Archive of Our Own

i want you to share
every pinprick of guilt that i have felt
– “the soldier,” john parish & pj harvey

People in town don’t think highly of alchemy, Jihoon knows. They’re skeptical at best, scared at worst. He hears them whispering about it all the time, on the rare occasions he goes in for some errand or another, the snatched off ends of conversations not meant for his ears.

They say alchemy is unnatural, and Jihoon isn’t sure he disagrees. It’s strange, after all, to create new things, or to fundamentally alter them, using only the materials around them and a ring of scrawled equations. To move air and water, to rearrange the particles of the earth itself, to create tools and weapons alike, or to make things burn.

Jihoon isn’t afraid of alchemists, though. Why should he be? He lives with one.

Two now, he guesses. Ever since Kwon Soonyoung came to stay.

“Jihoon-ah!”

Jihoon’s eyes flick up to the kitchen entrance and then back down, pointedly, like if he avoids eye contact with Soonyoung he can avoid contact with him entirely.

It doesn’t work like that, obviously.

“I’m so bored,” Soonyoung huffs out, whole body sagging against the doorframe like a balloon with all its air let out. Jihoon remains impassive.

“Go study, then.”

Soonyoung laughs, like he thinks Jihoon was making a joke. Jihoon doesn’t laugh along, but that doesn’t deter him at all. It never does.

“I guess I should,” Soonyoung says, but he doesn’t actually make any moves to leave. Even worse – he gets closer, stepping fully into the kitchen, eyes glancing around like he thinks maybe someone’s going to follow him in.

Jihoon fights the urge to scoff – who, exactly, does Soonyoung think is going to follow him? It’s only the three of them in the house, and Jihoon’s father never leaves his study.

“I’m studying to take the state alchemist exam,” Soonyoung says, hushed, like he’s letting Jihoon in on a big secret.

Jihoon guesses he is.

“My father hates state alchemists,” he says warily, pausing where he’d been halfway to gutting a fish. Soonyoung has the nerve to wrinkle his nose in disgust when he notices what Jihoon’s doing, which sets Jihoon’s teeth even more on edge. City kids are all the same, the whole lot of them. Think they know better than country bumpkins but they can’t do anything, not really. Of all Jihoon’s father’s apprentices Soonyoung’s the only one who managed to stay the whole time as Jihoon skinned a deer, and Jihoon heard him retching out by the trees afterward.

Pathetic.

“Your father hates everything,” Soonyoung counters, now, the dismissive note to his voice offset by the stubborn jut to his jaw. Jihoon can see the way he’s got his hands clenched into fists. It’s obvious he cares a lot.

What Soonyoung said was true, but Jihoon’s face twists up anyway.

“Why are you here, then?”

The words come out harsher than Jihoon means them to, with enough real vitriol that Soonyoung blinks at him for a few seconds, mouth dropped open in shock, before he can collect himself to answer.

“He’s the best,” he says, nonplussed, like it’s totally obvious. And maybe to him, it is. Jihoon guesses there aren’t a lot of other reasons why a city boy like Soonyoung would end up all the way out here, in a dilapidated house so far from town that it’s easier for Jihoon to go out back with a gun than it is to make a trip to the butcher.

Jihoon snorts.

“You think so?”

Soonyoung pauses again, head tilting.

“You don’t?”

“I think he’s a drunk old man,” Jihoon says flatly. “Rambling to anyone who will listen.”

“Not anyone,” Soonyoung corrects.

Jihoon makes a face.

“Any student,” he corrects, sour.

It’s true – Jihoon’s father loves to ramble, but only to those he’s deemed worthy, and that’ll never be Jihoon. He locked Jihoon out of his study as soon as he realized Jihoon was never going to show the aptitude he hoped for, and promptly started taking in pupils instead. None of them have stayed long, driven out by Jihoon’s father’s poor temper or lack of reason or both. In the gaps in between Jihoon guesses his father just rambles to himself.

Soonyoung’s been here six months, though. He’s tenacious, Jihoon will give him that.

And sure enough –

“State alchemists have the power to really make change,” Soonyoung persists, looping determinedly back to his original point. Change what, exactly? Jihoon doesn’t bother asking. “They’re given funds by the government for research, you know. If I become a state alchemist, I won’t have to live like – ”

He cuts himself off before he finishes the sentence, but Jihoon hears it loud and clear anyway.

I won’t have to live like you.

Jihoon has to fight the urge to fling the half-gutted fish at Soonyoung’s face – he doesn’t want to give Soonyoung the satisfaction of seeing how much it affected him, and it would be a waste of a meal besides.

“You don’t have to,” he says instead, voice flat. “You can leave right now, if you want. Nothing’s stopping you.”

He realizes, as soon as he says it, that he’s gone too far again. That he doesn’t actually want Soonyoung to leave. Not that he likes Soonyoung, or that he really enjoys spending time with him. But once Soonyoung leaves – and he will, eventually, Jihoon knows, because they all do – Jihoon will be alone again, a silent ghost in a house that collapses further into disrepair each day despite his best efforts.

Soonyoung straightens, apparently chastened by his own carelessness.

“I don’t want to leave,” he says, with an impressive amount of conviction, bowing his head as he speaks. “I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken so quickly. My aunt was always getting on to me when I talked without thinking, she’d kill me if she saw me act like that.”

As far as apologies go, this one’s pretty sincere. Jihoon can admit that much – to himself, though, and only grudgingly. He doesn’t want to give Soonyoung the satisfaction.

“Whatever,” he mutters. He waits for Soonyoung to slink back out – surely he’s exhausted his attempts at social interaction for the day, right?

He doesn’t, though. Of course he doesn’t. When Jihoon glances back up he’s still lingering in the kitchen doorway, a hopeful expression somehow still visible on his face.

“If you really want to apologize, you could help me with the vegetables,” Jihoon mumbles, and it’s kind of pathetic how Soonyoung brightens immediately.

Kind of more pathetic that it almost makes Jihoon smile.

“Sure!” Soonyoung says cheerfully, pushing up his sleeves as he bustles over to the sink to wash his hands.

“I really am sorry,” he says again later, as he chops the carrots in front of him very seriously – and very poorly, but Jihoon doesn’t think it’s worth it to try to interfere. “I shouldn’t have said it like – I didn’t just mean me, I meant both of us. I could help both of us, if I had the money.”

Jihoon freezes, shocked into silence, gaping at the top of Soonyoung’s head where he’s doubled over, all his focus on the mangled carrot strips in front of him. For a long moment Jihoon just stays like that, until at last Soonyoung looks up, frowning in confusion, clearly waiting for an answer.

“Don’t let my father hear you say things like that,” Jihoon croaks, his voice coming out all strange. He doesn’t think – surely Soonyoung can’t really mean it. Surely. They’ve lived together for the past six months, but they barely know each other. Their entire relationship consists of Soonyoung coming to bother Jihoon when his lessons are over and he wants someone to talk to, or when he’s hungry and angling for a snack. Jihoon is rude to him every time he tries to start a conversation, which is fine, or so he thought, because it’s all temporary anyway, right? Soonyoung will finish his lessons with Jihoon’s father, or else he’ll lose his temper over something or other. Either way he’s going to leave.

Right?

“I mean it,” Soonyoung says, a weirdly serious note to his voice. “Jihoon-ah. I really mean it, okay? I wouldn’t just leave you here. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Jihoon doesn’t know what to say to that, his cheeks flushing a treacherous pink and the back of his neck heating up to match.

“Sure,” he agrees mindlessly, hands moving to light the fire for the stove on autopilot as his brain struggles to catch up. Arguing the point doesn’t feel worth it – or possible.

“I could have started that for you,” Soonyoung says, tilting his head a little like he thinks it’s strange that Jihoon used a match, instead of – what? Asking Soonyoung to draw one of his little equations? For a single stove burner?

Soonyoung would probably fuck it up the first time anyway. It would be a whole thing, and Jihoon doesn’t want to deal with that.

“It’s fine,” Jihoon says flatly. “A match takes two seconds.”

For a minute he thinks maybe Soonyoung’s offended, but then – he laughs, then, bright and cheery, like it’s nothing.

“I really fucked these carrots up, Jihoon-ah,” he admits. As though Jihoon isn’t already aware, after watching Soonyoung struggle over them for the past five minutes.

He snorts anyway, relieved at the shift to a safer topic, as he sets the pair of fish he cleaned on the pan and listens to the satisfying sizzle.

“It’s fine,” he says again, dismissively this time, casting a glance over at Soonyoung to find him waiting for Jihoon’s reaction, looking weirdly genuinely concerned about the goddamn carrots. “We’re the only ones who’ll eat them, anyway. There’s no one to impress out here.”

When Soonyoung grins at him Jihoon feels it like a punch to the gut. He turns back to the fish on the stove, cheeks burning.

It’s just that he’s not used to the warmth, that’s all, and he knows better than to let himself start.

“Why don’t any of the other kids ever come around here?”

Soonyoung punctuates his question with a huge bite of his apple, the crunch so loud it’s almost obscene. Jihoon’s shocked he’s still got all his teeth.

He shrugs, not quite meeting Soonyoung’s eyes.

“Alchemy’s not popular out here,” he says. “Makes them nervous.”

Soonyoung makes a confused little sound.

“Everyone’s been nice to me, though?”

He trails off a little at the end, and when Jihoon finally looks up he can tell Soonyoung’s thinking through every interaction he’s had in town since he got here, mouth dropped open in concentration and eyes fixed at middle distance.

It takes Jihoon more time than he’d like to figure out how to phrase the obvious answer – Soonyoung’s young and handsome and full of charisma, of course everyone likes him – in a way that won’t make Soonyoung think something he doesn’t mean.

“You’re not crazy,” is what he comes up with, grimacing. Soonyoung’s eyebrows furrow together as he speaks, but Jihoon keeps going anyway. “And you leave the house. They don’t need to spread rumours about you, they can just talk to you.”

“They spread rumours about you?”

Soonyoung looks weirdly disturbed at the thought – Jihoon can’t imagine why. It’s not like it’s his problem.

Jihoon shrugs.

“About the old man, mostly,” he admits. “But I’m related to him, so.”

Soonyoung wrinkles his nose, tilting his head a little like he can’t argue with that – he can’t, not really. Jihoon’s father is exactly the kind of person who villagers anywhere would love to spread rumours about, probably – a bad-tempered recluse whose research occasionally leads to minor explosions.

“It’s always just been you two?”

“Yes,” Jihoon answers, because that’s basically true, and also because it’s none of Soonyoung’s business.

“I heard rumours about him too, you know,” Soonyoung says casually. “Before I came.”

Jihoon’s entire body stiffens.

“The alchemist who taught me back at the capitol says everyone knows about him,” Soonyoung continues, oblivious. “She says they think he’s either a genius or a loon, but either way – he’s working on something curious.”

“And what do you think?”

Soonyoung shrugs.

“I think he’s the best,” he says, just as he said before. “Genius, loon. What does it matter? As long as he’ll teach me something. I’m curious, too. I want to know what he’s trying to do.”

He bites off another enormous chunk from his apple, just as distractingly loud as it had been the first time.

“Did you ask before you took that?” Jihoon asks, just to fuck with him. Soonyoung’s eyes widen immediately, a cartoonish expression of shock as he visibly decides what to do with the half-chewed chunk in his mouth.

Jihoon snorts, and Soonyoung’s face breaks into a smile.

“You almost had me,” he says, still grinning. He looks so delighted – Jihoon can’t understand it. It doesn’t make any sense, how Soonyoung wants to be around him so badly that he even likes it when Jihoon teases.

