(AN: This is a whopper of a chapter (for me at least lmao). I hope you guys enjoy it!! This is also about the halfway mark, at least for what I have planned, jsyk. For all of you waiting for a The Fake Boyfriend Theory update, I'll post it by tonight!! I'm just waiting for my beta (ahemhoneypeachahem) to read over it to smooth things out. Anywho, you know the drill, comment if you love it!!)

He wants to stay mad at Jongin, he really does. But the truth is Kyungsoo’s heart is just too soft and as soon as the wound heals (he gets three days off to rest after incident, but the wound heals quickly) he’s back to pining. Jongin is still hard on his , harder, perhaps, than before; Kyungsoo’s always either angry at him for the latest whack on his thighs, or he’s in awe. Usually both, with just a smidge of lust in there somewhere.

But every week Kyungsoo loses his cool at least once. It usually goes like this: Jongin calls him up to practice, with a staff or else with their hands and legs; they being to spar, and Jongin gets in far more touches (and only touches, he’s good at keeping it light…most of the time) than Kyungsoo, until he lets his staff fall a little too hard on Kyungsoo’s shoulder, or he twists Kyungsoo’s arm a little too roughly (these are supposed to be warnings, but Kyungsoo only perceives them as slights); then Kyungsoo lets himself be guided by rage, which usually means he loses control. His hits are always too wide or too slow or too obvious; he makes even less contact with Jongin. But every once in a while he’ll get a good solid punch in Jongin’s middle, or an elbow to the chest, or a knee to the thigh. What Kyungsoo hates is that Jongin takes it all in stride. He parries or deflects or blocks; sometimes Kyungsoo’s hits knock the air out of him, but usually it’s a soft oof and no pause. After which, of course, he hands Kyungsoo’s to him, because angry Kyungsoo means imprecise Kyungsoo; he blocks weakly, parries late, drops his staff, takes hits left, right, and center. It means each night, Kyungsoo is in a foul mood. He’s a volcano spewing expletives and dirty looks at anyone who has the misfortune of interacting with him. After a particularly difficult session with Jongin, he tears the blanket in his room in half.

Yet just as he thinks things can’t get worse, they do.

When he wakes one morning, one snowy, wintery morning (Dongji is soon, he thinks, and the thought of spending it here makes him miserable), makes his way to the indoor training rooms, Jongin and the headmaster wait with three packs, lined up neatly on the floor. Jaehwan and Moonkyu stumble in after them (Moonkyu, he notices, sends Jongin a shy smile. Kyungsoo swears under his breath, but Jongin doesn’t seem to have noticed Moonkyu’s presence at all). They stand in silence for a bit, until Kyungsoo rolls his eyes.

“Okay, what the is this?” he asks.

The headmaster smiles. Stupid, smug old man. Kyungsoo hates how pleased he always looks.

“A test of patience,” he says with a chuckle.

Jongin cracks a smile at this and Kyungsoo has to resist the urge to curl his lip.

“But most importantly a test of endurance,” the headmaster continues, once he’s done laughing. “Jongin will take you out to the summit, where you will spend the next three nights.”

Stunned silence. Jaehwan actually chokes on his spit. Kyungsoo can only stare, owl-eyed and absolutely indignant.

“You’ve gone senile,” Kyungsoo says.

Jaehwan, ever graceful, chokes on his spit again.

“Can you shut up?” Kyungsoo hisses.

Jaehwan tries to hold in his coughs, but ends up red-faced and hacking into his sleeve.

“I can assure you my mind is intact, little prince,” says the headmaster, leaning on his cane. “This is standard training for all our students.”

“Oh, is that how you cull them?” Kyungsoo asks, a hint of disgust in his voice.

The headmaster looks serious for a moment. Kyungsoo’s not intimidated, just annoyed.

“You leave now,” says the headmaster.

Jongin bows to the headmaster, then stands by the door to wait for the others to bow. Kyungsoo doesn’t. He picks up his pack and keeps walking, pushing past Jongin to get outside.

The snow is already thick in some places. The flakes are fat, and stick wetly to them as they trudge towards the back end of the school complex. The path is kept clear with salt, which crunches under their feet; the gate to the summit is smaller than the main gate, and the two guards there nod their heads at Jongin. One of them gives Kyungsoo a funny look, but Kyungsoo ignores them all, head high with confident steps. The path outside the gate is narrow, snaking around the mountain wall, and there’s a treacherous drop to their right. Kyungsoo feels a little of his confidence slip; between the slick of the snow and his poor eyesight, he has a feeling his life will end with a tumble over this precipice, but Jongin is urging them on and he doesn’t have the luxury of imagining his death. He swallows his fear (as best as he can) and starts to walk (he makes sure to push past Jaehwan and Moonkyu so he’s right behind Jongin; if he falls, so does Jongin).

