Although it pained Jonghyun to even think of Jinki sleeping on the cold larder floor, he knew he had done the right thing. The first thing he had to do was to make Jinki start to trust him, but he had obviously done the opposite of that by making Jinki hate him way more than he already did. His heart hurt when he saw Jinki go towards the larder and lie down, exhausted.

By evening, Jinki couldn’t take another step and fell into a heap, on the larder floor. Due to how hard he worked, he fell into a deep sleep instantly.

Feeling extremely guilty, Jonghyun covered Jinki with two blankets before retiring to his chamber, without dinner. It didn’t seem fair for him to enjoy a feast while Jinki had nothing to eat. Struggling to sleep for the first time in his life, Jonghyun somehow managed to control himself from going down to see if Jinki was still sleeping. Why did he care so much? It didn’t make any sense to him. It was true that he had noticed how attractive Jinki was, and was proud of how passionate he was about trying to help the other gladiators. Why would someone with so much love to share, hate him so much? What had Jonghyun done to be hated so vehemently, and how could he begin to change Jinki’s mind?

Jinki woke up feeling warmer than ever, which surprised him a lot. When he felt the blanket that wrapped him, he smiled a little, thinking the housekeeper must have covered him at night. Looking around to thank them, Jinki got a shock when he found out that there were only two people in the house. Jonghyun and himself.

Jonghyun got a shock when he got a taste of Jinki’s fiery temper in the morning. After flinging the blanket at Jonghyun’s face, Jinki walked outside and started tending to the garden. Why was the ruthless commander trying to be nice to him? What was his ulterior motive? For the life of him, Jinki really couldn’t figure it out. When he heard someone singing nearby, he felt his whole mood brighten. The song, although old, was one he had heard as a child. Whoever was singing, had the most beautiful voice he had ever heard, and that soulful rendition made his heart start to race. Knowing that if he made his presence obvious. the singer with the honey voice would either stop or flee, neither of which he wanted. Humming along with the song as he worked, Jinki felt a sudden sense of lightness in his heart. Not able to control himself any longer, Jinki started singing along, amazed by the way their two voices melded together.

When he heard Jinki’s powerful voice join him, Jonghyun felt more than tempted to reveal himself but knew what would happen if he did. He’d lose the little chance he had of bringing Jinki under his control. At the moment, he rather liked to see the anger in Jinki’s face when he looked at him. When his features creased a little, he did look impossibly handsome. Jonghyun didn’t know what he liked better, the Jinki with the brightest, sunniest smile he had seen, or the brooding, dark one that was right in front of him.

As time passed, Jinki got used to Jonghyun being around and had even continued his training whenever he had free time. Off late, Jonghyun seemed to be a lot nicer to him, but Jinki never took anything at face value. After all, snakes did have the prettiest smiles. There was no certainty that the person who had betrayed him before, wouldn’t do it again. As he was having his dinner one day, he saw Jonghyun’s forehead creased with worry. Against his better judgment, he approached him.

“Is something the matter?”

“The neighbouring country has declared war, and now I need to recruit more soldiers. The enemy has a huge army, and we have no hope of even surviving unless I find some able men as soon as I can”

Why did it hurt him when he saw the dejected expression on Jonghyun’s face? Knowing he would regret the offer he was about to propose, Jinki cleared his throat.

“There is no one better than us gladiators for close combat”

“The gladiators hate me, Jinki. There’s no point. How will I ever face them? I can’t even face you right now”

“They will listen if I lead them. We don’t owe this country anything since we all were taken from our families, but I don’t want the same thing to happen to the women and children here. I’m sure none of the children would be able to live a life of slavery such as ours”

“Thank you”

“I’m not doing anything for you”

“ I can’t promise you a better future but I’ll do whatever I can to give you all freedom, Jinki”

“We don’t want any more of your lies. Trust me, we are fed up. I can’t lie to them and give them any kind of hope for you to destroy it again”

Although Jinki still detested him, Jonghyun was thrilled that he’d agreed to help. With him training the gladiators and providing them armour, even the emperor had regained his lost hope. After all, if Jonghyun couldn’t train someone, no one could. Most of the gladiators were used to swords and tridents, so it made no sense to appoint them as cavalry. Training them how to handle horses would waste a lot of time. With no time to lose, Jonghyun and his soldiers marched towards the middle ground and set up camp, with the gladiators in a different area from the experienced soldiers. The emperor wanted Jinki to lead the gladiators to attack their enemy from the back, while Jonghyun and his army would attack from the front. Assuming that this style of attack would surprise their enemies, it felt safe to think that they could win.

For Jinki, this battle brought back some vague memories of how his life used to be. After he was taken, there was no way for him to go back. Though the gladiators hated most of the people in the country, they really didn’t want the same thing to happen to anyone else. If there was one thing they were good at, it was fighting. After all, they’d had to fight in order to stay alive and even to be treated as humans. His men, though not soldiers, were determined to lay down their lives if necessary to save whatever they had left. Since Jonghyun was so thankful, he’d been trying hard to get into Jinki’s good books. So far, he had provided the gladiators with more food and supplies than they had ever received, and some of his men were seriously starting to warm up to Jonghyun. Even Jinki felt a little moved and was starting to drop his guard a little bit, but he knew better than to trust anyone. Someone as broken as he was, couldn’t expect that someone perfect would be able to fix him. How would he even find someone willing to try? He had experienced too much in all the past years, and was too scarred, both physically and mentally to open up and reveal his true self to anyone around him.

As they heard the sound of a trumpet blowing, which was their signal, Jinki rallied his men and charged towards their target. The sound of their swords clashing against each other made the battle very real. All this while, the gladiators were honestly hoping that things get solved amicably, rather than ending in more bloodshed. Jinki knew that his main purpose was to ensure that he didn’t lose anyone in his team, and made sure that he was always at the front of the line. Luckily for him, the gladiators had been able to shock the enemy and catch them by surprise. Caught unawares, the enemy ran helter-skelter while a few brave ones stayed to fight back. The gladiators fought to wound, not kill and felt disgusted by the army of the country they represented. All around them, they heard the sound of groans and spurting blood, which made them feel sick. Just looking at the deep red blood that pooled around them all was enough for Jinki to feel rather nauseous. Halting to stop his head from spinning, Jinki saw a soldier slash Jonghyun’s chest. Not expecting the wave of emotions that suddenly crashed over him, Jinki felt as though he was in physical pain each time he heard Jonghyun groan with pain. Ignoring the voice of his mind, Jinki ran to Jonghyun and viciously stabbed the man who had done this to him.

All Jonghyun saw was the sharp blade that was aimed at him and knew that his time was running out. Hoping that the one in front of him would just get things over with, he groaned as his blood kept pooling around him, causing him to feel lightheaded. Praying for things to be over soon, Jonghyun thanked his lucky stars that he would finally be free from all the torment and guilt he was feeling. Just as he was about to close his eyes, he heard the man cry out in pain after being impaled. The last thing Jonghyun could remember was Jinki’s worried face peering at him.