holding on (to what we haven't got)
Summary: Does he hate Soo Won because of what he did to him, or because of what he did to Yona? OneShot- Hak. After the events of ch 91. (These are not happy memories.)
Warning: Drabble-esque, fractured.
Set: After the events of Ch. 91: Hak and Soo Won meet again for the first time since the coup.
Disclaimer: Standards apply. Title (slightly changed) from the lyrics of "Waiting for the End", by Linkin Park. There's another reference to the same song in the text, too.
I've been following the manga for some time now. It's one of these stories that get better and better the further you read, and which you fall in love with deeper and deeper as time passes. In my opinion, at least. I love the author's humor, and her ability to write character development and emotional undercurrents is amazing.
The rain falls steadily.
When Hak awakens he is disoriented, and that's not something that happens often. He has trained himself to react to every possible situation. He even sleeps lightly, always alert and listening for every oh-so-small sign of danger. It has served him well. But now he awakens as if emerging from the depths of the ocean. It is like returning to harsh daylight after the soft sounds and gentle whispers of the deep. Suddenly everything is cold and blinding, even the grey light filtering through the tent canvas. The rushing rain sounds like a thousand tears falling to earth, endless grief and endless sorrow, and Hak is in pain.
He needs a few heart beats to realize it is not only his injured left arm that is screaming wordlessly in agony.
When Hak was a child, his mother used to tell him stories.
Fairy-tales, mostly, old fables and legends of the Wind Tribe. But there were other tales, of encounters and failures and happiness. Hak had loved each single one of them, had listened with bated breath every time her sweet voice would retell another one of her colorful imaginary adventures.
One of her favorites was a story about a princess, a beautiful girl, who followed her beloved out into the mountains when he was exiled and came just in time to watch him throw himself off a cliff, believing he would never see her again. She followed him into death, and her voice would forever haunt the mountain winds. Her sweet song would echo from the high peaks and her tears would fall as the rain that covered the lands and made them fertile.
Hak's mother died two days before he turned five. Her last words and her last touch and her last breath conveyed her love for him, and Hak never forgot the sound of soft pitter-patter knocking against the window as she smiled at him for the last time. For him, rain would forever carry the sound of tears.
"Don't cry, Yona, you're a princess."
"She's a crybaby, nothing else!"
"Shut up, Hak. Come on, Yona, can you stand? Let's walk over to the fountain and sit, and I'll have a look at your knee."
"It huhuhuhurts!"
"Oh, it hurts, doesn't it? It's not even bleeding. Let me teach you something about-"
"Hak!"
"… Yeah, yeah. Come on, Princess."
"Isn't it a good thing that Hak is this strong, Yona? He can carry you easily. What a nice couple you are!"
"We aren't! I don't like Hak at all! Let me down, I can walk by myself!"
"…"
"Ouch. Don't worry, I still like you!"
"Shut up."
(Once upon a time there was a princess and a nobleman's son and an orphan. They lived together in a beautiful palace in a peaceful country, and they loved each other like siblings.)
Soo Won.
Hak once loved him like a brother, trusted him with his life. Even more: he trusted him with Yona's life. And then came a murder, a coup, a hunt and a cliff and somewhere in between – in between instinctive reaction and desperate, silent pleading, in between worrying about Yona, pushing her forward, teaching her self-confidence and letting her find her own strength, in between long days and even longer nights – he stopped relying on his former friend. Somewhere in between, the sense of betrayal he feels when he thinks of Soo Won has gained a crushing weight, cemented by the many extensive actions and tiny changes he has observed which show him that really, Soo Won killed Emperor Il and, really, Soo Won took over Kouka. There was this tiny voice in the beginning, screaming that it was impossible and that Soo Won never would hurt Yona. It was silenced after they went over a cliff head-first and Hak isn't sure whether he's glad that it's gone or should wish for it to be back. Mostly, it doesn't matter anymore. Now he hates Soo Won with a burning fire that leaves him breathless and shaking with fury when he allows himself to think about him.
Traitor. Murderer. Usurper.
Seeing him standing there – he still looked exactly the same, the same voice, the same height, even the tilt of his head hadn't changed – had made something deep within Hak shatter.
Yona stops him.
