Notes.
This series will contain several one-shots, both long and short, about the boys' years at the training camp in the mountains, from the time they are twelve until their twenties. I will do my best to present the one-shots in chronological order. So far, five are planned, but the number might increase if more ideas come to me.
These one-shots will take different formats, notably epistolary. They are related to the "Gwishins" and constitute a prequel of this story, but they can also be read as an independent story since they take place during the gap of time cut in episode 5.
I hope you will enjoy this format!
THE SCAR (1755)
Two weeks pass before Dong Soo's wound begins to truly heal. The gash left on his side by Chun's blade is ugly, red, and its lips overflow with white, bloody flesh, which soaks Dong Soo's skin with pus and thick blood during the first few days. To avoid infection, Sa-Mo sent for a doctor from the small town below the camp, in a basin traversed by a mountain river, the stream of which runs not far from the three wooden buildings that now constitute the training camp, respectively regrouping a dormitory and a study room with modest furnishings, a little bit shaky, but also a more comfortable house where Sa-Mo, Jang-Mi and the niece of captain Dae-Po settle, then finally a kind of storeroom where weapons, food supplies, and everyday objects like paper and ink are piled up.
When one of the boys, named Byeong-Cheol, whose temperament is naturally almost as inquisitive as Dong Soo's, asks Sa-Mo about the place, seeks to know what its former function was, for the dormitory was not one when they had opened the door soon after their arrival, stumbling upon an almost empty, gloomy room, where daylight seeped through cracks in the wooden walls and where a layer of dust covered every surface.
The few pieces of furniture, which then included an old chair that had lost a leg, linen bags heaped together, a pitchfork, an upside-down chest, the lid of which was a mouth held open by the pressure of the floor, had a leprous, demoralized appearance. The whole room smelled musty, heated wood, dust, time. As for the floor of the future study room, it was littered with straw, and its interior had a strange, haunting rusty scent.
The house looks better when they look around, but the last building is hopelessly empty and silent. There are no fortifications like in the old camp, the one that was attacked by Heuksa Chorong, no proper training equipment. The whole place seems abandoned, left behind (hidden).
"It wasn't a training camp before, was it?" Dong Soo remarks later, during lunch, as Sa-Mo discusses with the three other instructors who have accompanied them about the urgent need for improvements, both in terms of furnishings and additional construction to support the boys' military training.
"No. Not really. Now, eat, and stop asking questions."
Despite their perseverance, they do not succeed in extracting from Sa-Mo the truth about the place where he has taken them. They proceed to do so jointly, carefully coordinating the assaults, with evasive questions, but Sa-Mo keeps his lips sealed, and then come the harebrained hypotheses, the more sordid suppositions. Cho-Rip thinks of an old blacksmith's house, because of the smell, which also evokes that of white-hot iron immersed in water, but also of the past residence of a farmer who chose to live more isolated from his congeners.
Some of the boys, whose nature is quick to mock, are amused by his theories, denigrate them, and prefer the possibility of an old clandestine prison, a torture chamber. Rust becomes the smell of blood. Woon does not submit any proposal, and strangely, Dong Soo only intervenes exceptionally in the debate, postulating that the place was simply used as a makeshift stopover for travelers or soldiers on a mission in the mountains. The longer Sa-Mo remains silent, the more the rumors lose all logic and turn into extravagant presumptions.
The butcher does nothing to dampen the boys' imagination, and turns his attention to other, more urgent matters.
x
The first night, they sleep on the ground, on beds made of straw, and the fatigue of the journey from the location of the old camp to the new one motivates their sleep before all else, allowing them to get over the discomfort of their bunk to sink into a deep rest, hectic for some. Woon feels the throbbing in his legs from climbing the mountain slopes, the aching pain in his muscles that comes from several hours of uninterrupted walking, and the weary exhaustion of his nerves after the night of the attack.
Beside him, Cho-Rip is sound asleep, barely snoring. Dong Soo, on the other hand, hisses, turns, and becomes agitated. He suffers where Chun's sword went in, and under his night clothes, Woon can guess the blood, the burning of the wound, its unbearable sensitivity. He remembers the brand on his shoulder blade, the excruciating pain it inflicted on him, which lasted for days, even after Chun had infusions brought to him to soothe its burn. No one has seen it. No one must see it.
He suspects it will be difficult to do so, and that staying clothed all the time is not an option, especially during a training period that is expected to last several years. He doesn't know exactly how long, but Sa-Mo, during his inauguration speech for the new training camp location, mentioned years, and his observation was enough for Woon to draw his own conclusions. He also has to find a way to maintain contact with Heuksa Chorong, and with Chun.
