Chapter Text
The first time they met Seungkwan had come following a series of short but persistent knocks on their door. This was far before they had become accustomed to having a usual visitor, and they all tensed when they heard the knocking. No one ever visited them out here; Hansol was sure that no one had come inside since before Jeonghan and Joshua had come to live with him. Jeonghan never went into the guild and Joshua rarely did, so it couldn’t have been a friend, and as far as Hansol knew, neither of them had any family around, either.
The person on the other side of the door knocked again. They all exchanged brief glances with each other before Jeonghan stood first, motioning for the other two to stay seated. Instead of conceding, Joshua pulled him back down with a look and stood up in his stead. They watched as he cautiously walked to the door. “Who is it?” He asked.
“Oh! Hello!” The voice was muffled, and sounded caught off guard by the sudden response. “My name is Seungkwan! I’m a travelling merchant! I’ve come by to see if—”
“Sorry, but we’re not interested.”
“Oh, that’s okay! Have a great day!” His footsteps pattered across the stone walkway and disappeared into the grass.
Joshua came back in the room and shrugged in response to the questioning eyes that bore into him. “Just a merchant.”
The next time Seungkwan showed up at their door was a few days later. Joshua was out back, and Jeonghan and Hansol had ignored the knocking for as long as they could before Hansol finally gave in and called from behind the door, “Who is it?”
“Hello! I was beginning to think no one was home! I’m currently selling—”
Hansol didn’t have the heart to cut the boy off like Joshua did and merely let him ramble on about the “quality items” he was selling from his guild. When it seemed like the boy was finally done (and slightly out of breath), Hansol politely declined his offer.
Seungkwan didn’t sound upset to have had his time wasted on this particular house, and merely wished Hansol a good day before leaving.
Despite their adamant refusal, Seungkwan continued to return every few days. His visits were spread out just enough for no one to get annoyed by them; if anything, they had begun looking forward to his visits and would often make bets about when he would turn up again.
When Seungkwan didn’t show up for over a week, they began to get worried. Jeonghan had suggested that maybe he had found another guild to sell his goods in, or maybe he had gotten sick of their constant rejection and finally decided to leave them alone. But in the middle of their debate as to what had happened to the faceless seller, the familiar knock came ringing from the door.
Although they all made move to stand, Joshua was first to reach the door.
“Hello Seungkwan.”
“Hello!” The disembodied voice spoke from behind the door. “Um, by any chance, are you interested in buying anything today?”
“Sorry Seungkwan, but not today.”
“Oh, okay.” The other side of the door when silent, and they were all sure that Seungkwan had left until he spoke again, his voice tinged with a nervousness that contrasted the confidence he usually exuded. “Sorry, but if it’s not too much trouble, could you reconsider? I stand by the quality of all of these items and they really aren’t too expensive...,” Seungkwan trailed off. “I also, um, I haven’t eaten in a few days and I’m a few coins short of a meal at the inn I’ve been staying at...”
Hansol could practically hear the hearts of everyone in the house shattering. Joshua immediately swung the door open, revealing a young boy with a round face and wide eyes. Joshua quickly ushered him inside. “We’re eating now. Here, grab some food.”
Seungkwan looked stunned as Hansol felt as he was forced to sit at the table. Jeonghan grabbed a dish and him and Hansol loaded it up with food before setting it in front of the boy. Seungkwan still looked overwhelmed, but managed to speak. “I can’t accept this. I don’t have enough money to pay you back.”
Joshua smiled politely, but his expression was etched with concern. “You don’t have to pay us anything. No one should have to go that long without food.”
Seungkwan still looked unconvinced, but his hunger outweighed his concerns as he finally dug into the plate set before him.
After giving him a moment to relish in the taste of food for the first time in days, Jeonghan spoke carefully. “Seungkwan, why don’t you have any money? Were you robbed? Is your family not with you? You look too young to be selling out here on your own.”
Seungkwan swallowed a bite of food. He shook his head. “My family isn’t here. Most of my money has been going toward a room at an inn and the cost per night is more than I make in a day so…, my money has been dwindling rather quickly.”
