Distant Daylight || Yunho (A Treasure Tale)

Two Bodies and the End of the World

Fire.

From far away, it looked pretty. Twinkling flashes of light in the distance, gradually advancing with a bouncing vivacity.

Yunho was supposed to be in bed, and the hairs on his neck tingled with apprehension. Any moment his parents could return from their night on the town and catch him perched at the window, peering outside at the sparkles that floated towards him. The beauty of it took his breath away, and fogged up the glass. He scrubbed the cloudy patch away with an oversized sleeve and checked over his shoulder that Gunho was still sleeping.

The small form of his younger brother gently rose and fell with his breaths. Yunho considered waking him to share the view of embers drifting past, but a part of him enjoyed the private show too much and wanted to keep it to himself. Soon, flames licked at the rooftops at the end of the street to finally be extinguished by a black clad mass of military men and their water buckets.

Yunho's eyelids were heavy, and soon his neck was sore from craning out the window and his elbows twinged in protest at his resting on them. He rolled over onto his back and let his eyes fall shut. Sleep descended on him and he decided in the back of his mind that he ought to ask his parents tomorrow if they saw the shining display outside that night.

He woke to the cheerful chirping of birds perched on a tree outside his bedroom, heralding in the early spring morning. It seemed like any other morning as the sun came up, stirring all the creatures nestled in darkness.

Yunho remembered he wanted to ask about the spectacle outside his window last night and made for his parents' room first, passing over a still sleeping Gunho. It was untouched, the bed still made. But this didn't concern Yunho. He was observant for an eight year old, and he knew his mother habitually made the bed first thing after getting out of it. Heeding the grumbling of his own stomach, and reasoning that his parents had probably gone to breakfast and allowed him to lie in, he headed next to the dining hall.

The large room was completely empty. Timidly, he called out "Hello?" only to hear his own voice echo back at him off the high vaulted ceilings. He caught the patter of feet from the kitchens and turned his head in time to see Jaein, one of the servants, approach him with a horrified look on her face. "Miss Jaein?" He asked, slowly backing away as she continued toward him at her brisk pace. "What's wrong, Miss Jaein?" She was still looking at him like he had sprouted wings. Her gaze held a mixture of deep pity and terror, and her breathing was loud and nervous.

"Yunho, dear..." Her voice shook and she had to gulp past a catch in her throat. "I think you'd better go back to bed now." "But why?" He asked her, still backing away slowly. "Isn't breakfast ready? I didn't miss it, did I?" He knew it was much too early for lunch, but he had to account for everything. Jaein shook her head slowly, still staring holes into him. He was becoming scared now. "I think you'd better go back to bed," she told him again, still advancing. "Where is everyone?" Yunho whispered, his back against the doorpost now. Jaein said nothing, but reached out to grab Yunho's arm in hers. Yunho ducked this, and bolted out of the room and into the hallway just outside.

He asked himself what the trouble could be, why the house was so quiet, why Miss Jaein was acting so strangely, and why he couldn't find his parents. The sinking feeling that he knew what had happened settled into his stomach. He ran from room to room, trying to eliminate the possibility... that one impossible possibility. There was a faint cry from outside— from the front of the house. He dashed for that direction as quickly as his legs would carry him. Sure enough, as he flung open the massive door, a thick crowd of family and strangers alike stood, silent as mouses, and staring at something concealed by their own shifting bodies. It was another servant who had cried out, but it wasn't in pain, as he spotted her sobbing into her husband's jacket desperately.

Yunho wandered up to the crowd, trying to identify anyone else. It felt as if a stone had just dropped into his gut. Several servants were shaking their heads and muttering to themselves, and the various children of the town had their faces pressed against aprons and waistcoats, their parents hiding them from whatever horror it was that everyone was staring at. His throat closed up. He had scanned the crowd and found no sign of his parents.

Yunho steadied himself and was about to push past some of the taller spectators to see the object of their attentions, when a shout came from behind that startled everyone. "Yunho!" Jaein yelled from the front path. "Somebody catch Yunho!" He caught a choked breath and readied to evade as villagers swivelled around, looking for the boy that had walked in, escaping their notice. It was sharp-eyed Jaein who found the bewildered child as she jogged up to the crowd and grasped him by the arm.

"Don't look, child." He felt her tears falling on to his hair as his face was pressed into her apron. "For heaven's sake, don't look." He didn't want to look, he didn't want to face it, but at the same time he needed to see, he needed to know. He wriggled his way out of her grasp and to the front of the crowd, where a row of figures lay lined up on the street. Yunho's trembling increased tenfold. It couldn't be true...it couldn't be...They're just sleeping, I'm sure of it, he told himself. But he knew in his heart that they were not. And so he knelt by the dead forms of the two nearest motionless figures. His parents.

Yunho reached out to touch them. The pure cold lifelessness was such a shock to him that he jerked his hand back. Instead he stared into their eyes, then laid his head down on their chests one by one. Again, he lifted his head in horror. He sat back on his heels and took in a shaky breath. His father usually had such a comforting scent. When Yunho hugged his mother he was normally soothed by her presence. But it was all gone. There was no steady heartbeat to listen to, no soft lullabies to sing him to sleep. There was only pale, ash-covered skin, sightless eyes, and lifeless lips. There was only death.

Yunho's rapid breathing gave way to a shriek of disbelief that startled the servants into action. It took three of them to drag him away, kicking and screaming in Jaein's arms, and finally the crowd was invigorated. The Jeong household employees hastily went back inside, bringing the two bodies to lay in a back room and leaving the rest of the crowd to carry away their dead. Yunho weakly stretched a hand over Jaein's shoulder, hoping his parents would stand up and take it, hoping it was a trick, or a joke, or something. He could only reach out helplessly as he was carried away, struggling. Yunho was deposited on his bed and finally cried himself into an exhausted sleep.

He awoke much as he had that morning, with few thoughts in his head and the usual peace of mind that comes with a few hours of dreamless sleep. The truth hit him like a brick when he sat up to see Jaein crying in a seat in the corner, with little Gunho wrapped up in her arms, looking at him anxiously.

"What time is it?" Yunho whispered. "Just past noon. Have you eaten today?" Yunho shook his head. Wasn't that obvious? He didn't dare look Jaein in the eyes as he asked his next, and last, question. "Are they really... Did they really...?" Jaein nodded as tears took her again. "They're gone," she said, pulling Gunho close. Yunho looked at his confused little brother and did not cry. He looked out the window at the tree where birds played, and life still went on, heedless of the end of the world.