Chapter Text
The second night after winning the war
Wang Jung rushed, entering the king’s tent to deliver the news he had learned. The king was having his wounds cleaned, fresh bandages to replace the soiled ones. He waited it out. The news at hand wasn’t exactly a secret but seeing how it could be personal to the king, he found it inappropriate to seemingly announced it in front of others. Wang So noticed this, motioning for the healers to leave. He had managed to remain alive, almost unscathed this time. Expected bruises and flesh wounds littering his body but those were nothing he was not familiar with. He pulled his thin outer layer over his shoulders, leaving it untied. Once the tent was cleared with only the two of them, he addressed his brother.
“What is it, Jung?” So’s gaze remained on the scattered scraps of parchment on his table. Some he needed to be rid of, and some, he had to keep, leashes to hold some onto their promises.
Jung only knew of So being trained by the General for quite some time. He could only assume that perhaps he had a soft heart to the general’s wife seeing that he used to spend hours there in his youth. “Your Majesty. I knew you are close to the General. I thought you should know.”
He took a breath before announcing another loss.
“His wife just passed away. We are close to his hometown, and I heard the news passing through the camps.” He watched his king’s expression earnestly, but he read nothing. Too many losses took a toll on anyone’s conscience, and he, as a king who had led them to victory that still cost them no matter how slightly?
It wrecked him anew.
Even when he showed none of it. But the slight slump of his shoulder was enough for Jung to know.
All deaths deserved to be mourned but the living could only afford so much.
So’s face slackened; gaze fixed onto one corner of the tent seeing nothing before he spoke.
“I shall go pay my respect then.”
Jung nodded; his response was expected. The plan was to return further ahead than the rest of the troops but upon his announcement, the king would join them later as he took a personal detour. He walked to the table at the side of the tent, laden with few bottles of alcohol and decent nourishment just enough to satiate their hunger. He picked up two bottles and a piece of bread, walking back to sit across his brother, placing a bottle for him. He took a deep gulp from his own before faking interest in the small dent on the otherwise surprisingly fluffy piece.
So accepted the offering, taking a deep swig of its content. Any drinks tasted bitter for him after her disappearance, and now, after the war, it left a tang that reminded him of nothing else but blood.
“Brother,” Jung broke the silence after he finished his food. “If I may..”
So knew where he was heading. Jung had started to ask questions he couldn’t answer without first consulting Ha Jin, and he knew he couldn’t deflect any longer. He himself wanted so much for Jung to be included, especially when he remembered Baek Ah’s recklessness in bringing Ha Jin to Wook’s residence.
Wook, of all people….
“You may not.” he quipped, but he made sure his tone was light.
Jung smiled his crooked smile and shook his head before taking another swig. Perhaps his brother would take pity on him pretending to be drunk therefore spilling a more satisfactory answer to his questions.
“You don’t seem thrilled with us winning the war…” He wouldn’t expect So to drench himself with booze and danced around the fire but still, his reaction was too somber on winning a war he had been so eager to go through. Yes, they expand the girth of their nation, therefore their power. Yes, they saved their people from being exploited, those who lived too close to the borders. But there was something else he wasn’t telling, something personal he suspected. Too personal that fuelled the savage side of him with each swing of his blade.
It concerned him because it terrified him.
So sought an answer by delaying it. His thoughts were flippant before he replied. “This is just half the battle of what I seek to achieve.”
“And the other half being…?”
A scoff escaped So’s lips, and Jung knew he could never coax more than that.
The noise outside the tent had begun to dwindle down. Most had retreated to their tents, was Jung’s best guess. The night was still long, and he reminded himself to check the parameter with few others before turning in for the night.
Perhaps it was the drink, or just curiosity, swimming too close to the surface that made his words slipped.
“Do you still think of her..?” he knew he himself did. Hae Soo was more than a friend to him; she was an unrequited love of his. She loved So, had always loved So despite their bleak end.
He watched So nursing his bottle too earnestly before he continued.
“I heard you screaming a different name at night.”
So’s eyebrows had raised a fraction, surprised at Jung’s words.
“I do?”
Jung nodded. “Baek Ah said something.” His lips curled as he remembered what Baek Ah had reluctantly shared with him. He shook his head each time, but he couldn’t help to think about it every now and then. “But I found it too absurd to be taken whole.”
