Screams burst lungs with failing air. The ringing pleas in the middle of the chaos linger in the air even after sounds have died out, attacking him with invisibility and strong demands for him to listen docilely. The snarling against his throat leaves his entire self wishing that he just would have bent to the first words of warnings. But somewhere in between the crackling nerves, he still finds the excitement to brush the surface with its uneven fizzling.

"You lied to me.."

The boy feels the words brush against his neck as it motions his hair a little forward to fall down in his eyes. He wets his lips in anticipation of the hands slowly slithering down his arms, "I did not," Yeosang answers with a hoarse tone to his voice. And then the hands fasten around his wrists, nearly pushing the sword out of his hand at the strong pull. Jongho does not say anything when he forces him out of the inn. They step across the amounts of blood spilled on the floor and Yeosang adverts his bloodred orbs a last time around at the fallen bodies among distorted limbs and flesh. Not a single heart is alive inside any ribcage anymore.

Rough hands tear the boy out of his overflooding senses and Jongho growls at him while pushing him through the door.

"You killed the last ones," Yeosang voices at the notice, but the knight does not seem any delighted at his statement, no, instead his expression only tightens as his hands do, "I did, so that no one would be an eyewitness to what has happened here. Although it seems like some still managed to flee. Now walk, we have to come as far away from here as possible before they send anyone to catch us."

Light is caught in his face, raw rays shining into his eyes and he turns his head to glance at the way it makes the fresh blood glisten macabrely in Jongho's face. If Yeosang's hands hadn't been so tightly held on his back, he would have reached out to caress Jongho's cheek, perhaps to soothe the other's anger in his eyes. But Yeosang can only look at him from the corners of his eyes, letting the harsh stare overlook him as he is pushed further forward to the building where they left their horses the prior day.

The door is violently swung open, startling the animals inside greatly. Jongho ignores it all, his eyes focused on something that Yeosang cannot seem to figure out what is. Not that it matters anyway, he thinks, when he is pressed up against wooden boards before the other let go of him to equip their horses with whatever he can find in the small stable. Jongho bustles around, pulling things from sloping wooden posts and grand nails as he manages to finish not very much later. Yeosang has not dared move away from his spot, at least not until the knight started fixing his eyes in the direction at him. Scuttling around, he inserts his sword into the sheath, pulls the reins out of Jongho's hand and they are off to go.

The streets are slowly filling with bustling village people which makes it harder to hide their stained attires in the still-growing daylight. Although they are keeping their distance at the sight of the fierce warriors, it is still that a child is running away, most likely to inform the parents of the odd passerbys.

Yeosang glances to the side, but without a reciprocated eye, the other knight nudges his horse to trot down the way across the muddy cobblestones and the boy follows his demeanor to escape the village as soon as possible. There is no doubt that Jongho must have heard what the inn owner told Yeosang before he killed him, for Jongho knows exactly where they are going. And Yeosang cannot stop thinking of how many times the knight has been thrown commands he was forced to attend. He sighs and looks down at his hands. They are red and stained - it is only a matter of time before the gnawing guilt will get to him.

Soon each building has a longer gap to the next one, making places for smaller trees and plants to grow against the walls. The boy gazes around when the cobblestones beneath them fade too, and there beyond the slope of the hill, he sees what the inn owner hadn't been lying about. North he thinks, looking over at Jongho's back who works his horse's movements like a flowing river, so natural.

_____

The dried blood on his skin has started to itch, and Yeosang has spent the majority of the ride scratching the flakes off his hands. He does not know when they will have the opportunity to switch their clothing, but he hopes that Wooyoung will be in their favor.

At the thought of the name, the boy raises his head upon the tall trees, trying to see through the dense layers of leaves. He has not seen him for so long time that he wonders if the other has changed more than he remembers. Does he still wear his attires loose and untidied like a young lad who could care less about his appearance, body slim and sly, eyes glinting with so much trouble which could have one stop up and think of how charming a smile he had. Yeosang is thinking while not being aware of how sharply his fangs are drilling down into his lip. Eyes being so distant he barely even notices how the other is trotting away from him again, his mind then landing on the single question if Wooyoung has found his true meaning with life, a thing he remembers the younger one always has been so certain on finding when the time would come.

