Speak the words in between
The sense of losing your leader is something which is hard to explain to someone without a head of state to be assassinated. Korea doesn't understand until his Empress is murdered.
He doesn't have any time to mourn though, because his Royal Family are fleeing the country and he must run with them even if all he wants to do is to spit in Kiku's face. There's no where to run, because the Japanese are everywhere- he's almost given up hope when a familiar shape appears on the horizon in a flurry of snow.
"Ivan," he gasps out in a whisper as hollow as the winter wind itself. "Ivan- I need your help. Please."
That night when the Crown Prince is asleep, Ivan brings him a muggy cup of tea outside. The night air is so crisp it almost snaps between them. Yung Soo knows that Ivan dislikes Kiku, so it's alright
"I hate him." He lowers his eyes as he says it, fists shaking in his lap. "He…he doesn't know how much this hurts." Japan's never done anything like this before, but it doesn't stop Korea from feeling his Empress dying again and again. Suddenly everything just feels so unfair.
Ivan's voice is as soft as icicles forming on silk robes. "…You're allowed to hate him here." Something electric prickles at his nape as Ivan leans closer to whisper in his ear. "You can hate him as much as you want. I don't mind."
Korea lifts his head very slowly, hardly daring to breathe because Russia's teeth are barely an inch from his neck.
In 1910, after Ivan is silenced by a katana against his throat, Kiku hands him a piece of paper that says Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty. Korea looks down at Japan's elegant handwriting and tries to stay optimistic. A part of him, touched by the frost, deep, deep down, wants to rip Kiku's damned words into pieces.
-
"I fucking hate you," Yung Soo says brightly to Kiku's face after the marriage ceremony. They're officially brothers now, so he supposes that he should be honest. "I just hope you know that."
Japan, ever composed, doesn't even bat an eyelid.
There's no warning when retaliation comes. He simply wakes up to a sword in his leg, and he screams his throat raw. His nerves twitch uselessly his eyes snap to the shape of Japan above him, who pulls it out and stabs it higher the second time, cultural genocide up into his thigh. The third time grazes the tendons in the hip, then the fourth is his children being forced into slavery, and then the Second World War and the blade is rammed through his stomach into the tatami mats.
"-You-you…you bastard you—STOP!-" he screams, descending into sobbing Korean, incoherently begging and trying not to move, but Kiku grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him up, but the sword stays stuck to the floorand slips higher into his ribs and oh God-
Kiku tightens fingers around his throat. "Stop dirtying my ears with your filth. Can't you speak with words, dog?" Japan's face is perfectly level, eyes passive and fingers scarlet. "That's why your people are so stubborn. It's because you're a pack of imbeciles who can't learn a civilised tongue."
Kiku turns to wipe his blade and march out the door, but a strange sound fills the room and he stops. Yung Soo tries to listen to hear what it is, but then it's his chest shaking and his mouth open and his eyes clenched shut. It's his own voice, bright and mocking. Korea is laughing.
"…I've declared war on you, anyway. They'll butcher you in Manchuria."
Japan leaves without another word, and Korea keeps on laughing and crying.
-
He's all alone in the dark, curled up in on himself and feeling his blood cake to his toes. Outside there are bombs and Japanese and maybe even Koreans fighting for the resistance, but inside Yung Soo has nothing.
When one has nothing, one has to make do. Korea has always been optimistic
So he sings lullabies to himself, and he runs fingers tenderly over his wounds as they bleed. He tries to remember and the Korean words and temples that Kiku has destroyed in the last 35 years. On the nights when he feels the cold creep up through the floor he wraps arms around himself and buries his face in his own neck and tries to keep warm. He keeps talking tjrough frozen lips about everything that Japan has taken away from him because he's not allowed to forget them. He'd never forgive himself if he did.
"Don't worry," he tells himself, forcing himself to grin his old grin. "Things will be alright, Yung Soo. They're coming to save you. Just hold on."
And sometimes, sometimes, Korea thinks about his people and how they suffer, and then something frozen in him tells him that it's alright to hate. Yung Soo agrees that by now that he's earned the right to hate Japan all he wants.
Gyeongbok Palace is destroyed.
"It's a pity isn't it?" he says out loud, hearing his voice echo back. "The Palace was such a beautiful place and now it's gone."
"Yes," he answers. Keeping the conversation going with himself is getting easier and easier. "Japan obviously cannot appreciate it, the barbarian. Why destroy such beauty?"
