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Morning always begins with movement. The yard is still drowned in low-lying mist, the ground dark with the sort of damp that seeps through leather soles and settles into bones. Jongin turns on the spot, pivots, steps, draws back, each motion fluid and decisive, a sequence he has repeated so often it barely requires thought. Steel briefly flashes as he brings his blade up and across, drawing a clean, economical arc in the still air. Structure is where he feels calmest and the most balanced. Structure is safe; he learned early on the battlefield that wasted force could lead to mistakes, and mistakes could lead to a swift and bloody end.
Around him, the men move as well in a loose constellation of sound and motion, their boots scuffing the dirt, their panting breaths sending ghosts up into the sky. A blade rings too loudly where someone lets their strength outrun their control.
“Slower,” he says. He doesn’t need to raise his voice here; the man, he knows, responds better to calm instruction rather than shouts. “Feel where the weight is. Don’t fight it.”
The man nods and tries again, and the next movement is cleaner. Jongin feels a small flurry of pleasure at a command carried out properly. It means they listen to him. It means they have a chance of surviving whatever comes.
Turning away, he adjusts his footing and feels their surreptitious glances toward him. A few of them mirror his movements, and he gets that same flurry. The only thing better than a verbal command carried out is a command carried out without words. Learn by observation. Repetition. Practise. This is how he’s always operated.
Sweat gathers along his spine as the morning wears on, dampening the cloth beneath his armour, but he doesn’t mind it because he’s been drenched in far worse than sweat before. Discomfort isn’t worth noticing unless it interferes. When the drill ends, he signals with one hand and the men disperse, their voices low but animated, laughter muted as they relax. He hears someone calling a name, but no one answers. The sound echoes for a moment before being swallowed by the chill breeze.
Jongin doesn’t turn; he knows who is missing.
There are always absences. They accumulate quietly like dust in corners no one looks at directly, and he carries them just as quietly, marking them only in the careful way he avoids certain names, certain paths.
Later, while he’s on patrol with two of his subordinates, the mist lifts just enough to reveal the line of the hills beyond the compound walls. There, he spots the path that winds between them, worn by time and marching boots and trade carts, the ground still dark from last night’s rainfall. Walking at the front, Jongin keeps his pace steady, his senses attuned to any small changes — birdsong breaking off too suddenly, or the soft slide of a stone somewhere higher up.
But nothing happens. It rarely does.
Condensation beads across the inside of his helmet and his brow, and he blinks it away without breaking stride. The men behind him follow his lead, and he’s glad to see them automatically spacing themselves strategically, trusting his judgement without question. Good. Trust is a weight, and he bears it because it’s his duty.
By the time they return, the sun has burned through the last of the mist, leaving the air sharper and brighter than it has been in days, exposing every flaw in stone and timber. Jongin removes his helmet and sets it aside, but lets his fingertips linger on the rim for a moment. The silence settles in, as it always does, and he realises, dimly, that the world has grown very small around him, something that has happened over many years. He knows duty, training, orders to be executed, men to lead… But everything else that he might have held once — music, idle conversation, long nights at the tavern, the soft unmeasured parts of living — have been pared away so gradually that he can’t say when it happened exactly.
He doesn’t miss those things. At least, not consciously.
But as he turns back to the barracks, a trace of mist still clings to the low ground beyond the walls, hovering just out or reach and snaking up through the hills to the river. It thins and vanishes as the light lengthens.
For the briefest moment, Jongin longs to follow it before it disappears entirely, yet he knows he can’t.
Not yet.
***
Kyungsoo wakes before the light reaches the valley floor. He sits up slowly, careful not to wake his younger brother who is sprawled fast asleep nearby, and reaches for his tools by habit before he’s fully opened his eyes. They are exactly where he left them. They always are. As quietly as he can, he tiptoes to the door and leaves Sehun to his slumber.
Outside in the distance, the river is already awake. The dampness in the air immediately clings to his skin and rough-hewn clothes, and turns the ends of his dark hair wet. It doesn’t bother him in the slightest. There’s something about the smells here, soil and water, red pine bark and resin, that feels familiar and aching at the same time. Kyungsoo likes to imagine his mother smelled like this when he was a baby, though he has no way of knowing for certain.
For a little while, he simply stands and listens to the river, its low and constant chatter a comfort. It’s never loud this early, but it’s also never silent. It moves even when no one is watching, even when the world seems paused between one moment and the next.
Kyungsoo washes his hands first in a shallow basin, the water cold enough to sting. It runs off him quickly, darkened by clay and oil, and then vanishes into the ground. He dries his hands on his hanbok and flexes his fingers, feeling yesterday’s work still stiffly lodged in the joints.
