Once upon a time, Gon only plays with white chess pieces.

The bartender is a peculiarity in a crowd composed entirely of smashed men, miserable women and easy pickings. He is almost nondescript. Merely wallpaper to her potential targets under the grimy fluorescent lights.

His appearance seems consistent on weekends, sporadic over the weekdays. There is a preference for  the five o’clock shift, over the morning ones. He wears exclusively black and whites, with no colour in between—and she believes he looks finely attractive in it.

He is unnaturally polite to the lowly lifers inhabiting the bar—his rage shimmers, masked by his inclination to say nothing. She spends most nights, observing him from her little nook. He turns away, cheeks flushed at her wink.

They’re together, she thinks. She kisses him under the moonlight, he utters Luna by mistake, like a precious gemstone. All glittering and none of the uncut roughness.

She rolls the name carefully around her tongue, cherishing the way it sounds on his lips. “I like it,” she tells him. Introduction now feels like a rebirth, a second chance she thought she’s unworthy of.

She buys him a meal courtesy of a handsy patron, he lets her pick her favourite alcohol—the most expensive—to drink with him.  

He is a quiet man, but conversations are not rare. Alcohol loosens his tongue a little, jumbled up words almost incomprehensible. It tickles her still, nonetheless.

He has secrets she would not pry, until he wishes for it to be known. Hyeon-min is careless, for a man who spent years adhering to military orders. She trails after him one night into an empty warehouse.

He’s hunched over a partially opened bag. Wires, metal pipe, duct tapes and black powder. Ingredients of a bomb. His eyes bulged, broad shoulders rigid—her gaze pins him to his spot.

“Let me help you,” is what she says, taking his coarse hands in her own brazen ones.

“Leave me,” he softly says, without expectation and so much faith blindly poured into her.

“No.”

“Before things go from bad to worse,” he tries, beams a sincere smile, and resignation slinking in his eyes, “I will only drag you into a mess where you would be looking through a prison window.”

“Only if we’re caught,” she retorts, grinning. “I’m very good at evading prison.”

She stays.

Jo Yeong knows each Royal Guard like the blue-emerald veins on his hands. Their strengths, their faults and their shifts catalogued based on their skills.

“At ease,” he orders. The acceptable bests, Yeong could still effortlessly turn their flesh blue-black, are the ones permanently tasked to guard the king. One is there as he assigned. The other is not.

The sub-captain isn’t far apart from his own age, yet he is too stilted with the other guards, even stiffer than a tree stump with Yeong. “Yes, sir.”

Yeong does not admonish his subordinates without reason. “Where’s In-young?”

“His Majesty sent her on a weeding errand, Captain,” Seok Ho-pil replies, his spine rod-like.

“Is that so, then carry on,” he says, stepping into the king’s study. Ho-pil shuts the door without another word, his shoulders straight as always.

“Ah, Yeong,” Gon chirps, straightening in his upholstered armchair. “Come, a game before I have to face other obstacles of the day.”

Once upon a time, Gon only plays with white chess pieces. Babyish fingers shuffled the statuette in hesitating moves. Now, he favours ebony pieces and resolute movements. Arranging chess pieces on chequered board in silence is a ritual from their youths. To go back to it now, nostalgia lingering in the periphery of their actions.

“You’ve dismissed In-young for your personal errand, Your Majesty,” Yeong remarks, a statement with its question mark spoken in the hitch of his voice. He pushes his ivory pawn forward.

“Ho-pil told you, didn’t he?” Gon mutters, the corners of rosewood lips twitching behind his curled fist pressed against his mouth. He mirrors the move with his own coal pawn. “I swear they are more afraid of you than they are of me.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. You may be the bank, but I’m the manager deciding if they’ll be employed for the foreseeable future,” Yeong retorts wryly, directing another pawn across the board.

Gon snickers. “I hope my bank won’t run out of guards because management is harsh. Or else, the manager would be looking at a possible demotion.” Fangs glinting as he captures the alabaster pawn. “Good guards are hard to come by these days. They all aren’t you.”

“The lure of prestige and a handsome king is worth dying for, Your Majesty. People have died for less.” Yeong supresses a smirk forming, disposing another black piece from the board. “Who is it this time? Minister Min Eung-sik? Minister Kang Moon-kyung?”

Gon shakes his head, his grin widens into mischievous gleam. “They’re safe for now. I’m in the mood for someone different.” He captures Yeong’s obsidian bishop easily, returning it to its velvet box.

“So, the situation demands the Rose’s service.” Rarely do non-ministers beget such interest or reaction from Gon. Saved for one. Disrespect she wields effectively as a charm—each repartee thrown is absurdly double-edged. “What makes this unique? Other ministers have done that before. We dispatched other means to finish them off.” Yeong blocks Gon’s move, moving his bishop forward.