He shakes his head in reply. "I'm sure Aniki would though. And he's going to come and beat the crap out of Japan and then we'll be free."
And then he turns over and traces his scars and feels himself breathe on his neck and falls asleep in his own embrace.
-
Light falls into his cell for the first time in months and Korea can't see anything against the burn. His ears aren't used to hearing a voice other than his own either, and the jumbled language that trickles through the air makes his head hurt. It's not Hangul, but more importantly it's not Japanese. It's a flowing, jumping language that's not Asian at all.
"English," he whispers in his ear as his eyes adjust. He shakes himself awake. Sure enough Alfred steps cautiously into the cell and Korea can finally make out his jacket and his glasses and he's never been more relieved to see anyone in his life.
"America!" he gasps out, voice thin. "America- here, I'm here!"
"-Thank God, oh God," he croaks, disentangling one arm from the grip he has on himself to reach out into the blessed sun. "Thank you, thank you, thank you-"
But America just turns to stone when he sees Yung Soo huddled there, eyes wide and afraid and not saying anything at all.
"…What's wrong?" Korea asks desperately, voices coming together in counterpoint. "What's wrong?"
Alfred stares at the two bloodstained men cradling each other like lovers on the bamboo mats and has no words to say.
-
At first Yung Soo doesn't know why Yao and Alfred and Ivan are so stunned. The war is over now, so what is the problem? He sits at the table right next to himself and laces his fingers together and feels safer than he has in decades, because he's right there, his country and himself.
"So," Alfred begins, trying to pretend that everything is normal and going to plan. "Japan has…err…agreed to relinquish your territory. So you're free."
Yao, sitting closest to him, reaches an arm over to touch one Korea's shoulder. "But we know this isn't right, aru!" He turns to his allies whose bonds have quickly faded with Kiku's health. "What are you going to do, then?"
"Friend Korea is still sick, da?" Russia has been watching the two of them for long minutes now. "I can be helping him. I am happy to be helping Korea always. Like old times."
The Korea on the left smiles at Ivan gratefully through thin, chapped lips.
Alfred shifts uncomfortably in his chair as he watches the grin on Russia's face widen imperceptibly. "How about this," he says with sudden cheer, meeting the eye of the other Yung Soo. "We can both help. Only until you can get back on your feet, of course."
-
That night they lie together in cotton sheets joined at the wrists and the hips and the ankles. They are one mind in two bodies- every thought is the same and they move like a mirror, so they both reach out fingers to brush ever so lightly over chests and nipples at exactly the same time. Their breaths are simultaneous and they know just where to scrape and lick and thrust, and when they collapse, exhausted, Korea holds himself and thinks how wonderful it is to be his own country again.
-
Yung Soo sits on the balcony watching the blossoms bloom. Ivan returns from the hall with a bottle in one hand and a first aid kit in the other and his most childish smile on his face. Korea can't help but return the expression. Ivan sits cross-legged behind him and tugs at his Hanbok with gentle fingers.
"I will be tending to your injuries now. But I am thinking," Ivan adds with a mischievous whisper, "that vodka is best medicine, yes?" Yung Soo laughs at that, as boldly as his bruised ribs let him, and takes a small sip from the bottle. Russia leaves it on the mat next to him and slowly prises off Korea's clothes until he is naked from the waist up.
"So many?" Russia seems a little surprised as he dabs at them and washes away the blood. Shivering a little, Yung Soo reaches for the bottle again. "It is like Lithuania all over again."
Smiling from the alcohol, Korea relaxes into his touches and feels at peace with the world.
-
Yung Soo sits on the balcony watching the blossoms bloom. There's a rattle in the hall before Alfred comes in with his hands full with a wash tub and some bandages. Korea finds himself almost laughing as the other country sets them down awkwardly and wipes his forehead.
"Phew- well, I guess we'd better take a look-see, huh?" He reaches for the sponge, but stops himself and digs into his pockets instead. It's a bunch of papers with bright pictures of Westerners in dashing poses. "Almost forgot. To take your mind off the pain- I'll bring some of my movies next time!" Korea looks, fascinated, as Alfred slips his robes off.
"…So many?" America gulps as he sees the pockmarks on his back, but then presses the sponge so carefully and gently to his bruises that Yung Soo lets out a small noise of approval. "…It's like Jap…"
Not realising that America had bitten his tongue, Korea lets his eyes flutter closed and feels at peace with the world.