There were plenty of reasons behind why a kid like Seungkwan would be out on the streets. But usually that reason involved dead parents and no guild to call home. Based on what Seungkwan had told them though, he clearly belonged to a guild.
“Why isn’t your guild helping you?” Jeonghan asked the question that was on everyone’s mind.
“I’m not a real guild member or anything,” Seungwkan said, stuffing another bit of food into his mouth. “I’m a contracted guild member.”
Hansol watched as the older two’s eyes grew wide. “A contracted guild member?” He asked. “What’s that? Someone from the Islands, right?” Hansol hadn’t learned much about the Islands. He had never gone to a real school before and his parents had only taught him the things he needed to know in order to live a comfortable and happy life. The only thing he knew about the Islands was that they were the large bits of land that stood in the sky, floating high above Pyledys, the Mainland’s central kingdom.
Joshua nodded, still looking shell-shocked. “Yeah. Back in the day, people from the Islands who wanted to make a life for themselves down here on the Mainland would find someone to sponsor their trip and stay on the mainland. In return, the islander would work as a contracted guild member. They do work for the guild until they pay off the sponsorship. In order to prevent the contracted member from running off, the contracts were usually bound by magic and had a set amount of time to be paid back. I didn’t know people still did those.”
Seungkwan nodded. “I know people from the Islands don’t really come down here anymore, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity. I just wish someone had warned me how hard it would be to pay off my debt!” He laughed; it was bright and honest. “I still have almost a year left on my contract, so I’ll be fine.” Seungkwan looked confident but Joshua and Jeonghan looked unconvinced.
“What happens if you don’t pay it back in time?” Hansol asked. “Do you get sent back to the Islands?”
Jeonghan flinched. “No. Their contract gets extended. For life.”
Hansol’s eyes widened. “So if you can’t pay off your debt, you just become their slave forever?”
They all nodded.
Seungkwan was nonplussed. “I’m going to pay off my debt, so that isn’t something I have to worry about.” He stood up. “Thank you for the food. It’s getting late, so I’m going to head back into town.”
“Seungkwan, you can stay here for the night,” Jeonghan offered, surprising both Joshua and Hansol. They never had visitors in their house, let alone let them stay the night. It wasn’t safe. “It doesn’t make sense for you to spend money on an inn when you nearly starved yourself. We have an empty room.” Jeonghan paused. “At least, if that’s okay with you two?”
Joshua nodded. “Sure.” They all turned to Hansol.
“Yeah, of course.”
And such was the first night that Seungkwan had spent at their house. It quickly become routine for him to appear for dinner. The three were no longer surprised by the knock on the door, having long since become accustomed to Seungkwan’s random visits. At some point they had just begun to accept it, rather than let it catch them off guard. The table was usually set for four instead of three, and Joshua always knew to cook a little extra than what his small family of three needed, just in case.
This was the routine that they had fallen into, and a routine that worked well for all of them, until the seasons began to change. With warmer weather came more creatures that lurked inside the forests that loomed far too close to the house. More creatures in the forests meant more work for Hansol, and more work for Hansol almost always meant more meat for the house. But there was only so much the three of them could eat by themselves and Seungkwan only came over every so often, which left them with more meat than they knew what to do with. As a household that prided itself on not being wasteful, this meant that the only solution to get rid of the extra meat was to sell it. But selling meant competition for Seungkwan, and when Seungkwan first saw Hansol selling game in the town square, he looked so betrayed, Hansol thought he’d never come back to their house again.
But that was eight months ago.
Seungkwan didn’t like Hansol. Hansol knew and respected this, but didn’t quite understand why the boy felt the need to constantly remind him of this fact. Hansol knew it when they stood on opposite ends of the town square; Hansol quietly selling the few catches of meat he had brought into town, while Seungkwan loudly bartered out his own goods, nearly putting on a show in order to get the townsfolk to buy from him instead. But somehow, the crowds always gravitated toward Hansol, with his recently caught and killed game and overflow crops from Joshua’s garden. Hansol knew it when the townspeople greeted him by name: the wives with a kiss on his cheek and the men with a slap on his back, while they only shot Seungkwan pitying glances, if they looked at him at all. But most of all, he knew it when Seungkwan sat across from him at supper, glaring holes into him throughout the entire meal.
