Gyuvin stormed around the Peak grounds for a while, but since there was no one and nothing to take his mind off his recent indignations since everyone who hadn’t been sent down the Peak was at afternoon training and everyone who had was eating at the dining hall, and he wasn’t yet delirious enough from rage he would try to take out his anger on inanimate objects like trees and walls, he ended up just going back to his quarters and sitting in the doorway. He felt he looked a little like a child who had been punished and put in timeout, and the thought made him even more annoyed.
He stood up. “I’m sitting here because I want to sit here,” he announced. Satisfied that the trees and rocks had heard him, he sat back down.
Ricky appeared in the doorway of their shared quarters a while later, addressing Gyuvin with a little look and walking over to where he was sitting at his doorstep. “Here,” he said, holding out something in his hand wrapped in paper. “You think a hunger strike is your best option?”
“Thanks.” Gyuvin reached out and took the paper from him and unwrapped the little package. Three little pieces of osmanthus cake, still warm. “And it’s not like that. I just needed some time alone to think, but I don’t think that helped anything.”
Ricky gave him a little smile. “Thinking is a curse, isn’t it? I try my best to avoid doing it whenever possible.”
“Yeah?”
Gyuvin bit into the osmanthus cake, sighing. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t need to try…” He could hear Ricky’s soft laughter in response, though he was further away now, back underneath his willow tree at the other end of the courtyard. “Why are you talking to me from so far away?”
“You smell like corpses,” Ricky answered evenly.
Gyuvin sniffed at his own clothes for a second, then looked up in indignation. “Hey, we were both at the graveyard. If I smell like corpses, don’t you smell like corpses too?”
“I never said I didn’t,” came Ricky’s infuriating answer. “I’m sitting further away for our mutual benefit.”
Gyuvin felt like his answer was a little ridiculous, but he couldn’t think of anything to say in response to that, so he kept quiet and just continued eating his cake. Ricky seemed content to sit in silence too; they sat there, facing each other, letting the late afternoon sun warm the paved stones of the courtyard. He retired into his sleeping quarters when the sun got too hot; it was just in time for an incoming communication array to sound in his ear.
“Gyuvin, it’s been a while. Sorry I didn’t contact you sooner.”
“Sect Leader Baek! It’s been a while.”
“Yes, it’s been busy back home. How are you coping at the training camp? I suppose you’d be a little lonely, since you’ve only got Hanbin with you.”
“Well, I do miss the others at home, but I’ve made some friends here too,” Gyuvin mused. “Actually, why didn’t any seniors from Meteor Court come to the training camp? I thought every sect in the coalition would send at least one.”
“Well, it’s nearing the summer months now. We have the Summer Solstice Festival to prepare for and you know that’s around the time of the year we get the most help requests. The coalition did request for a senior to come in to teach the youths our sect’s talisman specialty skills, but I turned them down because I thought we’d be too busy.”
“Oh, right. I can’t believe I forgot. How are things back home? Is it really that busy?”
In Gyuvin’s memory, summers were the best time of the year. He’d never been the biggest fan of the cold weather, so when temperatures started to warm up and the tail end of spring gave way to sunnier days he and Junhyeon and the others spent all their leisure hours outside, running around the Court, swimming in the lakes and ponds nearby to stay cool and eating candied fruits from the little street stalls in the city until their throats were sore.
It was true that the summer months were the busiest for the sect; Meteor Court was located at the heart of a big city aptly named Sunshower City, and every year there would be a great festival held at the start of summer solstice which marked the beginning of a month where Meteor Court would open its doors unequivocally to all citizens living under its care. Citizens could make requests for special talismans or other cultivation-related services, ask for help in repair works or similar matters, for a much lower price of gold and silver pieces than would be the usual asking price. It was perhaps because the days were so long and the nights were so short at the peak of summer that ghosts and demons and other evils found it difficult to make any moves; either way, the higher ups at Meteor Court decided it was the best time to encourage citizens to bring their non-urgent issues to attention, so that during the other busier months of the year when there were more serious issues to tend to, they wouldn’t be so burdened by the more menial matters.
It was also around summertime where all major rebuilding and reinforcement works were done at the Court, whether it be upkeeping the infrastructure or reinforcing the barriers and wards around Sunshower City. It was the best time to do them since the weather was comfortable and there wasn’t too much rain or snow to hinder the maintenance works. These sorts of activities were a yearly affair, mostly handled by the older cultivators and seniors, meaning Gyuvin, who was just turning seventeen, had never really had much involvement in it.
“Actually, it’s not that busy this year. The Festival preparations are going all right, and the reinforcement works for the wards are already under way. Say, Gyuvin-ah, do you think they’ll let you and Hanbin come back to Meteor Court for the Summer Solstice Festival? Just for a day or two.”
“Sect Leader, I don’t think I’d be much help even if I was there. You could ask them if Hanbin hyung could go back. He participated in the preparations for the Festival last year, right?”
“Ah, it’s not even about that. I was just thinking you might miss the Court and want to come home, but I guess you don’t, you cheeky brat…”
“Of course I do…Sect Leader, if it’s not busy, could you please please please send one of the seniors over? I’m tired of learning about medicinal herbs. Please let us teach them about talismans or something more interesting than plants.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll let Minwoo go over after the Festival. I’ll get him to send a missive to the coalition requesting for them to allow the two of you to come home for that week.”
