Written by: “ villager ”
Pairing: WooGyu (Woohyun/Sunggyu)
Prompt(s): Soulmate!AU. Heterochromia. People born with different eyes color, and people with same eyes colors are soulmate. Person A is blind and doesn't believe Person B who claimed to have the same colors with him. Anyone can lie to him because he's blind, so why would Person A believe Person B.
Words: 16,533

 

 

Color Crossing

 

 

The air was parched, biting at him. The leaves became far from his touch as the winds blew into his ears, howling at him, and the twigs snagging him each with their own jibes. His cloak floundered around his shoulders, desperate like his limbs, to catch something; anything to keep him from going down further.

He twisted, seeing the fallen leaves decaying on the floor and a shadow passing over, increasingly bigger. Now, he hoped to fall faster.

Talons, sharp as swords scraped his back in the last second as he made his body straight, falling and falling. Another ghost talon gripped his heart ready to burst it hot as it thumped against his chest. A branch snagged his hoodie and his body bounced back gravity, shaking the branch viciously and he sways.

The shadow passed again. Regaining his momentum, he fought to unhook himself from the twig before he was caught again. Suddenly, strong as a wall, a feathered wing hit his back and his cloak completely ripped apart and down he fell again. Plopping straight between roots and soggy, brown leaves.

His mind was woozy, but light was dangerously receding and once he was able to open his eyes again he realized he was still falling. Dirt flaked off as he tried to grab the side of the hole he fell in, roots blanketed his fall to a point where he was getting caught and let go again.

Finally, all was done when his back hit a thick, dense carpeted floor. He felt with his fingers around as he groaned pain from his beaten body, it was moss. Moist and damp, the air was cold from what he was just breathing seconds ago; warm from the sun and wind from the shores far off in the distance.

He looked up to where he had fallen through, the tangly streams of roots broken in his path and a small hole of light on the top, casting a beam to him and his small vicinity. Taking his time, he slowly got up and dusted himself off. His cloak just bits of fabric now torn to shreds.

The moss was perched atop a rock, where excessive rain drops fell on its surface creating a depression on the surface. He carefully skidded down, looking for a way to escape, a way to get out. The walls were slated mud, difficult to pry let alone climb with his bare hands. And the blasted bird...

But as he progressed down the rock, the top of the hollow grew with roots and shut light away from his prison. In the darkness, the talons returned, grabbing his bruised heart with another round of mental torture. Thoughts circled, wondering if starvation would kill him first or the unknown inhabitants of the underground.

About to succumb to the ghost talons retching at his heart, tears welling in his already nothing to black vision, his shadow started to stretch longer and he could see patches of rock and mud all around a small space.

Immediately turning around, inside the base of the rock surrounded by moss, was a source of light.

 

***

 

My mom once told me, when I sat there complaining about girls, with her thick accent;

“My little silly, no. That is not true. There is girl out there for you, or maybe man. It’s okay, I will always love you.”

I’d mumble something about how she was embarrassing but inevitably say that I love her back.

“Destiny, God has for you, a love, and waiting for you. Maybe not now, maybe later. But learn, love is not just love. Love is you accept, and you give. You love not matter what happens. Okay? Tomorrow is always be better than today.”

 

***

 

Gray

The tallest person in the village was just shorter than the straightest stalk of grass. Trees tower over their world, amongst the branches a wide territory of the village strung together with vine, wood, and the iridescent lights. Homes shingled with red clay, built in neatly cut wood with patios that were pitched up by the wide girth of the trunks. Bridges of twine streamed by as walkways everywhere, their little panels of wood creaking with every worker bumbling past with their hands filled, headed some place in the village. Amongst the fire lanterns that littered around and the fern lamp posts, vines pinned all over, webbing across many outlets of the village for them to use a new mechanic. It looks like a regular trolley for zip lining but the wheel glowed light and enabled them to climb up the vines.

Houses near the canopy were roofed with leaves, broad and strong, overcasting over the entire village. During rainy days, the Repairers are sent up to cover up holes with more leaves. But it always ends up with one hole or another somewhere. Elevators made of bird nests transported goods up with a vine pulley. And little rectangular tunnels built out of twigs rolled carts of supplies here and there.

There are so many different jobs. People who go out and hunt for meat, large catches like mice are hard to come by since they’re so fast. Rarely, the Seekers would catch a large beast called a Rabbit. But that’s usually when the leaves are falling from above, large crumpled sheets that would get caught in their bridges and vine ways; and everyone in the village lathering up their houses with loads of clay from the riverside to ward off the coming frost. Rabbits are said to be fattening up by then, and it’s easier to ambush them. He always wanted to touch Rabbit fur, but it costs more than his life.

The back of the house has these pipes of bamboo channel rainwater from what’s called the Rain Shaft, towards their wooden basins for drinking water. For him, he uses a bucket as a sink, staring at his reflection upon the water. Gray hues dial up his body. His shirt faded; hair close to black. But what he looked long and hard on were his eyes. His right iris looking close to everyone else’s, a neutral shade of grey, but his left worried him as always. The eye gray, light gray. And only barely.

It bothered him, a lot.

 

“I’m off” he said over his shoulder, kicking on his shoes and looking at his parents. His school bag slung purposely on his right shoulder, and just the right shoulder to have some cool points and hair picked at for the last thirty minutes looks the same as when he started.

“Have a good day, scrub” his dad put down his ceramic mug, the one he made in class, and smirked. “Today, you just might get wrecked.”

“Thanks dad.”

“Honey,” his mom pinched her husband’s arm, earning a loud ‘Ouch!’ and smiled at her son, “Dummy dad. You are fine, okay Silly?”

“…Okay mum.”

School was mandatory from ages of five-dozen-moons to fifteen-dozen-moons. From then on, the villagers master the jobs they want to take on. Adults assume apprentices and the Seekers take on recruits, while the students who want to run the government go on with more school in the City. It’s a long trek away from Wild Woods but there have been people who’ve  gone there.

This was the last moon that he’d technically need to be in school, Falling Leaves was coming so school will soon be called off for the edging Frost. He was fourteen-dozen-moons old when it happened. Walking up the same bridge down a couple branches from his home in the canopy, then catching the birds nest that was scheduled to be hauled down to the school when the sun sent rays through the leaves. He waited silently, sitting with the other kids in the twigs as the twine bounced down in little increments.

At the school, under one of the roots of the grand tree, he sat numbed to his nerves with a lecture. The teacher was repeating one of the most liked lessons, especially amongst girls. But the guys liked it too. Actually, maybe it was just him who didn’t care, since it was repeated every moon. It was the biggest talk among the students, among the young.

Adult villagers would tell their stories about it, and the girls would fathom about it.

“Alright, is there anyone who’d like to explain the pyramid again?” their teacher, Jungyup this time, smiled upon them. The out-going bunch instantly raised their hands, and the smarter kids would slowly raise theirs after. Then, a couple hesitant students and the others who stayed still.

“Ah…” Jungyup sighed, looking at the same bunch of hands yet again. He scanned for eye contact, or the lack of, and landed on him. “Sunggyu-ah, would you like to explain?”

He looked to their teacher today, who just finished his lesson on business. Jungyup was close to his father, since they were in the same generation. Except, his father became a Repairer, just like grandpa, and Jungyup became a teacher.

“The more close to primary, the harder it is to find. Same are maybe your partner, or not. And it pops up just like girls’ periods do,” Sunggyu sat up, covering his eye with his hand. “I guess.”

Half the class burst into laughter, some girls blushed and others just shook their heads. Jungyup chuckled a few times, and shook his head, “Do you want to give us some details? It’s not wrong, just a little vague.”

He felt the eyes shift back to him, and under pressure he shook his head instead of answering back. Slumping back to his seat, the lesson resumed and Jungyup called on someone else.

“Yes, Dongwoo-sshi?”

An ecstatic young seedling popped up, his father one of the Bakers amongst town Sunggyu notes—Dongwoo stood up and lifted his chin. “When villagers meet their Fated One, they undergo the Prism Sun; which allows us to see colour!”

Many of the other students brightened at the thought, while Jungyup nodded with a proud look on his face. Dongwoo smiled with the encouragement and continued, “What we don’t see now is that all our eyes are coloured. Colour is important for the eyes, because they represent our Fated One! The primary coloured eyes are very rare, almost like pure. As colours turn to Secondary and Intermediate, the colours come up more and more and most of us have these colours. ”

Jungyup nodded again, motioning Dongwoo to sit and everyone clapped with his well-known answer. Some started to whisper about the colors they heard were pretty, or what they wanted. But none really knew what they looked like. The class hadn’t one to have their Prism Sun yet.

“Would anyone like to explain the Fated One?” Jungyup looked around again, his eyes landing on another student and the lecture continued till they finished overtime.

 

*

 

“Hey!”

The Repairer’s son turned around, a sullen look on his face and both straps of his bag firmly grasped upon his shoulders. It was the Baker’s son, Dongwoo. He quickly covered his eye with a hand.

“You okay?” Dongwoo asked, smelling of warm dough and rising yeast. “You always cover your eye.”

Having been caught, Sunggyu looked down and withdrew his hand, trying not to make eye contact, “I’m just tired, that’s all. Great answer in class by the way.”

“No way, Sunggyu! Your answer was really funny,” Dongwoo laughed jubilantly, an iconic trait of his. A lot of their classmates say they can hear Dongwoo from branches away, Sunggyu believes it.

They climb onto the far west Elenest, taking a seat among the twigs and awaited to be brought up. “Thanks, I guess,” Sunggyu replies once they are situated. He hadn’t talked to anyone in class beyond projects or classwork, but it felt nice to have a person to talk to. I should practice on good conversation starters with Dad tonight.

A vine pulley brings them up and through Wild Woods Village, seeing all the workers bundle about with Repairers carting supplies, Seekers coming in the southern Gate, villagers out and about trading stock and helping each other. He tried to speak up at any chance he could, but none seemed right. Dongwoo sat humming and smiling, while Sunggyu tried to boost his courage further than a parting of lips. Many Villagers were lighting the awnings and bridge lamps with oil , casting the regular orange glow upon the planks and wood. Leaves were brought to doors, inviting guests and their children back home.

“This is my stop,” Dongwoo chips, standing up when the nest stopped midway through. “See you after Day’s Break, Sunggyu!”

Sunggyu waved back, covering his eye with habit and tried to smile. Once he did though, the Elenest started again and he was out of sight to see Sunggyu. The Repairer’s son frowned, wondering if Dongwoo thought him mean, or unhappy with his interaction and maybe not talk to him after Day’s Break. He bit his lip.

