The Hated Male Concubine

“Your Majesty, does your hand hurt?” 

Yihan, who was deeply lost in thought, turned his head while answering “huh?” with a stupid expression as he suddenly heard Eunuch Oh’s voice. Eunuch Oh once again said with a worried expression.

“You have been looking at your hand since earlier…”

“Ah…”

“Should I call the doctor for you?”

It was not until he heard Eunuch Oh that Yihan realized that he had been looking at his hand. Delaying his answer for a while, Yihan repeatedly clenched his fist and still looked down at his hand.

He remembered the moment when the hand of a man that was as light as a wildflower tickled his palm. The fragility that seemed like it would shatter if he held it a bit stronger.

Was there a day when he regarded Yeon Hwawoon as fragile? Was there any moment he held his hand as gently as today? There were countless days when they were together, but now Yihan felt like he was meeting Yeon Hwawoon for the first time and doing something together for the first time, making his heart tickle.

No, it was not just Yeon Hwawoon. Not only with Yeon Hwawoon for the first time, but Yihan had never felt this awkwardness and ticklishness with the Empress or any other concubine. Yihan’s face darkened as he clenched his fist at the feeling that didn’t seem to leave him. He wanted to know where these unfamiliar feelings that he couldn’t ignore anymore were headed, but at the same time, he also didn’t want to know.

“Oh Jinsung.”

After a while, the emperor called Eunuch Oh’s name.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

As the eunuch bowed down and answered, another short silence flowed, and then Yihan said,

“Tell this to Jeongan Palace.”

“…”

“From now on, you can freely visit Suhwawon.” 

A chilly sensation hovered inside his fist. Yihan couldn’t bear to shake it off.

***

“Your Highness. What is the meaning of this?”

Ahjin approached Hwawoon and then asked in a voice that tried to hide her excitement. Meanwhile, Hwawoon was looking at where a eunuch had left.

Someone from Anjeong Palace had just visited him. It was a message telling that the emperor himself allowed Yeonbin to visit Suhwawon. Feeling that his fingertips were somewhat numb, Hwawoon tried to clench his fist without realizing it, and Ahjin continued to talk again.

“Doesn’t this mean that… His Majesty now believes in you, Your Highness?” 

Although the volume was low, it was a voice that couldn’t hide her excited heart. She never showed it because she was afraid to make Hwawoon sadder, but Ahjin was the one who worried about the situation of her master, who was shunned by His Majesty, more than anyone else. Therefore, her expectation seemed to be rising unknowingly at the sudden change in the emperor’s attitude.

Hwawoon, who smiled lightly because Ahjin was cute, shook his head slowly and then parted his lips.

“Rather than believe in me… Anyway, I’m sure he sees my efforts in a positive light.”

“Uhm…”

“He’s initially that kind of person, isn’t he? It seems like it had been weighing on him that he treated me badly ever since… ever since I drowned in the pond.”

As he spoke, Hwawoon recalled the emperor who was with him in Suhwawon today. He came closer to him while holding his waist firmly, and then stared at him with his eyes, which were as dark and deep as the abyss as if trying to penetrate his soul.

His heart dropped in an instant as he thought of those eyes. At that time, he couldn’t feel it because he was flustered, but looking back on those eyes now, the feelings felt by Hwawoon were more like fear than excitement or expectation. It was because the emperor’s gaze at that time seemed to be ready to reveal all the lies he had in detail.

Hwawoon had been imagining the emperor’s voice asking him with a cold face, Who are you, who dare to pretend to be Yeon Hwawoon?

“But… Anyway, he must have said this because His Majesty saw your efforts in a good light. It’s a good thing, Your Highness.”

“… Yeah, it must be so.” 

“It is, Your Highness. Just wait and see. Soon, His Majesty will surely visit you again.”

It was a night when Hwawoon’s heart sank heavily as he quietly smiled because he couldn’t bring himself to show anything else to Ahjin, who was excited with joy.

***

Hwawoon woke up to a cry coming from somewhere. It was dark all over the place as though the candles were burnt out, so he had to remember where he was for a while. The life of Hawoon, which could be regarded as both short and long like the blink of an eye, the sense of that day, which was as cold as death, and then the life of Yeon Hwawoon that he faced after that rose and disappeared.

