King Minjung loses interest in Kyungsoo quickly. He was a man easily bored and not at all easily satisfied. The ‘trinkets’ he had spoken of that first night in the hall did indeed refer to people, but they were not limited to Magic users. 

King Kim Minjung had many concubines. And, by nature of his prodigious habits, he had many children. 

Kyungsoo saw them often around the palace grounds, dressed in beautiful clothes and clinging to the skirts of their equally extravagantly dressed mothers. Kyungsoo himself was given beautiful clothes to wear, silk so soft that he was afraid a strong wind would tear it. Despite the frailty of the fabric, though, the multiple layers weighed heavily on his small frame and he felt that every day his shoulders slumped a bit further to the ground. His hair was washed, combed, and perfumed every day until it was long enough to braid away from his face. He began avoiding looking at himself in mirrors, his eyes longing to see a farm boy clad in humble garb rather than the elegant but miserable figure he didn’t recognize. 

King Minjung had commanded that Kyungsoo’s mouth be permanently covered and had been personally present when the palace tailor had given Kyungsoo an assortment of specially made silk masks to cover the lower half of his face. 

“Should they be tighter, My Lord, to prevent the danger of his ability?” The tailor had asked when the King had first commissioned it. Minjung had snorted at the man disparagingly. 

“Danger? From a child that grows plants? No, that is not my concern.”

He’d turned his lazy gaze on Kyungsoo, then, in a way that made the hairs rise along the back of the boy’s neck in a most unpleasant way, and he’d lifted his large hand to cover Kyungsoo’s mouth. The feeling of a rough palm against soft lips had made Kyungsoo feel sick. 

“He looks lovelier like this, doesn’t he? His eyes are like a woman’s. Besides,” the King tapped Kyungsoo’s mouth harshly, causing the once-farmer to stagger back, “I don’t need more than a command to keep you silent, do I, Kyungsoo? Your voice belongs to the royal family now, don’t make the mistake of forgetting that.” 

Baekhyun had returned to being the nervous, silent boy he was before, but Kyungsoo no longer tried to draw him into any kind of interaction. The older boy was assigned as Kyungsoo’s attendant and was ironically one of the few the King had allowed the singer to speak with. Despite Baekhyun’s obvious efforts to please Kyungsoo however he could, the younger could not bring himself to forgive the other just yet and so the two drifted around the palace in uncomfortable silence for the first two weeks. 

It is on the third week that there seems to be a break in the usual rhythm of the palace. The royal children that usually occupy every corner of the palace grounds, playing or training in some regal sport or other, are nowhere to be found. The air is quiet without the high pitched coos and whines of the concubines that seldom leave the palace servants alone, and the guards are at full attention, almost seeming to be anticipating something. Kyungsoo is surprised to be called into the main room where he had first met the King, a place he’d not been back to. 

King Minjung sits broodingly on his raised dais surrounded by his usual attendants when Kyungsoo enters. The man’s sloping eyes, yellowed and waterier than the singer remembered, immediately settle on Kyungsoo with an intensity the boy is not used to. He unconsciously moves to step back and bumps into Baekhyun who was just behind him. For the first time in two weeks, Kyungsoo finds comfort in the other boy’s presence and steels himself to walk further into the room and kneel before the dais. 

“How are you liking your new home, little Song Bird?”

It takes the singer a moment to realize the king is speaking to him. Since he’d arrived at the castle, Kyungsoo had been confronted with an unfamiliar sensation in the pit of his stomach every time he was faced with the King. It’s in this moment that he realizes that feeling must be hate. 

“Well?”

“… I am grateful.” It is not a lie. He is grateful not to be dead. 

The King’s expression is devoid of its usual amusement as he regards the two boys before him. 

“My son and his wife will be returning from visiting her family today. You’ll surprise them with a song at dinner.” Kyungsoo can’t help the bewildered raise of his eyebrows as the King gestures to someone who’s been loitering by the wall.

“Listen to Hyori, she is a Magical musician. I’m sure you’ll have much in common.”