“That being..?” So asked.
“That Hae Soo was back. Before the earthquake. It was…it has to be a lie.”
He placed his empty bottle on the table between them. He seemed lost for a second, and when he finally spoke, So couldn’t help but notice the pain in his voice. “But then I thought if she were, why didn’t she come and see me?”
To which So draw a long breath. What was the point of confiding with him now when she was not here next to him?
“Perhaps because you are too set out in your ways. You are stubborn. You are difficult to persuade.” He listed out made-up reasons not too far from the truth.
Jung chuckled as he listened to the feeble explanation. True, he was all of that, but to be left out… “I would be insulted if that’s the case. I too, care for her, didn’t I?”
“When I meet her again, I’ll let her know of your indignant, being left out.”
“When…not if?”
“Yes. When.”
He was so certain that Jung could not help but looked forward to that day.
-----------
The old general was shocked when Seul Rang’s maid came crying outside his door. Mumbling incomprehensibly between sobs that her lady was packing. He sprung from his cold bed, silently cursing his failure to see this coming. He thought she would stay now there was no more hostility between them. The three months nursing his wife together had bonded them, if not as father and daughter, he would be more than happy to settle as comrades.
But he much preferred the earlier option. The prospect of having someone he could fuss about was comforting. Perhaps this time he would train her properly. Perhaps in the future, he could help her find a suitable match to start a family. Deok Su seemed to be smitten with her. If she allowed it, perhaps the marriage could happen.
Perhaps then, he would die knowing how it felt to be a child’s grandfather…to have all these spaces no longer haunted by the lack of memories he had failed to gather throughout the years with his own family.
“Are you leaving?” he asked, taking a step into her chamber. He could see her modest sack and her instrument his late wife had forced upon her. He swallowed a lonely sigh at the prospect of being left alone. He was now too used to her presence. The house would feel emptier without the melody from her pipa, and the comforting scent of her teas.
He proceeded to take a seat, watching her stiff back, straightened slowly, embarrassed perhaps at being caught red-handed.
Ha Jin stopped her struggles of forcing the stubborn, loud orange beast into the sling now laying limp across her body. The general’s voice acted as the final blow to her already frail resolve to leave. BamBam laid itself down on the floor before it began to lick itself, looking so proud that it did not have to agree to her plan, flicking its tail with forced laziness, as if mocking her attempts to bring it away from the comfort of being fed three times a day.
Ha Jin, with her back still towards the general, moved sideways and kicked her small bundle underneath the bed, a poor, very poor attempt to cover her intention.
“I am asking you, Seul Rang. Don’t let this old man repeat himself.” His voice was quite stern but when had it ever not? Ha Jin turned, clad with very simple clothing that reflected none of her borrowed noble status. She was without a plan, truth to be told, but she had to do something and to leave since as good as any beginning. But she was caught, and now she owed this elder man an explanation in lieu of not being seen as a rude, ungrateful stranger he had offered his shelter, his name to.
“The cat doesn’t want to leave.” She pointed to the traitor beast. Bambam had the audacity to look up at her in the midst of cleaning itself and meow back.
“But you do?” he asked. Ha Jin was torn at his pained intonation. She was without a father all her life, but this must be how it felt to be a disappointment to one. She covered her face with her palms, shaking her head. How could she even begin to explain everything, not that she thought he needed to know but perhaps laying it all out, baring it all would open doors she couldn’t discover herself?
She immediately disregarded that foolish whisper. She took a seat, busying herself with freeing the knot of the sling meant for Bambam. She placed the cloth on the table that separated her and the general and spoke her explanation.
“I kept my words…I honour our agreement. You have been…” cold? awfully blunt to a point it cut deep?
Why am I so bitter…?
She asked herself before she continued the hanging sentence. “…. honest with what you wish for.”
“I didn’t know you back then.” He looked down, and Ha Jin looked down too. A confession dancing its way at the edge of her lips.
“I remember now.” She looked up and she plastered a bitter smile on her face. “And we agreed…whichever comes first.”
“You remember?” he looked as if he had expected her answer, and she wondered what could have tipped him off? Had she really been different after?
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Ha Jin.” She couldn’t fathom the glistening tears brimming in her eyes over such simple inquisition.
