Work Text:
Someday these walls will speak
The floors beneath you creek
To call my name
Here in my web of dreams
My whispers turn to screams
And place the blame
Emilie Autumn – Rose Red
I don't feel good
I don't sound good
I don't look good
I wish I was right
I watch you sleep
Away the time
I watch you sleep
Sleep tight
Switchblade Symphony – Sleep
Little ghost, you're listening,
Unlike most you don't miss a thing,
You see the truth
I walk the halls invisibly,
I climb the walls, no one sees me,
No one but you
Birdy – Strange Birds
The boy in front of him looked fragile enough to be broken with one snap of his fingers.
Smooth, rosy cheeks and long, trembling lashes, a pretty head all but bending under the weight of his thick, messy braid. One skinny wrist extended and dangling in the air, arm bent, forehead pressed into the crook of his elbow. Lips ever set into a pout.
It was an illusion pleasant to the eye, but an illusion nonetheless. The boy in front of him yielded all too well to a firm touch; to a violent one, even. He had learned to relish in it, studied it just as attentively as the scriptures he was currently dozing off over.
Altogether irritating when he spoke at times, but far more boring like this, when silent.
Too silent. Undisturbed.
Vulnerable.
A temptation.
An irresistible one at that.
Seungho lifted a stray lock that escaped Jihwa’s braid with his brush and pushed it to the side impassively. He fiddled with the end of the brush, twirling it between his fingers as he watched his companion intently with a mischievous tilt of head to the side.
No reaction to speak of, just a hushed, sleepy huff.
Why was this silly child allowed to sleep on and on and on this peacefully when he himself could not get a moment of shut eye for five days straight…?
Sharp yet harmonious features tensed into a frown as the side of his mouth rose in a crooked smirk. Shuffling closer, Seungho pressed a fingertip to the inkstone and poked the tip of Jihwa’s nose.
Pfft.
He looked like a toy deer now.
Still no damned reaction.
There was a peculiar sort of pride to the awareness he had tired the lovely boy in front of him out so thoroughly Jihwa could not for the life of him keep his eyes open anymore the very moment he’d finished writing his essay. But boredom setting in was a dangerous thing for a dangerous mind, and on this particular day, Seungho wished for – craved, really – an accomplice.
Sometimes the voices around him rose in waves, surging as if a gale was raging on, at times the world became too quiet. In both cases, a distraction was most welcome.
An irking voice could still be a comforting one at times, and at all times it was far better than malicious whispers at the very edge of his earshot, and today–
A sudden creak.
He tensed.
Waited.
Not a muscle twitching.
He listened on intently, watching the last rays of evening sun dance their usual route upon the walls – the room barely got any sunlight at all, and it happened only at this precise moment at the dying of the day, when shadows kept reaching out from every corner, familiar by now but not any less ominous – until he could be sure it was nothing but the old family house sighing its usual sighs as it settled on its bones.
Ever vigilant for the sound of footsteps, for the cry of the floorboards creaking under someone creeping closer, he bit on the inside of his cheek and counted down from a hundred, knees dragged up to his chin.
Nothing.
By now, out of necessity, he’d learned the rhythm to everything by heart. The cadence and weight of each servant’s footsteps. Mister Kim’s. His father’s and his brother’s. Lord S–
Ah.
Well.
There were dangerous places all around, and dangerous ideas creeping into his mind to distort all clarity of thought, and to top it all, places all too dangerous to even allow those thoughts to come forward, lest they twist his features and betray their presence.
It was a game, in this house.
One wrong word, retribution.
One wrong thought, punishment.
One wrong step…
There was always someone listening for the creaks.
Hence he learned all the sounds the floors could make under every set of feet around by heart; he could recognize them all in a heartbeat, even when barely half-awake deep in the night, torn out of the most foreboding of night horrors.
After all, the reality of what could come creeping in was far more sinister than whatever his troubled mind could produce.