Most of the morning is spent like this (well, Kyungsoo assumes it’s morning, but the sky is thick with clouds), slow progress over narrow roads that always look out over the valley. His footing is still reliable; his marching steady, and the snow is only a nuisance that tries to clog his nose every time he inhales. He’s actually sweating by the time Jongin decides they can take a break. At noon, they stop for a drink of water and some food, but Jongin doesn’t let them rest much; he warns of freezing to death, and has them back on their feet before their bodies have a chance to cool down.

More paths, more snow, flurries that cling to Kyungsoo’s lashes. An hour (maybe two, he doesn’t know anymore) after their lunch, the cold takes over. His feet hurt since well before lunch, but now the pain is gone, just an uncomfortable numbness. His cheeks feel ready to crack and his hands have gone stiff. The cold has reached his bones. For one ridiculous moment, he thinks he’ll die never feeling warmth again, but then he remembers how much the other students love to gloat at his supposed frailty and he’s spurred on. But only for a bit. Spite burns quickly, and soon Kyungsoo’s feet are too numb for him to walk well.

He stumbles often, ankles twisting dangerously, feet skidding closer to the precipice than he would like. On a steep, ragged, iced-over step, he falls entirely to his knees, hissing as the rocks rattle his bones. Only a few steps later, he doesn’t see the hole in the ground and falls, but in his desperation he reaches out for Jongin; he misses, stiff fingers treacherously letting the leather straps of Jongin’s pack slip through, and he ends up on all fours, staring at the whiteness of his hands. He knows he has pale skin, but his cold-addled mind seems to think he’s become a canvas, a sheet of parchment, dry and brittle and ready to be cut down to the proper size. He tries to curl his fingers in the crust of hardened snow, but Jongin hauls him back to his feet. Kyungsoo knows he should protest; Jongin picked him up far too easily, and it would have been embarrassing at any other moment, but it’s overshadowed by the temptation to ask Jongin for an embrace, if only to leech warmth from him body.

“To stop is to die,” says Jongin.

Kyungsoo doesn’t react. Jongin’s jaw tightens, and there’s the smallest flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, but he turns and resumes his steady march.

Kyungsoo tries stuffing his hands under his armpits, but all of him is freezing. Snow piles onto his pack, soaks his hair, makes it’s way down his neck, clogs his eyelashes. He breathes snow. He shivers violently, but that only tires him more. He feels as if his core has turned to solid ice (he also feels poetic, but that’s probably the cold dulling everything else in his mind). His heart pounds against his chest in desperation, as if the intensity with which it beat would be enough to save him from succumbing to the slow loss of life in his limbs. Then he thinks perhaps he’s being a bit melodramatic; he’s not dying. Except as he stumbles through the snow, his pace erratic, his eyes narrowed against the wintry wind, continuing only because it takes more work to make a decision than it does to keep moving, he thinks , maybe I am. That’s enough to kill the poet in his mind and make the realist take over.

“J-jongin,” he says, but his voice is lost in the wind.

The path widens, and Kyungsoo’s sure this would, in other circumstances, be a rest place, but Jongin seems to take no notice of this and skirts the center.

“Jongin, I can’t do this,” Kyungsoo whines.

Jongin turns around and looks at him, hunched in on himself, hands underneath armpits, trembling visibly.

“To stop is to die,” he repeats.

Kyungsoo’s heart would sink if it could, but it’s too cold even for that. Even the desire to punch Jongin’s pretty face dies fast; the mere thought of it is too exhausting.

“I can’t go any farther,” Kyungsoo repeats.

Jongin gives him a hard look.

“What would you do if the palace was under attack and you had to flee to the mountains?” he snaps. “What would you do?”

“I would die,” Kyungsoo says as evenly as he can manage.

This throws Jongin off. He gives Kyungsoo a perplexed look.

“I’m going back,” Kyungsoo declares (he likes to think it’s a declaration but it’s too weak to sound like one).

“You can’t go alone.”

“Then come with me,” Kyungsoo sniffles.

“The longer we stand here, the higher the chance you’ll freeze to death. We need to keep moving,” Jongin hisses.

“I can’t,” Kyungsoo says through gritted teeth.

“Stop being so ing soft,” Jongin snaps.

Kyungsoo wants to be offended at this, but that takes up too much energy. He just stands there, miserably, until Jongin tries to pull him forward. He stumbles, falls into Jongin’s chest, and stays there.

“You’re going to be the death of all of us,” Jongin hisses.

“Well, I’m already dying so it’s only fair,” Kyungsoo stutters; he tries to smile but his lips crack.

“We need to move, for ’s sake,” says Jongin, but Kyungsoo doesn’t hear the rest because it starts to get dim, and Jongin’s face blurs (he’s sad about that, such a pretty face, he just wants to look), and his heart decides to gallop to fight the cold that’s finally threatening it but it’s too late; Kyungsoo sighs, his legs give out, and the world goes black.

~

When