Jihoon would never say it, but he thinks Soonyoung might be his first real friend.

Soonyoung almost makes it, in the end.

Almost.

Jihoon watches him leave a year later, screaming curses at his father as he storms out the front door, and thinks, well.

It was a nice idea.

It’s a good thing Jihoon never really believed it, or at least that’s what he tells himself as he gets back to his chores that afternoon. The tasks he never minded seem to drag more, now that Soonyoung isn’t around to pester Jihoon as he does them. The house feels empty, just like he knew it would.

“Jihoon-ah,” his father calls from upstairs, a few lonely weeks later. Jihoon startles and freezes, surprised – his father never calls for him, unless he’s hungry or there’s some kind of problem with the house.

He walks up the creaking stairs slowly, a pool of inexplicable dread forming in his stomach, legs turning to lead as he tries to force them up and up and up. At the top he pauses before he knocks on his father’s door.

His father jerks it open.

“Get in here,” he says impatiently. Jihoon stumbles in, wary, ashamed to admit that he’s a little afraid as he casts his glance around the room. He’s never been up here before – it’s the only room in the house his father never lets him clean, or even lets him check for repairs.

It shows.

There’s a layer of dust on all the furniture, and clumps of it collecting in all the corners. Papers are scattered everywhere, scribbled out equations and formulas Jihoon wouldn’t be able to decipher even if he could manage to read his father’s handwriting.

“Did you need something?” Jihoon asks warily, uncomfortably aware of his father’s eyes on him. They’re little more than housemates, at this point – Jihoon is grown enough to take care of himself, has been for years. He’s grown enough that he could leave soon, if he wanted. Just like Soonyoung did.

He should, he realizes with abrupt clarity. What’s tying him here?

“It isn’t going to work,” his father says impatiently, interrupting Jihoon’s thoughts, starting at the middle the way he always does – he can never explain anything properly, step-by-step the way Jihoon likes it. He always used to make Jihoon feel so stupid when Jihoon tried to ask him to say it again.

Jihoon doesn’t bother asking what he means, now, knowing he won’t like his father’s response if he does. He keeps his lips pressed together and waits, still hovering in the doorway.

“No one else is going to come,” Jihoon’s father says. His words settle like rocks in Jihoon’s stomach, heavy and final, but Jihoon only nods once, quick, his mouth still shut tight.

“Will you do this for me?” his father asks, and the feeling in Jihoon’s gut curdles and twists. “My only son. Will you help your father one last time?”

It’s the closest thing to an apology his father has ever given him – and it’s not even particularly close. Still. Maybe that explains why Jihoon hesitates instead of denying him outright. It’s his father, after all, and he’s never asked Jihoon anything before.

Demanded, sure. But never asked.

“My research – it’s dangerous, you understand,” his father starts. Jihoon nods, slowly. Warily. Waiting for the ask. “I need to put it somewhere I can trust.”

Jihoon doesn’t understand, then, the way his father phrases it. “Put it somewhere,” not “put it with someone.”

Jihoon doesn’t understand that he’s “somewhere.”

“Okay,” he says slowly, casting his glance around the room one more time before he looks back at his father – at his hair, matted and due for a cut. His rumpled, dirty clothes. The wild look in his eyes that Jihoon knows, from experience, makes him impossible to argue with. “What do you need me to do?”

The tattoo hurts.

Of course it does – when Jihoon’s father explained the size of it, in his impatient and roundabout way, Jihoon had to fight the urge to flinch and back out. But he couldn’t – of course he couldn’t. What else would he do? When he pictured leaving he thought he would have time to save up first, to get ready. He can’t just storm out in the night.

Even if he could, the idea doesn’t sit right with him. He’s never gotten along with the old man, sure, but he’s still the only family Jihoon has left. There’s a weird sense of duty as he takes off his shirt and lies down on the bed, a little lightheaded from the two fingers of whiskey his dad fed him beforehand. Jihoon’s never had alcohol before – he’s not of age yet, and the only booze in the house is here, in his father’s room. He should have just declined it, but in the moment that felt like a weakness he couldn’t afford.

It only stings at first, and Jihoon thinks maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe he’ll get through it without any problems. It builds, though, and by the end of the first session he’s pressing his face into the pillow, teeth gritted against the constant, repetitive irritation.

“That’s it for now,” his father says as he draws back, already turned around to deal with the needle as Jihoon struggles to sit upright by himself.

“How many more times?” Jihoon asks through gritted teeth, staring at the shirt in his hands before deciding it isn’t worth it to try to put it back on, crumpling it in his hands instead. The skin on his back stings, aggravated and raw, and his shift in position has made him a little light-headed.

His father only shrugs, irritated at the question, no signs of concern in his face or demeanour.

“As many as it takes.”

Jihoon guesses that’s that.

It takes eight months, all in all.

The old man dies six months after that.

Jihoon must really be a cold person, he thinks, sitting in the office of the funeral home and flinching back from the cost, already calculating all the places he could put that money to use. His father didn’t leave enough for this.

“I’ll be making other accommodations,” Jihoon says to Mr. Cho with a tight smile, ignoring the affronted look on the man’s face as Jihoon stands and makes for the door.

He buries his father under one of the trees that line the property – not any of the ones he used to climb, he makes sure of that.

The knock on the front door comes a week and a half later.

“It’s you,” Jihoon says blankly, staring at where Soonyoung’s standing on the doorstep, his silly uniform hat tucked neatly under one arm. He looks different, but not. Different haircut, different clothes. Different stance.

Same Soonyoung.

“It’s me,” Soonyoung agrees with a little laugh. “Will you let me in?”

Jihoon silently pulls the door open wide.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says automatically when Soonyoung bends to unlace his shoes. He’s wearing his dress uniform, Jihoon realizes. It makes him uncomfortable, something he can’t quite name squirming in his gut.

Soonyoung looks up, confused.

“Lee Jihoon,” he says, laughing again – his natural response, Jihoon knows, when he doesn’t know what to say. “I didn’t lose all my manners when I enlisted, you know. Only some of them.”

Jihoon offers him a halfhearted smile for his effort at lightening the mood. It feels like scraping the last bit of jam from a jar.

In the living room Soonyoung settles on the ragged couch, gallantly pretending not to notice the cloud of dust that puffs up as soon as he sits down. Jihoon lingers in the doorway and waits.

“I’m sorry about your father,” Soonyoung says dutifully, to start. Jihoon nods, clipped. “It must have been hard for you.”

Jihoon can’t help the way his face twists at that. Soonyoung catches it, misreading it as something else.

“I really am sorry,” he murmurs, looking down at his feet. He sounds like a child. “I shouldn’t have left you, back then.”

“You had to,” Jihoon says evenly. He still can’t figure out why Soonyoung is here. The capitol is far – surely it’s not worth such a long journey, just to pay his condolences? A letter would have served just as well.

“Still.”

Silence falls between them again. Just as Jihoon’s thinking that he should offer something – a cup of coffee, he guesses, or maybe tea if they have it – Soonyoung straightens in his seat and looks at him directly, apparently gearing up for whatever it is he really came here to say.

“Did you clean out your father’s study?”

Ah.

Of course, Jihoon thinks to himself, mouth twisting before he can stop it. Soonyoung catches it too.

“I’m sorry,” he starts. “I know that’s so insensitive, I should – ”

“No,” Jihoon cuts him off. “It’s fine.”

It is fine. It’s smart of him. Practical. Get in here before any other alchemists get ideas about looking for Jihoon’s father’s research. Soonyoung said there were rumours, right? That he was creating something – curious.

“I didn’t touch any of it,” Jihoon continues. “His research is all still upstairs, if you want to look.”

Soonyoung hesitates.

“You really don’t mind?”

“Why would I?” Jihoon shrugs, deliberately nonchalant. “It’s not like I can do anything with it.”

That makes Soonyoung frown, weirdly. Jihoon can’t imagine why.

“I really didn’t come here just to – ” he tries, but Jihoon cuts him off again.

“It’s fine even if you did,” he says flatly, gesturing for Soonyoung to stand up and follow him. “I understand.”

Soonyoung frowns even harder.

“I don’t think you do,” he protests, but he’s off the sofa and following Jihoon up the staircase anyway, the ancient wood groaning in protest at the weight of their steps.

“It should all be in there,” Jihoon says as he pushes open the door, the moment feeling strangely heavy until the door’s all the way open, and then it’s just – a room. Still dusty, just like his father left it. Papers still everywhere. There’s a plate on the ground that Jihoon never came in to clean up, too used to his father leaving everything outside the door for him to come and pick it up.

“Oof,” Soonyoung remarks brightly, shouldering Jihoon out of the way to move into the room. He moves through Jihoon’s father’s things more confidently than Jihoon ever would, picking up papers and squinting at them before discarding again, already starting to sort them into loose piles.

“Do you need me to stay?” Jihoon asks, still hovering in the doorway. He hasn’t actually come inside since his father died. Before that, it was when he finished the tattoo.

Soonyoung looks up, a little startled, like he’d already forgotten Jihoon was there. Alchemists are all the same, Jihoon guesses. Maybe one day Soonyoung will end up just like Jihoon’s father, impatient and cruel, caring for nothing but his research.

“I’d like it if you did,” Soonyoung says, smiling.

Not like Jihoon’s father at all.

Jihoon’s the one who’s cruel, for thinking that.

“Alright,” Jihoon agrees, feeling vaguely guilty about thoughts Soonyoung doesn’t even know he had as he eases his way into the room. When he gets to the bigger desk he shoves some of the papers out of the way to push himself up and perch at the edge of it, legs dangling like a little kid. It makes him look stupid, probably, but Soonyoung doesn’t even look like he notices.

It’s silent between them for a long time. Jihoon doesn’t feel any need to break it, watching Soonyoung work while doing very little to help him, beyond occasionally passing him a stack of papers when asked.

Finally Soonyoung lets out a tired sigh, hands coming up to rub at his eyes.

“I’m missing something,” he says, blinking to regain his focus as he gestures at the stacks of papers in front of him. “I can see what he was working on, all his additional research is here, but there’s no conclusion. It’s all building to nothing.”

The skin on Jihoon’s back prickles.

“Did he say anything to you?”

When Soonyoung looks up his eyes are wide like a child’s, curious and hopeful all at once. Jihoon can feel the lines of the tattoo burning under his shirt. He swears the skin must be hot to the touch.

“You know he never talked to me about his work,” is all he offers, resisting the urge to tug at his collar. “You know how he felt about me.”

Soonyoung frowns.

“Not about you,” he tries to correct, but Jihoon lets out a snort before he’s even finished the sentence.

“Then what?”

He doesn’t know why Soonyoung looks so upset about it. It’s not such a big deal that the old man didn’t like Jihoon. Jihoon didn’t like him, either.

As far as he knows, nobody did. Certainly nobody in town had seemed too bothered by the loss, when Jihoon went in to deal with the paperwork.

“You know,” Soonyoung says thoughtfully, leaning back on his palms. “There’s a lot more research being done these days. They’re saying that alchemy’s not actually genetic.”

“Obviously not,” Jihoon says dryly, gesturing at himself.

“Not like that,” Soonyoung laughs, cheeks flushing pink. “Like. It isn’t that some people have it and some people don’t. It’s just that some people can access it more easily than others. They’re more open, or something.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Jihoon admits, trying not to let his discomfort at the idea show on his face. He’s never liked talking about this. He doesn’t even like thinking about it, really. It is what it is. Thinking won’t change it.

