That spring was unusually hot.
As ten-year-olds tend to be, Cheonghyeon was a boy full of questions.
The palace was vast, and the forbidden places were even more numerous. The places adults told him to stay away from were exactly the ones that stirred his curiosity and sense of adventure. Hyowon was the same. At nine, Hyowon was bolder than Cheonghyeon and always liked to go first.
"There's a place over there where nobody ever goes."
The day Hyowon said that, the two boys headed for the deepest, most tucked-away corner of the palace.
The wall had crumbled. Roof tiles lay broken, and weeds pushed up through the gaps between stones. It didn't look like anywhere people lived. Moss clung to the main beams, and dead leaves had piled up on the wooden floor.
"Ugh… feels like something haunts this place… perfect for skipping out."
Hyowon stepped up onto the floor, brushing dust from his clothes.
That was when Cheonghyeon's eyes caught something.
Something moved behind one of the pillars. Just barely. Like a scrap of cloth stirring in a breeze.
But there was no breeze.
"Hyowon. Someone's over there."
Cheonghyeon grabbed Hyowon's arm and raised his hand toward the pillar.
There was a child behind it.
Very small. Maybe five years old. Hair the color of pale sky, almost white, fell past the child's shoulders. The clothes were old and far too large. Both hands gripped the pillar, half a face hidden behind it—and the one visible eye was red.
That eye was watching the two boys.
Whether startled by the unexpected visitors or not, the fingers clutching the pillar had gone white.
Hyowon took a step forward. The child's shoulders flinched. The grip on the pillar tightened. But the eye didn't look away.
"……Hey."
Hyowon called out in a low voice—careful, like he didn't want to startle a wild animal. For a nine-year-old, it was a surprisingly gentle tone.
"What are you doing here?"
The child didn't answer. Lips moved, but no sound came out.
Cheonghyeon moved up beside Hyowon. He crouched down to meet the child's eye level.
"Did we scare you? It's okay. We're not bad people."
The child's eye shifted to Cheonghyeon. Up close, the color of those eyes was different from anything he'd seen.
And whatever was mixed into that gaze—a ten-year-old boy had no name for it yet.
One finger loosened from the pillar. Just slightly.
"What's your name? I'm Cheonghyeon! And this is Hyowon."
Cheonghyeon asked quietly.
The child's lips moved. A sound barely above nothing slipped out.
"……I……hwa."
Hyowon grinned.
"Ihwa? Like a pear blossom? That suits you perfectly!"
Ihwa's eye moved to Hyowon. The expression was faintly uneasy.
Cheonghyeon held out his hand.
"Nice to meet you, Ihwa."
Ihwa looked at that hand. Looked at it for a long time. Another finger loosened from the pillar. Then, very slowly, a small trembling hand came to rest on top of Cheonghyeon's.
The hand was cold. Too small. So thin the bones showed through the back of it.
A warm breeze moved through the space between the three of them, and Hyowon's stomach let out a long, rolling growl.
"Oh! I barely ate lunch today…"
Hyowon laughed, embarrassed, and fished a small pouch from his sleeve.
"Here—you can have one too."
Ihwa looked back and forth between the snack and Hyowon's face. Then carefully reached out and took it.
One bite.
Eyes went wide.
Hyowon laughed. Cheonghyeon laughed too.
Ihwa stepped out from behind the pillar, holding the snack in both hands.
That was how it began.
After that, the two boys came every day. They swept and scrubbed the dusty, neglected space and slowly filled it with things—books, brushes, drawings, paper. The small traces of childhood accumulated one by one.
At first, Ihwa said almost nothing. When the two arrived, Ihwa would come out from behind the pillar and sit in the pavilion, but always with head bowed, fingers fidgeting. When Hyowon spoke, Ihwa would nod or give a small shake of the head, nothing more.
One day Hyowon pulled something from his pocket.
"Let's plant this."
A small seed. A danflower seed.
"I brought it from our garden. If you plant it, sweet flowers bloom. You can even eat them fresh."
The three children scattered the seeds in one corner of the ruined yard. Ihwa was clumsy even at touching soil. Hyowon said "not like that—like this" and took Ihwa's hand, pressing the seed down into the earth.
Ihwa stared at the dirt-smudged hand, turning it over slowly.
"……Will flowers really grow?"
"Of course. Just water them."
Ihwa bent down and looked for a long time at the spot where the seed had just been planted.
The two boys taught Ihwa many things. They brought books they loved and read together, brought homework and puzzled over it side by side.
Cheonghyeon taught Ihwa to read. He wrote characters in the dirt with a stick and read them aloud, and Ihwa copied them. Slow and unsteady—but with each letter, each stroke, there was something that looked almost like excitement in Ihwa's face.
The paper folding came about by accident. Tucked inside a book borrowed from the archive was a paper flower, pressed flat.
"……A flower?"
"It's a paper flower. Someone must have used it as a bookmark and forgotten it."
When Ihwa stared at it, Cheonghyeon smiled a little.
"Do you want to try making one? I'm not very good, but I can show you."
Ihwa's eyes went wide and turned toward Cheonghyeon. For the first time, a quick nod.
The next day Cheonghyeon arrived with an armful of paper.
"The only one I know is a crane. I'll find a book on folding later."
The children followed Cheonghyeon's fumbling instructions and tried to fold cranes.
What came out was not a crane. It was something unidentifiable. Ihwa looked at it and covered a mouth. A small laugh escaped.
All three children laughed. For the first time, laughter rang out over the ruins.
That time didn't last.
They had managed to avoid adult eyes because so few people ever came through. A palace worker who noticed several small sets of footprints in a place where only the person who brought meals ever went found the children there.
Unwon learned of it that winter.
"You were going in and out of Suyeong Palace? I told you not to wander wherever you pleased."
