Chapter Text
Guru and Exile
The sun hung over the upper courtyard. Felix and Hyunjin were silent. Not because they’d had a fight. After the “microphone incident,” every word could be taken as a provocation.
“Can we go an hour without touching?” Felix muttered, walking three steps ahead of Hyunjin.
“I can. Can you?”
“One more word and I swear I’ll shove your fan up your ass,” Felix thought, but he didn’t get the chance to say it out loud, because Generals Changbin and Seungmin emerged from behind a column. Of course “by accident,” like everyone in this palace.
“Just surveying the area,” Changbin said, looking around as if he were on a battlefield.
“And somehow we ended up here,” Seungmin added, with an unsettling smile.
An awkward silence settled over them. Out of the corner of his eye, Felix saw Seungmin quietly fixing the collar of Changbin’s uniform. It was a small gesture, almost unnoticeable, but startlingly intimate. And definitely not required by army regulations. Changbin only looked at Seungmin with a strange expression. Something almost like… tenderness?
“So… an inspection?” Hyunjin asked, glancing ironically around the courtyard, the fountain, and the lavender beds.
“Observation,” Changbin corrected.
“The Order is reportedly planning another round of testing,” Hyunjin said, keeping the conversation going. “For statistical purposes.”
“Statistics don’t make out in the bushes,” Seungmin remarked dryly.
Felix straightened automatically. Hyunjin crossed his arms, instinctively shielding everything below the waist. The very area that, a few hours earlier, had been “discussed” with a microphone.
The generals nodded their goodbyes and walked off in opposite directions. Though Felix would’ve sworn their hands brushed at hip level.
They were alone. Hyunjin gave Felix a sideways glance.
“They break distance too. You saw that?” he muttered.
“I know,” Felix sighed. “But they do it like pros.”
Hyunjin let out a short laugh, then looped one arm around him.
“Want to go get something to eat?”
“I want brownie.”
The courtyard fell quiet again. But deeper in the palace, the Order was already tightening their grip on their fans, coming to the conclusion that “logistical loosening of space” was definitely not enough. No official meeting was called. The Order decided that this time, the matter didn’t require the full chamber. A small office would do, and a suitably thick binder.
Felix showed up with Kkami trotting along at his side. Hyunjin arrived three minutes later, fan in hand. They were prepared for anything except common sense. At the small table sat Sister Eunhye, I.N attached as an extra, and a stack of paperwork. A physical manifestation of the word “procedure.”
“Around you, Princes, things have gotten a bit… emotionally intense,” Eunhye began, adjusting the tabs.
“‘Emotionally intense,’” I.N snorted from the back. “Sure. I can think of better words.”
“And on top of that, there were the Orangery footage, the generals’ reactions, and... the accidental mic transmission. Someone set it as their alarm tone,” Eunhye sighed.
Felix coughed, trying to hide his face behind his fan.
“You have no evidence of any rule-breaking,” he said firmly. “Aside from a few… metaphorical moments of closeness.”
“And some very literal whispering,” I.N added, maliciously.
Eunhye opened the binder to a page labeled: “Control Recommendations – Urgent Version.”
“In light of the above,” she announced, “we are presenting a list of recommendations. First item: mandatory nighttime separation.”
“So… separate rooms?” Felix made sure.
“Separate wings,” she corrected calmly. “And physical contact limited to the ritual minimum.”
“And what is the ritual minimum?” Hyunjin asked with perfect seriousness.
“An elbow greeting. And exchanging a fan without touching hands,” Eunhye read, glancing at her cheat sheet as if she couldn’t quite believe it either.
Felix blinked.
“Second item: Prince Felix is required to keep a self-control diary. Daily entries. No exceptions.”
Felix leaned back in his chair and started scraping his thumbnail along the edge of his fan. Kkami let out a bark of sympathy.
“Third item,” Eunhye went on, her voice growing more and more tired. “Until further notice, all shared dance rituals are suspended. The Mark of Harmony is officially on hold.”
Felix stood. He grabbed his fan. He scooped up Kkami. And he looked at everyone with the expression of a man who had spent days trying not to Mark anyone, only to be Marked by absurdity itself.
