Kingdom of Keungang

Summer, 1461

 

When the elegantly dressed, dark-haired man with the wide straw hat suddenly leapt onto their boat and tilted the brim to reveal a silver masked face and eerie blue eyes, Hajoon felt his entire body freeze up with fear.

 

Despite poling a boat into the middle of the waterway with a strength born of desperation, he and his mother had only just escaped the burning river village that had been their temporary home. While the dark clothed men who had broken into their shelter, were still pursuing them, he was suddenly confronted with the masked stranger.

 

Hajoon had lost count as to how many times he and his mother had encountered danger since his existence had been discovered in the brothel about a two months ago. Weakened by constant hunger and endless pursuit, Hajoon watched the village burn with a bitter look on his face. The pursuers never gave up. Even now, he could see them rushing along the banks on horseback, launching a spray of burning arrows.

 

The fire arrows were like a wall of blooming red flowers and just as Hajoon thought the burning projectiles would reach him and his mother, that person had shown up, sweeping a great wind before him, deflecting all the arrows harmlessly into the water.

 

Leisurely floating down onto the prow of the boat from where he’d been hidden in a nearby group of trees, the stranger had stood quite comfortably balanced as the small narrow craft tipped from side to side, rocking precariously as the men in pursuit continued to shoot their fire arrows, making the man sneer.

 

There were shouts of anger and frustration as he casually swept his arm again, deflecting another round like they were nothing but small sticks caught in a rushing wind.

 

“Hmmph…they don’t know who they’re dealing with…” he snorted with disdain.

 

Hajoon’s mother simply gaped at the man, too overwhelmed to react.

 

Fortunately, by now they had reached the part where the river’s mouth widened into the lake and therefore, they had made it safely out of the range of the arrows. Floating into the middle of the green blue lake, their pursuers would have to chase in boats, but Hajoon could not relax as there was still the matter of the powerful stranger.

 

From his clothes, Hajoon could tell that the person was rich, and from his ability to fly through the air, he also realized that the man was a martial arts master.

 

“It seems that you are in need of help,” the stranger observed.

 

“Are you with them or against them?” demanded Hajoon.

 

“I just happened to pass by…would you prefer I leave?” asked the man, smirking.

 

“Hajoon!” his mother scolded, finally snapping out of her daze. “This person is our savior. Don’t be rude.”

 

“Savior or not, I don’t understand his intentions…so I don’t trust him, Mother.”

 

“Hmmmn. You’re actually rather sharp for a brat who has only seen the inside of a brothel…”

 

“How did you…?”

 

The man chuckled.

 

“It’s better that you don’t know. However, I’ve come specially to take you to Moutan, Min Hajoon...but just you. Whether you trust me or not is up to you.”

 

“He’ll go with you,” said Hajoon’s mother promptly.  Seeing a chance to save her son, she did not hesitate to agree, much to her son’s horror.

 

“Mother!”

 

“It’s alright, Hajoon. If he meant to kill us, he wouldn’t have intervened. Even if we are used by him, as long as he agrees to protect your life, then I’ll agree.”

 

Interesting…but then she is in no position to reject my offer. She knows what bloodline it is that the boy carries…and that she will only ever be a burden to him.

 

The stranger requested they leave for Moutan immediately, but Hajoon rejected him until he promised that he would find a way to safeguard his mother and hide her from their pursuers.

 

“Very well,” said the stranger with utmost reluctance. “I will grant you this wish, but you will never see you mother again. Will this satisfy you?”

 

Hajoon nodded.

 

“Very well. Take the boat down to the connecting lake. My men are waiting for me there and they will see to it that your mother is settled.”

 

Nodding tightly, Hajoon had had no choice but to agree to the stranger’s arrangements.

 

 

***

 

The journey to Moutan was exhausting and Hajoon shouldn’t have been too shocked when he fell ill. After months of pursuit, he had been on the last legs of his strength. Even if he had started out as a healthy, strong-willed boy, he was still only eleven, and the last few months had taken their toll.

 

When he found himself in a huge manor house being carried in the arms of a red-haired man, who called himself Moon, he was already delirious with fever, unable to tell dream from reality. So, he wasn’t actually sure that the little dark-haired girl was real until she kissed him on the mouth.

 

Jolting of out his skin, Hajoon was so shocked that he felt his already feverish face explode with heat when the small dark-eyed girl pressed her lips to his and then thrust her tongue into his mouth exactly like he’d seen the sisters at the brothel do when they were with customers.

 

“Mmmn Mmn Mmph!!”

 

He had tried to squirm away from her, but he was so weakened by fever and hunger that he couldn’t even resist as she pushed his lips open with her insistent tongue, inserting the round pill into his mouth, followed by a dribble of flower tea. It was over before he knew it, and he could only stare up at her in a daze.

 

The girl sat back, her cheeks pink. She looked embarrassed and apologetic, murmuring some soft words to him while she patted his hand. Only then did he understand that she had no ill intentions and had simply been trying to pass the medicine to him. Realizing that she too was blushing from the contact, he suddenly smiled even as the medication was already making him foggy with drowsiness.

 

This person was…

 

“Sweet…” he whispered as he drifted off. Very sweet…

 

That night, he dreamed of his dark-haired mother and the shadowy brown-haired man with purple eyes who was supposedly his father. Then he dreamed of the brothel and the sisters who played with him and adored him, and then he dreamed of the horrible night when their screams had reverberated in the night as men with masks came and slaughtered them all.

 

Waking up with a start in the middle of the night, he saw that the girl had fallen asleep next to him. Embarrassed by her kindness, he realized that he didn’t even know her name.

