tw for self harm behaviour, stop reading at “He sat down at the table and drew over and over for hours” and skip to the next chapter
He read the letter again.
You have to come clean and tell me what conclusive evidence they could possibly have.
If you did something, admit it. Face the consequences with dignity.
He mentally retraced his steps from that night of the murders, all over again for the thousandth time. He’d taken a walk with Minwoo, seen the willow tree, went back to his quarters and fallen asleep. The next morning he’d woken up and the six dead bodies had been reported, and the three of them were carted off to their detention quarters and left there. Then he’d had those two weird visions outside the Peak, and he’d woken back up at his old room and the siege had already begun. He’d summoned Yuexi and fought like he was supposed to, called for Mushan Temple’s assistance, located the six willows and destroyed them, and helped the others seal the infernal rift.
What conclusive evidence could they even have that would prove he was behind all of it?
Two answers slapped him in the face at once. Other than the fact that the suppression array had somehow excluded him, there were only two things that, if known to the seniors, would successfully manage to incriminate him. One, if someone had gotten ahold of that pot of water that had disappeared from his room. And two, if Ricky had told them he’d seen Gyuvin leaving his quarters the night of the murders.
There was no way for him to know where that pot of water had gone. It was that simple, he didn’t bother thinking about it anymore. It was a weak piece of evidence, maybe, but damning nonetheless. The more important question was whether Ricky had, for lack of a better word, sold him out. Did the seniors interrogate him, too, after Gyuvin had been taken? Had they wrung the information out of him, the way they did to Gyuvin, or had he volunteered it without hesitation because he believed it was the morally upright thing to do?
To Gyuvin, who’d grown up clinging on to every person who’d showed him love and care because he’d learned from a young age that they could be torn away from him without warning at any moment, the idea of betraying a friend like that was abhorrent to him, to the very core of who he was. But someone like Ricky, who’d been raised in a different environment with a vastly divergent set of values, wouldn’t necessarily think the same.
Did Gyuvin even mean enough to him that he would compromise on his values to protect him? Or had Ricky decided it wasn’t worth the trouble lying to cover for someone he had reason to believe was a criminal? He remembered the question Ricky had asked him, and how he’d accepted Gyuvin’s answer, but hadn’t said anything else. As far as Gyuvin knew, maybe Ricky really did believe he’d hand a hand in everything. Ricky didn’t have a big name or a big reputation in any way, as most Moonrise Palace disciples didn’t, but he was reliable in the eyes of the Coalition, especially since Yookyung and Kwan Hyunjae were both members of the senior panel. His word could very well be the conclusive evidence the seniors had been looking for to hammer down the final nail in Gyuvin’s coffin for good, and it made sense that Yookyung wouldn’t tell this to Minwoo; he was trying to protect Ricky, still.
“To hell with that,” he laughed bitterly, to nobody. “I’m screwed, aren’t I?”
If Ricky had really given him up, then he needed to tell Minwoo his half of the story as soon as possible. Ricky himself had admitted that day that he could have been mistaken, and Gyuvin wasn’t going to just sit back and let the word ‘murderer’ be thrown at him. But if he was going to start writing, he needed to get his entire story straight, which meant he had to sort out what had really happened with Hanbin, so he could clear his own name once and for all.
He knew, still, frustratingly little about that night. There were little bits and pieces, little details that jumped at him but made no sense and fit nowhere. Why was he outside the Peak when he regained consciousness? Why was Hanbin outside with him? Why did he wake back up in his room instead of his detention quarters?
As hard as he had tried to recover those lost hours of memory, his efforts were futile. It was like trying to reach into someone else’s head and grasp for someone else’s memory; it just didn’t exist, like a void in his mind. But he had to remember. This was for Hanbin. He could let it slide if it were someone else, but this was Hanbin’s death they were talking about.
He sat down at the table and drew over and over for hours, talismans layered upon talismans, Cleansing, Purification, Mind-Calming, anything that he thought had a remote chance of helping, until they were burned into the backs of his eyelids. Remember, he willed himself through gritted teeth, frustration boiling over inside him like hot water rising, remember, remember! His fingertip burned alight with spiritual power, burning strokes into the flesh of his forearm in the desperate, far-fetched hope of creating a talisman that could work, his nails digging so deep the pain almost blinded him, but he pressed on. He carved the word memory, memory, memory over and over, spilling golden light and blood until it ran like water, as if it would bring him back to that night, as if he could turn back time and do it all over again.
He exhausted himself, at some point. As his golden glow faded to darkness, his abundant spiritual reserves finally drained, he hunched over and cried, his back pressed against the cold stone walls of the Fortress cells. His tears were more anger, more frustration, more hatred than anything else. He was so angry.
If I killed him, let me at least remember what I’ve done.
His left arm burned like it’d been scalded by hellfire and his right was covered in the drying, tacky remains of his own blood, but he didn’t have the energy left in him to draw a healing talisman for himself. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have thought he deserved it.
Why can’t I remember anything?
Why was he so stupid? Why had he lived seventeen years and still ended up knowing nothing? Why was it that even when it came down to saving himself from condemnation, he was too dumb to even know how?
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