It's not that Baekhyun dislikes the countryside. There are good things to be said about any place in Korea—the private tutors had drilled that lesson into him well enough, anyway—and he'd first discovered his love of riding on a summer trip to the family estate in Yangdong. But that was when he'd been nine years old, young enough that leaving the capital for three-month stretches wasn't a big deal and the most important thing he had to worry about was whether or not the skittish mare between his legs was going to buck him off in a fit of pique.

He's twenty now, and everyone he knows is going to be in the citadel this summer. Chanyeol's father has him working on defense plans with one of the king's war counselors. Kyungsoo's been given a position overseeing grain transport from Gwangju, and even Jongdae's come back from Beijing, where his family had been stationed the year before when his mother had taken the newly vacated post of Chinese ambassador. He's doing city planning, or something. All of it sounds boring as hell, frankly—but at least they'd still be in the loving embrace of civilization for the season. At least they'd still be around people.

Baekhyun, though. Baekhyun's trundling in a muggy carriage along the shoddiest dirt road he's ever seen, traveling to the middle of nowhere because his father's inexplicably decided to send him packing to the other side of the country for no reason other than, "Son, you need to take a break."

His mother had seen him off at the castle gate. She'd pressed a kiss against his temple and patted his shoulder. "He's only doing this because of Baekho, you know," she said, and Baekhyun had sent her a pinched expression.

"He's always doing this stuff because of Baekho. When is he ever going to do something for me?"

"He thinks this is for you," she'd said, smiling winningly back at him. "And anyway, I think it'll be good for you. Fresh air. No stress, no distractions." No war is the unspoken clause, here. "Maybe you'll even come back with a tan."

He'd laughed at that. "Please. I'd sooner come back burnt to a crisp." The smile slid off a moment later. "Mother—I want to do things. I want to be around people, not cornfields."

"There are people in Yangdong," she said drily, and then someone had called for the Duchess from outside the carriage. "I have to go. Don't bite anyone's head off your first day there." And then she was gone, in a whiff of floral perfume.

Baekhyun doesn't feel like biting anyone's head off. It's too ing hot for it right now, for one, and he's too tired to think about anything but the clop-clop of the horses' hooves and how much longer it'll take to get to the estate.




He doesn't realize he's drifted asleep until someone's shaking him awake. Baekhyun blinks blearily to see coachman's face swimming in front of his, an anxious look on his face. "Is everything alright?" he croaks.

"Fine, sir. We've arrived."

It's dark outside when he steps out of the carriage, but he can still see the ornate double doors of the main entrance to the mansion and the rest of its hulking body rising up behind. It's much smaller than the king's castle, of course, and Baekhyun'd been about half the size he is now the last time he came. One heavy door squeaks on its hinges as he surveys the dark windows of the second floor. A vaguely familiar butler steps out, robes askew.

"Master Baekhyun," he says, looking alarmed. A couple of footmen come out behind him and start unloading luggage from the carriage. "You arrived ahead of schedule. We weren't expecting you until tomorrow morning."

"We didn't stop for meals," Baekhyun says sheepishly. He gestures at the coachman. "Get him something to eat before he has to head back."

"What about you, sir?"

"Not hungry," he says, waving it away. "I just want to sleep."

A pretty housemaid leads him up a winding staircase and down the hall into a lushly furnished wing of the house. "It's not much," she says apologetically. "The footmen hadn't finished preparing. We weren't expecting you—"

"Until tomorrow morning," he says, around a jaw-cracking yawn. "Yes, I know."

The housemaid hovers, uncertain. "Would you like me to run you a bath?"

"No, I'm fine," he says, even though he probably should. He can feel dust from the road gathered in every crevice of his body. Sleep is more insistent. The minute the maid leaves, he faceplants into the soft pillows of the four-poster bed and passes out.




He wakes up at dawn, birds chirping loudly at his window. Downstairs, he can hear the rest of the house rising with the sun: the rush of hot water through the plumbing system, servants hurrying about with preparations. Baekhyun splashes water in his face in the bathroom and sheds his travel clothes.

