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A step back takes Chung Myung past a swinging sword. He draws his blade forward. Blood splatters across his face as he takes off the arm of a man and the leg of another.
Chung Myung’s gaze ricochets about the battlefield. He digs his toes into the ground before he lunges, sword gripped loosely yet steadily as it carves a winding path through flesh and bone. A torrent of blood tails him. He leaps into the air and takes a dozen heads with him.
He casts a look over his shoulder.
His elegant yet keen blade catching the dying sun, Baek Cheon’s voice echoes throughout the air, piercing past the clash of metal and mayhem.
Yu Iseol threads her way through the battlefield. Blood has long since stained her path, but her feet remain solid even if she’s light in her step.
Chung Myung strides past a spear. A current of plum blossoms carries along his sword.
The crest of the mountain swallows up the sun, casting shadows over the forest. The moon looks down. A chilling wind runs its way through Chung Myung’s hair, pulling away drops of blood. Out of the corner of his eye, Jo Gul tears his way through the battlefield, Yoon Jong at his flank, cautious and grounded.
The kids are holding up well.
Their blades are fixed, their breaths are focused, and their posture does not waver. Their roots do not shake.
Chung Myung, wielding his sword in the eye of the storm, finds pride blooming in his chest.
Past the splice of blades and spill of blood, he hears a click.
Chung Myung stills.
Then again, past the collapse of bodies and cries of battle, there’s another.
Then another.
And another.
Chung Myung counts twenty clicks before the sound stops. He billows out his blade, encircling himself in a squall of plum blossoms. His gaze falls to the side. Then, it rises.
High up the trees, under the blanket of the night and pale of the moon, a shine of metal catches his eye.
“Fire!”
From behind the sheath of dark leaves, a shower of spears covers the skies, hurtling downward.
Chung Myung roots himself to the ground. He draws his sword back, letting out a low breath and relaxing his grip—
And then, his heart hitches.
His eyes widen.
Because he’s looking up at the sky, and there’s only ten spears set on him.
Twenty clicks.
In the corner of his eye, Chung Myung finds the other ten—and Baek Cheon has only just looked up.
The spears are falling.
Baek Cheon’s sword is halfway up.
He’s too late.
Chung Myung isn’t.
Spears rip through his body—two in and out his shoulder, one by his liver, his kidney—thigh—spine.
Someone screams.
Chung Myung barely hears it. His tongue tastes of iron. There’s something warm soaking his skin. And he looks down at Baek Cheon and sees everyone he has ever lost.
Red pools by his fingers.
“—Myung!”
A glance down tells him Baek Cheon is unharmed. His blue eyes are blown wide. His hands are moving; he’s yelling something. And he’s unharmed. And something so soft swells up in Chung Myung’s chest that it hurts—
—and in the moment, he thinks, laughing blood and relief,
Kids these days. I won’t always be here to look after you.
The world nearly stops.
“Chung Myung-ah!”
“—Oh my god."
The world nearly stops, but it can’t, because the war rages on and the disciples of Mount Hua Sect can’t even spare a breath to feel.
There’s warm blood dripping onto Baek Cheon’s face.
“C-Chung Myung.”
“...Damn.”
Around them lies a circle of broken bodies and fallen swords. In the corner of his eye, his Sahyungs are fighting tooth and nail to defend them, and Baek Cheon can only focus on one thing.
He lifts his hands—shaking, stop shaking, damn it—as he watches blood drip off the spears threaded through Chung Myung’s body.
Red on his teeth. Red on his lips. Red eyes, which are so often of amusement, have glazed over. With a voice so quiet it barely sounds belonging, Chung Myung says to him—and perhaps, to himself, “I’ve gotten too soft… haven’t I?”
Baek Cheon’s voice dies in his throat.
Chung Myung rises without a stagger, soaked black locks swaying by his face. He reaches behind and pulls out a spear. Then another. And another. Each one he tears out is accompanied by a sickly sound, and Baek Cheon watches in horror.
“So-so,” Baek Cheon whispers. His voice rises into a cry. “Where is So-so—”
Twenty clicks echo through the air once again.
“Fire! Finish off the Divine Dragon!”
Chung Myung picks up his sword. He turns. He says, “The battle isn’t over yet, Sasuk.”
Spears plunge from the sky with a deathly whistle. The wind gives no heed. With the edge of his sword, steady and soft, Chung Myung carves plum blossoms from iron-stained air. Their hue is a different kind of crimson.
Wood splinters. Metal clatters. The spears shred to pieces before they even have a chance.
Chung Myung’s fingers ghost over his wounds, and one by one, little by little, they stop bleeding. Scarlet has long since stained his uniform. It’s nothing new. But this time, it’s Chung Myung’s blood, and Baek Cheon’s stomach turns.
When Chung Myung walks forward, Baek Cheon climbs to his feet and reaches out to him. “Chung Myung!”
“Sasuk, pick up your sword.”
“What?”
Chung Myung’s voice, distant and detached, pierces through the noise of battle. He looks over his shoulder. His red eyes catch the moon as he says, “Take a breath. Loosen your grip, and steady your feet. You can’t falter now.”
Only then does Baek Cheon look around him. His eyes widen. His hand falls.
