Chapter Text
Jaemin leaves the next morning, white horses and golden armour galloping down the hillside. He doesn’t say goodbye. Donghyuck knows he’s not able to, not when Donghyuck is Haechan. He tries to pay it no mind, not when he’s walking to his superior’s tent, not when he slides his resignation over the makeshift desk. His sergeant doesn't even look up at him, only giving a disapproving hum.
“What is this, son?” Donghyuck wants to scream, he wants to yell. He’s nobody’s son. His father is dead and so is mother. He's the result of his skewed and morally unjust upbringing. Isn't that why he's here?
“My resignation, sir.” Donghyuck stands in uniform, upright and hands at his sides.
“Yes. Clearly.” His sergeant says. “Why?”
Donghyuck swallows a snarky remark. “I need to return home, sir.” Why does any soldier leave their post, undignified and without honour?
The sergeant only hums. “I need the payment.”
Donghyuck nods, dropping a sack of coins on top of the desk. It’s more than enough, he knows. He tries to ignore how clammy his hands are. He tries to ignore the implications of his resignation. Even when he knows it could lead to his end. All of this for duty. Right?
“That’s too much.” His sergeant says. He has only just looked up at Donghyuck, eyebrows furrowed. He sees Donghyuck’s unwavering expression and lets out a small sigh.
Donghyuck nods. “I know, sir.”
The sergeant doesn’t say anything else. He waves him off with a flick of the wrist.
That’s how Donghyuck’s last conversation went at the Na army. He had been there for more than a year and it ended just that easily. He had given his effort, his dignity and his health for an army not even from his own kingdom and it ends just like this. He grimaces as he thinks about the ending he was granted back at the castle at the heart of the Sunlands. His heart hurts as he walks to the barracks and remembers how he fled his home.
Donghyuck had no time to register the cloth held against his mouth before he blacked out. When he awoke, he laid in a shallow grave. He coughed as a pile of dirt landed on his face. His eyes were bloodshot, red and wide in panic. Donghyuck hadn’t registered his surroundings then but now, thinking back on that fateful night he remembers every detail as clear as day. He had lifted his body out of the grave with difficulty before he felt a harsh hit against his back.
“Get down.” The guard had said to Donghyuck, voice demanding.
Donghyuck recognized him then. His father’s kingsguard, his sole protector. “Please.” He had begged the man. This was the man that bounced a little Donghyuck on his knee when his father was busy entertaining his mistress. This was the man that showed Donghyuck how to fight with swords when his mother sobbed in her private garden. This was the man that promised to be there for Donghyuck when he would fulfill his duty, when he would sit his throne. But Donghyuck had heard the whispers even before a cloth was pressed against his mouth. He had heard the words uttered from his step-mothers mouth himself when he passed by his late mother’s tea room once. He had been naïve to believe it was all just talk.
He had no time to look around then but Donghyuck knew where he was. The royal cemetery on the east side of the gardens. He knew from the way he was laid down as the dirt landed on his face that he was laid to rest next to his mother, the late Queen. Even after five years he had never gotten over the feeling of being buried alive next to his mother’s remains by the man he would’ve called a father to his closest confidant. Not that he ever had one.
He was just sixteen when he was forced to hand over his childlike naïvety in return for a life of fear and distrust.
“Get down!” The man demanded harshly. He had no more of the love Donghyuck had seen in his eyes so many times before. Donghyuck wondered where it all went. He wanted to know what he did wrong. Was he not fulfilling his duty by letting his step-mother spew hatred towards him? Was it not mercy that he showed his siblings restraint when his brother jokingly sat on his throne that very same morning?
The King was not even in the cold ground, yet Donghyuck was not afforded the same luxury. He was sixteen but he had been prepared for this duty long before that. He had done everything right, even with a mind clouded by grief and anger. He had smiled at the court, at the guards. So why was he in a grave when his own father was still laying in the throne room on display, for the people to pay their respects? Where was his respect?
Donghyuck sobbed as he felt a hit against his head. He felt dizzy. There was a ringing in his ears as he stood up and hit the man square across the jaw, just like he was taught. Just like the man in front of him had taught him. His hold on the shovel had loosened but Donghyuck reached for the man’s sword instead. This is unlike the knightly gestures that were instilled into him.
He would not make the mistake of grabbing the obvious and in turn sacrificing his life in the face of stupidity. He pulled it out of its harness before he swung it against the man’s neck. With one big squelch and squirt of blood and the clean slice of a sword, his head rolled into the shallow grave. Donghyuck watched it happen, felt the cut as it vibrated through the sword. All he felt was relief and an uncomfortable sense of satisfaction. He had survived being buried alive but at what cost? He had done the unthinkable, the most unprincely thing he had done yet. The anger never left him, though.