But there’s always more to do.
By midmorning, he is at the riverbank, sleeves pushed back and tied, his baji hitched and knotted at the calf, feet bare on the cold stone. The water swooshes around his ankles as he wades, the cold bracing in a way nothing else ever is. He welcomes it. It clears his head, rooting him firmly in the present.
Kyungsoo works close to the river whenever he can. Clay is better when it’s kept damp; wood behaves differently when it’s worked in cool air; grain responds more kindly to the blade. And there’s something about the sound of moving water that makes the long hours more bearable, a constant momentum pushing him on toward nightfall when he can finally stop and rest again.
He knows better than to think of himself as fortunate, but he does feel lucky to have a workplace such as this. Generally, though, his life is narrow, shaped by necessity and the limits placed on men like him. He works because he must. He creates because it’s the only way he knows how to make the hours add up to something that puts food on the table. He rarely dreams of more… and yet, sometimes, when work goes well or when his hand follows a line he did not consciously plan, he feels a brief, dangerous lift in his chest. A sense of finding the right current.
Once, years ago, he had watched a travelling troupe perform near the market, masked figures moving in exaggerated poses, their voices rising and falling in patterns that felt like spells. It was a similar type of pull he often feels from the river. He remembers he had stood at the back, too small and too poor to push forward, copying the movements later in secret until his older brother Junmyeon caught him and frowned, telling him, not unkindly, not to waste his energy on things meant for other people.
But these memories are so easy to get lost in, so he returns to his task and tries not to think of them.
At midday, a group of soldiers passes along the path above the bank. Kyungsoo hears them before he sees them, their footfalls heavy, their voices muted by discipline. Automatically, he lowers his gaze and steps aside, giving them plenty of respectful room. One of them laughs, a sudden, sharp sound like the crack of a branch. Someone else mutters a name that goes unanswered.
The group moves on. Not one of them looks at him.
Unoffended, Kyungsoo returns to his work, his heart thudding a little faster than before. Soldiers bring trade sometimes, commissioning him when they pass through, though they also bring reminders of how easily the world can tilt and how quickly a life can be reduced to something spoken once and never again.
He much prefers the river’s voice.
By late afternoon, the early Spring sun warms the stones enough that he can sit and rest, his tools laid out beside him. Leaning back on his hands, he lets the sound of the water fill the quiet places inside him. Mist starts to rise gently from the surface, just enough to soften the edges of things without obscuring them entirely.
Kyungsoo thinks back to many years ago, when he was still a child. A woman in a nearby village had collared him on the street, and at the time it had shocked him becuase he wasn’t up to anything naughty. But then she had told him something he’s never forgotten: “The river returns things that are lost.” That was it. That was all she had said, her wrinkled, dark-brown face creasing in a strangely knowing smirk. Kyungsoo had smiled and, as politely as he could, squirmed out of her grasp, putting the encounter down to her old age.
He’s still not sure if he believes in such things. Belief requires time and leisure, two things that are in short supply.
Still. He’s careful what he says here, careful what he thinks about.
When evening comes, he gathers his tools and rinses them clean. The river takes the residue of his labour and carries it away without comment. He watches it go, feeling oddly lighter for it.
As he turns to leave, he pauses.
The mist has thickened near the downstream bend, leading to the distant hills. It hovers low over the water, and for a moment, he has the strange impression that something is waiting there — not watching, exactly, but holding space.
He shakes his head and steps away from the bank. The long hours must be catching up with him again.
Tomorrow, he tells himself, there will be more work, so it’s best to get a decent night’s rest when he can.
***
The river is swollen with spring. It rushes hard against the banks, brown and loud and carrying branches, old leaves, small stones, and the occasional glint of something pale and unidentifiable spinning at the surface before vanishing again. Meltwater feeds it from the mountains, endless and cold and never still long enough to be ignored.
Jongin reaches it by dusk. His armour is darkened at the edges, the leather stiff where blood has dried and cracked. Despite the weight of it, he moves with careful steps because the stones are slick below him and he doesn’t want to fall. The river tugs at his attention the whole time, but it’s an almost welcome distraction because otherwise all that’s left to think about is the noise of men and orders and the aftermath of violence that still rings in his ears.
Kneeling at the water’s edge, he loosens the fastenings at his wrists and slides off his gloves. The river doesn’t hesitate; it surges around his hands as soon as they break the sufrace, immediately carrying away the worst of the blood in cloudy ribbons that twist and disappear downstream. Jongin scrubs his fingers unhurriedly. He has done this before. He will do it again.
Then he hears a sound behind him, stones shifting underfoot.
