“Promise me, Yeong,” Gon growls, authority moulting into shimmering desperation.

“I will never,” Yeong says, his voice utterly reedy.  

Lee Lim escapes death with a body nearly mangled and a face missing its left eye. His followers are either trapped, decaying in a rat-infested prison, or buried in unmarked shallow graves.

He assumes the role of a homeless man, another mouth to feed in a dilapidating shelter somewhere in the kingdom’s most rural countryside, with its terrain marked by treacherous cliffs and whipping winds.

There is a boy, dishevelled and bright-eyed, brings Lim the newspaper in exchange of sticky treats and tales from the city. Sometimes a tirade of the monarchy slips in, still the boy eagerly eats up his rants like gospels.

He plots for his return. He plots for the ruin of his nephew. Mostly he dreams of the day he returns Gon’s favour with the same fervour. An eye for an eye kind of justice.

Perhaps one-eyed king suits Gon.

Gon is fifteen. Gangly. His voice box cracking, distorting into a deep, authoritative masculine tone. It’s a study of contrast, when a comparison is evoke; baby fat padded sharp cheek and rose-lined lips at odds with the faint stubbles on his mouth and his eyes are obsidian hard.

Yeong is eleven. Toned in the way no child his age should, unless one slaves away in nights and days perfecting killing . Once there used to be laugh lines on his forehead, his mother thinks. Sparkling things no longer holds his interest.

On the eve of his coronation’s anniversary, Gon slices his palm open and lets the blood drip onto Yeong’s matching bloodied wound. He leans close, places his lips on Yeong’s earlobe and croons, “Promise me you will never question me or my decisions.”

Yeong’s heart almost hammers itself to exhaustion against his ribcage. His eyes are close; he imagines how the colour rose suits Gon’s lips like the golf-leaf halo crowning his king’s head.

“Promise me, Yeong,” Gon growls, regal authority moulting into shimmering desperation.

“I will never,” Yeong says, his voice utterly reedy.  

“Good,” is what Gon says. The corners of his mouth curling into a dazzling smile and bares his teeth that reeks of unspoken claim, My Yeong.

This exchange feels like a connubial union between two smitten youths, connected by the mingling of blood now pooling on the floor and it cannot get any more intimate than that—Yeong will treat it as such.

The sighting of his traitorous uncle sends Lee Gon reeling into a direction dictated by unpredictable bloodlust and restless nightmares. He mobilises a team of rabid hunters to stalk his uncle in the countryside.

Gon himself takes on the reins; the Four Tiger sword sheathed at his waist.

It’s not him who captures Lim first. That is all Yeong. Who would suspect an eleven year old in blue sneakers, chequered shirt and a baseball cap is ferociously ruthless in carrying the orders of his king—none, indeed.

Lee Lim’s sin isn’t to covet a sibling’s rightfully birthright—it is leaving an orphan prince alive. His emperor-brother blood stains his hands red, but it’s the extinguished innocence of his nephew that dooms him.

Lim is taken by the secret police, awaiting further instructions. Gon wishes a private moment for his audience of two.

“What would you like me to do, Your Highness?” Yeong questions, tossing a glance at the prisoner—the last loyal follower Lim has—squirming against his aluminium bonds rubbing his wrists raw.

Sharp edges coats Gon’s smile like honey syrup on crispy hot pancakes.

“Prove to me you deserve to be my Unbreakable Sword.”

Potent bile rising in the pits of his belly. His mouth is insufferably dry. Yeong mutes all ear-piercing, righteous thoughts down, focusing on Gon and his king only.

“As you wish, Your Highness.”

Yeong unfolds his pocket knife—his king’s personal sigil, a roaring tiger, reflected on its sky-metal blade.

Gon shakes his head. “His blood is not worth the trouble, Yeong. Make it clean.”

Yeong wraps an arm over the prisoner’s neck, twisting it with all his might and that isn’t much from a boy, but it is enough from a boy besotted by his boy king.

Gon does not blink.

“My fellow Coreans,” he intones, genteel lips quivering ever so slightly, as he stares down at the spectators from the podium, “it is time for us to heal and to move forward. For the prosperity of Corea.”

His boyish ardent supporter stands dutifully in the shadows, cloaked in soft silhouettes and plumed pride chirrs pleasantly in his chest.

The kingdom cheers at the boy king’s declaration of a traitor’s death, their applauses rumbling through the crowd, as if thunders cracking weary-skied rainstorm.

Official records states a disgraced royal—unnamed, inherited titles stripped and identity purged from the royal archives—is killed during the chase. No mention of pre-existing injuries found in either official documents or reporting outlets. Newspapers cite the probable cause of death is vehicle accident.

Lee Lim’s dream remains unrealised, withering in a padlocked rice box.