His house was much higher up, being the Repairer’s son and all.

 

*

 

Day’s Break is the Village’s day to have all the sun and moon to themselves. Businesses run if they do so please, most do to provide a parlor or eating area. Though, the village is at rest and the students run amok to leisure and fun.

Sunggyu’s mother asked him to run errands most of the time. She was the Recorder for his father’s workplace, so today she sat herself under the fronds of the back of their hut, snuggled in with his dad with a nice plump grape to chew jelly on. They loved to flip through scriptures and bound paper stories.

Today he was sent to get some bread, groceries so to speak. He took the fast way down, from the buckets of empty water and waited to jump off onto a trolley rifting through the twine highway right towards the Storage. Sunggyu jumped when the Midway Bridge was in sight, landing on the rickety planks hard enough to make it sway. Passersbys glared at his rough entry, but he slunk away covering his left eye.

The door jingled with a hollow walnut bell, “Hello! Welcome to the Jang’s Delectable Bakery! How may I help you—“ he prolonged the ‘u’ sound when he caught sight of him, “Sunggyu! Ah, welcome welcome!”

“Hi Dongwoo,” he waved, trying to smile again. He was practicing with his dad but his dad only called him a try hard. When he managed, Dongwoo had turned his back on him to get something. He sighed.

“Sunggyu! It’s really great to see you here,” Dongwoo turned back around, with his apron out of place from moving and held a tray with some refreshments. “Sit sit!”

“I just came for…” Sunggyu limply held the weaved grass basket on his back, turning after Dongwoo who walked past to put the tray on their bark table.

“Bread?” Dongwoo laughed, his signature. “Yeah, we are a bakery.”

“I, uh, like sourdough,” Sunggyu tried, remembering that his mother told him to try and bring in context subjects to start a conversation as he sat.

The Baker’s son chuckled again, placing the polished water-glass cup filled with a sweet smelling tea in front of him. “Sourdough is nice, but our herb cheese on rye is really good. You should bring some home with you, my treat.”

“It’s alright,” the Repairer’s son waved his hands dismissively, already taking a step too far with accepting tea. “I have enough for some loaves. It’ll last us a week and I’ll come again.”

“Again?”

“Yes,” Sunggyu gulped, hoping the other wouldn’t push to take more than he deserved.

“Then next time,” Dongwoo smiled.

Sunggyu sighed, taking his smile differently than maybe the Baker’s son intended and lifted the glass tea cup to his lips. The cup was expensive, things made of glass were pretty since they show shine by their reflective complexion. The tea sat warm at midway full, steam swirling around his nose with sweetness as he sipped gently. It felt bitter at first, but then the taste settled to bland his tongue with a distinct taste of, “Acorn?”

“You have a good tongue, Sunggyu,” Dongwoo grinned.

“It’s different.”

He seemed proud at that, “I tried crushed acorn bits with a hint of rose and a tang of raspberry for scent. It’s a little bland, isn’t it?”

Sunggyu nodded.

“Yeah, I suppose it’s the acorn dust. I just don’t know how to bring in the nut’s flavor other than crushing it.”

“Maybe,” Sunggyu coughed lightly, putting the cup down, “Maybe have the curls sit inside a rose petal bundle, and leave it to bleed into the hot water.”

Dongwoo hummed, having the idea fly by his head then to crash again and he brightened, “I tried with the other way around, putting the acorn in raspberry and it was awful. This is a good idea!” he jumped up, hurriedly going to the back counter to whip something up.

The Baker’s son brought a piece of acorn husk out, gritting out curls of its inside musk and chopped them into fine bits, not dust, to have wrapped around a distinct white rose petal. He closed it off with raspberry jam, sticking it over a fire.

Sunggyu waited patiently, watching Dongwoo work with some diligence. He was different here than in class, having concentrated on tea rather than laughing his head off.

“Want some seed cake with this cup?”

He couldn’t refuse.

 

*

 

“You know, you don’t have to.”

“Ah, whatever! I’m already halfway across the bridge.”

Sunggyu eyed Dongwoo, who was trailing behind and smiling as always. He fought to suppress another sigh, so he didn’t look unappreciative. It was the opposite, he was ecstatic. I can tell dad I made a friend. But as he looked behind again, he bit his lip, I just hope…

“You live in the Canopy, right?” Dongwoo broke his thoughts, pointing towards the sky. “All the Repairer’s live there.”

“Yes, I do,” Sunggyu hoped it wasn’t too far for Dongwoo. The other kids leave him here, in the Midway Bridge, because most people live in the Trunk Compartments. Dongwoo lived in the Branches.

Dongwoo beamed again, “That’s so cool! And scary! Aren’t you scared you might fall?”

The Repairer’s son shivered. He doesn’t look down whenever he leaves the house; the height makes him nauseous enough to run back inside. These days, he’s gotten good at not thinking about it but it does rattle him here and there. “No… not really.”

“That’s the cold stoned Sunggyu everyone talks about,” The Baker’s son laughed but got quieter as he looked at the slumped shoulders of his walking buddy. “Ah, sorry. Just… you never talk to us at school, and always do things without looking at us. So everyone calls you Cold Stone.”

“You really believe that?” Sunggyu flared his nose, looking down away from Dongwoo and glared. “Just cause I don’t look at everyone makes me Cold Stone?”

“But you smiled at me, didn’t you?”

Sunggyu paused in his stomp, turning back to look at Dongwoo who stood there looking everywhere but him. “Yeah, yesterday, when I got off the Elenest. You waved and smiled, didn’t you? I mean, I did believe the rumors before… you never talked to us or even looked at us. I always thought you were thinking you were better than us or something.” He chuckled, scratching his head, “But then again, you never did anything against me. Sorry I thought that, but you proved me wrong. So I don’t see the risk in being your friend now.”

“F-friend?” Sunggyu repeated, not believing it but Dongwoo himself, just standing there and meeting his gaze made him flustered. Quickly, he covered his eye again and looked around, “really?”

“Yeah! Let’s start over,” Dongwoo held out his hand, smiling with all his teeth showing, “Nice to meet you Sunggyu! I’m Dongwoo. Let’s be good friends, okay?”

Staring at his hand, standing just after the bridge and on the edges of a wood ear, Sunggyu slipped a smile and reached to grab his new friend’s handshake, “Okay—“

Later on, Dongwoo would tell him how much he made him worry that day. The day marked as VII of a fallen leaf sickle moon. A bright heat seared through his eyes and he was told by his friend that he was screaming in the most shill pain, as if fire burned through his skull and was playing with him. Yet, there was no blood, no scars left over. Just a bucket load of tears shed from pain and the fear of it getting worse. He saw for one second, and later on he’ll remember as the warmest, the acorn raspberry color Dongwoo’s eyes are.

 

***

 

“Today is a new light, a new horizon shining upon our future. These children, no, now these young villagers are graduating school and onto moons of aggrandizement for our community to make Wild Woods a better place to live for us all. They have studied hard and now are ready for apprenticeship. If you do so please! Villagers, you’ve watched over them, know the potential that lies within them, please! Chose on your apprentices!”

Dongwoo nudged him in his seat beside him, his legs shaking in excitement. Sunggyu rolled his eyes, both of them wearing their dyed white gowns. At least this is the color everyone can see. He put a hand on Dongwoo’s knees and shushed him. They stood, the students, and walked down the platform to stand in a line for the job masters to come and choose them. Of course, people with familial businesses will most likely be chosen to continue on or if they submitted requests to other masters they might be considered for another job. The rest, like Sunggyu, try their luck with everyone they think will be good. But it’s easy to see where Sunggyu and Dongwoo will belong.

Slowly, the village masters moved in front of them. The heads of every category stood with a list of students they chose. There was the Repairers, Recorders, Teachers which are also CareTakers, Government which go on into the City to study more, Doctors, and Seekers. The rest go on to small businesses.

Repairers fix the village. They are the ones that build new houses, bridges, roads, ladders, Elenests, water ways… everything. They live in the Canopy because it’s easier to access the leaves to cover the village if rain ever comes.

Recorders are good at writing and memorizing. They are the archivists that write down everything in bounded paper and scriptures to keep in the village hall for reference and information. Everything with documentation, that’s the Recorders job.

Teachers, or rather CareTakers; they raise the young. Babysitting for the little ones, and teaching in schools for students; they are rather rooted in everything and have great patience and love for the community. Some say it’s the hardest job, dealing with kids all day.

Government is the villagers who represent Wild Woods in the City, a very long ways from here. They ride on the back of the Seeker’s birds and fly there to study more. They know stuff such as currency, economics, politics—many things that barely scratch Wild Woods since they are so far away from the City.

Lastly, the Seekers. They are the hunters that go out and acquire food for the community and guard the village. They have their own community so any job potentially can be applicable to Seekers, and a distinct uniform to tell everyone what they do. Of course, the badge pinned to their cloaks helps too.

“Who do you think will choose you?” Dongwoo whispered in his ear, heated with excitement he might as well sprout out of his seat now and yell ‘take me!’.

Sunggyu recoiled from his warm breath hitting his ear, “Shush! You didn’t take over your family business?”

“No,” Dongwoo said, eyeing the other students who chose to be part of these six villager jobs. The others have already left the stage to stand beside their parents and watch who will be categorized. “Noona wanted to, and she told me that she’d take over the business so I can choose to be here.”

“She’s like one dozen moons older than you!”

“Yeah, she told me exactly a dozen moons ago!” Dongwoo grinned and nudged Sunggyu. He just groaned.

Slowly each category was filled up with their classmates. Sunggyu saw a girl hesitantly move to her new teacher in the Doctors, wondering if he could be chosen too. Doctors did some amazing things with herbs from the forest. Then again, being a Repairer like his dad would be nice as well, but boring.

But as time moved on, he got more anxious. His class was being divided unorthodoxly, more people being recruited into Repairer than anything, and some more dribbled into Recorders and Doctors. Very few teachers, and even less Government.

It was just him, Dongwoo, and some other kid left. And to his morbid realization, the Lieutenant Colonel of the Seekers stepped out.

“Jang Dongwoo! Kim Sunggyu! And Lee Jinki! You are recruited into the Seekers. Congratulations, and we hereby grant you the cloaks of membership!”

The colonel was a tall, burly man with a thick beard and shirt too small for his chest. He was literally bulging from his sash, and Sunggyu was frankly scared of him. To their better choices, Dongwoo pushed him along, surprisingly excited, and they were shouldered with the heavy cloth of the dark cloaks. Sunggyu stared at the empty sigil patch, hoping to the skies that he hadn’t made the wrong choice not to follow his dad.

