When you feel my heat,
look into my eyes -
It’s where my demons hide.

- Demons, Imagine Dragons

In reality only two hours had passed, but in their minds a lifetime had already been wasted. They had been walking for an eternity towards an end no one could see, running away from the only life they knew towards one they must yet own. Hunger was in every shadow creeping beside them on the dry, barren ground; despair was a familiar face, a constant companion in their endless odyssey.

Indeed, it was a bleak and desperate hand Fate had dealt them. But they considered themselves fortunate. As they should.

They were alive.

They were the villagers atop the massacred town. Their houses had stood on the cliff, overlooking the settlement on the beach. One morning was all it took to change them from ordinary citizens to horrified witnesses. Even now, not all of them had yet fully grasped the truth of their gruesome reality. But all of them—every single one of them—knew deep in their souls they would never forget the horrors that had played before their very eyes.

They could try denying it ever happened, as some of them were already desperately doing. They could even try burying it deep inside their sub-consciousness. But somehow they knew that someday it would all come back to haunt them. Decades from now, they would still hear the screams, still see the bodies fall to the ground one by one. Some of the slain had been their friends, others, their families. Yet they fled. Now, all they could do to silence their guilt was to comfort themselves with the thought that their dead would not be forgotten.

Was it cowardice? Or was life just simply worth preserving? No one wanted to know; no one could afford to rationalize. They were just grateful to be breathing.

Most of them had gotten the chance to grab some of their belongings in the chaos that had ensued; a few had even managed to bring along their animals. But some never even got the chance to wear slippers. One particular boy was having trouble with his. They were quite big for him so he kept tripping. They were really his elder sister’s. He had not been able to wear his own in his panic so his sister had given him hers. He berated himself now for not having had the presence of mind to grab his own, when they ran out of their house. He probably would not be having such a hard time keeping up if he had his own. He bent his head regretfully and caught sight of his sister's feet, which were streaked with dried blood.

The boy looked up in alarm and said, “Noona, please take your slippers. I can walk barefoot.”

Kim Himchan closed her eyes to erase the agonizing images that had plagued her for the past two hours. She steeled herself and braved a smile before turning to her brother. She could not bear to let him see her pain. “I’m fine, Jonguppie.”

Jongup shook his head. “No, you’re not. Look at your feet.”

Himchan followed his pointing finger and had to stifle her gasp of surprise. Her feet were indeed badly bruised, and yet she had not even felt any pain at all. She wished she had. Maybe then she would forget the horrifying reality. That was all she really wanted: to forget for just even a moment.

“Please, noona?”

“We’re not far from the next town, Jongup. I’ll be fine,” Himchan insisted.

“But—“

“I’ll tell you what. If you’re so keen on making me wear the slippers then you’ll have to let me carry you,” she replied teasingly.

Jongup bit the inside of his lower lip to keep from crying. He knew exactly what his sister was trying to do. No matter how much he would plead with her, she would not take the slippers. After a stretch of silence, he said, “Why did those men kill our neighbors, noona?”

And with those words, Himchan’s entire world fell apart all over again. The blood, the sacrifice, the glint of steel…  She shook her head vehemently, desperately trying to drive away the haunting images. Please…please…no more. But they would not go away. She begged and begged, but they remained.

And then she knew: She would never forget. No matter what she did, she would always live with the heartache.

She would always remember.

Softly, in a daze, she whispered, “I don’t know, Jongup-ah. I don’t know.”

“Hyung was there, wasn’t he, noona?”

Please…no more. No more. And this was her reason. She closed her eyes in attempt to steel herself from the unbearable pain and, in a tortured whisper, said, “Yes.”

The tears she had kept inside refused to be held back any longer. She felt powerless against their fury. Only then did she let them fall. She would never forget.

She had failed the one man she loved.

~

“Yongguk-ah, we have a problem.”

Yongguk looked up from the paper in his hands and saw the worried frown of Jung Daehyun, General of the Imperial Army and his closest friend. “What is it?”

“We caught a girl searching the bodies of the dead. She denies she was looking for the letter of campaign written by King Dongmin and claims she was only trying to see if someone was still alive. We’ve searched every single body and found no letter. The men think she has it and had given it to someone, since we saw a shadow running deeper into the woods. I already sent three men to go after whoever it is.”

Yongguk nodded, folded the note, hid it in his armor, and stood up to follow Daehyun.

Night had fallen and the moon was creating a breathtaking kaleidoscope of shadows on the land. Adding to the resplendent beauty of the darkness were the stars glinting in the heavens. The air was light and playful, setting the leaves dancing softly to a symphony of music that honored the earth’s subtle magic.

But the two men did not notice any of these. Each had something different in his mind.

Soon they came upon the clearing where they had caught up with the fleeing villagers earlier in the afternoon. Yongguk had demanded their surrender to the Imperial Crown. About a dozen men had complied and spared the lives of their families. The rest had fought back; others had killed their wives and children before committing suicide. Now their bodies blanketed the ground. Death would be greeting many souls at his door tonight.