Suddenly the boy's eyes flick to the sound of hooves down the little slope as he perceives how the knight is escaping him. "Jongho wait!" he yells as he gathers the reins in his hands yet again and tells Harmony forward with a firm nudge with his heels. His horse leaps forward at the command, legs setting off against the ground as they gallop after the other pair who all too quickly disappear in between the trees. White and black flash around his head as they pass up another hill filled with birches. Yeosang's thoughts are rolling around, currently tumbling down again as his body is led in the other direction. An annoyance bubbling up from his insides makes him scream the other to stop, while the substrate underneath him turns into a cramped layer of bushes and rotten tree trunks.

His eyes are caught on Jongho as he sees how the experienced knight leads his horse through every obstacle, and he tries to follow in his footsteps, unfortunately only for him to get trapped behind the trees. Yeosang's horse brakes hard and Yeosang, who is not at all prepared, flies out of the saddle and hits the ground with a heavy thump. His hands scrape across the soiled ground before he lets his forehead down when feeling an immense pain pinning down in the left side of his ribs. The boy lets out a loud groan, eyebrows gathered as he ends up hissing down into the dirt as he splutters with burning anger.

The crunching sound of boots moving across the ground comes behind him and suddenly, a weight presses down on his back and Yeosang growls: "Do not touch me!" when his limp body is manhandled around and his eyes come to stare into two flaring red ones. But Jongho ignores his threatening words and presses him further down into the soil, his clothes stained with the musky scent of earth.

"I told you to let go of me!!" he hisses with the madness of his showing teeth turned at the other vampire who holds his wrists from moving anywhere with his strength made out of pure steel. The boy kicks helplessly with his feet now that Jongho's steel-gripping hands hold his arms down by his sides, hissing until strings of spit stick to his lips.

Yeosang can feel how every hair on his body raises at the way the other trails his courtesy down every inch of him, freezing his acts for the hot moment of hands grasping his chin and then clenching hard. Jongho's eyes are dark and there is no doubt that he is fuming, more than what he did at the inn. The longer Yeosang stares at him, the more the icky dark substance flows with his veins, threading under his skin up his arms until he can feel how every one of his fingers throbs with the foulness. Rough hands force it into his throat as he chokes on his unliving breath.

Right above him, Jongho has never resembled anything as freakish as now, having something terrifying trickling down the corner of his mouth. Yeosang trembles, but he cannot tell if it is out of anticipation or raw dread. "Your mouth is full of sins," Jongho asseverates cogently, his head lowering, painfully pulling the time to last longer as Yeosang's senses prick him everywhere that the other's fingers crawl on him.

"My actions are as well," the boy bites back.

His arms are strained, pushed so hard into the earth that his fingers start to disappear in layers of soil while the knight presses his entire weight down onto him. Sneering rumbles against his chest, though layers of clothes embrace him. Yeosang wants nothing more than to throw him over and sink his teeth into his throat.

From the shadows of his eyesight the knight's fangs are glinting in the dim light dipping against his neck, a cold breath fans against the shell of his sensitive ear, threading further into his mind, "Indeed they are, but that does not mean that you are granted permission to do whatever pleases you. Yeosang," he breathes huskily...

"Have you forgotten about your morals?"

Yeosang writhes in the soil, his chest hurts as if his unmoving heart has decided to come back to life, trashing his insides with terror and so much veracity. Ruined and wrecked, the truthness of Jongho's words cuts right into his flesh as predicted from the knight's immaculateness he always has been admired for. Yeosang already knows that he is a monster, so how can it be that the impact still emerges through flaws, he ponders aggressively while straining his head back.. He is no more the same boy who came to the fortress beyond scared of what would be the future of him. Now, he is a man stained with lifelong sins of infernal conductions that never will be forgiven nor will they be forgotten. For he shall live with those until the world's last breath.

His red-flaring eyes turn to look into the other's glaring expression and his movements instantly go limp as he speaks, "I am my own person, and you shall not tell me what to do and what to not. If I want to kill, then I go kill. And you should not be blaming me for my bloody acts because I am already insane, a dangerous being to humankind, and I do not care. I have been ill-treated all of my life, succumbed to the wicked hands of my father, then sent away to be cleansed and forgiven by the grace of God, because he saw me kissing a man! And now, that I finally am free of those horrendous tortures, do you really dare tell me to spare the life of God's believing people - those who caused me so much pain!?" The boy's lips are spread in a mocking grin, unbelieving of his own silly tone. He hears a faint version of his name caught in Jongho's mouth. "No, keep it to yourself! This is a war against humanity, however, they can try to kill me all they want, but they must know that I already died hundreds of times."