“What I mean is,” Soonyoung barrels on, gaining confidence as he speaks. “Your dad pressured you a lot, right? Maybe that’s why you couldn’t do it. Maybe it wasn’t you who couldn’t learn, he just didn’t know how to teach you.”

“He taught you just fine,” Jihoon points out, voice only shaking a little bit. His stomach feels awful, twisting over and in on itself. He really hopes Soonyoung can’t tell.

“I already knew how,” Soonyoung counters. He’s leaning in as he speaks, eyes sparkling, really engaged. Jihoon feels vaguely like throwing up. “He showed me what he knew, and I used it to teach myself.”

“Okay,” Jihoon says. That’s really all he’s got.

“It means maybe you could still learn,” Soonyoung continues, oblivious, seeming really excited at the prospect. Panic rises up in Jihoon, a sudden high tide.

“I don’t want that,” Jihoon says, voice sharp and way too loud. Soonyoung’s mouth snaps shut where he’d been readying another rebuttal, his initial confusion slowly melting into apologetic concern. Jihoon looks away.

“Why not?”

Soonyoung looks so surprised. So shocked that Jihoon wouldn’t want to learn – but why would he? Alchemy turned his father into a recluse, a miserable man. It lost Jihoon his mother, he’s pretty sure, even if his father would never tell him the details of the accident that killed her.

“You could still learn,” Soonyoung repeats, softer this time. Jihoon stares steadily at the wall. He can’t make himself look back over.

“I don’t want to,” he says again, quieter, to match Soonyoung’s tone. Just as firm, though, even as his stomach ties itself to knots.

Soonyoung’s mouth pinches together, obviously fighting back whatever else he wants to say. He has a whole argument for it, probably. A whole list of reasons why Jihoon should want to learn.

He doesn’t say any of them to Jihoon, though. He doesn’t try to convince him at all.

“Do you really hate it?” he asks, the question so plain that Jihoon’s almost more uncomfortable than if Soonyoung had challenged him directly. “Alchemy? Do you hate it that much?”

Jihoon doesn’t understand how Soonyoung’s gotten through his whole life like this. If studying under Jihoon’s father didn’t do it, shouldn’t basic training have hammered out that earnestness?

Apparently not – Soonyoung’s still waiting for his answer, all wide eyes and guileless mouth.

Soonyoung’s waiting for his answer, but Jihoon doesn’t know what it is.

“Yes,” he says, because that’s simplest, and it feels true enough.

Soonyoung’s face falls. Jihoon should explain but he doesn’t, the silence between them a yawning emptiness. Soonyoung presses his lips together.

“I’m sorry for making you watch me sort through this,” he says, nodding towards the stack of papers closest to him. Jihoon shrugs.

“Better you than me.”

“I know the old man didn’t want it to go to me,” Soonyoung says, gesturing to the papers flung all around him. “And I know you don’t like it. But I swear I want to do good things with it. I swear.”

Jihoon believes him, stupidly enough. Soonyoung’s never given him a reason not to. He still doesn’t tell him.

“Good things like what,” he asks flatly instead.

“Fire makes energy,” Soonyoung says, leaning in a little, starting to warm up again. Always so passionate to talk about the things he loves. Always so passionate to talk in general. “Heat. Imagine what we could do if we could harness it properly.”

“We?”

“You know what I mean,” Soonyoung laughs, cheeks pink.

Jihoon just told him he didn’t want to do it, so no – he doesn’t know what Soonyoung means. He shrugs anyway, because it’s easier than trying to talk about it.

“Your father was researching how to create it more easily, and to sustain it,” Soonyoung continues. “Wouldn’t that be amazing? To be able to sustain fire without needing to burn fuel?”

It does sound special, when Soonyoung says it like that. Something still nags at the back of Jihoon’s mind, though, unable to buy into the fantasy completely.

“Fire always burns something,” he points out.

Soonyoung doesn’t look discouraged – if anything, he looks even more excited. He nods eagerly, obviously happy that Jihoon’s engaging with him – just as happy to debate his ideas as he is to explain them.

“Right,” he says. “But we can contain it, can’t we? When we burn wood in the stove, the fire doesn’t spread to the house.”

Jihoon chews at his bottom lip. It makes sense the way Soonyoung describes it, so clear and obvious. He wonders if it’s really possible – if his father’s research will make it possible.

“You really never got curious?” Soonyoung’s never known when to let a subject drop, and this is no exception. “About what your father was studying?”

Jihoon’s back starts to prickle again, that familiar phantom sting.

“Maybe a little,” he admits, although it isn’t really as simple as that. It’s not curiosity, exactly – more like practicality. He wants to know what’s on his own skin.

Soonyoung’s whole face brightens as his posture straightens instantly, clearly delighted by even a tiny display of interest. Despite his best efforts, Jihoon’s ears flame red.

“Come here,” Soonyoung says, gesturing to the spot next to him, shoving away the papers that had collected there in a loose pile. “I’ll show you a little.”

Jihoon hesitates, but in the end his curiosity and Soonyoung’s enthusiasm get the best of him. He levers himself down from the desk to make his way over, squatting next to Soonyoung with his chin nearly resting on his knees and watching as Soonyoung digs a piece of chalk out of his pants pocket, squirming to wiggle it free.

“That’s what you get for buying such tight pants,” he mutters. “Don’t they have regulations for that?”

He’s rewarded by a pink flush at the top of Soonyoung’s cheeks, but it doesn’t last long. Soonyoung’s already grinning by the time he looks up.

“You’re noticing my pants?”

“Hard not to,” Jihoon says flatly, but he knows the corner of his own mouth is twitching upwards. “You looked like a worm on a hook.”

Soonyoung lets out a sharp burst of laughter.

“I forgot how funny you could be,” he grins, delighted to be at the edge of Jihoon’s sharp tongue.

Jihoon doesn’t know how to respond to that. As always, silence seems like the easiest option.

“Ready to see something cool?”

Jihoon shrugs, mouth still clamped shut. His heartbeat is quickening in anticipation, though, even as he tries to force it to slow. It’s strange – he’s lived in his father’s house for his whole life, but he’s never seen someone perform alchemy from this close. His father got frustrated with him so quickly when he couldn’t wrap his mind around the basics, and he never tried again after that.

Even when Soonyoung was living at the house, constantly finding reasons to come bother him, he seemed to sense that was a line he shouldn’t cross. Soonyoung always stopped to ask before he did anything, and he always accepted it when Jihoon said no. If he’s surprised now that Jihoon’s changed his mind, Jihoon can’t see it on his face. He’s too focused on whatever he’s getting ready to show Jihoon, eyebrows furrowed and mouth pinched tight.

Jihoon’s heart slams in his chest as he watches Soonyoung sketch out the array in chalk on the floor, tracing the foreign symbols Jihoon never bothered to learn with ease. Soonyoung’s movements are practiced, smooth, the chalk moving so fast it’s almost a blur, and Jihoon’s so transfixed watching him write that he forgets what he’s going to do, that there’s a purpose to the symbols, that this isn’t just academic, until Soonyoung’s slamming one palm flat on the ground and a rainbow of sparks is shooting up, arcing up and then fizzling to nothing overhead.

Jihoon jerks, his heart swooping in his chest, too overwhelmed to even scowl at Soonyoung for laughing at his reaction.

It seems to last forever, like a tiny indoor fireworks show, burst after burst of heat and colour, and Jihoon watches all of it with his eyes wide and head tilted back, unable to tear his gaze away until the last of the sparks have fizzled out, and for another long moment after that.

“Cool, right?” Soonyoung grins, when Jihoon finally pulls his eyes back to focus on him properly.

“Cool,” croaks Jihoon. His heart is still beating too fast, a pounding rhythm at the base of his throat. His palms feel sweaty and hot. He hides a cough in the material of his shirt, trying to regain some kind of equilibrium. “Is that what you’re practicing these days, then? Roadside attractions?”

“Among other things,” Soonyoung says, still smiling. It was rude of Jihoon to say it like that, but he doesn’t seem particularly offended. “What do you think?”

“It was beautiful,” Jihoon blurts out, flushing red immediately at the blunt honesty of the admission. But Soonyoung doesn’t tease him, though. He doesn’t look like he’s even thinking about it. He only smiles even wider, so warm and so genuine that it’s hard for Jihoon to look at him directly.

“Yeah?”

Jihoon shrugs, then nods.

“My father never did anything like that,” he mutters, staring down at the chalk marks Soonyoung scrawled out on the wooden floor.

Next to him, he can feel Soonyoung’s smile fade.

“He didn’t,” Soonyoung agrees carefully, and Jihoon hates it – hates that Soonyoung thinks he needs to be handled like that. Delicately.

Jihoon doesn’t. Jihoon doesn’t need anything. He reaches out with one hand, heartbeat still thumping too loudly in his ears, to smudge some of the symbols with his two fingers, slow and deliberate.

Nothing happens, of course. It still feels wrong to touch it. Like stepping into a room that isn’t his.

“You really don’t want me to teach you?”

Soonyoung’s voice is quiet, and way too sincere. Jihoon shakes his head, a quick tight jerk.

When he looks up at Soonyoung again Soonyoung’s still watching him, patiently waiting – for what, Jihoon doesn’t know. There’s a soft little smile on his face.

“I could,” Soonyoung says seriously. “I think we should be teaching everyone. Knowledge is meant for the people.”

Jihoon stares at him.

“I have it,” he says without thinking, nearly as surprised by his own words as Soonyoung clearly is. He watches Soonyoung’s face travel from surprise to confusion, as elastic and expressive as ever, and wonders, detached, if he’s making a huge mistake. Jihoon gestures towards the papers around them, not letting himself falter. “What my father created. You’re not gonna find it in all that. He gave it to me.”

Soonyoung’s eyes widen.

“He gave it to you?”

Is it normal for a heart to beat this fast? Surely not.

Jihoon’s embarrassed by the tremble in his fingers, and the way he can’t dig up a single word to explain. He nods, swallowing hard, and then turns so his back is to Soonyoung, ignoring the confused sound Soonyoung makes in response.

His cheeks burn as he reaches to untuck his shirt and pull it over his head, and he knows the back of his neck must be red and flushed, too, glaringly obvious against the pale of his skin.

“What are you – ” Soonyoung’s incredulous laugh dies in his throat as soon as Jihoon’s gotten his shirt all the way off, head bowed so Soonyoung can see the tattoo in full.

For a moment there’s total silence. Jihoon can hear his own heartbeat but nothing else, a seasick throbbing in his ears.

“What is that,” Soonyoung whispers, but he doesn’t sound excited, or awed, like Jihoon expected. Jihoon can’t see his face, can’t know for certain, but he sounds – upset.

“Don’t you know?”

It’s an honest question – Jihoon certainly doesn’t. It’s not like his father explained it to him before he did it. It’s not like Jihoon would have understood it even if he had.

“Why did – ”

Soonyoung cuts himself off before he can finish, and Jihoon honestly can’t tell what he was going to ask. Why did he do it? Why did you let him?

Jihoon isn’t sure he could give a good answer for either.

“Can you read it?” he asks, instead of trying.

“I – ” Soonyoung starts, then trails off. Jihoon can hear him scoot closer but he’s still startled by Soonyoung’s fingertips against the skin of his back, jerking sharply at the touch.

“Shit,” Soonyoung whispers as he jerks his hand back, his voice low and close. “I forgot to ask – is that okay?”

“It’s fine,” Jihoon forces out, jaw clenched tight against embarrassed discomfort. There’s a rustling sound behind him. When Soonyoung’s fingers brush the lines of the tattoo again they’re warmer this time – he must have rubbed them together, or against the fabric of his pants.

