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I. “I sing of boys loved by the gods.”
It’s dusk, and Jeonghan knows it; if not by the deepening blue of the sky, then by the scent of oranges rising on the wind. It’s a smell that mingles with the perfumed scorch of incense and the heavy odour of summer wine, but something in the bitterness of the orange cuts above the other notes. Evening winds blow stronger, right into his chamber with the wide-open windows and sun-faded curtains, to bring him the pleasant sharpness of citrus. It is not an accident; it’s a gift. A blessing.
Tonight, he can see a few stars in the sky. Jeonghan can find no hope in them – no guidance or deliverance or chance for rebirth. Celestial bodies are, to him, treacherous creatures. As falsely generous as the peaches that fall perfectly ripe in the gardens around the Yoon family estate. They are all signs of godly devotion and Jeonghan feels himself maddened by it.
He raises his arms, stretches in the subtle moonlight, makes to go to bed – but he is not alone.
‘My beautiful boy.’
Jeonghan’s pulse quickens, his body betrays him. Despite it all, he’s thrilled by the sudden appearance of bronze skin in the coming darkness.
‘You won’t look at me? I’ve given your family all the beautiful things in creation. I’ve made your father a king and yourself a prince— but still you scorn me?’
What else can you do in the presence of a god, but obey?
‘My lord…’ Jeonghan humbles himself, gets down onto one knee. He sees open toed sandals and lean legs too perfect to be human. He finds it funny that the gods spend so much time walking among mortals but never seem to embrace the ugly, dirty things that make a man a man.
‘I should be the one bowing to you, my love,’ he pulls Jeonghan up as easily as a farmer tearing out a weed – but there’s love in the gesture. So much love that Jeonghan is afraid. It’s simpler, he thinks, to be hated by the gods than to be adored.
‘Look at you. My golden boy.’
Jeonghan imagines what he looks like in his lover’s eyes – it’s not too difficult a task when there are mirrors in almost every room of the palace. He must see the pale blue robe, the blonde hair left uncut, the haze of tiredness in his eyes. Is he easy prey?
Of course he is. He has no choice but to play the startled deer; he must not run, but only wait for the arrow to penetrate his heart. Then the task is to bleed.
Then the task is to die.
When he feels lips on his neck, his shoulders, Jeonghan looks to the door in embarrassment. But it’s foolish of him to think that his mother might walk in and be outraged. She’s been made a queen because a god once saw her son bathing when he was just sixteen and waited – waited nine long years – until he could take him as an honest man.
As though he had a conscience.
It’s only been a month since Jeonghan became his lover in earnest. Every little kiss, every golden touch, still feels like a brand against his skin. The god pulls him close. Jeonghan tells himself he wants to be free – if he could take his destiny from the fates and cut himself loose, he would – but his presence is divine and consuming.
He wants to be swallowed up.
He wants to be made anew.
-
II. “You will be his first love, and you will be his last, and he will devote his life only to you.”
Summer is a hearth that burns hotter, each new day like a coal thrown to the hungry flame. Time doesn’t seem to pass like it used to; Jeonghan lives a life of pure pleasure, and every sunrise bleeds into a sunset.
His god – his golden beloved – comes to him when he has finished his duties in the sky. The moon frees him from his burdens, and Jeonghan is his only, all-consuming concern. He’s grown accustomed to his nightly visits, and there’s a joy to be found in the deference the world pays him. Even his own father, the king, could never do a thing that would make his son unhappy.
There is only one person that Jeonghan knows will tell him the brutal, honest truth.
The temple isn’t far from the palace; its columns and statues and huge golden braziers rival even the opulence of his own home. Jeonghan runs to it, thirsty for the shade, and sees Minghao putting out fresh offerings for the temple’s patron goddess.
‘Aphrodite keeps you working on a day as nice as this?’ He says panting, a smile on his face.
Minghao looks immediately shocked. ‘Keep your voice down! Or better yet, don’t insult a goddess in her own sacred temple.’ He drags Jeonghan inside to the foot of a huge stone statue. The temple is otherwise empty – Minghao always was the most loyal follower of the goddess of love.
‘You don’t want to give her another reason to hate you.’ He lowers his eyes. It seems as though he’s preparing to say something that Jeonghan is not prepared to hear. But what harm can come to him, with his great god at his side?
‘Don’t be foolish,’ he rebuffs. Jeonghan leans back against the foot of the stone goddess and catches his breath.