The disciples of Mount Hua are being pushed back. Their breaths have become gasps. Their swords are clasped so tightly their fingers are pale. With a single swing of their sword, their foundations shake, and everything is falling.
Baek Cheon’s eyes find Chung Myung’s.
“I won’t die that easily,” Chung Myung says, smiling at him despite everything—gaze softening in a way that cannot be described in words. “What, you want me dead that badly?”
When Chung Myung begins to walk forward once more, Baek Cheon doesn’t stop him.
Instead, Baek Cheon takes up his sword. He feels for his fingers. His blade answers his call.
Baek Cheon breaks out into a run, taking the head of a man, then the arm of another. He swallows the hitch in his breath. “Jo Gul! Yoon Jong! Assist the right! Yu Iseol, support the left!”
“Yes!”
And finally, as he calms the stumble in his heartbeat, he yells out to the shaken, to the world, and, ultimately, to himself, “Take a breath. Loosen your grip. Steady your feet! That stubborn bastard couldn’t even die if he wanted to!”
“Why aren’t you angry?”
Chung Myung gives a slight tilt of his head, bringing his leg up and over the other. Slowly, a grin carves itself into his face. “Oh, does Sasuk want to be beaten up?”
Baek Cheon nearly slams the infirmary door shut. Instead, his fingers pull at the wood. His heart thuds against his ribs. His mouth is dry, and something sickly festers within his lungs until he’s struggling to breathe.
“Don’t get carried away,” Baek Cheon starts. “Don’t get too excited,” he continues. “You’ve said those things who knows how many times and yet, I still…” He glances at Chung Myung, wrapped in bandages for wounds never meant for him. He clenches his hands to hide their tremble. “It was me who should have—”
“If you finish that sentence, I’ll really get mad.”
Baek Cheon flinches.
Chung Myung stares at him, eyes held blank and lips in a thin line. His shoulders are relaxed. His palms are open. The echo of his voice settles into the room with a tone so empty, you would think no one had spoken at all.
“It was my fault,” Baek Cheon whispers.
Chung Myung studies him for a moment before he settles with a sigh. “You’re right on the matter of how I’d beat you up if you got carried away, and I’d string you to the mountain and leave you hanging there if you got too excited. Thing is, you didn’t.” Chung Myung meets Baek Cheon’s gaze and holds it still. “There will always be things that you haven’t prepared for, and all you can do is the best you can do.”
The next breath Baek Cheon takes is light—level. It almost comes out as a laugh, because trust Chung Myung to say such words so bluntly.
Chung Myung huffs. “Anyways, you need to be humbled here and there, so don’t get too hung up about it. Not everyone can be like me—Sasuk, why are you pulling out your sword?”
“It’s a reflex.” He lets his blade slide back into its sheath. “You were doing so well until that last part.”
Chung Myung grins.
Baek Cheon can’t help but try a smile of his own.
He can’t keep it up for long.
Because in his lungs, something so cruel and palpable continues to fester, and the pang in his chest rises up once more to rip that smile off his face.
“Chung Myung,” he says, heat kindling in his stomach. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“Now you’re telling me what to do, Dongryong?”
Baek Cheon twitches. His chest grows tighter, and the air thins, but he pushes on, digging crescents into his palms. “I know you have always been watching over us—”
“I have, haven’t I?”
The searing heat in his stomach flares up and through his skin because the next second, Baek Cheon’s yelling, “Chung Myung, you almost died because of me!”
The grin falls.
Baek Cheon’s eyes are burning. His throat is hoarse. His lip is trembling because the moment keeps playing over and over again in his head. Baek Cheon can barely breathe.
The cold ground against his back.
The warm blood dripping on his face.
Chung Myung, leaning over him with six spears riddled through his small body, a laugh from his mouth and unsheltered relief in his eyes.
“How could you—”
“I knew I would survive that.”
Baek Cheon’s eyes widen. They refocus past the blur, and he looks up.
Chung Myung looks back at him, expression as unreadable as it has always been, but maybe this is what his vulnerability has always looked like. “But I didn’t know if you could, and I couldn’t take that chance.”
Baek Cheon stumbles. His feet are still, but something in his chest lurches. It blooms alongside the heaviness between his ribs; it lightens the weight. His next breath comes easy.
Chung Myung is not someone who worries foolishly; it’s an emotion Baek Cheon has never seen on his face.
But during that battle, when Baek Cheon raised his sword only to realise he wouldn’t make it in time, Chung Myung was there—with an expression he thought he would never see.
He never wants to see it again.
There’s blood in his mouth and resolution in his soul. He finds his voice—he finds his words. “Then, I’ll get stronger.” He meets Chung Myung’s gaze straight on, and says, like there is no truth in the world other than this, “So no one has to do that for me ever again.”
A smile settles itself on Chung Myung’s lips. “Well said.”
Baek Cheon smiles back at him.
Hopping off the bed and stretching out his arms, Chung Myung begins cracking his knuckles. His smile contorts into a grin, white-toothed and all.
The room seems to darken even as afternoon sunlight spills through the window.
Baek Cheon’s stomach drops.
“Then,” Chung Myung starts as he approaches, his every step echoing through the earth, “how about some one-on-one training, Sasuk?”
Baek Cheon’s out the door the next second.
He doesn’t make it far.