Kakutasu in the daytime looks a lot different than Kakutasu at night, Zhou Mi muses as he’s shown to the Zinnia’s room. He had been expected, no doubt Kakutasu had told the proprietor about his presence today, his arrival eased by the coin he’d handed Kakutasu before he left yesterday night.

Kakutasu isn’t dressed like he’d been expecting Zhou Mi though.

“Good morning, sir.” Kakutasu says with an almost smirk as Zhou Mi surveys the simple dark blue robe he wears, falling open to reveal the smooth hairless chest in a style mostly favoured by wrinkled old men and fat, oily drunks. Kakutasu couldn’t have looked more different with his long black hair undone, tumbling down in damp waves, nearly reaching the floor.

Then he notices the raised eyebrow and he realizes that in his staring, he’d neglected manners. “Good morning.” He quickly says, and what greets him is a laugh. It’s cynical and filled with dry humor, and Zhou Mi can’t help but contrast this with the fairy-like creature he’d seen only just last night.

“If you wanted to see me more dressed you should have picked a later hour to come.” It’s as if Kakutasu can read Zhou Mi’s thoughts, and the smile, if anything, indicated he knew even more than that. The thought chills Zhou Mi a bit, that years of professional training in mastering his face could be broken by a mere Zinnia. But then again, that is why he’s hiring Kakutasu.

“No, I was just thinking your hair looked nice.” Zhou Mi’s smile is that fixed sort of polite happiness and Kakutasu shrugs, looking even more sarcastically amused. “Yeah… whatever… so you’re here to instruct me aren’t you? Instruct away.”

“It’s just a general briefing.” Zhou Mi enlightens, but he sits down near Kakutasu anyway, pulling out a file filled with profiles. “These are the Xing officials that we’ll be leading down through here once in a while. Scheduled excursions sort of thing. We don’t want them to be suspicious, so we won’t book them into this place, but we’ll give recommendations-”

“Don’t.” Kakutasu suddenly interrupts and Zhou Mi looks at him in questioning surprise. “Don’t give them recommendations. If you do, they’ll probably not take up your suggestion, especially since things with Xing aren’t exactly all butterfly fields at the moment.”

“How did you-”

“Know that things with Xing aren’t all peachy? Easy, Mama-san has been complaining about Xing silk prices. If that isn’t indication, I don’t know what is.”

They way Kakutasu says it, it seems so obvious. Xing silk is something highly sought after in Chousen and their neighboring country has always used it as a means to get their way in trade talks. Not this time.

“Speaking about Xing silk-”

“You want me to extract information about the Xing’s demands and expectations for trade so you can use it against them.” It isn’t even a question, but a statement. And the surprise must have been obvious on Zhou Mi’s face because Kakutasu continues his explanation. “It’s just typical human behavior. You want a better deal, and having an upper hand on information is the best way to get it. Rather boring, but I’d expected it. Which official did you want me to get first?”

“Well… this one.” Zhou Mi points at the picture of a rather measly looking man. He’s the official that informants said was the most easily bribed if you knew exactly what to use to entice him. Unfortunately, his tastes changed pretty quickly. “But of course, we don’t expect you to snag him right away, so really anyone will do, show them a good time and-”

“They’ll come back? That’s safe, but far too slow for me.” Kakutasu purses his lips, tapping the man’s photo. “Alright. I know what to do. Wait for the good news in the morning.”

Zhou Mi is rather affronted by this man’s confident attitude. “But…”

“But nothing.” Kakutasu shakes his head, tilting his head, and Zhou Mi can see a bit of the allure that attracted him so the night before. “Remember how I lured you in? I can easily do it again to this man. Trust me, alright?”

Zhou Mi wants to rebut that it’s hard to trust a man he only knows as the flower of lust and , but he keeps that comment well inside his chest. He’s a diplomat by nature and trade. “Of course.”

“Right, anything else? Or can I be left alone to do this job?”