"Jongho," he says when tears are prickling in his eyes, and the deepest part of him wants nothing more than to reach out and gather the knight's harsh features in his hands, smooth them out with his thumbs, "I fear that you do not understand my stirring emotions."

For a moment, the only thing he can hear is the rustling wind caught in the trees' branches. Jongho's eyes do never seem to change, on the contrary, his gaze freeze, making a pang of unease run through his system.

"Alright." The knight's answer is short and Yeosang anticipates a flow of a continuation, but that never comes. Instead, he feels the ease of weight from his body, quietly observing how Jongho raises himself up from the ground, becoming farther and farther away until he disappears between the birches. And Yeosang cannot stop thinking about what the other means with that.

Huffing in pain, he pushes his body up to sit. Given the great effort he puts in it, he is able to get up, although there is no doubt that he has broken a few ribs. His hands are trembling but far from enough to hinder him from brushing most of the leaves and sticks off his clothing.

Harmony is standing not far away from his spot, enthusiastic gnawing on a raspberry bush. But Jongho is nowhere to be found, and the miss has Yeosang's mood sour the more time passes. After feeling as if breaking his entire ribcage, the boy finally mounts his destrier again, although with his nails digging down into his thighs while praying for the aching to soothe quicker than it does.

The rhythm of his horse's movements makes it sting, but the boy bites down on his lip as he gathers the reins at the flick that Harmony does with his head, realising that his companion has left them. Yeosang nudges him forward, but still with a strong grip on his head, not interested in having his horse uncontrollable run off. Then he set for the trail again, reminding himself of the inn owner's words. When the density of trees starts to thin out, steer toward east. Yeosang leans back as they descend the long slope, eventually reaching the end of it. The boy's eyes seek the terrain around him, following the streaming water with his eyes until the knight's figure appears in the distance. Pursing his lips, he follows in the same direction, hoping that they are on the right track.

_____

What words will he convey if he meets any related blood and flesh again? The question contains hollow answers that ring in his head and the sound grows worse the closer they are east. He feels the immense weight pull at him again, a weight that he has nearly forgotten in the time he has been gone. Yeosang knows that his father cannot hurt him anymore, and yet the statement will never leave out the 'but'.

The discomfort of his pressed ribs has dulled the further they have traveled, now he only feels the small pricks now and then. Yeosang sighs but the amount of air is far too quickly pulled out of his lungs again when they top the hill they have been climbing. Yeosang's eyes go to glance at the knight, noticing how he has stopped as well. The different eyes draw over the scenery with an indefinable facial story, making the boy's feet grow cold in his boots.

Suddenly, his vision blurs and he chokes on his gasp the same way he feels a part of himself die another time. What..?

Yeosang has no notion as to why or how or what has happened, he is far from even knowing if what his eyes bring him to see is the slightest of real. His stalled self forces him to go further, letting his horse continue through the ground covered in soot as the thoughts stumble around in his head far beyond crossing the line where it hurts. The essence of breathing is quickening its pace in his breast, filling his lungs with nothing but the desperation of knowing the answer to his eyesight.

Walls of stone lie in ruins, parts burnt to ashes while posts are broken over charred furniture and other scattered objects. The former great building has burned down to nothing, and all signs of life have perished. The only thing revealing it once was alive being the smouldering creaks underneath the still warm stones. Yeosang's childhood home is gone. The boy gazes around the place, watching how smoke blends in the wind, coming from every once tall standing building. It colours a painting of their own painful death.

"We came too late," Jongho's voice trails off, and Yeosang sees how even the knight is fiddling with the reins between his fingers, for this place reeks only such intense discomfort. The boy pinches his eyes close, but even with the missing sight he still sees the panic in burning flames licking up against the proud walls, wiping out all and everything. The servants running bewildered with sloshing water in buckets, doing their best to save the grounds from the grasp of the devil. People are screaming with desperation and pleas when they become trapped in the heat engulfing them, raw flesh smelling burnt and cooked in pourings of tears with salt. When the last survivors figure out that the place is not to keep, they scramble against the ground, tears and frightened gazes seeing how destruction abuses in front of them as they run out of the immense clouds of smoke hanging in the air and never will return again.

Yeosang feels like crying when he swings himself out of the saddle and lands on the sweated grass. His hands are trembling as he bears the heavy smell against his face. Only now his sharp gaze perceives the dead bodies laying scattered around on the ground and he dares not think of how many have died in the fire. People he has known. A hand rather lightly places on his shoulder, a thumb swiping along the beginning of his arm as he takes in the remains of his home.