The woman is tall and beautiful, her hands soft when they land on Kyungsoo’s shoulders to coax him out of the room. Once he’s sure they’re out of ear shot he turns to Baekhyun and whispers confusedly.

“His son? He has many, doesn’t he?”

The other boy is obviously shocked at being addressed but immediately opens his mouth to answer, not wanting to miss any chance to reconcile with Kyungsoo. 

“The King has only one son.” Hyori’s voice is stern, leaving no room for argument. “The child born of his wife, and the crown prince of our country.”

The audience is sparse the first time that Kyungsoo sings, truly sings for the sake of performance, in the royal palace. King Minjung sits on the dais, face impassive. His usual entourage of advisors is drastically diminished, only four men sitting at a round table below the raised platform. To the King’s right are a young man and woman, probably not five years older than Kyungsoo himself. 

The young man, Crown Prince Minseok, Kyungsoo assumes, does not raise his head when the singer enters the room unlike the lady beside him that smiles prettily at everyone. The singer thinks there’s something attractively feline about her face, in the slant of her eyes and the lilt at the corners of . 

Hyori’s magic was peculiar and, in Kyungsoo’s opinion, fascinating. She could imitate almost any sound to perfection, even that of other human or animal voices. Her specialty seemed to be instruments. As she settled on a  stool next to where Kyungsoo stood before the people gathered in the room, she puckered her lips as if to begin whistling, but the sound that came out of was that of a masterfully played flute. For a moment, a brief second, Kyungsoo considered refusing to sing. He thought of purposely missing the cue in Hyori’s introduction and letting her continue alone, unaccompanied. 

But just then, Prince Minseok glanced up at him, curiosity and something like anticipation in his soft, round eyes, and Kyungsoo’s mouth opened of its own accord. 

By the end of his song, the Crown Prince was sitting up straight, eyes fixed on the smaller singer unwaveringly, irises glittering with fascination. 

“Thank you for singing tonight. Your voice is very beautiful.”

Kyungsoo is caught off guard to the point of startling in the dark hallway. He’s heading back to his room after a bath, Baekhyun having retired before him knowing that Kyungsoo prefers to bathe alone when he can. 

“It wasn’t a favor, I had to do it,” says Kyungsoo, surprise at being thanked causing him to answer without thinking. He immediately tenses apprehensively, expecting to be punished for such insolence. The prince only smiles sadly. His face is childishly round, with plump cheeks and a natural pout to his soft, pink lips. 

“But it was beautiful, nonetheless, and I enjoyed it very much. So, thank you.”

He leaves a shocked Kyungsoo in the hallway. 

Kim Minseok is a quiet young man. He drifts around the palace grounds like he’s scared of being noticed, and yet manages to attract attention everywhere he goes. The soldiers and guards seem to admire him, begging for a practice duel or advice on their form, and the servants fawn over him with treats and favors. Minseok seems uncomfortable under the attention, but his boisterous wife is never far from his side and easily deflects it from him when it starts to become too much. Kyungsoo notices a firm camaraderie rather than romance in the way the young couple interacts with each other, communicating in the form of muted words and gestures rather than soft touches. 

The king’s other children and concubines avoid Minseok like the plague, and the crown prince in turn does not seek out their company. Or, at least, he seems not to at first glance. But Kyungsoo begins to notice how he watches from afar when the other children play or gather together. 

There is one morning, a beautiful and sunny day in early summer, when the five eldest children, the youngest a girl of thirteen and the eldest a boy probably two years older than the prince himself, are gathered playing with a ball. One of the boys kicks the ball with too much strength and it lands right by the feet of a chagrined Minseok who’d been pretending to read under the shade of a willow. The prince flounders, having been caught with his eyes on the other children rather than on his book, and seems to pick the ball up and toss it back on an embarrassed impulse. His half siblings do not hesitate, turning away from the ball and beginning to walk off even as it rolls after them. Kyungsoo does not miss the disdain on their faces nor the Prince’s crestfallen expression. 

Neither does Baekhyun. 