“Yes. One thing.” Zhou Mi spots the Zinnia’s lips opening and he quickly rushes to get his words out. “If you keep completing my sentences I’m going to tell everyone you know that you’re actually my long-lost maternal twin brother. And I’ll start hugging and weeping all over you while telling embarrassing tales of how you used to wet the bed.”

Zhou Mi is entirely satisfied by the startled owlishly blink, before it is quickly covered up by a smirk. “Touché. I see it’ll be fun working with you, Joomyuk-nim.”

“Well, I’ll see you in two days, during the hour of the cow.” Zhou Mi lowers his head curtly. “Kakutasu.”

But before he can step out of the room, there is a soft voice. “Kyuhyun.” And when Zhou Mi turns around, he spots just a bare bit of darkness in Kyuhyun’s eyes before it is hidden with a bored flippancy. “I’m Kakutasu in the night. In the light of the day, I’m just Kyuhyun.”

“Well, then, Kyuhyun.” Zhou Mi bows as he shows himself out. “I’ll see you in two days.”

~*~

It isn’t as if he expected Kyuhyun to fail. Yes, somewhere in his mind, he did think that Kyuhyun had been boasting, as much as common sense pointed elsewise. But he certainly doesn’t expect to be pulled aside that very evening by a rather panicked and bemused subordinate. A subordinate he’d picked himself to the Xing officials around the night they arrived.

“Sir… I know I’m not supposed to talk to you.” Because Zhou Mi is the one retrieving the information for their outside informant, and within the palace he needs to be as displaced from the Xing officials as possible. “But I thought we didn’t arrange for recommendations?”

“You thought right.” Zhou Mi answers quickly, seemingly unperturbed, but his eyes are darting around, making sure no one who sees will make unnecessary conjunctures. “What’s wrong?”

His subordinate frowns, scratching his head. “Then why did one of Xing Officials pull me aside to thank me for a gift after we got back from the floating world? And he wants me to meet him later. What am I going to say?”

Zhou Mi’s eyes sharpen before they dull back to their neutral stance. “Which official?” He asks, and is told the answer. And the answer is what he’s guessed, and he’s only asking because in his mind, there is disbelief towards the only possible reason behind all this.

Kyuhyun.

~*~

“There’s pork ribs.”

Zhou Mi pauses in a rather comical manner. He had practically stormed his way into the room, giving the maids the uncharacteristic cold shoulder, all ready to launch his magnificent tirade which he had painstakingly put together in his mind all the way from the palace. But just as he slides open the fragile sliding door of rice paper and rickety wood, Kyuhyun turns around with a calculated look of nonchalance and Zhou Mi knows he knows the words that will spill from his mouth next. But he never has a chance to say anything because the first sentence out from Kyuhyun’s mouth dislodges everything from Zhou Mi’s mind.

“I… what?” Zhou Mi is stunned, staring at the wreckage of his train of thought as Kyuhyun kneels down at the table in fake subservience picking up a pork rib and waving it at Zhou Mi. “Pork ribs. They’re very nice.”

“Uhm… okay.” Zhou Mi is nearly about to kneel down and take a bit of the admittedly enticing pork rib when he shakes his head, half-glaring at Kyuhyun. “No! I mean. I need to talk to you about last night.”

“Last night?”

“Yes. The subordinate I picked to lead the Xing officers around told me that-”

“Are you sure you don’t want some?”

“What?” Zhou Mi stares at the pork rib Kyuhyun holds up, almost sadly, and shakes his head. “I’m sure. Anyway, my subordinate told me that one of the Xing officers stopped him to thank him for the gift. Now, the Xing officer-”

“Really sure?”

“-was the one that I pointed out to you two days ago. And we followed your advice not to give them a recommendation, so-”

“But it’s such a pity. It’s really good.”

“-can you explain to me why…” Zhou Mi takes in a deep breath of exasperation. “the Xing officer thanked us for a ‘gift’? And why he wants to meet us in private because of it?”

“I’ll ask you one last time before I eat them all up.”

