“No matter what, hide behind me. Got it? I’ll protect you.”
Raising his hand brightly saying a strategy meeting was needed, what he said immediately turning toward Huiseo was exactly that. Regardless of the gathering gazes, Hwan was so busy earnestly entreating Huiseo like that several times.
“Don’t look at the ball, just look at my back.”
Though Huiseo had been rolling his eyes here and there in the embarrassing situation, in the end he couldn’t resist his nagging and obediently nodded. So only then did Hwan smile satisfactorily as well.
“Don’t fall.”
“…I said I got it.”
“Be careful.”
Adding that while reaching out to ruffle his hair, Huiseo couldn’t help the feeling of being even more embarrassed and ticklish. Usually he was such an immature troublemaker. Perhaps because he knew that in sports, he wouldn’t easily fall behind anyone. He suddenly felt reassuring.
At the unfamiliar feeling, Huiseo briefly pressed down on the top of his head where Hwan’s hand had left.
After such twists and turns, the game began.
The main attackers of both teams were naturally Hwan and Yuwon.
Since there was a deep emotional rift between the two, their sharp feelings were conveyed as is, making the ball going back and forth faster and more brutal than usual. It was dodgeball they’d started for fun to prevent getting moldy from sitting and studying all day, but it was worrying enough that someone might get hurt like that.
“Kyaa! Wait!”
“Here!”
“No…!”
“Urgh!”
In the two people’s war of nerves, only the other innocent guys fell like autumn leaves in the wind one after another out of bounds.
As the number of people inside decreased rapidly like that, what naturally caught the opposing team’s eye was the weakest link, Huiseo.
Hwan was quite marvelous at how that big guy dodged so well and flew around. However, compared to him, Huiseo was just chasing behind him according to the earlier strategy, but even just that was exhausting him as he panted.
Opinions were divided within the opposing team about him.
“Let’s kill him.”
Wasn’t he too weak just by looking? With such a weak one blatantly getting in the way before their eyes, there was no need to take the difficult route and have a head-on match with the strong, wasn’t there? There was also a faction that thought so. However, an opposing opinion immediately came out.
“No, we have to let him live!”
Without such a handicap attached, there was no way to stop Hwan who was playing around like a fish in water. Huiseo was, so to speak, like a leash attached to Hwan.
It was quite a reasonable opinion, but before long, as the number of survivors decreased helplessly, inevitably the ball began flying intensively toward Huiseo. Of course, even then they stuck out their tongues seeing Hwan who appeared like Hong Gildong and blocked flawlessly, but at the same time their determination rose sharply.
“Are you crazy?”
“Kill him!”
It was around the time everyone was gritting their teeth and attacking.
Hwan could somehow dodge, but as expected, it was too much for Huiseo to follow that fast speed. Just as he was about to hide behind Hwan from the ball flying mercilessly again this time, he ended up twisting his foot. Because of that, it was the moment his body was toppling forward.
“Whoa…!”
The sight of Huiseo falling was visible in Hwan’s view too.
So how could he think of anything else? First his hands and feet shot out.
He absolutely couldn’t stand by and watch our innocent Huiseo’s knees get scraped in a game they were forced to play because of him. With such determination, Hwan quickly caught him as he was falling and embraced him.
‘I, I survived.’
Though they ended up sitting down in a slide, he at least protected Huiseo.
That sense of relief was only brief.
In fact, that situation was a rare opportunity from the opposing team’s perspective. Coldly speaking, it wasn’t like a transformation scene from an animation, so there was no reason to wait for them, was there? It might look a bit petty, but naturally the ball came flying.
“……!”
Of course, that too entered Hwan’s field of vision.
However, the problem was that the posture and time weren’t favorable for dodging together with Huiseo. In that moment, Hwan, who had no other method, ended up tightly wrapping Huiseo with his own body.
So that he, not Huiseo, would get hit instead.
But if there was one more problem here, it was that due to the overheated atmosphere, that ball was also quite rough. To make matters worse, combined with Hwan’s low posture as he was supporting Huiseo who was about to fall, unluckily that ball hit Hwan’s head squarely.
Thwack!
The oblivious sound of impact was quite loud.
For a moment, everyone who was surprised swallowed even their breath and stopped.
“…No, that was.”
In the coldly settled atmosphere, the guy who had directly thrown that ball felt almost like he was standing on a bed of thorns. He swore it wasn’t on purpose aiming for the head. Really. But perhaps because of the awkward atmosphere up to now, there didn’t seem to be many who believed him.
Especially Huiseo, who was already cradling Hwan’s head and glaring fiercely.
