[Slowly, Yoojin turns to look at him again, a complicated expression on his face.]
...Leona...
[Yoojin's no stranger to a trade. The offer, as offhand as it is, reveals that Leona's willing to invest in this.]
Why's it so important for you to know? Or no, that's not it, is it. [He rubs the back of his neck, gaze trained on the ground as he works it out.] ...Why's it so important to you that I tell you?
[Leona looks up above them. He has no reason to rush his answers, so he contemplates, takes his time. He could be honest, he could lie, but in the end the cost is all the same. There is nothing to lose, is there?
So he decides on just a portion of the whole picture.]
This could be the end of it all, you know? No guarantee we'll make it out alive.
Before I went to that Mage's school, I was taught more about magic than they even teach. I didn't go to get an education. Just to be somewhere that wasn't home.
And I've been bored, learning the same things over and over, longer than any other man would put up with.
Now, at the end...
You might be the last new thing I get to learn about.
...That's almost too bad. I'm not all that special.
[He says that without a trace of irony, then says nothing more for a while. Then:]
Did I tell you how my world works? How there wasn't any magic, and then one day, portals opened up to let monsters through, and people started awakening powers of their own to stop them?
In that world, the awakened are assigned ranks based on their stats and skills. They go from A to F, just like in school, with F being the worst--and then there's S-rank, a special tier even above A. Only the very best of the best are considered S-rank. There are only a handful in every country.
Yoohyun, my little brother, awoke as an S-ranker really early on. He was only seventeen. Still in high school.
As hard as I tried, I didn't get my awakening for another three years after that.
Hah, you can't tell? I'm a lousy F-ranker, lowest of the low. [He tilts his head back and shrugs expansively.] I'm so weak, I might as well not be awakened.
[Yoojin stretches his legs out more, unintentionally mirroring Leona's position by leaning back on his hands.]
With stats like mine, I'm a liability in even the least dangerous dungeons. Nobody decent wanted to bring me on raids, so I had to sign abusive, scammy contracts just to make enough money to live. And Yoohyun...
[This is the part Leona doesn't like. The part where he's too smart. The part where he can read others too well, where he can guess the next part before the page is turned.
The part where it's a little too familiar, from another side, but different enough to bring a certain feeling of dread to the back of his neck. He has a feeling that Yoojin has a burden to carry more like Idia Shroud's.
But Leona's face doesn't budge. He doesn't change positions. He just stares at the grass near the end of his tail. He doesn't really say anything at all, though he casts a look Yoojin's way and nods to demonstrate he's listening, and for Yoojin to go on.]
[It looks like Yoojin doesn't know how to go on from there. He fidgets, tugging at the back of one sneaker with the toe of the other, sinking into his own hunched shoulders.]
I didn't know then what he was up against. It was like the baby brother I'd raised with love just cut me out, completely, for no reason I could understand. For me, those years were...
[This time, it's less like trailing off and more like hitting a wall. A wall in his mouth. Yoojin stares into nothing, brow knit, then forces out a strained breath and glosses right over the key part of the story Leona asked for, eyes shut. His knee is bouncing.]
A-anyway, something happened in a dungeon, and I... flash back sometimes. When I'm sleeping, mostly. Especially if my fear resistance isn't working right. It isn't normally a problem.
[Leona can guess— but he can only guess. There's no guarantee they're the same kind of little brother, he and Yoohyun. And in any case, the ways that Yoojin reminds him of Falena... they're not entirely the same.
And right now, he doesn't want to think that Falena could have more in common with Yoojin than being stupid. He wants to believe that Falena's thoughtlessness isn't by choice, wants to believe that there's a difference between them in expectations altogether, when Yoojin isn't holding something that should have been Yoohyun's, when the two of them aren't separated by ten years.
He can't really say anything on the matter.
He pulls a leg up, rests an elbow on his knee, and watches Yoojin and his nervous energy fizzling beside him.
He doesn't need to be a master at puzzles to put the pieces together.]
...That's rough.
[Leona reaches out, claps Yoojin on the shoulder, looking away from him. His fingers give that shoulder a bit of a squeeze.]
[A gentle squeeze like that can break a man apart. Yoojin's overripe grief bursts like a grape.]
It was my fault.
[His hand shoots up to capture Leona's, tangling their fingers together and holding on with the desperate ferocity of the drowned. It's like that point of contact, that show of care, is the only thing anchoring him against a storm.]
[Eventually, Yoojin resumes breathing again, if slightly shakily. He relaxes his grip on Leona's hand, but doesn't let it go.]
I admit that there's a lot of crazy stuff I'll risk to get out of here and make sure he's okay. [His thumb brushes over one of Leona's knuckles.] But you should never have been one of them, Leona.
[It doesn't matter how Yoojin felt. His sense of abandonment, resentment, and the despair of eight years doesn't excuse how blind he was to Yoohyun's suffering. Neither does his desperation to get home (and everyone else, too, while he was at it) absolve him of Leona's death.
Just because they're both alive now doesn't mean those mistakes didn't happen.
