He doesn't know what has gotten into him as today he doesn't feel like going into town or interacting with anyone, so he grabbed the sword hung on his wall, which had collected dust as it's barely been used. He marched on his own to the practicing range, relieved that he had not bump into anyone that would be so curious on why he was dragging his sword around.
So now he stays facing the practicing dummy, ready to give his first strike. He feels like there is something burning at the back of his mind, something tugging at his senses, something not right. But he can't point it out, so he wishes that getting a little bit of exercise will help him to untangle it. He swings the weapon in full force, adding to the scratches on the wooden dummy. He gives it a few more strikes, his mouth spilling out shouts with every attack, but the heaviness in his chest still hasn't lifted off. Infuriated that he can't seem to get it right, he drives the sword all the way through the dummy's centrepoint, leaving it wedged there before falling to the ground, lying on his back. He hooks his hands behind his back, using it as a pillow as he lays still on the ground, looking up at the clear sky.
He rarely dwells on the past; he finds that thinking about it would only slow him down. Plus, he finds that thinking about what had happened would only bring pain to him, and he doesn't like to show that he is in pain. He never cries in front of anyone, because he hates the pitiful looks he would get if he ever does. He knows that they're only trying to help, but he can't help but feel that if he ever let his tears drop and someone was there to witness it, he would be considered weak. He doesn't like that.
The start of his life is already pitiful enough; he is left to fend for himself on the steps of the palace, too young to remember and understand anything. Strangers around the palace pass him around, without even knowing where the baby with the adorable laugh and chubby cheeks had come from. The only clue he has about his identity is that he has blue blood - which could only mean that both of his parents are commoners. Or were. He doesn't know his kingdom of origin, whether his parents are still alive, his other family members or what is the reason he was left alone at the palace.
As he started calling Seonghwa his older brother because he finds that they have a lot of things in common, he forgot about his painful start. Instead, he grew up to be a happy boy, later on a man, who doesn't let anyone dampen his spirits. He's known as the happy pill of the 'young masters' of the palace, because he makes them laugh with his antics. He's the glue that holds them together because he always tries to make sure that everyone is good to each other, making sure that they won't be keeping sour faces to each other for more than a day. He's also known around town for being loved by many girls, and he honestly enjoys it. With the girls around him, he likes the attention he's getting, because all of them seem to fill the void left in him by his parents. It is as if he wants to shout back, telling them that at least someone loves him. At least they get excited when they see him coming into town, and they crowd around him like he's the most precious thing in their lives. He keeps it at the back of his mind, but at times he imagines what his parents thought of when he was born.
Did they hate him? Was he not supposed to be born? Was he a result of a scorned relationship? An affair? Or were they too poor, not able to raise up another child? Does he have siblings? Someone older or younger that look like him? Would he be happier if he were to grow up with them?
He's grateful that he at least gets to experience how a happy childhood is like, growing alongside Seonghwa and San, who became close friends to him and making his life more colourful. They do bicker sometimes, but he won't trade them for anyone else. The others came into the picture much later, when he hit his teens, but he won't hesitate to sacrifice himself if they were ever in danger. He always keeps on a cheerful front; he can fool everyone but himself. As soon as he starts shutting himself in his room, locked away from everyone else, the darkness starts clouding his mind. He wants to find his family, but he doesn't know where to start. He's jealous of the others who have a family, even though some would rather run away from instead, like Yeosang, or some that look like the most perfect family, like Mingi's, or some that still think about their child even when they're far away, like Jongho's. He wants to have that - but he never had it.
Even with all the sadness consuming him, his eyes are dry. It's like he had blocked off his tear ducts, so that no one would find out about his sorrow. He fell so hard once when he was 8, his knees scratched from the impact, his blue blood staining the cement floor, but he didn't cry. He just laid still, looking at his injury like it was something fascinating. Seonghwa, who was 10, came running to him with all sorts of cries coming out from his mouth while he wrapped the bandage around Wooyoung's scraped knee. It seemed like Seonghwa was the one who got injured, and not him. The other palace occupants laughed looking at the two of them, the terrified older brother and the unbothered younger one. Seonghwa nagged him all the way to his bedroom as the older one piggybacked him, saying that he shouldn't be running around the palace because the cement could be slippery. He nodded just to shut him up, and he did it again anyway. Everytime he fell, Seonghwa or San would come running to him, muttering about how they're so tired of him getting injured but ended up nursing him until he got better.
He gets up from the ground, his eyes catching sight of the pierced dummy. He releases the sword before plunging it in again, trying to let his sadness flow into his hit instead. He does it a few times before he feels the misery flowing out of him, the dummy's centrepoint splintered due to his sword. He decides to blow his last attack on the dummy's head, but he misjudged his stance that when he swings his sword, it rounds and grazes his neck. He doesn't give any reaction to the pain, he only brings a hand to the wound and examines the small mark of blue left on the tip of his fingers.
He sighs, "Maybe my skills are getting rusty." He rubs the blood between his thumb and forefinger, staining both of the fingers. He keeps rubbing them, looking at the blue like there's something he should know... like it's a sign. The problem is, he doesn't know what it's for.
---
"Are you going back to Lucida for good?" Hongjoong sits at the edge of the youngest's bed, looking over him as the latter is packing his luggage.
