The serial kisser || ATEEZ OT8

1| The end of humanity

𝟏𝟓𝟗𝟐 | 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐞

- ♦♦♦ -

Seonghwa's fingers clutched the fabric of his hanbok, the soft material of woven hemp sliding against his tense digits as the stench of strong solitude reeked from the village expanding behind the large trees stretching at the foot of the mountain. Ever since last decade, tension had been growing between the citizens when the threats of the Japanese invading the peninsula had spread through the country like pest. Disputes between the kingdom and the adversary had been there for a longer while than that, but those last years had been especially hard on the villagers nearby, Seonghwa knew of that. The Yangbans, bloodlines of the noble families rooting back to the centuries when Great Joseon's own father Yi Seong-gye still was alive and breathing, had ordered all men of the fight-able ages into war services, with no excuses at all. If not, they had served their families with poverty, as if the blood of their lives weren't enough.

Seonghwa dragged his foot up on the rock he sat on and dipped his little finger into the bowl he had placed beside him. The liquid had cooled down, its ickiness clinging to his finger as he licked the digit clean, eyes lost in the view of the alarmed village in the distance. The rushing volumes of water roared in his ears from kilometers away. They were coming.

There was a bitter-sweet taste lingering in his mouth caused by his circulating thoughts of how something so horrible could awake such a strong light in his eyes. But it was senses far out of his reach that was not his responsibility to control. Something he had learned to live with, side by side, every counting day.

Eventually, Seonghwa grabbed the entire bowl with both his hands and gulped the rest down, hungrily, as he never could be sated enough. He would have work to do in the next many days, displeasing as it sounded, Seonghwa could not be more thrilled to do what he was best at.

Within the next second, he left the rock and ascended the steep slope up to the elegant construction heaving above the ground. He called it 'a moment to dwell'. By now, it had been many years since he had had scrolls of paper across his work table as he had constructed it all by himself before hiring the best carpenters in the land to raise it above the ground. It was a mess cleaning up afterward. The building was carved out of strong materials with beautiful twisting patterns, inspired by the other world. The construction could be seen from far away, and Seonghwa knew it still was a talk among the villagers of the spouseless healer in the mountain.

Seonghwa had lived there for nearly fifteen decades now. He would be alone until the very end of humanity, possibly even beyond that era.

♦

His hand trailed along the many fabrics filling the chest to the brim, although he searched a very specific clothing of the deep blue colours with the white sleeves. Then he tied his hair on the back of his head, putting away any black strands in his eyes as he changed into the other ropes. Under his hanbok, he strapped his ingeom sword, easy to be pulled with the special design the clothing gave him accessibility to it, and yet, invisible for the outer eye to detect.

The weather was gloomy, nearly in the same way he perceived his surroundings as he wandered down the streets of the village. The frost-biting temperature had left those lands of the country a few nights ago now, a sign which always joyed the villagers more than what was worth the exertion. Seonghwa was one to miss the hours spent in the cold darkness, instead. It was a long time since he had met one like himself.

Yangbans lived in the big buildings of the center of the village, out from there the jungins' homes stretched around, homes of the middle classed people. The commoners didn't own their own hanoks - they lived off working for the yangbans and some of the most wealthy jungins, being extremely underpaid compared to how much wear and tear they made out of their bodies, and that was just how it was - no discussion. Social classes, Seonghwa thought. Humans were stupid.