He’s on his feet in a second, turned around with his hand at the hilt of his blade in two.
The man standing a short distance away is holding a bundle of reeds under one arm and a coil of rope looped over the other shoulder. He’s older, Jongin can see at once, though not by much. His clothes are plain and worn soft with use, patched at the elbows, the hip, the hem. His inky hair spills into his eyes — which are huge, dark, expressive in a way that momentarily disarms Jongin.
The man stops suddenly when Jongin looks at him, and immediately his gaze drops out of respect. He fidgets slightly on his feet, a subtle, ingrained movement that Jongin recognises without thinking. Deference.
“Janggun-nim,” the man says, his voice a lower register than Jongin is expecting, steady, resonant, the kind that seems to carry even when it’s barely raised. For an absurd moment, Jongin thinks of temple chants, of voices meant to travel across stone and water alike. But the thought passes as quickly as it comes.
The man is watching him. Jongin inclines his head in return, nowhere close to a bow but an acknowledgement all the same.
The man doesn’t move away. Instead, he comes closer to the water but keeps a deliberate distance and sets his bundle down on the nearest flat rock. Jongin notices that the man’s hands are quick and efficient as he unwraps the reeds and lays them out to dry. There’s nothing wasted in what he does.
Hands tell the truth, his first instructor once said. Men learn to school their faces, but their bodies are less obedient. Jongin finds himself watching the stranger without meaning to, taking note not only of his practised movements but also his handsome face, clear of imperfections and quite striking, really, for one who works manual labour and has to stay outside in all weathers.
The river surges louder between them.
Returning his attention to the water, Jongin continues rinsing his armour piece by piece, methodically setting them out to dry on the bank. The current swirls and pulls insistently, tugging at the edge of a wayward strap and threatening to steal the garment outright. Jongin grabs for it.
“Careful,” the man says, and immediately he hesitates when he realises he’s spoken out of turn. But the word has slipped out already, unguarded and hanging between them.
Not looking up immediately, Jongin tightens his grip and changes the angle of his wrist, letting the water pass over the leather without claiming it. Only then does he glance over.
The man has lowered his eyes again, lashes casting black shadows against his cheeks. Up close, Jongin can see the fine lines of fatigue around his mouth and eyes, and the roughness of his hands where work has left its mark. Not unblemished after all, then.
“The river is fast today,” the man continues, speaking carefully. “It’s taken stronger things than that.”
Considering this, Jongin says, “I’ve crossed worse.”
The man hesitates, then allows himself a small nod. “Yes, Janggun-nim. I’m sure you have.” The water crashes against a submerged stone and sends spray up into the air. It dots the man’s sleeve, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“They say,” he adds, after a moment, “that it doesn’t like to be underestimated.”
Jongin’s hands go still again. “They?” he asks.
The man glances up this time, quick as a fish breaking the surface, then lowers his gaze once more. It’s odd, Jongin thinks, but there’s something almost apologetic in the gesture. “Old people,” he says. “Just stories. Nothing that would concern you.”
Jongin studies him. He’s heard a hundred variations of this before: rivers with tempers, paths that shift and change as the sun sets, places that remember, places that listen. While he’s never dismissed them outright, he wouldn’t say he believes, exactly, although belief and behaviour often serve the same purpose.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he finally says.
The man looks surprised by this; his hands pause mid-knot. “Yes, Janggun-nim.”
After that, they work in silence. Eventually, Jongin finishes cleaning his armour, careful to weigh it down so the reiver can’t steal it while his back is turned. Nearby, the man gathers his reeds and binds them with swift, neat loops, hands graceful and utterly distracting. Without meaning to, Jongin finds himself drawn again and again to the way this man moves. There’s a rhythm to him, a responsiveness that he rarely sees, not even in his own men. Something in Jongin’s chest loosens as he steals glances, like a muscle held too long under strain has finally let go.
It isn’t like him to try and fill silences with useless words, but he says, regardless, “You could have joined the army.”
The man stops suddenly, and it takes him a moment to find his voice. “Ah. Poor eyesight, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t have been much of an asset.”
Jongin frowns at this but says nothing. As the daylight starts to thin, he straightens and reaches for his armour.
“I should go,” the man says, bowing deeply this time. “The river’s worse after dark.”
Jongin nods, but as the man turns to leave, he finds himself speaking again without quite knowing why.
“What’s your name?”
The man stops, turns a little. After a moment, he answers, “Kyungsoo, Janggun-nim.”
Hm, Kyungsoo. Jongin inclines his head again. “Jongin.”
Kyungsoo bows once more, lower than ever, and then retreats along the riverbank, steps quick but unhurried as if careful not to offend either the man or the water.
