Chapter 7
While Hak tried valiantly to steer their conversation towards a different topic, both Hang-Dae and Tae-woo refused to let up so easy, exclaiming that they were determined to win their bet against Jae-ha.
Though, they wouldn't admit just what the bet had entailed.
Eventually however, Hak's patience simply ran out and he managed to convince the two boys to give up on their bet if he were to show them a few other tricks he knew with a pole arm as an early Christmas present.
They two boys had eagerly agreed, however Yona didn't miss the crossed fingers they hid behind their backs as they jogged to catch up with him as he went outside to give them their bribery lesson.
An hour later, after Hak had thoroughly kicked both of their asses over the course of their 'lesson', the three of them had come back inside, two of which looked worse for wear and claiming they were going to hit the hay for the night as they made their way upstairs, looking stiff and sore already.
"What did you do to them?" Yona asked, chuckling softly as she got them both drinks from they fridge.
"Nothing they shouldn't expect from training with me by now" he replied casually, looking as though he, himself, had barely broken a sweat throughout the entire lesson.
"Just try not to have any bones broken before Christmas, will you? Last thing we need is to spend the holidays in the ER." She paused for a moment, "again" she added with a pointed look as they both sat down on the couch together, drinks in hand.
Hak, true to form, simply replied, "I make no promises" earning him a flick to the forehead before being chastised about being careful not to spill both their drinks after making an attempt at retaliation.
Despite best efforts, drinks were spilled here and there, and fights won and lost.
In the end they both decided it was much easier to simply lay back and enjoy the silence, as everyone else had long since gone to bed.
Soon Yona found herself struggling to keep her eyes open, finally feeling the effects of the long day sinking in.
Before she even realised it, what she had planned on simply being 'letting her eyes rest for a bit' ended up being a bit more than she had bargained for, as she was out like a light.
{*****)
Finished with his drink, Hak carefully got up from his spot on the couch, trying his best not to wake up Yona, as he made his way about the house locking the doors for the night and putting things back into something resembling order.
It had been a long day, and he wasn't surprised Yona had already conked out. Neither of them had even slept in either, seeing as they were still used to expecting the irritating beeping of an alarm to go off at some point in the early hours of the morning before the sun was even up.
It'd probably be a few days before they would both gradually be able to start relaxing and enjoying their holiday.
Hearing Yona mumbling in her sleep, he quietly made his way back over to the couch and sat down next to the slumbering girl, head tipped forward and resting on her chin and a glass balancing precariously in her hands.
Deciding it would be best to take away the glass before she managed to drop it, he gently reached out and pried the glass from her hands and set it on the low coffee table in front of them.
As careful as he was though, the disturbance seemed to be enough to cause Yona to mumble something else unintelligible and sway about before promptly flopping over onto her side leaning her head against his shoulder.
Well this was great, he thought sarcastically to himself.
Now he was stuck sitting there or risk waking her up by moving her more, and while he usually had no reluctance towards teasing and annoying her, it was the holidays and they were home and both tired from the long day and he didn't have it in him to wake her up.
Instead, he resigned himself to his current situation and simply grabbed another pillow to prop behind his head as he got out his phone and headphones to listen to some music while he dozed and relaxed, himself.
While he had the time, he planned to get around to writing some more songs for his band, so they could finish off the next album they had in the works at the moment. Listening to a variety of different things helped to get him into a creative enough zone that he could start to jot down some of his own lyrics and chords, otherwise preferring to simply head out into the woods and let his mind wander for a while and let inspiration come to him on his own.
Not that he often needed inspiration, he thought to himself as he looked to his side to see Yona, even more flopped onto him than before.
He chuckled lightly at this.
Yup, he was as lovesick as they got, which meant that a lot of the songs he had written had little hints of her in them.
Small things, things that only he would be able to pick out and always careful not to be too obvious, lest he want the risk of being endlessly teased by the insufferable Droopy Eyes. Yet, those parts were still hidden in every song nonetheless.