The latter has not transmitted anything since the attack, and although he had the means to pass on messages to guild agents like Woon, dispatched to other regions, Woon is not sure if the Sky Lord knows where Sa-Mo took the boys. As for him, he has the location, but not enough resources to warn the organization. He considers the possibility of remaining silent for years, waiting for new orders, new assignments.
Without going so far as to displease him completely, the eventuality causes him a sudden anguish, a wave of doubt and hesitation, when he understands the solitude it implies, and the obligation of integration in an environment with which he theoretically should not form lasting attachments. You're on your own now, it tells him, it whispers to him. You're on your own. Grow up. Pretend. They sleep in the room that will officially become a dormitory, with beds, small tables, blankets, in a few weeks, and Woon hears the wind in the trees, a mountain wind, a rustle that brings with it mysteries, the hour of the assassins.
You're on your own now.
x
The next day, Dong Soo struggles to get up, holds his hand against his side and hisses louder, grimaces harder. Sa-Mi changed his bandages the day before, but the wound is still alive, and excruciatingly active. As soon as they wake up, even before going to have a frugal breakfast, Cho-Rip tries to look at it, to pull apart the sides of Dong Soo's tunic to gauge the extent of the damage and warn Sa-Mo accordingly, but the other pushes his hand away ruthlessly, and orders to be left alone. His forehead is wrinkled with pain, he is paler than the day before, and his eyes are full of anger, fierce determination and embarrassment. His pain is aggressive.
Woon doesn't even try to approach him, because he knows this isn't the right way, that Dong Soo will refuse any assistance until he has been proven that he needs it. Woon knows that, for he has an equivalent functioning. Dong Soo stands up with a grunt, like an ill-tempered bear, and Woon and Cho-Rip follow him and watch him holding his side while eating with one trembling hand, but clamped in an iron vise around his spoon.
Sa-Mo comes over and asks him if everything is okay. Dong Soo lies to him with an aplomb Woon finds incongruous, and disturbing. Sa-Mo's eyebrows furrow, but he does nothing. Like Woon, he knows where he stands, and he knows Dong Soo since much longer.
He holds on during the first race with the bags of rice, which is already a feat in itself, and arrives in the last, wading painfully in the river water, sending considerable sprays around him as his step is so heavy, but he is still conscious, while his face is paler than ever, and sweat runs down his forehead while pain drips from his eyes. Woon is seized with the urge to tell him to stop, to let go, to submit himself in order to be able to get up again.
Cho-Rip walks up to him, probably to advise him to do the same, and Dong Soo tells him to get lost, as well as some other boys who come to see him and worry about his condition. He is leaning against a big stone, and breathing with difficulty. The problem isn't that he can't see, Woon thinks, but rather the fact that he can't accept it. It's like their nightly fights. Dong Soo knows Woon is better than he is, but he refuses to admit it and give in to the fact.
Coming closer, Woon notices that his face is bathed in sweat, his eyes are glassy, and all his features are contracted by pain. He conceives from it an acerbic exasperation, about which he will wonder later if it wasn't largely nourished by an anguish rooted in the moment he had seen Chun heading towards Dong Soo that night, looking like a tiger about to make a carnage, rather than by the general impression of ridicule and waste that the situation had inspired him.
He comes to stand in front of Dong Soo, looking down on him, enough to rekindle his annoyance.
"What do you want?" He snaps, meanly, pitifully, and Woon thinks of the fish being pulled out of the river and struggling madly to get back to the safety of the water.
"Go to Sa-Mo. Tell him you're in pain."
Dong Soo laughs, mocking his opinion. Woon, still carrying the bags of rice from the race around his shoulders, gets rid of them and throws them violently at Dong Soo's stomach, hitting his wound deliberately. He utters a short, bruised cry and glares at him with hatred.
"Are you crazy?" he exclaims. "You hurt me!"
"Good," Woon replies, without taking his eyes off him, ignoring the twinge of guilt. "Go see Sa-Mo. It's likely to get infected, and if you die from something so small, you'll definitely look like a idiot."
This is the only language Dong Soo seems to understand, the language of violence and domination, the law of the strongest. They stare at each other, Dong Soo's fists clenched in the fabric of the bags, Woon's hands flat along his body. The others contemplate the exchange without a word, without an intervention. They don't belong.
Dong Soo finally lowers his head, and Woon knows he has won, once again.
x
The physician is there by the end of the day, and he asks Dong Soo questions about the pain, takes his pulse, and looks at the wound. Woon watches from a distance, as do Cho-Rip and the others, and sees the bandage being peeled off Dong Soo's side, opening up to the wound, gaping and hungry, swollen, raw despite the ointments and treatments. It looks worse than before, Cho-Rip notes, and Woon answers nothing, keeps his arms crossed, listening.
