The homepage forum continued in a bewildered and unsettled atmosphere for several days.
If the two of them had completely fought and split up, since the site where they gathered was a couple site, its continued existence would be difficult. It wasn’t like fondling a dead child’s balls or anything. It was a natural process for visitors to gradually decrease, things to quiet down, and then disappear at some point.
They were people who had gathered with matching hearts.
They didn’t want that. So it truly couldn’t help but be an emergency situation.
Because of this, talk began to emerge here and there among the excellent earthbound spirit members.
[Should we meet up and have drinks or something?ㅠ]
[Let’s really have a meetup, I seriously can’t live like this]
[I’m not joking, let’s really gather and come up with a solution together]
[We just need to reconcile them! We just need to reconcile them! You think we can’t do it!]
The content of posts that had been denouncing things like this gradually became more concrete about where and when.
People who were too anxious to just sit still finally began to stir and move.
***
Meanwhile, Huiseo, who had left the palace and returned to his family home, ended up staying at home the whole time afterward, half by choice and half by necessity. Since the fact that he had left the palace had been reported, there were reporters who had cleverly found out his home address and came to the front of his house, and even aside from that, he was swamped with the mountain of assignments and exams he had to complete for his belated graduation preparation.
So many contacts came during that time.
[The settlement went well, so you don’t need to worry]
First, Crown Prince Kang calmly informed him that Hwan’s school incident had been resolved safely, allowing Huiseo to breathe a sigh of relief.
Following that, unexpectedly, he even received a personal call from His Majesty the Emperor. He should have contacted him first. Most graciously, he called directly to ask meticulously whether things were going well, and if there was anything else he needed. Feeling so sorry and grateful for that, Huiseo almost shed tears.
Another unexpected contact came from Crown Princess Seoran.
[This isn’t what we promised]
It was clearly a message reproaching Huiseo. The promise Seoran was referring to was none other than the one they had made before, that he would visit occasionally and tell her stories about the palace and Kang. But since Huiseo had suddenly left the palace without a word, she seemed both flustered and quite hurt.
[I’ll come visit you soon]
He didn’t know when that “soon” would be, but Huiseo placated Seoran for now. After what he had experienced with Hwan this time, he had decided not to be conceited that it had to be him or nothing. Even though Seoran said such things, he believed she could do well on her own.
A message also came from Seonghyeon, the palace attendant in charge of Hwan’s quarters.
[Save me]
This seemed almost like a rescue request.
He thought that Seonghyeon might be the one feeling Huiseo’s absence the most.
Not knowing whether it was a joke or serious, he put off replying, but a few days later the exact same text came again. Considering that Ho had previously hinted that Hwan’s current state was a complete mess, it seemed Seonghyeon was having a hard time.
As for Choi Yuwon, he had blocked him right away on the day he left the palace, so he didn’t even know if any contact had come. No, he said that, but there surely must have been. Tremendously so. Huiseo snorted dismissively.
The contact Huiseo was waiting for was different.
Even though steady contact came from other palace attendants at the very least, there was not a single contact from the one person who mattered most—Hwan.
This was the same person who had sent dozens of calls and messages even when Huiseo had briefly left the palace to meet Yuwon.
Was it because he had been too cold? Huiseo looked at his last message left in the chat window with Hwan on his phone and made a bitter expression.
Like a habit, regret rose up in his chest like a heat haze.
But Huiseo soon shook his head to dispel it.
He could tell just from the fact that the most worrying conflict with Yuwon had been resolved well. Not a single person in the world knew that Hwan had thrown a punch, did they? Just from that alone, Huiseo comforted himself that his choice had been a hundred times right.
His thoughts on that matter had not changed at all. They had to stay that way.
It was just that leaving in anger without saying a single word was weighing on his mind.
That was true of Seonghyeon’s steady messages asking to be saved, and when he compiled the contacts coming from the palace attendants and the stories he could glean from calls with the teachers, though it wasn’t to the extent that rumors were circulating outside yet, Hwan’s life seemed to have collapsed considerably.
‘I’m enduring this for Huiseo’s sake.’
Since that motivation had completely disappeared, it was only natural in a way.
Just looking at his school life, he was habitually late, had a bad attitude by sleeping through almost entire class periods, and had no motivation or will in anything. The peer relationships that they had thought would improve if Huiseo was absent showed no signs of getting better due to Hwan’s listless attitude.
So Huiseo also thought several times, ‘Would it have been different if I had explained even a little?’