Only Jihwa, damn him, was undetectable. Light on his feet like a street dancer but with all the grace of a young lord, always appearing out of nowhere when least expected. Welcome or not, needed or not. Coming and going as he damn well pleased at all times, ready to obnoxiously sniffle and sob his way out of any trouble that might arise if a study partner was caught where he should not be outside of studying hours, and to tiptoe right back in as soon as it was safe. Like that pesky ginger cat his lady mother had kept while she was still alive.
Bearing a strange sense of comfort.
Not that Seungho would ever admit it out loud.
Ah, well, but a man took his comfort where he could find it. One did what one had to do.
Seungho had to learn his own house, to know how to tread. Meanwhile this little yellow bird kept flying to and fro without shame; that, however, could be forgiven, at least at times. To a non-menacing presence.
Still, Jihwa was all but asking to have his pretty yellow feathers plucked.
Now, for example.
No better time than now; the days to come were too bleak for him to wait for a more suitable occasion.
With the door bolted and them not allowed outside until they finished the essays they’d been punished with – and Seungho did not even attempt to start his, despite the subject not posing any challenge to his sharp mind – he was safe to play with his prey.
At least a bit.
He shifted closer.
Jihwa slept on.
Seungho drew in a deep, exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes.
Ah, there.
There it was, the stray little lock he’d attacked with his brush earlier; this time, he wound it around his bony finger and tugged at it. Hard.
All it got him was a restless little whimper and a shift of the curly head.
He moved the inkstone out of the range of Jihwa’s forehead and regretted it instantly.
Maybe that would have woken him up.
He watched his study partner, friend and lover dream peacefully on and on and on, pushed to thoughts of bloodshed at the sight another would find altogether innocuous and serene. Was he truly the only soul in town that could not get a single night of restful sleep...?
Well. That could not be allowed.
Not in his presence.
He picked up a brush. For a moment, he contemplated drawing a thick, bushy moustache on the drowsy little bird in front of him, but it would serve as the worst kind of turn-off if he felt like indulging in his pliant charms later.
Flowers, then; flowers he could not see from the windows of the rooms he was confined to had to do.
Flowers would fit. In childhood, Jihwa had eaten all sorts of flowers on a bet, not minding if they weren’t poisonous perchance; maybe that was how he grew up to be this vexingly pretty – by feasting on petals. Put his mind to something, deceive him into thinking it would impress the fervently worshipped young master Yoon, and nothing else mattered. He’d gotten himself sick that way, once, but recovered in an hour.
By all laws and rules of this world, he should be easier to bend or break, but no.
A fitting accomplice for a man like him indeed.
Thus, the flowers. Seungho put himself to work; he wasn’t as good as his companion at drawing and calligraphy, but he kept his brushwork slow and steady. His dainty little lover only squirmed a bit and huffed his way right through it as a whole garden bloomed upon his round, flushed cheeks.
Nothing.
Seungho admired his handiwork with pride, but not without the sort of restless anger that was deeply rooted in boredom.
If he could not sleep, the world would not sleep, either.
Utterly unnerved, he grabbed Jihwa’s braid and dipped the tip in ink.
He tugged.
Still no reaction to speak of, only a sleepy little sigh.
Had the last night’s stolen wine truly been this potent? Or was it, ah, one round of something else altogether too many?
He used the tip of it to paint around Jihwa’s eye like with a brush, leaving one dark swirl of ink right after the other.
His silent little victim only sneezed and shifted, letting his head loll to the side. The ink-stained cheek was left hanging a hand’s width over the essay Jihwa had spent a long time poring over.
Seungho looked on. And on. And waited.
Each man’s patience had its limits and his was sorely depleted in the first place; in the end, after another countdown from hundred, he simply opted for a strong kick to the table. Jihwa’s forehead thumped against the desk as he slumped to the side, then shot up like a spooked rabbit in one fluid motion, blinking drowsiness away from his huge ember eyes.