“Oh no….” her tears made him worry that he might have not thought his decision through. To make her stay when perhaps she did have her own family to go back to. “Are your parents alive? Would they have been waiting for you?”
Such a simple question, but unfortunately the answer couldn’t be as simple. She had none of it, but she had her children who must have grown so much by now. She had So. But they did not know that she was still alive, and she couldn’t help but think how inappropriate it was to waltz back in their lives, only to disappear again perhaps in near future. Fate had always found a way to do so, how could she be certain of anything especially after everything?
She realized how the general was waiting for her answer. “No.” she blurted out. “Father never present and mother, killed.” The moment she uttered the last word, she couldn’t help but feel glad that despite everything fate had been kind enough to lead her here. She had had the chance to bid her stranger mother goodbye when the real one she had left rot in their own house when she decided to jump to her death.
The sight of her limp body, hanging, broke her yet again and the tears she had tried so hard to hold back stained her cheeks.
The old man panicked even more.
“You cannot leave like this. Crying all the way…somewhere.” The remarks made her scrambled to wipe her tears, failing miserably as more appeared relentlessly.
“Cry that much and you will fall from your horse.”
“I am not planning to steal a horse...” she looked down at her sleeping cat, doubting the ways needed to keep a cat calm on a trotting horse.
“You will fall on your feet then. Even more dangerous. There are bandits out there.”
She appreciated the general’s concern, but she couldn’t explain why she was acting like a petulant child. “I am not five and I have my sword, my lord.”
The old man sighed desperately, “You stubborn fool. Can’t you see this old man trying to make you stay?”
---------
So arrived late at night. He had missed the funeral rites, and by the looks of it, he doubted he had the heart to bear the fuss over his arrival.
Everyone had retired to bed.
Yet the general himself had received him.
“You are late Your Majesty.”
“Forgive me. My condolences General, over your loss.”
The general stretched his arms wide, and So received his warm yet rare offering despite being puzzled for a bit. “If you don’t mind it terribly, I will have the food send over to your room but that could take a while.”
He wanted to refuse but the loud growl of his stomach was one that could not be missed.
“I am quite famished.” He admitted sheepishly.
“Well then, clean up, eat, and rest. We talk tomorrow.”
-------
They were walking side by side when the soft sound of pipa fluttered in the air. It was hauntingly beautiful, a cry so forlorn he could taste the bitter sense of loneliness ringing from each note. So watched the elder man’s lips rose a tad, a soft glow of pride was undeniable on his face. So knew about the daughter he had quite recently added to his family register, heard the story behind it too and by the look on his face, it would seem the old man was never coerced to do so.
As if he could read his mind, the general gave him a look. “My daughter. Tomorrow I’ll introduce her to you if you allow it. She makes the best tea. All my friends are raving about it each visit.”
So doubted his daughter’s tea could match Ha Jin’s but he nodded anyway. The man had just lost his wife. He would have agreed to anything he suggested if such could ease his pain no matter how minuscule.
They must have stepped closer to the source of the melody. It rang clear, reaching its end before the last of it was stolen so suddenly.
“Ah, fuck!” the voice hissed behind the door.
Taken aback by the anger, paired with what could only be a curse word, the two men stopped in front of the door.
The general was made unnerved by it, knocking on the door repeatedly. So took a step back, allowing the distance between the two and himself as he turned away, not wanting to intrude upon a private moment.
The door opened, and he heard the general fussing over his daughter.
“Seul Rang, what happens?”
“The string snapped next to my face my lord.”
So was surprised to hear the way the other referred to her father and all along, he could hear the old general hummed his disapproval. Over what, So wasn’t quite sure of until the elder man lowered down his volume to a whisper.
“Tsk, what did I say about calling me that? Father, remember?”
And the other just laughed. A tinkering sound so familiar So found it impossible not to turn and wrench the thin slab of doors free so he could see for himself that it could not be her.
--------
So stood transfixed behind his door, physically fighting the urge while the rational part of his mind tried to argue him out of it. He knew that laugh, heard it in his sleep, haunting his every waking moment.
“What are the odds?” he whispered to himself when he cleansed himself free from the stench he carried from the war, from his rushed journey.
“It is improper.” He cautioned himself well as he took bites after bites of the food prepared for him.