In the wardrobe, as if they'd been waiting for him, sit a couple of long-sleeved riding shirts, three pairs of breeches, and black boots that reach his knees. He laces them up after pulling the breeches on—they're a tight fit, but wearable—and, on second thought, grabs a jacket off the uppermost shelf and shrugs it over his shoulders. The gloves he tugs on last. Now that he's here, he might as well do something he actually likes.

The butler looks alarmed again when Baekhyun clunks downstairs. "Sir, if you'd have breakfast, it's set out in the dining room—"

"I'm not hungry," he says, and narrows his eyes when the butler opens his mouth to object. "I'm going riding. Be back by noon, maybe."

A footman opens the back door for him and he takes the steps down two at a time. The stables are right where he remembers them, just past the henhouse in all its early morning glory. He lifts a saddle from the rack as he walks inside and squints into the dim stalls. A couple of drowsy bays peer back at him. In the last stall, Baekhyun watches a young white mare unfold herself from the hay and push her snout through the slats to sniff at the hand he offers.

"Hey, beautiful," he says, patting her head. He grabs a carrot from the bucket hanging off the hook next to her stall and grins when she accepts it with a low whinny, teeth chomping. "Come on. Let's get you saddled up."

It feels good to be able to ride after so long sitting in bumpy carriage ride after bumpy carriage ride in the city. Maybe there was something to be said about being away from the bustle of Seoul, if it meant he could clench his legs around wiry sinew and feel the breeze sift through his hair, reins held loosely in his fists. They stamp a path through the sloping fields behind the mansion, towards the smoky mountains he can just make out further south.

Sweat starts trickling down his skin in earnest as the sun rises to its zenith. The jacket probably hadn't been a great idea, in retrospect, but it's a little too late now. He pats the mare's damp neck and wheels them back around. They trot back slower the way they came. Baekhyun squints against the light, blinks perspiration out of his eyes.

The rustle of the cornfields disguises another horse's gallop until it and its rider zoom right past them. The mare tosses her head, startled, and Baekhyun coaxes her into a run, keeping pace behind the chestnut stallion. The other man's shirtless and barefoot and riding without a saddle, hands clenched in the chestnut's mane. He rides it right through the open stable doors. Baekhyun skids to a stop outside and dismounts, murmuring low nothings into the mare's ear.

The guy who walks out is—well. He's tall and lanky and tan all over, sweat glistening along the ridges of his collarbone and down his arms, and Baekhyun has to forcibly swallow to keep himself from doing something stupid as he strolls closer. He's still barefoot. "Who are you?" Baekhyun asks, and it comes out more demanding than he'd intended.

"Isn't it a little hot to be wearing all that?" the guy returns, eyebrows rising.

Really, Baekhyun feels like he's about to melt into a puddle because of the sun. None of the he's wearing breathes. Like hell he's going to tell this guy that, though. "I'm fine," he snaps. "Who are you, and what are you doing with my horses?"

"I'm Kim Jongin," he replies, folding his arms across his bare chest. "And they're my horses, too. I'm your stable hand."

Baekhyun frowns, brow furrowing. Jongin sounds familiar. Familiar, like he'd known him before—"Wait," he says, stepping forward and scanning Jongin's face, the red bow of his lips and the ridge of his nose and the curve of his jaw as it rises to meet his earlobe. "You're that kid—the one who always fell asleep in the loft."

"Oh," Jongin says, sounding pleased. "So you remember who I am."

"I don't remember you being quite so tall," he grumbles, stepping back. Or so hot, he thinks, a little despairing. He s the reins into a surprised Jongin's palm. "Please put her away for me."

"Yes, sir," Jongin says, dipping his head. When he turns around Baekhyun catches an eyeful of the slender slope of his back, the muscles moving beneath his skin as he strolls back into the stable.

"Oh, ," he mutters, ing the uncomfortably warm collar of his shirt, and escapes into the cool shade of the house.