Truth

Kyungsoo remembered very clearly being 14 years old and confused.

He was aware on some level what were the ordinary habits and stories of young children, of the finger-painted hearts made in kindergarten, the innocent third-grade crushes, the constant stream of birthday parties, the first fallen baby tooth. He had studied these and tried to understand, to imagine that in some other life he had done such things, but always he knew his own childhood remained stubbornly smooth and blank. In his heart of hearts, he toyed with the idea of a mother baking him a cake, covered in candles, just for him, of childhood friends who’d walked to school with him, of his first love being a girl with long straight black hair tied with a white ribbon. But these were only ideas, cobbled together from the books he’d read and things he had heard, and he could only know them in the detached manner of an outsider.

He had never, and never would experience these falsified memories, and they remained as foreign to him as the names Portugal and Colombia and South Africa in his grandmother’s morning paper.

Still – a part of him, perhaps naïve and idealistic, had held onto the idea. That out there was someone, anyone really, who had waited for him all these years, ready to open their arms to him, and it would be as if he’d never left.

As he stumbled out into the bright sunshine, all he could think of was that foolish childhood wish. It had given him a sort of meaning, a sort of purpose. A happy ending he could earn. Now what was there? Kyungsoo could think of nothing. He had lost Suho, perhaps forever. He had burned so much of that bridge, to the only person who had actually considered him family. He felt sick. God, he needed to see Suho, needed to speak to him - but what could he say? He had created so much friction between them that he didn't know if he could articulate the fact that he needed someone in that moment, desperately. 

Nobody waiting for him aside from this King, watching them always in the shadows, and there could be no riding triumphantly off into the sunset there.

So this was what Baekhyun had been reduced to: without allies, powerless and alone, seeking only to destroy his former ruler. He could not imagine a world where Baekhyun could ever emerge from the situation happy. He squinted in the sunlight, the nausea making his stomach churn. 

He felt scrapped clean, walking blankly down the potholed road that led back towards the town. Now and again, a few trucks would pass by, goods they carried across Korea rattling. Kyungsoo stopped for a moment on that road, staring out towards the endless tarmac, dotted by trees and farmland, over and over, on and on, and felt profoundly small and insignificant. To these truck drivers, he was only scenery. He rested his hand on a crooked sign that showed the number of kilometres to the next major area, noting that their town wasn’t even listed on it. To Yulhee and him, it was their entire world, but it was nothing in the grand scheme of things. 

Yulhee… How could he tell her? She had come to him and stayed because she wanted to find her blood family. Once she discovered that there was no one waiting for her, then she might leave and return to her old life as though this had all been a dream. He was not so confident to believe that she would maintain her friendship with him, especially if she wanted to regain her family’s trust. He wouldn't blame her for it, nor hold it against her; he understood, but it didn't mean he wanted that outcome. Not to mention it would crush her entirely, and he wanted to spare her that sort of pain.

He frowned at his own tho