The sound of crying came to his ears once again as Hwawoon’s eyes began to get used to the darkness. At first, he thought he had just misheard the sound of the wind, but the sound that was heard again was so obvious that it could no longer be confused.

Hwawoon slowly rose to his feet in the dark. As he thought about it, no matter how dark the night was, it was too dark and serene all around. Usually, the girls on duty were guarding the door even at dawn, so when he woke up from sleep, he rarely felt this lonely, but what happened today was as if he were left alone in a world at night.

“Ahjin…?”

That sense of incongruity made his spine chill, so Hwawoon raised his voice a bit and called Ahjin, but there was no sound coming back from outside. Normally, anyone, not only Ahjin, should have come right inside as they heard Hwawoon’s voice, but there was no presence felt even if he held his breath and paid close attention. Even at that moment, the unidentifiable cry kept coming to his ears.

Eventually, Hwawoon slowly came out of the bed as he couldn’t wait any longer. Summer was approaching, and no matter how cold it was at night, it was never too cold. But today, strangely enough, his whole body was cold as if he was feeling the chill, so Hwawoon slowly stepped out of the bedroom with his body slightly hunched.

“Ahjin? Seoseo…?”

Hwawoon walked away, calling out the names of the girls of Jeongan Palace. He walked past the living room until he was about to reach the front door. However, let alone anyone responding to him, he saw no one, so Hwawoon clenched his fists in nervousness. There was a strong feeling that something was wrong. The courtyard of Jeongan Palace, where even the moonlight could not be seen properly as though the clouds were dense, was unfamiliar as if it was his first time seeing it.

He walked, following the cry. It wasn’t that he wasn’t scared, but strangely, he felt like he had to. Although there was nothing to be sure about who was crying, what they were crying for, or whether there was any danger, Hwawoon was under pressure to follow the sound.

Perhaps, it was because he felt the cry was somehow familiar. He couldn’t guess whose it belonged to, but strangely, it sounded like a voice he seemed to know well. One step, then another step. The shaky footsteps of Hwawoon moved along the sound of leading him like that, and soon the place where Hwawoon arrived; the place where Hwawoon was led to and stopped;

It was the pond in Jeongan Palace. The place where Yeon Hwawoon threw himself into, where Hawoon jumped in to save him, and the very place that became the starting point of everything as Hawoon died at the same time he lived a new life as Yeon Hwawoon.

Hwawoon slightly squinted his eyes. There was someone sitting near the pond. The moment he saw them, he realized that they were the owner of the crying that he had been hearing. He immediately knew that they woke him up and led him to walk here alone.

“… Who are you?”

Hwawoon asked in a trembling voice. The desire to run away and to come closer to comfort them came to him at the same time. That person was still sitting by the pond, crying with their head down, and there was no answer to Hwawoon’s question.

“If… if you tell me what happened, I’ll try to help you…”

He didn’t know who they were or why they were crying, but he was sure there must have been a grave reason for them to cry alone on such a dark night. Hwawoon said that while approaching them a little more—tried his best to calm down his fear and urge to run away.

However, when Hwawoon finally came closer to a distance where he could properly guess their figure—just when he thought he was so familiar with the way that person shook their thin shoulders and cried sadly, the person, who had been lowering their head, raised up their head to stare at Hwawoon. 

“…!”

Hwawoon almost screamed. He almost fell to the ground. In an instant, the suffocating and biting cold wrapped around his body as if water had filled up everywhere. Just like a drowned man who couldn’t breathe properly, Hwawoon gasped and stepped backward.

The one who sat near the deserted pond, shedding tears deep into the night, was none other than,

Yeon Hwawoon. 

Not Hawoon, but the previous Yeonbin, who was no longer in this world, Yeon Hwawoon. 

***

“No… No…!”

Hwawoon screamed and rose from his seat. At the same time, tears poured down on the soft blanket covering him. Hwawoon held the disheveled blanket tightly with both hands, bent his back, and exhaled a painful breath. His chest ached as if someone had ripped off his heart.

It was Yeon Hwawoon. The one he saw in the dream was no doubt Yeon Hwawoon. Although now they had the same appearance, Hwawoon instantly knew that the person he saw in his dream wasn’t him, but Yeon Hwawoon from the past.