Now more than ever, he found that more and more of his songs had pieces of her woven into them as he found himself falling even further, if such a thing were possible.
They'd known each other practically all their lives, yet as Hak watched her grow and become stronger everyday, he felt it in his heart.
The feeling of hopeless, self indulgent, unrequited love that he felt for her growing stronger and stronger as each day went by.
It was hard, that was for sure. Hell, just a few days ago he had lost his ability to hide her in his lyrics anymore and sang openly about just who it was that held his heart in their hands.
Sang about the colour of his true love's hair.
Yet by some grace of God, or perhaps the opposite, she had heard him yet not recognised that the song was about herself.
It didn't matter to him though, not really.
This year alone, she had gone though hell and back and the last thing he wanted to do was complicate her life any further by adding to the list of things she already had to deal with.
Didn't want to make her feel that she couldn't still rely on him to be there for her even if she didn't feel the same way about him as he did for her.
What really mattered was that he would always be there and wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that.
What mattered most to him, wasn't that the dawn was his, but rather that it kept rising and shining just as beautifully each day for everyone.
He'd seen that hole of despair she had slipped into after the death of her father. After Su-won had betrayed them and their trust.
Had seen the emptiness in her eyes and he would rather die than see the light fade from her eyes again like it did that day.
Gently, he reached over and brushed a crimson curl away from her face as she continued to sleep against his shoulder, eyelashes fanned serenely across her cheeks and her brow smooth and blissfully free of worry.
It warmed his heart to know that for the most part those days were behind her. She had set her sights on higher ground and wouldn't stop until she got there – Until she felt like she had finally become strong enough, and even then, he doubted she would slow down in her pursuit of strength.
In some ways he found it funny.
Did she not realise that she was one of the strongest people he knew already?
The strength she held in her ability to push forward, to still trust in others after trust had been broken, to not lose hope and to look forward to each new day she had, only seeing the chances to change the world around her for the better and being hellbent on doing whatever she could.
These were things that for all the training he did, all the grueling workouts and long hours, this was the sort of strength that you couldn't achieve simply by punching your way out of problems.
It wasn't even a mental strength, he supposed.
Rather, it was the strength of her heart.
Just as he finished his musings, he looked down to find Yona starting to stir, seemingly to only just realise that she had nodded off for a while.
Yawning, she pushed herself upright enough to look at him with blurry eye and ask a vague "sorry, how long was I out?"
"Not long." He replied, yanking out his headphones, and propping his feet up on the table.
"If you're that tired, why not just go to sleep for the night?"
"It's not that late though, it's barely gone 10:00. It feels silly to waste time sleeping when we finally have the time to relax and have fun." She muttered in response. "Why, don't we watch a movie together? We haven't done that in ages and the night is still young" she said, suddenly perking up a bit more.
"Sure", he said, "What do you want to watch?"
"I don't mind. Why don't you pick while I go make us some popcorn and grab some more drinks?"
"Sounds good to me. Oh, and if your grabbing more drinks, gramps left some more up in the freezer: he called over his shoulder as she got up and made her way over to the snack cupboard, receiving a simple "On it!", in return.
Making the effort to get off his ass, he made is way over to the self that the TV sat on to see what movies they had – the answer being, not a lot.
Eventually, Hak managed to find Avatar and popped it into the DVD player.
It was one of his favourite movies to be honest. He loved the feeling as if he were the one flying when they first rode the leonopteryx through the floating mountains.
As he headed back over to make himself comfy on the couch, he grabbed them both a large blanket that they could share as Yona came over, hands full with popcorn and drinks for the two of them.
"So, what did you pick?" Yona asked, now seeming much more awake after her little nap as she shoved popcorn into her mouth like a squirrel.
"Avatar. And would you slow down there? The movies haven't even started yet, save some for me, you look just like Ao right now" he teased, poking he cheek.
She simply swapped his hand away, "Lay off! We can always make more."
"Yeah, yeah, just pass over the bag would ya?"