 

***

 

“Keungang was once known as the southern lake kingdom, but the place that was as calm and still as a lake became the rushing current of a river, restless, and often violent. Even now Keungang’s inheritance situation is volatile. Still…situated south of Moutan, it’s a beautiful place, lush with foliage, and the mist of high peaks. Like the kingdom, its people are also lush and even as there is praise for the peaks and waters of the country, there is also praise for the extraordinary beauties of the south…”

 

Moon tried to suppress his annoyance as the dark-haired man next to him in bed continued to mumble his lyrical nonsense.

 

“My Lord, you are waxing poetic as if you went specifically to see the sights and play with women,” he grumbled. “Did you even make any effort to conceal your identity…?”

 

Mu Shan’s stormy blue eyes twinkled, but he made a face as he propped himself up on an elbow to stare down at his lover.

 

 “So, what if I didn’t?” he asked teasingly as he snuggled himself closer to Moon’s bare chest.

 

“Mu Shan…you’re a very bad liar…” Moon chuckled, tugging an errant strand of dark hair.

 

“Heh…calling my name in bed…you really are…Wait - Mmmnph!”

 

For a moment there was nothing but the sound of their lips and tongues connecting and dueling as Moon flexed his fingers at the back of his beloved Lord’s head, keeping him captive until he’d had his fill of sweetness.

 

“Are you going to tell me why you left for half a month without telling me?” Moon growled, finally releasing him.

 

Mu Shan pointedly ignored him, continuing his narration from where he’d left off.

 

“As far as beauties go…Hajoon’s mother was no exception. Dark-haired with fair skin and green eyes, to Hajoon, she was the most beautiful woman in the world…It’s not clear how she had ended up at the brothel, but she must have been sold. Before being sold, she’d been the first daughter of a noble house…and it was there in her father’s house that she had met Hajoon’s father…”

 

“An age-old story then…a tragic love affair that caused a noble house to fall to ruin…” snorted Moon dismissively, pretending to be disinterested even though his own story was similar.

 

“Oh…but I haven’t finished: you have no idea how little I actually got out of her…” Mu Shan muttered, remembering his exasperating conversation with the sickly woman who had handed her son into his care. When asked about Hajoon’s father she had had a distant dreamy smile.

 

“He had kind eyes,” she had said, “and like Hajoon’s they were a deep purple, as deep a purple as the White Tiger God of legend…but he…he had a weak body. When I first met him, in one of my father’s back courtyard’s, he very rarely left his room. He was called Jiha.”

 

Kind purple eyes…

 

“So, his father was a sick Prince being hidden in a minor noble’s house at the behest of that batty old King. With the incredible struggle going on for the throne in those years, many Princes had already died. I wonder if that young man was the only real heir of that crazy old man or simply someone he was keeping as a spare. Regardless of what happened, the result is that the child and his mother were chased all over Keungang until they reached the border area,” Moon finished.

 

The conflict between the Princes is also the reason I left Keungang…if those Princes hadn’t been so hell bent on killing each other, my own father and brothers would still be alive.

 

Moon frowned and rubbed a hand through his already disheveled auburn hair, grunting as Mu Shan straddled his back and pressed fingers into his shoulder blades, and then into the knotted muscles along the base of his neck.

 

“Your timing is always incredible…how did you know to find him?” Moon asked, trying to resist the urge to arch his back into the gentle but knowledgeable hands. Instead, Moon peeked over his shoulder at the man sitting on his back, legs splayed on either side of his hips. Moon’s expression froze caught by the sight of how enticingly disordered his Lord looked.

 

Mu Shan smirked at him. “Hmmmnnn?” he murmured, cocking his head to the side.

 

Moon rolled so that he could stare up into the handsome face, but then he winced as the hands that had been so gentle a moment ago, squished his chest and then twisted a nipple. He yelped as his Lord did it again, chuckling evilly under his breath.

 

“Hnnngh!” Moon turned his head to the side, flushing in embarrassment as Mu Shan stroked his chest.

 

“Moon…your face says you hate it, but down here…is telling me something else...”

 

“My Lord…don’t tease me,” Moon breathed raggedly.

 

“I won’t then,” chuckled Mu Shan, leaning down to brush his lips over the offended nipple.

 

Moon groaned.

 

“If people really knew that your cold and elegant outward appearance disguised an insatiable and depraved sex maniac…”

 

Mu Shan really did laugh then, looking extremely beautiful as the curtain of his long dark hair shook with his merriment.

 

“Well, that’s why I chose you, my dearest Moon…Outside the bedroom, you barely say two words to anyone…and yet you obey me without question in almost everything…” Mu Shan smiled, blue grey eyes darkening.

 

“Umph!” Moon grunted as Mu Shan wrapped cunning fingers around him, guiding him inside his own heated opening, still slippery from their earlier love making. The Lord slid himself down until he was fully impaled on Moon’s length and then exhaled with a delighted moan.

 

“You’re so hot and hard inside me…” Mu Shan whispered erotically.

 

“Shut up!” cried Moon, his face red enough to burst.

 

Dammit! You crazy man!

 

Sanity snapping, Moon grabbed his lover’s deliciously slender hips and rammed himself upward causing his Lord’s mouth to drop open in a cry of pain and pleasure.

 

“I thought you wanted me to shut up…?” Mu Shan said breathlessly, eyebrows arching.

 

“The only thing I want to hear,” Moon grunted, thrusting hard for emphasis, “…is you moaning my name while I fuck you.”

 

“Aagh…Ah! Haa…!” was all the Lord could manage.

 

For a moment, satisfaction flickered over Moon’s face, but then the Lord leaned down to drag a lock of Moon’s hair to his lips. Eyes half-lidded and cloudy with arousal, he cried out Moon’s name, and that ended rational thought for both of them for a very long time.