Jongin watches him until he disappears into the trees. When he finally turns back to the river, the light has changed, the current running darker now, deeper, carrying its noise further down the valley. For a moment — only a second — he has the strange impression of being observed, but not by eyes. By something that has already folded this meeting into itself.
Gathering his armour, he crosses upstream, choosing his footing with care. Behind him, the river continues on its way, unchanged.
And yet, somehow, also changed.
***
At first, it isn't a conscious decision. Kyungsoo tells himself that the river lies along a convenient route, that its banks offer space to work, rinse clay from his hands, sit where the world feels less insistent. He tells himself this even on days when there are other places he could be.
The river welcomes him as it always does.
Sometimes, Jongin is there already. On those days, Kyungsoo notices him from a distance at first: a familiar shape at the water’s edge, armour set aside neatly, posture too straight to belong to anyone else. In those moments, he takes his time to study the other man, the way he leans to peer into the flowing water as if searching for something lost, or the way he moves to turn over each piece of armour so that both sides dry quicker. There’s something lithe and fluid but controlled about him that tells Kyungsoo that, in another life, at some earlier time, he might have danced or performed, though he can’t be certain, and it isn’t proper to ask.
Jongin never looks surprised to see him. But he’s always attentive, as though Kyungsoo’s arrival has completed something already in progress.
Of course, sometimes Jongin is not there.
Those days leave Kyungsoo unsettled in a way he can’t name, along with a sense of having arrived too late for something he had not realised he was waiting for. He stays anyway, working longer than necessary, listening to the sound of the water until it settles him again.
When Jongin does arrive, it’s always silently and without announcement. One moment, the river is only a river, and then there he is, tall and graceful, hair loose at the nape of his neck, movements economical even when he’s doing nothing at all. Like some water spirit sprung up from the flow. Kyungsoo is aware of him the way one is aware of a slight change in the weather. Never intrusive, just present.
Summer brings a thick, ticklish heat along with it. The air grows heavy, pressing close to the skin, and the river runs lower, exposing pale stones slick with moss or worn so smooth Kyungsoo fancies he can see his reflection in them in certain light. At first, the two men sit on opposite banks, speaking little. Dragonflies skim the surface of the water, their iridescent wings catching the sun with a prismatic shimmer.
Once, Jongin wades in up to his calves, the water swishing white around his legs. Kyungsoo watches before he realises he’s doing so.
“You’ll cramp,” he says, and then stills, surprised by the confidence of his own voice.
Without a word, Jongin steps back to the bank, water streaming from him in narrow rivulets. He sits down beside Kyungsoo, close enough that their sleeves brush, but he doesn’t speak. The closeness seems to be enough.
By late summer, they begin sharing food.
Nothing elaborate, mainly dried fish or rice wrapped in cloth. Once, a handful of berries Kyungsoo gathers upstream, their skins splitting sweetly between his teeth. For the most part, they eat in silence, the river filling the space between them where words might have been, its sound constant and oddly intimate.
Jongin never takes more than he is offered.
Kyungsoo never offers what he cannot afford to lose.
Late autumn, and the frost hasn’t set in fully but the air holds a bitter sharpness that promises it will soon. Kyungsoo is alone when he begins singing, something he often does when he works. At first it’s a simple melody, little more than a thread he remembers from childhood, possibly a song his mother used to sing to him, or maybe just something he imagines she would have. The notes travel oddly across the water, blending with the rushing sound. Kyungsoo closes his eyes as a high note approaches, and lets the melody lengthen, testing its edges. His voice always sounds fuller here than in the village, freer because there are no walls to trap it, no neighbours to remark upon it. He reaches the crest of the phrase — and then feels it. A presence.
He opens his eyes. Jongin stands on the opposite bank, still as carved stone. How long has he been there? Kyungsoo lets the note drop midway, his voice spinning away into nothing. Heat flushes up his neck and down his back.
But instead of commenting, Jongin simply comes across the water and sits on the rock.
He never mentions the singing, and neither does Kyungsoo.
They tend to sit closer nowadays, adjusting unconsciously to the narrowing warmth between them. Kyungsoo notices the looser rhythm of Jongin’s movements, and he wonders what else he does when he’s not here or at the barracks or on patrol.
“The water sounds different today,” Kyungsoo remarks one day.
Tilting his head, Jongin listens for a moment. “Mm. It’s lower,” he agrees. “Perhaps it’s tired.”
Kyungsoo huffs a small laugh at that, then stills, unsure whether he’s overstepped. But Jongin only stares, the corners of his mouth curved slightly as if pleased.
