⁝ choi manor.

@❃ seo jin Jinseok had once been angry at the world. He had wanted for things to make sense again, for the world to have meaning beyond what he had lost. And while he had found it, he realized when he locked eyes with Jin again, she never had. Jin had lived with this grief and anger for so long, it had become part of her, the only thing she was alive for. Revenge, the ever-present 'why?'. And humans without a reason to be alive, were beings without purpose. Yet, despite the fact that his heart softened, his anger didn't mellow out in the slightest. It smoothed around the edges and yet burned more intense, a flame untempered despite the fact that he /could/ understand. Not relate. The difference was minute and yet it was relevant.

"Do you realize that getting rid of /me/ is harder than getting rid of a gisaeng, Jin?", he asked after a moment of silence, turning away to busy himself with gathering more supplies to finish taking care of her wound, jars of ointments and bundles of herbs soon laid out on the ground in a neat line, right at the edge of the bedroll he had laid her on. "You will never find the answers the way you're trying to do it. I won't tell you to forget about it. I am well aware of the fact that forgetting the people you lost is impossible. All /I/ lost was a career and I can still feel the phantom pain of that life, itching away at the back of my skull. But I will tell you that the way you're trying to enact your revenge will get you killed. You'll die and then nobody will remember the people you just talked about. Just me. Everybody you once loved will be dead and forgotten and you will have died in vain."

When he was done arranging his line of supplies, he turned back to look at her once more, his face still serious and yet less angry, the fury that had driven his voice into such a rage slowly dimming.

"Your argument of not wanting to get me killed, is pointless. You already got me involved. And you should have known better than to expect me to sit by, with my hands in my lap, and do nothing. As I said. There are smarter ways to get to the Intel, Jin. Less dangerous ways. But you won't be able to do it alone."

@❀ choi jinseok The coldness to his voice surprised her, making her shrink back and pull her hand from his, baffled by his anger directed at her. She was still too weak to move too much, and her voice reflected that weakness, as the fire that would normally spark within her at being spoken to in such a manner, was absent, “Yes, I feel guilty for surviving while everyone else died, my father, my mother, my brothers, the kind old woman that housed orphaned children, and everyone else in that village that I had known since I was a child. Is it so wrong for me to want revenge? To want to ruin the person that tore apart my life and stole everyone important to me? There is only one person that I value that wasn’t taken from me that day, Jinseok. Can you guess who it is?”

Her gaze locked on his once more, a flicker of her own anger and suffering passing through for a split second. “Do you know what it would feel like if I got you involved and you were killed? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing that I was the cause of another person I care deeply for being killed… Is it so wrong for me to want to protect you from knowing too much? To protect you from this unknown perpetrator that I have yet to unmask?”

She shouldn’t argue with him, she knew this, and yet here she was. Standing her ground with the little strength she had. She knew that he cared about her and that was the reason for his anger now, but she also stood by her own reasons of not going to him first. “I don’t /want/ to throw away my life, Jinseok. I want to be able to live for my family and have the happy life they wanted for me someday. But I can’t just let it go… you know that, right? I /need/ to find the person that did this…” She trailed off, her gaze searching his for any hope that he could understand.

@❃ seo jin To say it was hard, hearing her say all of these things, would have been an understatement. Jinseok wasn't conceited enough to claim that he would ever understand what it felt like to lose everybody you loved, nor what it felt like to be a survivor of something as gruesome as the slaughter of an entire village. He couldn't relate and he could easily admit it. But he understood. Or at least he tried to as he listened to her speak, his brows pulled into a dark shadow above his eyes, only for him to open his mouth to speak - and promptly close it again. Could he understand what it felt like to want to see someone one last, final time before dying? Perhaps. When Dae had crushed him, he had thought he would die, right there beneath his horse. But he hadn't thought about anybody in that moment and the moments that followed. He remembered the panicked shouts of the men carrying him, the agony of his mother's crying. Yet he didn't remember thinking about a loved one. Perhaps it meant that he was selfish, too.

"Why were you so ready to just give up and die?", he asked, steel in his voice and eyes, a part of him frosting over like the world outside did during the night. But he didn't let go of her hand. He had promised he wouldn't let go. "Why would you not try and ask me for help before going and getting yourself in danger? Yes, I know I'm not a yangban, but I have more enough money to bribe the right people and make them look the other way, or give me the information I need. Why would you /do/ something like this? Do you feel guilty? For surviving while they didn't? Or are you forgetting that it's your duty to stay alive? You survived the massacre, only to throw your life away, chasing after the reason why. When will it be enough, Jin? When you're dead and nothing but ash and nobody but me will remember your family? Is that what you want? "

@❀ choi jinseok She hated how he was refusing to look at her, how his gaze remained so focused on the doors leading to his patio. She hated how she could hear the sorrow in his tone and she was the sole reason for that sorrow. And she hated herself, because she knew that she could possibly bring him that same sorrow again someday. Because she was focused, determined to continue on this path of revenge, no matter where it could take her.

