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A gaze was all it took as a reminder.
The child's eyes were sharp, defiant. Not quite against him, and not quite threatening either if one considered the state the child's body was in.
But was it because Cale hadn't been particularly on guard? Was it because the world had changed and he had believed the odor of blood would as well?
Records had emerged then, sharp and unforgiving, though the familiarity of it all was welcoming in itself.
Raon, a four year old dragon. A child who knew of the breath he held but not of the sky overhead.
Kim Rok Soo had been a coward, through and through.
The child had defied and kept the bundle of dignity close to his heart, closer than ever. Kim Rok Soo had sold it himself. He had smiled as he had made the deal, the edges cracked but never falling.
Cale wondered, even after months had passed, after the child had long lost the sharpness in his gaze. Innocence remained now, a childish curiosity, and a freedom that the redhead liked to record more often that he would admit.
It would've been too late, had he made even a single mistake.
It was never too late for Kim Rok Soo.
The trash always remained, in the tepid corners of a forlorn room, sinking and adrift at the same time. There had been no defiance in his gaze. Only despair, and perhaps hunger as well.
But the child was his responsibility now, and Cale didn't prefer indulging in such thoughts, not at all.
"Raon."
Still, still.
Where exactly did the difference lay?
Was fear something one was born with, the rush of adrenaline yet the powerlessness to move their own limbs as if injected in their veins?
Cale didn't know.
He knew he was a coward. It had always been like that. He didn't hesitate to turn his back and run, he didn't move away from his spot when the door was left open one too many times, the tick of a clock so sharp he could feel each microsecond scrape against his skin.
Raon wasn't like that.
"Come here."
The child with blue, pure eyes wasn't so afraid, and neither was he helpless.
Cale supposed it was good enough.
His own inability hardly mattered.
The sting remained, but that didn't change the smile directed at him, and the rush of a breeze that was only comfortable.
"Human!"