This was originally written in 2014, as part of a Music Shuffle Challenge - inspired by the song Etude, by Gackt - and has been edited and posted now partly because I am in the process of dragging my friend M into this drama with me. (So in the process I'm also rolling in the feels it brings up in me.)
Lee Hwon curled his hands into fists atop his desk, short, even nails scratching at the finely-lacquered surface. There was a small sound from the corner, and he drew a deep breath, forcibly relaxing his hands before he had quite realised what he was doing.
He tore his gaze away from the doors - which had only just closed behind the woman he had to call his people's queen - and looked up, past Hyeongseon, meeting Woon's eyes. His faithful guard bowed his head minutely, eyes closing, and Lee Hwon realised that it had been a soft clearing of Woon's throat that had pulled him from his furious contemplations.
He caught Woon's gaze as he lifted his head once more, and Lee Hwon inclined his head ever so slightly in return. Thanks, if Woon chose to take it in that way.
He looked back at the doors Bokyeong had swept through so recently and felt the familiar pang that the richly-adorned figure of the queen had not been another woman. She who should have been his queen.
Yeon Woo had been dead for six years, Lee Hwon had been king for one. It was . . . difficult for him, imagining what Yeon Woo, woman and queen, would look like now. He saw her forever in his mind's eye as she had been then.
Some days - the fortunate ones - he saw her as she had been the day they met, so sure of herself and delicately rebuking him, or once she had become his crown princess, the way she had smiled at him over the puppet show he had ordered for them. Some days he saw her as he had when she had staggered away from him, pulled away by attendants as the palace guards held him from her side - or as she had been the last time he saw her, in secret, lying so near death in her family's home.
But always she was the girl she had been, and he loved her so, just as he had then, but also . . . differently. And it wasn't his love that had changed, somehow, but the rest of him.
Lee Hwon couldn't . . . quite place how. The feelings he held for Yeon Woo were as deep and as strong as ever they had been, his devotion to her painful - particularly when forced, yet again, to confront the woman he was actually bound to. Six years had not eased his pain and anger at being forced into wedding Bokyeong.
Lee Hwon closed his eyes and brought one hand to his face, ignoring the rustle of an appeal scroll as he knocked it from his desk to the floor with his sleeve. He heard the light step of an attendant coming forward, probably to retrieve it, and gestured sharply with his free hand.
"Leave me." he said, his voice low and even, brooking no disobedience. There was a momentary pause of the steps, and then they turned away and made for the door.
He sighed, hearing more steps trail after the first set. There was a near-silent pause followed by the quiet sound of the doors closing neatly. If he listened closely he could probably hear the next sets following suit.
A few moments later he heard the rustle of fabric and opened his eyes, glancing towards the sound and finding Woon down on one knee, retrieving the appeal he had dropped and replacing it on the table. It wasn't particularly a surprise. Unless Lee Hwon issues a specific command for him to leave, or sent him away on some task, Woon remained ever at his side. His understanding and largely silent presence, like a shadow lingering around the edges of Lee Hwon's rooms, was rarely a disturbance, and Lee Hwon hardly ever requested his closest companion leave, even when he wished for solitude.
Woon met his eyes and paused, waiting, but Lee Hwon . . . even mired in the turmoil troubling his mind today, he didn't quite wish to be left so completely alone. He only wished for his mind to . . . to make sense again. For his heart to not have changed.
Lee Hwon felt a pang at the idea that his heart might have changed, without his knowledge or his permission.
He closed his eyes again, letting his face fall into his hands. There was no need to maintain a façade before Woon, even if Woon alone could be trusted without the barest hint of a mask.
There were others who were loyal to him unto death - chief among them Hyeongseon, who had been with Lee Hwon longer than any other - but their loyalties might be to kingdom before king, or they needed their king to ever be strong for them. Woon. . .
Woon did not. Or more precisely he never seemed to entertain the slightest doubt as to Lee Hwon's strength, even after witnessing his struggles on days like these.
Woon moved too silently for Lee Hwon to tell whether he had returned to his watchful post in the corner or if he remained kneeling by Lee Hwon's desk. He looked, after a few more moments, and found Woon had risen, but still lingered near.
Lee Hwon lifted a hand to beckon to his dearest friend, then paused and lowered it without completing the gesture.
He shouldn't have been surprised when Woon responded anyway, moving around the desk without hesitation and crouching at his side, awaiting instruction. Lee Hwon had no orders to give him, however, he only. . .
"She is not the queen I would wish for." Lee Hwon said softly, not quite meeting Woon's eyes, instead looking at the inlay on a small chest across the room. He saw Woon nod, however, from the corner of his eye. "The queen I long for, however . . . she is still so young, even in my mind. She never had a chance to grow into more. I cannot see her as other than she was." he said, though it hurt.
Lee Hwon was barely making sense to himself, he doubted Woon could understand him, but he needed, for a rarity, to allow his thoughts outside of his own mind. They had been chasing each other in circles for too long there already.
He thought of Yeon Woo, of being dragged back from following her - of being unable to keep her from being taken away - and had to fight back a surge of aching hurt. Though it was not as fresh now, with the years' passing, Lee Hwon regretted it every bit as much as he had then, the girl he loved so desperately, and he hadn't been able to. . .
"She will remain in your memory, and your heart, unchanged." Woon said slowly, though his words were not hesitant, only thoughtful. His eyes were soft when Lee Hwon turned and met his gaze. There were few who would voice such thoughts to him, and fewer still from whom they would be welcomed.
Woon's words, though rarely offered without an explicit question to draw them from him, were always welcome to Lee Hwon's mind, however. His guard - his friend - knew him well, and Woon always thought before he spoke, so much more deeply than most of those who surrounded Lee Hwon.
"Though you have changed, as has everything around you." Woon continued, his face remaining calm and almost blank.
Lee Hwon reached out again, touching Woon's shoulder this time. Woon did not stir, his expression not shifting to betray either surprise or discomfort. Lee Hwon's hand slid down, brushing over Woon's arm as he dropped it. Woon settled lower on his knees, leaning a fraction closer. Lee Hwon swallowed and abandoned his poise for at least a short span, knowing there was no one but Woon there to see the weakness.
He leaned against his friend, trusting Woon to support him, and turned his face in against Woon's shoulder as a strong arm curled lightly around his back. Lee Hwon shuddered at the contact, though it was not unpleasant. He was touched, it seemed, so rarely - dressed and tended, of course, but . . . he was the Sun. No one touched him merely because they cared to, or because-
Because he needed it, he admitted to himself, very quietly, as Woon patted his back lightly, and he allowed himself to rest against his very capable companion. The relief of it nearly pushed him too far, emotions running high, and his fingers tightened in the slightly loose material of the back of Woon's cheolick as he held on tighter.
Woon who was always there when needed, whatever it was that Lee Hwon needed of him, and could not be taken away from his king, not ever.
Woon who was . . . safe. To trust, to rely on . . . to care for.
Lee Hwon frowned and examined that thought, but it slipped away like a glittering, dark fish deep into the pool of his mind. Woon held him, gentle but steady and unshakable, Lee Hwon told himself it was of no matter - it would resurface sooner or later, and Woon, in the meantime, was going nowhere.
Woon would never leave, save at his command, and would ever return, unfailingly loyal, to Lee Hwon's side, where he belonged.