Exhaling, Yoojin looks up, directly at Leona, with steady, if haunted eyes.]
You're a good guy, way too good for this. I hope you know you don't owe me anything. [He gives Leona's hand a little squeeze of his own and lets his gaze fall away.] If my nightmares are messing you up, I'll work something else out. I won't let a lack of sleep turn me useless on you.
[Leona is not— has never been— very comforting. He doesn't make any extra moves while Yoojin breaks, doesn't move his hand, doesn't say anything. The only thing he is, for that amount of time, is there.
So when Yoojin begins to speak his little explanations, All Leona can do is frown. He waits to hear all that Yoojin has to say, and then closes his eyes.]
...You make too many damn assumptions, Yoojin Han.
[His voice is calm, though, level and unscolding.]
You don't know me.
I'm not the 'good person' you think I am. And more than that;
I'm not your little brother.
I'm just another desperate schmuck who woulda put yours or anyone else's head on the chopping block to get out.
Saving me isn't gonna change a damn thing. Ain't gonna change what happened between you and Yoohyun, and it ain't gonna make me the person you've made up in your head.
[Actually, Yoojin's pretty sure he's right about Leona. There's still a hand on his shoulder, after all, fingers all caught up in his own. What the weak know is that there's no making the strong accept anything they wouldn't choose themselves. Leona could easily draw away if he wanted. He's letting Yoojin have this, when there's nothing in it for him; without his particular skills, Yoojin has little to offer a princely genius mage.
Unless, of course, he is a good guy, one who cares and needs comfort of his own. Someone who feels the need to atone when he's hurt someone else and does his best not to hurt them further. A young man who needs to assure himself he's not a monster even as he denies his decency out loud.
He curls his fingers a little further in.]
...True enough, [concedes Yoojin. Leona is definitely not Yoohyun, and nothing he does here will undo what happened to any of them.] But it'll make me feel better about the whole thing. What about you?
[If he didn't feel similarly, didn't want to rip their lives back out of the house's teeth, Leona wouldn't be trying so hard to save them all himself, would he?]
[Leona looks down at his hands, his ears flicking left and right.]
I am dangerous, Yoojin.
You wouldn't be the first person I've almost killed. And that time...
[He can't remember, clearly, harming Ruggie while he was overblotted. But he does remember the jagged lines through his skin, the dust, the physical reminder that he had almost turned the little hyena into nothing more than a handful of sand.]
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monsterdaddy) wrote2025-04-29 12:06 pm
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Like hearing.
I can hear it, y'know.
The way you sleep.
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I don't know what you mean.
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Must be Mr. Wright I hear whimperin' like a cub in the night, then.
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[Mmmnnghghg.]
Do I make that much noise? [Sighing, he sits up and puts his head in his hands.] I should go sleep somewhere else, I guess.
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You don't think now would be the opportunity to start being honest?
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Last time I took that kind of opportunity, a sharp guy like you got one over on me with something I didn't want to talk about.
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And you have no reason to trust me.
[Leona leans back on his palms.]
So, then, what do you want in exchange?
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...Leona...
[Yoojin's no stranger to a trade. The offer, as offhand as it is, reveals that Leona's willing to invest in this.]
Why's it so important for you to know? Or no, that's not it, is it. [He rubs the back of his neck, gaze trained on the ground as he works it out.] ...Why's it so important to you that I tell you?
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[Leona looks up above them. He has no reason to rush his answers, so he contemplates, takes his time. He could be honest, he could lie, but in the end the cost is all the same. There is nothing to lose, is there?
So he decides on just a portion of the whole picture.]
This could be the end of it all, you know? No guarantee we'll make it out alive.
Before I went to that Mage's school, I was taught more about magic than they even teach. I didn't go to get an education. Just to be somewhere that wasn't home.
And I've been bored, learning the same things over and over, longer than any other man would put up with.
Now, at the end...
You might be the last new thing I get to learn about.
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[He says that without a trace of irony, then says nothing more for a while. Then:]
Did I tell you how my world works? How there wasn't any magic, and then one day, portals opened up to let monsters through, and people started awakening powers of their own to stop them?
In that world, the awakened are assigned ranks based on their stats and skills. They go from A to F, just like in school, with F being the worst--and then there's S-rank, a special tier even above A. Only the very best of the best are considered S-rank. There are only a handful in every country.
Yoohyun, my little brother, awoke as an S-ranker really early on. He was only seventeen. Still in high school.
As hard as I tried, I didn't get my awakening for another three years after that.
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But he wanted to know, asked to listen. So he sits up, after that, pushing his hand through his hair and scratching at the back of his neck.]
At a lower rank,
[he finishes.]
1/2
[Yoojin stretches his legs out more, unintentionally mirroring Leona's position by leaning back on his hands.]
With stats like mine, I'm a liability in even the least dangerous dungeons. Nobody decent wanted to bring me on raids, so I had to sign abusive, scammy contracts just to make enough money to live. And Yoohyun...
2/2
...Well... that kid took it upon himself to protect me, all on his own.
