1 and 0nly (SVT one shots)

Tired (Not Of You) (SoonHoon)❗🔞

Historic Au Ig

General Kwon and Lee were fighting again.

In the midst of the silence, there was a resounding crack as Soonyoung was thrown to the ground in front of his own palace. The stones beneath him broke and the air was knocked from his lungs, and as he struggled to catch his breath, Jihoon waited for him to get up and continue the fight. Soonyoung couldn't even remember what had started it this time.

The two were evenly matched as always. Jihoon had the upper hand now, but that hadn't been the case only moments before and it wouldn't be the case again when Soonyoung got up.

But Soonyoung didn't get up. He was about to, but when he looked up at Jihoon he was struck, disarmed with a single questioning arch of Jihoon's brow. Jihoon was just too pretty - especially like this, saber in hand and the pale sun at his back, setting him aglow .

Soonyoung sat up but made no move to stand or retrieve his weapon. When Jihoon saw this, he stilled. Normally, Soonyoung was a man who wore his emotions clearly on his face. And Jihoon had been riling Soonyoung up for over 5 years; he knew him better than anyone, only Jeonghan himself possibly excluded. But Jihoon had never seen this expression on Soonyoung's face before.

Soonyoung's lips were slightly parted, and a small furrow sat between his brows. Jihoon would call the expression outraged if there wasn't so much surprise in it.

"What?" Jihoon snapped.

Soonyoung's eyebrows drew further together, his expression closing off, and he looked away. Still, he made no move to stand. "Nothing," he said. There was a faint flush to his cheeks, a sign of exertion he doesn't usually show this early into their fights. "No more today; I'm done. You win."

Nothing Soonyoung said could have surprised Jihoon more.

"What?" he repeated, but Soonyoung didn't answer, instead finally pushing himself to his feet.

They hadn't been going an hour. Neither had anything worse than a few scrapes and bruises on them. Until now, their fights had only ended when one or both was unable to continue or someone broke them up. But there was no one around and Soonyoung was clearly fine. Jihoon didn't understand.

"Why?" he asked.

"It's none of your business," Soonyoung snapped, then cringed. "Forget it."

When Soonyoung turned to walk away, something like panic bubbled in Jihoon's chest. "Coward," he spat at Soonyoung's back, a last-ditch attempt to draw Soonyoung back into the fight.

Soonyoung only shrugged. "Fine. Guess I'm a coward."

Jihoon watched him go, a helpless sort of fury coursing through him. Did Soonyoung think this would give him the upper hand? Some sort of moral superiority over Jihoon?

Or even worse, has their fighting just been a game to him? Something he can choose to indulge in or not whenever he feels like it? Jihoon felt some other ugly, dark emotion at the thought. He'd only ever wanted to be seen as an equal, to be acknowledged and respected - especially by that man who'd known him as a servant and must still think of him as such. He knew Soonyoung didn't have a good opinion of him, but even so, he thought Soonyoung at least took him seriously. This hurt more than he would've expected, like a knife twist to the gut.

Watching Soonyoung walk away, Jihoon thought he'd never hated Soonyoung more. But hatred was hard to distinguish from hurt, and Jihoon knew he loved Soonyoung far too much to ever hate him.

Following the fight, Jihoon and Soonyoung were once again put in confinement for destroying the Heavenly Court. Normally, after a fight of that size, there was a temporary truce between the two of them. It wasn't out of any sort of goodwill toward the other, of course, but was more in consideration for the rest of the Heavenly Officials who had to put up with them. At best, they avoided each other. At worst, they ignored each other. If even that wasn't possible, they at least did their best to keep their fights verbal.