 

 

***

 

Black

“Hey, get out here! New recruits!”

He shuffled about, gathering the last of his equipment up onto the shelves so he wouldn’t clean up later. It was last minute, but every time the Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) would shout it out it triggers a sense in him to not want to go outside.

“Hey, aren’t you going to greet the recruits?”

Turning towards the voice, he huffed. “They’ll just ask if you can speak and you’ll never stop talking. So no, I don’t want to.”

“Hurtful!” they said back to him. Mumbling, “just cause now you’re a Captain you act all high and mighty.”

“I wouldn’t have to if someone would behave and stop going into every form possible.”

“Oh, you wart hog, you just spoil fun every time.”

He ignored the other, going about and feeling for his cloak. Last he remembered, he put it on the table before the first dining chair of his shared room.

As he was just gripping the familiar cloth, his door swung open, hitting his walls and that sound physically hurts. The thought of his poor wall being abused again was saddening, imagining dents in the plaster. Though it was quickly forgotten with a jubilant voice.

“Sunggyu!” he can almost picture the raspberry acorn eyes. “You’re so slow. The new recruits are already here!”

“You guys can start without me,” he says, fixing his collar. Then slipping on an eye patch over his right eye.

“We can’t start yet.”

“Yes, you can Sergeant Major Jang.”

“Ah, but Captain Kim, Colonel wants you out there.”

Sunggyu grimaced immediately with apparent dissatisfaction. So much that it stayed on his face will getting to the crowds, and the noobies already got a great first impression on how he’s going to be like.

“Hey,” Dongwoo nudges him with his elbow, the same attention grabber since they were 15 moons old, “Can you explain what my eyes look like again?”

“Every time I tell you, you just ask for it repeated like a bazillion times. No.” the Captain puffed his face, not really knowing where exactly he stood. There were many murmurs and subtle chatter, though the orientation hadn’t started yet. “Look, we’re early.”

“Oh come on! I can’t wait to go through my Prism Sun so I can find my Fated One. Did you know Jinki just started seeing colour a couple moons ago or something? Lucky!” Dongwoo continued to whine as they stood on the platform above the few new recruits.

Sunggyu could feel eyes staring at them as he grimaced further and smacked Dongwoo’s head, “Shush! And Colonel is coming up. I hear his steps.”

Heavy prodding followed and the chatter subsided. Sunggyu can just imagine what they were thinking. This giant burly man walking up to the podium, a thick mustache blocking his mouth so you can’t ever think to read his lips, and having the most muscled body ever all equals to oh I better not around.

The Lieutenant Colonel stepped up, taking a deep breath. He didn’t need a leaf cone to project his voice out. Nope. So Sunggyu braced his ears by covering them and Dongwoo just widened his grin.

“Welcome, New Recruits! To the Seekers.” It was so loud, Sunggyu wanted to grimace hard enough to make his mouth fall off his face.

"Welcome all new recruits!" the lieutenants and captains recited after the LTC. Sunggyu felt unneeded, shouting out the regular greeting. His eyepatch was irritating his face; he wanted to take it off.

“Today you will be categorized into the jobs you will do inside our camp. Not all of you are going to hunt every day, but all of you are going to be trained to do so. Understood?”

The booming command was left hanging; none of the noobies knew what to say and stood there dumbfounded by his voice along. The Colonel gets this every year, so he yells again “I expect you statues to respond when asked, now do you understand green sprouts?!”

A few squeaked out “Yes!” while some still stood frozen. The Colonel yelled at them again and the rest responded as needed, fearing they might receive a punishment if they hadn’t. They weren’t far off.

Then, the Colonel started to assign each new sprout a supervising officer, an SO for short.

"Hey look. It’s him"

"Who?"

"Kim Sunggyu! The one who slayed the beast that was gunna destroy Wild Woods moons ago!"

"That’s a lie. That’s not Kim Sunggyu"

"Yeah it is! Look he's holding the lantern he found on a great expedition to the South Lands."

"Posh. One of the best seekers can’t be blind!"

Sunggyu queried an inquiry on his face. Them two sprouts knew he wasn’t deaf right?

"Go hit ‘em! Show them the power kyukyu."

He gently moved the lantern in his hand out of sight. Dongwoo beside him, as always, was having a blast and chuckling under his breath.As they got settled and another round of speeches came from the Colonel, it was time to assign S.O.s — the supervising officers.

Sunggyu had been under the care of Jongwan, a much respected veteran Seeker. Now he works as an Archivist, having finished his term as Seeker. Dongwoo was under a lady named Sojin. She was really nice.

 

*

 

Everyone was pairing off and Sunggyu started to get the idea that he wasn’t going to be a SO. His predicament doesn’t help at all, though he can walk around. Who wants a blind SO anyways? Dongwoo was called up, and he pats his back just once firmly before walking up and getting a young seedling called Sungyeol. Sunggyu sighed, that kid will have a hell of a time.

"Kim Sunggyu!" a jolt went through him as he was called. In the back of his mind he knew he wasn’t going to be left out, after all he was a pretty good Seeker. But the fear still crept, that he was a no-good SO and useless.

"Your disciple is called Nam Woohyun. Get along well." Colonel bids them, and off they went to the quarters Sunggyu shared with Dongwoo, ready to show this new recruit where he would stay. They shook hands, and Sunggyu looked down.

“I’m Nam Woohyun!” the pip was loud and abrupt Sunggyu almost opened his eye.

He recoiled with surprise, settling to fix his face and raise an eyebrow. This bean sprout is just like how Dongwoo was back then. What a handful, “Kim Sunggyu. I guess… I’m your SO.”

The branch they were on pattered with excited feet, “Yes, shi-shou!”

“Don’t call me that,” Sunggyu was about to slap his face off, he could feel the giggles in his hand from the blasted winged light.

“Sensei!”

“This is going to be a long training period…”

 

*

 

“First this is our house. Dongwoo lives together with me so you’ll see his disciple as well—often I suppose.”

“Sensei, how do you know where you’re going?”

Veins were ready to pop from his forehead, “Your quarters will be upstairs.”

Sunggyu walks up the wood ear steps into their little grotto. Arches of lantern flowers flowed above the head and the hedge high to made a fence out of it. The house was domed, weaved with various bits of grass and twigs; capped with huge fronds and the door a porthole with a rounded piece of water glass. He opened the large round door and stepped into the house. The bottom was covered in velvet rose petal carpet so they slipped off their shoes. It was large and roomy, equipped with various furniture and trinkets to make everything convenient and useful. Woohyun heard that Sunggyu was a son to a Repairer; so many things were crafted for use.

“Wow, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a natural kind of guy, Sensei.” Woohyun whistles as he sees the high ceiling and spiral staircase made of twisted twig work. “Is that my bed?” he sees just over the ledge of a second floor.

“Go up, put your stuff away and organize yourself. You should have a desk on whichever side you choose,” Sunggyu sighs, dropping himself into another room on the ground floor. “Unless Dongwoo forgot.”

“What was that?” his disciple’s voice came from upstairs. He decided not to reply.

Woohyun walked up quickly, admiring the handiwork just a little and came upon the second floor. From downstairs it looks quite small (it is a ledge) but roomier than he was expecting. A large leaf bundle sat atop the left side of the room, nearest to the stairs. He guessed that’s where his roommate had declared his side. So he went to the right and dropped off a small leaf backpack. There was one big round window crossed with grass in the middle of the room where both desks met. His bedding was a simple check with a pillow that looked like it was for the sofa. An empty wardrobe and a small set of drawers under the bed and desk; on the desk were small presents such as a toothbrush and some stationary. A note sat on top quoting

[Welcome! A little something from your tenant! –Dongwoo]

Taking out his stuff, he put a telescope on his desk. A dainty thing made from lost things and his favorite pajamas onto the bed. He had a feeling that wardrobe is going to hold a pile of clothes later so he neatly put away some loose clothing his mother made him. Lastly, he threw on the newly bestowed cloak on his shoulders and reveled in his mirror at the empty sigil spot on his left .

“Sensei!” Woohyun tumbled down the stairs and yelled in the home. Remembering that Sunggyu went into a room, he bolted into one. “Sensei?”

“Shh!”

He recoiled, stopping himself and looked on the bed. Sunggyu falls asleep fast, was his first thought. Then Woohyun looked around the room. If Sensei was asleep… then who talked?

“ME. You… you twit.”

“Whoa,” he said, too loudly so he covered his mouth and watched Sunggyu stir a little, muttering. “You talked?”

“Duh! Who else is here?”

“Um…”

“Shut up. Can’t you see your beloved Sensei is sleep?”

“He looks the same as he’s awake, just now on the bed and not moving.” Woohyun snickers, taking his chance to snoop around the room. “His eyes aren’t even open anyways.”

“What?”

Woohyun stopped at the top drawer, hurriedly closing what he believed to be the underwear drawer. Sunggyu sat awake on the bed, stretching and settling with a classic frown on his face. “What are you doing here?”

“I uh, finished unpacking and tried to look for you, but you were sleep and I just thought that—“

“Looking at my underwear was cool?” Sunggyu scoffed. “Lame.”

“How!” Woohyun puffed his cheeks but also was grinning with excitement. “How did you know?”

“I know because I know!” Sunggyu huffed, standing up and grabbing the lantern off his side table. A small piece of dried leaf fluttered to the ground. He was still completely clothed since apparently he fell asleep instantly from coming home. “Now out, we’re to meet up with Dongwoo.”

“But I thought Sensei was going to—“

“AH ah ah!” Sunggyu pushed his back away, out the door and towards the outside. “Until you know basic stuff, Dongwoo will be teaching you. Not me.”

“Wha—“

“AHH.”

 

***

 

White

“So that’s why you’ve been training as a second disciple under my SO, Sergeant Major Dongwoo?”

“Pretty much.”

Woohyun lay on his checked pattern bed across from Sungyeol, propping his head up on his hand and elbow out, while scratching his leg with his other foot. Scrunched his nose a couple times to snort out a booger. Sungyeol grimaced at him.

“I learned it from Sensei,” Woohyun grinned. “While he was doing something else. I can’t shoot it as far as him, but I’m practicing.”

“Whoa whoa,” Sungyeol with a half mouthful of sweets threw up his hands and stopped him. “God, that’s hella gross. Stop it. He’s barely your ‘Sensei’. Why not just call Sergeant Jang that? He’s taught you basic training and all this cool stuff,” Sungyeol pointed toward their gear. “In my eyes, Captain Kim is just a lazy .”