Yongguk found his men lined in a crescent. He walked closer towards them and stopped when he could finally see the alleged traitor above their heads. Her back was to him; she was facing a soldier.

The guard shouted, “You are guilty of aiding the enemies of the High King of Seoul! This is a serious crime, punishable by death. On your knees, girl!”

Yongguk was about to ask the girl to whom she had given the letter, when three of his men emerged from the trees with a struggling boy.

“Noona!”

“Jonguppie! Let go of him!” The girl started to run towards her brother, but the guard stopped her.

“On your knees, I said!”

Yongguk could still not see the girl’s face, but even then he felt her rage. It was all too evident in her voice. “No.”

“I gave you an order, not a choice,” the guard bellowed.

“I will not beg for forgiveness I do not owe!”

One of the warriors holding the boy dropped him onto the ground and roughly pushed him forward. The boy stumbled as he ran to his sister. The girl quickly grabbed him and pushed him behind her back.

The guard, laughing, mocked her, “Girl, do you honestly think you can protect him? You, boy! On your knees!”

“Noona—“

The girl tilted her head to the cowering boy, finally providing Yongguk a glimpse of her face. But in the cover of the darkness, all he could make out were her lips moving to say, “Do not kneel, Jongup-ah. To kneel means we are proving them right.”

Yongguk froze. No… It can’t be…

To kneel means we are proving them right.

He closed his eyes, as the demons of his past yawned to life. He knew this was the one war he could not win. He had already tried a million times. And a million times he came out broken and defeated. He had learned long before that it was easier to just let it come than to even try fighting it into submission. It never went away. Maybe it was because he did not really want it to go. It was better to wash himself with the guilt and see her face again than to run from the memory and forget everything in it, including her.

It can’t be…

But it was. He opened his eyes and saw his world spinning. Past and present came together in a morbid dance of remembrance.

“This is your last chance, girl. On your knees!”

“No! Kill me standing, you coward, and let the gods know you slaughter innocents! Kill me standing, for I will not die for something I did not do!”

“I will not kneel to a death I do not deserve!”

“Noona?”

“Noona?”

“Do not kneel, Gukkie. To kneel means we are proving them right. Do. Not. Kneel.”

“Then watch your brother bleed.”

“Then you will wash your hands tonight with your brother’s blood.”

“Noona—“

“Noona, don’t!”

“NOONA, NO!”

“STOOOP!”

The guard instinctively froze at the voice of his commander, the point of his sword arrested above the girl’s chest.

“Lord Yongguk?”

The ghosts quickly faded into thin mist, swirling and swirling until all that remained was the living.

Fifty men were looking at their leader in apprehension. They had not noticed his presence until he had screamed. Daehyun watched him closely and saw that he was shaking, beads of sweat dotting his forehead. Confused, he swiftly stepped in front of his friend, blocking the soldiers' view, and said, “Yongguk-ah? Are you alright?”

He was fast drowning inside a vortex, sinking and sinking...

“Yongguk! Can you hear me?”

Someone was calling him.

“Yongguk, brother, are you alright?”

Yes, someone was calling him. With a last burst of strength, he pushed and struggled against the powerful energy forcing him to surrender. At the final moment, fighting with all he had, he won.

Yongguk found himself looking into Daehyun’s worried face. Mentally shaking himself, he looked around and saw fifty pairs of eyes staring at him.

“Brother?”

He turned back to Daehyun. “Yes?”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes,” he replied, swallowing. In a much firmer tone, he repeated, “Yes.”

Daehyun looked at him doubtfully but chose to ask instead, “Are you sure you want this girl spared?”

Yongguk looked to where he was pointing and saw the girl lying on the ground with the sword pointed right above her heart. He paled and felt his world closing in on him again. But as quickly as the feeling had come, it disappeared.

The horrors of his past were silenced by one single act.

The girl's eyes were looking straight into his, and he knew, without truly knowing how, that she could see his soul…and his pain. Oddly, he did not feel an ounce of shame. Instead, he felt a warm embrace.

In his heart he knew she was keeping him in her warm embrace.

“Let them go.”

“Lord—“ the guard started.

“That was an order, man,” Yongguk bit out strongly. “Take your sword off her. Let the girl and the boy go. The letter did not come with them.” Turning to the rest, he said, “We are going back to the town. The letter is still among the bodies there.”

The men bowed and walked back towards their camp. The guard reluctantly sheathed his sword and followed the others. The girl pushed herself up and took her brother’s hand. Slowly, they made their way opposite the direction to where the warriors were headed.

Daehyun looked at the two diminishing forms and wondered aloud, “Are you sure you made the right decision, Yongguk-ah?”

Yongguk bent his head. After a long while, he turned around and watched the pair just as they disappeared in the cover of the night. Quietly, he replied, “She’s only a girl. She can’t possibly change our war.”

He had no idea how far from the truth his statement would prove to be.

--

A/N:  Ages - Jaebum (27), Yongguk and Daehyun (22), Youngjae and Chaerin (21), Himchan (19), Zelo (17), Jongup (15)