"No, I'm just planning to visit my family back home. I haven't seen them for four years and I wonder how they're doing. They don't know that I went to Nyla, because they think I'm still in Lucida," Jongho replies as he folds his last piece of clothing into the luggage. "I'll leave my guitar here because it's a bit of a hassle to bring it around, and I'll be coming back."
"Make sure you're careful there, because you know how things can be over there," Akira chips in. "I'm sure that your family are proud of you, since you're one of the best musicians, aren't you?"
The youngest chortles. "That was what I introduced myself as when I met you for the first time, wasn't it? Ah, that felt like a long time ago."
"It does," Akira agrees.
Jongho is about to close his luggage as he spots a picture of his family that he brought here. "Ah, I wanted to show you this, Akira. Maybe you've never seen them because we're only servants, and we don't work at the palace. Here's a picture of my family." He thrusts the crumpled paper to her, a result of him looking at it every night before going to sleep, and she accepts it gingerly. "My family consists of my parents, two older sisters and my younger brother."
She looks at it with a smile on her face before her face falls as she sees the older man in the picture. "Is this... your father?"
"Uhm," he nods. "I don't look like him though, I got my looks from my mother. The rest of my siblings look like a mixture of both of them. Is there... something wrong?" he frowns when he notices Akira's expression when she studies the picture.
"Nothing." She gives back the picture before smiling, "Your family looks like nice people and I'm sure they'll be very happy to see you coming back after so long."
They accompany Jongho until the main doors, the rest nowhere in sight, before sending him off with a wave. The youngest is riding in one of the palace's carriages, although at first he seems reluctant to do so. He agrees to ride the carriage until they exit the central forest, because he wouldn't want to be riding in the carriage that bears Nyla's emblem into Lucida, because that would mean inciting trouble. Akira agreed with it, saying that it would only evoke the queen's wrath. So he decided that he would be riding the carriage until the border of the forest, before walking on foot to enter Lucida. The journey will of course take a few hours, and just after they pass the town, he leans back, thinking about what he would say to his family once he comes back and what would they think of him when they realized that he had been lying to them.
Four years ago, he had told his family that he wanted to go and work at the Lucida palace. For servants like them, they don't have a lot of opportunities to work, and working in the Lucida palace was the best job they could have. Being a royal servant at Lucida was the dream of everyone, but that also meant dedicating themselves to royalty until death. Once they step foot in the palace, there will be no turning back, because royal servants are expected to serve until they die, and their descendants would automatically be taken in as royal servants too. It would be a non-stop cycle, and that means the palace would never run out of royal servants. They were against it, like he thought they would be, but at that time, even though his mother begged him to stay, his father refusing to look at him as he left, he stepped out of the house and he never looked back.
What they didn't know was, he didn't even go near the palace's compound. Instead, he stepped into town, purchased a guitar with the money he had saved up since he was little, lugged it through Lucida's main entrance and walked all the way to Nyla. It took him a day and he was feeling exhausted, but his determination to escape from the destiny written in his blood was too strong that he kept on walking. By the time he arrived at Nyla, he felt like he would collapse. He slept on the streets, but making sure that he was hidden, so that he wouldn't get kicked out when he was only getting started. As morning came, he decided to sit at the common square, using his luggage as a seat and he strummed away while singing. A crowd started forming around him and he had never felt so... free. He closed his eyes as his body swayed to the rhythm, the lyrics flowing out of his mouth with ease. That was the first time he played at the square, and that was the first time Wooyoung saw him. And as what they said, the rest was history.
---
Back at the palace, after parting with Hongjoong, Akira dashed to Yunho's bedroom, as what she's about to tell him couldn't wait any longer. She practically thumps on his door, exasperated that the lieutenant doesn't hurry to open it. She gives it two more knocks before he finally opens it, unable to hide his surprise as he sees her standing in front of his room.
After they had their confrontation as the ball ended, they barely spoke to each other. Even at tea, they didn't sit next to each other, pretending to be busy with the other palace occupants. The rest didn't seem to notice the cold air between them, or it's just that they didn't point it out. Their rows usually never last long, because in Lucida, they were always forced to work together. But here, he doesn't know how long it would take for Akira to start talking to him normally again. He kept thinking on how he could say sorry to her because he realized he was a bit too harsh on her that night. So when he sees her standing by the door, he thinks that she is about to ask for reconciliation.
"Can I come in?" she asks in a cold tone.
"S... sure," he opens the door wider, inviting her in. He closes the door as he turns to her, who has taken a seat on his bed, something clearly bothering her.
"What's wrong?" Yunho takes a seat beside her, but he keeps a distance.
"Do you... remember that servant I killed before I got sent here? The one who stole the gold bars from the palace?"
"Ah, Choi Daehan? The servant that went to the palace to look for his son, right? He said his son worked at the palace."
"Choi Jongho," she says shortly. As he furrows his eyebrows, she keeps on talking. "Choi Daehan, he's Jongho's father. The son that he was looking for in the palace was Jongho."
"But- but he was never there."
She nods sullenly. "He said his family never knew about him coming here; they thought that he went to work at the palace back in Lucida. But instead, he ran away to Nyla because he wanted to be a musician. With the blood he has, he wouldn't be able to do it in Lucida. He showed me a picture of his family. I couldn't say anything when I saw the picture of his father, even though I wanted to," she buries her face in her hands, "I should have begged for his forgiveness when I have the chance, but I froze." She shakes her head. "He's going back to visit his family and he will find that his father is no longer there. He will find out that I was the one who killed his father."