Another time, Jongin studies his hands resting on his knees until Kyungsoo begins to feel self-conscious about them. He folds them into his tattered jeogori.
“You work too long,” Jongin says, his tone a little rough.
Kyungsoo shrugs, eyes on the current. “The days don’t shorten themselves.”
“No,” Jongin agrees. Then, after a pause, “They should.”
Sometimes they speak of small things. Later in the year, Kyungsoo mentions the frost forming early on the stones upstream.
“It’ll make the crossing dangerous,” he says.
“Then I’ll stop crossing there,” Jongin replies, flicking a few specks of dirt off his leg.
Kyungsoo looks at him, startled. “You don’t have to—”
“I know.”
More often than not, they say nothing at all. But the silences aren’t empty. They’re full of little awarenesses: the heat of a shoulder, the brush of fabric, the scent of river water and sun-warmed skin, a sniff, or a cough, sometimes a deep, appreciative breath. Kyungsoo finds himself forgetting, at times, to keep his eyes lowered. He forgets to measure his words. Once or twice, he forgets the weight of titles.
Beside the river, Jongin never corrects him.
When winter comes, it’s quiet and heavy. Sehun asks Kyungsoo when older brother Junmyeon is coming home; Kyungsoo says soon because that’s what he always says. If he’s honest with himself, he isn’t sure if Junmyeon will ever come home; the letters stopped after the first year, and it’s been another two years since then. He hopes Junmyeon is doing well wherever he is and, as always, he tries not to feel left behind.
The river thins, slipping between ice-rimmed stones, fragile frost gathering at the edges. Late one morning, Kyungsoo is crouched close to the water, his hands stark red from the cold as he rinses clay off his fingers.
A shadow falls across him.
Wordlessly, Jongin removes his outer layer and holds it out, staring down at him with an unreadable face.
“Janggun-nim—” Kyungsoo is startled by the gesture.
But Jongin waits, his arm extended.
After a moment, Kyungsoo accepts. Their fingers brush, a brief shock of contact, and they both go very still. The river murmurs on, indifferent to whatever is happening on its banks, but Kyungsoo feels incredibly exposed in that moment. He wraps the cloth around his shoulder, the warmth from Jongin’s body already seeping slowly into him.
“Thank you,” he says.
This gesture — it feels different from anything else that’s passed between them before, and Kyungsoo frowns. It isn’t proper for someone of Jongin’s standing to offer clothing like this. But Jongin never asks for it back, which is perhaps most shocking of all.
After that, he finds himself coming without thinking, drawn by something that feels less like desire and more like gravity. The river becomes the only place where rank loosens its grip; no orders follow them there, no eyes linger, and the world softens the rules, dissolving them into sound and motion and the simple fact of being beside another body that feels, somehow, right.
Once, as they stand to leave, Kyungsoo says quietly, “It’s strange.”
Jongin turns to him. “What is?”
“This place.” He gestures vaguely in the air. “It always feels different here, as if it’s keeping hold of something. I don’t know what.”
For a long time, Jongin stares at the water, at the steady flow of it around stone and root, at the way it carries everything forward without every letting go entirely.
“Yes,” he says.
And for the first time, Kyungsoo doesn’t lower his gaze as they say goodbye.
***
Jongin’s boots skid on wet stone as he stumbles down the bank. His gasps burn in his lungs and throat, dragging in his chest like something has torn loose. The water sounds like thunder in his ears.
He’s late. His armour is slick with blood. Not all of it is his own. He knows this in the abstract, and catalogues it with the same meticulous rigour he applies to everything else, but the weight of it — the iron, the leather, the soaked cloth, his own bones — pulls him downward with every step.
He drops to one knee, skidding in the dirt. The impact jars through his knees, stealing what breath he has left, and for a moment, the world narrows down to only sound: water rushing, his own heartbeat hammering, the distant echo of shouting, screaming, wailing, that is not really there anymore.
They shouldn’t have been there. The terrain was wrong. The intelligence was worse. Orders delivered too fast, and the men that gave them, ones that would never have to walk the ground themselves, urging them onward. Jongin had known the moment his foot touched the ravine floor, but he had gone anyway because that’s what’s expected of him, no matter how tired, or scared, or — or lost he feels. He goes. It’s why he’s reached this rank. It’s his purpose.
At least, it had been up until a year ago.
His hands shake as he reaches for the fastening at his chest. Blood has dried there, tacky and stiff, resisting his fingers. Slowly, he drags the armour off with more force than care. When it finally falls away, he sways, his vision spotting at the corners.
The river surges like a stampede of feet on hard earth.
“Quiet,” he mutters, barely more than a growl. But the river ignores him.