“Fine. I’ll sleep in another wing. I’ll write down my emotions. I’ll even buy tulle for meditation. But I swear, if I get summoned to one more ‘meeting,’ I’m abdicating!”
Before anyone could respond, he left with Kkami in his arms. Hyunjin stayed. He rose calmly, adjusted his fan, and tossed over his shoulder, “In that case, please note for the record: the Prince has just achieved full dominance. At least over the narrative.”
I.N laughed, then quickly pretended it was a cough. Sister Eunhye wrote a brief note under “concerning”: “tendency to seize the narrative.”
The generals, as always, were eavesdropping in the corridor. Seungmin whispered to Changbin with satisfaction, “At this rate, he’s actually going to wreck the Mark Ritual.”
*
Felix didn’t watch the first episode of The Marked Court. He didn’t have to. The entire palace watched it for him. They aired not only highlights from the ballet, but also the entire sequence from the conference with the generals. And, unfortunately, the mic recording. It was edited together with dramatic music and a slow zoom on Hyunjin’s face.
In the corridors of the Palace of Harmony, you could hear the echo of Felix and Hyunjin’s whispers and moans from the Orangery, looped into an a cappella version. An unsettled Felix hid out in the garden, but even there he could hear the gossip and the conversations circling around him:
“The Mark? What Mark? That was a tongue!”
“An alpha blushing like a strawberry!”
“Marked? Or simply destined for media death?”
Hyunjin tried to console him.
“It’s just the edit, Lix. They cut out all the good parts.”
He paused, thinking. “Or maybe what you need… is a coach.”
“A therapist?” Felix checked.
“No. A dominance coach,” Hyunjin said lightly. “You are an Alpha, after all. You can do something about it. You just need a bit of practice.”
Felix let out a short laugh. Then went quiet. After a moment, he pulled out his tablet and started typing.
“Please tell me you’re not looking him up among the generals.”
“No,” Felix replied. “I typed ‘Alpha guru Hyangguk + discretion’ into the search bar.”
Hyunjin frowned, then muttered dryly, “Oh, brilliant. What could possibly go wrong...”
Three hours later, Felix found himself seated on a lavender-leather cushion, across from a man who looked like a monk crossed with an influencer.
“I’m Wooyoung. I was on Kingdom: Legendary War and in one perfume commercial.”
“Oh—wow.”
“So,” he continued, “do you know what dominance is?”
Felix hesitated. “Power through strength? Confidence? Alpha instinct?”
Wooyoung shook his head. He could tell this would take a while.
“Wrong. Dominance is performance. It’s theatre. It’s posture. You have to stand like an alpha. Look at people like an alpha. Fan yourself like an alpha.”
He handed Felix a gold, glittering fan.
“First exercise,” he said. “Look in the mirror and say: ‘I am the pheromone they warned you about.’ No irony. And emphasize ‘I am.’”
Felix stepped up to the mirror.
“I am… the pheromone…” he managed.
In the reflection, he looked like someone simultaneously experiencing an identity crisis and an allergy attack. Wooyoung, however, nodded with satisfaction.
“There’s potential here.”
The following days looked much the same. Felix tried to “activate” the ferns with “dominant energy,” attempted to persuade the orange tree to drop a fruit “for the good of the ritual,” and issued Kkami commands like:
“Lie down and feel nothing.”
Which clearly amused the dog. Kkami responded with enthusiasm and did, in fact, look as if he was “feeling nothing” at all.
Wooyoung dabbed at a tear.
“My child has just conquered his inner beta fears,” he whispered to himself. Then, louder, he added, “See? Dominance starts in your head. You started with the dog. Tomorrow, you can dominate the situation. And your own doubts.”
While it went on, Hyunjin remained on the low wall at the edge of the training square, observing it with a mix of disbelief and fascination. Kkami lounged beside him, seemingly convinced that the session had gone completely off the rails.
"What is this?" Hyunjin only dared to ask once.
"A TRANSFORMATION," Wooyoung said, whipping around to face him, eyes bright. "Watch closely. And remember this day, Your Highness. Your partner is finally stepping out of the shadow of his own instincts."
Unfortunately, the world did not leave those experiments alone.
When the next episode of The Marked Court aired an eight-second montage of Prince Felix pointing at a fern like he was giving it orders, then turning to the mirror and saying, “I’m the pheromone they warned you about,” the Order decided it had gone too far.
