↱SEMPITERNAL↲ ⇾seongjoong⇽

twenty

[ A/N: So basically after the Japanse surrendered Korea, a lot of independent peoples' councils consisting of koreans were formed to take over power smoothly.

In Jeju, they were very organized and popular (the SKLP I mentioned in this chapter).

So when the trusteeship government happened, with the US in south and the Soviet Union in the north, they protested pretty hard.

Then when the US decided to have elections in the South independently, while the North refused to take part, they felt like their country was being divided without reason and they boycotted the elections.

Their protests were not received well, and were crushed brutally by Rhee Syngman, who was pretty powerful in the south.

Then there was a whole other kind of fucked up, where every time a group of people raised their voices against the Syngman banner or any of their administrative moves, they were called communist sympathizers and ostracized or killed. ]

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1948, Seoul

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, photograph's here," Seonghwa mumbles, barely looking up from his textbook.

Some ink diagram of hairy slipper looking things covers half a page and Seonghwa's staring at it like he wants to memorize where every last hair is.

He's fumbling on the table top blindly, eyes glued to his textbook, and Hongjoong can see the black and white picture from where he's sitting on the bed, but it stays resolutely out of Seonghwa's reach.

He sighs.

Gets to his feet with an exasperated smile.

"It's here, I've got it," he says reaching over Seonghwa's shoulder and picking it up.

It's a picture of him with his graduating class, twenty boys in pressed white shirts and dark trousers, dark ties, standing straight backed and stiff.

He scans the faces for Seonghwa's, and there he is, hair combed back neatly, crisp white shirt and a navy blue tie, he remembers the color, neat leather shoes polished to a shine.

He's standing in the first row, right in the middle, handsome as hell and the thinnest of the lot.

He chuckles.

"What?" Seonghwa says, still not looking up.

"Nothing," Hongjoong says.

He squeezes Seonghwa's shoulder for a second.

"Just thinking about how thin you are."

Seonghwa's muscles tense, he feels it under his palm, and he turns to look at Hongjoong, some volcanic fire in his eyes.

"I'm not thin," he says.

"It's not a bad thing, you're still the best looking face here," he says, chuckling.

He sees it, he actually sees it, the color climbing Seonghwa's cheeks, the way his mouth opens hesitantly and closes again, the way his lashes dip and his chin dips.