He had laid himself down over the comfort of the soft mattress, but his eyes now refused to chase after the now long-gone drowsiness that had wanted to claim him so badly during the last mile to reach here.
His hands were already against the soft grains of the door, the tips of his fingers already pushing it slightly.
“I need to know.”
-------
“Bam, this habit of pooping at this goddamn hour…. we need to discuss it.” So heard that voice again and he was hit with an instant relief because he had not come out with a cohesive plan to lure her from her own room without making himself a fool or even worse, a lecherous man waiting to jump over her. He quickened his pace before stopping himself a good distance and settled down by watching her, tapping her right foot repeatedly against the ground, hands folded across her chest, all while facing her pet. She had her hair covering the side of her face. He moved one step closer, hoping that she would turn.
Or perhaps the wind would be kind enough to aid his flaming needs to see her face clearly.
The mere silhouette of her body was enough to extinguish his doubts. He knew every inch of her, every mark. Every stance of hers, he had memorized them all. His heart pounded against his chest so rapidly it began to hurt.
The cat seemed to notice his presence, staring at him now instead of her. He saw her turning and immediately he hid behind the pillar, now too afraid that what he had hoped for was nothing but only his profound desperation materializing in the form of strangers.
“Eh hello little lord, bury your poop will you?” she chastised her cat. The playful admonition brought a rare smile to his face. How similar it was to the ones he recalled from memories. Its rise and its fall were so similar that it had to be her. He steeled his resolve and with a deep breath, he stepped away from the pillar.
--------
She noticed a presence when her cat broke his stare. She let out a faux warning to her cat, but she already made her way closer to the pillar.
It was as if the other knew he was caught and he revealed himself. When he stepped away from the shadow, the realization forced her to take a step back. Stunned by the swiftness in which deities had answered her prayers.
A soft Oh, escaped her lips.
He’s here.
So seemed intent to inhale her presence, his gaze was fixed on her face as he closed the distance between them. Seeing the apparent shock displayed on his face, she knew immediately he still recognized her, even after all these times.
She watched as the shock thawed before it was immediately replaced by the smallest smile, his head shaking as if he couldn’t believe his own eyes.
He stood in front of her. His hair was tied in a firm ponytail. Their scars mirroring one another.
And it was as if they had never left one another.
He looked the same as always.
She pursed her lips, steadying her brittle breaths as she failed to cover the heavy rise and fall of her own chest.
“Baek Ah tried so hard not to call me mad...” He croaked out, pain and nothing else behind each word.
“And here you are.” His gaze was heated and for a second she couldn’t tell if it was anger or something else. She dwelled on it for a fleeting moment before she threw caution to the wind.
She tiptoed, pulling him in before she pressed her lips lightly against his. She could tell he was stunned just the way he had been years back, but he was quick to return it tenfold.
----------
“I’m sorry-“he cut her off, pressing her back against the wall and ground his length against her. She moaned, and he bit her lower lip, his hands busy peeling the layers off her shoulders.
“Shhh…do you know how much I suffer from you gone yet again?” he hissed as he ran his hands over her back, his fingers digging against her arse. Ha Jin pushed him away, half her body already revealed, and she could not be the only one exposed. There was anger behind their touches, but not for one another, no. Yet it fuelled their needs, and she pulled his belt free with one swift movement. He responded by robbing her of the chance of freeing himself from his clothes before yanking her hard, her hands splayed over his chest, and he picked her up in one swift movement. She was quick to wrap her legs around him, pressing her wetness against him, eliciting a growl from him, one he was not ashamed to admit mirrored a wolf as he sped up to his bed. He couldn’t be certain how, but they ended up here instead of her room. Safe behind the door, more explanations could have been spilled but he did not wish to talk.
Not now.
Not when he could touch her and breathe her in.
Not when her lips were quivering, and few strands of her hair fell over her face, giving him the excuse he did not need to press the back of his hand against her skin and pushed them all aside, gathering her hair in his tight fist before pulling it so he could leave his marks against her exposed neck.
And the way she returned her feverish acts, running her fingers through his hair, freeing it from the neat hold, tugging it hard whenever he resurfaced from their kisses. He kissed her hard, kissed her whole, kissed her everywhere, punishing her absence by leaving blazing trails of heat against her bare skin.
--------