With an overly dramatized gesture, Yona placed the popcorn bag in between the two of them as she sat down next to him before putting both their drinks on the table.
"Happy now?" she asked?
"Yes" he replied through a mouth full of popcorn and a smirk.
Sighing in exasperation, Yona simply turned back to face the TV and hit play, tugging the large blanket up over the two of them and snuggling into Hak's side.
To his credit, he managed to keep a straight face and not show any signs of awkwardness at their proximity. He'd dealt with stuff like this over the years enough times to get it down packed, but inside his heard still thudded loudly against his chest, distracting him from most of the movie as they continued to watch the opening scenes.
For the most part he was able to pay attention, taking a sip from his drink every now and then or a handful or popcorn, letting Yona have most of it as she continued to curl up beside him under the blanket.
It was sweet really, despite having seen the movie a few times before, she'd still look deeply concerned when war was on the horizon and get teary eyed when characters died.
When Eytukan was killed, he swore he heard sniffling beside him but instead of teasing her as he might usually do, he simply pulled her into a side hug, not even bothering to look down to save he the embarrassment of her tears.
This holiday was going to be a good one. To hell with all the shit they had gone though this year through school and though her family tragedy, it was times like these that mattered. Times like these where memories were made that they could look back on and recall only the feeling of being content.
By the time the movie was finished, there was popcorn on the floor, both of them were in a tangle of blankets stretched out and taking up all the available space on the couch and it was a little passed 1:00 in the morning.
Amidst the glow from the TV, as the credits rolled by, the both yawned, yet couldn't find the energy to move.
"Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, you know" said Yona, softly through her cocoon of blanket she had made around herself.
"Yeah" he replied, still staring at the screen "It feels like its come around so fast this year."
"Yeah, I know what you mean." She said, now toying with the corner of fabric she held in her hands.
"I was thinking, for old times, sake do you want to head back down to the fort tomorrow?" she asked, a hint of nervousness in her otherwise somber tone.
He thought about it for a moment. The fort was in the woods up in the mountain and where they had often played together as kids whenever she had come over to visit. He, Su-won and Yona had often spent nights camped out up there in those woods, staring at the stars as the hid in their sleeping bags.
They had stopped going sometime in the past when they had started to get too busy to play anymore and had mostly forgotten about it until then, yet as she mentioned it, he knew why she wanted to go.
After Su-won had betrayed them, she found it hard to go to any of the places the three of them had frequented as kids, yet the fort was one of the few places that had been something for just the two of them.
Su-won had never been able to stay long enough for the to make the trip all the way up there. Now that ha and Yona were older though, the trip would be easier to make and so it wouldn't take them the whole day to get there like it used to.
It was another place, he knew, that would bring them both contentment and as this would be her first Christmas without her father, Hak knew she needed as many good memories as she could have right now.
"Sure, we'll head up there first thing tomorrow morning, so we can get back before dinner with the family" He said, into the silence that had somehow risen around them.
"Yeah, sounds like a good plan. . . hey Hak?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you." She said in a quiet tone before wrapping her arm around his torso in a side hug.
"No problem" he replied, returning the hug in turn as they both drifted off for the night on the couch, not even bothering to turn off the TV before they were sound asleep.
{*****}
Hey guys! So sorry it's been another 2 weeks since I updated! This was supposed to be an easy week for me, so I expected to get a lot more done, but life decided this say "bitch you thought!" and give me the opposite.
Based on how this is going I think I'm just gonna have to say to expect updates every 2 weeks or so otherwise if it's earlier than that it's just going to be a lucky surprise.
Thank you for reading this far! Next week I'm going to be going back and seeing if I can fix some small mistakes in pervious chapters/improve them at all before continuing on with the next chapter (As you guys know by now I write at night and am therefore prone to a lot of mistakes while typing).
The next chapter I plan to finally get into some actual fluff so you can look forward to that! Don't forget I always love getting your comments/reviews and anything you have to say is always welcome!