-
They kiss, this time, just for joy of being Korea again- the joy of being alive- and one of him tilts his head to the left, and another slightly to the right. But really it's all a matter of perspective, because he still holds his hands and grins the same grin and moans the same words as he comes.
In the morning, one is lying on his front, the other on his back.
-
He barks out a laugh and knocks Russia's hands away when he reaches to cover his eyes; like that game children play and have to guess who their captor is. As if he couldn't recognise Ivan even if he couldn't see- his skin is cold to the touch and smooth as the surface of a lake.
One broad palm slides down his back. "You are getting better. Only small scars now. It is pity- they take the longest to go away."
He hums in response, feeling his strength slowly returning. The vodka makes his head buzz pleasantly and drowsily fills his smile with good intentions, and he takes another delicate sip.
Russia's eyes are half lidded and placid as he reaches his neck over his shoulder. The alcohol on Korea's breath seems to please him, so Yung Soo offers the bottle to him. Instead of taking it in his own hands, Ivan leans over, arms slipping deliciously low to support himself against the smaller man, and drinks the liquid Korea tilts into his mouth.
"They are taking longer," Ivan returns to the matter at hand. "They might never go away. They look very painful."
Korea snorts angrily, probably a little affected by the drink. "Japan knew what he was doing."
Russia croons low in his throat and it almost sounds indecent. There's a tingle blooming in Korea's stomach, fuelled by the ice cold fingers on his hips. "Tomorrow," Ivan says in a slow voice full of promise, "I am painting you Red. You are liking red, Korea?"
It doesn't make sense, but Yung Soo nods regardless.
-
He finds himself smiling in amusement as he follows America down the corridors; like that game that children play where they have to follow the leader. As if he could ever forget who the leader is- Alfred is loud enough that following him is no hard task.
They enter a hospital wing of sorts, where he gets a quick once over. "You're getting better. You'll make a full recovery, I reckon. Only a few scars left."
He hums in response, feeling his strength slowly returning. His children are as enamoured with the big screen as he is, and he watches, animated, as American movie stars move and speak.
America's eyes are drawn and tired, and he seems to be somewhere else as he stares over his shoulder. Yung Soo turns to look, but it's only when he's properly stared for a while that he realises what they're seeing. The man in the bed mere metres and an ocean away is pale and shaking, his skin falling off of him in radiation sickness. Black scars intersect red raw burns.
"…They're taking longer," Alfred says under his voice. "…They might never go away. It…it looks really bad."
Korea snorts angrily, but something stirs inside him. "…Japan knew what he was doing."
America makes a short sound in his throat. There's a numb, odd feeling spreading up Korea's chest as he watches and feels his scars twinge. "Tomorrow," Alfred lets out with a burst of air, "we'll have to start thinking about your paperwork. And Ivan."
It doesn't make sense, but Yung Soo nods regardless.
-
Heavy pants fill the room, broken by small sounds of pleasure and groaned half-syllables. They've stopped facing each other on their sides. Naturally, (or perhaps not) they have gravitated and one Korea rests on top of the other.
Their fingers are slipping down to hips and smalls of backs in something like a loving embrace when Korea looks down at his flushed face (So beautiful. He will never let Kiku taint him again) and whispers through the pleasure, "Your skin…nn…is so warm."
He opens his eyes. "But…but you're cold."
Suddenly they break away and stare at each other. They're not the same. This isn't right. This isn't right.
"What happened?" Yung Soo asks in a shaking voice. His clone stares back and just shakes his head, eyes wide.
"I don't know," Korea answers finally, in a voice that may be a little lower, a little slower. "Who are we?"
Yung Soo is Korea. He will always be Korea. They lie back down on opposite sides of the bed, pleasure forgotten with the buffer zone between them, and try not to think about it.
-
Angry American and chilled Russian is in their ears until Alfred, frustrated, simply bursts from the room and pulls one of him to the right.
"Listen, Yung Soo- I tried, I swear, but…fuck. You're the Republic of Korea now, got it?"
But Yung Soo sees America's fingers on his arm and tries to pull his twin back. That's when Ivan gently wraps his hand over his wrist and looks at him. Growling, America tugs Korea away, even though he fights, and then-
-then, half of him is gone.
"It was always going to happen," Russia tells him, taking Korea's rapidly cooling hand in his icy own as they stand in the empty corridor. "America is being stubborn. But I give you Red now, yes?"
