Prince of Flour

24. Going Home

Seonghwa felt oddly at peace in Yongguk's company. The man was a calm one, often out of the house to wander the forests and leaving Seonghwa alone while he was preparing to go home. In general they had not spent much time together in the two days Seonghwa had stayed with him. Yongguk was out collecting herbs to do his magic stuff with and Seonghwa was staying back and thinking about what going home meant for him.

He was endlessly happy and even more glad that he was finally able to leave. Yongguk had promised him to make sure he woke up at home the next time he fell asleep so Seonghwa was torn between staying awake still some time or going to sleep early in order to go home soon. He had trusted Yongguk to still stay awake some hours and think about how he felt, sort himself out and then go to sleep.

Normally he would have been terribly suspicious of Yongguk, warlocks and such did not have an much liked place in their society, but for now everything was supposed to stay as it was. After meeting those doubles of themselves, nearly everybody seemed to be a nice person. And Yongguk might have been mysterious and a lonely person but Seonghwa trusted Hongjoong's choice of friends.

Seonghwa spent most of his days sitting at the seashore, looking out over the vast ocean with it's beautiful deep blue and glinting surface. The sun was still shining warmly down at them but autumn was nearing, the first animals preparing their rest already. Seonghwa would miss it somehow, going to sea. Maybe one day he would return to it and become a sailor. Or even just travel. He might get into accounting, become more of a travelling merchant if his mother ever died while he still lived. Without here nothing really kept him at home, he did not know where he would go afterwards.

He was mindlessly drawing in the sand beneath his naked feet, letting the rough grains slip through his fingers in a reminder of all the time that had passed. He kept wondering how his mother was, whether she had been able to survive these past weeks without him. She was not that old of a lady yet but her back had been acting up for a few years now. He felt bad for not constantly being there, for making her have to go to the town every Friday by herself and do her best at selling.

Seonghwa sighed heavily, laying his head down on his knees but immediately picking it up again when Yongguk suddenly sat down on his side, looking out over the ocean too. The man had some basket with herbs with him, setting it down neatly next to his body on the sand and wrapping his arms around his knees.

"You are distresst. Do you fear for the future?" The deep rumble of his voice resembled thunder on a hot summer day, the nearing of long awaited rain to come. It was easy to get lost in it, Seonghwa being glad that this man was such a diplomatic one.

"I am happy to be able to return home. But within those weeks so much happened, so many things that shaped my life. Lasting scars..." He carefully touched his mouth, healing unnaturally fast with the help of the warlock.

The other man hummed thoughtfully.

"It's not bad memories only, isn't it?"

Seonghwa was looking down at the sand again, idly wiping away Hongjoong's name written down there with his foot. Yongguk's eyes calmly followed the movement.

"It's not. There are still more bad ones than good ones. But I now understand how life works. That everybody lives differently and not everyone the guards call a criminal is truly a bad person."

"If one of them happened to visit your town again." Hongjoong's face flashed in front of Seonghwa's eyes. Yongguk lips curled far too knowingly without Seonghwa noticing.

"If they ever did and they got captured. Let's say they were going to be hanged the next day."

Dancing with Jack Ketch. Seonghwa remembered.