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They make it out of the forest before the wolves come. These are no ordinary wolves. Their claws extend like a demon’s hand, curved and hooked, designed to rend flesh from bones. The sun gleams off their too-sleek bodies and sends a chill down Kyuhyun’s spine as he turns, snatching up Ryeowook’s hand.
“C’mon!”
Kyuhyun does not let go of Ryeowook until he reaches for his bow.
“Run, I’ll cover you!” he shouts and the moment their hands part, Kyuhyun’s heart drops. He spins around and the wolves surge forward, their single focus on Ryeowook.
Kyuhyun has never tasted fear like this, sharp and metallic like blood as he draws his sword, freezing as Ryeowook’s arrows pierce through the first wolf’s eye. It yelps and falls, but another takes its place. Kyuhyun plunges into the fray, hacking with his sword until Ryeowook’s hand finds his again.
“Kyu, run!” Ryeowook howls as he smacks his bow into the snout of a wolf. The wolf swings back and takes two more with it, but more pour out from the forest, their barks and screams filling the air until all Kyuhyun can hear are wolves.
“I’m not leaving you,” Kyuhyun snaps. He yanks Ryeowook out of the wolf pack and sprints, his lungs burning, for the Cornucopia. Ryeowook yells and stumbles. Kyuhyun’s blood goes cold when he spins around.
A single hack and the wolf’s head rolls. Its body follows, a sickening squelch ringing in the air as its claws are ripped out of Ryeowook’s chest.
“No,” Kyuhyun cries when Ryeowook staggers, dropping his bow. “No, no, no, Ryeowook.”
He flattens his hands over the wound, barely noticing the way the wolf pack has dissipated. Blood squishes out between his fingers and he gags, pushing harder as his heart thrums in his ears.
“Don’t,” Ryeowook gasps. “It’s no use.”
“No!” Kyuhyun’s cry is half wild, desperate as he presses down on the rapidly bleeding wound. “No, we have to– we have to try.”
“Kyuhyun ah. I was never meant to leave this arena alive,” Ryeowook says and Kyuhyun’s heart cracks like a tree branch in a windstorm.
“That’s not– no. We’re going to get– we will–.”
“Kyu–.” Ryeowook’s knees buckle and Kyuhyun catches him. They sink to the ground together, and Kyuhyun presses his nose to Ryeowook’s hair, choking down a sob as he holds him upright. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” he whispers. “Save your breath. We can– we can–.”
“Kyu,” Ryeowook mumbles and Kyuhyun presses his face harder into Ryeowook’s hair, a tear slipping down his face despite his best efforts. “Kyu, thank you.”
“Don’t say that,” Kyuhyun chokes. “Don’t–.”
“You gave me what I’ve always wanted,” Ryeowook whispers and Kyuhyun cards a rough hand through his hair, his throat working as he tries to think of something to say. Anything.
“What is it?”
Ryeowook’s thumb brushes over his cheekbone and Kyuhyun shudders, bending his head over him until their noses brush.
“You loved me.”
The lump in Kyuhyun’s throat grows and so does the panic when Ryeowook coughs and blood splatters across his hand. He sinks down onto the grass and Kyuhyun wraps an arm around his shoulder, his hand trembling when he touches his cheek.
“I love you,” Kyuhyun promises and Ryeowook’s smile is so sweet when he kisses him, that Kyuhyun can almost forget the metallic taste that stains his lips.
He coughs again when Kyuhyun pulls away, and his skin is ashen, his lips pale and bloodless. His eyes flutter and he slumps over, like the very thought of existing weighs on him, and fear digs a trench in Kyuhyun’s chest, between the ravines of his already cracking heart.
“No, no, Ryeowook,” Kyuhyun begs, cupping Ryeowook’s face. “I promised you I’d take you to see the stars, remember? We’re going to District 2 and we’ll see real stars. Ryeowook, please.”
He turns his head away, harshly scrubbing away a tear that rolls down his cheek.
“Don’t look away.” It is more of an exhale than a sentence and it arrests Kyuhyun’s breath. His chest feels as if it is being crushed by the strangling roots of a fig tree. Ryeowook’s eyes are glazed over when Kyuhyun shifts, propping him against his knee, his gaze dreamy in a way that seizes Kyuhyun’s throat in a chokehold. The patch of red has spread beneath his hand, a bright rose against Ryeowook’s pale skin.
“We’re going to see the stars, Ryeowook ah,” Kyuhyun whispers, tangling their fingers together and Ryeowook smiles, heartbreakingly beautiful. Kyuhyun cannot breathe.
“I see them,” he murmurs and Kyuhyun’s heart cracks. “I see them, Kyu.”
A sob tears its way out of Kyuhyun and he bends over Ryeowook, his shoulders beginning to shake.
“I’ll take you to see them,” he says, his voice breaking and Ryeowook is still smiling.
“I see them,” Ryeowook whispers. “I see them in your eyes, Kyuhyunnie.”
The words rip out the rest of Kyuhyun’s heart from his ribcage and he collapses, clutching Ryeowook close to his chest.
“No, no, Ryeowook, don’t close your eyes,” he pleads, cradling Ryeowook’s head when Ryeowook’s lashes flutter, like a butterfly’s wings before it ascends. “Don’t close your eyes, please.”
“I see the stars, Kyu,” Ryeowook’s voice is so soft now that Kyuhyun has to strain to hear him. “I see them…”
His voice trails off into a silence that thunders in Kyuhyun’s ears. For a beat, for two beats, the world is quiet.