But when he finally turned that sorrowful, angry gaze on her, she couldn’t help but shrink back a little. Guilt and shame overwhelmed her at his questioning. Could she tell him the truth? Or would speaking the truth out loud do irreparable damage?

“You’re right… People don’t randomly shoot arrows at gisaengs…” She trailed off for a moment, trying to muster up the courage to tell him what had happened that night. Finally she spoke again, “I have been searching for news of the massacre of my village, following any lead I find. I heard from a traveling merchant about someone dressed nicely, claiming to be working under a government official, that they witnessed having a meeting in a town near Jukju… The merchant said that the meeting appeared very suspicious… So when they told me the name of the official, I went to their estate to investigate. I was spotted by one of the official’s guards.”

She stopped to clear , feeling as though she didn’t need to explain what happened next. Anyone could assume, based on her state now. “I’m sorry, Jinseok. I thought I was being careful, I thought no one would see me… I thought I could make it in and out quickly… And when I ran away they chased me. I was bleeding too much… and I couldn’t make it back to Sook… and most of all…” Her gaze locked on his, her hand holding his a little tighter she continued, “I thought that if I were to die… I just wanted to see you one last time. I was selfish, and for that I am so sorry.”

@❃ seo jin Jinseok decided to let her rest. Sleep had pulled her under after her mind had fled into the darkness to escape the pain, giving him more than enough time to clean up and calm down his servants, who had been in a scrambling panic after hearing Jin's scream of agony. It was easy go lie to them, easy to make them promise not zo tell a single soul of the things they had seen tonight. All of them knew that Jinseok made no difference between anybody, when it came to saving their lives. They didn't need to know who she was or how they knew each other- and the servants wouldn't ask.

When he returned to his bedroom, Jin was still sleeping, even as Jinseok brushed her sweaty hair away from her face just the way he had done when he had held her in his arms, both of them coming down from the most sinful high. And then he sat and waited. Contemplating. He knew she had woken up by the change in her breathing, the way it sped up ever so slightly, her fingers finding his mere seconds later squeezing them.

"What did you do?", he asked her softly, keeping his gaze locked on the open doors leading out onto his patio and the garden beyond, his voice heavy with sorrow. "An arrow, Jin. People don't go randomly shooting arrows at gisaengs." He fell quiet, breathing in deeply, before he dared to look at her again, his gaze filled with sorrow and just the tiniest smidge of anger. "Do you have any idea how much you scared my poor servants? How much you scared /me/? What did you do? Tell me. You were half dead by the time I was able to patch you back together and I swear, just will /never/ see you like again, or so heaven help me. Do you have any idea how closely you scraped past death?"

@❀ choi jinseok Her eyes slowly opened; the room blurred for a moment until her vision pulled into focus. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been passed out for, but it was long enough that the cauterization of her wound was complete. She was still in pain and too weak to lift herself up from the bed, but she knew that the critical point had passed. She would survive, and it was all thanks to Jinseok.

Her head turned to look for him, spotting him at her bedside and reaching for his hand once more. What words could she say to soothe the pain that she had brought him by showing up here tonight? She had been so selfish, stubborn in her need to see him one last time, that she couldn’t think about how he would feel seeing her in this state. She could justify it by saying that she came to him in need of a physician, but she knew that wouldn’t have been the truth. She knew that she would have come here even if he weren’t a physician. He was the one person that she wanted to see before her eyes closed for good.

She reached out to grasp his hand once again, interlacing their fingers and placing her other hand on top of his.

“Jinseok… I’m so sorry…”

She struggled with forming words to say to express herself, and so a meager apology was all she could muster as her gaze stayed trained on their interlocked hands. She was a coward, unable to glimpse the look in his eyes after what he had just witnessed.

@❃ seo jin "Jinseok, please..."

He had heard her whisper to words to him in a different way, just a few nights prior, her eyes filled with tears of pleasure instead of agony. Right now, he would give anything to replace that pain written all over her face with the same rapture once more, but as it was he could do nothing but take the now cooled steel away from her stomach and let go of her hand, slowly. The pain had ripped her consciousness away from her and Jinseok was thankful for it. It gave him a moment to breathe, to swallow his anger, get a grip on himself. He exhaled, inhaled, closed his eyes as the steel fell away from his bloodied fingers, clattefing into his stack of other tools uselessly, at the same moment as he brought his hands up to his face, hiding himself from the world.

He had dealt with these things before. Right now, he needed to be Choi Jinseok the physician, not the man. And so, he got back to work.

