"I believe I saw King Hongjoong kiss Seonghwa before."

Wooyoung batted his eyes open next to San to stare at the dark ceiling. They had grown restless after a nap when a soldier had come in late to bring his horse to its box. He had woken them with his clamour but hadn't bothered them in their hay paradise. After he had left, both boys had failed to fall asleep again.

"Despite being married to you?" Surprise laced his voice, but it didn't carry the same impact San had experienced so cruelly.

San nodded and adjusted his pillow.

"They looked to be too close for it to be anything else. Neither of them mentioned it. Then again, I suppose I haven't been here for long." He tried to keep his hurt out of his tone, knowing it had no place here. Wooyoung wasn't responsible for San's relationship with the king.

"I had thought it would stop after you arrived. I'm sorry, San." Wooyoung reached to take the claw nearest to him. His fingers wove around the scaly appendages, careful of the sharp tip.

"Stop?"

Wooyoung turned to look at San. In the dark, San found compassion swimming in his eyes that reminded him of the grasses kissing away his tears whenever he had fled the elders to cry to himself.

"There have been some rumours for a while now. Working in the stables, I hear what everyone using a horse mutters behind the king's back, so I was always a source of knowledge on the palace grounds."

San nodded. Just like the horses and their many stories, Wooyoung met many new people with their tales from far-away lands.

"The court shaman is well-liked among the people. His beauty enchants men as well as women, and many made advances, but he sent them away, for the path of a shaman is a lonely one."

Saddened at the imagination, San looked at their intertwined hands. Was this the reason Seonghwa understood his loneliness so well? Because he also lived in the palace only for his duties and had no way of fleeing its suffocating grip?

"However, people whisper about him and the king. Ever since a while ago, their glances seem to linger on each other, and people claim the king's mother's favouritism for Seonghwa sprouts from a secret relationship. I had believed the rumours about seeing them embrace in the gardens or meeting late at night were just for entertainment. Now that you report the same, I wonder why Hongjoong hasn't made an effort to halt these observations from spreading after marrying you."

San was baffled. Rather than the secret relationship with a woman he loved since the king had been forced to marry a man, Hongjoong might harbour feelings for Seonghwa. Despite the peculiar things he had seen about them, however, he wavered to make a judgment. He had learned better than to assume.

"What if they are close friends? Hongjoong doesn't seem to have a lot of those, so he would treasure Seonghwa."

Wooyoung shrugged, the hay jostling around his shoulders.

"I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Those who spread malicious gossip might be interested in Seonghwa's position or Hongjoong's downfall. I am hurt to hear you had to doubt your relationship because of it."

San pondered his memories again. He had been drunk, and Hongjoong as well. He could have mistaken Hongjoong's drunken stupor for more than it was. None of the other instances he had seen the two together pointed at anything else. He had noticed them being closer than he had expected, but nothing was strange about that.

"I am also unsure what I saw... It might have been nothing." San sounded as insecure as he felt. Compassionate, Wooyoung squeezed his claws with gentle hands. They were much larger than Hongjoong's holding onto San.

For a moment, they lay in tense silence. San mulled over every instance Hongjoong and Seonghwa had interacted or spoken about each other. He couldn't deny the tension between them, but it was natural for a servant to his ruler.

He remembered the day he had caught them together in the throne room, of Seonghwa kneeling and Hongjoong's smirk. How smug Seonghwa had looked when he had closed the door on San.

A stab of jealousy bore into San's heart. What had the two been doing? Which sides of Hongjoong were Seonghwa allowed to see that remained a secret to San?

"Want to check it out?" Wooyoung muttered. In unison, they turned their heads towards each other to lock gazes in the dark.

"Their relationship?"

"Perhaps we can sneak around Hongjoong's chambers and listen in. If Seonghwa is with him at this hour, we can assume they spent the night together, and that is highly absurd for a king and a regular servant."

San lingered. He didn't want to distrust Hongjoong or put their relationship in jeopardy. He didn't know what he would do if he found out Hongjoong loved someone else behind San's back, but they weren't so involved he felt he had a right to make claims. Especially if that knowledge fell into the wrong hands.

However, San's pride as a dragon was hurt by the idea. It demanded respect from the small humans, demanded to be treated like the king he was. Hongjoong might be equal to San's human form or even sit above him, but the dragon inside his heart raged at the idea of being deceived. He had been promised marriage to a king who grovelled for his favour. Not to an ignorant boy who was unaware of where his loyalties had to prevail.

Overwhelmed by the roar inside of him, San nodded. He sat up and Wooyoung did the same. With hasty fingers, they brushed the hay from their hair and descended the ladder. Quiet and cosy, the stables were bathed in flickering light as the two left the building. Wandering at night alone would look suspicious, but if anyone asked, San could claim to have needed fresh air and asked Wooyoung to accompany him for safety.

