Umma, why must I wear a dress?

"You'll understand when you're older, Noo-ri," his mother would always tell him, and he would pout, knowing that this was a dismissive, non-committal answer.

He never received one.

Umma, why can't I play with the other boys?

Her son wanted a friend, because all the girls in the village were boring to him. But his mother would rub his head soothingly and insist, "because they're training to be soldiers, Noo-ri. You shouldn't disturb them."

Then, umma, why am I not a soldier too? I'm a boy.

"If you become a soldier, Noo-ri..." his mother wrapped her thin, body arms around his small figure, pulling him closer to her chest. She spoke her next words so sadly, "...they'll never give you back. Mommy's really lonely, dear. Would you take care of me?"

ー

The child brings his hands up to touch the statue, wondering what it was made of. It was smooth like marble, and he knew how expensive that was.

This was probably the most expensive thing in their calm village.

There wasn't a soul that wanted to steal it, though. Not a guard to protect this treasure. Everyone respected the statue and children were taught to see it as a hero.

"Are you interested in the statue, little girl?"

And there was the Uncle from the Fountain, who always had an erhu in his hands. Noo-ri remembered him-- he would always draw a crowd of children, boys and girls, and he would begin to tell them stories of the Red Dragon and his cowardly servant.

Noo-ri didn't bother to correct him-- enough people have mistaken him as a girl, especially since he wore a short hanbok. 

His hair was long too, hateful darkwaves stretching far too long against the middle of his back. His mother didn't allow him to cut it, even when he told her all the other boys were cutting theirs.

"You see that golden crack, little girl?" the man spoke, and Noo-ri listened intently.

His eyes were drawn to the statue's shoulder, where, through the thick stone, a fissure through his left was mended in sheer gold.

Noo-ri remembered the last time the man had told them the story-- didn't this cowardly servant die from a wound to his shoulder?

"Nearly ten years ago, one night..." the man spoke reverently, and Noo-ri realized he was in for another story time. "It had been a terrible, terrible storm. And the thunders roared, lightning struck-- it hit the statue and split it apart at the crack of midnight."

(On the night of Noo-ri's birthday, his mother had whispered to him.)

"Struck by a prophetic visual, Lord Yeon-ga told us that the soldier had spun through the cycle of rebirth, and will be reincarnated among us," now the storyteller reached up to the statue, not touching it for it was so treasured he couldn't dare to, "he declared the statue holy, and welded it in gold to retain this knowledge as a mission for our village."

A mission? Noo-ri didn't understand.

This servant was weak, cowardly, and couldn't even fight well. 

He had saved King Hiryuu one fateful day, and in his name his village, which had been impoverished, lived through the famine. 

He had done nothing special in particular-- all soldiers fought for their king, that was not news. The only reason he was revelled so highly was because the village was drowning in drought and this gave them fame.

Yet they had erected a statue of him and now he was holy?

It wasn't as if he was a legendary dragon warrior.

The storyteller folded his fingers into a prayer, "birthmarks are a sign of a past life's dying injuries," he recounted, "so one day, we believe a baby will be born unto us, a boy with that same scar running down his shoulder. And he will bring this country to prosperity."

Noo-ri closed his fist over his dress, and looked up at the statue.

To the statue's blank eyes, and uncharacteristically brave expression carved into his features. To the armor of a soldier he wore, and the sword he held before him, blade in the ground like a praying guard.

Engraved under his feet was his name, Sang.

But Noo-ri knows that this is anything but what he was, what he represented. His arms were too thick-- Sang had no muscles to show, and his wrist was so much thinner.

Intricate designs were scattered across his armor, but Sang always wore the most run-down gear. He never really wore a breastplate or shoulder guards. He was a rear soldier, after all, why waste steel on him? It's how he died in the first place-- he had paper defense.

This statue is nothing like him.

Sang would have never been happy to don armour or hold a sword. Sang was a coward-- not a servant as the stories have warped through history-- he was a soldier that neglected his training, and loitered around the king, doing servant jobs even when he was not supposed to. 

Sang was a coward, and that was it.

Noo-ri turned to the storyteller and smiled, wordlessly thanking him for the story-- then he turned around and simply left without another word, the groceries in hand crinkled through the bag.

"You're welcome, little girl."

And Noo-ri, once he was out of sight, would sigh against the sky that wasn't blue enough, and in his heart and without a cry, he would mourn.

Mourn because Sang had never wanted himself to be raised and honoured so highly, given horrid praise through a corrupted story that reeked of soldier propaganda.

Sang was a pacifist, after all.

But now, his village had boys as young as five years old admiring the army, and entering academies at six years of age, simply to train and fight with weapons with dreams of being a soldier in the capital of Kouka.

Sang would've cried, sobbed, and killed himself just to know what nightmare he had caused.

And Noo-ri would too, if only his mother wasn't in such dire need of his presence.

Noo-ri stepped into his house, placing the groceries down before greeting his sickly mother in her room. He found himself before a mirror-- and instinctively, he reached out to it.

He pulled the collar of his blouse aside, to inspect the deep birthmark that ran down his left shoulder. It was identical to the golden rupture in the statue, and has only grown with his body.

If they find me, I'll become the heir to the throne.

It finally made sense now, not that he'd suspected any less.

No wonder his mother dolled him up like a girl and hid him away from everyone. 

Sick and widowed as she was, she didn't want her only son to be taken away from her so early, trained into a military robot, and manipulated by the king's advisors.

Noo-ri couldn't really blame his mother for keeping it a secret from him, either. She probably thought that this ten-year-old wouldn't understand yet. 

If only Noo-ri had a way to tell her that he was much older than she believed him to be, in his head.

Noo-ri looked no different from how Sang actually looked. But no one could tell, because the statue was a warped imagination and they would never imagine that this girl was the prophesied child.

Noo-ri seethed, knowing he must have been reincarnated for a reason. (Sang never loved his village. Sang hated them. They hated Sang.) And seeing how this village had made Sang a ridiculous form of propaganda, Noo-ri hated it too. But,

(Is my king here too?)