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The part where it's a little too familiar, from another side, but different enough to bring a certain feeling of dread to the back of his neck. He has a feeling that Yoojin has a burden to carry more like Idia Shroud's.
But Leona's face doesn't budge. He doesn't change positions. He just stares at the grass near the end of his tail. He doesn't really say anything at all, though he casts a look Yoojin's way and nods to demonstrate he's listening, and for Yoojin to go on.]
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I didn't know then what he was up against. It was like the baby brother I'd raised with love just cut me out, completely, for no reason I could understand. For me, those years were...
[This time, it's less like trailing off and more like hitting a wall. A wall in his mouth. Yoojin stares into nothing, brow knit, then forces out a strained breath and glosses right over the key part of the story Leona asked for, eyes shut. His knee is bouncing.]
A-anyway, something happened in a dungeon, and I... flash back sometimes. When I'm sleeping, mostly. Especially if my fear resistance isn't working right. It isn't normally a problem.
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And right now, he doesn't want to think that Falena could have more in common with Yoojin than being stupid. He wants to believe that Falena's thoughtlessness isn't by choice, wants to believe that there's a difference between them in expectations altogether, when Yoojin isn't holding something that should have been Yoohyun's, when the two of them aren't separated by ten years.
He can't really say anything on the matter.
He pulls a leg up, rests an elbow on his knee, and watches Yoojin and his nervous energy fizzling beside him.
He doesn't need to be a master at puzzles to put the pieces together.]
...That's rough.
[Leona reaches out, claps Yoojin on the shoulder, looking away from him. His fingers give that shoulder a bit of a squeeze.]
1/2
It was my fault.
[His hand shoots up to capture Leona's, tangling their fingers together and holding on with the desperate ferocity of the drowned. It's like that point of contact, that show of care, is the only thing anchoring him against a storm.]
2/2
I admit that there's a lot of crazy stuff I'll risk to get out of here and make sure he's okay. [His thumb brushes over one of Leona's knuckles.] But you should never have been one of them, Leona.
[It doesn't matter how Yoojin felt. His sense of abandonment, resentment, and the despair of eight years doesn't excuse how blind he was to Yoohyun's suffering. Neither does his desperation to get home (and everyone else, too, while he was at it) absolve him of Leona's death.
Just because they're both alive now doesn't mean those mistakes didn't happen.
Exhaling, Yoojin looks up, directly at Leona, with steady, if haunted eyes.]
You're a good guy, way too good for this. I hope you know you don't owe me anything. [He gives Leona's hand a little squeeze of his own and lets his gaze fall away.] If my nightmares are messing you up, I'll work something else out. I won't let a lack of sleep turn me useless on you.
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So when Yoojin begins to speak his little explanations, All Leona can do is frown. He waits to hear all that Yoojin has to say, and then closes his eyes.]
...You make too many damn assumptions, Yoojin Han.
[His voice is calm, though, level and unscolding.]
You don't know me.
I'm not the 'good person' you think I am. And more than that;
I'm not your little brother.
I'm just another desperate schmuck who woulda put yours or anyone else's head on the chopping block to get out.
Saving me isn't gonna change a damn thing. Ain't gonna change what happened between you and Yoohyun, and it ain't gonna make me the person you've made up in your head.
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[Actually, Yoojin's pretty sure he's right about Leona. There's still a hand on his shoulder, after all, fingers all caught up in his own. What the weak know is that there's no making the strong accept anything they wouldn't choose themselves. Leona could easily draw away if he wanted. He's letting Yoojin have this, when there's nothing in it for him; without his particular skills, Yoojin has little to offer a princely genius mage.
Unless, of course, he is a good guy, one who cares and needs comfort of his own. Someone who feels the need to atone when he's hurt someone else and does his best not to hurt them further. A young man who needs to assure himself he's not a monster even as he denies his decency out loud.
He curls his fingers a little further in.]
...True enough, [concedes Yoojin. Leona is definitely not Yoohyun, and nothing he does here will undo what happened to any of them.] But it'll make me feel better about the whole thing. What about you?
[If he didn't feel similarly, didn't want to rip their lives back out of the house's teeth, Leona wouldn't be trying so hard to save them all himself, would he?]
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[But would, he, though?]
...Besides. Surviving this... it won't change anything. Saving you wouldn't change what I am, what I'm not...
[No, that's too much.]
I just can't stand losing the game.
That's all.
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...Why would that need to change?
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[Which... isn't a direct answer, but he's still a bit trapped in a thought process, considering things he has been avoiding considering.]
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[He gently nudges Leona's side with his elbow.]
My ears might not be as good as yours, but I can still listen.
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I am dangerous, Yoojin.
You wouldn't be the first person I've almost killed. And that time...
[He can't remember, clearly, harming Ruggie while he was overblotted. But he does remember the jagged lines through his skin, the dust, the physical reminder that he had almost turned the little hyena into nothing more than a handful of sand.]
...It was someone I knew. Someone loyal to me.
And it should have been something I expected.
Something I could have stopped.
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just. just trust me just trust me
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