kingdom falling | gyuricky

nineteen.

Gyuvin stormed around the Peak grounds for a while, but since there was no one and nothing to take his mind off his recent indignations since everyone who hadn't been sent down the Peak was at afternoon training and everyone who had was eating at the dining hall, and he wasn't yet delirious enough from rage he would try to take out his anger on inanimate objects like trees and walls, he ended up just going back to his quarters and sitting in the doorway. He felt he looked a little like a child who had been punished and put in timeout, and the thought made him even more annoyed.

He stood up. "I'm sitting here because I want to sit here," he announced. Satisfied that the trees and rocks had heard him, he sat back down.

Ricky appeared in the doorway of their shared quarters a while later, addressing Gyuvin with a little look and walking over to where he was sitting at his doorstep. "Here," he said, holding out something in his hand wrapped in paper. "You think a hunger strike is your best option?"

"Thanks." Gyuvin reached out and took the paper from him and unwrapped the little package. Three little pieces of osmanthus cake, still warm. "And it's not like that. I just needed some time alone to think, but I don't think that helped anything."

Ricky gave him a little smile. "Thinking is a curse, isn't it? I try my best to avoid doing it whenever possible."

"Yeah?"

Gyuvin bit into the osmanthus cake, sighing. "Sometimes I feel like I don't need to try..." He could hear Ricky's soft laughter in response, though he was further away now, back underneath his willow tree at the other end of the courtyard. "Why are you talking to me from so far away?"

"You smell like corpses," Ricky answered evenly.

Gyuvin sniffed at his own clothes for a second, then looked up in indignation. "Hey, we were both at the graveyard. If I smell like corpses, don't you smell like corpses too?"

"I never said I didn't," came Ricky's infuriating answer. "I'm sitting further away for our mutual benefit."

Gyuvin felt like his answer was a little ridiculous, but he couldn't think of anything to say in response to that, so he kept quiet and just continued eating his cake. Ricky seemed content to sit in silence too; they sat there, facing each other, letting the late afternoon sun warm the paved stones of the courtyard. He retired into his sleeping quarters when the sun got too hot; it was just in time for an incoming communication array to sound in his ear.

"Gyuvin, it's been a while. Sorry I didn't contact you sooner."

"Sect Leader Baek! It's been a while."

"Yes, it's been busy back home. How are you coping at the training camp? I suppose you'd be a little lonely, since you've only got Hanbin with you."

"Well, I do miss the others at home, but I've made some friends here too," Gyuvin mused. "Actually, why didn't any seniors from Meteor Court come to the training camp? I thought every sect in the coalition would send at least one."

"Well, it's nearing the summer months now. We have the Summer Solstice Festival to prepare for and you know that's around the time of the year we get the most help requests. The coalition did request for a senior to come in to teach the youths our sect's talisman specialty skills, but I turned them down because I thought we'd be too busy."

"Oh, right. I can't believe I forgot. How are things back home? Is it really that busy?"

In Gyuvin's memory, summers were the best time of the year. He'd never been the biggest fan of the cold weather, so when temperatures started to warm up and the tail end of spring gave way to sunnier days he and Junhyeon and the others spent all their leisure hours outside, running around the Court, swimming in the lakes and ponds nearby to stay cool and eating candied fruits from the little street stalls in the city until their throats were sore.