Against Time | k.th. ✔

三十一 : the butterfly effect

Kim Taehyung's conscience had begun to haunt him.

Although Taehyung had safely navigated himself across the periphery of Hansung through the bicycle that he was not even acquainted with a couple of hours ago, the inexorable urge within him to just run back to the site of their miserably-failed operation was still as much fazing as a raging vortex.

After all, he had done what he, himself, feared the most— he abandoned Sangcheol and his other fellow comrades at a moment which was apparently the gravest of all.

If he had not opted to flee like a coward in the heat of the moment, and instead stayed back to brook whatever blows might have come his way, would the accompanying apprehension of losing against the Japanese have dissolved into nothingness too? What if the comradery they shared had the capacity to withstand setbacks worse than the one that they were made to face a while back, and Taehyung had just ended up losing the opportunity to witness it some day in the near future as well?

All because of his love for his own life.

Everything fell apart because of him. Taehyung's lexicon was apparently deprived of the very keyword of their unit's solidarity oath— selflessness.

Now, how could he deny that when everything had become so ostensible?

Moreover, was he eligible to disavow?

Taehyung's bloodshot eyes were very well portraying the internal disarray that he was undergoing. The vivid circuit of veins under his pale skin was keen on surfacing and further contributing to his distress, the only hurdle for it to achieve that being Taehyung's own reluctance towards shedding even a single tear. Wailing over the current circumstance would mean that he attempted to avert his reality and atone for his sin, when even he was abreast with the fact that the kind of cowardice that he had displayed was far from the scope of being redeemed.

He would have traversed through that wormhole of a tunnel if the thoughts tormenting him had not cropped up to begin with. Reaching Yeseul and deriving benefit from the usual run of luck that followed in her world— which, for a moment, also made Taehyung trust the edge he and his team was to have over the imperial forces had it not been for their untimely busting— would have definitely yielded something worthwhile.

But how was he to face even her? Had he not given her his word about bringing a change in the scenario of his time period? Would carrying forward the rhetoric be decent of him when his actions did not align with it?

The least Taehyung wanted right then was a degraded image of his in Yeseul's eyes.

So, where did that leave Taehyung?

🔹

After going back and forth the idea of owning up to the blunder that he had set loose, or just running away from it, it had become clear which alternative Taehyung gave preference to now that the erected structures of Hansung had again started to be registered by him. Strolling through the streets currently sullied with countless pamphlets and confetti, he puffed a relaxed sigh when bloodstains were not what defiled the same pathways. There may be a possibility that not every compeer of his succumbed to the Japanese blitzkrieg assault.