‘Listen to me, your highness—’
‘Call me Jeonghan. I told you I like that better.’
‘—Okay, Jeonghan heed this warning: Apollo covets you too much. He’s bragged about your beauty to the other Olympians and…’ Minghao steadies himself, prepares to deliver the blow that will change Jeonghan’s life forever. ‘Aphrodite doesn’t like Apollo’s hubris or your apparent arrogance. She’s decided to toy with you both.’
And yet again, Jeonghan feels that sinking sensation – like a boat drawn into the hungry depths of the ocean. His life is not his own.
Minghao’s tale is not quite over. ‘She will make you fall in love with a man that also loves you.’ He says it like an executioner lowering his sword.
‘Who?’
It’s all Jeonghan can think to ask. His mind is busy elsewhere – he’d imagined himself in love with his beautiful god, but he was wrong. So wrong. In the cold, unforgiving shadows of Aphrodite’s temple, Jeonghan truly understand that to love is to suffer and to hurt.
His feeble love was nothing more substantial than common lust.
‘A dangerous man,’ he corrects himself; ‘the most dangerous man that can be brought to your shores.’
‘How will I know it?’ Jeonghan raises a hand to his slender throat, as though he’s waiting for a death that will not come – at least not in the way he’d expect it to. ‘How will I know that it’s love?’
Minghao hesitates, then brings a hand onto Jeonghan’s shoulder in consolation. He cares, he sympathises, but he will do nothing after all.
He does not answer.
-
The day comes, and Jeonghan does not realise he’s about to be ensnared by Eros.
At first he is fearful; his father is throwing a banquet to celebrate a treaty of trade and peace. War is something his homeland does not know, thanks to the godly protection Jeonghan provides. Rival countries that would ordinarily long to raid their shores have no appetite for bloodshed.
Even the young king of a nation of soldiers – yes, even the boy that was raised with a sword in his hand and the taste of dirt in his mouth – does not seem to want their cattle, their crops, the profits of their trade.
Jeonghan had seen him once before. Both of them were hardly more than children, but Seungcheol was already a king. He’d thought him strange but handsome; Jeonghan had never seen a boy with such big eyes before.
Now he sits at his father’s table, breaking bread with him and his men as Jeonghan watches from the shadows. Crowds of men scare him as of late, thanks to his new curse – but Seungcheol seems the same as ever. Jeonghan can’t make out his face from where he stands, but he can see the scars on his large arms and a droplet of sweat on this side of his turned cheek.
He has all the ugly, dirty things that make a man a man.
The smell of food is enticing, the wine intoxicating – he walks shyly inside the banquet hall and steps into his destiny.
Immediately, the young king looks up from his cup of wine. It’s almost as though Jeonghan had shouted his name across the chaos of drunken soldiers and diplomats. His eyes – big and beautiful, unchanged by the years – meet Jeonghan’s own. His lips part in astonishment.
Jeonghan feels like he’s been wounded; gored, bloodied. This is not the silver arrow of a marksman with a shot that never misses. This is love; this is a heavy broadsword to the gut that will bleed him dry in an agony of want.
Jeonghan’s parents catch sight of him and call him to them, but he will not stay and walk into the trap of tragic love.
The last thing he sees before he hurries away is Seungcheol holding out a hand – as if to touch him from far across the room.
-
It isn’t long before Jeonghan’s fate catches up with him, though.
He’d expected he wouldn’t have much hope of avoiding Aphrodite’s trickery, but he hadn’t imagined that King Seungcheol would scale the side of the palace walls to appear at Jeonghan’s window.
It’s almost clumsy the way he crawls inside the bedchamber, a world away from the lithe, inhuman grace of Apollo.
‘What are you doing?’ Jeonghan’s voice is high and strained with anxiety. But there’s something else there, too; another feeling clawing at his chest and making him blush in the dying afternoon light. He feels breathless. His hands ache to touch Seungcheol’s cheeks, to feel out the shape of his beautiful face. Jeonghan, so used to the softest fabrics and the loveliest perfumes, wants to kiss Seungcheol’s forehead where he is still dirty and sweaty from the long voyage to their shores.
Aphrodite really is so cruel.
‘I couldn’t help myself…’ Seungcheol seems just as bemused and overwhelmed as Jeonghan. They are both of them puppets whose strings are being pulled in a cruel game of desire and death.
