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Jo Yeong sits next to His Majesty’s hospital bed. He shouldn’t be sitting, he should stand. Sitting makes you lose precious time in the event of an attack. He should stand. Just like he shouldn’t have left His Majesty alone earlier tonight.
He’d left, and for what? Some liquid courage to tell him that he’s found the woman with the Queen’s face, with his mother’s face. Yeong never met His Majesty’s mother, and all pictures of her are thirty years old, yet he knew as soon as he saw her that it was her. He has watched His Majesty’s face enough to know his mother’s.
He should stand, but he doesn’t think his legs will carry him.
Would it have helped if he’d been there?
He too would have let in the woman with Lieutenant Jeong’s face, and he too has relaxed about His Majesty eating untasted food in the Republic. What if he had drunk the poison as well, what then? Perhaps going out to get soju is what saved His Majesty.
He’s almost sure the woman in the hallway right now is Tae-eul, but until he has definite proof or can tell why he thinks she is, then she stays out there. The fact that she didn’t argue and that she’s made no attempt to come in is, strangely enough, one of the reasons he thinks she’s the woman on the ID-card and not Luna.
It doesn't matter. Tae-eul or Luna, by existing she’s put His Majesty’s life at risk.
What if he’d been too late? What if the Third King of the Kingdom of Corea had died in the Republic of Korea, poisoned by a low-life criminal? Yeong would have sent Eun-sup back with that news.
Not really. But maybe?
In his lap lies His Majesty’s whip, his hand rests upon the handle. He’s been the subject to this whip a few times in their youth -- before Yeong completed his training and military service and His Majesty realised that king or not, you shouldn’t whip people at random -- but other than handing it to His Majesty a few times, he hasn’t actually held it. He hasn’t really realised its importance, and is still foggy on the details, but for him it will now always represent the pain of leaving His Majesty on the floor, bleeding from the mouth. It will represent following orders above all else, following orders when his heart and soul and body tell him that it’s the wrong thing to do.
He’s had His Majesty’s blood on his hands tonight, literally, and washing it off has not erased the ominous feeling of that. Had His Majesty died because he’d followed an order to get the whip out of a coat pocket… Yeong can't even think about it. This whip has gone from being one of His Majesty’s quirks to being a symbol of his own self-loathing.
Yeong dries his eyes. He should stand, he shouldn’t sit.
He should also reassure the woman outside that he does believe she is who she says she is, but that he still can’t risk it. He should at least tell her His Majesty breathes and is calm.
He shouldn’t just sit here, but he can’t do anything else.
Lee Gon sits next to Yeong’s hospital bed, holding his hand. He’s been sitting at too many bedsides lately -- Tae-eul (twice), Lady Noh, Eun-sup, and now… now Yeong.
Yeong looks peaceful, yet pale, and with a nasal cannula and an IV ruining all illusions that he might just be sleeping. The surgery was a success. They say he’ll probably be alright, that he’s lost a lot of blood but is currently stable. Surgical complications happen, though. And this is 1994.
Being here is probably bad for more reasons than putting their trust in almost thirty year old medicine, but there was no other choice at the time. Yeong wouldn’t have survived the journey home and the chance of saving him outweighs the risk of being turned over to the Royal Guard on suspicion of participating in the coup.
Gon is still scared.
He’s scared of losing his friend and of what will happen next.
The Manpasikjeok is whole again -- perhaps it never broke, he can’t tell anymore -- but that doesn’t necessarily mean he can get them back. Right at this moment, he’s not even sure where ‘back’ is or if it’s possible for him to keep the flute.
He’s still here, which wasn’t the plan, so now he doesn't know what to do. He can’t think straight. All the adrenaline from the night before has ebbed out, leaving him exhausted, and his head is filled with too many versions of the same memories.
One of the few constants in this jumbled mess is Yeong.
And now he's...
Gon hadn’t known how bad it was, that one of the bullets had missed the vest and hit his shoulder. If he’d known, if he’d noticed, he’s not sure he would have acted differently. His entire focus had been stopping Lee Lim and putting time back in… some sort of order. It was the right decision -- and he’s sure Yeong will agree, if he wakes up -- but it doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be comfortable living with it.
He had left, and Yeong had been alone.
For hours, Gon has tried to come to terms with that. He knows all too well the horror of holding his friend as his consciousness slips away, and no amount of alternative memories will ever erase the feeling of despair at seeing Yeong die in his arms.
Except it hadn’t been Yeong that time, it’d been Eun-sup, and he hadn’t died.
Those first few moments though, before his brain had kicked in, will haunt Gon forever. As will the fact that tonight, when it had been Yeong who took bullets for him, he hadn’t been there for him. He had left.
So Gon has been holding Yeong’s hand since they let him into the room, hoping that he knows he’s not alone anymore. A part of Gon is trying to convince himself of the same thing, because whatever he’ll need to do next, he won’t be able to do this without his Unbreakable Sword.
Hopefully he won’t have to.