When the car stopped, Hwan revealed himself with a clean face as if he’d never suffered from motion sickness.
Then, though not as much as at yesterday’s Gyeongbokgung ceremony, there was a baptism of camera flashes bursting from everywhere. Today especially, it seemed there were many reporters and fans who had gathered to capture him with Huiseo because of the sulking incident from the day before.
“Hwan, no, Your Highness!”
“Huiseo-ya!”
“Look over here!”
Naturally, outsiders couldn’t enter inside the school, but they weren’t people to be deterred by that.
Moreover, these days cameras had terrifyingly well-made zoom functions, so the school wall was laughable. They could capture Hwan and Huiseo’s appearances as if they were right in front of them all too easily.
“What do I do! So pretty!”
The fans were happy, but for these two, it could be frightening.
Because hundreds and thousands of eyes followed even one small unconscious action.
However, since such things had already become routine for Hwan, he just glanced around once with an indifferent face. Seeing him not bat an eye even looking at all those people and cameras, one couldn’t help but click their tongue at such nerves of steel.
Meanwhile, in terms of composure, Huiseo following closely behind Hwan after getting out on the opposite side was the same.
Of course, in Huiseo’s case, rather than his nerves being steel, it was because he thought all those many people came to see Hwan the prince and had absolutely nothing to do with him. In other words, it meant he couldn’t even dream that they were photographing him too. Funny but true.
Anyway, usually Hwan would simply ignore even such a hellish scene and quickly enter the school building. Because he knew that was the fastest way to end this commotion.
But for some reason, today was a bit different.
At his appearance suddenly stopping and looking back at Huiseo, another commotion began.
“Huiseo-ya.”
When he suddenly called him with an affectionate voice, puzzled, Huiseo raised his head to look at Hwan.
Then immediately moving his lips, it seemed he was about to ask Hwan what was wrong, but before that, Hwan’s hand suddenly appeared before Huiseo’s eyes. While startled Huiseo flinched for a moment—
Hwan’s hand gently landed on Huiseo’s light-colored hair.
“Your hair’s sticking up.”
Then wasn’t he slowly stroking and arranging it with quite careful hands?
But ridiculously, the first thought Huiseo had while watching such Hwan was precisely “What?”
‘…Saying nothing until now, then suddenly?’
Here?
Of course, his curly hair tended to be generally free-spirited, so it might have gotten a bit disheveled while riding in the car just now. However, his intuition developed from spending time with Hwan until now told him this was definitely some suspicious prank again.
“There, done.”
However, to confront him about it, the matter-of-fact tone as if it was nothing was confusing. Just when he thought he’d cling stickily as usual, the hand that withdrew cleanly for once was the same.
‘That’s strange.’
He did think so. But since all he had was a gut feeling, while Huiseo hesitated for a moment, standing and looking at Hwan—
Hudududuk.
In that brief moment, the hand movements of the people holding cameras becoming viciously fast—Huiseo would never know.
Being smarter than others, he probably knew very many things far more impressive than this. However, with the only reason for using the internet being knowledge searches, he couldn’t help but be completely naive in this aspect.
So only Hwan’s lips, turning away without regret, silently curled up—ssik.
Unlike Huiseo, he knew all too well that this wonderful scene from just now would decorate every corner of the internet with the help of various edits.
***
2nd Year Class 1, the very back window seat.
That famous place, famous enough to call it a reserved seat, was precisely their spot.
Hwan and Huiseo had been continuously together since meeting in childhood. In other words, from elementary school through middle school and up to the current high school, they’d always stuck together in the same class, same seats.
That was of course possible because the adults’ influence had reached.
It could be said to be like tying a “wild colt” that might run off anywhere if left alone in a visible place with a trustworthy guy. It was a truly blatant move where the interests aligned between the imperial family, troubled if Hwan ran wild as he pleased, and the school with supervisory responsibility.
However, Hwan liked this situation. It was to his liking.
Because at least while at school, he could stick with Huiseo without being conscious of others.
When they sat side by side in an already secluded spot and created their own world, he could feel that from their classmates to sometimes even teachers, they hesitated to intrude carelessly. For Hwan, there was no reason not to be satisfied.
‘I hope it continues just like this forever.’
It was peaceful.
In those tranquil days, usually Huiseo did the studying he wanted to do, and Hwan propped his chin and observed such a Huiseo. Then when bored, he’d reach out and poke the textbook spread before Huiseo for no reason—tok tok.