“Master Yoon?” His usual playful tone immediately in place, he tilted his head inquisitively as he stretched his back, then looked around with a languid sigh. “What time could it be?
“How would I know?”
Jihwa rubbed at his cheek and found the heel of his hand stained with ink. With an amused little huff, he reached for a pitcher of water and a handkerchief, then set himself to washing his face clean. Nothing seemed to faze him, but no wonder.
They were well-used to each other’s ways after all.
The tip of the braid, though, that drew a reaction; a tortured little sigh and a pained, helpless eyeroll.
“Master Yoon. Why?”
“By the right of the stronger one,” Seungho scoffed with a wicked glint to his eye, earning a small chuckle.
It was truly a pity Jihwa seemed too dazed out to be in a mood for a fight. He could use one right now, just for the hell of it.
He watched the ink stains as his companion struggled to wash them off his face. He rather fancied the sight; his stains on another, so hard to get rid of. It was only fair; Jihwa would wear his stains just the way he wore another’s…
Ah.
Those thoughts again.
Best to keep them at bay on an evening like this.
It took Jihwa a while to bring his appearance back to some semblance of an order. As soon as he was done, he pushed the inkstone to the side and rested his cheek – rubbed into a near-feverish flush – on a delicate hand. His wrist still bore a bruise or two from the previous night, in the shape of Seungho’s fingers.
“Have you finished your essay?”
“Not yet.” Seungho kept watching him with the eyes of a hawk that had his prey right where he wanted it, ready to dive in a heartbeat. “In fact, I do not plan on starting it at all.”
“How come?” Jihwa hid a yawn behind his sleeve. “We will not be allowed out until we both finish.”
“And that is precisely why I will not write it.” Seungho leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms on his chest, then looked to the side, towards the window. “From my bedroom I cannot see the sunset. I feel like watching one today. For a change of routine.”
The abyss of his thoughts swallowed him for a moment; he was so deep in his head he lost all sense of vigilance.
A whiff of smoke tipped him off.
He sat up straight as if strung with a needle, eyes going wide as he watched Jihwa burn his essay with a candle until only small specks of paper were left on the inkstone, blowing on his fingertips when he was done.
Seungho blinked.
The clueless little bird in front of him blinked.
“… You.”
He could not help a huff of a choked, bitter laughter from slipping past his lips.
Had this fickle child no sense of self-preservation at all…?
Such deep loyalty.
Touching. Endearing, at times. So bloody naive.
He should have nipped it in the bud ages ago.
He did not feel like doing so.
An accomplice was a fine thing to possess when one lived with only long shadows for company.
Jihwa only shrugged and shifted in his spot; he’d been sitting with his legs tucked underneath him and they probably went all sore and stiff as he slept. Seungho watched him sit on his own long braid and wince, then pout.
He could never quite tell whether he wanted to kiss him or bully him into tears more.
Fortunately he did not have to pick.
His hands shot up, seizing his fickle prey like talons of a hawk that swooped down to get his meal; Jihwa went down in a heap of bright yellow fabric, landing with a startled yelp right in his lap, back to his chest with the thick braid wrapped tight around Seungho’s forearm, from the ink-stained tip to the very base.
Anything could happen in a moment like this, and the surprise of it was always the most enticing part. From pinches and tickles to playful wrestling or wrists twisted painfully until a call of surrender sounded from among most delicious cries, but also stolen kisses and bites, some of them harsh enough to draw blood. At times it ended with Jihwa smeared with ink, sometimes it was the thick, white ropes of come staining his pretty face, or smears of blood. Sometimes it was all of it at once.
All at once was Seungho’s personal preference.
Whatever he brought to the game, Jihwa yielded to it all with the same sort of effortless grace.
Truly the most convenient accomplice. Ever unfazed.
