When he melted down in his mellow white comforts he felt like he was falling down in craggy stones, having a numbness surrounding him instead of the supposed pain. The prayers for God were stuck behind his tongue as if they were not strong enough to be spoken loudly of as words. Seonghwa curled in the cold, having his fingers braided for a plea that he so grand wanted to believe was heard. The boy had plenty of things he wanted to believe in, as pure ones of a fairy-believer were. The never-ending tales that his mother used to tell him when he was younger than five, did never disappear from his wares of warm memories. He remembered them all and treasured them a place deeper than his heart.
Yet the reality was nothing more than wet steel, sloshing against him like a throbbing wave of the sea, and every hope and dream was left for the mere pathetic souls.
The young man fell asleep long before he even noticed his prayers never were said, faulting the vow he had promised himself never to break. The bed was still cold, comparably to a frosty night where the north wind would strike the last dying butterfly to the ground. Its wings ripped off and only the miserable pieces left to mourn over its piteous state. He was a butterfly with lost wings.
_____
The boy's whole body trembled like falling autumn leaves when he awoke from his light slumbers. Even though his covers had been there as a shield of protection around his form, the darkness had still found its way into his bones and the displeasure was glinting in his open eyes.
Seonghwa found the vitality and raised his shaking frame from the soft surface beneath him. His hands grasped around the covers while he tugged his limbs further into his body in order for keeping a minimum of body heat. The eyes wanted to fall shut, but his body dismissed him to fall apart yet, forcing him to face all hurdles in life. Thin air was trapped inside the walls of the dark room, making the boy gaping for an air that strangled him more than it eased him. When he turned around, tears dotted his sight with no caution, and a breath of air got stuck in his chest.
Seonghwa rolled around and got out of the bed, sinking his bare feet down on piercing needles situated across the cold wooden planks. With a fogging mind, his eyes frantically searched for a clearing in the horizon, looking east for where the sunrise would appear as a sparkling source of light.
The young man stopped in front of the window, trailing his eyes along with the curtain until he reached out and slowly pulled it to the side with trembling, ice-cold fingers. Blue might coat his eyes in crystals.
No sun shone through, grey being the new green. Empty, white, cold, grey, sad, numb, nothing.
The young Harvey heir's heart dropped low when the realization traced his mind of imagination. More than a magical winter wonderland sheathed in layers of white snow, the once lively garden was nothing more than bones and white ash left in a desolated scenery, casting hymns of death from the deep of the cracked mirror that once was a mirror-gloss lake. A chill reached the tip of his nose, and he stepped away from the frozen window, letting the curtains stay open to reveal what realities had to offer him.
Normally, Seonghwa would have servants running between his feet as bewildered mice, albeit the many times he had told he needed no help for dressing or awake, but no one dared to go against sir Harvey's orders. Today, he stood unattended in front of the huge wardrobe, staring at the dull flavour of colours. Not a single soul had peered into his bedchamber as well as not any other sound than the howling wind through the mansion was to be heard. The young male listened to his heart beating rapidly in his chest. Nothing else.
Surely he reached for the hanger and let the soft silk fabric fall into his hands. His eyes fell into the deep blue color that his father always had told him suited him the best. Seonghwa threw off his white sleeping garments, letting the coolness pinch his bare skin before he slipped on the dark blue dress shirt. His deep eyes were glossy. The shirt hugged his silhouette gingerly, while he drew the trousers up and tugged the ends of the shirt into them. Tightly, he strapped the buttons around his slender waist, and hurriedly finished clothing himself.
The door creaked when Seonghwa stepped out onto the corridor. Everything was silent when his shoes tapped the floor further down the maleficent staircase. His trained eyes searched the crown bearer of this house, but not even the dining table was served with breakfast for the start of the day. With a furrow, Seonghwa stood in utter confusion in the middle of the dining room. The light from a lit candle flickered in the oil lamp that was placed in a window sill, and he quietly stepped further through the house. Forsaken, the wooden planks groaned underneath the young man's feet as he entered the parlor with the belief of lone on his mind.
A touch of fingertips brushed his one shoulder just before his eyes fixated down at the once burning tiled stove. Only the abandoned sparks smoldered in the measly remnants of soot. The fire had burned out and left was what the master never had needed.
A troubled tightness was found around his throat, Seonghwa turned stiff around on his heels, his black congress shoes ramming furiously against the cold floor as he steered for his father's workroom. While his face turned troubled, the knocks on the door became more violent as he beat himself down. Despite heavy feeling in the feet, his promises for God were never enough for what saliva had driven him to swallow as a beast. Seonghwa never let himself say the words out loud, but if his thoughts had a voice, God would have been disappointed with him.
The young heir stopped knocking, instead took his time flattening his now untidy deep blue dress shirt as he awaited a response in front of his father's working room. His head was whirling when it all seemed as if he stood inside of a huge clockwork.
He didn't know what he should do with himself when there never came an answer. Seonghwa was cold, and he finally let his hands wander to the handle he slowly turned downward. He had not expected the room to be left this chaotic. His eyes turned wide open over the left side, where parchments and papers were scattered alongside the wall all the way over to sir Harvey's work table. A container of ink had fallen, spilling the dark substance down over the papers and pouring further down onto the expensive wooden floor. Seonghwa was in a loss for words. He stepped inside, following the path of spread paper sheets across the ground, not minding stepping on any of them. The hollow sound rummaged inside the walls and the ink splattered onto his clean shoes and trousers when he finally stood ahead the desk, having his orbs glued to the different texts of information he never was allowed to know of. The male reached down and heaved a paper that was spared of the devastating fluid to his sight. All concerning economic and sales. Seonghwa dropped the paper to the floor and stepped on it, staining the before-clean written paper with ink.
His eyes searched for more important information, but numbers were all that interested his father. Numbers and achievements. But Seonghwa wanted to find out the reason behind this untidy room, why they had left. A more yellowish piece of parchment there was hidden under a stack of books caught Seonghwa's eyes, and he moved to pull it out with careful hands. The piece had marks after different folds and ripples, nonetheless the young man unfolded it out of inquisitiveness, conducting his heart rate to stop when the contents passed his understanding. The letters were no english spoken language nor a language even the slightest alike. And yet Seonghwa found the foreign letters close at heart. His eyes spun deeper into the parchment, trying to understand what was written in his actual mother-tongue. The letters of hangul were smeared onto the surface as if tears had been dispersed in the middle of writing. The young man drew in a breath as his eyes flickered up for a moment before diving down into the information of sorrow. Unfortunately, Seonghwa had never learned to read or write the Korean language of the fact he was only five years of age when he left his mother. His dictionary had still been far too little at that time to remember it all, but a thing he understood from this page of parchment, was the words scribbled into the bottom in English.
Soon will I die
No other information, just the direct words of reality. A realization that both made Seonghwa's world stop and turn at the exact same time. He wanted to imagine his father had perceived what fault he had made in the past and now traveled back to the lands he had left Seonghwa's mother in. But Seonghwa knew this wasn't the truth, particularly since this letter was written at least a decade ago.
The young Harvey heir must have felt at least a single tear flee his eye, before he tugged the letter into his trouser's pocket and left sir Harvey's workroom, still as untidy as before.
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Winter nights || Seongjoong short story ✓
Fanfiction"In the middle of a winter night, I found my source of light. And that light is you." __ In the 1800th century, outcasts of London, England, a young man feel terrible mistaken in this world. The young Harvey heir is living his life as the next in li...
