Memento vitae || Jongsang

6| Ustulation

"Yeosang, love, let me see," Jongho brings a hand around his hand holding the piece of paper in between his tensing fingers, wrapping him with reassurance. But the boy cannot seem to comprehend what is actually written on this piece of paper while his eyes are stuck on their secretive signature written at the bottom of the paper.

He knows that Jongho cannot read, but he hands over the paper anyway, his hands trembling fairly much at the new epiphany. Yeosang feels lightheaded.

The boy swallows troublesomely, bringing a sleeve up to dry his damp cheeks before stalling once more with the fabric pressed hard against his mouth. He cannot believe this being true- how this wrenched kind of luck has brought his fortune to be like this. Suddenly he feels Jongho snaking his hand around his wrist, pulling the fabric away from his face as he seeks his wide eyes again, "What secret message has supposedly needed to be found by you?"

By deep-grown habit, Yeosang breathes the unneeded air with desperate attempts to soothe his fickling nerves. Jongho's attentive eyes are no help in the darkness.

"Wooyoung.." he pushes with rising angst, "Wooyoung, he is not dead - he cannot be!" Yeosang leans forward as he stares right into Jongho's watchful eyes. His fingers reach for the knight's shoulders as he steadies himself into his embrace, "He is alive!"

Careful to not forthput any mistake, Jongho brings his arms around the smaller male and examines Yeosang's expression, "My love, what are you saying? Who is the letter from?"

For a moment, the boy's lips tremble without any words passing them. His sight blurs before him and without realising tears are streaming into his eyesight again. "What does the letter say, hm? You know that I do not master the power of scripture," Jongho encourages him softly, wiping the salt water away from his face in such a caring manner that it makes Yeosang tear up even more.

"Jongho, you know that I love you?"

"Why, of course, I love you too, dear and honest from the bottom of my heart."

Yeosang bites his lip as he glances away from the knight and to the spot where he had found the letter. He swallows the accumulating spit in his mouth before he dares to continue, "Wooyoung has written it. He must have written it a far long time ago considering the date it was signed.. He says that after my departure my father already knew that I would never be sent home again, not that he ever wished for that to happen. Thus he made an agreement with Wooyoung's father that Wooyoung would marry the miss I was supposed to, as some kind of justification for how Wooyoung had conducted me with illness. My father would gain half of the gain from the marriage instead."

Yeosang shifts his eyes at the other man again to conclude this occurrence, "He knew I would find it here if I ever decided to return. After all, this was our secret place."

Jongho's expression furrows and the boy has a hard time reading the emotions displayed in front of him; it is nearly impossible to say what he thinks of the letter. On the contrary, Jongho seems to already know Yeosang's next words.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" he questions uncertainly, and the boy knows how the knight must be thinking of all the possible things that may go wrong, "If he is married into a wealthy family, do you not think..."

"Jongho, he is married with force," Yeosang cuts in, "To.. to someone he does not even know! Of course, it will please him to see a well-known face again."

The boy suddenly scrambles across the floor as he chases the door, "We must go now! He has waited long enough- maybe we will be there in time to save him from-from-!"

A strong hand holds him back from going that far, hauling him back into the hut as the knight stares him down with concern written all over his features. Yeosang's mouth hangs a little open as he befuddles at the other's acts of shielding him from egressing into the darkness.