The floor of Huiryeong Hall was cold. Unwon's voice was colder. Cheonghyeon knelt with his head bowed. Beside him, Hyowon held the same posture.
"Do not go near that child. There is nothing there worth your concern."
There was no anger in Unwon's eyes. No worry. Only irritation. That a prince would draw close to a child abandoned in an abandoned palace—to him, it was simply a nuisance.
A worthless life that would die anyway. A useless, troublesome thing. That was what Ihwa was to Unwon.
"You will leave for Seoranguk before the week is out. Your studies abroad will be moved up."
Cheonghyeon's head came up.
"Father—!"
"Three years of study. Do not forget that the fate of this kingdom rests on you."
Three years.
Cheonghyeon's hands trembled. Beside him, he heard Hyowon's teeth grind together.
"Just let me say one word to Ihwa……"
"There is no need. Both of you will remain confined to your rooms until you depart."
Unwon rose. That was the end of it.
At dawn the next day, Cheonghyeon and Hyowon left the palace. Without a single word to Ihwa.
Ihwa waited.
The first day. Sat in the pavilion and watched the gate. They must be running late today. That was the thought.
The second day. Sat and waited again. Maybe they're sick. That thought came next.
The third day. The fourth. The fifth.
No one came.
No shadow climbing over the wall. No sound of the gate opening.
Even the adult who used to toss cold rice through the door now came only once every two days.
Ihwa rested arms on the pavilion railing and watched the gate. The sun rose and set. Wind blew and rain fell. Small shoots were pushing up from the seeds scattered in the flower bed.
When ten days had passed, Ihwa stopped folding paper.
When two weeks had passed, Ihwa stopped writing.
When a month had passed—Ihwa lay on the wooden floor and looked only at the sky.
Lying there, thinking.
A mother came to mind.
The woman who had given birth to Ihwa and felt only contempt. The woman who had taken her own life upon learning the child was a boy. Ihwa had never seen her face. Only what the nursemaid had told was all there was.
"Your mother was a beautiful woman."
That was all the nursemaid ever said. She never explained why she had left. Before Ihwa turned five, the nursemaid died of illness. At the end, she had held Ihwa's hand and said:
"I'm sorry. That I couldn't stay by your side longer."
Ihwa lay quietly in the nursemaid's arms as they went cold.
Cold. No heartbeat. No hand patting a back. No voice to soothe the crying.
Unfamiliar adults gathered for the first time in great numbers and took the nursemaid away.
After that, Ihwa was alone.
It had seemed like something Ihwa had grown used to. Looking at the sky was the day's work. Breathing was the day's work. That was all.
And then two children had come.
They called out a name. Taught letters. Planted flower seeds. Showed how to fold paper. Made it possible to know how to laugh.
And then they disappeared.
Without a word.
As if it had all been a dream.
Ihwa lay still and looked at the ceiling. There was a crack running through it. Ihwa had looked at that crack every day.
……So I've been left behind again.
Like my mother. Like the nursemaid. And now those children too.
The things I want disappear.
The things I love leave.
So if I want nothing, there's nothing to lose.
Ihwa closed both eyes. A paper crane drifted in the wind and fell off the edge of the floor. Ihwa didn't pick it up.
Three years passed.
The gate of Suyeong Palace opened.
Cheonghyeon stood there at thirteen, breathing hard. He had run straight from his arrival at the palace, slipping past the adults' eyes. Beside him, Hyowon bent over with hands on knees, catching his breath.
Cheonghyeon's eyes swept the interior of Suyeong Palace.
The ruins were unchanged. The crumbled wall, the broken tiles, the moss-covered beams.
But—something was different.
In one corner of the yard, flowers were blooming. A small flower bed. The danflower seeds scattered three years ago had grown and come into bloom.
And in the pavilion—Ihwa was sitting there.
At ten, Ihwa was a little taller than three years before, but still small. Still the same thin shoulders, still the same pale face. The pale blue hair stirred in the wind.
Their eyes met. Those mismatched eyes looked at Cheonghyeon with something like surprise.
Cheonghyeon's feet stopped. Something rose in his throat. He tried to swallow it and couldn't.
Three years. More than a thousand days. Someone who had vanished without a word had come back.
"…You're here?"
One sentence. From someone who had waited three years.
No resentment. No hurt. No questions. Not why he had left, not why there had been no word, not how long the waiting had been. Nothing.
Only: are you here. Said the way you'd speak to someone you'd seen just yesterday.
Hyowon moved first. He jumped up into the pavilion and pulled Ihwa into his arms.
"I'm sorry."
Hyowon's voice broke. It wasn't the fearless voice of a nine-year-old anymore. It was the voice of a child who had grown through three years and learned what it meant to be sorry.
Ihwa looked at Hyowon.
"……You've gotten so big."
Hyowon's eyes went wet. He tightened his arms around Ihwa.
Cheonghyeon stepped up into the pavilion. He knelt in front of Ihwa.
"Ihwa."
"Yeah…"
"I won't leave again. I won't disappear on you without a word. Not ever."
Ihwa looked at Cheonghyeon. In those mismatched eyes, the same light from three years ago still remained. Now he could name it. Something different from fear. The loneliness of someone starved for people, for voices, for warmth.
Ihwa's hand rose. Very slowly. A thin hand came to rest on top of Cheonghyeon's head.
It was a slightly larger hand than three years ago. But still cold. Still slight.
"……Yeah. You've gotten big too, Cheonghyeon."
Ihwa smiled.
From the flower bed, the scent of danflowers drifted in on the wind. Flowers from seeds planted three years ago. Flowers Ihwa had tended alone.
The three of them sat together in the pavilion. Without a word. The scent of danflowers filled the space between them.