Destined {𝕄𝕀ℕ𝕊𝕌ℕ𝔾}

Chapter Seventy-One

PRESENT DAY

"Bring me back!" Hyunjin exclaimed, fists clenched tightly at his sides as he glared at the wizard. Seungmin remained silent, the purple in his eyes fading until there was nothing but the dull brown of his everyday life present there. "BRING ME BACK!"

He flinched away from the strength in which the wolf had spoken – he'd never truly yelled at him like that before. He could still feel the painful lurch in his stomach, still feel the tremor locked deep in his bones, his mind whirling, drowning in an endless sea of thoughts – thoughts of nothing at all.

His eyes slid downwards as he stared at the thin veil of red that stained his hands. He continued to stare wordlessly until his eyes raised to meet the wolf's, whose own burned brightly golden. He managed to find his words within that tumbling sea, shoving them passed the lump in his throat as he raised his chin, squaring his shoulders.

"I can't, even if I wanted to," he said, more softly than he'd anticipated. More softly than he would've wished; he could hear the quiver in his own voice, and he saw that knowing reflected in the wolf's eyes through a streak that broke up the gold only momentarily.

"Those are my brothers, Seungmin, I can't just leave them–"

The wizard regarded him coolly, forcing his trembling hands to still at his sides as he pressed them closer to his body. "They're already dead, and you know it. We'd be dead, too, if we'd stayed." His words came out clipped, harsh, colder than he truly felt.

He'd never had a grip on his emotions, he'd never been able to say quite the right thing at quite the right time. This was only another example on the list of many as he noticed the hurt that flashed through Hyunjin's eyes.

"We can't just... give up," he whispered, the fight bleeding from him as his shoulders slumped, his eyes lowering, the colour there fading until there was nothing left. Seungmin averted his eyes towards the steadily darkening sky. He forced himself to forget the feeling of the crusted blood on his hands, pretending it wasn't real.

When was he going to stop pretending? Everything he did was make-believe, it would seem. As though a low-blood such as himself could actually become the Great Wizard of his clan, as though someone like him was even worthy of fighting in a battle alongside those as loyal as the wolves were.

He was a coward.

He gritted his teeth as he turned his body away, facing the direction they'd need to head in to reach the Sun pack's territory – they were much closer than they'd left off, though if they didn't start moving... the pack would catch up to them quickly enough.

Coward.

For all he hid behind false pretenses, claiming things to excuse his cowardice, how he'd run away – he shook his head as he forced his stiff legs into a walk. One step, and then another. Despite his best efforts, he could not call upon a single drop of magic; the well buried deep inside of him had run dry.

"Seungmin, where are you going?" Hyunjin called behind him, though his voice was significantly softer – deflated, defeated. The wizard didn't turn around; keep moving, he thought. He worried that if he stopped moving, if he let his mind linger on anything but the shifting of his feet, the tears he desperately reined in would fall, proof of his shame.

He closed his eyes as Hyunjin called out to him again, though his voice was further away, dimmer. He stumbled over an overgrown tree root, his eyes snapping open as he caught himself, his gaze falling upon the blood crusting around his hands, his clothes. He was sure there was some on his face, too.

His stomach clenched, his breathing accelerating, his footsteps slowing. Soon, his mind lingered on nothing but the blood; he stopped. A lump formed in his throat. His hands felt numb, unattached to his body. He continued to stare at them, unseeing.

"Seungmin...?" He lifted his eyes, then, snapped back into reality at the sound of Hyunjin's voice right next to him. When his eyes lifted, and he met the wolf's, a shade of brown so warm they could've melted the coldest heart, concern glimmering in them.

The dam broke.

The wizard hadn't even realized he'd started crying until he noticed the panic that quickly morphed Hyunjin's features. Then, he couldn't stop blubbering, incoherent words stringing along sentences that hardly made any sense at all, but it was like there was a pressure that had settled over his heart and it kept pushing, pushing, pushing...

His knees wobbled and he stumbled away from the wolf's outstretched hand, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head once, twice. He swallowed thickly, his breaths coming in short rasps. After several moments, he pushed down the panic that had arisen, broke away from the laboured pattern of breathing he'd been following.

He slowly opened his eyes despite the blur of tears, and walked away, finding a spot to sit under a wide oak tree.

He sat down, and did not move.

~#~#~#~#~#~

"Have you... never seen a dead body before?" Hyunjin asked quietly; it had been a very long while since Seungmin had sat down under that tree, unmoving. The wizard felt as though the question should offend him, though he knew that the wolf was not mocking him; there was nothing but genuine concern to his voice.

"Of course I have," he said, snapping, regardless of the wolf's intentions. "I just..." He deflated. "I've never seen someone I know die, right before my eyes, because of me..." He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, feeling panic clawing its way up again. "And I repaid his sacrifice by running away." He would have chuckled, though he could not seem to find any joy in his heart anymore. Not even the rueful, bitter kind.

He didn't have to look to know that Hyunjin's eyes were wide. "No – hey – no." He was spluttering, fighting to find words; Seungmin pulled his knees up to his chest, burying his chin in the nook it created.

"You don't have to fight what's true, Hyunjin. I ran away; facts are facts." He wished he could say it without that damned quiver in his voice, without feeling as though someone were squeezing his heart as he said it. Words had never been more painful.

Hyunjin slid down into the spot next to him, their shoulders brushing; the warmth beside him was somewhat comforting, though it didn't do much to ease his pain. "Look," Hyunjin sighed, his eyes flickering up to rest on Seungmin's face. "I overreacted earlier, I... I wasn't thinking rationally. You were right; if we'd stayed, we'd be dead now, too." He grimaced and shook his head.

"It's not your fault, Seungmin. The Riverock attacked us – and, I swear to the Goddess – we'll get revenge for what they did. They won't get away with this." His voice grew softer as he rested a tentative hand on the wizard's shoulder. When he didn't recoil at the touch, his hand relaxed. "I won't let them."

Seungmin slowly lifted his eyes so he could watch the wolf more fully, take in the specks of gold that littered his eyes. There was such intense feeling behind those eyes; he didn't have a single doubt that he meant what he'd said. He nodded – it was barely noticeable – and, ever-so-slowly – he relaxed.

Hyunjin's arm slid over his shoulder, across his back, until he pulled him to rest in his side. Seungmin's heart skipped, though the suffocating feeling that had settled over him was much too thick to move any further than that. "It's not your fault," he repeated, voice barely above a whisper, resting his own head atop the wizard's.

And, right then, he almost believed him.

A/N: Keeping it tight on our first official week of the update schedule XD

Q: What's your least favourite genre, and what book of that genre do you coincidentally love?

A: So... contemporary. I'm a very fantasy-oriented person, or contemporary-fantasy, that type of thing, ya know, but, recently, I read Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl and... holy shit that book is probably tied for my top favourite book. There was something about it that I just loved; I didn't miss the action I'm used to reading about or the complex plots. It was so refreshing, like dammmmnnn.

Lots of love,

~Emilie