Chapter Text
The Crown Prince Seungmin was seventeen when he first heard about the soldier.
It was late in the spring, the scent of pine lingered in the air. Seungmin stood at the far end of the archery court, arms trembling, the bowstring biting into the pads of his fingers. With the sweat dripping from his brow, he released an arrow. Too wide, sinking into the straw far from it's mark. His jaw tightened.
"You overthink," General Hwang said, calm but firm. He stepped closer, the leather of his boots against the stone floor. His hands, weathered from decades of sword and spear, lifted Seungmin's elbow, correcting his stance with ease. "Archery is not conquered by the mind. You must let instinct guide your breath. Your Highness' mind is sharp, sharper than most. But on the field, sharpness is a double edged sword. You will miss if you fight yourself every time."
Seungmin exhaled slowly, frustration evident behind his words. "Then perhaps I'm not made for this."
The general chuckled, "No one is made for war, not even ghosts."
Seungmin frowns, his bow lowering to his side. "Ghosts?"
“There is a soldier, barely older than you. Lee Minho. Nineteen. He joined the western ranks at seventeen.” The general stepped back, folding his arms as though weighing his next words. “They say he fights as if death itself is a partner he knows by name. The men call him The Ghost.”
The prince rarely heard awe in the general's voice. His curiosity made him turn, his irritation melting away.
"They say he moves like fog across the battlefield," Hwang went on, his tone low and reverent, "silent until it's too late to run. Four men against him, five, sometimes more, it didn't matter. He cuts through them with a kind of… inevitability. And when the dust clears, he stands untouched. Not a scratch deep enough to need stitches."
There was a spark of unexpected fascination tugging in the prince's chest. This man felt like a myth.
General Hwang shook his head, "The men swear he is not human."
The stories sounded like drunken exaggerations, campfire myths. But for it to come from General Hwang, who did not believe superstition, they held the weight of truth.
"There is more," the general said, pulling Seungmin from his thoughts. His voice softer, almost reluctant. "Once the helmet comes off… men falter. Commanders forget themselves. Even enemies hesitate. They say Lee Minho is beautiful. Too beautiful for the blood and iron of war. A face carved from marble. Beauty so otherworldly it unsettles. The kind of beauty that disarms even before a blade is even raised."
Seungmin's breath caught in his throat, though he forced his expression still. Beautiful. The word burned into him. Not handsome. Beautiful. Beauty on the battlefield seemed more absurd than the prowess of war this man seemed to hold. A soldier's body carved with discipline, yet a face that could stop the most hardened men in their tracks? He imagined a beauty one could never own.
"He has sworn," the general continued, "never to take a lover. Said his life belonged only to the kingdom. And he had kept his vow. No woman, nor man, has ever swayed him. Not with charm, title or even wealth."
The prince's chest tightened in an unfamiliar way. Not with jealousy, or even desire. At least, not one he could name yet. But something more subtle. Curiosity. Perhaps fascination. A restless itch under the skin.
He wanted to ask more. To know what this Minho might sound like, what his gaze could do to a room. But footsteps echoed from the entryway. Soft.
The Empress, Jieun, swept into the archery court. Her hair bound in golden cheopji, her silk robes whispering against the stone floor. She looked radiant, poised. But Seungmin caught something softer beneath the powder of her face. Tiredness in her eyes, a weight she never spoke of.
"My son," her voice was gentle as the spring rain. "Your lessons await and your tutors grow restless."
"Yes, mother," Seungmin sets his bow aside, bowing quickly before stepping forward.
Then he noticed it, the way General Hwang's gaze lingered on the empress as she passed. Not improper, never daring, yet his eyes ached. Worn thin by decades of silence. A look that belonged to a man who had long ago buried every selfish want but could not quite let go of.
And his mother smiled at the general as she swept by. Sad. A smile that held a thousand unsaid words, a thousand unchosen paths.
Seungmin's throat tightened. He was a prince, trained to read silences as much as speeches, to see what was hidden beneath. He did not understand it fully, not at seventeen. But he recognized it. The shadow of a longing that could never be spoken. He wonders if that would be his fate, too.
But as he followed his mother out the court, the silk of her robes brushing against the stones, his thoughts strayed.
Lee Minho's name echoed in his mind long after the arrows and lessons were forgotten. Louder than the names of emperors past he was forced to learn. A name that lingered like a spark waiting for flame.
By the time he reached the study hall, the sound of raised voices had already begun to echo. His tutors, clipped and exasperated, and one voice in particular weaving through them like a song out of key.
"Master Hyunjin," one of the old scholars barked. "The Emperors of the past do not concern—"
"But look! Don't you see? This red, THIS RED won't sit still. It keeps sliding like it wants to be water instead of fire!" Hyunjin's voice rose with dramatic despair.
When Seungmin steps inside, he found the scene exactly how he expected, books abandoned, scrolls left unfurled, while Hyunjin knelt before a canvas, charcoal smudges across his cheek. The boy's brush dripped with paint that he had been scolding aloud for the better part of an hour.
Hyunjin leapt up as soon as he hears Seungmin enter, as if rescued by the heavens. "Minnie!" He exclaims, leaping across the floor. He flung himself at the crown prince without hesitation, arms winding around Seungmin's, clinging as though afraid he might get dragged back to his studies.
"The paint isn't listening to me," Hyunjin whines, his words tumbling fast, eyes wide in frustration. "It's supposed to be alive, don't you think? But it won't stay where I want it. It keeps bleeding out! Do you think the canvas is mocking me?"
Seungmin sighed, the corner of his mouth twitching despite the weight still pressing on him. Hyunjin is chaos wrapped in silk, all sharp cheekbones and boundless energy, his mind forever slipping away from the confines of duty. Where Seungmin’s thoughts were pulled toward the ghostly image of an untouchable soldier, Hyunjin’s spun outward in a hundred directions at once.
Seungmin lets him talk, lets him cling. Because Hyunjin's noise filled the air in a way that left no room for tutors or expectations to weigh his thoughts down.
Still, when the tutors scolded him again, Hyunjin buried his face against Seungmin's shoulder in exaggerated despair, the prince found his gaze drifting. Not on the canvas, nor the mess of paints. But to the far distance. Where a figure he had never seen seemed to wait for him.
Lee Minho.
Even with Hyunjin's chatter in his ear, the name rang louder.