The wound on her stomach was an angry red, still dirty and crusted over with burnt flesh, dried blood. He cleaned her carefully, feeling her forehead for a shocked fever, dressed her wound as meticulously as he could. It was the only thing that kept him from breaking, right then and there. If he gave himself a moment to think... one singular moment too long, he would stop moving. Stagnation meant death. He knew.

And he would not let her die. Not as long as he was alive and breathing. So, Choi Jinseok the physician, kept moving.

@❀ choi jinseok His words, commanding her to never put herself in this situation again, and the depth of his anger were enough to stun her for a moment. She knew that he cared for her, just as she cared for him, but she had never seen this level of pure rage exude from him before. She was silent for a moment, both from being weak and from not knowing what to say to appease him. She should tell him that she will never do this again, right? Because that is what he wanted to hear. But could she blatantly lie to him when she knew that she could possibly put herself in danger once again by chasing after the vengeance she so desperately desired to have?

All she could do in this moment was to nod her head slightly in response to his words, her gaze watching as he reached for steel. She knew what he was about to do because it had been done before. The small scar on her left shoulder blade was a testament to her last brutal injury. She watched as the steel lit up red, dreading the pain that was soon to come.

She couldn’t and wouldn’t complain about the pain when it finally came. She was the one that had gotten herself into this mess to begin with. Because of her vision being tunneled on the thought of finding the evidence she needed to prove that her village’s massacre was no coincidence, she threw all caution to the wind and jumped headfirst into danger without proper precautions. There was no one to blame for the position she was in now, except herself.

Yet as his large hand enveloped hers and laced their fingers together, there was a strange bit of peace that washed over her. No matter the pain, she knew that she would be okay, because she was in the hands of Choi Jinseok. He wouldn’t let her die, there was no chance of that. Her gaze locked on his face, just as he commanded, tracing every feature to commit them to her memory.

The agonizing heat and pain finally hit her the moment the steel touched her wound, and she couldn’t hold back the scream in pain as her hold on his hand tightened. It was excruciating, overwhelming her to the point that another scream wracked her body, only able to mumble a weak, “Jinseok, please…” before she inevitably lost consciousness.

@❃ seo jin Her words gave him pause, something inside of him seizing up like curdling blood, something trickling down his spine hot and cold at the same time, even as his hands kept moving, running a cloth around the wound in her side with practiced movements, fingers pressing down on her soft flesh, praying to everything that was holy that the arrow had missed any of her vital organs. There was nothing he could do for her, if her abdomen was filling with blood and... the thought terrified him. He could think about the why's and how's later, could be angry at her later for getting herself in trouble. Right now, he didn't have time to ask questions that weren't of immediate importance.
He exhaled, slowly, his eyes closing for just a moment, before he shook his head curtly, reaching for another cloth, pressing it down on the wound.

"You did more damage pulling it out, than it did going in", he muttered, avoiding her eyes as he reached for his folded up satchel of tools, cursing softly when he lifted it away from her stomach again, more blood gushing out almost instantly. "You're luckier than I thought you would be. But this is bad. Whatever it was that you were doing that got you this injured, you will /never/ do it again. You understand me?"

Jinseok met her eyes then, fury burning in their honeyed depths, even as he reached for a candle and his cauterization steel, the small rod feeling oddly heavy in his hand. It would leave a scar. A nasty one, on top of that. But there was no other way for him to close the wound and save her life. Not without all of his equipment and ointments. But time was slipping through his finger just like her lifeblood currently was and Jinseok knew that he had to do it. He had to scar her and leave a mark, just to not lose her again.

"It will hurt", he told her, the steel already help over the candle, right where the flame burned white, the metal heating up across his palm as the tip started glowing an angry red. "And it will scar. But it I'll save you."

And he was angry at her. So angry, it hurt. Yet he reached for her hand and laced their fingers together, smearing his bedsheets with her blood and his terror. "Keep your eyes on me. I won't let you go", he told her then, just as he brought the glowing iron down on the wound, knowing that the agony he brought her would probably make her pass out. She had suffered enough, over these past few years. Now, it was him dealing the damage.

@❀ choi jinseok As soon as the door opened, a familiar figure illuminated in the light of the room, Jin lost all strength to keep herself upright. Her body sank into a pair of strong, capable arms and she slumped into the chest of Choi Jinseok, her childhood friend and lover. Of course, her feet would bring her here, to the man that she dreaded being separated from. Her heart, which typically skipped a beat in his presence, instead beat slowly from blood loss. She was positive that if she were to die tonight, at least it would have been in the arms of someone she cared for.

She felt herself being lifted into his arms and it took every ounce of energy to keep her eyes open, even if just barely, to look up at him, dark spots clouding her vision as she did so. She clung to him with what little strength she had, afraid that letting go of him meant her demise.