“Forget about the damned pork ribs for a second and answer my questio- mmph!” Zhou Mi’s eyes widen almost comically when there is suddenly a piece of pork rib in his mouth and Kyuhyun is in front of him, a ridiculously happy smile pasted on his face.

“Good. Now chew.” And stunned, Zhou Mi can only follow Kyuhyun’s instructions. “Nice isn’t it? Good.” Kyuhyun doesn’t even wait for Zhou Mi to answer before walking past to the door, “Well, come on. Let’s go then.”

Zhou Mi can’t speak because of the pork rib in his mouth and he’s been brought up in a household of propriety, but the expression on his face says it all. “You came out to buy things for some specific people in the palace, didn’t you? That’s your ruse so that you can come and meet me. Some things can only be found in this area of the capital, and the people who want those things are too important to risk food poisoning. So it’s normal for someone well-versed in poisons to get those things, isn’t it? Although you are a little high up, but I guess for the time-being you’ve been demoted?”

He can’t open his mouth because the half-chewed pork rib meat would have fallen out, but it’s only now he realizes that Kyuhyun has been dressed differently than Zhou Mi had saw him two mornings ago. None of that slovenly worn robe. Instead, Kyuhyun wears outdoor clothes, not too different from Zhou Mi’s – properly worn and a simple brown, long hair tied back into a non-fussy ponytail.

“The stores will close if you keep gaping. I know I look a lot uglier without makeup, but it’s still rude to stare.” It’s the amusement in Kyuhyun’s voice that snaps Zhou Mi out of it, and he shakes his head, walking forward, mentally blind as Kyuhyun leads. And in his mind is the errant thought that he must not say, that although Kyuhyun is less an idea of a beauty in the daylight, he’s looks more beautiful in Zhou Mi’s eyes.

He’s entirely forgotten about the question he needs to ask Kyuhyun.

~*~

“I thought it was the best course of action.”

Zhou Mi blinks, still blinded by the kaleidoscope of a glass bead shop that Kyuhyun had practically shoved him into, and he still has his mind on how to improve that rather tacky recording device one vendor or another tried shoving into his face, that he takes a while to comprehend the meaningful words Kyuhyun has just lightly tossed at him.

“I’m… sorry?”

“The answer to your question.” And Zhou Mi takes a while to figure out that it was the question he’d asked before Kyuhyun had dragged him out. He’d asked many questions along the way since then, none of them answered either. “I thought about the best way for you to get your information and did accordingly.”

“And what exactly was this best way?” Zhou Mi almost doesn’t notice, but he’s already slipped into what is called the ‘drop-off’ scenario in his line of work. Two people meet in a public place. They pretend to be part of the crowd, doing as the crowd does, and no one knows that top secret information is actually being passed down the grape vine.

“Pretend that I was actually a bribe.” Kyuhyun smiles a little, seemingly at the antics of a few children playing with paper dragonflies, but both know that he’s actually smiling at the startled look on Zhou Mi’s face. “I guess you know what that means.”

And Zhou Mi does. He remembers mentioning to Kyuhyun about how this man was bribable but no one knew what exactly to bribe him with. And it occurs to him that if Kyuhyun had been wrong, then the entire operation would have been compromised.

But before he can actually say a word, Kyuhyun is right beside him, whispering into his ear. “Calm down. Raised voices attract attention, and you don’t want that do you?”

There an extremely appealing urge to strangle Kyuhyun then, but Kyuhyun is right, and he holds it in. It’s not like he can really blow up against the coquettish expression as Kyuhyun tucks a flower into Zhou Mi’s hair. “Don’t worry. I knew what I was doing. I could tell that that man was into these kind of things, and guess that I would be a suitable bribe. Besides, it worked didn’t it? When you return, your subordinate will no doubt tell you of all the information that Xing officer had gathered.”

Kyuhyun pulls away. And for a moment, Zhou Mi’s mind cannot comprehend how such a frail, beautiful man could have such a shrewd personality stuck inside. But as he follows Kyuhyun down the road to a place the Zinnia swears has the best candy apples, he remembers the flower in his hair and pulls it out.

