[Guest Writer: Takenoko] – To Meet the Height of Birds (4/?) – A SKKS fanfic

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
-- Langston Hughes

Title: To Meet the Height of Birds (Episode #5)
Genre: General, Romance
Characters: Jae Shin, Yoon Hee
Words: 1000
Summary: …But you are starting to scramble them into poetry.

o.o0o.o

Yesterday, when he first heard the quiet sniffles interrupting his mid-afternoon nap, Jae Shin was ready to get up and haul into whoever had the nerve to wake him up. But as soon as he lifted his head and spotted Kim Yoon Shik huddled up into a miserable ball just a few desks away from him, the first thought that ran through his mind was, “Shit, did that asshole get to him again?”

A quick scan revealed no acute bodily harm had been inflicted on the boy since he left Jae Shin’s care, so he started to lie back down- but who knew what could have happened between the infirmary and here?- then sat up again. The rustle of clothing made Yoon Shik look up, but he immediately looked away and tried to blink away his tears.

Jae Shin realized that crying was probably the last thing one would want to be caught doing after fainting like a girl on the archery grounds only hours ago, so he attempted to reassure Yoon Shik that hiding his tears was pretty masculine. When it looked as if he was going to run anyway, Jae Shin closed the distance between them with one graceful leap and stopped the younger scholar with a decisive hand on his shoulder.

“You can stay here, I’ll leave,” he said quietly, trying to ignore the other’s anguish, the slight catch in his breathing as he swallowed a raw sob.

“Hey Daemul, cry out loud, like a grown man,” he instructed, uncomfortable but earnest.

As the door closed behind him he had to ignore a strong urge to turn around and offer his services in beating up Ha In Soo, who would deserve it any day even without this latest cruelty, this “lesson” that may scar a young man for life. But Moon Jae Shin knew, perhaps better than anyone, that there was a time for grief, and a time for anger, and sometimes nothing of the latter could help ease the former, no matter how hard you tried.

o.o0o.o

Today, he gets the idea to carve the gakji* during lunch, after Kim Yoon Shik comes in from his morning of archery practice pale and withdrawn. The pressure that Lee Sun Joon puts on him is heavy and excessive, this Jae Shin acknowledges, but Kim Yoon Shik looks rather like he is carrying the weight of the whole world on his shoulders instead of the expectations of just one irrational, pig-headed man. Jae Shin watches as the Namin scholar sits listlessly between Kim Woo Tak and Bae Hae Won, slowly stirring his porridge in alternating clockwise-counterclockwise circles. Even gentle nudges from his friends fail to coax him into conversation, and eventually Bae Hae Won just eases the bowl out from under his arms (‘rescuing it’ – he calls it) and helps himself. Yoon Shik does not protest and continues to sit, rubbing his reddened thumb absentmindedly.

Jae Shin remembers how he got blisters on his fingers within the first day of archery lessons, and how they popped and bled and eventually scabbed over and turned into calluses that serve him well now, more than ten years later. By the time his brother came home from Sungkyunkwan to visit, it was too late to prevent the injury, but he’d shown him how to soak his hand in wine to numb the broken skin, how to carve a teardrop-shaped release aid that protected the pad of his thumb from friction against the bowstring. This, he decides, is exactly what Kim Yoon Shik needs.

After Lee Sun Joon’s injury, he doubts if it’s worthwhile to carve the contraption at all, since it appears that all the occupants of East Wing’s second middle room are now incapacitated in one way or the other. But as he’s already picked out a good-sized piece of basswood and sharpened his pocket knife, it seems like a waste to stop halfway.

So he sits in his tree and carves, watching as Kim Yoon Shik watches Lee Sun Joon, and wonders if either of them will have a chance to prove themselves. Even if they get the miracle they need, he knows without a shadow of a doubt that he himself will not be participating on the day of the archery competition. Common sense dictates that he would risk discovery if he revealed his remarkable skill in front of the king and all of Joseon’s highest officials. For the mere sake of a bowstring and bragging rights, it is a gamble he is unwilling to take.

But in the early hours of the morning, when he awakens to find both bedrolls beside him empty and another quiver of arrows gone, he is forced to reevaluate his stance. Out of the three of them, who truly has the most at stake? He could lose his life. Lee Sun Joon, his reputation. As for Kim Yoon Shik…

“While you were leisurely playing with your bow and arrow, I was busy providing for my family,” he’d said fiercely, when pushed to the limits by Lee Sun Joon’s training. “Do you even know what I’m going through now?”

No, Jae Shin thinks. No, he doesn’t understand at all, but he can’t get the look in Yoon Shik’s eyes out of his mind. He had been so angry, yet underneath all the bitterness and frustration directed towards Lee Sun Joon, there was something more: an aching, brittle longing, a soul reaching out desperately to catch a dream that was falling to pieces. Somehow, it seemed as if Kim Yoon Shik had already lost, and what he was missing was tearing him apart.

o.o0o.o

Tomorrow, when he slips the completed release aid onto Kim Yoon Shik’s rain-soaked hand, Jae Shin will curl those slender, ivory-cool fingers into a tight ball and pray that it is enough to protect him.

“You, think that as long as you have the heart, you can change the world, right?”

No, but maybe, just maybe…tomorrow, the world will hurt a little less.

o.o0o.o

*Footnote: Gakji – the thumb ring that he gives her at the end of episode 5 appears to be an essential part of traditional Korean archery; see here for more detail.

The mood of this drabble is somewhat more somber than the previous ones because I think a large part of episode 5 is focused on Yoon Hee's internal anguish as she struggles to reconcile her hopes of succeeding at Sungkyunkwan with her desire to protect her secret and her family. In the scene where Jae Shin and Sun Joon both grab onto her arm, I saw a great amount of concern for her driving both of them, but they express it in different ways. In the show we saw how Lee Sun Joon threw everything he had into creating that "miracle" for Kim Yoon Shik to believe in. Here, I wanted to highlight Jae Shin's POV.