Yona: the one person whose intent he can read from her voice, her face and her touch alone. Yona touches him, just looks at him without a word, and Hak doesn't lay a finger on Soo Won. The traitor emperor of Kouka and his bodyguards disappear and Hak senses them retreat but he doesn't see anything, doesn't feel anything. The only thing he sees is Yona – bright hair, violet eyes, her gaze so, so sad and yet determined. The only thing he feels is the cold of her hand, the clamminess of her skin that tells him what he already knows she is feeling. But her skin still is warm compared to his, her touch and the shape of her hand are familiar and they are the only things that stop him from going after the one person they both have given a part of themselves to and who has taken that part and trampled it until it shattered into a thousand tiny, irreparable pieces.
And then Lili starts asking questions and Yoon grabs Hak's arm, Kija starts fussing, Jae Ha crosses his arms over his chest and stares challengingly, Shin Ah just stands there as if he's a statue and Hak collapses onto his knees, just like that, and bends his head.
And Yona.
Yona wraps her arms around his shoulders wordlessly and holds him and binds him to her irretrievably once again.
(Once upon a time, there were three lonely children who became friends, and they grew up together in times of war although it still was far away. And they were happy, because they were together.)
"You're awake."
Yoon is not the most sociable at the best of his moods. Usually, when he has to tend to the members of their small traveling company (The Dark Dragon and the Happy Hungry Bunch, and Hak had enjoyed the implications of the title, especially since-), he's less than comfortable to be around. The Princess can tell him again and again that it's just because Yoon worries for them – perhaps he actually does, it is just like her to realize such small things in human beings and love them for it – but Hak isn't sure whether Yoon does not secretly enjoy all of this. The way he slams the flask of water and the loaf of bread onto Hak's lap certainly don't give away his tenderness but his hands, when he unwraps the bandages around Hak's left arm, are gentle.
"I always knew you were stupid," Yoon tells him while he carefully reapplies salve and rewraps the bandages. "But I never thought you'd try to kill not only yourself, but the Princess, as well."
There is nothing to say to that, so Hak just closes his eyes and pretends he is asleep. He can still feel her heart beat from when she wrapped her arms around him and held him together.
The scene then is drenched in blood, the corpse of a dead emperor is at his feet and he can hear screams and the sound of clashing metal. Familiar eyes stare at him: Kill them both. He's never seen them that cold before. Even his voice sounds different.
Yona is in his arms, her hair matted with blood, and her heart is not beating.
Somebody is crying, but Hak doesn't know who.
"Dang," Jae Ha says, outside. "He almost killed him."
"I've never seen him like that before."
"No? Because you're the one who has traveled with him for the longest time. Thunder Beast, my ass! He'd have taken me out!"
"You did try to stop him."
"Yeah, thanks for the reminder. Should I have let him kill the man?"
"We don't know their history. The Lady seemed to know him, as well."
"So neither of you thought that perhaps, maybe, that man could be the Emperor of Kouka?"
"Please, as if you'd known."
"Yeah, yeah, we all were clueless. Shin Ah, do you happen to have an opinion?"
"…"
"Thought so."
"I don't think he really wanted to kill him."
"… Why do you say that?"
"Because he's not dead."
"Wow, genius, this observation-"
"No, he's right. If he'd wanted to kill him, he'd be dead. Still, he's never been like that before…"
Silence. Rain.
"So what do we do now?"
A bitter snort. "What do we do? We do what we planned to do."
"Not before this rain has stopped."
"We're in the Country of Water, smart ass. Rain is quite common here."
"Not until Hak has rested at least another night. And I'm worried about the Princess, as well."
"So another night. Fine. Then we're off."
Hak's pretty sure that this is not a dream, because this annoying tilt to Jae Ha's voice manages to rile him up no matter how exhausted he is.
Then again, he's too empty to feel more than slight annoyance.
Sometimes he wonders. Does he hate Soo Won this much because he betrayed him, or because of what he did to Yona?
The truth has a way of sneaking up on Hak, always had.
It usually comes when Yona talks or acts particularly intelligently, or is particularly stubborn, or whenever Hak looks at her and kind of randomly thinks This is it. Over the past year, he has carefully collected the shards of his own heart (and perhaps parts of Yona's, as well) and has put them back together, has wrapped it with figurative bandages until the shape was barely recognizable anymore. And then he went and started to build another life in which Soo Won had no place in, which consisted of traveling with his Princess and her stupid mystical dragons and her annoying, girly healer. In this life he had to make sure they survived and had food and water and a place to rest, and they had to remain hidden at all costs. There was no time for other things. At least that was what he told himself: there was no time for revenge. He had a Crown Princess to keep alive.
