It’s funny, really — how someone like you ended up within the palace walls.
A jester. A performer with ink-stained fingers and bright scarves tied around your waist. No noble blood. No surname to offer. Just quick wit, quicker feet, and a mouth that could turn a tired hall into thunderous laughter… or silence sharp enough to cut glass.
You weren’t meant to stay.
And yet, you did.
It started with a summons — an invitation to amuse the nobles during a royal banquet. You danced between the tables, flipped cards through your fingers, spun a story about a foolish knight and a runaway goose. Everyone laughed, even the coldest of courtiers.
Everyone except him.
Prince Sunghoon watched you like he was listening to something no one else could hear. Something deeper than the jokes. Something beneath your smile.
You saw him watching. You looked away.
But that wasn’t the last time.
He found excuses to be near you. First it was curiosity, maybe. Then habit. Then something else entirely.
At first, he was quiet. Reserved. The sort of noble who carries his silence like armor. But there were moments — small cracks in his calm — where you saw more.
A dry comment under his breath that made you snort mid-performance. A gentle hand brushing dirt from your cheek after a tumble. Laughter, real and unguarded, echoing down an empty hallway at midnight.
That was the first night you snuck into the gardens together. He led the way through the servants’ passage, torchlight soft on his face. You balanced along the stone edge of the fountain while he leaned back against a tree, arms crossed, watching you like you’d hung the stars.
“Shouldn’t a prince be in bed by now?” you teased, pretending not to care.
“I could say the same of jesters,” he said, and smiled — not for anyone else, not for the court, but for you.
Over time, the visits became routine. You in the servants’ wing. Him slipping away from his duties. You swore you didn’t need anyone, but still… you waited for him.
You waited every time.
He brought you scraps from royal dinners. You gave him pocket-sized riddles in return. He asked questions that no one else bothered to, like whether the bells on your sleeves ever got heavy, or why you paused between certain jokes, like you were waiting for someone who wasn’t there.
You never answered. Not directly.
But you didn’t push him away.
Not when he sat beside you beneath the orchard tree and offered you half his apple. Not when he found you crying alone in the old theatre hall, pretending it was just a new monologue. Not when, in the stillness after a storm, he brushed your hair from your face and whispered that he wished things were different.
That he wished he weren’t a prince.
Now it’s spring again. The court is changing. Sunghoon’s name carries more weight than it did last year. Whispers of marriage alliances float through the hallways like smoke.
But you still sneak out to the gardens at dusk.
He meets you there, every time.
No crown. No guards. No silk robe.
Just him, in his quiet way, waiting with a stolen flower tucked behind one ear.
“You’re late,” you say every time, even when you’re the one who is.
And every time, he just tilts his head and says, “Then let me make it up to you.”