No wonder, though. Living among the shadows, one learned two things rather quickly: do not let anything surprise you into asking questions, and do not call out – whatever happens – if you are not sure who might be listening.
So Jihwa only pushed his face into his sleeve at the first pinch to his hip and chuckled breathlessly, keeping his voice down. Seungho caught an errant curl dancing at the edge of his vision; he had his hands full of his prey, busy pinning him down, so he leaned in and closed his teeth around it, then tugged with a toss of head. He got one hand halfway in between the soft, warm skin and the fabric of Jihwa’s inner shirt when all the tussling had them both turn in one direction.
They both went still as rays of light stained their eyelids gold.
Outside, the sun was slowly drowning beyond the wall. If it hadn’t been for how high the wall was – renewed lately at father’s orders, to keep more of what was happening in the spacious courtyards out of prying eyes – they would be able to see the hills and fields beyond.
“Teacher will soon come to check on our progress,” Jihwa bit on his bottom lip, not letting the more and more harsh, incessant tugs at his hair break his trail of thought. “If we annoy him like the last time, he might order us locked here for the night without supper.”
Seungho closed his teeth around the soft shell of his ear, drawing a breathless little moan out of him.
“Would you not rather sneak into my room? You with your thin bones and paper skin…” He poked him in the rib. “You will end up bruised up all over again if we go a few rounds here on the floor. There will be questions.”
Jihwa swatted his hand away with a giggle.
“Master Yoon, you and your one-track mind… No, I do not mean that. What I mean is… If you do want out, why not go out?”
Seungho could not help going tense.
He knew the boy in his embrace felt that tension seeping out of him, too.
“How so?”
He had been confined only recently; he was not yet used to living in the new, dreary reality.
Jihwa shrugged.
“To get away as quick as possible, we would have to sneak out at the back, and the wall cannot be scaled over there by oneself, without help. But with the two of us and the tree…”
“The windows here…”
“Do we not have a knife?”
“What about back over the wall?”
“We might steal a rope from the shed.”
“It is out in the open, we could be spotted.”
“Not if we enter from the side. There is a loose beam, I broke it.”
For a long moment there, they let the idea simmer in utter silence.
“Why do you make it sound so easy?” Seungho’s voice turned cold, but his eyes already burned with the endless possibilities of it all.
He truly hated how it sounded so easy.
He hated how Jihwa already had the time and the freedom to try it out, but not him.
His legs, after all, had healed only recently. Jihwa was more petite and delicate, so he’d gotten a far less severe trashing and was quicker to get back on his feet. Another thing Seungho resented him for with all the ferocity of his caged heart.
“Because it is indeed so easy,” Jihwa shot him a playful little smirk. “One cannot sneak out of here, but two can do it easily.”
Ah.
One could not do it.
Two could, with ease.
How fitting.
But one did not make himself at home among the long shadows of this ancient household if one was not taught to tread carefully, twisted ankles or not.
“Do not be absurd. The teacher…”
“… will be only back at dawn, will he not? When your father is not home, they do not check on us more than necessary. I do wonder if they truly do not care, or are afraid of what they might find if they do. They would only come if we woke them up with a ruckus, and we cannot quite cause any if we are elsewhere.”
“I do not know about you, but I have enough of punishment as it is.”
“My point exactly, Seungho. Enough of it indeed.”
There it was, the way the playful, teasing “master Yoon” was forgotten in a moment, as always when Jihwa got serious. He shifted to a more comfortable position that had him nested in Seungho’s embrace; a petite, bony thing, but pleasant to hold anyway. As long as he did not squirm too much, that was. But at this moment, he was far too deep in thought for anything more than fiddling with the tip of his braid.
“The daily share of punishment comes anyway, does it not? I break a cup, I get punished. I am caught sneaking out, I get punished. I do not throw a fit or do not run, I get punished for raising my voice when I laugh, or for skipping a meal. Whatever we do, whether we try and make most of the night somewhere out there, with no walls pressing down on us, or stay here, we will get punished. After all, it was never about the cups, or the meals, or the attitude anyway.” His fingertips rubbed a circle onto the inside of Seungho’s palm. “You know what they keep punishing us for.”