“Isn’t Minwoo-sunbae in charge of organizing the festival? I thought he’d be the busiest out of all of them. I can’t believe you’re still making him do donkey work at a time like this…”
They were talking about the Sect Leader’s right hand man Jeon Minwoo; he was very young, much younger than Sect Leader Baek and the other leaders, but he had taken on one of the most people-facing positions in the sect ever since the year he turned twenty. His cultivation base was moderately strong but not so strong as to be outstanding, so he took on a diplomatic sort of role, handling relations with other big sects and settling disputes with the common people when the need arose. Nonetheless, as Sect Leader Baek’s second in command, he was usually put in charge of organizing events like these.
“Hey, Minwoo is capable. Besides, I forced him to delegate this year. He has a bad habit of doing all the work on his own. I told him barrier restructuring and ward maintenance has to be delegated to someone else this year or I’m not letting him organize anything.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t happy about that…”
Jeon Minwoo had been put in charge of Gyuvin’s personal training for a while when Sect Leader Baek was away from Meteor Court attending to business matters in the past; Gyuvin liked him, but he recalled how Minwoo-sunbae hardly slept that week because there were just too many things to do and he didn’t really trust anyone else to do it other than himself.
“Sunbae, I could help you look through some of those scrolls, if you’d like,” Gyuvin offered. Minwoo had given him a break in the middle of talisman training for him to catch his breath and rest up, but even then he himself was busy organizing a thick stack of scrolls he’d brought along with him.
“No, don’t touch it,” Minwoo answered, not even looking up from his work. “You’ll miss something and I’ll just have to look through it all over again. Just rest.”
“Sunbae, aren’t you tired? You look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”
Minwoo glanced up from the scroll in his hand and smiled a little. “Don’t worry about me. It’s my job.”
“Let me help a little. I swear I’ll be careful.”
“Really? Draw a shadow deflection talisman right now, the one I just taught you.”
Gyuvin drew one, puzzled. The talisman glowed gold for a second, then fizzled out.
Minwoo looked back down at his work. “You reversed the third stroke again. This is the eleventh time you’ve made the same mistake. Frankly, I would die before I let you touch my scrolls.”
Gyuvin sighed, a little abashed, and sat back down, not arguing any further.
He laughed a little at the memory. He and Minwoo had gotten much closer in the years that passed after; though Minwoo still wasn’t too willing to let Gyuvin butt in on his tasks, everyone had their predictions that one day when Sect Leader Baek retired from his position Minwoo would in all likelihood be his successor, and Gyuvin Minwoo’s successor. Gyuvin had never really thought himself the sort of character fit for leadership. Someone like Hanbin would be much more suitable for that kind of responsibility, he thought, but since it was all gossip and nothing had been officially arranged, he’d decided there was no need to worry about it for now.
“You’re right, he wasn’t. But I can’t let him overwork himself all the time. Anyway, I just got another communication array. One of the merchants is here to talk about the flower arrangements for the Festival. I’ve got to go, so I’ll talk to you again soon. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye!”
The Summer Solstice Festival would be in about two weeks from now. It would be nice to go home, even just for a few days; the Festival was always a big deal, and it had been happening ever since he was a child. On the first day the Court would open its doors to the public and all the citizens would be invited to join in a big noodle-making activity; it began in the morning and would last into late afternoon, and cold noodles would be distributed to everyone who passed by the gates of the Court, perfect to counter the warm summer weather. At night there would be music shows and dance performances all around the heart of the city, and the liveliness would not die down until it was early morning. Adults would drink and attend the festivities, and children would spend the day running around and playing their hearts out, swimming in the lakes when the afternoons got too hot. Summer solstice was an astronomical event and a holiday for ancestral worship, but Meteor Court had always strived to make it more than just that.
Ricky was gone from his spot at the other side of the courtyard when Gyuvin came back out of his quarters. It was not yet dinnertime and he had nothing better to do, so he left in search of his partner. As he turned the corner, he could hear the sound of a sword blade slicing through the air, and he peeked around the corner to see what it was. Ricky was standing, amidst a copse of tall bamboo plants, his sword Tianling glimmering in the afternoon sun.
“Oh, you’re here,” Ricky said, lowering his sword. “Do you want to train here? I can go somewhere else.”
“No, it’s okay,” Gyuvin answered. “Aren’t you worried you’re hurting the bamboo?”
Ricky looked at him like he couldn’t quite tell if Gyuvin was joking. “I put a barrier spell around all of them,” he said, swinging Tianling against one of the tall stalks in demonstration.
Gyuvin looked down, noticing a little willow sapling amongst the rest of the bamboo. They’d trained at this spot often during their leisure hours since it was just next to their sleeping quarters, but he’d never noticed this little sapling growing. “Oh, since when was this here?”
“Oh. I think I remember seeing something small growing there a week ago, but I couldn’t tell what plant it was,” Ricky said, coming over to scrutinize the sapling. “It’s grown fast.”
Gyuvin drew up a water talisman and sprinkled some spiritual-energy infused water over the sapling, which seemed to brighten up almost immediately. “Let’s be more careful when we train here,” he said, laughing. “Children need to be taken good care of.”
The bell sounded through the Peak grounds just then as twilight began to color the sky, announcing the commencement of dinnertime and the end of training for the day.
“Time for dinner,” Ricky said, sheathing Tianling and dissolving the barriers he’d put around the bamboo grove.
“You’re right,” Gyuvin said, shaking the last drops of water off his hands. “Let’s go.”Â
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