The Democratic Republic of Korea turns northward, feeling Russia's words burn in his stomach. He's allowed to hate here, so he does. He hates Japan and he hates America and he hates Ivan and he hates everything that has happened to him. Alone for the first time, North Korea hears the absence of his own voice in his head and wakes up shaking.
He needs him back. He needs him back. Without him, he thinks he'll go insane.
-
It doesn't take long. There's a knock on the border and by the time that Yung Soo can react he's suddenly at war. With himself.
America runs in, and so does China and Russia. Whereas once he would have been able to hear his own thoughts and understand what he was thinking, attacking like this, now he is only South Korea and he wonders how exactly he could be so fucking messed up to end up like this.
Alfred thinks that South Korea has short cropped hair and a cheerful smile and doesn't deserve what the North is doing to him.
Yao hears North Korea asking for his help and sees his eyes and his hair and his uniform and can't leave him to be over run by Americans.
Japan watches from the wings and cheers Alfred on. But if it weren't for the uniforms and the stars they wear, he doesn't think that there'd really be any difference.
Into the Cold War winter the world plays chess with Korean chess pieces. In 1953 they reach a stalemate- two kings left standing on a board of black and white and red. South Korea only sees him once, when they're standing at the border waiting for the hibiscus to bloom. The North is holding a gun.
"Aren't you going to shoot me?" Yung Soo asks, resigned.
"I don't understand," he seethes at himself, fingers shaking on the trigger and out of bullets. "You're meant to be me. You want this as much as I do. Don't you hurt like I do? Don't you want to be one with me?"
"No. Not with you." South Korea has dreams of placid domesticity and identical hands covering identical eyes. The foreigners in their land are packing up to leave. "I want to be one with us."
Neither of them signs the peace treaty.
-
"I…I liked it. They all liked it a lot." Kiku tells him, not really meeting his eyes. But he's smiling and so small now. South Korea is a good inch taller in his Hanbok as he takes the pile of drama DVDs back. "You…I admire your imagination."
By now, Yung Soo knows that this is probably the closest he'll ever get to an apology, so he wastes no time on sentimentality. "Thanks," he grins, ignoring the swirling in his chest. "I'd borrow that new Anime you made, but I've already bit-torrented it. I think Aniki wanted it though."
Things are overwhelmingly peaceful these days. He visits Yao and grins and makes a general nuisance of himself. He talks to Kiku now, although it's sometimes awkward. Not that they have much choice now.
The six party talks continue.
Yao heaves out a sigh. "You, this time, aru? What do you need?"
"Is…is he well?"
Yao makes a tired face. "Why do you ask me?" It's a valid question. "You have as much contact with him as I do. He took the last aid package."
That's all he knows now. His other half has collapsed like few thought he would, while the South had boomed. He has dreams of waking up with his own eyes an inch from his face and cold, cold fingers pulling his heart out, but when they see each other it is suddenly too formal. "Does he still wear the uniform?"
China nods, because, well, they're still at war. His eyes soften as they gaze at him, almost kindly. "You still have exactly the same face."
That night, South Korea looks into the mirror at his own eyes and asks himself why he sends missiles over their heads and why they still have the world's greatest distance between them.
His reflection doesn't answer.
-
The sense of losing your leader is something which is hard to explain to someone without a head of state to be assassinated. North Korea feels the pain a second time when his boss dies under mysterious circumstances.
South Korea sees his twin lying in the dirt, lost expression on his own face and tears running down identical cheeks, and understands painfully exactly how he feels.
"…What can I do?" he says softly with tongue against teeth. "Am I allowed to help?"
The North doesn't raise his head. No one in the North does. His leader is dead and the pain bites like a winter chill, and he'll be damned if he accepts charity now. The South doesn't give him a choice.
He's sitting on the balcony, the border between them, watching the bare branches where the blossoms should have been. South Korea slowly, fearfully, presses the washcloth to his wounds.
There are so many. Famine and fear and the recession fever. A scab here from the oil crisis of '74, a long running scar from a natural disaster. The Sino-Soviet Split. The wall running between them dotted along his spine. South Korea's own back is unmarked, wounds lingering only in memory.
China and Russia and America clamour for position outside, but Yung Soo shuts the door in their faces and collapses down by his frosted-iron brother and mourns, his heart as heavy as the hand in his own.
"I want you to come back," he says weakly. "Please. Don't run away again."
"You don't understand anything, do you?" The North's voice is brittle and cold. "I don't have anything else."