“Oh my,” Woohyun jumped out of bed, “Shh! He will hear!”

“We’re like, upstairs Woohyun. I doubt it very much.”

Over the few moons of harsh training, the two have bonded in time while Dongwoo was their SO. They went to camp in the woods, training under waterfalls and spar—left on their own for some nights because Dongwoo got lost. All sorts of training. Woohyun felt leaner and stronger, as did Sungyeol. They did a couple pranks to Dongwoo as well, who took it in high spirits but retaliated twice fold. Sunggyu, they tried once. Once putting dirt into his drink. Not only did he know, but he threw it away and gave no reaction but a frown. It made them feel bad, so they don’t prank him anymore. Dongwoo calls it favorites.

“I’m telling you, Woohyun. All those stories about Captain Kim and whatever he did are all fake. I mean, he’s blind! When have you not seen him in the infirmary sorting away herbs and medicine? Or in the main headquarters helping the Archivists tally stuff?” Sungyeol waved a honeycomb around, sticky and moist. “Might as well be Sergeant Jang’s protégé.”

“What do you have against Captain Kim anyways? I’ve never really seen you, well, like him at all.”

Sungyeol kicked up on his bed, sitting with crossed legs and big eyes. “He doesn’t do anything. His rank is so high but he’s never on expeditions. I don’t ever hear about him hunting or see him help you with training. He’s supposedly your SO, so why hasn’t he taught you anything? And, he never eats dinner with us! Sergeant Jang cooks and cleans the house, even asks if we’re sore and heats pebbles for us. Come on Woohyun, you can’t be seriously thinking that Captain Kim even deserves to be an SO?”

 

*

 

“And there you have it.”

Sunggyu sat awake on his bed, under the disciples’ quarters clutching a pillow he knew damn well was yellow underneath the pillow case with his greasy hair. Dongwoo sat in his room too, at the chair and leaned on the back support. His lantern sat again, on his side table.

“You honestly thought staying like this, for this long, would help?” Dongwoo whispered. “Sungyeol’s got some serious beef with you.”

“So?” Sunggyu whipped his head to the right, but it didn’t even matter. He can’t see anything. “Let Woohyun train with you… That’s fine, right? You were the one who offered in the note that day.”

“Yeah, but not for this long,” Dongwoo blew air out of his lips. Sunggyu knew he was blowing with his lower lip puckered out to ruffle his hair.“I thought you were going to take being an SO seriously?”

“That was until you offered help!”

“I was worried a certain someone here was going to bail!”

Sunggyu sniffled, twisting his lips and nose to the side per habit and grimaced. Dongwoo was right, however “I’m spending my time well though.”

“Digging in that ditch again?” Dongwoo sighed, standing from the chair. “In your workshop? Come on, at least show the kid you care. They come up with theories like this,” he pointed to the ceiling where the sprouts slept, or still chatting.

“Right…”

“It’s been moons.”

“That doesn’t help. And it’s been two. Two moons.”

“So you were counting.” Dongwoo smiles, getting the doorknob and slowly closes Sunggyu’s room. “Alright then, goodnight. Tomorrow morning I will be leaving Woohyun back into the rightful care.”

 

*

 

“...and I learned grappling, boy was that a hard day. Me and Sungyeol are the best at scavenging berries and picking up the leaf pouches at the Repairer’s tinkering trunk is a pain. Please tell me we’re not going to do that.”

“A-alright,” Sunggyu coughed, having to listen to the long list that Woohyun had said on what Dongwoo already taught him. It’s the whole shindig, and Sunggyu feels like he owes a big one. “And you spar with Sungyeol?”

“Every day!” Woohyun beamed, “It’s 17:21 right now.”

“Uh…”

“The score, of course! Sensei, you’re slow.”

“Right,” he played with his fingers. “Don’t you have anything to say to me? Like…”

“Like  how you haven’t really taught me a thing? Yeah, Sungyeol already gave you enough stink eye at breakfast. I’m surprised you even showed up! And now training me. This is like, the best day ever.” Woohyun is too happy for his own good that Sunggyu feels horrible with guilt. Sorta.

“Okay, it seems like I haven’t done a thing–”

“Not ‘seems like’,” Woohyun corrects, with a big grin on his face.

He began to think that grin on his face meant more than what it shows.

 

*

 

They began to trek off woods, into the branches beyond the village. Woohyun led, followed by Sunggyu who asked him to take them to the best hunting grounds he knows of. So the disciple chose to go to Gloss Clearing, a small mushroomy patch of grass that has a big hole of sunlight filtering down in a rare canopy opening.

“Say, Sensei… You’re blind and all,” Woohyun starts, helping him jump onto a twig and to the next branch.

“Amazing deduction. Shall I give you an acorn?”

Woohyun ignored the gripe. “How do you know where to go, or my facial expression? Or what I’m doing, or even judging my performance–”

“You ask too many questions,” Sunggyu huffed, walking past him and jumping to the next branch and dodging a leaf only slightly, and hitting another in the process. He gruffly snorts,. “Come now, I want to bring spoils home. If you trained with Dongwoo, that fool would probably be quicker to teach you to ride a rabbit than eat one.”

“Hey, how did you know?!”

Groaning, he left Woohyun to scrabble, catching up to him quickly.

 

*

 

They lay above the tall grass, coarse and strong from the sunlight above, in a hollow tree hole. Woohyun checked again with his telescope, looking through the water glass to see a flittering squirrel at the base of a tree across the clearing.

“Hold this,” Sunggyu slammed the lantern to Woohyun’s chest. “When hunting, it’s one shot. Sometimes you can make it up with a couple more but you have to hit the head.” He waves an arrow from the slew on his back. The whole thing was a long bone sharpened, attached with splayed feather parts on the end. “These bone arrows are crafted just for that. It will pierce the skull and let them instantly die with a short death. Your main purpose is food, not suffering. Got it?”

“Y-yes, Sensei,” Woohyun held the large ring of the lantern with two hands as he watched Sunggyu pull back a bow. It was just a normal bow from the armory, but watching a senior Seeker work it seemed much more advanced than him holding it.

“I may not be able to see,” Sunggyu whispers, aiming carefully. Woohyun watched in wonder, the man is blind! “But I can smell, and feel. Hear. Duh, so…”

He let go of one arrow, letting it cut through the still air. Quickly, he followed with another aimed just left of it, and another just after arching. The three bone needles sliced fast, hitting the squirrel’s tail and thigh. It screeched to run up the trunk, only for the arching arrow in the air to hit it just off the side of the skull, piercing an eye through. The squirrel squealed and choked, blood plastered on the bark as it fell to the ground.

Sunggyu recoiled, gritting his teeth. “Not a good example,” he says, putting away the bow and taking back his lantern. “But a kill. It’s enough for today.”

When they got to the tree, the nerves of the animal were still active, making its paws and limbs twitch. Woohyun thought it to be morbid, horribly wrong that he looked away as Sunggyu picked the bone arrows out of the body. Blood oozed out slowly, and Woohyun choked back bile– remembering that he eats too and sends a silent prayer of thanks.

“How…” he tries to start, but covers his mouth with a hand.

“Instead of asking ‘how’ all the time,” Sunggyu readies it for carrying back, and spits to the side. The lantern secured to his sash. “You should be helping me prep spoils. Now help me weave some grass stalks. We’ll be dragging this back.”

 

*

 

In direct contrast of Dongwoo’s training, Sunggyu’s training was purely hunting game or scavenging wild crops. Sergeant Jang focused on wilderness tactics such as survival and first aid, making shelters and keeping themselves safe. Captain Kim continued to rationalize the priority of the village, which is finding food and sources of water other than rain. Good supplies and crafting material to sell; bringing home spoils was his forefront.

After the squirrel hunt, they were praised for catching relatively big game. Mostly Sunggyu, since he was Captain but a couple like Sungyeol and Dongwoo gave him parts of their dinner for a celebration. Dongwoo even baked a cake.

Now they were off to a three sunrise trip out towards the south. The goal is to bring back a shell from the Samchom Shores for the Repairers. They are going to make new shingles for Town Hall and have decided on shell shards as material. Also, they are to bring back some sand, for the children’s new playground under a root. It’s an easy assignment for a veteran, an adventure for a noobie.

“Will we see fish?” Woohyun asks, jittery as he just finished waving to Sungyeol and Dongwoo who have now vanished amongst the grass. They sat on a caravan pulled by a deer mouse named Ivy. She is nippy and fussy, but overall loyal for a caravan. Their little cart continued to roll on wooden wheels and a flower cover. Woohyun wanted to steer.

“No, fish live in the deep parts of the Endless Water.” Sunggyu trusted the mouse to go where they need, he’s taken her out countless times towards the Shores. “It’s easier to catch them in streams than there. And they aren’t easy spoils to carry back.”

“So no fish?”

“No fish.”

The travel itself would take at least a day, so they frequently stopped beside tiny brooks throughout the woods to drink fresh water and find berries. Woohyun thought the trip would be a little awkward, but it felt nice to have an SO all to himself. While with Dongwoo, he always was up in Sungyeol’s way.

As the sun set more and more, the trees thinned out and they approached more grass than Woohyun had yet seen in the Woods before. Clearings were bigger than a tree trunk wide, spanning perhaps larger than the entire village. The skies expanded wide, and various grays to make up a sunset he had not seen before.

“Oi,” Sunggyu calls out, making him snap out of mundane daydreaming. He had stopped the caravan in a cleared patch of dirt. “Get down here.”

“Huh?” Woohyun stepped out of their caravan and onto the dusty dirty. It was soft to stand on, and the stalks of grass and flower sparsely grew around. “Sensei, what are we doing?”

“See these?” Sunggyu pointed to a tall and thin flower stalk, where the loofy petals were small and ovular. “These are called lady slippers, and they are yellow if you are curious.”

“You can see color?”

But Sunggyu paid no mind, since it was quite obvious he could see but one color, “If you pluck them,” as he did while saying so, “you can put them on your feet. Of course, after taking off your shoes.”And so he sits on the dirt, taking off the moccasins he saw Dongwoo help Sunggyu put on and slip on these (large on his feet) puffy slippers. “Go on, try.”

“Really?” Woohyun was sceptical as he plucked a pair of flowers for himself.

“There’s no hurt in these things. I’m not all grumpy bones, you know.”

Proceeding to take off his own shoes, Woohyun carefully slipped his little feet into the opening of the petal. Instantly he felt like the softest cotton with a sponge-like texture wrap around his steps, almost springy even.

Sunggyu scoffed as he watched Woohyun start to prance around like a butterfly, jumping countless times and asking him to watch. “They’re comfy, right?”