A short note reached Felix, bearing a seal of the highest authority:
“Suspension of the dominance experiment.The use of plants, pastries, and dogs as instruments of authority is hereby prohibited. Trainer Wooyoung is removed from all official duties. Prince Felix is required to submit a self-analysis of his behavior, including footnotes.”
Felix read the notice, groaned, and pressed the paper to his forehead. Defeated, he headed toward the dining hall.
“I didn’t dominate reality,” he summed up darkly.
Hyunjin caught up with him in the corridor.
“Still,” he said, amused, “you have to admit you dominated the Order’s imagination. At least once.”
Felix said nothing. He crumpled the document into a ball and threw it at him. Kkami barked in approval.
The Analysis Department threw everything onto one screen: footage from the Orangerie, a clip from the lav mic, fragments of the ballet, that moment by the fries stand, and the fern video. The graphs along the bottom flashed an alarming red.
“Luckily, there was no Marking,” Master Lee Know pointed out, tapping the lower data bar.
“No official Mark. No ritual. Just a brief heart-rate synchronization, a spike in scent-related parameters, and…” He hesitated. “…a highly suggestive montage."
“And the dog, who doesn’t interrupt any of it,” Eunhye added, glancing at her notes. “In the protocols, it’s called an ‘instinct that dampens resistance.’ If it were nothing, Kkami would be barking.”
Silence fell.
“This could be… true,” Sister Eunhye said at last, rising from the table. “That they’re moving toward a Mark outside the structure. Without our oversight.”
She let the words hang, then added flatly, “And truth is the last thing we’re prepared for.”
No one laughed. Not even out of habit.
“We can’t allow them to Mark each other without our control,” Archbrother Lee Dong Wook said, having appeared silently in the doorway.
“It would be like throwing the Mark into a puddle.” The horror nearly robbed him of speech.
General Changbin skimmed the short tactical report.
“The soft approach didn’t work,” he concluded. “Distance, the diary, dominance training… it all just raised the tension. And the audience.”
“The graphs are clear,” Seungmin added, tapping the table. “Apart, they’re more or less stable. Together, the system goes off the rails.”
The Archbrother folded his arms across his chest and looked around the room, pointedly.
“Under the circumstances,” he said, “we need to introduce real distance. We won’t remove Prince Hyunjin entirely. That would carry diplomatic consequences. We still need him. But we can separate them for a while. Until both of them finally mature into a decision to pursue a public Marking, one that aligns with our traditions, our pamphlets, and our protocols.”
Sister Eunhye nodded.
“Then I’ll prepare the decision for field assignments,” she said quietly. “Northern region. Youth education. Officially, an instructional mission.”
“For security,” the Archbrother agreed.
Hyangguk, at least on the graphs, was supposed to breathe again.
“Field assignment?” Hyunjin asked, staring at the parchment. “Youth education?”
“Northern region,” I.N delivered the bad news. “Known for harsh weather and melancholy.”
“So. Exile with a euphemism,” Hyunjin said quietly.
Madame IU handed him a fan. A firmly “neutral” one. No embroidery, no symbols, no emotions.
“You’ll teach the youth the basics,” she said. “That means the gestures, the meanings, and discipline.”
“And when do I come back? Soon?”
Brother I.N and Madame IU looked at each other, then shrugged.
Felix heard about Hyunjin’s exile secondhand. That was how the important decisions in his life usually reached him. He didn’t show up to say goodbye, because he didn’t know if he could take it.
Kkami did.
Hyunjin crouched down, pulled the dog close, and held him to his chest for a long moment, like the last scrap of hope.
“Look after him,” he murmured into Kkami’s fur. “Or rather… make sure he doesn’t Mark anyone else. Not even symbolically. Not even with cake.”
Kkami answered with a low growl.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought. Good dog.”
Hyunjin smiled and climbed into the Ministry of Education vehicle. The door slammed shut behind him, pointedly.
Hyangguk trembled. And the Order of Harmony remained firmly convinced it controlled the situation. Proudly, it released the pheromones of authority.
Unfortunately, the pheromones caught a draft.
To be continued. I didn't mean to, but here we are.