Chapter 375

[ 1,223 words ]

Katia’s POV

We woke early on our first full day in Seoul, the jet lag still tugging at all three of us, but Aiden was already dressed and standing at the foot of our bed before either Julian or I had fully opened our eyes.

“Palace day,” he announced, as though this had been the plan all along and we were simply behind schedule.

It had, in fact, been the plan all along, mostly because Aiden had spent the entire flight from New York scrolling through pictures of Gyeongbokgung Palace on my phone and declaring, with total confidence, that he intended to become a palace guard when he grew up.

We arrived just as the gates opened, the morning air cool and bright, the palace grounds stretching out in front of us with sweeping tiled roofs and wide stone courtyards that made Aiden go quiet for the first time all morning, simply staring.

“It’s huge,” he said finally.

“It is,” Julian agreed, crouching down slightly so he was closer to Aiden’s eye line and pointing toward the main hall. “Kings used to live here. Hundreds of years ago p>

“Like you,” Aiden said.

“Not quite like me,” Julian said, smiling.

We wandered the grounds for nearly an hour, Aiden running ahead to examine the stone lions guarding the entrances, then doubling back to grab my hand and drag me toward whatever he had found next, a courtyard, a pond, or a set of wooden doors carved with patterns he wanted explained in more detail than either of us could actually provide.

Julian walked beside us the entire time with his phone out, taking photographs, some of the palace itself and more of Aiden mid-sprint across a courtyard, arms out like an airplane, completely unbothered by the tourists around him.

We caught the changing of the guard ceremony by accident, drawn by the sound of drums, and Aiden pushed his way to the front of the crowd with the single-minded determination of a boy who had found his calling. The guards marched in formation, dressed in bright traditional uniforms, and Aiden watched every movement with the intense focus he usually reserved for cartoons.

“I want to do that,” he said when it ended.

“You want to guard a palace,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, entirely serious. “I would be very good at standing still p>

Julian laughed, a real laugh, and reached down to ruffle Aiden’s hair.

“I do not doubt it,” he said.

After the palace, we found a rental shop just outside the walls offering traditional hanbok, and Aiden spotted it before either of us could suggest it, tugging both our hands toward the entrance.

“Can we wear the dresses?” he asked. “The ones everyone else has on p>

The woman running the shop helped us choose, Aiden picking a deep blue set with a pattern of clouds along the hem, declaring it made him look like a prince, which nobody in the shop had the heart to argue with.

I chose something in soft rose and gold, and when I stepped out from behind the changing screen, Julian was already dressed in his own, a rich navy hanbok that somehow made him look both entirely out of place and completely at home at once.

He looked at me for a long moment.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing,” he said. “You look beautiful p>

Aiden, entirely unbothered by the moment passing between us, was busy admiring his own reflection in a nearby mirror, turning side to side to get the full effect of his outfit.

“I look like a prince,” he confirmed to nobody at all.

“You do,” Julian said.

We walked back through the palace grounds in our rented hanbok, admission free for anyone wearing traditional dress, and spent the next hour wandering slower than before, stopping every few minutes for photographs, Aiden posing dramatically against every wall and doorway he could find, arms crossed, chin lifted, entirely convinced of his own royal bearing.

At one point he insisted Julian and I stand together in front of one of the palace’s smaller pavilions while he directed the photograph himself, ordering Julian to put his arm around me with the confidence of a boy who had apparently absorbed more about staging a good picture than either of us realized.

“Closer,” Aiden instructed. “You look weird standing so far apart p>

Julian obliged, pulling me against his side, and I felt myself laughing before the photo was even taken, the sound of it catching Aiden’s attention enough that he lowered the phone slightly.

“You are supposed to smile at the camera,” he said. “Not at each other p>

“We will try to do better,” Julian said, though neither of us actually managed it in the photo that followed.

We spent the rest of the afternoon simply walking, no destination in mind, stopping for street snacks Aiden insisted on trying, a sweet, flaky pastry that left sugar dusted across his cheeks and a rice cake skewered and coated in something spicy that made him gasp and immediately demand water, then insist on trying another one anyway.

By the time we returned the hanbok and made our way back toward the hotel, the sun had started sinking behind the city skyline, painting everything gold, and Aiden had fallen asleep between us in the back of the car, exhausted from a full day of palace guards and princely photography sessions.

“Good day,” Julian said quietly, looking down at Aiden’s sleeping face.

“Good day,” I agreed.

He reached over and took my hand across the back seat, and I let my head rest against the window, watching Seoul pass by in the fading light, feeling, for the first time in longer than I could remember, like we were exactly where we were supposed to be.

Back at the hotel, we carried Aiden up to the room still half asleep, and he woke just enough to insist on seeing the day’s photographs before agreeing to change into pajamas, scrolling through Julian’s phone with heavy eyelids and narrating each one in a sleepy voice.

“That is me being a palace guard,” he said, pointing at a blurry photo of himself mid-march, one leg raised too high. “That is me looking like a prince. That is you and Mom being weird and not smiling at the camera p>

“We apologized for that already,” Julian said.

“You did not fix it though,” Aiden said, yawning. “You should take another one. A better one p>

I looked at Julian over the top of Aiden’s head.

He set his phone down on the nightstand, crossed the room, and sat beside me on the edge of the bed where Aiden had finally settled under the covers, one arm looping loosely around my waist.

“Better,” Julian said, glancing toward Aiden for approval.

Aiden cracked one eye open, studied us for a moment with the exaggerated seriousness of a director reviewing a difficult shot, then nodded once, satisfied, before letting his eye fall shut again.

“Better,” he agreed, already halfway back to sleep.

I laughed quietly, careful not to wake him further, and let myself lean into Julian’s side, the two of us sitting there in the dim light of the hotel room long after Aiden’s breathing had evened out into sleep, in no hurry to move, content simply to stay exactly where we were.

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