Crawling the last distance, he plunges his entire upper half into the cold, biting water and screams into the dark, roiling river until there’s nothing left to give. It snatches the sound from him and carries it away, and when he lifts his head, red-streaked rivulets fall from his mouth and hair. Again and again and again he rinses, until his hands are numb and his forearms burn from the cold and the water runs clearer, though the stink of iron clings stubbornly to his skin. Bowing his head, he hunches his shoulders inward and, for a moment, he lets the weight of it all press down unchecked.
Faces flash behind his eyes. Names rise in his throat like bile. He swallows them back.
The absence hits him then, and he lifts his head to scan the bank automatically, already knowing what he’ll find. The flat stone is empty. Kyungsoo is not here. The knowledge settles into him with a different kind of pain, smaller than the physical gashes and bruises, but somehow more precise. He tells himself it means nothing. The man has his own life, his own work. Jongin isn’t owed this meeting any more than any other.
And yet.
He drags himself upright and stumbles over to the stone, sitting down heavily in a slump. Bracing his forearms on his thighs, he sits with is head bowed, trying to get his breathing under control, although it feels like it’s being yanked from him and there’s a strange tightness spreading through his chest.
He should leave. But he finds he can’t move.
Time stretches oddly by the river. The light changes, dulling, clouds drawing in low and sagging above him. Before long, his hands start to tremble, then shake more violently, so he clenches them, holds, and then feels something inside him finally give. A sob. Just one. But it’s deep enough to rattle his entire frame.
He should go.
But then he hears footsteps, soft and careful in their approach.
Jongin doesn’t look up; he already knows.
The presence settles beside him and warmth seeps through the thin space between them. A moment passes, long enough for Jongin to gather himself and straighten, reclaim what’s left of his composure.
Kyungsoo kneels at his side, his face dark and serious with shock and fear and what looks like anger. He takes in the blood and discarded armour, and the way Jongin’s hands shudder in his lap. Instead of asking what happened or whose blood it is, he reaches for the river, wetting a cloth — where it came from, Jongin isn’t sure, but it looks vaguely familiar — and brings it back. When he presses it to Jongin’s hands, the touch is careful but unhesitating, and Jongin realises just how firm Kyungsoo’s fingers can be.
For a terrifying moment, Jongin thinks he might break apart entirely, there on the riverbank, held by hands that ask nothing of him at all.
Without flinching, Kyungsoo cleans the remaining blood from Jongin’s skin, rinsing the cloth again and again — and Jongin finally recognises what it is. The overshirt he had given Kyungsoo a while ago. He kept it.
“Are you really here?” he asks.
Kyungsoo hesitates, then meets his eyes. “Yes, I’m here.”
“Oh,” is all Jongin can think to say. He nods because his throat feels too tight to talk further. He can’t give names, or explain the way the world went sideways, or how the ground seemed to tilt and refuse to hold as everything turned to blood and iron.
“You came back here,” Kyungsoo says, and it doesn’t sound like a question. His hands tighten briefly at Jongin’s wrists.
“Yes,” he manages. “I came back.”
Kyungsoo stays with him as the river runs past them, around them, through them, bloodless now, bearing witness without judgement. Gradually, without realising he’s doing it, Jongin leans against Kyungsoo, the line of his shoulder settling more firmly against the warm body at his side. He drifts in and out for a while. But he’s always pulled back.
And for the first time since the ravine, the weight in his chest eases just enough for him to breathe.
***
The river is low when it happens.
Kyungsoo arrives early, although he doesn’t mean to. It’s just that the thing he carries will not let him stay still or focus on anything else. He can feel it pressing against his breastbone as he walks, light and fragile and impossibly heavy at the same time. He keeps one hand folded over it, not wanting it to slip free.
The stone by the bank is cool when he sits, and he smells wet earth and crushed leaves, a sign that the season is changing again. Breathing in and out, he counts the spaces between heartbeats and listens to the river’s chatter. He tells himself, firmly, that this is foolish. Jongin might not even come today. And even if he does, this changes nothing.
But then footsteps find him without warning.
Kyungsoo looks up too quickly, the motion betraying him, and there Jongin stands — clean this time, his armour strangely absent, his hair pulled back into a neat knot at the back of his head, immaculate, really, in a way that makes Kyungsoo’s chest feel too small to hold its contents.
Relief floods through him. “Janggun-nim,” he says, rising halfway before catching himself.
“It’s Jongin,” Jongin says, almost frustrated. He lifts a hand. Stay. It’s fine.
Kyungsoo lowers himself back onto the rock.
