Sooha sat in the chair quietly, the weight of the interview still pressing down on him... a harsh reminder that the only people he had left were the ones who had ruined his life.
Except for Yuna. She was his only hope in Elysium.
He had to find her.He had to see her, tell her everything himself.Not the man who took Luke away from him.
His stomach churned. The room felt like it was closing in, threatening to swallow him whole.
Dark thoughts bled through his mind, like hopelessness, grief, and the aching presence of someone whose voice he would never hear again. His fingers fidgeted in his lap, pale and reddening in the growing chill. All he wanted was to be alone. To breathe. To think.
He also noticed, vaguely, that Damien had disinfected everything in the room before the interview began. A part of him wondered if he still remembered Sooha's old rituals, or if it was just standard protocol now.
None of it made sense anymore.And then, Damien's chair screeched back from the table, cutting through the noise in his head.
In one swift motion, Damien walked around the table and draped his coat over Sooha's shoulders.
"We're having problems with the heating at night. I apologize for the discomfort."
Sooha was stunned by the gesture but didn't protest.
"You can go back to your cell," Damien said quietly, his voice touched with something like nostalgia.
"Tomorrow, your mother will be notified and asked whether she allows your return to the Kim residence."
His hands lifted from Sooha's shoulders, letting him stand.
"You also have a sister now," he added. "Her name is Seoyeon. She's somewhere around five years old, I think."
Sooha turned towards him, eyes weary, but there was a flicker of hope within them, maybe things at home weren't as bad and broken as he had anticipated..
The door slammed shut after Sooha and Damien was left alone in the interrogation room.
He leaned against the table, his chest rising with a heavy sigh.
Screech.
"FU*K!" Damien hissed through clenched teeth.
With a sharp kick, the table skidded violently across the floor, coming to rest at a crooked angle, like everything Damien felt inside.
What the hell is wrong with you?
He thought to himself as he paced, holding the gloved hand that had grazed Sooha's skin earlier while he was setting up the lie detector.
Or when he gave him Luke's dog tags.
His mind raced as thoughts of Sooha passed through it.
He remembered being ten, exhausted and bruised, barely able to stand after another grueling training session. His father had him practicing until his knees bled and his hands turned raw with calluses.
And then there was Sooha, only seven, but somehow already so caring and comforting, peeking into the dressing room at the training center.
Seeing Damien in this state would break Sooha's smile that was plastered on his face almost any other time you would look at him.
He would come every day after practice to tend to Damien's wounds, to smile at him softly, and to tell him what was new that he had learned in classes earlier that day, or about the new word he had learned, or a funny joke the tutor said.
And this would continue for years, and even as he grew up, Sooha never once criticized him, never judged him, and never once told him to fight back.
He knew it wasn't Damien's choice. So he did the only thing he could; he spent time with him, cared, listened, and healed him up.
He gave him peace when no one else would.
Until one day, that boy would never peek through those doors again.
Like a cold breeze vanishing on the warm summer day, too soon, too fast, and leaving nothing behind but scorching heat and the aching hollow of something lost.
Something dear and fragile.
Damien had taken him for granted. He never needed anyone else, not when he had Sooha every day after those wretched exercises and trainings.
While others ignored him or ran away when he came up to them, Sooha always came to him over and over again; it was easy to have him around.
But not anymore.
And years went by, and with them countless nightmares and dreams about him welled up within Damien, every single one soaked with memories of that angelic boy. And every day for the past ten years, those opal eyes and that rose-tinted hair would cross the next High Marshall's mind at least once.
He would look at the only picture he had of them, which was a gift from Sooha for Damien's fourteenth birthday. Alongside it, a handwritten note and a book about ... tarts.
Finally, Damien's stoic apathy cracked. He couldn't pretend not to care anymore, and the worst part? He didn't even know how. No one ever taught him how to care. He felt sick, and his mind was wrecked.
While Sooha had been speaking, telling him what had happened all those years he was gone, Damien couldn't focus on the words. All he could think about was murdering every single person who had turned his only friend into an empty shell of who he used to be, stripped of all the glimmering pearls.
He pulled out the picture of him and Sooha from his pocket and brought it to his lips, a tear finally sliding down his cheek.
His one and only weakness was the man who now hated him.
The only person who had ever made him feel human.
If there was even the slightest chance Sooha would stop looking at him with that disgust, he would do anything to turn back time and let him save Luke.
But there was nothing he could do. And now he could not blame his father or Syntrum for Sooha being out of his life.
As he was the one to blame.
And the part where he is alive but hates him? It hurts more than if he were dead.
If they were both dead.