“It makes me feel like I’m taller,” Woohyun laughed, jumping again for emphasis.

 

">

 

*

 

During the trek, there was countless bounds of new terrain Woohyun had yet to experience. Such as how the trees thinned out to grass patches more often, and how the winds hit and the skies expand over their heads. Birds that dotted the ground like snow, flew up at a single wave of grass; rippling across their flock in an aerial rise of white fluttering wings.

That night they camped beside a run off stream. The dirt banks were dusty enough to resemble sand as pebbles dotted the edge. Woohyun helped refill their animal skins with water and Sunggyu started a fire to heat some mess of stew that he calls it, he thinks it’s actual garbage.

Before Sunggyu could start, Woohyun quickly takes over the cooking or else they’re eating trash. He fans the fire bubbling the pot with his hands, watching Sunggyu sit on the dirt waving his feet at the fire.

“Sensei,” he laughs, “Sometimes I wonder if you can see, and sometimes I wonder how it’s like to be you.”

“Don’t get all sentimental,” Sunggyu snorts, picking his nose. “I’m cool, and you’re not. End of story.”

“Whaa…” Woohyun gives him a scrunched up frown pout, going back to tending the fire.

“Oi oi, fan it properly,” he says.

“Yes, yes Sensei.”

For the next somewhat seconds, Woohyun hears the brumbles of the water and their little campsite. He swears he heard a fart but who’s to say. Passing out bowls, he heaped Sunggyu’s meal with lots of radish bits, since the SO barely ever eats right. They totter with their wares, wolfing down the meal that’s at least edible. Seconds and thirds passed, and the pot was empty.

Sunggyu heard small clatters, trinkets being tossed and silverware jumbled around. He quickly felt for his lantern and sat up. Laying down was his specialty. “What are you doing?”

“Here it is,” Woohyun mumbles, “My telescope!”

“God, you’re one of those.”

“Hey!” he sneers, blowing air out his nose. “The stars are pretty much open to see where without all the trees. It’s a perfect spot.”

As he hears Woohyun tinker around with his telescope, Sunggyu lays back down into the usual position and sighs. “Yeah, I’m sure it is.” Placing the lantern to the side of his face. It glowed a faint iridescent, hitting his cheek.

But with unseeing eyes and a curious disciple, Woohyun stared at the lantern for quite a while. Them two not saying much except random coughs and sneezes. Their cloaks dusty with dried dirt and their shoes a little wet on the sides from the stream. Grass swayed easy in the wind, yet he couldn’t help himself from looking at the so called ‘reward’ lantern that Sunggyu always carried. It seemed to him it was almost uncomfortable.

“Oh right,” Woohyun wiggles his foot, “You can’t see them.”

 

***

 

Blue

“So this is a shell?”

They reached the Shores by mid-sun the next sunrise, having parked their caravan right up to the sand and trekked from there. Sand was belligerent with grating textures and millions of tiny stones. It filled their shoes in one step, and their feet in to make it hard to walk. Woohyun was tired of the stuff, though it did look pretty from far away. As they got closer, he could feel the ocean breeze that everyone liked so much, and he understood why now. It ruffled his hair continuously in a steady sway, and the sound of these massive walls of water crashing onto beaten wet sand filled his ears completely. He couldn’t tell what Sunggyu was saying, but hurried to catch up with him. The sea was a never ending expanse to the horizon.

“I never knew it was going to be this big!” Woohyun had to yell on top of his lungs to get Sunggyu to hear it as they jumped through the sand.

“Get the other side!” Sunggyu started to lift this large, ruffled piece off the sand. It was bigger than Woohyun, and a bit like a cone. Spiralling to the top, Woohyun thought it looked really pretty but also like bread. It didn’t taste nor feel like bread though.

They steadily trekked back to the caravan and dropped it off. Then out they went again to scavenge shells of different shapes and shades. Sunggyu tried to describe that he wanted to find flat ones instead of the large cone spirals, and ordered him to go alone on one side of the shore as Sunggyu did the other.

 

The sun seemed to have ran across the sky once night had fell, and they had only been able to drag just five shells to their caravan. many were broken or too thin. By the time Woohyun dragged back his last round, Sunggyu had begun a fire and new campsite on the edges of the sand, where it met grass.

“I don’t think,” Woohyun pants, plopping down beside the fire, “I’ve been this tired since Sungyeol accused me of eating his dinner. Boy, were we mad when we found out Sergeant Jang ate it!”

“Always fooling around, that guy,” Sunggyu scoffed, kicking the little stand that hung his cloak near the fire. “Dry your clothes here. Sleeping in wet rags won’t do any of us good.”

But there was no answer back. He heard the scuffles of shoes on dirt and steps, but there wasn’t any indication of clothes waving around or the like. Fire weaned and flared in the crackling embers, the smell of burnt wood nostalgic and inviting to Sunggyu, but it didn’t feel right.

“Oi, Woohyun,” Sunggyu twisted his head around to listen. “Yah, you hear me?”

“For the last couple days, you’ve said nothing but gripe and nag and negativity. At first I thought you were just helping, but even today. I come back to camp with nothing but gripe and gripe!”

Sunggyu raised an eyebrow, “Whoa, Woohyun, what the heck.”

“See! You don’t even take anything from other people,” the disciple, Woohyun, snorts for once. “And now you even insult Sergeant Jang, who obviously has taken care of me much more than you have at all.”

“Okay…? Let’s just calm, uh”

Ignore. “And like, how am I supposed to carry on with whatever? I thought you were supposed to be an SO, not a slave driver.”

Sunggyu shifts to stand, bending his knees and a little afraid to stand tall.“Look, whatever you’re ridiculously and spontaneously mad about for plot development and the author can’t think of anything else tangible and good; I’m sorry alright?”

“That won’t cut it, you disgusting Sensei who barely has a heart!”

And for the drama, and only drama to this horrid plot line, Woohyun stomps away from the campsite and Sunggyu stands alone, hungry but more disappointed than anything.

 

“You sure you’re okay with this?”

“Ugh, he ran off himself,” Sunggyu sticked the fire, poking it and gruffly sighing while holding his head with the back of his hand. He sat crossing his legs, his cloak back on because the winds were biting at him more than relaxing. He shifted closer to the fire. “What am I supposed to tell him? I knew if I was SO then this would happen…”

“Well Dongwoo isn’t dumb, you know. You keep him away from Hoya, and you keep yourself away from being better. You were just like Woohyun, no?”

“Shut up,” he had nothing better to bite, picking up the lantern and shaking him. “God, and you just love watching everything, don’t you, Sungjong?”

“‘Oh my god, Sensei, save me!’ Is what I think he’s going to say in five minutes if you don’t go after your beloved disciple.”

“Not working. He can come back or not for all I care.”

“But don’t you remember what’s beyond just west of here? You fell in them too, you know.”

Sunggyu stands faster than ever, if Woohyun had just seen him, and nabs his lantern with a rough hand. Turning around, he quickly grabs his bag and throws it over his shoulders. It was a bit stuffed but not necessarily heavy. “Shut up.”

“Kyaa, treat me nicely, ‘Sensei’!”

 

 

*

 

“Stupid, stupid stupid!”

Deep back in the coastal pines, Woohyun sat shivering in a inset of a root. Rotting leaves soggy with water and himself no better. After trugging away, he couldn’t bring himself to face Sunggyu again, saying some (semi-)hurtful words. So he ran into the cliffside where pines started to gather with ferns and bark. Rain began to patter down, droplets large enough to splash routinely and loudly.

“I wish I had that fire now…”

Cold enveloped his skin, and he started to itch with ghost thoughts that he was dirty everywhere. Even the sand in his shoes were annoying, so he tugged them off and rubbed his feet away of the particles with wet leaf bits. Deciding to leave them off, Woohyun clutched his cloak tighter against his body, but the wind and wet clothes did little to keep him warm.

Looking towards the empty insignia, which seemed like forever, he sighed. “I’m not even a private yet, what am I to say about training plans.”

It seemed just yesterday that he and Sungyeol were laughing at the most insignificant thing, eating full meals and going to sleep excited for the next day. Surely, he was still happy to be with Sunggyu but waking up seemed tiresome and slow. There were moments of spiked tension but it goes down when Sunggyu says something to nag at again.

Night was dark outside, especially with the rain as the clouds blocked the moon and stars. Light was probably the last thing Woohyun expected to see and the usual gray tones faded for black. Maybe it was just like Sunggyu was, so he decided it’d be best not to get frightened here and close his eyes. Every shift and skitter made him jolt with a sense of danger, not being able to see what’s there. Inevitably daunting, he wanted to get the out but wow, pride.

Ages, it definitely seemed like ages until he heard that same old annoyed voice. “Oi.”

It was short, and ephemeral that he stayed still with his eyes closed, “If Sensei were here, I would say sorry for my stupidity, but he’s not so…”

“Hell the yeah, you’re stupid. Now get up, god, what’s with this sappy sad act?”

Woohyun opened his eyes, and the same iridescent blue light shined from Sunggyu’s lantern, into his face. He saw the same eye-patched SO that he has, wet and obviously a little annoyed. But also, he could tell that relief had struck as well, and it wasn’t rain what welled up in his eyes. “Sensei…”

“Come now, up up,” Sunggyu pulled him up and under his makeshift leaf umbrella. “And you have to make a blind man run after you, huh?”

“I’m sorry I was forced to say whatever the author made me to make the plot continue so she can make the deadline but ,” Woohyun took a breath, and Sunggyu snorted. “I’m sorry.”

“I heard you the first time, tree sap.” Sunggyu hit his head. But, for the first time maybe (half cough half not even going to check), he smiled at Woohyun, ruffling his hair. “God, and I thought Sungyeol was a handful.”

“Sensei, what’s that?” Woohyun’s voice was muffled, but easily told he was grinning bigger by the second.

“If you hadn’t bust your chops with some ingenious tantrum, it is my gift to you for working so hard.” Sunggyu coughs, “I’m a pain in the .”

“Duh.”

“But,” he catches himself from a gripe, shaking his hand into a tighter grip on his lantern. “But, I also know when hard work should be rewarded. So, let’s go back, get you warmed up, and eat. I’m hungry.”

Woohyun brightly smiles, “Yes, Sensei!”

And the ground breaks beneath them.

 

*

 

“Sensei!?”

In the pit of his stomach, the same talons gripped his heart. This time even worse. He knew they were falling, since obviously there was no ground under his feet and he was flailing around like a cub on ice.

Reaching his hand out, anywhere and the other holding onto the lantern too hard his grip stung, he yelled out, “Woohyun! Grab on!”