It was a sharp appearance they’d never seen before.
The Huiseo people had seen until now was only the generous and gentle figure who endured and accepted everything no matter what trouble Hwan caused beside him. So the common misconception many made was thinking Huiseo would also be like that to them.
However, Huiseo wasn’t that kind of personality to begin with, and moreover, in a situation like this, he could be even less generous and gentle.
It was just a ball game. It was just a small accident that happened, but from Huiseo’s reaction, anyone watching would think Hwan had been attacked by terrorism. The fingertips tightly embracing Hwan had turned white and were trembling. Right now, if anyone carelessly approached, it felt like being branded a traitor and dragged away would be nothing.
However, that too was momentary.
“…I’ll go out too.”
A moment later, after a deep sigh and calmly closing and opening his eyes, Huiseo raised his hand saying he’d also been hit by the ball. Everyone had watched Hwan wrap up Huiseo entirely with that large body, but overwhelmed by his earlier atmosphere, the other children couldn’t say anything differently.
“I, is that so?”
The PE teacher, whose heart was pounding worried that a prince might get injured and leave during his class, was the same. He rather felt fortunate about Hwan and Huiseo obediently going outside the line.
How the situation after that progressed was now outside the two people’s interest.
Leaving the scene as is, Huiseo, who had seated Hwan in a shaded corner of the playground, was busy examining his condition sitting across from him.
“Anywhere else that hurts? Aren’t you dizzy? Want to leave early? Should we go to the hospital?”
“No, Huiseo-ya. I’m really fine.”
“Even if you seem fine now, you might not be. That’s why the word aftereffects exists, you know?”
“…I, is that so?”
“Yeah. So if you get even a little dizzy, you must tell me. Okay?”
“Uh, yeah. I will. I’ll do that.”
It seemed Huiseo was very startled. Though Hwan was also a bit surprised, not expecting to get hit in the head, he had such a sturdy body that it was nothing. But Huiseo was fussing over him to an excessive degree, so he couldn’t help feeling awkward. Only now was he embarrassed by the gazes gathering on them.
Still, his more honest feeling was that he was secretly pleased that Huiseo was only looking at and worrying about and taking care of him.
“Is there a bump?”
Even now, the touch carefully parting his hair and touching to see if it had swollen felt like handling something precious, which made him feel pleased for no reason. When Yuwon’s displeased gaze reached Huiseo and himself who were like that, from then on he even felt proud.
‘To Huiseo, I’m this much.’
His lips unknowingly formed a smug shape.
‘So don’t bother struggling in vain.’
He really wanted to say that.
***
Fortunately, or perhaps naturally, Hwan had no problems afterward either.
“That’s a relief.”
Even Huiseo, who had made such a fuss that day, brushed it off calmly around then. But for some reason, this time conversely, it seemed Hwan had some lingering regret about letting that incident pass.
It wasn’t that he brought it up as a problem again.
Rather, it should be seen as lingering feelings about how Huiseo had worried about him like that. How impressive it was—Hwan bewildered many people by suddenly bringing up the story from that time in an interview a few days later.
The circumstances were as follows.
“Yes! Now shall we talk about the princes’ recent activities? Since there’s been someone who’s made quite a stir in society, and there seem to be many interesting anecdotes, how about it?”
To the host’s bright question, the answers from Kang, who responded first, and Ho, who followed after, were truly close to textbook. They probably wanted to talk about matters related to Kang’s national marriage by asking about the princes’ recent activities, but perhaps not wanting to give such an opening even though they knew, the two calmly recited only the imperial family’s recent activities.
“The imperial family will strive to be an even better example by welcoming a new family member, and soon we’ll be able to bring you better news…”
“Recently, together with Jejungwon, we’ve been able to expand vaccination support for medically vulnerable groups. So that you can stay healthy in the coming winter…”
They were desirable answers, but definitely not interesting.
Especially since today’s interview was being broadcast live on the internet, as boring answers continued, the decreasing number of viewers and slowing comment speed showed in real time.
At the darkening complexions of the PD and writer, the host who finally thought this wouldn’t do naturally turned to Hwan.
“Well then, Your Highness Prince Yoon, how have you been recently?”
Of course, this side would also go on with the typical ‘Huiseo talk,’ but escaping from that stuffy story was urgent for now. Also, people strangely found that story interesting without getting tired of it, so it could at least be considered holding the line.
But today, the introduction to that common Huiseo talk was a bit different.
Hwan, who had grabbed the microphone, spoke with quite a proud face.
“Recently, we played dodgeball at school.”
Jejungwon (제중원) – [medical institution]
