“I can’t.”
“Your Highness.”
“I won’t!”
“Lee Hwan!”
Even calling out like that was useless. Hwan rather glared even harder.
“That guy was trying to do something to you! Why should I apologize!”
For once, Hwan wasn’t going to easily tuck his tail and say he was wrong. He had not a shred of regret about throwing a punch at Yuwon. If he wanted to spread rumors, let him. If he wanted to sue, tell him to go ahead.
Even this time, rather than watch that crazy bastard do whatever to Huiseo, he thought he’d accept everything whether he ate prison food or whatever. Even if it looked like reckless bravado to Huiseo, it couldn’t be helped.
Hwan couldn’t forgive Yuwon that much.
Rather, only his fist that wanted to feed him a few more punches was trembling.
Looking up at such a Hwan, Huiseo couldn’t help but let out a long sigh.
***
Since the situation had turned out that way, they couldn’t continue attending class and whatnot. Huiseo took the injured Yuwon to the nurse’s office and asked for understanding that they’d discuss this matter again later. Then he immediately put Hwan in the car and returned straight to the palace.
During that time, the two people, whose hearts were thoroughly hurt for their respective reasons, didn’t exchange even a single word with each other. The atmosphere was so sharp and cold that the driver and security guard who rode with them couldn’t even breathe freely, worried sparks might fly their way for no reason.
It was that level of cold war. Throughout all that long time the two had spent together, this was truly the first time. Of course, there was also the reason that before it got to this point, Hwan, who’d always been at fault, would prostrate himself flat first.
This time, watching Hwan show no sign of doing so at all, Huiseo thought, and continued thinking again.
Then finally when they arrived at the palace and it was time to get out, Huiseo opened his tightly closed mouth and asked Hwan.
“I’m asking for the last time. Do you really not think you did anything wrong this time?”
“…Yeah! Even if the same situation came, I’d act the same way!”
“I see.”
At Hwan’s stubborn answer, it wouldn’t have been strange if a lecture immediately poured out. But Huiseo ended the conversation with a calm “I see” as his final answer. Because of that, even Hwan unconsciously glanced sideways at Huiseo out of habit, but that was all.
His sullen expression and tightly crossed arms showed his unchanged stubbornness.
He absolutely did nothing wrong.
Leaving behind Hwan who was saying so with his whole body, Huiseo, who got out first, said to the palace servants who’d received advance notice and hurriedly come out to greet them.
“Please escort His Highness to his quarters.”
And saying he had somewhere to stop by, he left without looking back. Hwan, who’d been glaring at that cold retreating figure with force, soon raised his hand to cover both eyes in despair. It was his true feelings finally revealed now that he was alone.
There wasn’t just one or two things he felt sorry to Huiseo about. This wasn’t the time to be squabbling like this.
From earlier, somehow the situation wasn’t going as he wished.
He resented Jeong Huiseo who’d only scolded him one-sidedly in front of that Choi Yuwon bastard. No, then what should he have done? That crazy bastard was about to steal your lips any moment. Did his eyes turn or not? Then should I have politely knocked saying “excuse me”?
He still felt wronged.
Just when he wanted to reproach Huiseo asking why he did that, he also wanted to hug Huiseo tightly asking really why he did that. Just when he wanted to teach him a lesson saying he didn’t know how scary the world was, he wanted to hold both hands together and cry saying the world was scary.
Like that, various emotions were raging inside Hwan.
He still needed time for this complicated heart to settle.
“Your Highness, we will escort you to your quarters.”
At that moment, when the palace servant who’d received Huiseo’s request spoke to him like that, Hwan couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh with a clouded expression. This time too, it was obvious he’d end up confined to his quarters again, in a position to just accept predetermined results.
Only when other people said it was okay could he be released.
Hwan wanted to shed tears, hating his own circumstances so, so much.
Meanwhile, Huiseo headed straight to the Empress Dowager’s palace.
Though it became barging in without notice, right now the situation was so urgent he had no choice. The palace servants, surprised to see Huiseo appear with such fierce momentum, vied to ask what was wrong, but Huiseo only requested with a soon-composed face that they report he needed to have an audience with Her Majesty immediately.
Thus it was Jagyeongjeon he entered again.
“I greet Her Majesty the Empress Dowager.”
