It hurts all over.

He crinkles up his nose, eyes closed, the burning of his cracked lips bleeding down to his chin.

The horse is steady, as though it was born to carry him on this day, born to take him to his fate.

He moves his hands, just a little, the burning of his wrists against the tight rope still very real.

A silent whine again, because he feels the fear coming back, wave after wave of staying afloat, ahead, alert. But he wants to sleep, and wake up. He wants none of this to be real. It shouldn't be real...

And it's a gift he is suddenly given: because right then, right when some incoherent screams of hate reach his ears, Cho Kyuhyun's smile appears.

He briefly lets his scholarly mind evaluate the proposal of peace his thoughts suggest with this image of Kyuhyun appearing so simply behind his closed eyelids: It's his brain, he thinks. His brain wanting to bring him balance, trying to find some peace after two sleepless nights. After the cold, the coughing, the straining, the hitting, the begging, the crying. The fearing.

He shivers.

Kyuhyun.

Kyuhyun smirks. Because he knows it all, because he always understands it all. So easy. And fearless.

Right then, slowly, and almost calmly, Ryeowook breathes.

And so the hateful opportunists out there, those who are too scared to stand up to the opressors, those who range on their side because it's safer.... They are standing in line, taunting, throwing rocks at him, trying to prove their devotion to a power they think is on their side... Ryeowook tunes them out, their taunts no longer able to reach him.

He was once one of them. Until he met with the truth. Until... Kyuhyun.

Kyuhyun smirks some more, before he relaxes his features. And there's wind, playing around with the ribbon of his hat tucked elegantly underneath his chin. And as though he knew what Ryeowook wanted to do, Kyuhyun rolls up the sleeves of his Dopo before slowly reaching for the ribbon on his chin, and pulls it off untying the knot, removing his hat.

And he'd say it straight, Ryeowook imagines. He'd say that the hat's in the way  of Ryeowook's lips before leaning in to kiss him.

Kiss.

Kim Ryeowook's chin suddenly trembles his despair.

They'll never kiss again.

It breaks down, now: the mind breaks down, from lack of hope, sleep, food...from lack of everything but love - and so he starts to cry out loud, shaking uncontrollably.

Some of those lined idiots are laughing, now. And they keep throwing rocks, and they hurt.

And so Ryeowook cries. Even if he knows that it won't change anything... That he's headed straight to that wooden post - that they'll tie him up, and