The Servant Boy - HoMIn - Part 1
Title: The Servant Boy
Pairing(s): HoMin
Genre: AU/Historical/Romance
Rating: PG13
Summary: Yunho, a young man with a rich father, falls for Changmin, a servant boy who works at an all-male brothel house called Spider Lillie.
Yunho's POV
Yoshiwara, Japan, 1793.
The boys had invited me to go with them to Spider Lillie - the infamous all-male brothel house. Honestly, I do not fancy going to places as these no matter how many times they say it is suppose to be so glamorous and high-class. And mainly, I just do not like associating with the group that had somehow become my ‘friends’ no thanks to my father. Because of him now I have to mingle with these spoiled rich brats so our families could keep good business relations.
But as much as I hate to admit it, after the first couple times we've went to Spider Lillie I have found one thing good about the place. He is the boy who serves us wine and cakes, and I do not mean one of the geisha boys, but the servant boy who brings us the refilled wine flasks and plates of sweet cakes that I do not care for and retrieves our empty ones. Of course, he does not directly come into our room to do this. Instead, he stays in the corridors and hands the tray to the geisha boys through the sliding doors. Even so, I could still see quite clearly from where I always sat he was a cute one.
Compared to the geisha boys bundled up in their elaborate multi-layered kimonos with their over powdered faces, painted lips and false lashes - not to mention yellow teeth, this servant boy was pure. He had a stainless face and simple kimono that showed just the finest slit of skin from his neck down to his chest, and yet I think he represented the only innocence that was left in that brothel.
And on that night I finally got the chance to come up close to the servant boy I had been dreaming about. The others were drinking and playing silly games with the geisha boys as usual when the screen doors slid open and there he was. No one seemed to notice so I went up to get the tray of wine and sweets even though it was not customary to, as I was the guest. But I just could not resist. The boy had the most beautiful set of big brown eyes and the plushest pink lips neither I have seen at the same time or on the same person. He also had the most adorable expression when he looked up at me surprised as I unintentionally came so close to him.
"It's alright, I can take this," I said as I switched our empty tray for the full one he was holding.
"But... this is-" he murmured warily. And I felt his hands slipped through my grasp with the exchange of trays. I thought I saw him blushed, or I hoped he did.
"It is not a problem, trust me," I assured him softly, and placed the tray aside. I nearly flipped when he showed the sweetest smile and bowed before he slid the door shut. It was then I had remembered I had forgotten to ask for his name. I was too mesmerized.
So I waited for my next chance when he came to refill our tray, but he never came. I was tired of watching the show of drunken morons and did not even have to make an excuse to leave the room. I decided to venture through the quarters to seek for the nameless servant boy. Luckily, it did not take long. Although, it was due to a sound of broken plates which caused me to turn around and it was him again at the end of that very corridor.
He was kneeling on the ground picking up the broken pieces and fallen food back on to the tray beside him as a geisha boy was shrieking about his ruined kimono and blaming it on my adorable servant boy. I wanted to go up there to help him, no save him, when the geisha boy raised his folded fan in the air as though he was about strike it down on him. Just when I was going to stop the geisha a large man pushed passed me from behind and scolded them both. Others around were looking and simply giggled and went back to working and chattering.
Briefly, the large man left with the geisha and my poor adorable servant boy went back to cleaning up the floor. I couldn't just stand there and watch so I went to help him but when I got to him I could only pick up the last piece of a broken plate. I handed it to him and he thanked me and bowed his head. He stood there with his big brown eyes on me for a long second before he turned away sharply, and I thought a saw of tint of pink on his cheeks and tips of his ears from the moonlight. Then he quickly shuffled off. Right then I thought he was the cutest thing in the world.
Before I knew it I lost him again, and I still have not gotten a name. The noise inside the brothel was too much for me I had to get away, so I went out into the garden where there were nothing but trees and flowers. From afar I could still hear them but it was soft enough that I could breathe well again without having every other geisha boy I cross try to jump on me with their strange smelling perfume. I have heard this was a scent they used to seduce you, but it just made me want to faint or vomit, or both.
I walked further into the garden but stayed near the wall so I would not get lost. That was the plan, though I had not anticipated it to also lead me to my lovely servant boy. He was surrounded by wooden buckets filled with water, and one by one he poured the contains down into a narrow canal that goes out the wall of the brothel. I supposed this was what he does when he is not serving wine and teas to the rooms. Maybe that was why I did not want to interrupt him, in his duty. But the buckets look almost like large barrows next to him, and he was not a small boy.
Then suddenly, he stopped with the last emptied bucket held over on his shoulder. He looked like a statue, not moving, and eyes focused on the ground. Why was he not moving? What was he thinking?, I thought. And then he dropped the bucket with a loud clunk that echoed through the garden and scared a bird that came out of nowhere and flew over my head. Surprised, I shuffled back to avoid the bird that had already flown away causing the sound of the tiny pebbles under my shoes to make a noise.
He saw me and I could not move. His teary gaze pierced my heart. I knew then I had to take him away, away from this place.
And make him mine.