Jihoon doesn’t know why the gesture makes his throat swell.

“You always said he never talked to you,” Soonyoung says absently, already distracted.

“He didn’t,” Jihoon says, voice flat. Soonyoung makes a sound of confusion, sharper this time – like he’s pulled his focus away from the tattoo. Jihoon’s cheeks flush, horribly.

“Then how did he – ”

“He said it was the only way to keep it safe,” Jihoon explains, only it sounds pathetic when he says it out loud like that. Ridiculous. He doesn’t know how to explain that it had made perfect sense at the time – a repayment, of sorts, or maybe just a final favour for a dying man. The burden on Jihoon’s back made literal, in a sense. “He didn’t want to write it down, I guess. I didn’t really ask.”

“You just let him do it? How long did it take?”

Jihoon wishes he would stop asking so many questions, but he knows he never will. Soonyoung’s curiosity always wells up in an endless flood, spilling out all over everything. It’s impossible to dam the flow.

“A few months,” Jihoon grits out, annoyed, deciding then and there that if Soonyoung says he feels sorry for him Jihoon’s going to tell him to leave.

Soonyoung doesn’t, though. He doesn’t say anything at all. There’s a pause, then another rustling sound that Jihoon can’t quite place, and then he’s back, the warm heat of him unmistakeable.

Jihoon’s entire body is rigid, trembling, as Soonyoung’s fingers start to trace the symbols again. The skin doesn’t feel any different from normal skin, now. It’s smooth to the touch, same as everywhere else. It’s not more sensitive.

Still. It feels different, somehow.

“You can read it, right?”

“Yeah,” Soonyoung says. “Yeah, I can – ”

He trails off, and Jihoon lets out an impatient breath.

“What does it say,” he asks impatiently.

“Sorry,” Soonyoung laughs immediately, his hand brushing down Jihoon’s side in apology. Jihoon fights the urge to flinch from the touch. He isn’t used to things like that. “I guess I should keep talking, huh? It’s weird that you can’t see my face.”

Jihoon grunts out something close to an acknowledgment, not wanting to let on how accurately Soonyoung read his mood.

“It’s – ” whatever Soonyoung reads next sounds like it’s in a foreign language – and it is, Jihoon guesses, in a way. Jihoon doesn’t know what he expected.

“Shit,” he cuts himself off suddenly. “You don’t know what any of that means, do you?”

Jihoon only grunts, his ears flushing pink for no reason.

“Well, basically it’s all energy transfer, right?” Soonyoung starts, and embarrassingly, for a moment Jihoon doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. Doesn’t understand that Soonyoung’s actually explaining it to him. “But we need a push to start it, and the materials to keep it going. Equivalent exchange – do you know what equivalent exchange is?”

“I think I can guess,” Jihoon says dryly.

“Sure,” Soonyoung agrees, and Jihoon’s pleasantly surprised that he’s willing to take Jihoon at his word. “It’s pretty obvious by the name, right? You have to give what you want to get back. You have to get back what you give. So most of the equations when you draw an array are about the materials themselves – accounting for them and where they’ll go. But you still need more than that.”

Soonyoung’s hands trace the lines on Jihoon’s back as he speaks, pointing out the equations as he copies them down onto the paper he’s piled up next to him.

It takes him ages like that, it feels like, narrating the lines that spread across Jihoon’s back, solving the equation and explaining it all at once. At some point the position gets too awkward to hold, Jihoon’s muscles cramping and his neck stiffening, so he adjusts himself so he’s lying on the floor instead, head pillowed on his arms. He doesn’t look back at Soonyoung as he does it.

“You were really okay with letting him do this?” Soonyoung asks quietly in a lull, pen scratching against paper as he speaks.

“You already asked that,” Jihoon says, voice low and hoarse. “I already said yes.”

“Yeah, but – ”

“You said it before, didn’t you?” Jihoon cuts Soonyoung off before he can finish. “Equivalent exchange.”

Soonyoung falls silent, one hand fidgeting restlessly at Jihoon’s waist. Jihoon isn’t sure he even knows it’s there.

“I don’t know if that’s how it works,” Soonyoung says quietly from above him, tracing what Jihoon assumes is the bottom of the array, nearly at his lower back. “What did he ever give you?”

“The house,” Jihoon says. “Food on the table. I don’t know.”

Soonyoung makes a noise that could be an agreement, maybe. Maybe not.

“He could have at least explained it to you,” he says, a little stubbornly. “If he was going to ask you to carry it for your whole life.”

Jihoon breathes out a humourless laugh.

“You really think he would have done that?”

Soonyoung’s laugh isn’t much more than an ugly little puff of air.

“No,” he admits. “But he still should have.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Jihoon says truthfully. “It’s not like it’s the worst thing the old man ever did.”

“You don’t think so?”

Jihoon would shrug, but Soonyoung’s still touching his back.

“He should have tried to teach you for real,” Soonyoung says firmly, so much conviction in his voice that it takes Jihoon by surprise. “He should have tried harder from the start.”

Jihoon doesn’t know what to say to that. His eyes are burning, he realizes, horrified. He presses them into the skin of his arm, hard.

“Some people just can’t,” he tries, the words coming out in a pathetic croak, but Soonyoung isn’t having it.

“That’s a cop-out,” he says, and he still sounds so sure of himself.

Jihoon takes in one deep breath, then another. His whole body feels too raw, skinned and stinging. He needs to reign it in before Soonyoung sees.

“Finish up, would you?” he says, too afraid to try and take the conversation any further. “I’m hungry.”

“Sure, sure,” Soonyoung says, another rustling noise as he gets himself back in position – hunched over the skin of Jihoon’s back, presumably, a mental image that’s as embarrassing as it is amusing. Jihoon focuses on the amusement so he doesn’t have to think about anything else and Soonyoung keeps going for a while like that, still narrating the equations as the descriptions grow more and more complicated.

“Infinity as a concept exists, you know,” Soonyoung says, almost to himself. “An infinite loop isn’t so hard to achieve. It’s controlling it that’s so hard. No one’s ever – ”

He cuts himself off sharply, breath leaving him in a laugh.

“No one’s ever what,” Jihoon asks, anticipation building in his gut. “No one’s ever done what?”

“No one’s ever done this,” Soonyoung says, and before Jihoon can figure out what that means Soonyoung’s hands have turned grasping, reaching for Jihoon’s shoulders to haul him upright, jerking him up with more strength than Jihoon knew he had.

“Why are you shirtless,” Jihoon says blankly as soon as he’s turned around.

“Oh,” Soonyoung says, looking down at his own body as though he’d forgotten. “It felt weird – I didn’t want it to be only you.”

He says it like it’s totally obvious – completely practical decision, nothing more. Jihoon can’t detect even a hint of greasiness in his tone.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he mutters, reaching for his shirt to pull it back on.

Soonyoung only shakes his head, not making any move to find his own discarded clothes, obviously distracted by something bigger.

“What’s on your back – ” he starts.

Jihoon stares at him, waiting.

“He figured it out,” Soonyoung says, finally. “What I told you about before. Creating fire, and containing it. He figured it all out.”

Jihoon’s heart is slamming in his ribcage again. He has to swallow hard, twice, before he can speak.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m definitely going to pass my certification,” Soonyoung says, a breathless laugh escaping before his face straightens just as suddenly. “If that’s okay with you, I mean.”

“If what’s okay with me?”

“It’s yours,” Soonyoung says, gesturing towards Jihoon’s back. “He gave it to you, didn’t he? I won’t use it if you don’t want me to.”

“I do want you to,” Jihoon says immediately. “What am I going to do with it? I want you to have it.”

It’s hard to describe the look that comes over Soonyoung’s face. Hard to look straight at it, too. At something so bright.

“Where’d I put my pen?”

Jihoon blinks, then points soundlessly at where it’s rolled towards his father’s desk behind them. Soonyoung practically pounces for it, fingers scrabbling to pick it up off the floor before he twists back to where Jihoon’s sitting.

He still isn’t wearing a goddamn shirt.

Jihoon watches him scrawl out something on his hand, working quickly but carefully, tiny symbols forming a circular pattern Jihoon would recognize anywhere, even without being able to read it for real.

Soonyoung replaces the cap on the pen. For a few breaths they both just sit there, staring at his hand. Jihoon can see his fingers tremble as he raises them to snap, and then –

A tiny flame hovers just above Soonyoung’s fingertips, waiting. Feeding on nothing. Sustaining itself, just like Soonyoung said.

Neither of them say anything, transfixed. Hardly able to breathe.

Soonyoung snaps his fingers again, and the flame is gone.

Jihoon feels like all the air’s been sucked out of his lungs – out of the room, even. There’s something in his chest he doesn’t recognize, a lightness he’s never felt before.

He’s still trying to process it when Soonyoung breathes out a laugh as he leans forward, quick as anything, to press a kiss against Jihoon’s cheek. Jihoon goes rigid and shocked but it’s over in an instant, only the memory of it lingering.

“Sorry,” Soonyoung laughs again, his cheeks an embarrassed pink. “I got excited.”

Jihoon resists the urge to touch his face. The skin would be warm, he’s pretty sure. The fire’s out, but he still feels like he’s burning.

“Whatever,” he forces out, like a door with a rusty hinge.

Soonyoung only beams at him, undeterred. Later, Jihoon will try very hard to keep this image of him in his memory – open and happy, warm and full of hope.

For now he can’t do anything but smile back.

Soonyoung sends Jihoon letters, at first. He sounds excited in all of them, eager to tell Jihoon about his progress, making jokes about – well, everything. The shitty food in the mess hall, the librarian he thinks he thinks hates him. His superior officer, who has a nervous cough that sounds like a mouse.

He’s passed his certification, Soonyoung writes when three months have passed. He’ll be an officer for real now.

Jihoon’s still fixing up the house in the meantime, working at it steadily mostly for lack of anything bette rot do. It’s possible to make real progress, at least, now that he doesn’t have to worry about disturbing his father. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he’s finished.

Sell it, he guesses. But then what? Soonyoung drops hints about wanting Jihoon to make the train ride up to come see him, especially at Christmas – he even goes so far as to mention paying him back for the ticket.

Jihoon avoids acknowledging it every time he writes back. He couldn’t really give a reason why. It’s just that the idea of it makes his chest tighten, a pressure he doesn’t know how to deal with. It’s easier to avoid it completely.

Soonyoung’s letters slow down after a little over half a year, drying up to nothing around the anniversary of Jihoon’s father’s death.

Well, that’s that, then, Jihoon thinks, at least until he hears the news on the wireless a few weeks later.

The country’s at war again – to the south, this time. Deployment has already begun.

Jihoon wonders why Soonyoung didn’t say anything, in his last letters. Obviously as a state alchemist he’ll be sent to the front, but even soldiers on the front lines can receive correspondence.

Jihoon’s pretty sure.

But Soonyoung didn’t send anything, and as the war efforts start for real he still doesn’t send anything. He doesn’t send anything, and he doesn’t send anything. The seasons change and he doesn’t send anything. Rumours start to filter out to the countryside about state alchemists at the front, the horrible and wonderful violence they can wreak. They’re winning the war for us, the old women outside the pharmacy whisper as Jihoon walks past. A sick feeling settles in his stomach, heavy and persistent.

Soonyoung doesn’t send anything.

When Jihoon sells the house a few weeks later, nearly all the money goes to pay back his father’s debt. It feels good to tie it up so neatly. To free himself from the burden.

He heads to the recruitment office the same day to enlist.

