Chapter Text
4 minutes
Four minutes. Only enough time for numbness to take hold.
Jinu felt nothing but the buzzing in his skull, purple spots swimming before his eyes as he was led away from his family, through the maze of marble and silk, and seated before a roaring fire.
A steaming bowl of soup was thrust into his hands. Someone urged him to eat.
He obeyed.
The broth was rich, fragrant. It slid down his throat like warmth come alive. Tender meat melted on his tongue like butter. His belly, hollow for days, clenched in grateful agony.
And in that moment, just one sweet, treacherous moment, he forgot.
Forgot his mother’s trembling hands.
Forgot his sister’s wide, frightened eyes.
Forgot the hunger and the cold and the terror of the sharp blades.
The ringing in his ears faded. The ache dulled. And guilt began to whisper, not from memory, but from something else.
Ah, the voice said, so easily unmade.
4 hours
Four hours. Enough time to rest his weary body. Enough time for the rich food to turn in his starved stomach, doubling him over in pain.
Enough time for the voice to creep back in.
They’re still hungry, it murmured, low and familiar. Still waiting at that gate. And you?
You left them.
You left them to starve.
And now you feast.
He pressed his hands over his ears, as if that could stop the truth from bleeding through.
4 days
Four days to learn. The rituals. The customs. When to bow. When to kneel.
His body, once cold and shaking, began to mend. His cheeks regained color. His hands steadied. His voice, already rare, took on a clarity that silenced rooms.
He sang before the King, and courtiers wept. Court ladies smiled behind dainty hands, floating past him like butterflies. He bowed, smiled, played.
But at night, the voice waited.
Tell me, it hissed, did your sister turn away when the gates shut? Or did she cover her eyes? I can’t quite recall.
His hands trembled as he untied his hair.
He could still feel her fingers, small and shaking in his.
His mother’s eyes- stricken, agonized-watching the gates close with no promise of opening.
He would wake in the dark, choking on silence.
No warmth, no comfort. Just the weight of the room pressing down on him like judgment.
Guilt cracked through his body like lightning, over and over, until he thought it would split him apart. A vast wasteland revealed, dark and unyielding.
He had not been forced to leave them.
You chose this, it whispered. You let go first.
He wept where no one could see him.