Eyes in the Garden

The palace greeted them with veiled smiles and concealed knives.

Ji-hwan navigated the halls like a ghost come back to life—his face set, his words calculated. But Seong-min noticed:

the tension in his hands,

the way he looked over his shoulder.

Something tormented him.

And Seong-min was tired of waiting for answers.

In the jade courtyard, he discovered the only person Ji-hwan unconditionally trusted.

Han Myung-su.

Loyal. Quiet. His oldest friend.

"You told me you owed him your life," Seong-min stated, his voice low. "Now I want you to defend it."

Myung-su's forehead creased. "By observing him?"

Seong-min did not blink. "He's hiding something from me. Something perilous. If I approach him now, he'll flee. Or lie."

"And if I do this," Myung-su asked, "will he ever forgive me?"

Seong-min looked away from the courtyard wall, where ivy crawled like creeping fate.

"I'll bear that sin. Not you."

Later, Ji-hwan discovered Myung-su in the garden, pruning rose thorns.

"You've been evading me," he said softly.

Myung-su smiled, comfortable and intimate. "You're more difficult to catch than you used to be, Lord Yoon."

Ji-hwan chuckled, but his eyes darted to the shadows.

As if sensing something behind him.

Behind everything.

That night, Myung-su followed him to the old library. Watched Ji-hwan pull out scrolls in languages long dead.

Books about Seoryeon.

About soul binding.

About breaking fate.

And Myung-su's hands trembled.

Because whatever Ji-hwan was planning…

It wasn't just to save Seong-min.

It was to end something ancient.

Something no one had ever dared before.