Donghyuck knew he would have no time to let that situation sink in. He would be allowed no time to sob over the betrayal, over his first kill. He got out of his clothes and switched them with the clothes of the beheaded body at his feet. He grabbed the body, now adorned in jewels and golden hues and dragged it into the grave as well. He was in the middle of shoving dirt onto the body when there was a gasp behind him.
Donghyuck immediately pulled out his sword and turned around. In front of him was a small teenage boy. The boy shook in fear but made no move to run.
“They’re coming.” The boy whispered. “Give me something to get them off your back, Your Grace.”
Donghyuck frowned. Why was a boy, barely a teenager himself offering him something that could cost his life if someone found out? Donghyuck notes how the boy has his weapons out of sight. It eases his racing heart just a bit.
“I’m Jisung.” The boy says.
Donghyuck nods before he reaches around his neck and pulls at the two necklaces he adorned his body with every morning. One passed down by his father. It was gold and had a red jewel hanging from the bottom. The other was more dainty, less regal. It had belonged to his mother and her mother before that. There was a small sun laying on his clavicle. Both were given to him on the day they died.
He had hoped to keep these for himself. The Donghyuck of five years later knows he could never afford such a luxury. Donghyuck hands them to the squire in front of him, who looks at him with stars in his eyes.
“Please come back, my prince.” Jisung says. “You’re the rightful heir.” He clutches the necklaces close to his chest, hands shaking.
Donghyuck didn’t know what to do with that sentence. That morning he had heard from his father’s hand that the High Priestess would arrive the night after his father would be placed in the ground. Now, he wondered if the world really wanted him as the heir of the Sunlands when he was muddy and breathless. When he had climbed out of a shallow grave and handed in his jewels for a life worth nothing but his dignity.
There are voices coming from the other end of the gardens and Jisung looks at Donghyuck. “There are no guards at the east gate, they’re changing shifts.”
“Thank you, Jisung.” Donghyuck mumbles out before Jisung turns the other way and Donghyuck starts to sprint. He doesn’t notice the blood seeping down his neck, the ache in his back or the ringing in his ears. All he notices is the overwhelming urge to throw up, to get away from this castle as fast as possible.
That’s one part of the story Donghyuck will never quite remember; for how long he ran. He remembers toppling over in the middle of a pine forest at the edge of the river. He remembers throwing up and laying in a pile of his own blood and bodily fluids. He remembers dragging himself into the river and crying for hours.
This time, as he leaves the place he calls home he remembers everything. He remembers the day he arrived, more than a year ago. Not yet twenty but eager to learn, eager to find a way to get back to his kingdom, his birthright.
The seal Jaemin had pressed into his hands the night before burns a hole in his pocket as he swings his bag over his shoulder. His fellow soldiers had said nothing. It was not uncommon for soldiers to give up, especially this high in the mountains. He’s sure Haechan will be nothing but a figment of their imagination very soon. He starts the journey down the mountains. It is his goal to reach the docks down at sea level two days later. The promise of Jaemin’s support rings between his ears every step he takes.
The sudden development of his hopes and dreams turning to reality wander around his head even when he makes camp to sleep between the stars one last time. The stars in the Na Kingdom are far brighter than they are in the Sunlands. Donghyuck is sure he will miss them soon.
He had no home, no family, but this sky had remained a constant for the past year or so. Even when the man laying next to him in the barracks screamed in pain during the night. Even when his first sergeant came back more broken than alive. The stars were there for him to gaze up to.
Donghyuck does wonder in the back of his mind if this journey back to his birthright, his duty, is something he should do. He wonders if his people need him like he needs them. His father had told him that the Sunlands would all be his someday, that it was his sacred duty to protect their people. Donghyuck isn’t so sure if his father did the job he told Donghyuck all about. Donghyuck is beginning to think the late King wasn’t that good of a ruler, anyways.
The journey is fine. He has no problems that require his attention except the despair in his head. It’s always a difficult trek, down or up the mountains. But when he sees the glittering seas, Donghyuck thinks it might have been worth it.
The sun is fuller here and the sea is blue, almost like it is at the beaches back home, back on the southern islands, back on the coast of the Sunlands. Donghyuck’s mother had always loved the beaches. Every time she cried she would ask to go back to the beaches, to the southern islands. His father never took her. Donghyuck would have.
Her journey ended by being buried in a place far from her home. Donghyuck’s journey truly started on his way towards her home.