Jihoon meets Kim Mingyu in basic training – all it takes is a single nod of acknowledgment, and Jihoon has Mingyu latched onto him like a bad smell. Jihoon doesn’t mind it as much as he pretends to. He knows he’s overly serious, knows he’s spent too much time by himself. Mingyu reminds him a little of Soonyoung – they’re not really similar, exactly, but they’re both friendly in a way Jihoon himself has never once managed. Open with their feelings, easy to befriend.

“So why did you join up?” Mingyu asks as he’s exiting the shower, water glistening off of him like some kind of romance novel hero. Jihoon averts his gaze from where he’s been sitting to wait, staring at his feet as he shrugs to answer Mingyu’s question.

“Nothing better to do.”

It’s not really a lie. Not completely.

But it’s not really the truth, either, because there were other things Jihoon could have done. He knows that. He knows he wouldn’t have ended up here if it weren’t for Soonyoung.

That’s embarrassing to admit, though, when Soonyoung doesn’t even know Jihoon’s here. It likely wouldn’t matter even if he did. He’s at the front already, probably, or else getting ready to ship out.

So there’s no reason for Jihoon to mention it to Mingyu, who would undoubtedly take that information and run with it, like a dog with a particularly juicy bone. Mingyu loves to talk more than anything, except maybe being told he’s doing a good job.

“You sure you want to wait to shower?” Mingyu asks, then, and Jihoon shrugs again.

He didn’t realize how much of a problem the tattoo would be until he got here, and by then it was too late. He doesn’t think it would actually be a huge deal if anyone saw it – most of the guys wouldn’t understand it anyway. It would still attract the kind of attention he doesn’t want, though, so Jihoon keeps his shirt firmly on. He’s not thrilled about the rumours spreading around about why he won’t change in front of anybody, but they’re far enough from the truth that they’re probably helpful. As far as he knows, the most popular one is that he’s got some kind of disfiguring skin problem, which he’s done nothing to try and dissuade. The opposite, in fact – he’s taken to scratching idly at his elbows when he’s standing at rest. It’s stupid, probably, but it’s enough to keep anyone from asking for real.

Except Mingyu, apparently.

To be fair, Mingyu’s never asked him directly. Jihoon guesses this is his way of bringing it up as tactfully as he can, trying to satisfy his curiosity without feeling like he’s prying.

“Sure,” Jihoon confirms, pointedly not answering the question Mingyu left unsaid. Mingyu can stay curious -a if he wanted to know so bad he should have asked for real, Jihoon thinks to himself, knowing full well he wouldn’t answer it then either.

Mingyu’s face falls, just a fraction. Jihoon doesn’t let himself feel bad about it.

“Are you excited? You’ll ship out soon,” Mingyu says on the walk back to their quarters, and Jihoon’s so startled he almost stops short right there on the sidewalk, has to force himself to keep walking.

“Excuse me?”

“Come on,” Mingyu laughs, incredulous, like he thinks it’s totally obvious. “You must know. They need the best out there, and you’re basically a perfect shot.”

Jihoon feels his cheeks colour.

“I’m sure they have better,” he mutters. He’s better than anyone else they train with, sure, but here it’s all just recruits. Surely it’s different on the front.

Mingyu shrugs.

“Maybe,” he says, but he still sounds pretty doubtful. “I don’t think so. You’re really good.”

“What about you?” Jihoon asks, mainly so Mingyu will stop giving him compliments he doesn’t know what to do with.

Mingyu shrugs again.

“I’ll probably just end up someone’s aide,” he sighs – it’s obvious he’s aiming for despondent, but Jihoon can see the pink in his cheeks as he says it, and the way his mouth fights the urge to twist into a smile. “Answering phones, sending messages. You know.”

“Someone in particular?”

“No!”

The way Mingyu’s eyes widen gives him away immediately – that, and the flush spreading down the back of his neck. Jihoon smirks at him, knowing, until Mingyu huffs out another whine.

“Weren’t we talking about you?”

Mingyu was right, it turns out. Jihoon gets his orders before he’s due to graduate – wartime measures, he’s informed. Mingyu seems upset about it, but Jihoon doesn’t see any reason. What use is there for a ceremony if there’s no one to come see it? He has no family, no close friends.

He doesn’t say any of that to Mingyu, only stands stiffly as Mingyu hugs him one last time before he ships out.

“You’ll send letters, right?” Mingyu asks fretfully on the train platform, hunched over and miserable in a manner that’s frankly unbecoming for an enlisted man. Jihoon fidgets at the attention, embarrassed and uncomfortable, stepping back so Mingyu won’t get any ideas about fixing his uniform for him. “So I can make sure you’re okay?”

He thinks of Soonyoung, the way his letters dried up as soon as the war broke out.

“I’ll try,” he says, and then, when he realizes how wishy-washy that sounds, “Yes. I will.”

Mingyu nods, eyes big and worried, still chewing at his bottom lip. Jihoon doesn’t know how he’s managed to get so attached like this, or why – surely he has better options? Mingyu’s tall and handsome, and friendly too. There’s no reason for him to spend all his time with someone as empty as Jihoon.

When Jihoon asked, once, why Mingyu’s whole face crinkled with confusion. “You’re my friend,” was all he’d said, as though it was obvious. His voice had dropped low before he continued. “And you’re the best one here, aren’t you?”

Jihoon hadn’t thought it was true then, and even now he’s not totally convinced. But there’s no escaping that he’s the only one from their class getting on the train right now, so maybe Mingyu was right.

“Don’t forget to write!” Mingyu calls from the platform as Jihoon boards for real. “Good luck!”

Mingyu stays there, waving energetically, until the train’s gone too far to see him anymore, rumbling relentlessly towards the east. Jihoon watches the shape of him get smaller and smaller, a tiny speck and then nothing, and realizes, belatedly, that he thinks he’s going to miss him.

The first thing he notices when he gets off the train is the heat. The second thing is the dust, a gust of wind immediately blowing it directly into his face, stinging his eyes and making him cough. It’s not a particularly dignified arrival.

Nothing about it – he’s grabbed immediately by the arm, jerked down from the platform and led to walk towards the camp. There are cars, the private who was sent to fetch him explains, but they attract too much attention, and gas prices are too high anyway. They mostly just walk. Jihoon nods, silent, as the works of the camp are explained to him – where he’ll sleep and eat and shit, who he needs to salute to, who to avoid.

The private – Jihoon didn’t actually catch his name, and out here they keep their dog tags tucked in – is halfway through a rambling explanation of how the postal system works out here, the gist of which seems to be mostly that it doesn’t, when Jihoon sees him, stumbling to a halt right there in the sand.

“Cadet?”

Jihoon ignores him, eyes fixed firmly on Soonyoung’s face – his hollowed-out cheeks, and the circles under his eyes. He’s staring right back, Jihoon realizes belatedly, and then he’s turning to walk over.

“Do you know Major Kwon?”

The private is visibly confused, but Jihoon ignores that too. He only stands there, stiff, until Soonyoung’s right in front of them and there’s no way to avoid his presence. Jihoon’s heart is beating even faster than it did when he got the orders to ship out. Faster than it did when he got on the train, or even when he arrived.

“What are you doing here?”

Jihoon only blinks at him, shy to speak, suddenly. The private’s eyes dart between him and Soonyoung, obviously unsure, until Soonyoung turns to him, expression smoothed over and polite.

“Please excuse us, Private. The cadet is an old friend of mine.”

Jihoon watches, detached, as he bobs his head in an awkward nod and scurries off, no doubt to spread the gossip to all his friends, before reluctantly turning back to face Soonyoung once more.

“Jihoon-ah. What are you doing here?”

Soonyoung’s question sounds even more urgent the second time – all the composure from when he spoke to the private has disappeared completely, replaced by a desperate scraping edge.

Jihoon isn’t expecting the anger that washes over him – he doesn’t know what he was expecting, honestly. He wants to shrug it off, sullen and irritated, but this isn’t the place for that. Soonyoung’s a superior officer. A state alchemist. He didn’t think about how much the gap between them would sting.

He didn’t really let himself think too much about Soonyoung at all. A mistake, he’s realizing, staring at Soonyoung’s horrified face. A really fucking big mistake.

“Defend your country,” Jihoon parrots uselessly, recalling the words printed on the enlistment posters they’d stuck up in all the storefronts back home. “Enlist now!”

“I didn’t want – ”

What right is it of Soonyoung’s to choose what Jihoon does? What right is it of his to look so devastated? Jihoon bristles, momentarily so enraged he can’t even speak.

“It doesn’t matter what you want.”

It’s true, but it doesn’t feel as good to say it as Jihoon thought it would. Not when Soonyoung’s still staring at him with that caved-in look on his face. Not with the wind whipping the sand into his face again, his eyes and nose already starting to sting.

“Is it because I didn’t write?”

Jihoon stares.

“What – no,” he says flatly. “Why would you think that?”

“I’m sorry,” Soonyoung blurts out. He’s in his uniform, sure, but suddenly he doesn’t look like a military officer at all. He definitely doesn’t seem like a person Jihoon’s supposed to be calling ‘sir.’ “I’m so sorry, I know I should have – I was just so ashamed.”

“Ashamed?”

But Soonyoung clams up instead of saying anything more, mouth pressing tight and shoulders straightening.

“Private Wen showed you around?”

Jihoon blinks at the sudden change in Soonyoung’s demeanour and mirrors it, straightening, the rigid line of tension in his shoulders ever-present.

“Yes,” he confirms crisply. “Sir.”

Soonyoung nods and steps back, face like a mask. A gulf widens between them.

Jihoon sees him around all the time, after that. Obviously. But any time Soonyoung catches him looking he turns away, like it hurts him to see Jihoon’s face.

It makes Jihoon angry, at first. But the days pile up and the truth of what Jihoon’s doing out here sinks in, and the numb crawling horror that fills every open space inside of him makes harder and harder to care about anything else. Shooting a person isn’t anything like shooting an animal, as it turns out.

Burning them isn’t like anything Jihoon’s ever seen.

The bar set up close to their camp is a piece of shit – or so Jihoon’s heard, anyway. He’s never seen any reason to find out for himself. It’s hard to get permission to leave, and Jihoon’s not willing to go any of the usual routes – bending over backwards for a superior officer, mainly, from what he can tell, taking all the tasks they think are above them.

Jihoon knows he’s not above digging latrines, but that doesn’t mean he’ll volunteer to do it in someone else’s stead. Especially not for something as paltry as the chance to drink in a half-assed excuse for a bar.

He wouldn’t have ended up there at all, except that Junhui had mysteriously procured two passes for them – when Jihoon tried to ask him he only smiled, a mischievous look in his eye that made Jihoon afraid to inquire further.

He doesn’t understand how Junhui can hold onto any lightness out here – he chatters happily on the way to the bar, yammering on about the latest letter he received from home. His cats are doing well, he informs Jihoon cheerily. His little brother is taking care of them well – he drew pictures, does Jihoon want to see?

Jihoon doesn’t, actually, but he says nothing as Junhui digs the paper out from inside his pocket. A lump forms in Jihoon’s throat at the two scrawled creatures in the margins of the paper, all ears and eyes.

“Cute,” he forces out, wincing at the flatness of his voice. He couldn’t sound less sincere if he tried, probably, but Junhui doesn’t seem bothered. He never seems bothered by much of anything. Envy wells up inside Jihoon, sticky and pitch-black.

“I’m going to send a letter back in a few days,” Junhui says, either oblivious to Jihoon’s discomfort or choosing to ignore it completely. “Do you want me to send yours, too?”

