”

Baekhyun didn’t know quite what to do with himself. Part of him just wanted to curl up in his too-big and too-soft new bed and sleep until Yixing came back for him, but another part of him was infinitely curious about his new home. So he opened the door and tiptoed out into the corridor.

He was terrified that he would run into somebody around every corner, his great aunt with the bad back or Mr. Ji or – worst of all – Madame. But he didn’t run into anyone until he was out in the spacious gardens behind the house, hidden by the tall hedges.

He stumbled into a clearing with a bubbling marble fountain. A thin, pale boy was sitting on the edge of the fountain, looking into the rippling water with an almost melancholy expression. He looked up when Baekhyun entered, startled.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Baekhyun said quickly, heart pounding. “I-I didn’t know anyone was here. I-if I’m not supposed to be here, I’ll g-go and-”

The pale boy shook his head, the ghost of a smile on his face. “No, you don’t have to go. The gardens aren’t off limits to anyone.”

Baekhyun hesitated, some of his initial panic disappearing. He looked closer at the boy. It was one of the ones who had stared at him the night before, but he had been the only one without a sneer on his face. “Y-you’re my cousin, aren’t you?” he stammered out eventually.

The boy’s smile widened a bit and, even though it was a little sad, it was genuine. “Yeah, I suppose we are cousins. Third cousins, though. Our moms were cousins, I think.” He extended his hand. “I’m Kim Junmyeon.”

A burst of recognition shot through Baekhyun’s mind as he shook the boy’s hand. “You’re the one whose mother or father is erased from the family tree!”

At the look of chagrin that passed over Junmyeon’s face, Baekhyun realized that he had been incredibly rude. This boy probably didn’t want to talk about that. “I’m so sorry,” he said quickly, horrified. “I-I didn’t mean to…I wasn’t thinking…”

The boy smiled again, though this one was a little bit forced. “Don’t worry about it. It’s only natural to be curious, I’m sure. And anyway, as the next head of the family, you’ll find out about it soon enough. It was my mother who was removed from the family tree. She got pregnant out of wedlock and, as you can imagine, that is a huge no-no for the family. After she had me, she ran for it. Tried to get as far away as possible.” He shrugged indifferently.

Baekhyun was confused and hesitant. “But you…?”

Junmyeon gave him another smile. “I’ll never be in line for the family heir,” he assured Baekhyun. “I have nothing against you. I promise.”

Baekhyun let out a sigh of relief. “You might be the only person here who would say that.”

Junmyeon gestured for Baekhyun to sit beside him. “You’ll get used to it,” he said. “And once you’re officially head of the family, they won’t bother you at all. They’ll be too scared to.” He flashed a friendly smile.

Baekhyun decided at once that he liked this boy. It was pretty obvious, even though he hadn’t said it out loud, that the family had treated Junmyeon with just as much disdain as they now were treating Baekhyun. He couldn’t imagine growing up in an environment like this, deprived of real friendship and love.

“Let’s be friends,” he said, surprising himself as he held out his hand to shake again.

Junmyeon seemed even more surprised than Baekhyun was, but then his face split into a broad grin – the biggest smile Baekhyun had yet seen him sport – and he shook the hand. “Friends,” he agreed. “I haven’t ever had one of those in the family. It might make a nice change.”

Baekhyun let out his breath explosively, leaning back on his hands, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I don’t know how you did it,” he admitted. “I’ve only been here a day and already I want to run away.”

Junmyeon laughed. “I’ve thought about it, of course, but running away isn’t really an option. The only reason our moms made it was because the family let them. It’s… impossible to get away from this family.”

“What do you mean?”

Junmyeon just smiled. “You’ll see.” Then he got to his feet. “Do you want to see the stables? They’re far out from the main house, so it’s a nice place to get away to.”

Baekhyun readily agreed.

The two chatted comfortably as their traipsed across the grounds. Baekhyun told his new cousin about his life back in Mangyang, about his grandmother and his friends and how surprised he’d been to learn about his family in Seoul, and in turn Junmyeon told him all about life at the Kim house.

“Things are very strict here, but I’m sure you’ve learned that already,” Junmyeon said. They were nearing the stables now; Baekhyun could see them looming closer, could smell them. It reminded him of his village, and a fresh wave of homesickness washed over him. “The number one rule is to not annoy, bother, talk to, or even look at Madame.”

“You mean our grandmother?” Baekhyun clarified. “I thought I was the only one who had to call her Madame.”

Junmyeon scoffed. “You think that woman has ever let anyone call her anything but? Even your mother called her that, from what I hear. She’s not exactly a family woman.” The bitterness in his voice was palpable.

They had reached the stables by then. The horses were out in the paddock beside the building, grazing on grass. There was a boy in muddy clothes feeding a chestnut mare an apple from his gloved hand. He glanced up when the two stopped just on the other side of the fence.

“Hello, Chanyeol,” Junmyeon called familiarly, waving to the boy feeding the horse.

The boy, Chanyeol, turned and a broad, genuine grin split his face. Baekhyun was stunned at the intensity of that smile. “Hey Junmyeon,” the boy called back, patting the horse on the neck and crossing the paddock to where Baekhyun and his cousin were standing. He nodded at Baekhyun, who felt suddenly quite small. “Is this the new master?”

“In the flesh,” Junmyeon laughed. “He’s still in training, though. He hasn’t gotten all mean and crotchety yet.”

Chanyeol laughed; he had a loud, booming laugh. It didn’t startle the horses however; they must have been used to him. “That’s good to know. At least we might get a few months of peace before he turns into one of them.”

“I won’t ever turn into one of them,” Baekhyun said vehemently, not even sure why he was so eager to prove himself. “I’m from the country. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this sort of place.” He gestured vaguely over his shoulder, where the manor stood behind them.

Chanyeol smirked. “Does that mean we’ll be seeing you down here a lot?” he asked. “To see the horses, I mean. Get a taste of home.”

Baekhyun blushed. “Well, yeah, probably…” Why was he blushing? He wasn’t a blushing sort of guy.

“Great,” Chanyeol beamed, hands on his hips. His overalls and gloves were muddy and grass-stained, but this didn’t seem to bother him at all. “It’ll be nice to see something nice around here for once.”

Baekhyun blushed even more at that comment. What was that supposed to mean?

Junmyeon glanced at his watch. “Ah, it’s starting to get late. What time are you supposed to be back?”

“I have to meet Yixing at six,” Baekhyun said.

“We’d better go then,” Junmyeon said, a little glumly. “It’s a bit of a walk back to the house.”

Baekhyun said a shy, bashful goodbye to Chanyeol and the horses and followed Junmyeon back to the manor. His new cousin walked him all the way up to his set of rooms on the second floor.

He paused, flashing an encouraging smile. “Good luck tonight,” he said. “Remember, don’t let them see that you’re scared.”

“A lot easier said than done,” Baekhyun grumbled.

Junmyeon’s smile grew. “Tell me about it. See you at dinner.” And he was off down the corridor.  

I feel like a lot of information was revealed in this chapter OTL

Sorry for the overload! Next chapter should be fun ;)