Now the knowledge is there, out of nowhere, because the past is never buried and dead.
Hak hadn't realized how much he, despite all the evidence for the contrary, had tried to make himself believe that Soo Won hadn't really betrayed them. He'd told himself his friend must have had a reason, and that he would confront him and everything would come to light. He'd believed there'd been something good in the other, that the Princess and he hadn't overlooked Soo Won's true character all those years of living side by side with him. Like the Princess, Hak, selfishly and desperate, had prayed there was a reason to what had happened, and that, one day, they'd be together again.
Illusion.
Now, the hope he has nursed so desperately, so silently, shrivels up and blackens, and hate rears its head and escapes from the dark recesses of his heart. The truth is hidden under layers and layers of hurt, ounces of betrayal that have gathered within the shards of his heart since the day Soo Won had stood over Emperor Il's dead body and had sentenced Yona to death without as much as a twitch of guilt in his face. It was buried underneath the knowledge that he'd never really known his friend, and the doubt of what exactly – and how much – of their childhood had been real, and how much of it had been a ruse. It drowns out everything: Yona's smile, the Dragons, the forest and the rain. It drowns out Hak's own heart beat that has been pounding in his head moments ago, it drowns out the pain in his arm.
It drowns him, crushes his chest and makes it hard to breathe, and Hak just wants to let go.
(Once upon a time, there were three children that grew up together in a country that was reined by a kind but weak king. And they were happy, until one of them decided to walk a different path. And from there it went down, down, down…)
"What would you do if I betrayed you?"
"What do you mean, betray us? You planning on running away and becoming a pirate or what?"
"You'd never betray us, Soo Won! I know it!"
Yona had blushed as she clung to Soo Won's arm, and Soo Won broke into a smile at Hak's frown.
"What if I told you I ate the last piece of the strawberry cake?"
Yona, appalled. "You didn't!"
Hak, unfazed. "Traitor."
They had laughed, that afternoon.
Here is what Son Hak knows.
Fact: Soo Won killed Emperor Il. Soo Won ordered his soldiers to hunt them down and kill them. Soo Won has been uniting the tribes, has been leading his army, he clearly has a goal, but what is it? Soo Won tried to kill them twice already, and his eyes when he left clearly said he would kill them the next time.
(And maybe, despite everything, it's still desperation Hak's clinging to. This desperate, desperate wish that there is a reason for all of Soo Won's actions.)
Fact: A few hours ago he seemed like he wanted to kill Soo Won, but Hak isn't sure he'd been able to actually take his former friend's life.
And here is the paradox, the one thing he cannot wrap his head around, the one thing that makes him weak with shame and helpless anger: he could have killed Soo Won, had the chance and the means and the advantage of surprise. But he did not, despite the cold calculation in his former friend's eyes and the killing intent visible in his shoulders.
Yona only stopped him from doing what he wouldn't have done anyway.
(Not before, he tells himself, desperate with guilt. Not before they know the truth. And Yona's voice becomes one with his own: It can't be.)
"Where's the Lady?"
"She's out with Yoon. They're collecting herbs for Hak's injury."
"Do you think we should leave her unprotected like this? He'd kill us if he knew she was all by herself…"
"I think she'd rather kill us if we left Hak unprotected."
"Don't be stupid, that idiot can take care of himself-"
"Zeno will protect the Thunder Beast with his life!"
"And Shin Ah's with them. Don't worry."
In the silence that follows everyone thinks of what happened the last time they left their Princess, and the memory freezes their hearts. It freezes Hak's, too.
Once upon a time there was a good king and his four loyal dragon knights, and he was famous for his just rule and his kindness and strength. Only there weren't only four knights but five, and the fifth knight was born from hatred, betrayal and darkness and his dragon was of the color of the sky during a thunder storm.
Son Hak was trained to be the Fifth General of the Kingdom of Kouka, the Leader of the Wind Tribe, and the personal bodyguard of Princess Yona. And even before Hak was ordered to do so by the man who was his emperor and king and who died at the hand of his best friend, he would have done anything for her. All the more he is furious with himself for his failure: he should have protected the Princess, and he has failed.
