The Eunuch Who Guards the Crown Prince's Bed novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Eleventh Night

Seok-woo turned the pages to the end.

The last page was dated eleven days ago, in the second month, and it was not a list.

It was four lines.

Bae says the new night attendant has a soldier's hands and walks like the Commander of Haeryeong.

I have told Bae to put him in my room and tell no one why.

I will leave the cup unwatched and the door unbarred. If he has come for me, he should not have to hunt for the way.

I am tired of being the man who signed.

Below it ran a column of short strokes in black ink, ruled evenly.

There were ten of them.

The eleventh was drawn fresh and still glossy.

"One for every night," Hyeon said.

Seok-woo closed the book.

"You knew."

"From the first hour."

"The bath. The tea. What you said at the basin, that I was in more danger than you."

Seok-woo's voice had gone strange.

"You knew."

"I knew you were a man, and I knew whose son."

Hyeon did not look away.

"I didn't know what I would do about it. I thought I could lie still."

"You put a knife under your pillow."

"I put your knife under my pillow, so you would know where it was." His mouth twisted. "I wanted to see if you would take it back."

Seok-woo stood up.

He did not decide to.

He hit him.

It was a wild, ugly swing with his whole shoulder behind it, and his knuckles took Hyeon across the cheekbone and snapped his head around.

Hyeon went down on one hand.

He did not raise the other to guard his face.

He stayed there on the floor with his hair across his mouth and a red mark blooming on his cheek, breathing, waiting for the next blow.

"Get up," Seok-woo said.

"No."

"Get up and fight me."

"I won't," Hyeon said. "You can hit me until your hands break. I would rather you did it than not."

Seok-woo's fist shook.

He looked at Hyeon, kneeling on the polished floor in his grey house robe, with the white lock stuck to his bleeding lip.

The fury went out of him.

"You let me come in here," Seok-woo said.

"You let me touch you. You let me go on, day after day, thinking I was fooling you."

"Yes."

"You let me bite you and say you were mine."

"I meant it."

Hyeon's eyes lifted.

They were wet.

"That is the one thing I couldn't plan for, Seok-woo."

"I wanted you to have the chance. I wanted it to be you, because if anyone had the right, it was you."

"And then you drank my tea first, and I..."

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