‘Why does he look so angry?’ She wondered to herself, as she caught the look in his eyes and the furrow of his brow as he placed her on the bed, immediately as he pulled at her clothes. His voice was calm despite the various emotions swimming in his gaze. Her thoughts were nearly incoherent at this point and she could barely answer his question out of confusion. It took effort to focus, to get out the answer he needed.

“An arrow. I was shot by an arrow. I… don’t know how long,” she replied, her voice quiet, barely above a whisper, and weak. Her body was exhausted, she simply wanted to sleep. But she couldn’t, because she knew that if she fell asleep now, she would never wake up.

She didn’t want to die.

She had found Jinseok again after a long time apart and their time together since that reunion had brought her a sliver of happiness in this cruel world. She wanted more time with him, more time to see him smile just for her, more time to lay in his arms and pretend that everything would be okay.

And she needed to get her revenge against the bastard that turned her life upside down. She can’t die before avenging the people she loved and the innocent lives that were lost.

@❃ seo jin Quiet days should turn into quiet evenings and quiet nights. For once, Jinseok had been at ease, had found peace in the movements of his hands and the administering of salves, herbal teas and specialized movements to ease muscle aches. He had found the routine of seeing all those people who were seeking him out in search of any kind of relief... healing. It put a stop to the whirlwind of his thoughts. Not a screeching one, yet a gentle one that came with a routine, with the security of something he could do with his eyes closed and a hand behind his back. It was a practiced dance, his assistants falling into motion with him as they moved along with him, the sword in his hand as he was preserving life instead of taking it. He had kept that peace close to his heart when he had arrived at their estate in the capital, eating a lonely supper on the platform behind his rooms, looking out across the dying gardens and the world beyond, soaking in the last rays of the sun the warmth they provided. A gentle touch that had his eyes closing, his brush pausing on the papers he was scribbling on, his notebook forgotten right then and there.

He hadn't realized how long he had been sitting there, until there was a harsh knock ripping his out of his reverie, causing him to whirl around. Someone had lit the candles and lanterns in his rooms, throwing flickering shadows out across him as he made his way to the door to slide it open, letting out a startled sound when he recognized who was standing before him.

"Jin!", he breathed out, shocked and slightly confused, but as he took a step forward to ask her what had brought her here, he found himself with an arm full of flesh and bones that were barely held up by any semblance of strength. "Jin, wha-"

And then he broke off, feeling something wet seeping through his clothes from where she had collapsed against him, the white of his simple linen clothes stained a sudden dark, the smell of copper invading his senses just moments later.

Blood

"No", he whispered, immediately swooping low to push his arm beneath her legs and pick her up, pivoting as he carried her into his room to lay her down on his bed, the same calm overcoming him almost immediately. But there was something else in there too, making itself known in the angry draw of his brows, the thin line of his lips, fury flooding him as he peeled back the layers of her black clothes to reveal her stomach. "What weapon did this?", he asked, voice eerily void of any emotion, body moving on its own in search of his tools and kits and clean rags. "Jin, I need to know what did this and how long you've been bleeding already. Talk to me."

@❀ choi jinseok She had been too careless, too stupid and blinded by her impatience for sweet revenge, to imagine that she would make a mistake. This was the sole thought on Seo Jin’s mind as she stumbled along the darkened streets of Hanseong, blood dripping from the wound in her abdomen and leaving a trail along the path. A trail that could lead her hunters straight to her. She needed to get out of the streets, and fast based on the sounds of hurried footsteps drawing closer.

She was still too far from the safety of Sook, and she knew she would not be able to sneak into the establishment in the state that she found herself, bloodied and weak. Despite her thoughts being in a dizzy haze, her feet carried her to the one place she knew she could find solace.

The Choi residence came into view and her hunters still had not caught up to her, but she would not allow herself to relax until she was safely inside and out of the reach of the men chasing her. Frantically she banged on the gates of the residence until a servant came to open them, the small woman staring at her in confusion mixed with a little bit of fear at the sight of the blood.

“Please, take me to see Choi Jinseok. I need to see him immediately,” Jin whispered, her voice growing weaker as she attempted to put pressure on her wound. She shouldn’t have pulled out the arrow, perhaps it would have slowed the bleeding.

The woman brought her inside, shutting the gates and leading the wounded woman through the manor until they reached a door. The servant knocked on the door to Jinseok’s chamber and then turned to leave before her master opened the door, but before she could step away, Jin called out to her, “Don’t speak of this to anyone. You never saw a bleeding woman tonight. Do you understand?”

Her gaze was still sharp despite holding less strength than she typically exuded. And under the weight of that glare, the woman nodded and scurried away.