The action seems to strike a chord with the young attendant and he runs forward from Kyungsoo’s side, kicking the ball forcefully so that it strikes the eldest boy in the back of the head. He whirls around, expression furious, but Baekhyun only smiles disarmingly. 

“My Lord was forgetting his ball,” is all he says. 

Kyungsoo starts speaking to Baekhyun again after that. 

Prince Minseok begins to seek out the younger boys’ company, and Kyungsoo is often called to sing for the prince and his wife during their evening meals. Lady Chen is kind to him, warm and sisterly in her mannerisms. She’s easily amused and Baekhyun seems to flourish under her attention, his hidden humor encouraged by her easy laugh. Kyungsoo feels that he is finding a true friend in Prince Minseok and even begins to see him as a brotherly figure. The elder obviously favors Kyungsoo’s company, inviting him for early morning walks around the gardens while his wife sleeps in late. The King was already a rare presence on the palace grounds, but the sight of him had become even more infrequent since Minseok’s return, much to Kyungsoo’s relief. 

The palace is not his home, and he still misses his family desperately, but almost a month after arriving in the palace Kyungsoo begins to think that he can at least find some happiness here. 

Despite all the difficulties he had gone through, he was still young and naive. 

It’s a hot morning in late May and Kyungsoo’s mind feels particularly sluggish after a restless night, not able to sleep well from the heat. He and the Crown prince are out earlier than usual, clouds painted a deep pink as they waited fro the sun to rise above the horizon, when Kyungsoo feels a soft touch on his hand and turns to find Minseok closer than he’d expected. The prince’s gaze takes on a particular intensity when trained on Kyungsoo and the singer freezes, caught in it. Minseok’s hand, the one not holding Kyungsoo’s, raises around the back of the boy’s head and slowly unties the silk scarf. The singer notices how strange the air feels on his bare lips.

“You don’t have to hide when you’re with me, Kyungsoo. Me too, I don’t feel like I need to hide when i’m with you. I want you to call me by my name when it’s the two of us.”

They’re so close that the prince’s breath tickles Kyungsoo’s chin. He wants to step back, create more distance between them, but feels that the action might hurt Minseok somehow. So he only nods silently. 

Minseok becomes touchier with him after that. He’ll touch Kyungsoo’s back during their morning walks, hold his wrist while they talk. When in the presence of Baekhyun or Lady Chen, the prince will lay a heavy hand on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. Lady Chen watches these interactions with quiet eyes and a thoughtful expression. The singer isn’t sure what to make of the prince’s newfound attention, and feels too guilty to admit that it makes him more than a little uncomfortable. As the intimacy of his friendship with Baekhyun grew, the other boy never tried to pursue the same kind of physical closeness that Minseok has been pushing on him. Even when Baekhyun did casually touch or hold the smaller boy, it was the kind of fraternal warmth Kyunsgoo was used to exchanging with the boys from his village. Somehow, he got the sensation that that wasn’t what Misneok wanted from him. In an effort to create distance while he sorts his feelings, Kyungsoo starts sleeping in on the pretense that the summer heat has been affecting his sleep. After the fourth such morning, Minseok seems to notice he’s being avoided and stops requesting Kyungsoo’s presence as often. The older boy has also grown busier, leaving the palace for diplomatic missions and disappearing into his father’s room almost every night. 

A week goes by like this and Kyungsoo begins to relax to the point that he feels embarrassed for his actions. He knows that Minseok is a sensitive young man, more bothered by the exclusion from his half-siblings than he’d ever let on. He was probably looking for that closeness in Kyungsoo, nothing more than that. With this in mind, the singer sets out to find the prince one early evening. The heavy sun has only just begun its descent and Baekhyun is in the kitchen, training with the chefs there in order to learn how to prepare meals for the singer. Kyungsoo rounds a corner quickly and almost walks headfirst into opulent red robes. 