On second thought, San wondered if he was any better than Hongjoong, lying in the hay with Wooyoung and kissing. However, his growling dragon reminded him he wouldn't have come so far if Hongjoong had delivered what he owed.

Unbothered by the night, the two strolled over the courtyard. San didn't explain himself to the guards they passed and kept his chin raised how he had seen Seonghwa do it. Wordlessly, the guards pulled the doors to the main palace open for them and allowed passage into the lit corridors.

Insecure in their steps, Wooyoung and San kept glancing at each other. Wooyoung's gaze was nervous, while San's was doubtful whether he wanted to see the truth Wooyoung had predicted. His heart was shaken at the idea of having no meaning to either Hongjoong or Seonghwa if they were taken with each other and losing those he had confided in.

They slowed when they neared the king's chambers, their feet growing entirely soundless. When their soft feet halted, they stood to listen. No guard watched them from down the corridor as the two boys flattened their breaths and stared at each other unseeingly. Every piece of their focus went into their hearing.

San heard the woods and the insects in the night air. He heard the people of the town and the paths surrounding it by straining so hard.

And he heard two heartbeats in Hongjoong's room, beating in tandem.

San bit his lip. He turned to leave before Wooyoung got the chance to hear something by himself. Concerned, the stable boy trailed behind San as they made their way outside again.

Since there was no place San could talk without curious ears listening in, he stormed into the gardens. Agitated, his clothes rushed around him until he found himself hidden on one of the stone benches between tall trees. He sunk on in, mind dazed as it assured him they were the only people nearby.

Wooyoung followed him slowly, his steps unsure. Pain showed in his features over San's empty gaze.

"I am sorry, San. I truly am. If I had known how your relationship with the king looked, I would have told you before you fell for him." The boy sunk to San's side and pulled the dragon into his arm. Faint, San leaned into him.

What had all his efforts been for? Why had he tried so hard to welcome a man who never welcomed him? San had cultivated and soothed his affections for Hongjoong when he felt they deteriorated or didn't sprout as they should. Had he been the only one? Had Hongjoong only ever liked him out of duty?

San's heart wrenched in his chest until he pressed his claw to it, worried about it breaking in two. The betrayal sat deeper than his fresh love for the king. It sat in the distance Hongjoong had kept to him as a dragon, and the disrespect to San's might by accepting their marriage as nothing else but a necessity.

San had known this could happen. He had tried so hard to love Hongjoong because the thought of the only spouse he would ever have not adoring him had unnerved him too much. For a split moment, it had seemed as if Hongjoong shared that sentiment.

San was also resentful towards Seonghwa. The alluring man had never acted out of line towards San, but he had appeared so welcoming, so available to San's struggles and his dejected heart seeking for a place of security.

The dragon's brittle love for those not of his kin hadn't got rejected once, but twice. Both men he desired laid in each other's arms.

San sniffled, unable to wipe his wet eyes with his claws. With soothing hums, Wooyoung rubbed his shoulder and brushed his thumbs over San's jaw whenever precious pearls of tears ran over them.

"Was I not enough? Haven't I tried enough? Can I not be loved for being the fate bestowed on them they never wanted?"

San sobbed at his lap, hating the claws peeking from his sleeves, hating that scaly tail and the ridge that kept Wooyoung from wrapping an arm around him. His sight blurred and white hair covered the corners of his sight.

"No, San. I believe Seonghwa and Hongjoong had unfortunate timing. They loved each other before you came here and they didn't want to let go of that."

"But then why-" San choked on a sob and gulped. Wooyoung's hand never left his back, never stopped spending warmth.

"Why didn't they say so? Why did both of them pretend so much? If they didn't want to hurt me, building trust only for me to find out about their affair inevitably is much more tyrannical than informing me from the beginning."

San found it unfair. The few joys he had found on the palace premises had deceived him with their shine and he had cut himself as he had on that knife he had found in his lake long ago. His heart hurt with the mistakes he had made.

While wound in his pride, he couldn't be mad at the lovers. He diverged from the humans. His dream of being accepted and loved like one of them was ludicrous.

"Perhaps because Hongjoong found it easier to uphold your relationship for the court by keeping it a secret altogether. You aren't at fault, San. You are still beautiful and you still deserve love." Wooyoung's tender murmur consoled San's broken heart until he allowed himself to drop his exhausted head on the man's shoulder. Wooyoung's hands slid through his hair, holding him close.

"It's for the best you found out now rather than later."

San's insides were torn, but he wanted to make sure. He wanted an explanation, wanted clarity through the deception and lies he had got strung up in.

"I will watch how Hongjoong acts from now on. If I feel he plans to use me only for the ritual and then discard me for Seonghwa, I'm out."

Worried, Wooyoung pulled back to look at him. In the night, his expressive features shone with honest concern, but San had already been deceived twice. He stored his throbbing heart far away from any humans who would trample over it.

"What do you mean, out?"

"I'm not doing the ritual."