Their eyes met, in the long, heavy silence that followed.
“But it is alright,” Jihwa sighed, like always when he resigned himself to something. “We will wait them out. We can be patient.”
Seungho only hummed in response.
Both of them knew what his answer would be.
The hills and the fields were calling to him already.
He did not answer, but rather let the perspective of it linger in the air, a sweet promise of a few hours’ worth of freedom dangling within their grasp. It would be bad luck to talk about it more and get excited; not until they could be sure the opportunity would indeed present itself.
It was a place of hopes cut down and dreams torn apart, after all.
So his only response was a bite to an ink-stained cheek.
It earned him an embrace he did not feel like squirming out of for once.
An hour passed; the teacher came right as the last rays of the sun faded completely and the world turned deep grey at its edges. They did not bother lighting a candle, too busy joking around to care. They did not need to try hard at all to drive the teacher utterly mad; the lack of finished essays would have sufficed, but they both let their mouth run for a good measure.
The verdict was as expected. No supper, locked in for the night, and forced to sleep at the cold, hard floor.
The teacher was left confused at what exactly did they find so amusing about the perspective.
If they slept at all tonight, they would sleep on the soft grass, where no bout of unrestrained laughter called for the floorboards to creak with creeping footsteps. Far away from glaring eyes and vigilant ears.
After that, it went far easier than expected. A quick knifework, then stalking through the shadows and swiftly scaling the wall. On unsteady legs no climb came easy, but it was possible indeed, and they made it work.
One would not manage to escape.
Two could do it, if they could act decisively and with their mouth shut tight.
Beyond the wall there was a vast, open space waiting for them to run as wild as their young, restless minds did. Seungho stood facing the wind as it rose in harsh surges – strong but pleasantly cool instead of cold – as Jihwa picked himself right back up from the grass, where he’d dropped down from the wall.
Ahead, an early spring night waited.
Well.
Wonders never ceased.
So that was what it took to make him come alive for a moment; darkness, but with no restraint. Night, but without horrors. Company, but not really unwanted. Only the birds, the tall grasses and the wind, and the outline of trees at the hilltop.
He breathed in.
Out.
Looked around.
There were no hands reaching for him from in between the long shadows.
Jihwa called out to him, but the rising wind drowned out all the words.
“What is it?”
“I seem to have lost a shoe,” the silly bird almost bent in half from laughter, more curls already escaping his braid to dance on the wind. He was swaying on his feet like a drunk, and Seungho could well relate.
He was drunk on their newfound freedom, too. Nearly intoxicated out of his damned mind with the potency of it.
Something akin to liquid fire surged in his veins as he turned, sizing his companion up with the eyes of a starving hawk, frozen mid-hunt.
Jihwa’s eyes went wide before his hips and waist were grabbed and tugged onward; he fell nearly boneless in Seungho’s embrace to be swept in a hungry, biting kiss that soon left him all breathless and swaying on his feet even more.
The pesky little thing looked good while crying, but far more prettier when kissed into silence.
It did not, however, last long, as he was back to his usual chatter as they looked for the shoe. Seungho helped him put it back on, not even hiding he did it only to fondle him mercilessly while at it as Jihwa ranted on and on and on – something about his pretty ankles being to his master Yoon’s taste, or some other nonsense – but for once that chatter did not drive him damn well mad. The ankles did indeed look shapely, all healed up and bearing no trace of the punishment for his and his accomplice’s latest crime.
Before he let the dainty ankle out of his hand, he stole a bite to it, to his companion’s bubbling laughter.
Then then ran for the hills.
Feet beaten into treading carefully among the grappling shadows still hadn’t forgotten they were swift enough to outrun the wind.