“You’re too far down, Sensei!” he could hear his disciple spinning and somersaulting in the air as they fell further into the abyss. Woohyun was far above him.

Turning his back so the wind blew his hair upwards as he fell, he tried to pinpoint Woohyun’s girly screams. “Yah, Sungjong. Catch his landing.”

“You sure? What about you?”

“Who cares what happens to me at this point,” Sunggyu recoiled his arm back, shaking fervently and sweating badly that his hands were struggling. “I’m just a blind old man who can’t even be a proper SO!”

“Ey, hey!”

The winged lantern swung right out from his fingers, flying up fast and went right past Woohyun’s head. The disciple, who still had troubles getting his bearings, yelled on top of his lungs while they descended. Gravity worked it's and the lantern turned its trajectory back towards the planet. It hell faster than they did, since it was slim and not flailing in the slightest.

So fast it hit Woohyun’s head spot on.

“Ow!” Woohyun grabbed it, looking at the darn thing in falling flight. “Sensei’s lantern?”

“Ugh, I’m not that fart’s smelly lantern! I’m Sungjong, you twit!”

“Whoa, it spoke!” the disciple smiled. “Sensei has lots of weird things.”

“God, I take it back. You are even more clueless than Sunggyu.”

The lantern flashed the brightest light he’d seen, near a tearing light and expanded out like a storybook would tell. The rings and glass slowly vanished away, growing into limbs and clothes, hair and bone. Wings lashed out in prim cascading light, pointed and together neatly flittered with their glittering, spirling veins. Out popped a boy, couldn’t be even older than he was, and caught his arm.

“Hello Woohyun,” he said, his hair softly tousled from their fall. “Be honored with my true form, I am Sungjong! The guardian entity of changing seasons.”

“What?”

“God, you’re too dumb to even understand my importance,” Sungjong rolled his eyes, grabbing both of Woohyun’s arms and they started to fall lightly towards the end of the hole.

“Sensei? What about Sensei!” Woohyun struggled in his hold, but it was deafly strong.

“I can’t carry two men. He told me to get you down safely.” Sungjong sighs. “He literally does everything for you these days.”

Woohyun made no comment.

At last, the floor came to view. Damp and dark, Woohyun jumped out of Sungjong’s hold right as he thought it was low enough. His feet cracked with nerves, shooting up his bones from dangling for so long and immediately fell back down with tears in his eyes.

“And that’s why you always listen to Sungjong,” the fairy says, sighing with his soft landing. His glow stretched out a good flash radius, and Woohyun steadily got up to his feet and looked around.

“Sensei!” he says immediately running towards his SO’s side. “Hey! You okay? Come on, answer me! Sensei!”

“Stop being a dramatic embarrassment,” Sungjong moves him away and checks Sunggyu’s body with a hand. “He might just have a concussion, a rib or two broken and that leg definitely will not be working. Good thing he fell on this.”

Woohyun looked where Sungjong was pointing, seeing that Sunggyu’s bag comforted some of the fall. Thankfully cushioning his head and neck, some of his back was okay too from the cloak scrunched up at the last second so the spine wasn’t the biggest thing damaged. Scuffling, he gently moved the bag away and opened it. Acorns can’t possibly break a fall.

Opening the bag, he’s met with a thick cloth. Pulling it out, it turns out to be a scarf; mediocre in length and with two lopsided balls of rabbit fur at each end. “This is?”

“He made it for you,” Sungjong grabbed the scarf, throwing it onto Woohyun’s head with a lazy wrap, the fuzz ball hitting his face. “He was all like, ‘My Woohyunnie works so hard and rarely complains about how I am. Oh woe is me! Tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles!’ and… uh, yeah you get the point.”

“Wow…” Woohyun felt the soft cloth around his face, fixing it up to sit comfortably around his neck.

While he was preoccupied with his happy new present, that technically wasn’t given but sorta was, Sungjong picked up Sunggyu in his arms. He was just taller than the Seeker, taller than Woohyun that’s for sure.

“Come on,” Sungjong beckons, his glowing wings fluttering with the slightest glitter. “I’ll ask the locals to give us some directions.”

“Locals?” Woohyun looks up after throwing the rabbit fur over his shoulder.

“They owe us a favor or two.”

 

*

 

The tunnels underneath were dark, pitch black in his shaded vision and anything past Sungjong’s wings scared him to wits end. Woohyun tucked his chin further into the scarf, looking at his SO Sunggyu, who still was unconscious in Sungjong’s arms. His leg was fissured with a cast, two roots wound together and his middle a belt of lichen. However the fairy was flittering just above the ground; slowly with his wings spanning the air so it barely moved the man in his arms.

Woohyun could hear the rushes of water deep within the caverns, a low rumble like steps and the walls turned to tougher dirt, combined with stone. He stayed close to Sungjong, the tunnels seemed to stare back at him with unwavering eyes.

They trekked long, and it was cold. He shivered hard with his still damp clothes, although the fall did blow away from droplets. Rain pattered the ceiling so far above and he can still hear it. Skid and scuff of flaking rock echoed in his ears, ringing down the tunnels.

“Are you sure there’s anyone under here?” Woohyun asked as they continue walking in the black underground.

“About just over a dozen moons ago, do you know what happened to Sunggyu?” Sungjong didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s when he got famous, no? As a heroic Seeker who risked it all protecting the village from a horned owl! He lost his sight and received a lantern as a mysterious award. Immediately promoted to a lieutenant and later on to be a Captain!”

“Yeah, I think everyone knows the story.”

“Well it’s half true. And here,” Sungjong nodded towards the dark tunnels, “This is the other half.”

 

Long time later, they come across an opening, where the earth grew larger in a cavern and the ceiling at least was taller far beyond his head. Woohyun stood in wonder, looking at the many cubbies of square windows and the quietest of murmurs. A crowd gathered, underground! With lanterns that looks much different than Sungjong, they were made of paper and oil slicks.

People stared at them weirdly, and some hostile. Sungjong was just about to fight an old lady before a big voice called out, “And you come back, did you now?”

“My, my, speaking to your savior in that tone of voice makes me want to take it back!” Sungjong huffs, watching as a rather normal man comes down the rock to greet them. Woohyun thinks he looks plain, with his ragged coat that covered a bare body and some tied sashes for pants. Shoes patched an undeniable amount of times, and his hair slicked back with oil.

“What are you doing here?” the leader says, with another male following up close behind.

“Oh, Hoya. With that tone, I might have to punish you!” Sungjong makes a face that Woohyun couldn’t make out from behind. “My friend here is unconcious. Would you be so kind to give us a hand and let us stay here until he wakes up? And give us a first class ticket outta here!”

“Huh,” Hoya, the leader of the underground city, fixes the goggles on his head. “What’s in it for us?”

“Well, for one, you get to keep that eye of yours.”

 

*

 

Sunggyu now lay in a bed of moss, sleeping well enough with regular scrunches of his face and groans, with a bit of movement that Woohyun stopped before he messed up his wounds more than yet.

“This is Hoya, the now Chief of Lutel,” Sungjong introduces as they sit around Sunggyu like a cult. “And that’s Myungsoo. He’s kinda like an Archivist in sense, but does more than that. This is Woohyun, Sunggyu’s disciple.”

“I see you are acquainted with our deity,” Hoya says, shaking his hand. “May earth be with you to put up with him.”

“Hey!”

“Thanks,” Woohyun grins. “And hello, Myungsoo.”

“Hi,” the young dark haired boy grinned with glimmering teeth. “You’re from the Surface, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Is Sky as big as they say?” Myungsoo had his eyes sprinkle with curiosity. “And the thing called a Sea, did you see them?”

“Yes, and they are huge!” Woohyun expands his arms to stress the largeness. “Big big!”

“Whoa!” Myungsoo started doing the same motion.

“Children,” Hoya laughs. “What would we do without them?”

“You wouldn’t be able to see or hear or whatever,” Sungjong jibes, looking at Hoya with a knowing look. “Woohyun, look after Sunggyu okay? I’m going to survey the city while I’m down here. Don’t break anything.”

Sungjong pops back into lantern form, glowing a blue light and falling into Woohyun’s hands. He tried to open the glass but Sungjong shouted a loud “Oi!” and Hoya came by to grab him and walk away. He heard inklings of how the town is now compared to back then.

“Okay.” Woohyun watched as they left, Myungsoo signing that he will be back later to get the full details of the Surface.

 

">

 

*

 

After picking up the wet cotton that Sunggyu slapped down for the nth time from his forehead, Woohyun yawned from another mini nap. He’s been in and out of sleep since sitting here, not really looking after him, more like sleeping on the job and hurrying to clean it up. He took off Sunggyu’s eye patch for comfort, it looked like it was giving him a headache.

“Why do you even wear this stupid thing?” Woohyun dangled the little piece of hide in front of his face, the four strands of string from it like a puppet. “Is it cool? Sensei, your sense of fashion is a little weird to be honest.”

As he tried on the eye patch himself, Sunggyu began to stir, from a bad nightmare it seems. Woohyun struggled to figure out what to do, squabbling around for the right things but all he could really do was keep the wet cotton on Sunggyu’s forehead. He tucked his chin into the scarf again.

“Wait!”

His SO bolted from the bed, sitting up and panting with cold sweat beaded on his forehead as the cotton fell to his lap again. His chest was painted with another bruise from broken ribs. But what was surprising was that his eyes were wide open. Not to pull a joke, but it was Woohyun’s first time to see Sunggyu actually open his eyes. They were always closed, and he thought it might’ve just been easier that way because his SO was blind.

But the Seeker was not only blind. Woohyun saw that his entire right eye was a gaping hole, black from dead tissue and hollow without anything there. The left was a shining gray iris starting back at the nothingness in front of him.

Wait, that shining thing? And the weird shade of gray that’s on Sunggyu’s face?

Heat seared into Woohyun’s eyes rapidly, taking his sight with it and he couldn’t think of anything else to do but freak out. The chair he had been sitting in was a mile away and strength left his legs.

“Woohyun? Is that you? Hey! What the hell is happening–Ow, that hurts like a–!”

 

*

 

“It’s weird.”

“Well they’re only some moons different in age.”

“Some?”

“Like fifteen moons, but who’s counting?”

“My mom says dad is like eighteen moons older than her!”

“Oh Myungsoo, I need to send you up to the Surface for more learning.”

“Really? Yes!”

“Shh! They’re coming to.”

