----.ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎.----
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
°･:*✧✧*:･ﾟ
:・ﾟ
･ﾟ✧
'

ㄥ|爪|ㄒㄥ乇丂丂

ch²³- a melancholic truth

---.ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎.---

Love strengthens us, inside out. Love is a possible strength against an actual weakness. Love nourishes a deprived soul, empowers it. There may be instances, where you feel as if it is a lone you, standing against the world, confronting it's tyrannical ways. No matter how brave you are, there would always be a certain desire, a yearning to have someone, anyone beside you, who could hear to the emotions that lie in the deepest, remotest crevices of your soul- someone who would be there to catch you when you stumble or fall, someone, who would be there to hold you whenever you need warmth. A mere touch of that someone is enough for you to straighten your exhausted self up, and stand once again, erect, to face the world.

This embrace, that my brother wraps me in, is a paradigm of that touch- a touch so loving, that you can forget the vicious world in that cherished moment.

It is a low, lamenting groan, that punctuates this sweet minute. The barely alive soldier lies on the ground, the arrow piercing his abdomen drawing blood ruthlessly, standing proud and draining him of life by the passing second. His pitiful attempts to get back on his feet are entirely futile, as his energy evaporates due to the huge loss of blood.

He accepts his kismet, ultimately, stilling all kinds of movements, barring his eyes, as they wander to the cerulean space above, around the clearing and the surrounding trees, and finally they fall on us. He scrutinizes our figures as we stay in our places in rapt, undivided attention. His dim eyes traces for something, but they pause when they fall on Jungkook, instantly fixing him with a hateful gaze.

"Y-You..."

A shiver travels down my spine, when I realise that these soldiers had attacked us, not for robbing us of our resources, or for the sole reason of terrorising journeyers, but for ordered assassination.

The dying man spits out red onto the grass beside his head, gasping in pain. He tries to inhale, but it is evident that his organs are betraying him.

"You'll die. D-die for bet-traying the kingdom..."

My peripherals show me how my brother evidently stiffens at the mention of this soldier's kingdom, a fact, that isn't hard to decipher when the enemy wears blue.

The soldier inhales shakily.
"You'll die, f-for you have imperiled the resurrection of the-the Lord, yo-"
It is as if the remaining air occupying his failing lungs have been snatched out, that his sentence is cut short, his eyes loses their glaze, and his body goes limp.

It is a gut-wrenching encounter to watch someone- even if that someone is an adversary- lose their life, to watch it drain right out of their eyes and skin.

I feel an arm around me, pulling me out of the reverie that was set by this death, and to a warm, assauging chest.

"Don't look, Hae. Everything will be fine."

Love strengthens.

Pulling back, my brother looks into my eyes, in a search for pain or discomfort. All he finds are tear-glazed two orbs, and a weak upward curve of lips. He gently, lovingly skims his fingertips past my cheeks, smiling promisingly, and I clutch the cloth of his shirt in an attempt to escape from the reality, momentarily.
"We are going to be fine."

A series of shuffles draws my eyes away from my brother, to find Jungkook gathering our belongings, and engaging in settling these on horsebacks once again.

"We need to move from here. It is no doubt that they have infiltrated the kingdom successfully. We can't stay in the same place for long now."

My brother steps out of our embrace, his posture tense, uncertain, dubious.

"You speak as if you know of them inside out, in person. Who might you be exactly?" His voice drastically changes from when he speaks to me, low and threatening.

"Tae-"

"Not speaking to you, Hae. I need this answer from this man, honest and veracious."

Exhaling timorously, I shift my gaze to Jungkook, who stands rigid, his expressions indecipherable, yet visibly contemplating. A strained moment later, he decides to speak.

"My name is Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook. And I am a former soldier of the Jinghaejang army. HaeJin, your sister, is acquainted with me due to the fact that she saved my injured self from death, and-"

"Jeon? Jeon Jungkook-did you say?" There is an incredulous lilt in his voice when my brother interrupts Jungkook, his expressions set in disbelief.

Jungkook exhales shakily, taking a hesitant step in the direction of my brother.

"Yes, Jeon Jungkook. Do you-Taehyung, do you perhaps remember me?"

"Jeon family, t-they had two sons. Jeon Jungkook, and Jeon Jung-"

"Jeon JungHoon, my brother."

Taehyung takes a step back, running his fingers through his hair in pure puzzlement.
"I-I do not understand. Both are said and known to have been killed, and-" my brother pauses in his speech, raising his eyes to fix Jungkook in a suspicious gaze once again, "What do you mean by a soldier of the Jinghaejang army." My brother, takes yet another step back and in front of me in a protective stance, and it isn't hard for me to know of what he is thinking.

