Stolen Glances - JunHao

Us Again

Wen Junhui is ready for the night to cease already. But for a month when the sky was to be adorned with two moons, how could anyone sleep and waste a chance to just sit and stare towards the heavens above? Back home, the month of luck is only welcomed by small ceremonies, carried out at every temple at every road's turn. But the south always likes to exaggerate, given even the smallest opportunity to.

At least, the procession was over. Now, his brother just escorts him to the Courtyard of the Royal Guards. On tired feet and with villainous pain beating down his back, surely the result of seven hours of horseback travel the day before, Junhui walked the palace's expansive corridors lit with fires burning in brackets, following his brother, not truly interested in his rapt conversation with the other man.

"Have you adequately reposed from your travel, Kwon Sa?" Wonwoo asks.

Could have had the courtesy to ask your brother that question first, but Junhui maintained his prince-like demeanour. Instead, he devotes his mind to meeting someone special at their destination. The champions were waiting in the Courtyard, ready to be introduced to the newcomers in the Palace of Inchon, their prince and Kwon Sa.

Kwon Sa, or Kwon Soonyoung, a fame nothing short of a legend, bottled in a stout, but not short, built body. He walks with authority, sparing only a cursory glance at Wonwoo, who is in fact, higher in rank, the crown prince of the queendom. Wonwoo does not mind; Wonwoo never does.

The ever-humble, polite and righteous Wonwoo. Junhui left his home, his motherland at the age of twenty-four; that makes it five years he has spent in Wonwoo's company, learning the ways of the monarchy with the other testing and training him at every step, with no inhibition from being harsh, even though Junhui held the upper hand in terms of age. Perhaps the Queen put too much of a burden on Wonwoo, who had to help Junhui unlearn his northern education, that Junhui, never in five years, really got to witness the side of Wonwoo that everyone seemed to cherish so much.

Their party turns around the corner and finds itself at the Courtyard entrance. It is arguably one of the most majestic sights to behold in all its glory. The courtyard is the biggest open space in the palace, lined with tough, unpolished grey stone, unlike the rest of the palace, which is fashioned with smooth marble, on which rare stones are carved like embroidery on stone. In the centre, gurgles a fountain and burns a fire both. The water cascades down from a facade of stone into the pond below, which is protected by a ring of perennially burning embers.

In front of the centrepiece, standing in a disciplined line, are the champions, flanked by the current Chief of Royal Guard Kim Joongi. Jun almost bows to the older, accomplished man, but he has to remind himself he has left the North and that in the south, one only bows to someone with a higher rank.

Nevertheless, when he looks up it is his eyes he meets.

And suddenly he remembered what it meant to feel complete in a place determined to pull him apart.

*****