The first thing was an eerie glow that casted the walls and immediate dark tones. Woohyun first thought was it was a weird gray, but he’s never seen a gray like it before. Getting up, he sees Hoya, Myungsoo and Sungjong staring back at him. Each with a different gray than before! Sungjong seemed completely light, and Myungsoo a little darker.

“Sungjong, you look…” Woohyun struggled for the word. “Look…”

“Blue?” Sungjong laughs, his eyes both a glimmering representation of ‘Blue’. “That’s right, boy. It’s actually teal–”

“That’s blue!” Woohyun exclaimed, and looked around. “And so… this is color?”

“Yes, it’s what you call a Prism Sun up on the surface,” Hoya explains. “You are now able to see color, no?”

“It’s...weird.” Woohyun repeated what Hoya said just a couple moments ago, examining his hand. It seemed overwhelming, to have different sorts of grays–no, color now in his vision. The textbooks made it seem like a big deal, but right now, it was barely an different than before.

“Wait,” Woohyun’s voice came up, looking around. “My Prism Sun… it came right after I saw Sensei’s eyes!”

“Eye, my boy. Singular.” Sungjong nods. “Your Sensei has but one eye.”

“Quit your gossiping.”

They all turn to the side, where a certain injured Seeker lay growling. “Woohyun probably saw someone through the room window in Lutel, could be anyone here. And it’s not me. So stop your constant chatter.”

The Seeker got up, struggling to stand on his broken leg and Sungjong immediately went to his side. “Sunggyu, hey! There’s no denying it. You both have–”

“What did I just say Sungjong?” Sunggyu snorted. “Stop trying to be cupid. There’s no way Woohyun is… is whatever. He’s my disciple and also, if you didn’t know, I had gone through my Prism Sun ages before I met him!”

 

***

 

Silver

“And this is red,” Myungsoo holds up a raspberry. “Or maybe a purple-ish red. You know, these things get a little tedious ‘cause lots of things are a little bit of every color.”

“Sensei…” Woohyun barely paid attention. His eyes hurt from all the looking and so he closed them. He knew Myungsoo was there and saying things but at this point, he was taking micro naps.

“He’ll come back with Sungjong later. Maybe a long time later,” Myungsoo digs in his little bag for something. “Ah, this is a nice orange! Look at this petal.”

Woohyun nodded, picking up the piece of reflecting shell off the bed. Again, he stared at his own complexion. It was bugging him, how his left eye was this shining color called silver; it being the same thing he saw on Sunggyu. And his right a light brown; Sungjong says it looks warm like a leaf backlit in the sun. Touching his face again, he marveled how skin could look so alive and how his fingers turned white when he added pressure, the pink gradually fading.

Just then Hoya walked in, a bit awkwardly but he cleared his throat. “So, Woohyun, have you gotten used to seeing things?”

“Somewhat. I kinda just want to sleep now,” he replies, his head foretelling a splitting headache in a few seconds.

But Hoya only laughs, taking a seat beside Myungsoo who looked proud with his lesson. The chief of Lutel looked no older than Sergeant Jang. “I still remember when Sunggyu didn’t reply so warmly when i asked the same question but moons ago. Though, technically I am younger than him so maybe I am to blame.”

“You’ve met before?” surprise etched his face. “Like, down here?”

“In this very room. It is my room if you hadn’t picked that up,” Hoya points around. “I’ve been sleeping in just the other room.”

“Oh.”

“Oh yes, no need for courtesies. It’s far too late for those,” he goes on to say. “Have a good look Woohyun, this may look a little familiar to you.”

Hoya got closer, widening his right eye with his fingers so his entire iris could be seen along with the whole surface of white. Woohyun was grossed out at first, seeing the chief’s veins and actually half his eye. The left was a raspberry color like Myungsoo was just talking about with a brown influence. But the right iris staring back at him was a familiar  color, a warm light brown just like his own.

“Wait, Chief Hoya, that’s!” Woohyun choked on his own spit. “Yours is the same as mine!”

“But it’s not mine,” thankfully Hoya stops and leans back, letting go of the skin around his eye. “Actually, it’s Sunggyu’s.”

“Ew, what? No.”

Myungsoo laughed at him so hard, he started slapping his knee.

“What?” Woohyun puffed his cheeks. “Okay, I just went through a Prism Sun which like, I waited forever for and you guys are pulling my leg? What?”

“No lie,” Hoya waves his hand, settling back. “It is Sunggyu’s. I had lost my eye a dozen and a half moons ago while fighting a large bird on the surface. I wasn’t supposed to be up there anyways but I was.”

“But you guys are down here?” Woohyun looked out their stone cut window, where the huge cavern spiraled up and around the walls were similar homes of the Lutel.

“We’re Dwellers, Woohyun,” Myungsoo shows him his wrist, which is etched with a black mark as of a spiral. “Underground is where the influence of the Sun cannot hit us. What you call a Prism Sun doesn’t exist down here.”

“People have come down here long ago to escape that influence,” Hoya says, showing his own mark. “Heterochromia is perhaps unimportant to us, unlike you Villagers. We do not believe in Fated Ones, but other than that it’s on our own to figure it out. And we have a set of rules not to go back up to the surface.”

“But there’s so much more to see up there!” Woohyun shakes his head. “There’s rivers and trees and the sky and I just saw the sea! I might’ve not seen the color just yet, but it’s really beautiful from what I hear!”

“It’s not…” Myungsoo sighs. “It’s too complicated.”

“But we help you because of Sunggyu,” Hoya says. “I would usually send Villagers who wandered into our tunnels back right away. However, Sunggyu saved my life with this eye,” he taps on his cheek, just under the eye. “And so I have no less than eternity to try and repay him.”

 

*

 

As night fell, or what seemed like rest hours for the Dwellers, Sungjong returned to his room without Sunggyu. They were going to spend one more night here before they are guided out to the surface. He reports that Sunggyu’s leg was getting better, enough to walk on.

“So, Hoya’s eye…” Woohyun was unsure out to start.

“It was Sunggyu’s, yes,” Sungjong laughs. “He told you?”

He nodded, though no good ideas to continue on.

Sungjong flicked his wings, little sprinkles of light coming off of them. “It’s not that hard of a story. Maybe cause Sunggyu is a little prick,that the story gets a little complicated. ” Sungjong comes close to Woohyun, his fingertip lighting up a bright teal color and he poked Woohyun’s forehead with it. Whispering, “But this is a story all about how a Villager and a Dweller’s life got turned upside down.”

 

***

 

Perhaps a dozen and a half moons ago, Sunggyu was going on a tedious expedition of gathering cobwebs for the local hospital. The Falling Leaves season got everyone’s feet tangled and lots of Villagers were breaking something on their bodies. Cobwebs were perfect for bindings, and so off the Seekers went to gather.

Sunggyu graduated just three dozen moons ahead of me right?

That’s right, Woohyun. Now watch. See there? That’s your beloved Sensei!

 

Sunggyu counted how many times he’s been sent off to gather cobwebs. This was the seventh, seventh! time he was sent out by the LTC. While Dongwoo was getting all the attention down in the hunters group. He should be in it! Sunggyu puffed his face. I’m the best shooter here! But no, since I broke the rule and snuck off a week ago to explore the Eastern Birches, I’m on probation! Aka, scrub duty.

He snorted again, climbing higher. Cobwebs were usually down in the oak roots, covered with dew and plastered over like nets. But Sunggyu was sick of it, climbing the trees in hopes to get higher and see the sky again.

Leaves were fluttering down in a cascade of oranges, yellows, and reds. He liked it, and maybe it was the only thing good about Falling Leaves season. Ever since that day, he’s been able to see color easier than any other kid his age. Dongwoo had no clue and Jinki barely could talk since he was always eating. He never really wondered why. The Fated One stuff didn’t have a good enough explanation for him. After all, his mom and pop had different colored eyes. And later he found out, they couldn’t see color at all but still loved each other very much. Actually, lots of Villagers had various eye colors and married. Sunggyu did some sneaky experiments to test their color capacity, and many failed to properly tell apart a dark blue and a purple color.

After jumping and stabbing the bark with his two bone needle arrows, Sunggyu hauled up past the canopy and sat himself on a good twig that protruded out into the sky. It was vast and undyingly blue, with wisps of clouds layering. The sun was nearing to set, but he was far away from anyone to catch him screwing around instead of gathering. It was his past time to climb the highest tree he could find and sit there, watching the sky till night fell and the stars twittered out in little specks. The moon swallowing an entire circle in the dark.

But after a while, he saw something rustle in the leaves below him, just a little bit aways. And it came fast to approach him. Sunggyu dropped back down into the canopy, waiting for whatever to show up.

First a foot came out from the leaves, so fast and Sunggyu couldn’t dodge so he took a step in the face. Whomever it was, they stopped to turn around and yell, “Sorry!”

“What the hell!” Sunggyu turned to see a man, a little plain in looks but very sturdy and obviously out of place with goggles on his face. “Who are you?”

“No time for that!” the man grabbed his wrist and started jumped to other branches, running. “We’ve gotta run!”

Regaining the wits to run alongside the other, behind them leaves burst through and fell to the ground not by natural forces, but by huge feathered wings that speckled throughout. It’s vastly gray body and sharp talons ripping through the branches towards them.

“What the!” Sunggyu turned to the other goggled man, “What did you do?”

“I didn’t know what it was! So I poked it and now it’s after me!”

“What are you, five dozen moons old? That’s a great horned owl ready to tear you to shreds, bird brain!”

“Oh, whatever the mumbo jumbo is, just help me run and get away from it!

 

The sun went down and Sunggyu with the goggled man sat panting in a deserted hole in a tree. Looked like a woodpecker had long gone to the south from this home, and the Seeker thought it to be a good place to hide until the sun came up. He had no idea where he was now, and finding his way back to the Village is going to be a pain. Not to mention the extra duties for cobweb collecting stacking up on his shoulders.

“So?” Sunggyu sneers, giving the other a face. “Tell me why you’ve got an owl on your tail. You look about the same age as me, shouldn’t you be smarter than that?”

“I don’t know…” he says. “I’m Howon, from Lutel. I, uh, broke some rules and came to the Surface for the first time. Everything is so colorful and unique and… and alive! And when I saw that thing called an Owl, I just touched it. Never knew it would attack me.”

“Lots of things will eat you. Especially bigger things. I’m Sunggyu,” he pokes his own chest with a thumb and grins. “The best Shooter in the Seeker class! And while you’re with me, I’ll be able to shoot anything down with my bow–”

Sunggyu searched his back, grabbing nothing but his cloak. “M-my… bow?”

“Um, Sunggyu was it?” Howon creases his thick eyebrows. “What’s a bow?”