This was a new part of their routine: Seungkwan would arrive at the house and make pleasant conversation with Jeonghan and Joshua until Hansol came home drenched in mud and facing the wrath of his caretakers if he forgot to take off his boots before entering the house. He’d leave his quiver and bow by the door and hand his sack of game to Joshua, who would immediately begin picking through it to decide what to eat now and what to preserve for later. Seungkwan’s smile would fall from his face and he would turn away from Hansol with a huff. Jeonghan would politely command the younger two to clean and prep whichever beast Joshua had chosen for the day’s meal and they would work in awkward silence until the meal was finished.
Such was the case today.
After the meal had been both prepped and cooked, the four took their seats around the table. Joshua and Jeonghan sat between Hansol and Seungkwan, serving as a makeshift barrier between the two. They looked amused at the one-way tension between them. Jeonghan was the first to break the silence.
“Seungkwan, you’re welcome to spend the night with us if you’d like. There’s no need to keep spending money on inns when you know we have a perfectly good bed for you here.”
Seungkwan frowned. “You both have been so kind to me. I can’t continue to exploit you, especially when I have no way to pay you back.” Hansol wanted to point out that he had been nice to Seungkwan too: that was his game he was eating and his blankets that he would sleep with. But Seungkwan took everything Hansol said as confrontation, so instead of starting a fight, he let it go.
Joshua smiled kindly at him. “You’re not exploiting us. We’re the ones who always invite you to stay. We enjoy your company, Seungkwan.”
“Plus,” Jeonghan added after munching and swallowing a particularly tough piece of meat, “You really can’t afford to not save every bit of coin that you have.”
Seungkwan glanced down at the lean pouch of coins on his hip and the large pack of unsold goods that rested in the corner of the room. “You’re right. But I will find a way to pay you back. Eventually.” He had made the same claim many times before. None of them were particularly concerned with it coming true. He set down his chopsticks and stood from his spot on the floor. “I’m heading back to the guild to see I can sell anything else tonight.” He grabbed his sack and swung it over his shoulders. It was still heavy, even after three weeks of walking around the guild.
“Don’t be out too late. We won’t block the door, just in case.”
Seungkwan nodded, thanking them one last time before letting Hansol lead him out of the door. Hansol watched him walk out of the house and into the long expanse of field that separated their modest house from the nearby guild.
Hansol walked back inside to find Jeonghan clearing off the table and Joshua preparing a few rabbits for Hansol to sell in town the next day.
“He’s running out of time, isn’t he?” Hansol asked to no one in particular.
Jeonghan hummed in response. “I think he has until the end of the year to pay off his contract. But even after that, who knows where he’ll go? The kid doesn’t exactly have much going for him.”
“I wish we could do more to help him, but we don’t bring in a ton of money ourselves.”
Jeonghan waved off Joshua’s response. “Seungkwan would never let us help him pay off his debt. It pains him enough just coming to us now, and that’s just for a meal. Do you remember the first time we met him? He was so young and naïve.”
“Now he just looks tired.” Hansol had moved beside Joshua, helping him salt down the meat.
Joshua looked up from his ministrations and caught Hansol’s eye. “The impending threat of a lifetime of servitude will do that to you.”
Seungkwan didn’t come back that night after leaving dinner, but Hansol saw him out in town a few days later while fulfilling a promise to one of the ladies in town that he would bring her a fowl. Seungkwan rolled his eyes as Hansol approached him, but it did nothing to deter him.
“We’ve been wondering where you’ve been. Jeonghan thought you might’ve left to try another guild.” It wasn’t uncommon for Seungkwan to leave for a couple months at a time, travelling to different guilds to sell his goods. With each trip came varying amounts of success.
“I probably will, soon.”
“This will probably be the last time we see each other in a while then, right? Make sure you stop by before you go. Jeonghan and Joshua will want to see you.”
Seungkwan sighed. “I hope this doesn’t sound rude.” Hansol knew that was a lie; everything Seungkwan said to him was meant to be rude. “But why do you need money?”
It wasn’t a question Hansol had expected to be asked. “What?”
