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Cale had never seen the back of Choi Han’s right shoulder before.
The thought stayed with him through a four-course meal, a conversation with an irate baby dragon, and several glasses of the best wine the Henituse territory had to offer. Fruity and a little floral, with a mouthfeel that Cale could still taste clinging to the roof of his mouth. He’d been back in Henituse territory for three days now, taking a break before his jaunt to the Whipper kingdom, and he’d spent that time basking in the novelty of money and comfort and everything he’d ever wanted at his fingertips, just a raised voice away.
He’d never wanted a soulmate, so that shouldn’t have figured into his relaxation at all. Kim Rok Soo’s soulmark had been a shield, disquietingly similar to the ancient power of the indestructible shield that he’d gained since, but darker. Gold and black, tucked against his heart.
Kim Rok Soo used to touch it sometimes when he was younger. Someone guaranteed to love him-- that was a comfort a long time ago, before he learned to keep his head down and give up on useless things. Later it was a source of stress, of course, knowing there was someone he would be so attached to that he’d grieve their death forever, in a world where so many people died every day. Who needed that level of distress? Who wanted to be so attached to another person that he lost half his soul on the occasion of their death, begging fate to return someone he was barely meant to outlive?
On and Hong were asleep in his bedroom, curled into complementary commas on the pillows, On’s paw laid officiously on Hong’s face. Raon Miru wasn’t around, though, so it was just the trash of the Henituse family alone in his chambers, pouring himself another glass of wine that would barely make him tipsy and cursing his inherited alcohol tolerance.
He wanted to drink enough to let him forget about the shield on the back of Choi Han’s shoulder, stretched against his deltoids and glistening with sweat, but unfortunately Hans chose that moment to knock.
“Yes?” Cale called, turning his voice to that of insouciant trash, which he’d kind of assumed would work better by now than it had been. “What is it?”
“Young Master Cale, Choi Han is here to report on his recent activities,” Hans said, beaming at Cale where he’d slumped at his desk, and Choi Han stalked cautiously in behind him. His eyes were bright and alert. “Shall I bring you both refreshments while you converse?”
Better than Ron bringing them. Cale suppressed a shudder. “Yes, that would be good,” he said, keeping his face carefully disinterested. “Leave us alone after that.”
“As you say!” Hans chirped, and shut the door almost silently behind him. A good butler in this world could move as quietly as a cat.
Choi Han stood at attention in front of Cale’s desk, hands at his sides. As expected, he was armed even within the Henituse estate, barely changed by his time with Rosalyn and Lock.
His cheeks were filled out, though, and the miasma of grief and bloodthirst that had followed him during their first meeting had abated. “Sir Cale,” he said, and hesitated, throat working. Cale kept his face even, imagining himself from the outside-- red-haired and handsome, lackadaisical, sitting with purpose and holding his wineglass just so, the picture of overindulgence-- and wondered if Choi Han had ever thought of his soulmate since being transported into this world.
Surely he would have assumed his soulmate was left behind in Korea, like the rest of his family was. Hadn’t that come up in the novel, during the earliest chapters? Choi Han missed his family. He’d spent decades battling through the Forest of Darkness, sleeping in cold mud and waking up at the slightest noise, acquainting himself with the same ragged survival instincts that Kim Rok Soo had become familiar with-- the vigilance, the knowledge that he had to go through his foes to make it another day, the reeling cliff’s-edge certainty that nobody was ever really coming to save him-- so his soulmate had to have come to mind at some point. That was human nature.
“Didn’t I already take your report?” Cale asked, taking another drink and swallowing against the tannin dryness in his mouth. Choi Han’s gaze followed his hand to the glass, his glass to his lips. Cale’s stomach twisted. “I thought I told you to rest.”
“You did,” Choi Han said. “But aren’t you meant to be resting as well, Sir Cale? Hans told me you should still be recuperating. It isn’t good to tax yourself too much.”
“Do I seem like someone who likes to tax himself?” Cale shot back, and Choi Han shrugged with one shoulder. “That’s rude. You should know I prioritize my own comfort and well-being above everything else in my life. Why don’t you sit down?”
“You’re giving me permission to sit?”
“I just said that,” Cale said, and Choi Han crinkled his eyes in a slight smile, sat across from him with an exhausted sigh.
His hair was drying out. His irises were dark and warm, glittering pools that reminded Cale of the blackness beneath the cursed tree, venomous hatred to glut with care and siphon off.
There were people in this world that Cale nonetheless recognized as people before he thought of them as characters-- it was hard to know anyone for a long time without noticing the traits that separated them from their counterparts in the novel-- but Choi Han, despite all of Cale’s knowledge of the protagonist, felt the most significant of all. It wasn’t his face, or his position as a fellow transmigrator. Cale didn’t think it was his position as Kim Rok Soo’s soulmate, either, since Cale was trying so hard not to think about it. Another glass of wine would have done the trick if it were his original body he was talking about.