“My bow!” Sunggyu tears up. “Oh no, no no no no no. I couldn’t have… left it on top of the canopy now!?”

“Was this ‘bow’ special?” Howon, in his head, is thinking of the little cloth that girls put in their hair and on their clothes. He was in no position to judge Surface Villagers on what to prefer.

“Yes,” Sunggyu sighs, trying to come into terms with his loss. “Without it, I’m afraid I’m little help with defending off big animals like this. Sorry, Howon. But I guess we’ll have to wait it out till the coast is clear.”

 

The coast was never clear though, and they spend the night without fire because it would signal their location and chatted about idle things. Sunggyu learned that Howon was from Lutel, an underground city where people can see color regardless of the sun. From history’s standpoint, the Sun’s rays contain too much ultraviolet information, so as a Villager it’s not capable of understanding it until exposed for a long time. Hence their Prism Sun. Some may not go through it at all, the capacity to read the information is far too great.

Dwellers automatically can sustain the ultraviolet information quickly since underground there is minimal color tones and tints, so for them it is easier to adapt. The whole shabam of Fated Ones only works if you find the person with the same eye color–but Howon told Sunggyu that it could work even without the same eye color. Since meeting that person is literally like trying to dig for a lost jewel from millennia ago. Fated Ones and Prism Suns were completely different matters. Sunggyu’s whole color lesson at school exploded to dust, not that he understood it much anyways.

“Ahh, the sun is coming up,” Sunggyu peeked outside their little cubby in the tree. Rays of light began to filter in through the leaves. They were pretty high up in the canopy, even looking down was a pain in the neck.

“Morning huh?” Howon stepped beside him. “This is what it looks like.”

“Oh right, you’re like a gopher or something,” Sunggyu scratches his chin. “That’s actually called a moon.”

“Moon?! But you just said sun!”

Sunggyu laughed, “Man, I can say a lot of things that you would believe.”

“...I’m not believing you anymore.”

“Well, let’s try to step out.” Sunggyu peeks around their little hole. “It’s morning. The owl must’ve gone back to sleep. After all, they’re nocturnal and stuff.”

“You sure?” Howon says, watching Sunggyu take a step out and gasps. “No, Sunggyu! It might be around still!”

“I have mild confidence it is gone,” Sunggyu steps out and twirls a little, looking back at Howon from outside on the branch. “See?”

“Yes I see!” Howon ran out of the hole, “And it’s right there!”

He slammed into Sunggyu, knocking them both down and narrowly missing the talons of the owl.

“Holy !” Sunggyu scrabbled to get back onto his feet, pulling Howon up. He looked back at the empty hole, but the owl already was there, pecking at it. “No time for that, let’s get outta here!”

“What did I tell you?” Howon panted after him as they jumped to another branch. “We shouldn’t have left the hole!”

“It might’ve sniffed us out anyways, being so close. I say it’s good now that we’re still able to run.”

 

And so they ran, quickly I suppose. It was so fascinating that I had to watch. See me over there?

Yeah, that blue thing right?

Rude! I am not just some blue thing, I am the Deity of Changing Seasons!

Where are they going? And who’s Howon?

Howon is Hoya’s actual name. Hoya came along when I forgot his name and just called him that, haha! And they’re heading right back to Hoya’s home tunnel lands. But they didn’t know it at the time, and still a long ways from Lutel. But this area still had tunnels under them. Oh look! The owl caught up!

That’s one persistent bird…

Well their heads do turn a full 360 degrees.

 

Sunggyu pulled the lagging Howon down and branch and covered them with his cloak as the Owl just barely scratched them. Then they were hopping down twigs, Sunggyu beckoning Howon to follow as they were getting more close to each swipe than the last.

But before they could reach the ground, far before that, Howon was hit by the owl, grasped and flown away.

“What the!” Sunggyu watched as Howon struggled in the owl’s hold, with fear apparent on his face. He quickly ran after the owl who was slowed with Howon’s weight and pulled a twig from the branch, chucking it at the bird.

It hit, but not very much happened. Sunggyu did the same again and again until the twig hit the owl’s eye. Talons let got and clutched rapidly, sending Howon in a series of chomps and yells. The Dweller subjected into the hits had Sunggyu running even faster to try and get him.

But the owl freaked out and started flying, dropping Howon from it’s claws in its fervent escape to try and regain its balance. Howon fell from the branches, hit and beaten down and continually falling.

“Howon!” Sunggyu yelled, watching his friend plummet to the ground. “Oh . No nonono…”

Seconds later, he too couldn’t continue to care much about the wellbeing of others when the Owl came by to snatch him up as well. He screamed and fought, but little was done to even save himself.

Until the blasted thing let him go, and he fell just like Howon did. Seconds later, he would find himself in the tunnels and just as beat up as his Dweller friend.

 

See Woohyun. This is when it gets interesting.

Sensei loses his sight?

No, silly this is when I come in!

Oh.

Don’t sound so disappointed!

 

*

 

Sunggyu turned around in the dark, seeing a light cast his shadow long into the depths of the underground. There, he saw the rock fade away into light, even as it looked like it’s been there forever. Howon appeared, lifeless in someone else’s arms. A someone with wings.

“Howon?” Sunggyu meekly squeaks out, staggering over to the two. “Is my friend alright?”

“No.” was the brief answer. “That owl stuck a talon right into your friend’s right eye. I’m afraid the blood loss will kill him, if not his brain will shut down.”

“What?” Sunggyu looked to the floor, marred with the dark splotches and a growing pool under his friend’s head. “No. Howon, what the hell! You can’t… can’t die. You just got to the surface a-and your eyes! Your eyes are just like Dongwoo’s!”

“That’s his fault,” the winged boy scratches his nose. “But I suppose…”

Sunggyu whipped his head to him, “What? What can I do?”

“Give him your eye.”

A silence prolonged and Sunggyu baffled, sputtered, coughed and spit, “What?!”

“There’s a perfectly functioning right eye you have there, unlike your friend here,” he points to Howon. “I suppose if you want him to live, I can transfer your eye to him but you just won’t have a right eye at all. That’s not good, no? Your Fated One and all.”

“I,” Sunggyu looks to Howon, slowly degrading and losing energy. His hands were gradually opening away from a fist and his face getting calmer. “I’ll do it.”

“What was that?”

“I said, I’ll do it!” Sunggyu yells out. “He’s… He’s Dongwoo’s…”

“Ah, for your friend?”

“They are my friends. Both of them.”

“Well then,” the winged boy smiles. “I’ll get to it right away. Clock’s ticking,”

And he stuck his pointed hand right into Sunggyu’s eye.

 

You’re quite savage, Sungjong-sshi.

Oh, the respect, I like it! See now, here we have Sunggyu completely dying. I am wretching out his eye, I guess. Ew, all that blood. I’m surprised I even pulled it out. Ugh, it was so gross.

Sensei… gave up his eye?

Yes! His eye getting pulled out without any sorts of medical herbs gave him a big shock. Sorry to say, but shocked his nerves so much he lost his sight when he woke up. It took maybe three days for Howon to adjust to his new eye and then another to get us to Lutel. There, Sunggyu woke up but he couldn’t see anymore. Look at him freaking out, haha, my boy sure has grown up. To help him cope, since I didn’t think he would turn blind, I became his stylish and cool lantern! Look, there I am transforming~ Oh, good job me.

Are he and Hoya still friends?

Of course! Sunggyu comes by these tunnels every moon to deliver letters. Ah, the Dweller and Villager couples are always cute.

Wait, him and Hoya?

Oh heavens no, honey. That’s gross! I mean, Hoya and Dongwoo of course! By Sunggyu’s introduction. See? It’s partially why Dongwoo offered to be your replacement SO for a little while as Sunggyu didn't have the confidence to do so… Look, they’re meeting for the first time! He brings them together in the Dandelion Meadow and Hoya dances in the flying puffs along side Dongwoo as they….

 

***

 

Earth

“Oh Oh Ouuuuuo! Today’s the day, Sunggyu! The day you will accept!”

“Get the hell away from me, Woohyun!”

The new Seekers watched as Captain Kim slammed Lieutenant Nam in the face and continued to walk on, his cloak fluttering behind him and lantern in hand. Lieutenant Nam quickly got back onto his feet, like every morning, and followed his Captain for the day to follow. It was winter, nearly everything had changed since moons back when they had gone missing.

Woohyun really couldn’t ‘get away’ from him, as he worked directly under him as his assigned Lieutenant. The Colonel was irked with Sunggyu’s personal movement outside of mission lines, so he put Nam there to give him some straightening up.

Hunting has been only their little squad, and bringing back rather good spoils despite it being winter. Their village is decked with hide and fur, warmest little cottages. Dongwoo has moved out to his own home, outside of the village. He suddenly disappeared one day without warning, sending a letter to Captain Kim explaining his location and to keep it a secret.

Sungyeol works as Command Sergeant Major, in charge of the NCOs and taking account of every Seeker. He goes on missions with Woohyun for gathering sometimes. They get some good chats in and everything.

But every morning, the same scene comes up. Lieutenant Nam would…

“Kim Sunggyu is my soul mate and no one can touch him, capiche?!”

He would do that. And the answer back is always:

“Fair game, Lieutenant Nam!”

And in the back would be, “Shut up and get back to work, all of you! Woohyun, I swear if you continue on with this soul mate nonsense, I’ll drop you in the middle of the sea!” Though Captain Kim’s threats get more elaborate as time flies.

“We’re meant to be! Our color!”

“Means nothing! I’m blind!”

“Then I might as well be deaf!” Woohyun jumps down from the flagpole and coddles Sunggyu’s back, “Sunggyu~hyung! Believe me, I really really really really really like you.”

“Don’t say that sort of thing without thinking,” Sunggyu pushes away his head. His eyepatch on his left eye. “You’re lying, I don’t believe. How dare!”

“Believe me~”

“No!”

 

*

 

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“Love is not just love. Love is you accept, and you give. You love not matter what happens. Okay? Tomorrow is always be better than today.”

words of my mum.

 

*

Yet To End

 

 

 

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Admin's Note: WOW. This was so epic! Literally. Oh my goodness, I'm in love. Thank you so much for writing this, my dear! I'm not even the one receiving this as their christmas gift, but I feel like I am. hahaha. I was getting excited about everything in this story, even the littlest things. AND THE PICTURES! CUTE! Sorry my comment is all over the place. This was four hours of fantastic reading I'm commenting on, and my brain has turned into marshmallows. I hope you have a lovely Christmas! <3 ~ ibreathe-flames