It’s her worst nightmare.

The figure in her arms weakly glances up, red soaking through her attire and onto Chaewon’s singed armour. A barest hint of a smile, and—

“Are you here for a revenge, General?”

General. A distance. A distance she’s created first, through the countless of times she answered the call of her name with Your Highness, her back not turned solely because of the rules forbidding her from doing so.

(If it pained her before, this kills her. Kills her thoroughly, completely, ripping her apart as the words weigh down and settle upon her shoulders.)

“Your Highness,” she whispers, barely able to choke the words out, and the princess smiles, beautiful in her broken gaze and the bitter twist of her lips.

“Even now,” a laboured breath, “I can’t get you to call me by name.”

Chaewon bites down her bottom lip, willing herself to not break (except she’s been breaking, hasn’t she, she has been breaking for years without a chance to heal and this, this—)

“Hitomi.” A strangled whisper. An apology. A plea. Please hold on, stay with me—help should come soon. “Hitomi. Please—”

The warm eyes—they always stay warm, never cold nor resentful even after Chaewon’s harsh words, even after everything—slowly flutter close. A pained breath, heaved out like Hitomi is crumbling and Gods, deities above, please, please, please—

 “You,” Hitomi says, eyes closed, smile devastatingly beautiful, “are bad at this whole revenge thing, General.”

Because she wasn’t. She isn’t. Revenge, what is revenge anymore, how did it ever come to that, there’s no revenge, she doesn’t want revenge—

“Allow me to—give you a pointer.” The fingers clasped around the hand she’s rested on Hitomi’s stomach give her a squeeze,

faint in her last breath,

“Live well, General, and stick it to me.”

And a lifetime of heartbreak trickle down her cheeks, unbidden, the shake of her head only serving to let some of her tears fall on Hitomi’s face. Unspoken apologies and untold explanations sink deeply at the bottom of her stomach at the same time they burn up her lungs, and she hunches over the still form of the latter, her entire being wrecked by sobs. She wishes Hitomi would jolt up and scold her for crying, please jolt up and scold her for crying, end this nightmare and remind her didn’t you say you want to be strong, Chaewonnie, didn’t you tell me you’d only cry when I do, so I won’t have to cry alone? Or perhaps she would reach out, cradle her cheeks, hum a soothing tune she’s picked up from a distant memory of the nights she got to spend with her mother as a toddler, murmuring afterwards as Chaewon tries to apologize through hiccups that no, no, don’t say sorry, don’t hold back your sadness, you can be yourself around me, you can be Chaewon around me—

But seconds pass and pass and

pass,

and the princess is above

opening her eyes.