Broken Glass - Taekook

57

The relief comes first, a wave of gentle energy that washes over me and sends a warmth through my entire being. There's a familiar heat behind my eyes, as they grow a little damper, and my throat tightens up slightly at the same time. And then I step forward on an impulse, my palm moving up to rest against his cheek.

He doesn't react for a few seconds, and then he leans into the contact, his smile widening a little. One hand comes up to grab mine, flecked all over with those beautiful blue markings that highlight his abilities and his connection to the golden river. In the mid-morning light, every detail feels like it's hyper-realistic, hyper-focused, to the point that it's almost too much information for my brain to process all at once.

The softness that I remember being in those slender fingers is replaced with a new sort of callousness, a rougher texture to the very tips of his fingers and edges of his palm. It's probably just a result of our time on the road, but there's a part of me that worries for him, worries that he's not taking care of himself in the same way that he's taking care of the rest of us. As our fingers intertwine, the quiet closeness causes another wave of warmth to spread through me, starting from the sternum.

"You know, I really am proud of you," he whispers, as our joining hands bring our faces closer together. "Connecting to the golden river is hard, and it can be something that takes several tries. But you managed it on your first try. I don't know if I can put into words how incredible that is." In that moment, his voice becomes much softer, almost a whisper. "How incredible you are."

The knowing smile on his face is enough to tell me that I'm blushing, and instinct makes me lower my gaze a little. There's something about the sincerity in his voice, in the look in his eyes, that makes my heart beat a little faster, though I wouldn't be able to place the exact cause. It's probably a mix of things: the strangely dreamlike intensity of this moment, his expression, how close we are. All of it piles together at once, and it's new, somewhat scary. Though not enough for me to step away.

"I don't know if I could've done it without you guys," I respond, not knowing what else to say. "I know I'm the Saviour, and that makes people think I can automatically do stuff like this, but I really can't. I'm not a miracle worker, and I don't think it would be fair if the golden river made me that way. Without you guys, I'm nothing. I'm just some guy who drowned in a river on the very edge of the kingdom, with a weird mirror in his hand."

He frowns at that. "No, I'm sure someone else would've saved you-" he starts, and I shrug, shaking my head at him.
"Maybe they would have, but maybe they wouldn't have. We don't know what goes on in the mind of a stranger, nor how they would approach a situation like this. For all we know, they could've been sympathetic to the king's cause, and they could've plunged a knife into my chest just in case I was the guy everyone was talking about. Just to stop the prophecy from coming true."

Taehyung shudders, and we're so close by this point that I can physically feel the movement as it happens, this instinctive reaction to my words. "How are you so willing to talk about your own hypothetical death?" he returns, his forehead creasing with worry. "Doesn't it scare you?"

"Of course it scares me, but I have to be realistic. I'm the enemy of a lot of people, and I can't ignore that. There are those who want me to succeed, but there are people who support the king, and people who would stop at nothing to see me fail. There are people who would like to see my body laid out for everyone to see, an example to any revolutionaries. I don't know any personally, sure, but I'm sure they exist."

He winces at that. "Maybe so, but don't talk about them like that. It's not okay that they're out there, complicit in the suffering of others. It's not okay that they want you to be hurt in any way." He squeezes my hand. "If I had my way, you wouldn't be in any danger of being hurt at all. But I know that I can't stop everything. I can't heal every wound, and that scares the shit out of me."