After a meticulous examination, during which Dong Soo sulks and moans in pain when the doctor touches the skin around his wound, the latter asks Sa-Mo at length about Dong Soo's treatment, the nature of the wound, its origin. He had a difficult birth, he confesses, and he wore bamboo reinforcements for a long time to straighten his bones.
Woon never asked about it, and Dong Soo never brought it up. Neither of them talked about their lives before each other, with each other. Dong Soo doesn't know who Woon is, and Woon doesn't know who Dong Soo is, at least not really, not completely, outside of what they are willing to show each other. That hadn't stopped Dong Soo from coming back to the camp to get him. And it hadn't stopped him from getting in Chun's way when Chun had advanced toward Dong Soo.
Woon watches the doctor talk to Sa-Mo, meets Dong Soo's eyes, and thinks that the latter has obeyed him, but also that he himself came to ask him for something in the first place, and therein lies a novelty, a strangeness, a rewriting and an imperceptible, yet existing change.
The physician prescribes decoctions, but also other ointments, with a different formula, intended to limit the infection and to curb the pain. He also suggests needles to accelerate healing and regulate blood flow. At Heuksa Chorong, Woon had received a short but sufficiently global training from his instructor for him to understand the terms used by the physician, as well as his instructions.
The physician shows Sa-Mo the points where to insert the needles around Dong Soo's wound, and later, Woon watches the process being directly applied, because Sa-Mo finds it a great opportunity to show the recruits how to deploy acupuncture techniques on a real, living body. Dong Soo does not hide his annoyance at the prospect of being used as a test subject, but he complies nonetheless, too exhausted with pain to protest more loudly.
Woon notes the points, retains them, places them himself under the attentive eye of Sa-Mo and that, less enthusiastic, of Dong Soo. The wound, gradually, becomes more timid, less wide, and the bleeding decreases. Dong Soo's bandages are changed every day, and the ointments every four hours. Most of the time, Sa-Mo or one of the instructors take care of it, especially during the first few days when Dong Soo is not considered quiet enough to remember the procedure and treat himself. The ointments cause him a little fever at first. Sometimes, when Sa-Mo and the rest of the instructors are busy, Cho-Rip takes his turn.
And at other times, especially at night, Woon is the one who finally takes over.
x
Almost a week and a half after the physician's visit, Dong Soo woke up in the middle of the night, clutching his side, breathing heavily, his face contorted with pain. Woon hears him next to him, silently groaning, trying to get rid of his blanket to go and fetch something to ease the pain, and maybe also something to sleep easier.
Woon then turns in his bed, faces him, whispers "wait here", and gets up to bring back the bowl that contains a small precautionary supply of ointment preparation, as well as bandages. He also takes the needles, in their small glowing wooden box. Dong Soo does not move from his bed: when Woon returns, he holds his shirt up, and Woon sees the furrow in his spine contracted by the light of the candle he brings back, so he can prepare the treatment as carefully as possible. He has the fleeting, senseless urge to follow the skin crevice with his fingers.
The rest of the room is pitch black, and silent. The other boys are sleeping, exhausted from training. None of them reacts to the faint glow of the candle, nor to the rustling of cloth produced by their movements. Woon finds, in the confidentiality of the care he gives to Dong Soo, an unexpected and slightly dark satisfaction.
He smears the bandages with ointment paste with the skill that comes from habit, and it feels cold under his fingers, slightly compacted, and greasy. It makes a wet sound when he manipulates it and spreads it on the cloth. It smells of forest, earth, hot water, oil. He lets Dong Soo take off his previous bandage, and sees in his expression, when he looks up at him, a kind of reserved, indecisive gratitude.
The wound looks less threatening, but its lips are still half-open, and oozing slightly. Woon wants to touch it, to run his fingers along Dong Soo's damaged flesh, and doesn't, not knowing why except for the fact that the idea is morbid, completely out of place, almost as much as the one about Dong Soo's spine. The two of them work together to wrap the new fabric soaked in herbal ointments around Dong Soo's waist, then Woon places a few needles just above the last band, and feels the twitching of Dong Soo's belly as he inserts them, and then his relief as the pain subsides under the impulse of their fine, deft pressure. Not once do they look at each other during the process.
But when it is over, Dong Soo's eyes are opaque, glistening in the candlelight.
"Thank you," he says, and his voice is soft, free of any hostility.
Woon shrugs his shoulders, goes to put the equipment away, feels a dense, inexplicable knot in his stomach. He thinks back to Chun's attack, to Chun inflicting the scar on Dong Soo, but especially of Dong Soo plunging the blade of Captain Dae-Po's sword into the side of Heuksa Chorong's Sky Lord. They have the same scar, he thinks as he puts the bowl of ointment back in its place, folds the remaining bandages, puts the needles back in their case, they have the same now, each on one side.
He thinks about it all night.