They sit together quietly for a spell, like they usually do when they meet up. Nearby, a small bird startles from the reeds and is gone in a flash of colourful tail feathers. Kyungsoo’s fingers tighten on the fabric at his knee; he forces them to relax.
“There’s something,” he says, and then falters, the words suddenly thin and insufficient. He swallows and tries again. “I—today, I—”
Jongin frowns at him, but gives him time to organise his thoughts.
Reaching into his sleeve, Kyungsoo draws out the object he’s been carrying: a small carved piece of wood, smoothed and sealed with oil, worked into the shape of a river bird mid-turn. The lines are simple but sure, the balance just right. He holds it out, then hesitates, self-consciousness flaring too late to stop.
“It’s nothing, really,” he says quickly. “Just, someone saw my work. They asked me to make more for their household.” His voice drops. “They paid in advance.”
Jongin stares at the carved bird, and after a while Kyungsoo thinks this is a rejection. But then Jongin reaches out and takes it, turning it slowly and studying the curve of the wings, the flick of the tail. With his thumb, he traces the line where wood has been coaxed into motion.
Kyungsoo watches him, unsure what to do with his hands now that he’s given the gift and it’s been accepted.
Jongin’s expression doesn’t change at all. “This is good,” he eventually says, and as he looks up, Kyungsoo realises that no, something has changed in the other man. A small pinch at the corners of his mouth. A thick swallow, throat bobbing up and down. “You should make more.”
Something in Kyungsoo’s chest loosens, undone by the certainty. “I will.”
Jongin hasn’t lowered his voice or softened his tone; he’s spoken as he would about a weapon well-made or a strategy sound in its execution. As fact. Jongin nods once, satisfied, and returns the carving to him, and their fingers touch. It’s accidental. But it’s also everything.
Kyungsoo barely has a chance to react before he feels strong, firm fingers at his jaw. The carving slips from his hand and lands in his lap, forgotten. The river whispers. It sings. Jongin leans in, and Kyungsoo mirrors the movement before he can talk himself out of it. It isn’t the hurried, desperate kiss Kyungsoo has imagined in the dark, late at night. This is softer than he expects, and for the first time since meeting him, he senses uncertainty in Jongin. But it’s warm and firm and real, a choice made, a flow of truth that they’ve been circling for months, seasons, years. And when Kyungsoo kisses back harder, the dam bursts between them and he feels Jongin’s hand come to rest at the nape of his neck and hold tight, as if he fears he might slip into the water and be carried away. Kyungsoo won’t let that happen, so he wraps his arms around Jongin’s waist and holds him back. He feels lean muscle and the long, hard planes of bone and sinew as they pull even closer together. A soldier’s body. A dancer’s body. A body that he now knows intimately. Jongin sighs into his mouth and then there’s the slightest dampness of his tongue, skimming along Kyungsoo’s lower lip, his teeth. Kyungsoo dares to take a taste, too, awed at the small shivers that wind through Jongin as he pushes back with his own tongue. For a dizzying second, Kyungsoo is sure that the river has gone utterly still and silent.
When they pull apart, it’s only because neither of them can breathe. Kyungsoo feels too hot, even though the stone beneath him is cold. Jongin stares at him, and up this close — closer than they’ve ever been — Kyungsoo can see the lines around his eyes have grown deeper than when they first met, and there’s a scar that sits just beneath his left eyebrow, dangerously close to the lid, silvery and hiding a story that Jongin might never tell. That’s all right. Kyungsoo doesn’t need to know the details.
After a moment, Jongin turns slightly on the rock and rests his shoulder against Kyungsoo, and that is also all right. Whenever he needs to sit and be still, Kyungsoo will be here. Whenever he needs to lean a little of the weight he carries from the battlefield, Kyungsoo will be here for that, too.
The river is moving again, carrying the moment into itself, folding it away. Kyungsoo doesn’t entirely believe in magic, but somehow he knows it has noticed them.
When they leave, later, they don’t look back.
They don’t need to.
***
The letter arrives early, during practise drills. A messenger jogs up to Jongin and hands it over, bowing low before retreating. Jongin orders the men to continue without him, and goes to one side, pulling open the wax seal.
He reads the words, but they bleed together, so he re-reads them to make sure.
Reassignment.
Jongin reads it a third time. South, away from the river. Away from the valley entirely.
Effective immediately.
Had someone found out? But no, he’s sure he would have heard if there were spies or overly curious villagers with loose tongues. Folding the order neatly, he tucks it into his armour. Duties still wait, his men preparing for their next mission. Careful not to allow any changes to his posture or expression, he moves back into formation at the front of the line, and continues drills as if nothing has happened.