It was the shared sense between them, which flared up in odd moments or when they faced off against their enemies. Cale could see it in Choi Han’s expression sometimes, a grim thought of of course, that’s how this world is, too, or the black determination to be the last one standing, to fix his feet to the ground and lay waste to any monsters that dared to leap his way. Having to adapt to something new and horrible about the world, when you yourself were the weakest thing around and nobody else was there to help you-- having to breathe through the blood from a cut cheek, or get up after a beating, or tell your pounding heart that it could slow, that it had better keep pumping if you ever wanted to get out of here–
The cold and the dark. A world that had been much less fantastical than this, at least for most of their lives, and just as full of injustice. It had been a world where a single person was like an ant, more often than not, helpless to affect real, lasting change without a cataclysm first to break the power structures open.
It wasn’t exactly the same thought sparking between them. Cale had planted the thought of protecting and saving people in Choi Han’s head because being a hero was his ideal destiny, but it wasn’t Cale’s. He didn’t have the temperament for heroism.
Still, he had to admit that there was something relieving in looking at Choi Han and seeing his hopes reflected back, contextless but nonetheless too present to ignore. Cale Henituse wasn’t supposed to know that Choi Han was from another world, either, and yet it hummed between them like electricity reaching to ground itself:
Yes, that’s right. Even in this strange new world, I can rely on you completely.
Cale wasn’t going to stare at Choi Han in silence, not for long enough to be remarked upon. Nobility in this world were raised to behave with more grace than that. “It seems like you just came in here to check on me, then?”
“I wanted to be sure you were all right,” Choi Han said. “You should be protected. If you’re still recovering from the attack in the capital, you should rest longer before going to the Whipper kingdom.”
“A weak constitution like mine must be protected,” Cale agreed, pouring himself another glass. He poured Choi Han one too, a flood of red wine with a rich, almost sweet aroma, and Choi Han took the glass as delicately as a feather. “But if anyone deserves time to rest, it’s surely you. I’ve kept you busy with my requests.”
“I’m glad to do as you ask,” Choi Han said immediately.
“Still.” Cale pushed the bowl of sweets towards Choi Han, and his companion plucked a candied cherry up, making an almost imperceptible face. He popped it in his mouth like a man who’d once starved daily in a murderous forest, swallowing it down like the entrails of some fantastic animal. Cale’s mouth twitched. “You’re not my responsibility, but it would look bad for me if you were treated unfairly.”
Choi Han had a speck of red syrup on his lips. He swiped at it with the back of his hand, a little self-conscious like he knew he needed better manners but had forgotten whatever noona had used to scold him about them. “I thought you weren’t feeling well. You left while I was training.”
Cale had seen Choi Han take his shirt off. More importantly, because he also got an eyeful of a good figure whenever he looked in the mirror, so he wasn’t that delicate, he’d seen Choi Han’s soulmark. On and Hong had looked fascinated by it, being too young to have developed soulmarks themselves.
Kim Rok Soo had daydreamed about his soulmark, once. He’d imagined a soulmate with a perfect, welcoming family, taking him away from his uncle to a warm house and a full kitchen, a pantry he could sneak snacks from without more than a scolding smack to the hand. He hadn’t dared to imagine a person who loved him, exactly.
“You looked so strong that I got scared,” Cale said dryly, ignoring whatever feelings that memory called up. Different body, different world. His goals these days meant he had to focus on tomorrow. “A weak noble like me has no place intruding in an arena like that.”
Choi Han’s eyes flicked back up to Cale’s, searching. “Is that why you left?”
“Not calling me Sir Cale anymore?”
“I can if you want me to, Sir Cale,” Choi Han drew out, “but I notice... the person I call Sir Cale likes to ask questions instead of answering mine.”
“Drink your wine,” Cale said. “I didn’t open another bottle just to waste half of it on trash like me.”
“It’s wasted on me, too,” Choi Han said, but he took a long draw from his wineglass anyway, lowering it with just a disc of pale red liquid in the belly of the glass.
Cale’s chamber was an island of relative calm, at least while the children were absent or asleep, but the estate couldn’t be called quiet. Nobility in this world lived in warrens of servants and relatives, officials from their territories filtering in and out, a hereditary bureaucracy that not even the worst lout could totally escape: outside of this room, butlers and other servants rushed about, cooks and maids gossiping in the kitchens or doing laundry or caring for horses, maintaining the grounds, running errands. Beacrox had put Lock’s siblings to work in the kitchens, so now Cale heard yipping and growling from there too, the puppies getting some of their spark back, but even now he’d be surprised here and there by a face that brightened with recognition on seeing him, though he’d never met them before that he knew of. Children of servants who’d taken time off and come back later, who’d met the original Cale before he was old enough to grow facial hair. Acquaintances of Countess Violan, or distant cousins coming to call.
Had Cale Henituse had a different soulmate before Kim Rok Soo woke up in his body?
Some things almost didn’t bear thinking about.
“You left when I turned around,” Choi Han observed. “Did something scare you?”
Cale might have said I don’t scare easily, or tried another rhetorical question, but instead he said, “No,” curtly.
“You haven’t seen my soulmark before,” Choi Han mused. “It’s a shield.”
