kingdom falling | gyuricky

fifty three.

Ricky, with a lot of nerve, knocked on the door of Zhanghao's quarters the next morning at dawn, just before he knew Zhanghao usually left his room for breakfast. He took a deep breath and thought about how he was going to phrase what he wanted to say, but nothing he could come up with sounded like anything good.

Realistically, what he was about to ask of Zhanghao was horrifyingly insensitive and uncharacteristically audacious in light of recent events, but he prayed Zhanghao would be understanding that there was somewhat of a time crunch involved. If Ricky didn't procure evidence defending Gyuvin before his trial commenced, he was done for, and considering even Yookyung didn't know when his trial would be scheduled, he had to act fast.

"Hyung, I need to ask you something important," he started as soon as Zhanghao opened the door, without even waiting for a 'good morning' or a 'what do you want'. "Please don't kick me in the face until you hear me out."

Zhanghao narrowed his eyes at him, combing his hair back into his usual ponytail. "Why would I kick you in the face?"

"Remember Gyuvin leaving the Peak, and Minwoo-sunbae giving you the letter because none of them had heard from him since that day?"

"Yeah? Did they find him?"

"Well, someone did, but I really need your help."

Ricky recounted the events leading up to their present conversation in as neutral a tone as possible as they walked to the Great Hall for breakfast, starting from Gunwook's letter and ending with the accusations laid out in the Coalition report. He hadn't even gotten to the end of his last sentence before Zhanghao stopped walking and fixed him with a look that seethed with so much venom Ricky was taken aback.

"So let's see if I've got this right," he began. "You want me to help you rescue the person who's been conclusively proven as Hanbin's murderer."

"..."

Zhanghao scoffed, turning away. "Don't fucking piss me off. I hope he rots to death in that prison cell."

"Hyung, you know him," Ricky pleaded, following him. "You're telling me you believe it, that he killed Hanbin-hyung? Have we been talking to different Kim Gyuvins all this time? Because all I can remember is that he thought so highly of Hanbin-hyung that if you told him the sun rose and set by Hanbin-hyung's command, he would believe it."

"I don't care what you think of him," Zhanghao spat. "Shizun wouldn't lie about something like this. Just stop talking, you're making me angry."

"I'm not saying Hyunjae-sunbae lied, I'm saying someone might have made a mistake somewhere," Ricky persisted. "Hyung, they're going to kill him if I don't do anything. Hanbin-hyung wouldn't have wanted Gyuvin to die because of him."

"Listen up, you piece of-" Zhanghao slammed Ricky against the wall, holding him up by the collar. "You thought you knew Gyuvin, and he turned out to be a murderer who killed his own sectmate in cold blood. Now you think you know Hanbin, too? You don't know anything about either of them, clearly, so just shut your mouth!"

Ricky said nothing, stunned into silence. Zhanghao let him go after a moment, but he could see the hurt and the anger warring with each other in his eyes.

"I can't believe you'd even ask something like that of me," he said, turning to leave. "Don't you care about anyone's feelings other than your own?"

Before Ricky could think of what to say, Zhanghao had turned the corner and disappeared. A cold draft from an open door somewhere blew past him, freezing the tops of his cheekbones, and he sighed, putting his hands into his pockets.

He knew he had been out of line, asking for a favor like that at a time like this. But he'd expected Zhanghao to understand.

Don't you care about anyone's feelings other than your own?

Ricky bit his lip and pondered. Zhanghao was right. He hadn't considered anyone else's feelings at all. It had barely been six weeks since Hanbin's death. In hindsight Ricky knew that Zhanghao had taken it harder than anyone else, but at the same time he'd never been good at understanding other people's feelings, the same way he'd never been good at understanding his own. Sometimes he thought he had none at all. Sometimes that made him forget that others still did.

Whatever it was, he'd hit a dead end with Zhanghao, which meant he had to keep thinking. Gyuvin must have been in the Lost Fortress for almost six weeks now. Ricky didn't know how much time he'd have left.

The next few weeks at the Palace passed by without him really noticing. He spent every waking hour thinking about Gyuvin and what he could do about the situation, but short of physically entering the Lost Fortress and breaking Gyuvin out himself, he didn't have many other ideas.

He found himself overcome with something strange, a feeling he'd never felt before. It settled over him, like a weighted blanket, entrapping him slowly but surely until he felt like he could no longer move, a deep, suffocating sense of powerlessness. The regimented lifestyle of the Palace had raised him to appreciate and treasure the level of control such an environment granted him; like he'd told Gyuvin, life was so simple when he could be in control of everything that happened, and when he could trust, blindly, that the guidance of the sect's teachings would lead him on the right path at every turn.

But now, faced with a circumstance like this for the first time, he found himself with questions he couldn't fathom the answers to. Gyuvin's wrongful imprisonment was something completely out of the control of either of them. Gyuvin had done nothing to yield such a punishment, and yet it had been inflicted upon him without regard. And Ricky knew full well that his intentions to disrupt the Coalition's plans went against the sect's beliefs and teachings, but he couldn't stand the thought of Gyuvin holed up in a dark cell along with the world's most brutal evildoers. The very idea of it abhorred him, and as much as he respected his duty to uphold the sect's rules, the only way he could think of to prevent such abject injustice from continuing to occur was to go against them, to sneakily find a way to interfere in the investigation proceedings. He had neither the power nor the status to influence the Coalition's decision-making above the table. The only path he had left was to start digging downwards.