In fact, just before leaving the palace that day, Huiseo had gone to Hwan’s quarters with that intention.
However, though he was clearly inside, from the sight of him not even turning on the lights and not making a single sound, Huiseo keenly felt his heartbreak. It seemed that while Huiseo was going around informing the imperial elders and getting permission, the story had reached him first through the mouths of palace attendants who were famous for being quick with rumors.
Given the situation, he couldn’t just burst open the door and enter as before.
Because of that, Huiseo, who had just been standing endlessly in the darkness, soon had to turn away as the time to lock the palace gates drew near.
[I’m leaving]
Leaving only such a simple message behind.
In fact, Huiseo had lingered a bit longer until the very end, hoping that Hwan would come right out if he checked the message. But Hwan seemed to have fallen asleep or something, as he wasn’t checking it.
It seemed he had checked it separately afterward, but there had been no response to it until now.
If it was the Hwan that Huiseo knew, it wouldn’t have been strange for him to have already apologized profusely, crying and begging him to come back, throwing a fit. If that had happened, the imperial family might not have been able to endure it and already begged Huiseo to return.
But seeing that there wasn’t even a single contact this time, let alone that, he couldn’t easily guess what Hwan’s feelings might be.
As the time alone at home lengthened, Huiseo found himself thinking more than usual. Naturally, it was mostly about Hwan. And in doing so, he belatedly realized something—that his actions were not much different from Yuwon’s actions that had made him so furious.
Thinking about that, Huiseo chewed his lower lip.
He had made a big show of telling Yuwon not to force things arbitrarily, yet he had done the exact same thing to Hwan. Honestly, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he had been looking for an excuse to leave the palace and then hurriedly made the decision on his own with an “aha, perfect.” Considering that he hadn’t properly said a word to him, his side was actually more vicious.
If Hwan said to Huiseo exactly what Huiseo had poured out at Yuwon back then, Huiseo felt he would have absolutely nothing to say. In his imagination that had continued several times over, Hwan was already looking at Huiseo with resentful eyes and saying pitifully:
‘You didn’t think about my feelings at all.’
Facing such a Hwan, Huiseo also gaped wordlessly in dismay like Yuwon had back then.
“…No. No, Hwan-ah.”
As Huiseo muttered quietly alone in his room, it was a voice that couldn’t reach anywhere.
***
It was a certain day not long after summer vacation had started, in the year when Hwan and Huiseo turned 15.
At that time, there was an incident that turned the palace upside down, and it was none other than because Hwan had suddenly brought hair dye into his quarters.
No, it was amazing how and where he had obtained it while avoiding the eyes of Huiseo and others. The whole story was that he had cleverly smuggled it in and was caught by a palace attendant right before he actually caused trouble.
Because of that, the palace was truly put on emergency alert.
‘A prince wants to dye his hair?’
Hwan was immediately summoned to Gangnyeongjeon and got chewed out in front of the imperial elders. How dare he try to do such a thing secretly without even asking permission? Hwan pouted. What would have been different if he had said it in advance? No, it was more unfair that they said such things when they clearly wouldn’t have permitted it.
Right, Hwan felt wronged.
It wasn’t like he was going to bleach it bright yellow like celebrities on TV. What he had chosen was just a common, ordinary brown that you could easily find while walking around the streets. Was this really something to turn the imperial palace upside down over?
‘It’s just hair dye, what’s the big deal.’
Hwan really couldn’t understand.
The adults said that whether it was brown or anything else, the color didn’t matter—a prince shouldn’t artificially change what he had. Hwan at that time stuck out his lips and made a sullen expression, asking where such a rule existed. It’s not like he’d stop being a prince because of it.
“Really, it’s impossibly old-fashioned.”
Hwan at that time thought it was the imperial family’s problem. That the imperial family was so old-fashioned it couldn’t accept the changes of the world. However, it was only after time had passed and Hwan had grown a bit more that he learned that the existence that prevented the imperial family from changing was that very world.
Anyway, the rebellious Hwan couldn’t readily admit his fault even at the place where he was being scolded, and rebelled asking what he had done wrong. So afterward, Her Majesty the Empress Dowager grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and a whole scene unfolded. This commotion was even featured on the main page of portal sites afterward.
After all that trouble, Hwan returned to his room as if driven out and lay face down on his bed, sniffling in distress. Childishly, it seemed he was a bit sadder about having the hair dye he had barely obtained confiscated than about being scolded.
By the side of such a Hwan was Huiseo.