“Ryeowook?” Kyuhyun breathes. He shakes him gently, even as his world turns to dust around him.
Ryeowook does not move again.
The scream he lets out is almost louder than the cannon that goes off, buried into Ryeowook’s collarbones, stained in the red of roses that should have never touched his skin. Kyuhyun stays hunched over him, screaming until his throat is raw and his heart feels as if it is tearing out of him in bloody chunks.
“Cho Kyuhyun. Please step away from the body.”
The announcement breaks him from his grief for a split second, and rage pours into Kyuhyun’s chest, replacing the ragged hole that has been ripped out of it. The body.
As if that was all Ryeowook had been. A body. A pawn in the Capitol’s sick games. Not even worthy of a name in death.
Kyuhyun ignores the announcement, holding his position even when he hears the sound of the hovercraft. He will not let them take him. Tributes’ bodies are usually sent home to their families.
But Ryeowook has no family.
Kyuhyun will not let him become a nameless face in the sea of lives that the Capitol has taken.
His arms are seized and Kyuhyun screams Ryeowook’s name until his throat is bloody and the tears run down his cheeks, but the Peacekeepers drag him back. Before he enters the hovercraft, Kyuhyun faces the sky and curses the Capitol. He spits every word of hate that he has held in at the unfairness of it all, the horror that they have created, sitting upon their golden thrones. Words that a favoured tribute should never say.
There is a single prick to the back of his neck and Kyuhyun falls into welcome darkness.
Jungsoo is sitting by his bed when he wakes, his eyes glassy. Kyuhyun stretches, his fingertips brushing against Jungsoo’s arm and he jumps, a smile breaking across his face.
“You’re awake.”
“Ryeowook,” Kyuhyun says in answer and Jungsoo’s face closes off. He had been fond of Ryeowook, Kyuhyun remembers, had spoken at length to him before and during trainings.
“He’s gone,” he says quietly and a dam breaks open in Kyuhyun’s chest.
“Where will they send him?” Kyuhyun asks finally, his voice cracking and Jungsoo levels him with a look full of equal parts pity and grief.
“He will be buried in an unmarked grave in the Capitol,” he says and Kyuhyun lurches to his feet, unsteady.
“No,” he chokes out. “No– who will mourn him?”
Jungsoo’s sigh he feels rather than hears and for a split second, Kyuhyun sees his perfect veneer crack.
“You will, Kyuhyun. You will hold him forever in your memories. You will be the one to remember him and you must not let him be forgotten.”
Kyuhyun is hollow inside as he goes through the motions of his victory ceremonies, a ghost as he moves from stage to stage in colourful costumes that make him feel more like a prop, a puppet, than a person. Jungsoo does his best to remind him to smile, to look victorious but Kyuhyun doubts anyone will be able to forget the way he had cursed the Capitol on screen before they put him down. He should be dead.
But the Capitol needs their Victor.
It is with mixed feelings that he goes on his victory tour and when the train doors open to reveal his parents, Kyuhyun’s heart lurches.
They have visibly come from elsewhere and there is a van parked behind them. Ryeowook’s picture sits in the window.
The tears clog up Kyuhyun’s throat and he nearly collapses right there, from sheer relief.
“We had to take him,” his father says. His face is a terrible thing to look at, a mixture of relief and shame. “He saved you.”
His mother is crying even as Kyuhyun staggers over to hug them both.
“Thank you,” he whispers. “Thank you.”
It does not change the fact that Kyuhyun could not save him. That a beautiful, bright soul has been snuffed out from a world too cruel for him forever. But at least this way, Kyuhyun can fulfil his promise.
When the victory tour comes to an end and Kyuhyun has been settled in the Victor’s Village with his family, he gets into the driver’s seat of the van and sits there.
The mountains are quiet that night, the soft sounds of the forest echoing around him. It reminds him of the Arena strangely, of the nights he spent with Ryeowook sitting in the trees above the lake, watching the broadcast of the dead tributes in the sky.
Tears gather in the corners of Kyuhyun’s eyes and he slams a fist against the steering wheel, his breaths catching in his throat. He has been crying too much lately. Ryeowook has bled into every crevice of him and seized his dreams. Kyuhyun sees his smile in his dreams and it crushes his soul whenever he opens his eyes to sunlight streaming into his room and he only has the memory of his smile.
The very thought of waking up alone again chokes Kyuhyun with its intensity. He gets out of the van and climbs a tree barefoot, the tallest tree he can find. Every scratch of the bark under his feet, his skin reminds him of the way Ryeowook had coaxed him up before, with gentle smiles and encouraging words so out of place in an arena meant for death. The higher he goes, the less he feels the weight in his chest.
Kyuhyun sits in the branches for a long time and tries to remember the taste of Ryeowook’s lips on his.
They give him a small ceremony, just Kyuhyun and his parents. Kyuhyun nearly drops his corner of the coffin when they lower it into the earth. He squeezes his eyes shut, and buries his face into his mother’s chest when the grief threatens to tear him apart.
That night, when the stars come out and the world is silent, Kyuhyun pads outside barefoot with a lump in his throat. He stands beside the headstone, staring up at the sky, so clear that he cannot even count the number of lights that twinkle in the dark.
“Ryeowook ah.” The stone is smooth against Kyuhyun’s palm when he rests his hand against it. If he closes his eyes and lets himself dream, it almost feels as if he is holding Ryeowook’s shoulder. “Ryeowook ah.” His voice is thick with unshed tears as he rubs his thumb over the smooth stone. “Can you see the stars?”