A pause. He rests his forehead on that icy bare back before him. His tongue is dry.
"This isn't how a imagined it," he admits in a shaky undertone. "I thought that one day we'd just wake up and be able to hear each other again. And then I'd invite you to a Mah Jong game in my head, and you'd grin like we both used to and walk over the border. And you'd cheat."
"I wouldn't cheat." North Korea stiffens, naked underneath his uniform. There's a tap dripping in the kitchen like their faintly pulsing heartbeats.
Smothering his unshed tears in the marked skin in front of him, Yung Soo laughs like a sob. "…It's alright to cry here. I don't mind."
They don't say anything after that.
-
It takes a long time before things calm down. They lie in bed together for the first time in more than 50 years, the North on the left and the South on the right.
He half awakes to him kissing himself. There are cold fingers cupping his face and warm southern thighs that whisper into the sheets, 'I need you'. He slides a shaking hand up to pull on the short crop of hair on his head and opens his mouth and sighs and falls back asleep before he knows it.
-
In the morning, there's a voice in his head that is telling him to hurry up for morning training and exercise. It's his own voice. Yung Soo is afraid at first, but then his bed is empty and so is his house, and for the first time in so many decades, his mind isn't.
He has cold fingers and warm toes and black eyes, and he has a hangover and a dry throat and an icy current of fear and hate and uncertainty pulsing in his veins. He has a weakness for daytime soap operas and missiles resting trigger-finger ready in his backyard. He still resents Japan, a little, more than a lot, and when he thinks about the past he gets a splitting headache. Nothing's really changed at all; there's nothing to suggest that the day is special.
Half of the country is starving. Yao and Alfred and Ivan and Kiku are still watching, and Chosongul and Hangul swirl on the tip of his tongue. Despite this, all the voices in his head agree at the morning sun that today will be a day to remember. He can hear himself think again.
The United Republic of Korea sits up to feel his children- all his children- shouting in joy in the streets. Finally, finally one again, Yung Soo throws back his head and laughs.
-
-
-
-
Kink Meme Request: North/South Korean Unification
Reading up on this part of history for the first time, anon realised that Korea has been through more than anybody should ever have.
Did you know?
The Greater Korean Empire, which had ruled for more than 500 years, was rocked in 1895 by the assassination of its 'Queen' or Empress Myeongseong. The Empress was responsible for establishing closer ties with Russia after the First Sino-Japanese War in order to counter the emergence of Imperial Japan. Her murder is widely believed to have been carried out by a Japanese diplomat.
After the murder, in 1896, the King and the Crown Prince fled their normal residence and took refuge under Russian Protection. While they were away, pro-Japanese elements in Korea passed many laws which later helped shift the power towards the Japanese.
This culminated with the Japan-Korea annexation treaty in 1910, which declared Korea a protectorate of Japan. The two Royal families of the countries intermarried under political pressure.
Despite this, there was strong anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea, including freedom fighters and protesters. According to Korean records, 46,948 were arrested, 7,509 killed and 15,961 wounded by the Japanese military in quelling protests. Cultural Genocide refers to the censorship by the Japanese of traditional pro-Korean songs and stories, the degradation of the language and the destruction of temples that occurs in the 35 years under Japanese rule.
Many Koreans fought against Japan as freedom fighter in Manchuria with the Chinese. Ironically, these elements would later become the North Korean Army.
Korea was split by the Russians and the Americans into two different occupation zones post war. In 1948, both halves of the country formed government and claimed to be the legitimate administration. The North remained close to Russia and China until the Sino-Soviet Split, when NK took China's side.
Shortly after, Kim Il Sung and North Korea attempt to invade South Korea in order to re-unify the two countries by force after diplomacy fails. America comes to South Korea's aid; Russia and China to North Korea's.
One may note that the Communist-American tensions of the time may be responsible for some of the horrible events of the Korean war.
Relationships between Korea and Japan are much better in younger generations, especially through popular culture (drama and anime). However, there are still many tensions between the two, as Japan refuses to acknowledge some of Korea's wartime claims.
The six nations involved in the six party talks were Russia, America, China, Japan and North and South Korea.
North Korea and South Korea are still at war, having never signed a peace treaty.
Hanbok- Korean garment
Chosongul- northern dialect of Korea
Hangul- southern dialect of Korea
I had trouble imagining the two Koreas as different people, so Yung Soo just came off even more disturbed than he is.