Originally, both Hwan and Huiseo were kids who should be at school, yet they’d suddenly returned to the palace, and in fact, Huiseo had sent advance word from inside the car returning to the palace, so the Empress Dowager knew at least that something had happened. Her wrinkled face was steeped in devastation she couldn’t hide.
Though they’d suffered enough hardship from the recent incident.
‘Why again like this.’
The Empress Dowager, who waved her hand with a pale complexion as if greetings were done, urged Huiseo to speak quickly. Huiseo, who’d been sitting on his knees politely before such an Empress Dowager, immediately prostrated himself at that gesture, bit his lips tightly, and reported to the Empress Dowager.
“…Empress Dowager, Your Majesty. I am no longer qualified to serve Prince Yoon, Your Highness.”
Even the funny nickname of safety pin now became meaningless. Far from handling Hwan, he himself had become the reason Hwan swung his fist. Because of that, Huiseo had no choice but to finally admit that his existence was never helpful to Hwan as a “prince.”
“…Huiseo-ya.”
At such talk out of the blue, the Empress Dowager called Huiseo with a flustered look. However, Huiseo, who’d already hardened his resolve, spoke firmly as if there was no room to look back on the past path.
“I will leave the palace. Please grant permission.”
The day he’d wanted to postpone again and again had finally arrived before his eyes like an accident that occurred unexpectedly.
***
Hwan probably thought Huiseo was busily running around like that to prepare countermeasures for today’s incident. However, regrettably, Huiseo was doing something he couldn’t dare imagine even in the countless dreams he’d had.
He was actually going around asking permission to leave the palace himself.
It wasn’t just the Empress Dowager he’d visited earlier. After that, Huiseo visited in turn the Emperor and Empress, and even his own father who was the Chief Secretary, without exception, reporting the same content.
“Leave the palace? And today immediately?”
Everyone couldn’t hide their flustered looks, but they couldn’t bring themselves to stop Huiseo with his firm attitude. Since he wasn’t an official palace servant in the first place, it wasn’t something they could force.
Huiseo hesitated briefly on how to explain today’s incident. The matter with Yuwon, what happened in that situation, Hwan’s heart watching it—none of it was easy to explain.
But the accident had already occurred and he couldn’t not explain, so to the imperial elders he conveyed roughly that he’d been subjected to some bullying and Hwan, who witnessed it, had rushed in.
It wasn’t something they could unconditionally scold Hwan for. It was out of caring for Huiseo.
However, Huiseo pointed out that was the problem.
His existence becoming heavier than the weight of responsibility as a prince that Hwan bore was something that should never happen. To the words he’d asked one last time earlier, Hwan had answered without hesitation that if such a thing happened, he’d do the same again.
Hwan didn’t know, but that answer was what finally made Huiseo decide. Though he’d stubbornly held on even after hearing from his father that he was a nuisance, he could no longer postpone. Right now. Though perhaps even now was too late.
‘I have to step back.’
For the imperial family’s sake, that was a hundred times right.
Huiseo’s words that followed were full of proper reasoning. So everyone was even more unable to stop him. The Emperor and Empress, who usually cherished Huiseo greatly, couldn’t hide their very worried looks as they interrogated details about Huiseo’s decision, saying “How will you manage going out alone…”
“Have you talked with Hwan about this?”
“…Not yet.”
“What about school? You’ll still attend school together, right?”
“No, I’m thinking of completing only up to the second-year curriculum and graduating early.”
“Really to that extent… When you can’t possibly be properly prepared for graduation. What are you going to do?”
“I think there’s no choice. Since accidents keep… happening at school.”
“Will you truly not regret it even if you go this far?”
“……”
Huiseo’s answers, which had continued smoothly as if prepared in advance, paused for a moment when none other than the Emperor, Hwan’s father, posed such a question.
‘Surely from the day I leave, from that moment I’ll regret it.’
To answer the previous question honestly, Huiseo’s answer would be that.
But if he feared that and sat there pretending not to know, and something bigger happened? If it became like that, Huiseo felt he’d regret it even more. That’s why he was making this decision. With such thoughts, Huiseo covered his anxiously trembling chest.
‘No matter how many times I think about it, this is right.’
Yuwon would probably try to pressure him over this incident too.
Perhaps now he might no longer grant his stubbornness. Though he couldn’t understand the reason at all, what he wanted was becoming clearer with each passing day, so if they made the same deal this time too, Huiseo might end up acting like lovers with him.
Thinking about doing that in front of none other than Hwan, Huiseo’s vision turned completely dark.