But that afternoon, he heads to the river. The climb up through the hills feels steeper, the terrain catching him out with loose rocks and slippery segments of grass. He curses, once, under his breath, and wipes a few beads of sweat from his brow.
Kyungsoo might not even come. They haven’t arranged anything.
When he reaches their spot, the river is higher, fed by recent rain, moving dark and fast and loud. It seems restless, agitated. Jongin stands at the bank and waits, and waits, and waits.
Kyungsoo arrives just as the light starts to fade. As always, Jongin hears his steps before he sees him, and he looks up quickly, far too quickly, before he can rein in his expression.
“What is it?” Kyungsoo asks immediately.
Pursing his mouth, Jongin gestures to the rock and they both sit. For a long while, neither speaks, the rushing water filling the quiet, but Jongin can sense the confusion and hesitation coming from the presence beside him.
“Something’s wrong,” Kyungsoo eventually says.
“I’m leaving,” Jongin says at last, unable to look at him. His words land like stones plunged into cold water, and for a moment, he thinks about the many different paths he could’ve chosen to take when he was younger, when he was still wide-eyed and curious at the world, in love with music and dancing, arts and writing, food and laughter and daydreams.
But then they would never have met, he realises, and stops the thoughts before they can continue.
“I see.” Kyungsoo doesn’t ask where or when; he closes his eyes briefly and nods once. “Yes, that’s to be expected, I suppose.” He doesn’t even sound particularly surprised, as if he’s used to things being taken away.
The truth of that hurts more than the leaving. Jongin goes to touch him, but stops. He can’t offer something that can be mistaken for a promise, because he doesn’t know what will happen or whether he’ll be able to come back.
Instead, he says, “You should keep making things.”
Kyungsoo lets out a quiet, almost-laugh. “Of course.”
“And you should keep singing,” Jongin adds. As he speaks, he watches Kyungsoo, committing the shape of him to memory: the curve of his mouth, the way he leans slightly toward the water as if listening to something only he can hear, the dark hair curling perfectly behind his ear, the roughness of his hands — there’s too much to take in. “I don’t have much time.”
He wishes there was more time.
When he rises, Kyungsoo rises with him, and Jongin takes hold of his wrist as if he might walk away. Only, he is the one walking away. When did he get so turned around?
“I understand, you know,” Kyungsoo says finally. There’s a knowing look on his face, a soft kind of certainty, so open and true it’s painful to witness. “This wasn’t your choice.”
“No.”
“You’d rather stay.”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s enough.”
It’ll never be enough. But Jongin can’t say it.
They don’t embrace or kiss again. Instead, Jongin slowly steps back, letting go of Kyungsoo’s wrist.
And then he bows, deeply, perfectly.
Kyungsoo returns it.
There’s nothing left to say, so Jongin takes his leave, climbing up the bank and away into the trees, focused on the steady swish of his armour and the flittering of birds high up in the trees.
He doesn’t look back. He can’t.
***
Years pass and very little changes, though Sehun starts working at a blacksmith forge near the market road, coming home each evening smelling of smoke and iron, his hands and cheeks darkened with soot. His questions about older brother Junmyeon are less often these days. Then they soften into quieter mentions. Eventually, they become something else — a pause at the doorway whenever a rider passes through the village, a glance toward the hills when the wind comes in from the west.
One thing that never changes is the river.
It’s quiet, many of the birds having already headed south. Kyungsoo spots a few of them darting under the clouds, little dark arrows against the white. He keeps working. Sometimes he sings when the air is clear and no one is near enough to hear him. The notes are fuller now, truer.
One evening, as the light thins and the mist gathers low across the bend, Kyungsoo sits with a half-finished carving resting on his knee. The wood is smooth beneath this thumb. It’s a river bird again; he finds he returns to that shape often.
He doesn’t look up when he hears the sound of shifting pebbles. The water moves the terrain all the time; it’s nothing unusual.
He continues carving.
More movement nearby, but the landscape has fooled him before. Wind in the reeds, sounding like shins passing through, a stray animal shadow catching at the corner of his eyes, his own imagination.
“Kyungsoo.”
Kyungsoo stills, the knife slipping from his fingers as the air changes. He lifts his gaze.
A man stands on the opposite bank, tall and broad and yet lithe and graceful. Fine silver threads the dark hair at his temples, and the lines around his eyes are deeper now. But the posture, the movements — Kyungsoo recognises them immediately. There are fresh scars, some old, some newer, but he isn’t wearing armour today.
Slowly, Kyungsoo rises to his feet, leaving the wooden bird on the rock.
And then, without hurry, as if crossing a path long remembered, Jongin steps into the water.