“You all grow your own food and hunt your own meat! I’ve never seen you in new clothes and none of you own many trinkets. What else could you possibly need the money for? You don’t travel, either. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jeonghan or Joshua leave their house! You live in the most self-sufficient household I’ve ever seen.”
“I think that was a compliment, so thanks. But I don’t think I’m bringing in as much money as you think. I only sell what extra we have. There’s no reason for it to go to waste when someone else might need it.”
“It doesn’t matter how much money you’re bringing in. What matters is that you’re the reason I can’t sell anything!”
“Seungkwan, we don’t even sell the same things. That’s hardly competition.” Hansol spoke politely, but with exasperation. They’d had this conversation a hundred times before.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Seungkwan laughed bitterly. “Do you know how many times someone has turned me down because they told me they were saving their money to buy something from YOU? This is my turf, Hansol. Get off of it.”
Hansol was sure that the townspeople were just saying that as an excuse. Hansol only ever came when he had caught too much meat, or when one of the townspeople had requested something from him. Other than that, he usually only came into the guild about once a new moon. Maybe he had been coming into the guild a bit more than he used too, lately. But he would never admit that to Seungkwan, especially not when the reason he was here more frequently was out of concern for the boy. “Neither of us are from this guild. We’re both outsiders here. This isn’t anyone’s turf.”
Seungkwan wasn’t having it.
“Hey, what about this. I won’t come into the guild anymore until your contract is up. But in return, you have to stay at our place until you leave.”
Seungkwan raised an eyebrow. “And what would you possibly get out of that?”
Hansol fumbled for a response. “Jeonghan and Joshua are worried about you. I think it would make them feel more at ease if you didn’t have to spend money on food and housing.” It wasn’t a lie, perse, but he knew Seungkwan wouldn’t believe him if he had told him the whole truth.
Seungkwan had agreed, but Hansol found himself going back on his part of the deal almost immediately. When dinner rolled around and Seungkwan still hadn’t come back to the house, Hansol headed back into the guild to search for him. He found Seungkwan in the inn he usually stayed at, sitting at the bar and nursing a mug of water. Hansol took a seat beside him. The waitress, who had bought something from Hansol not too long ago, slid a mug of juice across the counter to him.
“On the house.” She winked at him.
Hansol thanked her. He was nervous that Seungkwan would react negatively to the exchange, but he didn’t react at all, just staring into his mug as if wishing he could drown in it.
“You didn’t come for dinner.”
Seungkwan didn’t look up. “Didn’t realize it was so late.”
Hansol took a sip of his juice. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Go on.”
“Why did you want to come here so badly?”
Seungkwan sighed. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “When I was younger, I had this dream. I wanted to become a singer and perform before the king’s court.”
“I’ve never heard you sing before.” Hansol looked at him in surprise.
“I haven’t felt up to it, not lately,” he shrugged. “I had this grand dream that I would become a famous bard who would be so popular that the king would beg for me to sing for him. But the Islands don’t have a king. My mother and my sister always humored my dreams, or maybe they really believed I could do it. It’s not like any of them had ever tried to leave the island. At the end of the day, it was just a pipe dream. That is, until one day, this wealthy family came to vacation on the island that I lived on. It wasn’t a rare sight, up there, but this was the first time I had actually met one. My mother is a seamstress; she runs a shop up there and my sisters and I helped out. The wife of the family came in, wanting to buy some “traditional islander clothing.” She was there with her husband, who looked, well, bored out of his mind.
I had just come back from school and saw them there. My older sister was looking increasingly annoyed at the wife’s inability to choose something and for some reason when the man saw me come in, he decided to strike up a conversation. Maybe he felt awkward in a room full of women and I was the only other male. I don’t know. Regardless, when he asked me all the basic questions like, how old was I, what was I training to become, I told him about my dream of being a bard. He told me he was a Guild Master and could take me to the Mainland, if I so desired. How could I turn him down? My family was sad to see me go, but they were all proud of me for chasing my dreams.
He told me to we could figure out all the details of the contract once we got to the Mainland. But once we got there, I realized I knew nothing about how to write a fair contract. The money system down here is different from that on the island, so I just had to trust that the man had given me a fair deal. He had been trustworthy so far, after all.