Mingyu wasn’t joking about correspondence – he sends letters regularly, scrawling out rambling sentences about what feels like every minute detail of his day. He’s graduated, now, with the proper ceremony Jihoon missed, and now he’s working as an aide, just like they guessed. With every letter he reads it gets harder and harder for Jihoon to respond, but every time he wants to give up completely he thinks of Soonyoung’s silence and the way it had stung, and he forces himself to scratch out a few sentences at least. Mingyu seems to understand, or at least if he’s offended by Jihoon’s reticence Jihoon can’t tell it from any of his letters.

“Yeah,” Jihoon croaks out. He hasn’t written anything yet, but he can force out a few lines by then. “Thanks.”

They’re at the bar, now, pushing the doors open to reveal – it is a shithole, honestly, somehow exactly as Jihoon expected and wildly different all at once. Junhui makes his way straight to the bar and Jihoon follows him, but before they’ve even ordered there’s someone calling out from the corner nearest the door.

“Cadet!”

Jihoon’s the only cadet in their unit, so there’s no mistaking that the person means him. But when he turns to find Major Choi beckoning towards him the sight is so unexpected that for a moment Jihoon only stares, sure there’s some kind of misunderstanding.

“You better go,” Junhui remarks easily, leaning against the bar with an expression that clearly communicates that Jihoon will be going over there alone. Jihoon grimaces and Junhui laughs, easy, reaching to clap him on the shoulder and shoving him forward in the same motion.

Jihoon makes his stumbling way over, standing awkwardly at the tiny table until Major Choi motions for him to sit.

“I never see you here!” he says, leaning in, a friendly smile on his face that seems out of place, given that Major Choi is his superior and they’ve never actually spoken. Jihoon doesn’t know how to answer so he doesn’t, settling for an awkward laugh as he sits gingerly on the edge of the only free seat.

“Can you hold your liquor, Cadet?” Major Choi asks, fixing Jihoon with a serious look. Jihoon thinks about lying, then decides he doesn’t care.

“No,” he says honestly.

He braces himself for anger but instead Major Choi throws his head back and laughs, delighted, a childlike ugliness to it.

“Good man,” he says, reaching out to clap Jihoon on the shoulder. Jihoon winces at the force behind it. “There’s nothing wrong with being honest, huh?”

Before he can answer Jihoon senses another presence, distracting enough that Major Choi’s attention slides from Jihoon to whoever’s come up behind him. He turns, stomach sinking with dread, to find Soonyoung hovering there, a smile on his face even though he wasn’t actually there for the joke.

The pieces start to connect, forming a picture Jihoon doesn’t particularly want to be looking at. He knows Soonyoung and Major Choi are friends, or at least what passes for friends out here – they’re both state alchemists, both the same rank. Jihoon’s pretty sure they did their certifications together. Major Choi isn’t as deadly as Soonyoung in the field, his specialty tending more towards brute strength, but he’s a strong soldier in his own right. Well-respected, from what Jihoon’s heard.

“Major!” Major Choi crows, pulling out a chair on the other side of himself for Soonyoung to sit. Jihoon wishes he understood what he was doing here. “Come sit! We have to help the cadet with his drinks, he says he’s a lightweight.”

“Does he?”

Soonyoung laughs but it’s obvious he’s still figuring out his footing, glance darting between Jihoon and the major. Jihoon can’t fathom what there possibly could be for him to work out, but he doesn’t open his mouth to try to help him.

“You’re not much better, huh?” Major Choi laughs, and Soonyoung’s confusion melts into easy amusement.

“Hey,” he laughs, but he doesn’t do much more than that to correct him.

Major Choi’s easy to drink with, it turns out. He’s significantly less of a blowhard than any of the other officers Jihoon’s interacted with – Soonyoung excepted, he guesses, but he still doesn’t really think of Soonyoung as an officer – and genuinely warm, asking after Jihoon’s family first thing.

“There’s not really anyone,” Jihoon says honestly, looking down to make eye contact with the unsanded surface of the table in front of him when Major Choi’s face melts into sympathy immediately.

“No one?” His eyes really are huge – Jihoon can feel the weight of them even without looking, heavy and uncomfortable. “There should be someone waiting for you.”

The back of Jihoon’s neck is already heating up, but before he can mumble out some kind of excuse Soonyoung’s interrupting, cutting in with a jovial tone.

“Eyyy,” he drags out, grabbing Seungcheol’s shoulder for good measure. “What kind of attitude is that, huh? Are you trying to make him feel bad, or what?”

Major Choi squawks, offended, and reaches to thump Soonyoung on the back. It works, though – he apologizes and drops it, moving on to rag on Soonyoung instead.

It gets a little easier after that. Major Choi only shrugs every time Jihoon turns down a drink, reaching to down them himself instead. About three drinks in Jihoon refers to him by his title and he wrinkles his nose, begging Jihoon to call him Seungcheol instead.

“I don’t think I can do that,” Jihoon says apologetically, taking another swig of his own drink. “Sorry.”

“Yah,” Major Choi – Seungcheol – yells, jabbing a finger in Soonyoung’s direction. Soonyoung only blinks at it blearily, eyes gone early cross-eyed trying to focus. “You speak comfortably with Soonyoung, don’t you?”

Ice slithers down Jihoon’s spine. He clears his throat, uncomfortable, gaze darting to Soonyoung and then back.

“I don’t,” he tries, but Seungcheol shakes his head.

“You two knew each other, right?” He leans in to rest one hand on Jihoon’s shoulder, heavy, so close Jihoon can smell exactly what he’s been drinking. His eyes are wide and plaintive. “I hear all the gossip, you know. I know these things.”

On his other side Soonyoung’s gone stiff, clearly waiting for Jihoon’s response.

“We did,” Jihoon agrees, lips numb. “Just for a little while. When we were younger.”

Seungcheol’s eyebrows knit together in upset confusion, obviously ready to ask – something, Jihoon doesn’t know. How they knew each other, maybe, or maybe why they didn’t say anything until now.

Because it’s none of your business, Jihoon knows he’d snap, superior officer or no, so it’s probably a good thing Soonyoung finally gathers his wits and intervenes.

“I stayed with Jihoonie’s family for a little bit, that’s all,” Soonyoung says, forcing a smile. “His father was my teacher.”

Seungcheol nods in understanding, eyes wide and interested, but before he can respond something catches his attention from over by the bar – some kind of scuffle, the bartender’s voice rising above them in a shout, distracting enough that everyone in the room is starting to look over. Seungcheol sighs and sets the drink in his hand back down onto the table, pushing himself up to a stand. He barely even wobbles, Jihoon can’t help but notice, impressed despite himself.

“I’ll go deal with that,” Seungcheol says. His earlier drunken enthusiasm has drained out of him in an instant, replaced by obvious exhaustion. Jihoon can see the burden of it, suddenly, a strange guilt welling in his stomach that he can escape the responsibility that’s trapped Seungcheol so firmly. “You two catch up, alright? The next round’s on me.”

Jihoon feels guilty enough that he doesn’t try to refuse, only nodding as Seungcheol makes his way over, stance sharpening and voice rising as he approaches the men at the bar. Jihoon watches him for a long moment just so he won’t have to look back at Soonyoung.

“You must think I’m a fool,” Soonyoung hiccups, finally, jerking Jihoon’s attention back towards him. “Knowledge is meant for the people. You must think I’m a goddamn fool.”

Jihoon stares at him, trying to muster an I told you so, only to find the idea of saying it out loud makes him feel sick.

“If you’re a fool then I’m one too,” he admits instead, and the honesty of it strips him bare. “I believed you, didn’t I?”

“Look at us,” Soonyoung laughs, humourless. “A pair of fools. I believed me, too.”

Jihoon only means to close his eyes for a breath, but when he does he finds they’re too heavy to lift. He stares at the back of his eyelids and tries to pretend he’s somewhere else – but where?

Where else would he go?

His eyes snap back open. Even the relief of darkness is beyond him.

“Nothing to do about it now,” he hears himself say. His mouth is moving on its own too, it seems like. There’s so little of himself he can control.

“I couldn’t stand it when I saw you here,” Soonyoung slurs, his hazy gaze focusing on Jihoon’s face as best it can. “I was so angry.”

“I know.”

“Selfish of me, right?”

Jihoon swallows hard, fighting down – something. Guilt. Bile. Who can tell?

He shakes his head.

“I wouldn’t want anyone to be here.”

Soonyoung’s laugh sounds like he’s coughing something up.

“Do you hate me?”

Jihoon blinks at him, sure he’s heard wrong.

“Hate you for what?”

“You gave it to me,” Soonyoung slurs. He gestures sloppily at his own back, then at Jihoon. “Do you hate me for what I did with it?”

Jihoon thinks of the things he’s seen Soonyoung do since he got here. The screaming, and then the smell. It sickens him every time.

“No,” he says honestly, eyelids fluttering closed again – for real, this time. “I don’t hate you.”

Soonyoung isn’t the one to hate. Jihoon gave it to him, didn’t he? He chose, and then he followed Soonyoung here.

It’s not like Jihoon is any better. He’s killing people, too.

His heartbeat pounds in his ears, a steady nauseating throb. He keeps his eyes shut tight, squeezing until stars appear on the backs of his eyelids. His neck slumps, and then his back. The table is gritty under his cheek.

That damn dust.

“Let’s get you home,” he hears someone say, but it doesn’t sound like Soonyoung’s voice. For a hysterical moment Jihoon thinks it’s his father, but – no. His father never sounded so kind.

The last thing he remembers is a pair of strong arms heaving him up.

He wakes up in his own tent, still dressed, a pulsing headache behind his eyes and a full canteen of water next to his cot.

He walks right past Soonyoung on the way to his post. He doesn’t let their eyes meet.

Seungcheol is sent home barely a week later. Jihoon’s not anyone’s confidante, but some gossip spreads so wildly that even he manages to catch it – and this is shocking enough that everyone around him is discussing it, impossible to avoid.

He lost it, a private says next to Jihoon at lunch, discussing the details with his friend as Jihoon shovels food in his mouth as quickly as he can, desperate to escape.

Went totally crazy, the private’s friend agrees. Crying and everything. I never would have expected – I really respected him, you know?

Jihoon takes mechanical spoonfuls, what little appetite he had left completely disappeared. He doesn’t want to hear about this. He doesn’t want to think about Seungcheol’s kind eyes in the bar, telling Jihoon to call him by his first name. He doesn’t want to think about any of it.

He looks up, desperate for a distraction, only to find Soonyoung sitting at the officers’ table and staring right at him. Jihoon freezes, caught. He can’t read Soonyoung’s expression at all. He wonders if Soonyoung knows exactly what happened – he knew Major Choi well. They were so friendly together, back at the bar.

Jihoon wonders if Soonyoung will miss him, or if he’ll do his best to forget. The forgetting’s easier, in Jihoon’s experience.

Surely Soonyoung’s figured that out by now.

Soonyoung finds him a week before they’re due to ship back home, crouched down in a high point not far from camp. Good visibility, no blind spots. Jihoon likes it up here.

“It took me a while to find you,” Soonyoung comments lightly. He isn't angry with Jihoon anymore – he dropped it almost immediately, once the shock wore off. Out here you can’t hold onto anything you don’t need. In fact, Jihoon’s finding it harder and harder to hold onto anything at all. He’s very aware of what Soonyoung’s been doing, of course, but that’s a practical necessity. All of them need to know where the fire’s going to start.

Even Jihoon’s horror at what the fire can do has faded, dulled into nothing like everything else.

Jihoon realizes, belatedly, that Soonyoung’s probably waiting for him to respond.

“Right,” he croaks, such a non-answer that Soonyoung falters. Jihoon wonders what he was expecting – an explanation? An apology?