Even through his mask, the small singer is overpowered by the smell of incense, perfume and a hint of something acrid. He staggers back and looks up into the watery yellow eyes of King Minjung. Faced with him now, Kyungsoo realizes it’s been weeks since he last laid eyes on the King. The man looks smaller than Kyungsoo remembered, with stooped shoulders and an emptiness in his gaze. 

“Little Song Bird,” He croaks as his vacant gaze settles on Kyungsoo. The singer feels the loathing writhe in his stomach and is glad for the mask that conceals his expression. He tilts his head to the king and the man chuckles. It is a painful and rasping sound. 

“Hate me, don’t you? You and many others… Strange. It never bothered me before.”

The king is quiet for a moment and the sour odor grows stronger with the passing moments,  hot air and evening breeze making it impossible for the perfume to completely hide the stench. 

“Does my son… does Minseok speak of me?”

Kyungsoo looks up in surprise at the indecipherable tone and is met with a piercing gaze. It reminds Kyungsoo of the way Minseok looks at him and he looks away again. The king snorts at this, the action setting him off into an attack of coughs. Kyungsoo is feeling anxious and nauseous from the smell, and the sudden coughing makes him panic. Where are the king’s attendants? Should he call someone? He moves to go around the king, call for someone, anyone else to deal with this, but an iron grip closes around his arm and he’s unable to move. Suddenly, before him stands the Kim Minjung that sat above him on the first day he arrived to the palace more than a month ago: cold, inscrutable, and proud.

“This Kingdom is mine,” he hisses, “And even when I am gone, that ill-hearted child cannot do as he pleases. No man is free, Little Song Bird, you and your people should know that better than most.”

Kyungsoo tries to pull away but the man, despite his seeming frailty, does not relinquish his iron hold. 

“Your majesty,” says a firm voice from behind him at the same time that soft hands settle over where the king is clasping Kyungsoo’s arm, “the doctor has been looking for you. You’re not well enough to be out, please return to your room. Junhee will accompany you.”

Lady Chen untangles the King’s claw-like hand out of Kyunsgoo’s sleeve and signals to a nervous looking boy to lead the King away. The man’s outburst seemed to have taken all the energy out of him and he deflates, eyes vacant again, as the boy leads him away. Lady Chen turns immediately to Kyunsgoo once the two are around the corner and out of sight. 

“Kyungsoo, are you alright?”

The mask around Kyungsoo’s nose feels damp and he realizes that he’s crying.

“I- yes. Sorry. I don’t know why…”

Lady Chen pulls him into a hug and doesn’t say anything else. 

They walk back to Kyungsoo’s room slowly once he’s calmed down, taking their time and enjoying the evening breeze and the shadows that grow longer across the lawn as the sun sinks lower in the sky. Lady Chen has her arm threaded through Kyunsgoo’s and brings them both to a halt under a tall oak tree, hidden from the main building of the palace by large hydrangea bushes. She looks up into the branches and starts talking almost as if to herself. 

“You’ve been avoiding Minseok.” It’s not a question so Kyungsoo stays silent, feeling she’s not expecting an answer. “He’s noticed. He knows the reason why, too. You don’t return his affection, do you?”

She turns to look at the singer who searches her expression, still silent. She takes him off guard by smiling. 

“You’re about fourteen now, aren’t you Kyungsoo? Have you ever been in love?”

She must find the answer in the younger’s perplexed wide-eyed expression and she laughs. 

“I have,” she sighs. Kyungsoo isn’t used to the heavy look on the princess’s face. In that moment she looks like a woman to him, not an easy spirited girl without a worry in her life. 

“I’m probably still in love, I might always be.”

“With… Prince Minseok?” Kyunsgoo isn’t sure why he asks when he knows the answer. Lady Chen doesn’t look at him. A breeze blows then and several leaves fall from the branches above them, one tapping the princess lightly on her cheek before falling to the ground. 

“His name is Suho. He was a gardener back in my homeland. He’s older than me, known me since I was a child. But he never wrote me off like others did. He’d listen so seriously to me, no matter what I had to say. It was probably his smile that made me love him, at least at first. Quiet and shy, and so personal. I believed that smile would be mine forever.” 

Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to think, what to feel, as he listens to Lady Chen. Guilt, pity, and an awful realization swirl in his gut and surge up his throat, making it impossible for him to speak.

“Minseok will never love me, or any other woman, the way that I loved Suho. He is a good man, Kyungsoo, but he is still only a man. Do not let him believe that he can ever have from you something you’ll never give him.”

King Kim Minjung dies the next morning and Minseok is crowned before the sun even sets. 

His first action as king is to banish the late king’s illegitimate children and concubines from the palace. His next is to un-employ all of the Magic people kept by Minjung. 

Kyungsoo watches with a strangled feeling as they leave, some forcefully dragged out by guards as they scream and curse an impassive Minseok who only watches it all from the stairs of the palace like he has nothing to do with the suffering unfolding beneath him. 

Four days after Minjung’s death, the palace is devoid of all his ‘trinkets’. All, save Kyungsoo. 

Minseok does not tell Kyungsoo to leave, but he does not seek out his company anymore either. A week after being crowned, he leaves the imperial palace to travel around Korea and greet his subjects as their new King. The morning of his departure, there is a soft tap on Kyungsoo’s door. The singer is not surprised to find Minseok standing there when he slides the door open. 

Without a word, he takes the hand offered to him and the two begin on the path that was once familiar to them, so many weeks ago. It had not been a year yet since Kyungsoo left his village, yet he felt so much older than when he’d last woken up as a farmer’s son. 

“You’ve not left the palace grounds yet, have you?” Asks Minseok quietly as they stand beneath the large oak where he’d stood with Lady Chen not long ago. 

They’re the first words exchanged between them. 

“Not yet… Your Majesty.”

Minseok laughs humorlessly and lets go of Kyungsoo’s hand, fingers cold despite the summer heat. 

“I will assign a guard to stay with you while Chen and I are away. There is a market every weekend in the village outside of the walls. Go with Baekhyun, you’ll like it. But Kyungsoo,” the singer shudders as the impassive gaze of Kim Minjung settles on him from Minseok’s round face, “do not take your mask off for others.”

It’s Baekhyun that pushes the little singer to leave the palace walls. Kyungsoo feels empty and sad, even more-so than when he was taken away from his family, even more than when he realized Baekhyun had betrayed him, even more than when a silk cloth was tied over his mouth and he was told he could not speak as he wanted. He feels no desire to leave the confines of his room, much less the palace walls, but Baekhyun prods and begs and insists until one sunny Saturday, the singer finally rises from his ondol and puts on a set of fresh clothes. 

The market is full of people, simple people in brown and dirty hanboks, and grand people, merchants and lords from lands far away. Yet they all gawk and murmur with similar expressions as Kyungsoo passes them. He hears the words ‘Song Bird’ from more than one mouth and with every step he only wants to return to his room more. 

Baekhyun is nervous too, despite his insistence at this trip in the first place, and Kyungsoo feels increasingly annoyed with his attendant as he hears and feels the elder blundering behind him. The boy stumbles on his long robes and Kyungsoo is just about to snap and demand to the guards that they leave when a sudden cry rings out from over his shoulder

“Hello, my little Lord!” It was young man, a merchant, sitting under a tarp with a blanket covered in wooden wears spread before him. His smile occupies the majority of his face, chasing his eyes away until they’re nothing but slits below a disheveled fringe of dark hair.  “A beautiful day to visit the market, but it seems nothing yet has caught your eye. Would you honor our stall with a visit? Perhaps you will find something calling to you.”

Kyungsoo side eyes the man suspiciously and Baekhyun looks back and forth between them nervously. 

“Kyungsoo,” he whispers, “we can leave whenever you want to.” He hates how delicately the older boy is speaking to him so he raises his head and struts defiantly towards the merchant.

As Kyungsoo approached the stall, a pair of older women who’d been gawking at him suddenly began to make a raucous, fawning over a stool they’d been appraising. Kyungsoo wanted to snort, wondering if all the merchants employed such cheap tricks to garner interest in their goods. He roved sightless eyes over the assortment of wooden toys and household items, not really taking anything in.