"My parents must be dead," he whispers with barely any strength in his voice. As if he is afraid of telling it out loud. Despite every torture they have forced him through, it is no pleasant feeling on his tongue. The knight on his side is too late to catch him when the weight of his legs becomes too heavy for him to detain, and Yeosang falls to his knees, a foreign air pressing against his chest while he does not breathe. "I am sorry, so sorry.." He is being embraced, cheek pressing tight into fabrics as a hand smoothes out his hair with the warm heart of comfort. All quarrels between them are forgotten. Suddenly saltwater is running in between his lightly parted lips and the odd taste on his flavoury tastebuds has his mind stop spinning around in the great world and realise. His eyebrows tense against Jongho's shirt when he mumbles sadly, "What is happening with me?"

The arms around his frame are firm yet so homely. Jongho is only staying like this without inbreathing any new suggestions to his query. How does he deserve this, the boy heavily ponders midst in all madness of thoughts. The way he has been acting up, the amount of blood sprayed across the ground and teeth digging into flesh despite what warnings he has been given; and Jongho still wants to hold him like this - as if he is the most precious thing he could ever keep from any harm. Then he stumbles across the last remains of hope - he has to go, he has to keep on looking, for survivors, for anything not burnt alive.

His sudden movements startle everything around them, causing ripples to tear through the air and hindering the knight from reacting all instantly when Yeosang pulls out of his hold with strong determination. The boy steps up from the ground, wobbling a few meters on his legs when he takes his guard forward to the crumbled awe dreading the grounds with piles of ruins. His mind is running wild, staggering like he is out of breath every few times the thoughts are stuck in the same place for a mere moment before going back to the wrong pathway through his brain. Yeosang presses his feet on top of the piles, feeling how his soles sink down into the filthy layers before groping across the ground with large imprecisity. Nictating his eyes through the ruins, his hands grasp at the last remaining stones and press the surface so hard he can feel the heat burn marks on his palms. A seizing of hands feels around his fragile heart as he stumbles through the ashes of a world that starts to blind him with disturbed peace.

He needs to find him before he is gone too. He needs to find Wooyoung.

"Yeosang!! Please come back!"

The boy has nothing else running his body than the strong want to find the neighborhood's charming boy who has had such importance to his dainty self. The cloak around his shoulders swirls in the catching wind as he runs off, his feet pressing down into the half-faded hoofprints in the mudded pathway away from the property.

The route is familiar to him as if his legs carry him the entire way past the many constructions parting the view over the meadows to the close Lord Jung's properties. Somewhere behind, a faint yelling tells him to wait but he is already set on finding Wooyoung. Before it is too late.

He barely has enough time now. Not when he already is too late.

A similar blow of smoke envelopes the branches of drooping trees, and Yeosang can only imagine what is happening. A gasp slips from his lips when his dead breath throws his body out of balance. His world does not move when his limp body harshly falls to the ground in midst of his desperation of finding the one who implanted life in his miseries. Yeosang's fingers curl around himself as he presses onto the prior hurt ribs while he is thinking of nought.

Soon his frame rolls around on the ground, and worried orbs stare down at him, though Yeosang only sees the splotches of dark features when his eyes are filled with tears. No words need to be shared between them while Jongho dries more of the fleeting drops away from the corners of his eyes.

Yeosang does not have to see more. The Jung's property has burnt too.

The knight lifts him into his strong arms and Yeosang lets his forehead lean against the crook of his neck, heavily. The sweetness lull of streaming blood fills his senses and the boy inhales the scent while his fangs grow. He cannot feel anything but be more downhearted the more his urges swallow around his good mind. If not for the slight squeeze from Jongho's hands around him, Yeosang would have been far gone. . Sharply, the boy closes his eyes to the sound of rustling leaves moving under the knight's boots.

They moved further into the forest where any passerby would not see them. Around them, darkness awakes as the day's last amounts of light dwindle. Jongho places Yeosang down against a broad tree, a hand trailing along his jaw to hold his head as he makes sure that the boy has not fallen asleep when he leaves him to go fetch their horses and bind them by the trees around them. Yeosang's gleaming eyes stare around in the darkness of fall while his hands swipe around his waist and unbuckle the tight corset with displeasure, throwing it somewhere away from him. He wishes that his thoughts would be just as easy to get rid of.