Surely not.

“Are you excited to go back?” Soonyoung tries. He’s persistent, Jihoon will give him that. He’s always been persistent.

Jihoon shrugs, which is about the most he can manage. He doesn’t speak these days unless he needs to.

“Do you know what you’re going to do? After?”

Jihoon stiffens at the question, shoulders drawing up even tighter. The motion aggravates the ache between them, the weight that never leaves.

He hasn’t really let himself think about it, honestly. He has nowhere to go when this is done.

He has nowhere, nothing. No one.

Inside of him, too. Nothing. He isn’t sure what’s left of him to take back.

“I’ll go where they send me,” Jihoon says flatly, because that’s the easiest answer, even if in truth he doesn’t know if he can bear it. Part of him never wants to look down the scope of a rifle again.

It’s a stupid thought to even entertain. It isn’t as though Jihoon has a choice.

“If they send you with me?”

Jihoon looks up at him, finally, and finds Soonyoung’s sunburned face turned towards his.

“You can’t control that.”

“If I could?”

Jihoon shrugs and turns his gaze forward once more, eyes struggling to focus on the endless expanse of sand.

“I’ll go where they send me,” Jihoon repeats.

That’s all he has to give.

Soonyoung’s got his answer, but he still doesn’t leave. He squats next to Jihoon instead, squinting out into the distance with him. As though he’d even know what to look for.

Jihoon clears his throat against the dust. The truth is he’s been meaning to find Soonyoung himself, to ask him, but he’s been too much of a coward to go through with it. This is it, he tells himself, fingers clenched so tightly they’re starting to ache.

“I need you to do something for me,” he forces out, voice raw. It isn’t a question. Soonyoung turns back towards him, curious, head tilted in an invitation for him to continue. “I need you to get rid of it,” he says, gesturing towards the back of his neck, to what they both know is hidden underneath his uniform.

“Get rid of it?”

Jihoon can’t tell if Soonyoung’s being dense on purpose because he doesn’t want to do it, or if he genuinely can’t tell what Jihoon means.

Jihoon stares down meaningfully at Soonyoung’s hand, where he’s rubbing his fingers together like some sort of instinct. It won’t do anything, of course, not by itself. Not without the gloves he wears, or if that fails drawing the symbols on the skin itself. But they both know what the gesture means.

His hand stills when he notices Jihoon looking.

“Not – ” Soonyoung’s laugh is a horrible thing, ugly and tinged with disbelief. He looks down at his hand, holding it in front of himself like it’s something foreign. Something he doesn’t know what to do with. “Not – Jihoon-ah. That’s crazy, I couldn’t – ”

“I want you to get rid of it,” Jihoon repeats. “I don’t want – you’re the only one who’s seen it. I don’t want anyone else.”

He knows what happens to soldiers, now. They get captured, dragged off. Stripped after they’re killed, sometimes. Their bodies will never belong to themselves. They’re enslaved by fear and orders alike, at the mercy of their superior officers. Jihoon didn’t realize that was something to fear, until he came out here – the greed of the men of his own country.

He trusted Soonyoung – trusts Soonyoung still, despite everything – but even Soonyoung couldn’t control what he did with it, in the end.

“You can’t really – I can’t do that,” Soonyoung says, mouth gaping open, a truly stupid look on his face. Jihoon wants to snap at him to shut it, only his throat is so dry it’s hard to force the words out. He’s gotten so used to silence.

“I can,” he manages, voice harsh and faint all at once, no inflection to it at all. “I am.”

Soonyoung stares at him, searching. Jihoon sets his jaw and lets him. It doesn’t actually matter if Soonyoung says yes or not – he’s made up his mind. Soonyoung will do it, or Jihoon will find another way. It’s as simple as that.

Soonyoung must be able to see it in his face, because he lets out a humourless laugh as he scrubs at his face with one hand.

“Jihoon,” he says, helpless. “How can I – ”

“You’ve done worse,” Jihoon points out. He doesn’t mean it to be cruel, but Soonyoung flinches anyway.

“That’s – ”

“I want it gone,” Jihoon cuts him off, voice steady. “All of it. You remember, don’t you? Equivalent exchange.”

For a long, drawn-out moment Soonyoung only stares.

“Okay,” he says, finally, voice shaking. “I’ll – okay. If that’s what you want.”

“It’s what I want,” Jihoon confirms, his own voice steady as anything.

“When we get back,” Soonyoung says, raising his voice a little to continue when Jihoon tries to protest. “There are no real doctors out here, and I wouldn’t be able to clean anything properly. I swear I’ll still do it. Just wait til we get back, okay? I swear.”

Jihoon nods slowly.

“You swear,” he repeats, voice dry, dust coating everything. Soonyoung nods, eyes wide and sincere.

“I swear,” he says, the words pouring out in a rush. “Jihoon. I swear I will.”

Jihoon nods again, once, fast.

“Didn’t I tell you before? You shouldn’t call me by my name out here.” Jihoon’s gaze drifts back out to the distance. “Major.”

He doesn’t let himself check the look on Soonyoung’s face after he says it.

He tells himself it’s for the best.

But in the week and a half before they ship back, he catches Soonyoung staring at him more than he ever has, the whole time they’ve been out here. Jihoon can’t categorize the look on his face – fear, maybe. Sadness. Something else, too.

Longing. Not for Jihoon himself, but for the version of him Soonyoung knew before, back when they were younger. When they hadn’t both caused so much pain.

“They’ll give me whoever I want,” Soonyoung says, on the train back to the capitol. He should be sitting with the other officers, Jihoon thinks to himself, but he doesn’t make the suggestion out loud. “They’re going to give me a medal of valour.”

It’s an insufferable thing to say, but there’s not a hint of pride in Soonyoung’s voice. He isn’t bragging. Even after so many years apart, Jihoon knows him well enough to tell the difference.

“Okay,” Jihoon says carefully. He doesn’t really understand why Soonyoung’s so hellbent on keeping Jihoon close to him, but it’s obvious that’s his angle. Jihoon isn’t opposed, exactly, but that’s mostly because he’s having a lot of difficulty feeling much of anything. Even the anger and frustration that used to come so easily to him have dulled, leaving only the gnawing emptiness and guilt.

Maybe Soonyoung can see it. Maybe that’s why he’s trying to hold on so tightly. Jihoon doesn’t know. He’s finding it hard to care about that either.

“Can I have you, then?”

It’s a weird fucking way to ask a weird fucking question.

Jihoon looks up at Soonyoung – really looks at him. Lets Soonyoung look at him too, in the process.

Soonyoung’s face is very clear, a youthful determination to it. Jihoon remembers how his jaw used to set the exact same way, back when they were kids. That feels like ages ago, now.

“What do you want me for?”

Soonyoung pauses, chewing at his bottom lip. His eyes flit to the train carriage door, then back to Jihoon’s, the action enough to pique Jihoon’s curiosity for real.

“I want you to help me change things,” is all Soonyoung will say, but it’s clear there’s more to it. “I don’t trust anyone but you.”

Jihoon blinks at him, taken aback. Curious, too, about what Soonyoung means by that. Change things.

“I’m sure that’s not – ” he starts, but Soonyoung doesn’t let him finish.

“It is true,” he says firmly, with a seriousness that doesn’t sit well on his face. “Who else will call my bullshit, huh? Who else will – There’s no one but you.”

Who else will what?

Jihoon doesn’t ask. He thinks he knows. He thinks maybe he feels the same, buried under all that nothing. He’s trusting Soonyoung with his body, his life. He guesses that means he’d trust Soonyoung with anything, too.

“If I fuck it up, I trust you to stop me.” Soonyoung says. “However you see fit.”

He meets Jihoon’s eyes, steady, as the meaning of it sinks in. A sick feeling bubbles in his stomach.

“Then I’ll trust you not to let it get that far.”

His voice aches and aches.

Don’t make me do that. He can’t quite make himself say it out loud, but he prays Soonyoung hears it anyway. Please don’t do that to me.

Soonyoung’s expression is so grave. Jihoon can’t help but trust him, still, despite himself.

Despite everything.

“I won’t,” Soonyoung says seriously. “Not if you’re with me. I promise.”

Jihoon needs it, he realizes. Soonyoung’s optimism. He needs to reach out, to grab it with both hands. He doesn’t have anything else to carry him through.

“You’re late,” Jihoon says flatly as soon as Soonyoung steps into the office, waiting a deliberately insubordinate amount of time before tacking a “Colonel” at the end of it.

He never says “sir” if he can help it, something Soonyoung complains about loudly and frequently in public but privately gets a kick out of, Jihoon’s pretty sure.

Chan, oblivious to this fact, looks between the two of them with wide eyes, clearly anticipating some sort of blowup. Next to him Wonwoo’s expression is just as anticipatory but a lot less worried, a familiar smirk at the corner of his mouth. Jihoon doesn’t acknowledge either one of them.

Neither does Soonyoung, but that’s only because he’s too busy smiling at Jihoon to notice. He really isn’t as good an actor as he thinks he is – he’s supposed to be swanning all over the city, leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake. Instead Jihoon’s stuck here widening his eyes meaningfully, silently willing him to say his next line.

“Right!” Soonyoung says, unsubtle to a truly impressive degree. “Late night last night, sorry. You know how it goes.”

Wonwoo snorts quietly from his desk, then flicks his eyes down to the paper in front of him in his own belated show of deference. Across from him Chan’s still looking up, obviously waiting for acknowledgement before he gets back to work.

“You look great though, Jihoonie,” Soonyoung grins at him, apparently not finished. “Did you have a good night last night?”

Jihoon swears to god.

“I walked my dog,” he says flatly. Soonyoung beams.

“Your dog! How lovely. Everyone should have someone to keep them company, don’t you think?

Wonwoo makes another quietly disparaging sound. Chan mostly just looks confused.

“Sure,” Jihoon says, willing Soonyoung to shut the fuck up. Horribly, he’s pretty sure the tips of his ears are already pink.

“Well,” Soonyoung says, clapping his hands together loudly enough that even Hansol jerks awake from where he’d been dozing with his eyes open. He blinks a few times, takes in the scene in front of him, and then visibly starts to zone out once more. “Let’s have a good day today, folks! Eyes on the prize! Shoot for the moon! Let’s work hard!”

It’s insane that whoever’s wire-tapping their office can’t see right through this shit, Jihoon thinks to himself, silently offering Soonyoung a tight salute before he turns back to the mounds of paperwork that keep accumulating on his desk.

“He knows about workplace harassment, right?” Hansol asks, sleepily blinking himself awake once more. He’s always useless before he’s eaten lunch – Jihoon has no idea how the man made it through basic training. “Like, conceptually?”

“No,” Jihoon says dryly, but his response is followed by an immediate clench of guilt. “Yes,” he amends, making a face. “He wouldn’t – he does know.”

Hansol offers him a level stare, just mildly curious enough that Jihoon thinks, with sick trepidation, that maybe he’s gonna ask, but then he nods, easy, and turns back to his own – Jihoon doesn’t actually know. Some kind of map. He’s either staring at it or falling back asleep again, and Jihoon doesn’t want to make it his business which one.

He glances over at Soonyoung’s desk, quickly, only to find Soonyoung looking right back at him. There’s a pile of paperwork on his desk, too, but he’s ignoring all of it. Any minute now he’ll start bouncing a ball off of the opposite wall, probably, or something equally insufferable. His dedication to the role he’s chosen – frivolous and cocky, a little drunk on power – is pretty impressive, Jihoon can’t deny that.

