Time is generous to a pair of mismatched boys, chiselling them into marvellous sculptures fit for a Parisian museum.

Time is generous to a pair of mismatched boys, chiselling them into marvellous sculptures fit for a Parisian museum.

The boy king blossoms into a man of considerable stature, with adonean features that earns him the kingdom’s adoration. Windswept sable hair shone brilliantly chestnut underneath the sun, with laidback smiles curated precisely for Kodiak moment easily outsold tabloids raising suspicions on a certain royal death.

He is deliciously handsome in a tailored midnight-hued imperial suit. His portrait revenue alone qualifies as an income to the crown, frequently clamoured by the kingdom’s citizens and international royalists.

But it is the military ranks on his pristine, crisp white naval uniform that captures the public’s interest. Romantic chivalry exploits persist in the hearts of the ordinary and imaginative citizens—it is not so hard to craft an image that feeds onto this particular fixation. Chalk-white thoroughbreds, responding to a singular name, lining the royal stables could attest to that.  

His dedicated bodyguard is adept at being unseen but present. Even with his gawkiness transformed into sleek competence, he has his own court of admirers. His sweat-breaking efforts and absolute commitment to the king makes his sharp angles absolutely charismatic.

Admirers fade into white noise when the Captain of the Royal Guards shares a flickering gaze with his king. There is only one carved deep into the chambers of his heart and Lee Gon knows it.

Her first brush with high society is accidental and strictly a business transaction. She neither has the dress nor the heels for it. What she lacks in pedigree and inheritance, she has street-honed intellect steep in abundance.  

Koo Seo-ryeong does not crave gold and iridescent accessories that cost the worth of a five-month rent. That is slander and a misconception.

It’s her looks that he sought after. A pretty lady is the surest way to get the easiest rile from a former lover.

The client promises nothing explicit; she agrees to a peck on his lips.

All it really takes is a pale arm curving around his waist and petal-lipped smearing his cheek. He skitters to an impromptu make-out session. Seo-ryeong is left alone in the sea of archetypical nobles and the ever-conscious noveau riche.

She wanders through the crowd, from room to room, a ballerina faltering in the pitch-black stage and her audience are blindfolded. That is to be expected, Seo-ryeong supposes, for everyone attending this event are playing a part of their own. The air is dizzyingly suffocating; musky scents and floral aromas coalescing into a maelstrom of heady queasiness.

Seo-ryeong slips into one of the many rooms with ornately-craved oak door. The sort of room that hides its treasure in a swathe of scandalous moonlight.  

She recognises him instantly. Hard not to, when there are portraits of him venerated in religiosity fervent.

He cannot be blamed entirely for the mass production of frameable pictures. With looks lifted straight out from harlequin novels and an attire made-to-measure perfectly on his frame, the comparison to marbled Apollo is not unwarranted.

“Is there a certain someone I should be privy to?” she purrs, the corners of sangria-tinted lips quirking into a coquettish smile.

He barks a humourless laugh; clearly the absence of Your Majesty strikes a halting chord. “Why don’t you stick around and find out?” His gaze lingers on the hollows of .

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Behind him, a man cladded in Italian-cut sober navy-blue suit stiffens. Her deliberateness in omitting the requisite title of respect earns her a scathing glare—he’s far too bothered by this little stunt than the king himself. How peculiar.

“So, which paper are you with?” the king muses, a careless nail tapping the stem of his wineglass.

Seo-ryeong has a lifetime schooling her features into a mask of unruffled grins. “What gave it away?”  

“I’m very good with faces,” he admits, taking a tentative sip of vintage rosé champagne. His brow so finely-shaped arches above the wineglass’s reflective mouth. “So are you here to dig up some secrets?”

She mimics his expression, sans the glassware of course. “Do you have any I would find remotely interesting?”

“I can’t be giving you all that.”

“Touché.” She shrugs. “How about this for a change? The death of Imperial Prince Geum. Officially, he died in the vehicular accident.”