His nose perks at the blow of wind curling around him, but Yeosang coerces his senses to dwell. He is determined not to give in to the absentity of heart-warming comfort. Especially when Jongho crouches down a few steps in front of him. He bites his lip, furiously, the more he wants to give him the tiniest of a glance - just a mere flick with his swollen eyes where he will see the finest silhouette of his brave knight. Yeosang curses himself and desperately grabs a loose thread from his trousers that he starts pulling at. No, Jongho does not deserve his fondness after what he has been telling him about lost morals and wrongness and.. Yeosang stalls in his thread of thoughts. His eyes are distant when something kisses down his lower lip with the pureness of the littlest pressure, gradually pressing harder and harder until hundreds of needles are pricking holes into the rough surface. He is ashamed; of his actions and his way of behaving; his thoughts and running feelings that Yeosang never seems to be able to control. His father would have hit him so hard in his face that other people would not have to question what had happened to him, and the pure sight would have brought his dearest mother to turn a cold shoulder at him, ignoring the fact that he is her only son. An utter disgrace to the name of the family. His heart is unfairly filled with stones.

Then later, when he would escape his father's properties for the night, his trembling legs would carry him down the slope to the hut by the trickling stream, and hide there until the pain would go away. Yeosang's tear-stained face buried in the softness of piles of blankets would look up at the hissing sound of the door opening. Then, his glistening deep brown eyes would meet with Wooyoung's growing expression when he would see the purple marks beaten into his frail face. Wooyoung would curse the nastiest words at Yeosang's father for how he had been treating his own son as his gentle hands would smooth around the boy's shaking being as he pulled him into his embrace. He would let the boy cry into his shirt for how long he felt that he needed, fingers slipping into his own as he rested his chin on Yeosang's shoulder. Wooyoung would be his safe space, softly breathing words of reassurance into his ear and telling him that nothing was wrong with him feeling emotions so strongly and delicately. That Yeosang was perfect as how he was, and that Wooyoung always would cherish him for being that honest.

His head has fallen down caged between his chest and knees, Yeosang realises when goosebumps stretch across his skin with its cold licking. It hurts when pain skins him alive in the scorching candour drilling right into his unwell heart. Yeosang does not want to face the truth when his entire life has depended so much on the younger boy's caring nature - especially not for Yeosang is unable to even believe that Wooyoung outwardly must be dead.

"Forgive me, Wooyoung," the boy barely whispers when the words seem to stick his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Yeosang stares down into a pattern on his clothes, tears dripping from his face again. His mind shows him no mercy when the phrase stands so evidently that he turns his contorted face away from himself, forcing it out into the darkness.

Sweltering hotness suddenly swells in his throat and clenched fists pounds down into the ground, jousting his own grief. Before he gets to any other harmful act, Jongho grabs his wrists and makes him still his full courtesy at him instead of beating himself to the accidents. "Yeosang," he says sternly and the boy wants him to pull him in closer even if he mostly feels like spitting the knight in the face where they currently sit. "What?" he snarls, snot and tears still running down his face. Jongho sighs, a sound so stomach-achingly that he feels his insides churn and he only hates himself a little more. "You must stop running anymore and face reality instead. We do not know who has died in the fire and who has escaped alive," the knight continues sympathetically with a softer tone to his voice, "If Wooyoung have escaped the fire, where do you think he would run to?"

Jongho is right, but Yeosang's stubbornness clouds his senses of intellect for a moment more, and he scowls at the other. Until everything hits him at once.

"The small hut by the stream, Wooyoung would definitely be hiding there." Jongho pulls them both to stand, letting Yeosang's hands grasp at his shoulders when his shaking legs barely keep him upright. "Alright, then let us search the hut before making any assumptions."

Quietly, the pair leaves their horses in the forest while Yeosang leads them both down to the trickling water where he knows the hut will be. The place seems oddly desolated as if the forest's life has fled the area. Yeosang forces the trails of memories away when Jongho lets him walk to the small building and open the door by himself, but he also knows that the knight uses his free hands to hold around the handle of his sword, untrusting of this place. Yeosang feels as if walking on shells - all his senses tense at the smallest movements around him while he places a foot onto the wooden boards. A strange emptiness envelopes his being the more steps he takes. No one is here. Jongho places a hand around his waist when Yeosang feels like giving up entirely.

Soullessly he drags his eyes across the room, seeing how a streak of moonlight shines in through the crooked window. He trails along the strip of light until he comes to rest his sight at a small folded piece of paper, hidden underneath one of the loose boards.

⚔︎