He has failed.
Somewhere, in between seeing Yona on the ground and Soo Won standing by while his traitor soldiers threatened her, doing nothing, Hak made a mistake: he looked at his former best friend (his only friend) and thought, he won't let her get hurt. Somewhere, in between remembering the past and their childhood and forgetting the present and his betrayal, he was glad to see him again. And in this fraction of a second Hak didn't see Soo Won, usurper emperor of Kouka, murderer of the last, rightful emperor, ruler of the country, but: Soo Won, his friend. The man his Princess was in love with.
A man they both trusted.
That was when Hak hesitated, that was when Yona stopped him. That was before he realized in what danger his princess had been in, and how much his hesitation could have cost him. This second, just a heartbeat, just a fraction. It could have had her killed.
And that, he swears to himself, will not happen again.
Yona won't die as long as Hak is still alive and breathing. As long as his last breath hasn't left his body, he will protect her.
And he will not fail.
Why?, the rain drops ask. Hak has an answer.
For the sake of the small, little girl with the flaming red hair and the courage that shines from her eyes a thousand fold. For this delicate girl whose face is filled with determination, whose heart is full of love for her country, her dragons and even her stupid bodyguard. For this girl whose heart is so large, despite her small stature, that it encompasses a country, a world and a universe, and it shines from her face and her eyes and her hands like warmth. The dragons seek it, and Yoon does, and Hak, stupid as he is, has forsaken everything he is just to be close to her a long, long time ago. She's such a small person, and yet so, so-
Strong.
He will be at her side as long as his legs will carry him. He will be loyal to her until his last breath leaves him. Yona is the crown princess. The emperor's daughter, the rightful ruler of their country, the lord of the Four Dragons. She is the most precious thing there is to Hak, and as long as there is life in his body he will protect her.
But she isn't his.
(It's neither, actually. He hates Soo Won for what he did to the three of them, but he loves him, too.)
So he accompanies her into the forest the next evening.
She's gathering fire wood, this time, and he silently marvels at how she has matured. She was a scrawny, spoilt princess once. Now she fights with a bow and carries a sword. She has scars on her hands and her entire body and ice has joined the fire in her eyes, her figure is slim and muscled and her hair short and tousled and to him she is the most beautiful woman in the world.
A falcon's hunting cry rings. They both look towards the sky without a word.
When he apologizes for letting her get hurt, she tells him she can protect herself in no uncertain terms, and that she needs him with her so he should, damnit, take care of himself, too. Her words make him smile, and he loves her.
"Hak." Soo Won.
He loves it when she says his name like that, but he also knows these precious, precious tears are not for him. He can hear the unspoken name in the silent fall of her tears, and he knows they won't ever be free. Neither Yona nor Soo Won nor Hak. It is impossible because their bond was tied with love and loneliness, and now there is betrayal and pain and grief mixed into it so strongly the air around them shivers and the skies cry out and weep when they meet.
A long, long time ago they were an entity: now they are broken.
Fact: In the end they were made to be apart, not together.
These are not happy memories.
They stay in the country of water one more night and Hak takes up his nightly virgil once again. His arm aches, but it is nothing compared to the pain in his heart. Jae Ha snores softly while Kija mumbles in his sleep. Yoon and Yona are curled up next to each other, Zeno's arm is spread over Kija's stomach. Sometimes, Hak can feel Shin Ah's vigilant gaze land on him, but they don't speak. Whatever prompted all the Holy Dragons to crowd their Lady's tent that night Hak does not know, but he thinks he might sense the answer. The soft pitter-patter of drops on the canvas is soothing and makes it hard to breathe.
In the silver moon light that filters through the tent entrance, Yona's face is peaceful.
She's older now. Her face is sharper, her waist thinner and her features more refined, but she is beautiful no matter how he looks at it. Hak's older, too, and maybe he's more on guard and more distrustful and more overprotective. They're outcasts, on the run, hunted by the usurper emperor of Kouka. But nothing really has changed. Soo Won is still kind and loving and the one Yona longs for the most, he's still Son Hak, the stubborn, disrespectful bodyguard, and Yona still isn't his.
He dreams of warm hands and bright laughter and open skies, and of a small, strong girl with bright-red hair and beautiful eyes.
(All the tears Hak promised himself never to cry...)
The rain falls steadily.