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I fled to the city with so much discounted
Ah, but I'm flying like a bird to you now
Back to the hedgerows where bodies are mounted
Ah, but I'm flying like a bird to you now
- Shrike, Hozier
The abomination used to have a child once, he thinks. Not that he can remember now, but there is a small sense of hollow emptiness somewhere deep inside him, the memory of a bruise with no colour left in it to show.
He only thinks of that lost child when he stumbles across another in the snow, long since given up on trembling. It gazes up at Jeonghan with heavy eyes and stutters in a breath that might also be a plea for something. There is no one else around for miles, no one to know if this child lives or dies, no one other than Jeonghan.
The boy weighs nothing in Jeonghan’s arms. His head lolls with the unsteady gait through the marshland, mouth hanging open with what might be relief.
Jeonghan took in an injured bird once, years and years ago, back when the bruise was fresh and the memory of what it was to be human was still etched into the maze of his fingertips. He cared for it until it hopped around his room and butted up against his windows, cooing at the grey sunlight beyond.
He set it free on the first day with no clouds and broke its neck the first time it came back to visit.
It doesn’t take long for Jeonghan to realise that Seungkwan needs more than the bare dirt floor and salted meat left to smoke many moons ago, that the single ragged blanket is not quite enough to stop the sound of his teeth chattering. Although Seungkwan never complains, Jeonghan raids passing convoys to bulk up his supplies, has to range further each time as the message becomes known not to pass through this particular neck of the woods.
It isn’t until a small doll that Jeonghan picked up, less out of thought and more out of instinct, ekes a small smile from Seungkwan that Jeonghan realises that something inside him has shifted. He disappears into the woods for three days after that, kills four men just because they happened upon his path and not because they were carrying anything valuable.
Seungkwan cries when he returns, the sound muffled and sulky from the other end of the room. He refuses to eat the beans that Jeonghan heats through for him and smashes the doll’s fine china head against the corner of the table when Jeonghan raises his voice.
“I thought you’d left me.” His voice is high and cold, his face streaky with tears. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Jeonghan twitches his shoulders. “I’ve always come back so far. There’s no reason for you to have thought that.”
“I thought you were angry at me.” Seungkwan’s lip trembles this time, fingers tight on the back of the doll’s dress. “Did I do something wrong?”
The room is small enough that Jeonghan can cross it in two easy strides, crouching in front of Seungkwan. The metal of his joints creak and complain, but Seungkwan doesn’t flinch at the sound, only scowls as Jeonghan tries to meet his eye.
The shards of china are everywhere around them, a sea of broken pieces surrounding Seungkwan’s low chair. “These are sharp,” Jeonghan says, picking one up and putting it in an empty bowl with a clink. “Sit still while I clear them up.”
Seungkwan pouts, but does not complain, tucking his bare feet up beneath him and resting his cheek on his knee as he watches Jeonghan work.
It’s not till bedtime that night when the wind is whipping around the canvas roof and Seungkwan is tucked up beneath piles of blankets that he asks, “You won’t leave me, will you?” He sounds half-asleep already, mellowed by the warm milk Jeonghan made him drink. “Promise.”
Jeonghan just turns his back and sorts through the bowl of broken pieces of what used to be a face.
Years pass like falling sand and there are many more fights, many more tears. Seungkwan keeps the doll, spiderglass fractures covering her face, on the shelf above his bed and Jeonghan never brings up all the other useful things the glue could have been used for, even at his nastiest.
They don’t know when Seungkwan’s birthday is, so they go by the first opening of the little blue flowers that Jeonghan thinks are called scorpion grass but which Seungkwan has another name for. Mostly, they don’t do much to mark the day, but Jeonghan scratches a line into the metal of his thigh each year to help him keep track.
It’s coming up to that day again, the buds ripe and begging to open, when the stranger lands at their front door. Lucky for him, Jeonghan is away on a hunt when he arrives, but he’s there, bleeding into a blanket when he gets home.
Seungkwan meets Jeonghan outside, hands raised and eyes wide. “I never ask you for anything,” he begs, and Jeonghan already knows he’s lost. “Please. Please save him.”
“No.” Jeonghan moves Seungkwan out of the way easily, the tins of food rattling noisily in his pack. “I don’t do that.”
“You could.” Seungkwan’s voice quivers. “You could for me.” He doesn’t move to stop Jeonghan, but he does fall to his knees on the dusty grass, cheeks and nose red. There’s blood on his hands and up his forearms, staining his cuffs.