It’s perhaps a joke on Kyuhyun’s part that the flower he’d tucked in is the sumire. The violet. Purple-blue and small, it’s the honest flower. And it is a flower that hardly suited Zhou Mi, he being as embroiled into shadows and secrets as much as he is.

He doesn’t understand then, as he watches Kyuhyun flit among the stores like an easily distracted child, that the flower doesn’t represent him but something else entirely.

~*~

“…the court may now be adjourned.”

Zhou Mi keeps his eyes lowered throughout the hushed formulaic phrases and pleasant wishes. As much as he is a liar by trade, he is sure nothing can hide the expression of pure delight as betrayed by his eyes.

The negotiation had gone extremely well in their favor, although Zhou Mi, being head of the whole circus, had been careful to show the exact opposite on his face. But Kyuhyun had been right. The minute Zhou Mi had gotten back, his subordinate, with no little delight, had enlightened Zhou Mi on the vast store of information he’d been given. Every bit of it had opened doors, and even if it hadn’t, prevented already opened doors from being closed.

Both he and Henry practically run to their room when they have muttered enough platitudes to be sure they have offended no one. And the minute the door is closed, they smile congratulatory smiles at each other about to give each other a pat on the back when the door opens.

Zhou Mi turns in surprise, a lashing ready on his tongue in anticipation of a badly trained slave. But instead of plain cotton, the figure is robed in golden silk robes and the lashing is swallowed instead as both he and Henry fall prostrate to the ground.

Because the one who has entered is far from a slave. He is instead, the holder of the Heaven’s mandate and by sacred vow, the dictator of loyalty in the land. The belt around his waist holds only one sword when law dictated it to be two.

The crown prince.

~*~

“Aww… you’re too kind, Joomyuk-nim. But really, I have enough ostentatious hair ornaments to last me several lifetimes.”

Zhou Mi sighs, still holding out the (admittedly ostentatious) gold hairpin with expensive blue jade. “I know.” ‘I’ve seen them.’ “But this isn’t from me.”

“Oh?”

“The crown prince sends his congratulations and urges you to continue in your good work.”

That elicits a silence that Zhou Mi relishes with a surprising gratification. And his amusement is wholly unjustified, but it just tickles him that he actually said something to make the usually unstoppable Kyuhyun shut up, never mind that the statement would have made anyone shut up.

“I see…” Kyuhyun says slowly, taking the hairpin as if it the bat that the blue jade imitated would suddenly rear up and bite him. Then after a while, he slowly lifts the hairpin into the light, admiring the skill of carving. “A bat… I see even the crown prince wishes me luck in this endeavor of ours.”

“He does. He anticipates trouble with the westerners that have started landing on our shores.” Everyone knows of the westerners with their golden hair like a cornfield and their demonic blue eyes and of their foreign ways. “They may only be interested in trade now, but they may become more greedy. He doesn’t want to think about a situation where he would have to deal with the Xing as well.”

“Hmm…” Kyuhyun eyes grow distant for a moment and Zhou Mi wonders what he could be thinking about. Is he pleased about receiving the favor of the crown prince, or frightened? Or perhaps it is pressure he feels instead, mixed with a tinge of fear, because failing the crown prince could only have dire repercussions.

Kyuhyun catches Zhou Mi staring before he can, and Zhou Mi has no choice but to pretend that it has been his intention to be caught staring all along. In retrospect, if it was someone other than Kyuhyun Zhou Mi had been staring at, he’d might have gotten an enlightenment to his mental question. As it was…

“Candy?”

“What? Oh no, thank you. Anyway, I have to discuss about-”

“But it’s really good. Some customer gave it to me the other day, and I have no idea where it’s from. So I’m trying to keep as much to myself, yet I’m being nice and offering it to you.”

“Then keep it. But listen, tonight is-”

“It’s rude to refuse, you know. Come on, just open your mouth, I’ll even feed you.”