Of course, it wasn’t until after I had signed the contract that I discovered how absurd the amount of money he expected me to pay back was.” Seungkwan let out a sigh. “But I still thought I could do it.”
“That’s awful that he tricked you like that.”
“I have two months left. That’s it. I’ve barely made a dent in my debt.”
Neither said anything for a moment. The inn was still busy, and the background hum of the other patrons’ conversations filled in their silence. “I never answered your question, from earlier.”
“What?”
“Earlier, you asked me why I needed the money.”
“I thought we already covered that you don’t need money.”
“Other than needing it to buy arrows and as security for when my bow breaks… I want to go to Pyledys, too. Just, not to see the king.”
“Then why?”
“To look for my sister.”
“You have a sister?”
“Yeah,” Hansol smiled. “I haven’t seen her in years though. She wanted to become a bowyer, so my parents travelled with her to Pyledys to enroll her in an apprenticeship school there. On their way back, they both died. Haven’t seen or heard from her since.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. As long as I know she’s still out there, alive, then that’s okay.”
“What about Jeonghan and Joshua? Do they want to go to?”
“Nah. They don’t know her.”
“You all aren’t related?”
“No, I didn’t meet them until after my parents passed.” Hansol was surprised to feel Seungkwan’s hand awkwardly patting his back.
“We’ll get there one day. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. Or any day in the near future, but we will get there. Some day.”
“Here’s to someday.” Hansol raised his mug and Seungkwan did the same.
“Here’s to someday.”
Seungkwan burst into the house, grabbing Hansol by the arm and dragging him into his bedroom. He closed the door behind them.
“Where’s Joshua and Jeonghan?”
“They’re outside.”
“Good. Look at this.” Seungkwan pulled a crumpled flyer from out his breeches and waved it in Hansol’s face.
Hansol took the paper from his hand and smoothed it out. There was a crude drawing of an angry dragon face covering most of the front and in big black letters the bottom of the page read REWARD: 1.000.000 GOLD.
“The back of it says that if we can find evidence of dragons, that reward is ours.”
Hansol’s eyebrows shot up. He turned the flyer around. “No way.” In equally big letters was the name of the guild offering the reward: Gusibo. As Seungkwan had said, the unfathomable reward was for any confirmable proof regarding the existence of dragons. Any evidence at all.
“That’s what I thought! Have you ever heard of the Guild? Gusibo?”
Hansol shook his head. “Never. Seungkwan, this is a lot of money. And dragons? As far as I know no one has seen one of those in decades. Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Think about it! This is enough money for me to pay back my debt AND get us both to the capital.”
“You know Joshua and Jeonghan won’t let me leave. This doesn’t sound safe. At all.”
“Hansol, please. You’re the only one I can come to with this. The reason I dragged you in here is because I don’t want them to know. I know they won’t want us to go. But we have too. I have too.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m going with or without you. This is my only chance at paying off my debt.”
“When will you leave?”
“Now. If they’re offering this much money, what they’re asking for can’t be easy to find. I don’t even know where to start, so I’ll need as much time as I can get.”
“Seungkwan, you can’t just leave.” Hansol could feel the situation slowly slipping away from him. He couldn’t let Seungkwan leave now, not when they had finally started to understand each other. Not when he knew he might never see him again.
“Have you ever travelled before?”
Hansol shook his head.
“It’s a beautiful world you live in, Hansol. It’d be a shame for you not to experience it.” Seungkwan’s eyes sparkled as he spoke. “If I have the slim chance that I keep having these experiences, that I can keep travelling and chasing my dream, then I’m going to take it.” Seungkwan paused at the door. “Tell Joshua and Jeonghan I said thank you. For everything.”
“You should tell them yourself.”
Seungkwan smiled sadly. “Maybe one day I will.” And he was out of Hansol’s room, out of Hansol’s house, and perhaps most jarringly, out of Hansol’s life.
But Hansol wasn’t okay with that. Hansol wasn’t okay with the first friend he had made in a long time walking away from him. He wasn’t okay with the first person he had ever seen Joshua and Jeonghan welcome into their home walk out the door. And most of all, wasn’t okay with never seeing Seungkwan again.
With his bow on his back and his heart on his sleeve, Hansol ran after him.