"Tae, it is not wh-"

"I was taken away when I was three, taken away from my mother, my father, and my brother, by a band of brigands, and sold to this group of traffickers in Jinghaejang. I was raised and trained as a soldier since then, by them, along with the others who had the same fate as me. Any attempts to escape from that hell, and the person was killed. We were forced to fight battles as a part of the army, even if we did not wish to."

He pauses for a few seconds to gather himself, and to inhale. It is evident how very painful it is to recount all that he has encountered; it had been just the same last night too.

"The War brought me to the battlefield once again, but what I did not anticipate was to f-face my brother once again, after all these years."

Taehyung takes an unsure step towards Jungkook, who eventually sinks to his knees.

"I-He died in front of my own two eyes. I tried, really tried to escape from those men who held me back, who forced me to watch him die." A tear escapes his eyes, cascading down his cheek. "He looked at me with this s-sword through his body- he smiled at me, b-before he-" a sob erupts from his throat, no matter how hard he is evidently trying to hold back. He did not shed a single tear last night as he narrated this to me, a certain luminous winged creature perched on his knuckles through it all.

"He whispers to me. My brother, he-he hasn't left. He is right here, guiding me," his lips lift up fondly, delicately lifting his finger just a bit, the same finger that perches this beautiful aureate creature on its top. It flutters lightly, situating itself on top of his tousled hair as if responding to him." He guards what little is left of my will to live, it has been all him."

Though, it isn't present right now.

"I decided that I had had enough. A month ago, I planned an escape. I got tailed, I got caught, I fought them. I decided that I would embrace death happily, but I'd never return to that place, never again stand with them. I was almost gone, but," he raises his head to smile at me gratefully, fondly, "Hae found me, she took me in, healed me back into health."

"Took you in?" My brother repeats, shifting his questioning gaze to me.

Sheepishly, averting my eyes from his, I finally disclose this. "Remember that one day, when Jun asked me for apples? I'd gone to the orchard to get them for him, but I found this heavily injured man on the forest floors. I couldn't leave him there to die Tae. I dragged him back, and settled him down in the Outhouse basement-"

"Dragged him there?! Hae, you do realize that you took an enemy soldier back to our home, do you not?!"

"I do, Tae-"

"I was dubious of her for days on end too. I-Wasn't everyday in Jinghaejang, that people would treat me with such kindness and care. But then, she gave me a reason to trust her." He smiled at me warmly.

"That bombing back at home? I would've died Tae. I didn't, because he saved me, saved us both. We were here, on our way to the Camp, in order to find you, and some harmony."

Holding onto his hand gently, I squeezed it in assurance.

"I trust him, Tae."

He squeezes my hand back, smiling weakly.
"If you do, I do too."

Letting go of my hand, he takes a few steps to get to a still kneeling Jungkook. Extending his arm to him, he smiles at him. Jungkook's eyes glitter with unshed tears as he smiles through them, and he takes his hand to get onto his feet. Patting his other hand on their joined ones, he mutters bit dolefully.
"Your mother would've been ecstatic to have you back."

"I wish I had escaped sooner then." Jungkook commented in a weak whisper.

"She would've been Kook, and we are." Walking to them, I take his free hand in both of mine.

"We are here for you. Always are going to be."

Jungkook lets a gleeful chuckle, although it comes out a bit choked through his tears.

It takes a few minutes to wind up our belongings and offering a few carrots to the horse who travels with my brother, we prepare to set off on our way again. Grey is ecstatic to meet with Taehyung again, spending a whole good minute on nuzzling him, and having him caress him thoroughly.

"Jungkook," my brother speaks up, his voice punctuating the comfortable silence that was set between the three of us.

"Yes, hyung." His use of the endearment causes a lovely warmth to envelope my chest. It isn't a surprise, rather a perceptible fact, that he looks up to Tae, like he wanted to, his elder brother.

"Why they are hounding you, is what I am not being able to comprehend. If you were a mere soldier in the army, they shouldn't bother performing such an intricate operation- such as actually infiltrating an enemy kingdom- just to eliminate you. Help me understand?"

Jungkook sighs, letting out his next words in a defeated note.

"I know of something they do not want me, or anyone else to."

✧*:･ﾟ✧

1888 words.

[A/N: Well, that was long, again. Anyway, this was a really crucial chapter to help understand where exactly JK comes from. Hope this part is clearrrr! Any questions tho, ask away.]

----.ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎ᴥ︎.----
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
°･:*✧✧*:･ﾟ
:・ﾟ
･ﾟ✧
'