Gon leans back into the armchair, tilting his head sideways. “We don’t fabricate lies, Yeong. Or the evidence to support a narrative. The truth is there, so let truth do it for us. After all, why lie when the truth is even more devastating?” His middle finger pushes another chess statuette, closer to Yeong’s white king. “He has a deep fake video,” he says, as if it’s a reasonable explanation.

“I supposed pretending to have something untrue that could ruin a woman just sits wrongly with you.” Yeong sacrifices the queen, distracting the king’s rook from its control of a white tile. “Grainy tapes often have that effect.”

“Yes, well, how can I destroy her when she hasn’t reach the top yet?” Gon chuckles, hollow shirting malice in a heartbeat. Their chess game lays unfinished and abandoned. “It is sweeter to pull the rug when she is standing on it, feeling the velvet underneath her feet,” he says, steepling his hands together.

Should there ever be such thing as heaven on earth, it’s a bloom of vibrant flowers stretching as are the eyes could ever hope to see and the smell of moist dew on its lip-shaped petals. He visits heaven, a slice of it in a brick mortar shop, like well-oiled clockwork.

Lost in a world of prettiness and peace, Jang Mi-reuk tends to the flowers with caressing hands and sunshine hymns.

Every scent is distinct. Should they be humans, each sunflower has a name, each rose has a personality and  the world would decay less easily. He knows all, saved one. Citrus-lime, so muted, spiked with gunpowder and crisp charcoal suit.

“Welcome, how may I help you today?” Mi-reuk greets. “We offer a variety of services, including table, opening and even funeral.”

She is not uncommon to his shop. Not her per say, but the flowerpot she comes from. Laced azure dress and kohl-lined eyes are poor disguises for black ties and Kevlar vests. Dark sunglasses, issued only to enforcement, shields her eyes—identity—from anyone else.

“Funeral arrangement. Cash only and no receipt,” she says, placing a slab of new bills on the glass countertop.

He flips through the bills swiftly, satisfied with its amount. “What kind of flowers you’d like to have for the wreath?”

“Not wreath. Bouquet.” She slides an plain cream card across the counter. “Roses.”

The card is sweetly ornate in its aroma. Dreamy black rose, almond, white musk and sandalwood with a hint of lavender. Regal in every element. This is the closest he will ever be to royalty, to the king, Mi-reuk supposes.

Mi-reuk flips the card over, a name and ‘accident’ printed in council font. That is a name belonged to no ministers he’s aware of, current or retired. Only a politician running against another female senator. Far from dubious-intentioned ministers.

“This is new. Are you sure the name here is correct?” he hedges. “Doesn’t seem like one of the usual.”

But his customer vanishes into the busy street without a word.

“Alright, then.”

The whims of those bearing golden garland are never meant to be understood by the common folk like himself.

And so, he sets the card aflame, and gets to work.

The line separating the parliament from acronym-government agencies is flimsy, rests squarely in their attire of choice. Civil men insisted on individualised, tailor-made and impeccably crisp suits. Battle-hardened men clamoured for decorated, official uniforms bearing shiny insignias.

They are wholly united in their patronisation against him. The once-boy king. His medals, his valour and his scholastic certificates would not erase the years they have over him. Regardless, Lee Gon cares only men with use and competence.

He allows them to present their keynote summaries. Each department swift to highlight their phenomenal successes; a collage of remarkable policing stitched together by bombastic visual PowerPoint presentation.

“Thank you for that riveting presentation, Commissioner Kim,” Gon murmurs, drumming wearied fingers against his chin. “It’s almost like watching a movie, very entertaining. Required so much suspension of belief. How about you, Yeong? What do you think?”

“I wouldn’t watch the movie twice in theatre, Your Majesty. Once is enough,” Yeong says, his highborn face retains neutral, unreadable expression.

“Your Majesty, this is not a movie,” Commissioner Kim Ki-moo and Minister Kwon Yul protest, slamming their hands against the mahogany desk, tossing a questioning glance at each other like caricatures of satirical comic strip. “We’ve worked very hard to keep the—”

“It has come to my attention that there is an alarming trend of various crown-owned properties are suffering from arson-related damages,” Gon interrupts, chiselling his grin into a frosted line. “That information wasn’t found anywhere in the PowerPoint at all. Not even from the Fire Brigade.”

“Your Majesty, are you suggesting we omitted our—"

Gon holds his hand up, cutting off excuses in its tracks. “Yeong, can you summarise what was written in that report,” he says, tossing a cursory glance at the abysmally thin report.

Yeong cracks the file open, the Royal Public Affairs Office’s seal stamped on its cover. “The suspected arson cases are now confirmed bombings. Estimation of total damages incurred is reportedly over 17 billion won.” Yeong places the file back on the table, in front of Gon.