“That’s not an uncommon symbol,” Cale said. It had the benefit of being true. In Korea it had been uncommon outside of media, but-- this was a fictional world, in the end. Swords and shields could be seen in every town, on coats of arms. “Gold and black? You’ll make some girl out there swoon with that.”
Someone shouted and ran down the hall outside the chamber, followed by a patter of feet and childish giggling. Cale glanced to see if the noise had awakened On and Hong and felt a pang of relief to see them still and asleep. Lazy cats.
Choi Han was watching him with a slight smile when Cale returned his attention to the conversation. “I won’t have much time to meet girls, since I work for you,” he pointed out. “I spend my time training.”
“You could have time off.”
“I don’t need it. I want to be sure I can protect you.”
“Don’t get sappy on me,” Cale ordered, and Choi Han hummed. His hand dwarfed the glass he held, a little bit. Cale imagined those gloves brushing against his bare skin and suppressed a shiver, tried to convince himself he was imagining being beaten like he’d been destined to and failed.
This was ridiculous.
“I lived in the Forest of Darkness for a long time before the people of Harris Village took me in,” Choi Han said after a long moment. He didn’t usually speak for that long; Cale’s heart sped up, nerves prickling behind his ribs. This was a backstory he knew, though. It was a backstory Cale Henituse was supposed to know at this point, too. “I used to live happily with people I loved, and then suddenly I was fighting for my life, and I was... I don’t know how to describe it. Nothing mattered in the future.”
A longer pause. Kim Rok Soo said, “You had to think of only the next thing. Your next place to sleep, or your next meal.”
“Or the next breath I took,” Choi Han agreed. “That was a hunger I hadn’t known before. It took over my body, so I was hungry everywhere, and my mouth would water at anything... I didn’t have space to think about my soulmark. But I’m out of the forest now, and... I have a full belly, and a place to sleep. I’m learning not only to protect people, but to do more than that, maybe. You save people.”
“Only for my own convenience,” Cale said. “My own comfort and safety is my greatest priority, as you know.”
Choi Han said, slow, “I’ve been thinking about my soulmark more lately.”
The protagonist of Birth of a Hero seemed simple on the surface, but he was a still lake with dangerous currents underneath. Cale had speedread five novels of Choi Han’s internal monologue, once, and besides that he could read him: the minute shifts in his shoulders and his neck, his dark-lashed eyelids and how they fluttered when he was thinking, the uncertainty he carried sometimes that reminded Cale of a large working dog abruptly brought indoors. Where did this fork go? What was he supposed to say next to this or that noble, and would Cale let him know before he had to default to bowing his head and speaking politely? What was the quickest way to kill the most enemies while conserving his energy for the next wave?
In the novel, Cale suspected a love interest might have blushed or cut their eyes away, though he hadn’t gotten far enough in the story to be sure. He kept up eye contact, trusting his complexion to stay porcelain and unreadable. “Oh? That’s nice. They say a soulmate is the person who understands you most in the world.”
“Yes,” Choi Han agreed. “More than a person understands himself.”
The protagonist of Birth of a Hero wasn’t a moron, either. Cale wondered if someone had told Choi Han what his soulmark was who had seen Cale shirtless-- Ron hadn’t, it would raise too many suspicions, but maybe Raon Miru had seen him change shirts once after a particularly muddy adventure?-- or if Choi Han had simply judged Cale’s reaction to be so out of character for someone so shameless that it had to stem from another, more personal connection. Cale had probably missed his chance to insinuate that he’d fled because he was so attracted to Choi Han that he’d lost his head.
After all, if he lost his head every time he found Choi Han attractive, he’d never get much of anything done.
Cale swallowed hard. He dropped eye contact. “Pursuing a soulmate takes up a lot of a person’s time,” he said. “Time and energy. And it’s such a vulnerability, even for the strongest individuals in the world. There’s a long way to go before anyone can call themselves secure enough to focus that much on frivolities, when most people never find their soulmate at all.”
Choi Han nodded slowly. “And nobles sometimes have to marry for reasons other than love,” he offered, and Cale huffed a laugh.
“I have all the money I’ll ever need, and I won’t inherit the title of Count. I have nothing to offer but the hand of an alcoholic punk. Who would marry that?”
He didn’t mean it as reassurance, but Choi Han brightened anyway, meeting his eyes with joy that hurt Cale’s heart. “I couldn’t say, Sir Cale. But rest assured that I will never leave your side.”
“I’m too drunk for you to be this dramatic,” Cale said weakly. “Get out, will you? I’ll call on you in two days, when we’re set to head for the Whipper kingdom. I’ll need you by my side for that journey.”
“As you say,” Choi Han said, and stood and bowed. He had a bounce in his step as he exited the room.
Cale picked up Choi Han’s glass once he’d left and contemplated bringing it to his own lips, imagining his pristine new body drinking from the same part that Choi Han had in an indirect kiss. The shield on his skin burned. Then he set it down again and tried to focus on his goals for the Whipper kingdom before he got any more distracted.