He has pretty eyes. Even prettier smile. All politeness and teeth. “And you don’t think it is as the official records said it?”

“I would like to believe it,” she says, pitches her tone to scandalised scepticism. “But there are contradictory claims made by four credible eye witnesses, all agreed that the disgraced prince was still alive, being dragged into a black van.”

“Curious,” he murmurs.

“Curiouser is one witness alleged that two boys were last seen with his follower in a warehouse,” Seo-ryeong trails off, her gaze slides to the sharp-dressed man hovering behind the king and studies him—he is younger, despite the attempt to dress older and emotions shaved off from his expression. “To quote, one looks like he’s ten and the other boy is slightly older, maybe fourteen.”

“Your point is?”

“How old were you in 2001, Your Highness? I’m guessing fifteen, right. That’s awfully close to fourteen.”

The pause is momentary, flickering in the room, shared knowingly between two handsome faces. It is a confirmation that requires no spoken words.

Gon’s smile turns mocking. “But you forget I wasn’t anywhere near the crash site.”

“How can I forget? Goodness,” she agrees, her smirk is jaggedly resplendent. “You were on vacation. Private lodge, with your entourage. You could see why I’m hesitant to believe that alibi.”

His throat bobs with another sip of his overpriced wine.

Seo-ryeong counts this silence as a victory. The king is not all golden and untarnished, she thinks, surprise fissures his calmness into muted fury—that is a bedazzling sight. “Either way, his death reeks of fish.”

Gon laughs. “I sense the crown has offended you.”

She shakes her head, giggling. “Not at all, Your Highness. It’s the institution. We are no longer a nation tied to medieval laws. The future is in a nation ruled by the people.”

He leans closer, aligns his chin—his teeth—above her bare neck. Right at the carotid. “The people don’t even know what they want,” he says, snarling is unbecoming of him and she sees its corners tinting his smile.

His bodyguard flinches. Perhaps at their closeness. Or the king’s offhand comment.

“You say that because the monarchy won’t let them decide.”

His impish smirk widens, grave curiosity seeping into his words. “And if you were queen, what would you do?”

Seo-ryeong can play this game too. She’s proficient in the art of stripping a man’s smugness with her wits and gleam of her perfect teeth. “The queen is relegated to being a decoration. I rather aim for Prime Minister. That is where the power truly lies.”

She twirls on the blood-red stilettos, tosses one unworried, defiant grin at Lee Gon. “Now, would you excuse me, Your Majesty, my carriage is about to turn back into a pumpkin.”

“I want to know everything about her,” Gon hisses, his wrath glints on his bone-white fangs. Spoken by any man but the king, it rings a romantic courtship in the making. Gon demands intimate and nightmarish secrets, the kind that holds power of a judge, jury and executioner.

Rage sharpens Gon’s clean-cut features into blood-flecked magnificence. He’s breath-taking in the play of moonlight and darkness, Yeong decides.

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

Yeong doesn’t disappoint. He never intends to. He never will.

She is Koo Seo-ryeong, aged twenty-four, majored in journalism. She runs bi-weekly podcast on politics and occasionally interviews upcoming political players. Only child, single mother and a deadbeat father. She has quite the following on her blog.

Information arrives easily to his fingertips. Why not when Gon is the king and the only currency ever matters is information. It takes him four hours, gathering her ancestry, financial records, even downright to the grainy pictures of her elementary school yearbook.

Gon lays asleep. The Four Tiger is better hidden now. Underneath the cool satin sheets, his long-nailed fingers coil tightly around its bamboo-made handle. Someday, Yeong dreams of replacing the Four Tiger with his own flesh. He wishes it so hard, it has become a prayer.

For now, he is content to be on Gon’s floor, leaning against the bed frame with the blue-light glare staring back at his face.

Hours later, when the evidence of slumber exists only on his bed-rumpled hair, Yeong stares at his king and asks, “Shall I release the dirt?”

“This is not the right time.”

Yeong doesn’t question his king.