“That’s quite pretty, Master Do,” said Bakehyun, making Kyungsoo blanch beneath his mask at the formality. He was pointing at a handheld mirror, handle engraved with flowers and one large and splendid beetle, its wings just beginning to unfurl. The singer had to agree that it was quite pretty, so he shrugged indifferently and gestured at the closest guard to hand the coin purse Lady Chen had given them to Baekhyun. Once they payed for the mirror, he’d have them return to the palace and be done with being the village’s spectacle. 

“An excellent choice, my little lords,” said the handsome young merchant with a wink as he wrapped the mirror in a glossed piece of parchment. “It was my wife’s skillful hands that finished this mirror so beautifully. These callous fingers are only good for carving wood; fitting glass takes a more gentle touch.”

Kyungsoo does not wait to watch as Baekhyun accepts the parcel and he turns back down the road, ready to leave and be done with this day. The guards follow after him and he expects Bakehyun’s light steps to catch up quickly, but instead pauses at a sudden commotion from behind him. A boy he had not noticed before was reaching out to grab his blue hanbok as a guard held his wrist firmly. The boy was bigger than Kyungsoo, with dark skin and the sturdy hands of a laborer. He must be the merchant's son, Kyungsoo realizes, and for a painful moment the once- farmer was reminded of his previous life as he regarded the boy questioningly. The boy's eyes were soft brown and deep like a mountain forest as they appraised Kyunsgoo unwaveringly. The Singer gestured for the guard to let the boy go, but the man did not move completely from between them.  

“You-“ The boy’s voice was rough and warm. Kyungsoo found he liked the sound of it.

“You didn’t pick anything for yourself.”

Kyungsoo almost wants to laugh at that, glad for the silk scarf that hid half of his face. What could he possibly take for himself when he didn’t even have his own life, his own money, his own voice to use as he wanted? The boy in front of him didn’t seem to notice the singer’s inner turmoil and only reached into the pocket of his scuffed brown hanbok, so much like the one Kyungsoo had worn for most of his life. 

As he stretched out his hand to Kyungsoo, a small wooden rabbit lay on his proffered hand. For a single moment, the anger, the resentment, the cynicism that had been growing in Kyunsgoo like a sickness since his last encounter with King Minjung silenced at the sight of the tiny wooden creature, prefect in detail down to the silvery whiskers and seemingly moist little nose. The stiff fur looked like it would be soft to the touch if Kyungsoo only reached out to it. 

“It’s a gift. To remember your first time at the market.”

The guard that had caught the boy’s wrist coughed to stifle a laugh, shocking Kyungsoo back into relaity as he looked up into the other boy's blushing face. There was something so like and yet totally unlike Minseok’s expression when he looked at Kyunsgoo in the young carpenter’s face and Kyunsgoo felt his stomach sink. 

He was till young, but he was no longer naive. And he understood what those deep brown eyes were looking for. 

And yet… 

The young carpenter moved as if to pull his hand with the rabbit back and Kyunsgoo watched his own palm reach out to stop him. The singer noted how pale and soft his hands had become when compared to that of a laborer and it made a pang of loss shoot through his heart. 

He took the rabbit and inspected it, its small head and looked into its wooden eyes, before bowing lightly at the young carpenter and turning to walk away. 

Every night before Minseok returned, Kyungsoo would admire the rabbit, its small head and look deeply into its still wooden eyes, imaging that he was looking into a different pair of almond eyes that had gazed at him so imploringly. If Baekhyun noticed his behavior, he didn’t say anything about it. But the next weekend, when Kyungsoo had asked if Baekhyun would like to return to the market, the attendant had only given a knowing smile and said, “Yes, I think we should.”

********

Guys, it took me forever to update and honestly i am just not happy with this chapter. Like i had a vision, and i re wrote some parts several times and it is just not what i wanted to convey. SOrry if it feels weird, or not smooth, or not good T.T