Jeonghan looks down and sees the same on his own hands, his own forearms.
The stranger is missing a hand, gore dripping from the stump. His face is pale and smeared with mud and anguish. He blanches further when he sees Jeonghan, tries to scramble away but ends up backing into the table leg. A metal cup crashes to the ground, sprays the remnants of a herbal tea up Jeonghan’s shin.
“You’re going to bleed to death.” Jeonghan turns the cooker way up high, holds his sharpest knife in the centre of the blade. “This is going to hurt, but it is better than the alternative.” The metal glows orange in Jeonghan’s fist as he turns around.
Seungkwan doesn’t come back inside until the smell of burnt flesh has dissipated somewhat. He wrinkles up his nose but approaches the stranger on the bed nonetheless. “Will he live?” He sounds young, scared. He cradles the stranger’s remaining hand like it’ll crumble at his touch.
“He might.” Jeonghan doesn’t make promises he can’t keep, but he can give Seungkwan that much hope. “He needs to sleep for a while first.” He gathers the blanket into his fists, tries to ignore the way Seungkwan’s touch has drifted to the stranger’s face. “Shout for me when he wakes up.”
The stranger’s name is Hansol and it’s clear that he never quite comes to trust Jeonghan. He plays nice, mostly for Seungkwan’s benefit, eats the food Jeonghan puts on the table, doesn’t ask for the gun he’d had strapped to his belt when he’d arrived. Most importantly, Seungkwan smiles when Hansol walks in the room, laughs at even the smallest comment.
It isn’t until the flowers in the yard have bloomed, died, and bloomed again that Jeonghan arrives home early to a whispered conversation cut short, notices a packed bag in the corner of the room when he’s putting the food into the cupboards. A flash of panic runs through him, replaced by an easy steady calm. His fingers grip into the countertop and he feels his body go still.
Seungkwan is there when he unfreezes and turns around, eyes brimming with tears. “I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says. “Hansol has asked me to go with him. There are others like us where he lives.”
Like us means Hansol and Seungkwan, Jeonghan understands. There is no one else like Jeonghan.
It fills Jeonghan with something like pride that Seungkwan doesn’t beg for his own life the way he did for Hansol’s. Instead, his voice is calm, quiet, as he tells Jeonghan of the plan to go north from here, find Hansol’s friends, live a life. Jeonghan keeps the feeling inside though, keeps what’s left to him of a face impassive.
“You can’t come back.” The words feel like they come from someone else’s throat. “You’re welcome to leave, but if you do, that’s it.”
Seungkwan shakes his head, tears finally spilling. “You don’t mean that,” he croaks.
“I do.” Jeonghan turns his back, fingers finding the grooves his nails made in the countertop. “If you come back, I’ll break your neck.”
Time loses meaning without Seungkwan around.
Jeonghan keeps hunting mostly because he has nothing else to do, but he doesn’t throw away the food when it spoils. He stops tidying because mess always bothered Seungkwan more than it did him, but he does keep watering the little blue flowers by the door, does still carve a line into himself whenever they bloom.
There are too many to count easily when Seungkwan reappears, grey and stooped, with Hansol in tow. How they made it this far is beyond Jeonghan, but he doesn’t stop Seungkwan from stepping close and wrapping his arms around his waist. They’re thin and bony now, frail like wood used for kindling.
They haven’t long left, that much is clear, but they make the most of what they have. Jeonghan cooks the food that is still good and Hansol produces a bottle of something that makes Seungkwan cough and then giggle. Their tales are happy, warm, and there’s a comfort to the way they hold themselves around each other.
When Jeonghan finds their bodies, curled around one another, it’s almost as if they’ve fallen asleep.
He buries them together, because it seems the right thing to do, and plants the blue flowers over the grave. Opposite is a tree, the bark scratchy where it presses against his back. He doesn’t hurt because his body isn’t built to, but he feels a sort of rot deep down in his core.
It rains, and still he doesn’t move. The sun comes out, scorching and bright beyond the shade of the tree. He doesn’t need to scratch the marks into his leg because the only reason to ever track the time is buried four feet in front of him.
His power runs low. He stops noticing the changes of the world around him. The flowers grow across the grave and up his legs, spreading across his torso and round his head. Children that find him in the future say it looks like a halo, that he looks like a guardian angel.
Certainly, none of them dare to touch the fractured doll that lies, cradled, at his waist.