Jeonghan feels the heaviness of the king’s gaze on him. He covers his chest with his arms, suddenly ashamed of the almost transparent purple fabric draped around him. These days he wears more jewellery than substantial clothing; in the oncoming evening shadows, his necklace and golden armlets glint in the torchlight.
‘How did you even find my room?’ He’s walked closer to Seungcheol. Both of them are breathing deeply.
‘I saw you in the window when I arrived this morning— you had your arm out to feel the wind. I’ve never wanted anything in this world more than I want you. How can this be? It doesn’t make any se—’
Always foolish, even in the most hopeless situations, Jeonghan gives in to his desires. He kisses his king and finds that he tastes like wine and like the sea. And Seungcheol feels so broad, so firm beneath his touch. This is what it’s really like to have a man, Jeonghan thinks; I’ve never really been kissed before until now.
Seungcheol looks as though he wants to talk and explain himself. A few times, he tries to voice the very valid concerns that bubble up to the surface like poison. Jeonghan kisses each terrible realisation away; he knows just how badly he’s transgressed.
He’s broken the heart of a god – if he had one to break in the first place.
‘Your father will never give you up to me, but I can’t live without you now—’
One kiss.
‘I already have a wife. I could never lie with her, but we’re married in the eyes of the gods—’
Two kisses.
‘I leave in three days—’
Now Jeonghan moves down Seungcheol’s body, figuring out his shape in the coming darkness. But it’s that exact darkness that brings him to a sudden, stark realisation. He pushes himself off the king so fast he almost loses his balance. Jeonghan knows he won’t be alone when the sun finally sets.
‘You have to leave. Now.’
Seungcheol sounds frustrated and tries to pull Jeonghan in for another kiss.
‘Did you forget?’ he says sadly. ‘I already have a lover. And even a king is nothing to a god.’
-
When the moon smiles her cool, white light in the sky, Jeonghan’s handsome god appears at his bed. Tonight he brings a broach – made of the purest gold, as all his gifts are – and fastens it over his chest. The little shining thing is set with amethysts to match the purple of his robes.
Jeonghan almost feels guilty.
But then, all too soon, he’s being used again. It feels much worse than it ever has done, now that he only wants to be loved by one man in the entire world.
Now Jeonghan really does feel guilty – but not on behalf of Apollo, who smells far too much like floral incense and not at all like brine and fresh, wild air – no, he feels the mortal sting of betrayal.
Jeonghan closes his eyes and sees only one man.
-
III. “I have lost him.”
In the coming days, Jeonghan learns more of what it means to be in love.
He understands the secrecy of his desires, but he can’t seem to stop himself from talking about Seungcheol – he wants to know everything about him, and for everyone else to realise how wonderful he is. Even the tragedy of his coming departure doesn’t seem to stop Jeonghan from sneaking down to the courtyard to watch him practice sword fighting.
He decides he has a taste for doing embroidery on the balcony where he can watch the training sessions on the sly. Seungkwan, Jeonghan’s servant and companion, is happy enough to join him there – although it seems he has more of an interest in the budding romance than helping Jeonghan with his hopeless sewing skills.
During these morning embroidery sessions, Jeonghan quickly learns that Seungkwan is a keeper of secrets, almost all of which aren’t his own. He weaves pretty tales at Jeonghan’s behest – tales of the young king sparring beneath them. It’s in this way Jeonghan comes to understand the man he’s been cursed to love.
‘They say he beheaded his own righthand man during a conquest some years ago – when he hadn’t long been crowned king – who can say why he did it?’
‘Or if he did it,’ Jeonghan says, moments before pricking himself with the needle. He’d been so distracted watching Seungcheol disarm a soldier – the blade hitting the ground with a silver clatter.
‘And his wife…’ Seungkwan comes closer to Jeonghan. ‘They sing songs of her beauty from here to Olympus, but the king pays less attention to her than he does to his horses. He’s a soldier, through and through, blessed by Ares to have good fortune in battle. I don’t think he has any need for love.’
Oh, but he does, Jeonghan thinks, he needs it just as badly as I do.
-
Two more days pass like this.
For two more days, Seungcheol climbs through the widow of Jeonghan’s bedchamber and kisses him – nothing more, nothing less – until the sun begins to slowly set.
He thinks this is the end of it.
He thinks he can escape his fate, crawl free of the trap that has ensnared him.
On the third day, Jeonghan learns just how wrong he has been.