“Kyuhyun…” Zhou Mi says it like he’s addressing an errant child, and he’d have said more to nag but Kyuhyun laughs, a real laugh, not like the calculated chuckles he’s heard so far, and somehow, nagging is now the last thing on Zhou Mi’s mind.

“Alright, I’ll stop teasing.” Kyuhyun covers his mouth to hide his smile, seeming the epitome of good manners. “But let us go and attend to your shopping. It’d be no good if you return to the palace too late and are accused of slacking by the crown prince himself!”

Zhou Mi could have said many things to that, the least being Kyuhyun the reason why he’d ever be accused of being late in the first place. But that guileless smile? Zhou Mi is out in the streets in minutes, only pausing because Kyuhyun needs time to take his coat off the rack and for the maid to find the blue clogs, because Kyuhyun insists that they matched with his new hairpin.

Zhou Mi will never admit it, but as he watches Kyuhyun out of the corner of his eye, he finds that he agrees with that sentiment.

Very much.

~*~

Things quickly fall into a pattern as pleasant things tend to do.

Zhou Mi came to looking forward to the daily visits, going to Kyuhyun with the news of success, though the Xing officials weren’t to know. He’d always try to brief Kyuhyun then, and Kyuhyun would always sidestep his efforts then. They end up talking in the middle of the stores and their yelling vendors and bargaining customers with no one to but the goods to overhear them.

Maybe once they kept topics to a professional level, maybe taking an indulgence into the weather or the prices of this and that. But lately the line has been blurred, and Zhou Mi finds himself talking about things he’d never thought he’d ever share.

“So, Joomyuk-nim. When will you tell me your real name?”

Zhou Mi is caught by surprise, turning to see Kyuhyun a piece of decorate malt candy spun into the shape of an owl. “But I have.” ‘After a fashion.’

But Kyuhyun shakes his head. “Your accent and manner may be flawless, but I can tell. Your descent is not that of Chousen, but of Xing.”

Silence. And Zhou Mi feels like anyone whose dark secret is exposed. “I… How could you tell?”

“I’ll answer if you tell me your real name, and how a Xing managed to get into the Imperial Board of Archives without a hundred informants checking up on you at least twenty times every minute.”

Zhou Mi stares, but Kyuhyun with his butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth expression, only stares back.

They remain silent, only moving when a shopkeeper, complaining of customers who only look but don’t buy, shoo them on. It’s only very nearly at the end of the street that Zhou Mi speaks again.

“I was born a bastard son to one of the court officials. The official, however, wasn’t my father. But he was a very kind man.”

It isn’t much of an explanation. But with just that Kyuhyun knows. Prejudice, loneliness, possible hatred and self-hatred. Even if he was allowed to live. A foreigner in his own home, proving his self worth. It wasn’t said, but a picture says a thousand words and Zhou Mi’s expression, a million and more.

Zhou Mi watches Kyuhyun carefully. Of the few who found out, there had been only those few reactions: pity, loathing, disbelief. Zhou Mi wonders which Kyuhyun’s will be.

He should have known better.

“I see,” is all Kyuhyun says, nothing but interest on his face. And when Zhou Mi seems lost for words, prompts. “Your name?”

What else can he do but answer? “Zhou Mi.”

“I see.” Kyuhyun repeats, almost to himself. “Well then, Zhou Mi-nim. You seem to have finished your shopping. Shall we go?”

Zhou Mi has taken two steps before his stunned brain finally thinks to put up any of a protest. “Wait, you haven’t told me how you knew.”

He is unprepared for the soft touch to his cheek and the brush of a thumb over his lips. “You are beautiful, but your beauty is not the same as that of Chousen men. So I know.”

That day, Henli has to prod Zhou Mi several times in the ribs as he forgets everything. After all, his brain has already been filled to its capacity by the memory of a touch and soft words seemed to have been said in earnest.

Truthfully, Zhou Mi should have been horrified at being affected by such flattery, especially that of a Zinnia’s, whose flattering words are an essential tool of his work. But who would know he was flattered if he told no one – not even the flatterer himself.

Especially not the flatterer himself.

~*~