Soonyoung’s not doing any of that yet, though – he’s just staring at Jihoon, face warm and fond. Jihoon freezes, startled, trapped under the weight of it. Horribly, his ears are definitely pink.

If Jihoon had known Soonyoung’s plans for total government overthrow meant suffering this much personal humiliation, maybe he would have thought twice before agreeing on that train.

“I heard someone sent you flowers last night,” Soonyoung says, oblivious, still looking right at him. “Is that true?”

Wonwoo and Chan look up in unison, abandoning the pretence of having been focusing on their work. There’s a subtle gleam of anticipation in Wonwoo’s eyes, and a look of slight confusion in Chan’s. Hansol continues to ignore them completely.

“That’s a pretty personal question,” he grits out. Soonyoung only smiles, warm and way too fond for the workplace. He’s so fucking annoying – Chan may be oblivious, but there’s no way Wonwoo hasn’t clued into … something. Jihoon very deliberately doesn’t let himself think too much about what, exactly, Wonwoo might be imagining that something to be.

“You’re right,” Soonyoung says, still smiling “My apologies, Lieutenant. I was just curious, that’s all.”

Jihoon thinks of the vase of yellow blossoms, back at home on his kitchen table, comically out of place in Jihoon’s cramped utilitarian apartment. Soonyoung sent them, he had to have. Jihoon’s sure beyond a reasonable doubt.

“Maybe you should be curious about the stack of papers on your desk,” Jihoon says dryly. Across from him Wonwoo’s face twists to hold in a laugh. Chan’s eyes widen in shock.

Soonyoung only laughs, though, delighted to get any response at all.

He makes it through the rest of the day, at least, dutifully sitting down and making his way through the stack with only minimal sighing and moaning, but of course it doesn’t last.

“Lieutenant!”

Jihoon looks up, startled, at the sound of Soonyoung’s voice, belatedly realizing it’s only the two of them. The others must have gone home while Jihoon was working, his determination to finish the file in front of him so strong that he tuned out nearly everything else.

Soonyoung’s ready to go, too, hat on and lingering in the doorway, that same warm smile from earlier on his face.

“You ready to head out?”

“You go ahead,” Jihoon says absently, eyes already drifting back down to the form in front of him. He’ll just work for a little longer, he tells himself. Just long enough to get this finished.

“No, no,” Soonyoung says, coming back into the office to sit in Hansol’s chair, long since vacated – Jihoon’s never witnessed Hansol stay even a minute past the end of his shift, unless it was a real emergency. “I’ll wait. I’m running a very important errand after work, and I’ll require your presence.”

Jihoon pauses, looking up slowly. He squints at Soonyoung, trying to figure out his angle, but Soonyoung only beams at him. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking, but Jihoon knows from experience that he probably won’t like it.

He tries to drag it out but it’s hard to focus with Soonyoung sitting right there, the back of his neck prickling with the knowledge that Soonyoung’s probably staring right at him.

“Fine,” Jihoon sighs, cleaning off his pen and arranging it back in its case after neatly marking where he left off, closing the file and raising his arms above his head in a long-overdue stretch. Soonyoung laughs and mimics him, rolling his head to stretch his neck, too, for good measure. “Where are we headed?”

“That’s need-to-know information,” Soonyoung says carelessly, reaching to push in Jihoon’s chair for him as soon as he’s standing. “Just follow me, Lieutenant. That’s all you need to do.”

Jihoon doesn’t like the sound of that at all.

They wind their way through the familiar corridors of the building, nodding and saluting at anyone they pass, Soonyoung keeping up a steady stream of chatter about seemingly anything that crosses his mind – the weather, his new shoes, the birds he heard outside his window this morning.

“Ah, spring’s nearly passed already,” Soonyoung starts, but he’s interrupted before he can get to the end of that thought – something unbearably sentimental, no doubt.

“Jihoon? Ah, shit, sorry – Lieutenant?”

Both Jihoon and Soonyoung turn towards the voice in unison, to find the unmistakable form of Kim Mingyu lumbering excitedly down the hallway towards them.

“Do you – ?” Soonyoung starts to ask, but Mingyu reaches them before he can finish the question.

“Oh – Colonel!”

Mingyu salutes to Soonyoung neatly, drawing himself to his full height. Jihoon watches, amused, as Soonyoung unconsciously tries to straighten his own posture – useless, obviously. Mingyu’s got at least eight centimetres on him.

“At ease, Corporal,” Soonyoung says, and Mingyu shrinks at least three centimetres immediately, shoulders slumping to a degree that would have their commander barking at him, back in training.

“Wow!” he says, eyes wide, turning back to Jihoon. “You look really good, Ji – Lieutenant. Really healthy.”

Jihoon blinks, taken aback. He hasn’t seen Mingyu since soon after the war, when he was drifting and empty, startling at the smallest sounds. Honestly, Jihoon can hardly remember what either of them said the last time they saw each other, only how the skin on his back prickled and itched. Mingyu had been worried, he knows now, but at the time he hadn’t been able to bring himself to care. The only thing he’d been able to feel was annoyed at the way Mingyu kept looking at him like there was something wrong with him.

Mingyu’s not looking at him like that now, though. He isn’t smiling to hide any discomfort, or any worry. He’s just smiling, warm and friendly and kind.

“Um,” Jihoon says awkwardly. “That’s – thank you.”

“I’m really glad,” Mingyu says. His voice is soft, and way too sincere. “I was worried about you.”

Jihoon’s face feels hot with embarrassment at the earnestness of Mingyu’s attention. He knows he’s eating better now, obviously, and working on putting muscle for real, but he doesn’t know how to respond to Mingyu calling attention to it so directly.

Even worse, he knows his physical health isn’t really what Mingyu’s talking about.

Next to him Soonyoung has gone very quiet.

“I’m fine,” Jihoon says uncomfortably. “I’m – I’m glad you’re doing well, too.”

He knows Mingyu is – they still write letters, occasionally, even though now that Jihoon’s back they could call just as easily. He likes letters better, likes the finality of sending it and knowing he doesn’t have to worry about it again until he gets Mingyu’s response. The post is still unreliable enough to give him at least a few weeks each time.

“I didn’t know you were back in the capitol,” Jihoon says awkwardly, a lot more uncomfortable continuing the conversation than he would be if it were just the two of them.

“Just for the week,” Mingyu answers. “I’ve been working the whole time, or I would have – ”

“It’s fine,” Jihoon cuts him off, offering a tight but sincere smile, and Mingyu smiles in relief.

Soonyoung clears his throat, then – quietly, but loud enough to be heard in the silence that falls as Jihoon struggles to think of what to say next.

“Oh,” he says belatedly, turned towards Soonyoung but still speaking to Mingyu. “Sorry, the Colonel needs to run an errand, we’re – ”

“Of course,” Mingyu says graciously, nodding towards Jihoon before offering Soonyoung another salute. “We’ll talk soon, right?”

Mingyu’s gracious about Jihoon’s awkward, nod, too, giving him one last wide smile. In the split-second after Soonyoung turns and starts walking towards the exit, before Jihoon turns to follow him, Mingyu meets his gaze and gives him a quick wink, jutting his thumb in Soonyoung’s direction and then turning it upward to show his approval. Jihoon’s face flushes scarlet as he scowls, helpless to retaliate with anything stronger than a glare if he doesn’t want Soonyoung to notice. Mingyu grins smugly at him in response.

“He seemed nice,” Soonyoung comments brightly as they make their way down the sidewalk – it hasn’t escaped Jihoon’s notice that they’re going in the direction of Soonyoung’s neighbourhood, but he tactfully keeps his mouth shut.

“Mm,” he agrees.

“You should try to see him again before he goes back,” Soonyoung continues, a weirdly serious note creeping into his voice. Jihoon frowns in confusion.

“Maybe,” he says, knowing full well he probably won’t do anything to make that happen. If Mingyu reaches out, maybe, but he seemed busy. It doesn’t seem particularly likely.

“It’s good to have friends,” Soonyoung says, a little insistent.

“Sure,” Jihoon agrees, squinting against the glare of the setting sun. Spring is starting to wane towards summer, only a slight chill in the air in the evening. Soonyoung hums quietly, but doesn’t say anything more. Jihoon doesn’t look over at him to check what he’s thinking, the two of them walking the rest of the way in comfortable silence.

When Soonyoung pulls up to a stop in front of the grocer’s, Jihoon levels him with a flat glare.

“Need-to-know information? Really?”

Soonyoung beams at him.

“I’m making stew tonight,” is all he says, still smiling, nudging Jihoon to open the door. “You’ll help me choose the right ingredients, right?”

“You don’t know how to cook stew,” Jihoon says blankly, watching Soonyoung pick up a basket and then just stand there expectantly, still holding it, clearly waiting for Jihoon to tell him where to go. Jihoon suddenly remembers him trying to cut carrots in his father’s kitchen, years and years ago, how they came out jagged and mismatched and all the wrong shape but Jihoon said he didn’t care. He hadn’t – he’d appreciated the help. He never told Soonyoung that. “Fine, come on, let’s just – ”

The prices at the grocer’s are obscenely high – Jihoon’s nose wrinkles in distaste as he carefully chooses carrots and potatoes, green onions and pumpkin, setting them all in the basket as he narrates to Soonyoung what he should do with them. Soonyoung grins at him the whole time, looking like a smug cat as he nods along.

“You’ll help me make it, right?” he asks, after, standing with Jihoon on the sidewalk outside his apartment building. Jihoon shouldn’t even have indulged him this far, but Soonyoung had loudly – and falsely – declared that he couldn’t possibly carry the potatoes by himself the whole way back, so here Jihoon is.

“You know that wouldn’t be appropriate,” he says, looking at the door of the building so he won’t have to look at Soonyoung. The sun has almost disappeared, dusk’s haze settling quietly over the city. “Sir.”

It’s rare enough to have the effect Jihoon wants – Soonyoung stops teasing, momentarily, face serious when Jihoon chances a glance over.

“You’re right,” he says, finally, eyebrows knit together in – concern, maybe. Regret.

It’s what Jihoon wanted – it’s the right thing to do. He doesn’t know why he feels disappointed that Soonyoung finally let the act drop.

Soonyoung recovers quickly, though. Just like he always does.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says quietly, and the smile that settles onto his face is different than the ones he’s been sending Jihoon’s way all day. Softer. More honest. It’s hard for Jihoon to look at it directly. “We’ve got lots of work to do.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he parrots back pathetically, offering Soonyoung one last salute – not returned, as Soonyoung’s arms are busy with the potatoes Jihoon foisted back onto him as soon as he was standing still – before he turns to head towards his own neighbourhood, the opposite direction of the way they came.

It feels different to walk alone.

“Lieutenant!” Soonyoung calls, before Jihoon’s even made it all the way down the block. Jihoon turns back towards him, startled. “If you got flowers you should put them on ice,” Soonyoung says loudly. He looks weirdly serious, given that he’s still holding a sack of potatoes in one hand and a bag full of vegetables and fish in the other. “It’ll make them last longer. My aunt told me.”

Jihoon opens his mouth to acknowledge him, only to find he can’t find anything to say – can’t seem to make himself speak at all. He presses his lips shut and settles for a tight nod instead.

Soonyoung seems to get it – he usually does. He beams at Jihoon, one of his hands doing its best to wave goodbye without losing its grip on the bag. He’s still juggling the groceries on his way up to the front step when Jihoon turns away again.

He stops for ice on the way back home, though, and it turns out Soonyoung’s aunt was right.

The flowers last nearly two weeks.

but when we think of death —

the ebbing of this life-tide breath —

'tis sweeter to forgive.
– “revenge,” mary e. tucker