Especially in the margins of the left page where Hwan sat, small doodles like stars, hearts, or silly faces were densely positioned.
Huiseo mostly left them alone, pretending not to know even when he knew, but true to being a model student, he absolutely never forgave encroaching on the text itself.
Because of that, he’d occasionally get his hand smacked—chalssakk—in secret, but rather than scolding that presumptuous act, Hwan would instead laugh even more happily—bangsilbangsil.
“…No, why are you happy even after getting hit?”
Half-joking, half-serious, even that gaze filled with contempt was just funny and enjoyable.
It was a rudeness permitted only to Huiseo.
The reason for bringing up this story anew was none other than to say that Huiseo had his own “standards” like this.
Even when Hwan doodled in his textbook, only when he encroached on the text. Similarly, in the imperial palace too, he scolded mercilessly only when clearly doing wrong as a prince. A close example was like the day before when Hwan had used his authority to be unreasonable and press the palace servant in front of Huiseo’s room.
Conversely, it meant that if he didn’t cross those “standards,” Huiseo generally tended to leave alone whatever Hwan did beside him.
Even in situations like now, it was so.
Click!
Beside him, Hwan suddenly held up his phone and took a picture of Huiseo’s appearance.
Though not saying anything beforehand and doing so could be reasonably unpleasant, Huiseo just glanced at Hwan once and showed no particular reaction. Perhaps he was already conditioned because of the countless times clicking away beside him with various excuses.
So now he just did his own thing and only requested one thing.
“Don’t upload it somewhere weird.”
“I won’t upload it somewhere weird.”
“So you will upload it.”
Though he added it like a rebuke, in fact, Huiseo was clearly not thinking much of it.
‘Do as you please. As if anyone would see it even if you upload it.’
His feelings might be like that. As mentioned earlier, he didn’t do SNS or anything at all, and only accessed the internet when checking news or when curious about something while studying—he probably couldn’t imagine.
How many people were watching him, watching his photos.
For example, Hwan’s SNS followers had long exceeded 20 million. If what he uploaded there spread through various communities, it would easily be even more than that.
Sometimes articles were even written because of the photos he uploaded, but perhaps because he didn’t even glance at the entertainment section? Surprisingly, Huiseo didn’t know any of that at all.
‘Idiot.’
Being ignorant of worldly affairs—it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he was a scholar living in the Joseon era until now.
In reality, most of the photos that many people following Hwan were looking at were precisely Jeong Huiseo’s—his. Huiseo reading books, Huiseo studying, Huiseo eating, Huiseo beside him… Hwan’s feed was packed with Huiseos of various moments as if transparently representing his heart.
It couldn’t be helped.
‘How can I look at this alone?’
When it’s pretty even just taking it casually.
It would be a lie to say he didn’t have feelings of wanting to hide it away tightly and look at it alone. However, in the process of accumulating long experience in what’s called “fangirling,” he learned that if it’s this pretty, it’s right to widely spread and boast about it from a magnanimous perspective.
So the photo taken just now also couldn’t help but be uploaded in the same sense.
Proud, Hwan naturally opened the SNS app and entered.
Then, as usual, without any particular words, just adding one small heart “♥” below the photo and uploading it, as expected, as soon as he uploaded, numerous hearts and comments poured out all at once as if they’d been waiting for this moment.
[It’s Huiseo!]
[Studying hard today too]
[So good♥]
[LOVE U]
[Pretty♥]
[♥♥♥]
[So Cute♥]
‘Right.’
At the bright red wave of hearts loving Huiseo as always, Hwan couldn’t hide his satisfied smile. But watching quietly, was uploading ‘only’ Huiseo’s photo as always the problem? Before long, he witnessed regretful reactions occasionally mixing in.
[Upload a selfie Your Highness]
[The front camera’s going to grow mold]
[I MISS U]
Reading down such comments, Hwan’s lips pouted clearly differently from before. Though they were sounds looking for none other than himself, to be honest, he didn’t like it.
I uploaded Huiseo’s photo.
‘You should focus on Huiseo! What are you doing!’
Dissatisfied that different stories kept coming up unintentionally, having no choice, Hwan sighed and ended up taking his own appearance with that front camera someone said might soon grow mold.
‘Is this enough now?’
With such feelings, he casually took one shot and uploaded it, and lo and behold, this time it became chaotic in its own way.
[There’s really no sincerity]
[Use half of half the care you take photographing Huiseo please]
[No how can you use that face like that?]
[Selfie ban(X)(X)(X) Selfie ban(X)(X)(X)]