Not one man meets his gaze. The lively protests so often out to rebut Gon’s comments are uncharacteristically missing. Choked coughs rumbling across the meeting room.

“I do not see a list of suspects or even a suspect,” Gon utters, spreading the papers apart with his middle finger.  

Fire Chief Lee Hae-young clears his throat, raising his eyes from his pen for the first time. “We are still working on it, Your Majesty.”

“You must have something. It’s been almost eight months since the first bombing,” he replies, stacking the papers neatly into the file holder and rises to his feet. Gon circles the meeting room, slowed-pace and interlocking his hands behind his back.

“We have a preliminary profile of the suspect,” Hae-young supplies, confidence wavering underneath Gon’s wintery stare. “We believe that the suspect is a male, young, has either military background or law enforcement.”

“However, we have to revise it because the recent cases seemed to hint the work of a group. Ex-military at least. Each device was constructed radically different than the first few,” Deputy Fire Chief Seo Dong-gab interjects, his voice a murmur in an already starkly quiet room.

Grown men tremble so easily under watchful eyes, like little schoolboys awaiting headmaster’s stern words, when man of higher authority encircling seated men.

“What is the motive?” Gon asks.

“Judging by the patterns we’ve established, we believe the suspect has a vendetta against the Crown, Your Majesty.”

Gon halts, looming behind Yul, sets his hands over the minister’s scrawny shoulders, kneading the tensed muscles. “So, what should we do, Minister Kwon, to rectify this grave problem we have?”

“Form a taskforce,” Yul stammers, his starched collar damp from pooling sweat at the base of his neck.

“Good answer. I was about to suggest the same thing. I will participate in the taskforce’s briefings from time to time, but reports go directly to me on a weekly basis,” Gon says, patting the minister’s shoulder with firm slap of his palm. “Yeong, which man would be the right man to lead the taskforce? Hae-young? Ki-moo? Hong-suk?”

“Commissioner Kim Ki-moo, Your Majesty. His department has better resources and experience,” Yeong replies, hawk eyes set on the commissioner and the slight quirk upwards of his lips divulges his amusement.

“Very well. Commissioner, don’t fail me.”

Mo Mi-do is certain. Certain that a bond between an orphan and a child of divorce is indestructible, thicker than the diverging bloodlines coursing in their respective veins. The bond forged from a boy’s loyalty and a bereaved prince is a tantalising enigma, a language only Lee Gon and Yeong spoke in intimate fluency.

“Your Majesty, Assemblywoman Koo left you this,” Mi-do says, handing over a commonplace manila envelope to the king.

The faint balsamic and tangerine scent snagged the envelope’s opening; the king brings it close to his nose, breathing in the scent deeply. Gon looks up from the envelope. “She was here?”

Behind the king, his stalwart guard turns severe. His polished white teeth clenched, dark eyes flashing ash-tipped iron. Fascinating posture. She never seen such attitude from Yeong before.

“We did a quick test. The envelope is clean,” Mi-do chimes, uncertain if the younger man’s abrupt swift in expression is a reaction to the potential dangers hidden in inconspicuous envelope.

His  slender fingers tear the opening, impatient and anticipating. The solid-gold, basket-hilted  letter opener—his favourite tool among his stationaries—still remain inside his desk’s drawer compartment.

“Briefly. She had other important appointments to get to,” Mi-do replies, remembering she left the king’s question unanswered.  

He upends the envelope, spreading its content on his glossed birch desk; a newspaper clipping of Assemblyman Jung Joon-il’s tragic death, a bizarre case of undiagnosed pollen allergy and a note, with the words ‘I can handle it by myself’ written in cursive English.

“Nothing else, Secretary Mo?” the king asks, barely taking his enthralled sight from the note. Plenty women came to his office, with looks enough to strike a cupid’s arrow into the hearts of men. The king has never shown the slightest interest—this saturnine fascination seems only exclusive to Assemblywoman Koo Seo-ryeong.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” She recalls, scarlet lips curving into a fanged-grin and the assemblywoman lowered her square-frame sunglasses, winking. “She sent her regards, and said it would do Your Majesty some good to go on blind dates, not waste your time playing the grim reaper—her words, not mine.” Mi-do is aware she is missing a lot, the subtext, the context and a history of their interactions.

He grins. “Yeong, make sure she gets a ‘You’re Welcome’ note. Also add a twenty-second clip, just the highlight from that deep fake video.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Yeong replies, his tone strained to keep nipping teeth from creeping into his words.

Half a decade of service imparts a few observation Mi-do could rely on, when it comes to serving a fickle king. She is certain. Yeong, the epitome of eternal loyalty, seems to possess a lover’s envy and his king, is smitten with the assemblywoman in the way a tiger is enraptured by its prey.