It had hurt immensely to stand with his mother and father in the throne and wish Seungcheol and his men luck on their voyage home. The king had taken Jeonghan’s hand and led it to his lips in a chaste and innocent kiss, but they were stupid to think they could hide their feelings. Next to him, Jeonghan feels his father tense up defensively – a man has tried to claim his property, after all – but he relaxes again at the sight of Seungcheol’s retinue turning their backs and making to leave for good.
-
Jeonghan is so used to marking the passage of the day, he knows that it will only be a further hour until sunset. There’s no time to cry over the loss of his heart’s desire, to wallow in the incredible pain of yearning for someone that cannot be there. Seungcheol has left and disappeared like an ember floating up towards a wide, empty sky. Jeonghan tries not to think about the way it still feels as though he’s there, tied to him by a string of fate. He has a god to please – he must dress himself.
‘Your highness.’ It’s Seungkwan and he sounds urgent. Jeonghan scowls; surely everyone in the palace should know not to disturb him at this hour.
‘Go away. I’m in no mood to see anyone.’ When he speaks he feels as though he might cry.
‘You must come with me now, your highness. Get a cloak, walking shoes, some spare clothes—’
‘Have you lost your mind? I can’t go wandering around the palace grounds now. You know this.’
‘You’ve always been an idiot, haven’t you? All the servants agree your parents should’ve tried a bit harder with your education.’ Seungkwan snaps. Jeonghan freezes in shock. No one in all his twenty-four years has spoken to him with so much disrespect.
The servant rolls his eyes and begins dressing Jeonghan against his will. The cloak feels too thick for the lazy heat that refuses to cool into a chill; he’s never once worn it before.
‘Your king has promised me a fine house and my own servants if I can get us both onto his ship before nightfall. Of course, this will start a terrible war, but I plan on taking my fine house somewhere nice and quiet. An island, maybe—’
‘This is what she always wanted,’ Jeonghan says in a daze. ‘For me to run away and orchestrate my own downfall all because she made me fall in love with a warlord.’
‘Oh? So you’re going to be smart and stay where you belong then?’ Seungkwan isn’t convinced. He’s already lifting up the hood of Jeonghan’s cloak before seeing to his own.
The question doesn’t need a response.
In the last few moments before hurrying out of the palace, down into the servant’s quarters where they will not be noticed, Jeonghan thinks of his beloved – the one he is losing forever. Perhaps he will miss the easiness of it; the coolness of his skin; the gifts and the excitement. But he will not miss Apollo.
He supposes that will be the fatal shot; his god will learn that he never really loved him at all, and that Jeonghan is cruel enough to betray him for the sake of a mortal.
Jeonghan can’t help smiling to himself. He realises that there’s nothing in this world more dangerous than love.
-
IV. “Galaxies have fallen in my cupped hands / I have drunk the stars.”
It’s the first time in a long time that Jeonghan has looked up at the night sky with a sense of freedom. Perhaps it’s foolish of him to be happy when his short, mortal life has already been written out by a higher power, but he can’t seem to help it.
He takes one last look at the constellations from the deck of the ship. They are senseless to him, shapeless; a chaos of possibility strewn out into the cosmos. When he’s had his fill of them, he steps lightly down into the belly of the great ship where Seungcheol is waiting for him.
Jeonghan closes the door of the king’s cabin and braces himself for the full force of Seungcheol’s love; instead he’s met with a strange hesitation. It’s a pleasant, charged moment. Both of them stand there, feeling the force of the ocean sway beneath their feet.
‘You came.’
‘As if I could stay away.’
Seungcheol darts towards him, pulls the hood back from his head and then – gingerly – he unfastens it, so it falls to the floor at his feet. All that’s left underneath is thin white linen and a pale pink shawl.
Jeonghan is slowly unclothed. With each layer taken away, Jeonghan feels like a flower unfurling its petals – he feels like all the beautiful things Apollo has ever given him, and in an instant, understands their value.
‘Are you mine now?’ Seungcheol asks. He sounds so uncertain – not at all like a killer, a man who murders for sport.
The sea lurches beneath them and they tumble together. Seungcheol laughs. Jeonghan loosens the straps of his armour; he thinks this must be how all lovers act when they have time and peace and opportunity. He decides to pretend he’s one of them.
He decides to pretend they have a chance.
‘I’m yours,’ he says.
They fall back against the bed and Jeonghan allows himself to be consumed by love. Seungcheol is there – he’s right above him, kissing him, making him bloom like glorious spring.
If this is love, Jeonghan thinks, it’s worth dying for.