Work Text:
Brother. I'm sorry I'm not strong enough to protect you. Even being your eldest brother, I am inadaquate. So inadaquate that I only decrease my worth by daring to request this of you. Leave this place. Please. I know it may be an unforgivable thing to ask you to leave the only home you've known, and I may not have even a suggestion of a place for you to go, but this is all I am sure of: I'll never forgive myself if I don't at the very least encourage this. I love you more than our sect, more than the world itself. You are not weak, and I don't think you are. This place is just stronger than us both, and you are just the one who is taking most of the pressure. Our father is killing you. Zhongnan is killing you. I don't want to see you killed. It's scary telling you this, but it's a hundred times scarier thinking of what could happen if I let this go on. Please, get out of here.
::
"What? Crying for the fifth time today because our father pointed out your flaws? Fucking leave then, why don't you! I won't stop you, and we both know father certainly won't. Just try not to drag the family name through the dirt on your way out."
Jin Geumryong was young, and not the best with words. Those being the last ones he would ever speak to his youngest brother for a long, long time.
He may have been a little upset that he could never make his full sentiment out to him, seeing as he'd actually learn the next morning of Dongryong's disappearence. But that was fine, ultimately. He was always more for practicality anyway. His sibling got out, and that was what was important.
'He moves fast.' Geumryong let his mind wander as he sat in is father’s office, watching him pace and rave about his office over the loss of his youngest child. Not in the spirit of remorse or mourning, of course. No, it was more the repeated complaint of how the development would effect his and the status of the Jin family name.
Maybe it was a good thing he wasn't good with words. Someone would ideally be much less likely to drag their feet when leaving a place where nobody loved or wanted them.
Geumryong clenched his teeth. In Zhongnan, the punishment for being caught outside the grounds of the sect without authorization were among the cruelest. It being against the rules for third class disciples in particular to leave sect grounds without an escorting mentor, superior, or a second-class disciple with permission.
He hoped he would make it.
He wasn’t sure where exactly, being extremely sheltered himself and knowing practically nothing of what was outside of the mountain, but, anyplace that his brother could be happy, or at the very least thrive without the crushing weight that their sect and father forced on him every day, that was all that mattered.
He did feel a bit sour, he wouldn’t lie to himself. He sometimes wondered if he had more in common with their father than he’d like to admit. That if maybe he was being selfish.
If maybe it was less about saving his brother and more about not wanting someone he loved to witness him turning into the monster he knew their father and sect inevitably would.
It was tough, and he was young, they both were. But as numb as Geumryong already felt himself becoming, it was maybe his best(and last) attempt at being a good brother.
He would miss him, but Geumryong was logical.
He knew it sounded cold, and maybe it was, but:
If he intended to spend the rest of his life as a disciple of Zhongnan, then he hoped he would never see his youngest brother again.