Chapter Text
It doesn’t take long before everyone working for the Eunha guild to realize something is not entirely... correct with Cheongmyeong, to put it lightly. His first day there had been golden, with just a little bit of coercion and manipulation, he was able to secure his place in the house as a valuable asset they had to keep happy. He managed to eat his body weight and a half in luxurious food Mount Hua would die just to see and a seemingly endless amount of sugary treats. Sure, he overindulged a bit but as far as Cheongmyeong was concerned, he was just bulking and storing energy for training.
The second day, however, was trickier. While he had only been there for one night, this was technically his third day away from the sect and his pack scents were slowly but surely fading away. The scents of the Un generation were deteriorating fast and his own scent of plum blossoms was growing more and more apparent. Harder still was trying to avoid the employees of the Eunha merchant guild who had been casting suspicious looks at him since he arrived and doggedly followed him wherever he went.
Logically, he understands that a child showing up on behalf of an entire sect, failing or not, was not the norm. They had every right to be suspicious but their observations were coming closer and closer to uncovering a truth no one would want to contend with.
“Cloves? Tree of Heaven bark? Cordyceps?” his minder reads out, doubt coloring his tone. “We’ve already tried all this and more for the master, do you really believe this will help him?”
“Uhhh, yep,” Cheongmyeong replies convincingly, or at least an approximation of it. “It’s, uh, a proprietary mix unique to Mount Hua.”
Which was technically true, when Cheongmyeong had been a child and not allowed off the mountain, he had gone through a bit of a phase where he’d mix his own concoctions to try and mask his scent so he could be like the rest of his generation and go wherever he pleased. This particular mix was one he made at the age of five after a hair-raising fight with his master when he was forbidden to go down the mountain and into the next town over with Cheongmun and Cheongjin to run errands.
“Right,” the attendant says, doubting, he raises an eyebrow when Cheongmyeong only keeps smiling up at him looking guileless and innocent. “I’ll get these prepared.”
He walks away for a moment before turning back around.
“Please,” the attendant says, on the edge of begging. “Please stay in the compound, try not to explore outside until I come back.”
“Sure, sure,” Cheongmyeong agrees dismissively. “Got it, thanks old man!”
The attendant winces, casting one more suspicious look over his shoulder as Cheongmyeong waves him off, before disappearing down the hall. Cheongmyeong slides the door to his room closed for around four seconds before peeking back out. He scopes the hallway for a moment before trotting out, dodging the odd attendant busily going through their duties and days.
He knows he should be staying put but he’s getting a little stir crazy with everyone’s increased coddling. With the way he’s been tailed and fussed over for the last day, he knows that they’re getting too close to the truth. Their instincts were already acting even before their minds could conceive of it and Cheongmyeong isn’t looking forward to the fall out. He’s already had to make excuses for why he refuses to take advantage of their truly palatial bathhouse and that was a sacrifice in and of itself. Still, he tastes and savors freedom for a moment, walking around a truly ostentatious courtyard when he’s accosted by some Zhongnan pup.
“Good day, young one,” the infant calling him young greets him genially, head bowed incrementally and hands clasped tight. “My name is Lee Songbaek, a second grade disciple of Zhongnan, it’s an honor to meet a disciple of Mount Hua.”
“Yeah,” Cheongmyeong replies, annoyed. “Great.”
There’s a tick of rage in the corner of Songbaek’s eye that gives him some satisfaction and he smothers the grin threatening his nonchalance.
“Yes,” Songbaek grits out, hands gripped so tight that the veins in his hands stand out. “And can I know your name?”
“I don’t know,” Cheongmyeong says with a put upon hesitation. “My sasuks told me to be careful around strangers.”
And they did, in fact, do so - they had a whole hour long lecture about strangers and the dangers of too-good-to-be-true promises like Cheongmyeong was some snivelling child and not like he was pushing 90. And regardless of his true(?) age, it was insulting to Cho Sam who was nearly 15 and had a functioning brain. It pricked at his pride to act like this but the immediate flush on Lee Songbaek’s face was satisfying. Nothing like indisputable youth to put useless posturing into perspective; after all, to the rest of the world, Lee Songbaek was a man in his early twenties picking a fight with a child almost a decade younger.
“Of- of course,” he stutters out, looking like he was hit across the face before shaking his head. “Are you, perhaps, a new initiate? Zhongnan and Mount Hua share friendly relations and host an annual contest. If you were around last year, you must have seen me. I’m not a stranger, really.”
Well, that couldn’t have sounded more suspicious if he tried; the other Zhongnan child claps a hand to his forehead with an audible slap and Songbaek flushes, awkwardly dropping his hands from their clasp to fiddle with the pommel of the sword tied at his waist. Cheongmyeong, not for the first time in this life, just sighs to himself and decides to be play dumb, if only to spare these stupid hormonal children their pride.
“Is that so?” he says, smiling sunnily, hands behind his back and rocking on his feet. “Sure, I believe you.”
“Right,” Songbaek sighs, relieved. “Right. See? Nothing to worry about.”
“Right, absolutely nothing to worry about,” Cheongmyeong echoes, tone edging into impertinent. “So, what do you want?”
In retrospect, the entire situation would have been funnier if his carefully concealed secret wasn’t blasted into pieces with the very dramatic fountain of blood expelling from his mouth. He only has himself to blame, he could have gone into this without the histrionics but how could he be convincing without a little bit of stakes? Lee Songbaek was decent for his age but he wasn’t good enough to actually put Cheongmyeong into mortal danger, he had to make his injury visually and situationally realistic.
The shock blooming on Songbaek’s face was especially satisfying after seeing him act arrogant and haughty, even more so with his struggle to land one good hit on Cheongmyeong. It stopped being satisfying when the shock turned into a pale horror and stark fear, the color draining from his face like he was the one bleeding out in the middle of the courtyard. He drops to his knees in Cheongmyeong’s blood with an audible splash and that’s when Cheongmyeong stops to consider that he may have gone too far with his trick.
“No, no, no,” Songbaek chants, near tears and hands hovering but not touching, trying to find the injury. “No, no, what have I done? What have I done?”
It’s a little too late to sit up and go ‘hahaha, it was a joke!’ when Hwang Jongui arrives exactly when Cheongmyeong told him to, bringing along the attendant who had been watching over him, a compound guard and a doctor. Cheongmyeong had told the attendant and the vice president both what he was going to do but it must have been a shocking sight nonetheless because they both stop dead in their tracks, looking sick.
Cheongmyeong peeks out of half-lidded eyes to catch the drama and fights the urge to flinch when the compound guard acts first, Songbaek goes from hovering over him to face down in the stones, subdued and held by the back of his neck in a tight grip.
Realistically, it shouldn’t have happened - the compound guards posted around the Eunha merchant guild were mostly armed swordsmen with little to no martial training, mostly relying on the technique the imperial army used. Someone of that caliber would have normally would have been unable to touch Songbaek but it was like the child gave up, shuddering and nearly hyperventilating as he stayed pinned against the ground.
“How dare you?” the compound guard growls and it’s filled with a potent enough rage that Cheongmyeong’s eyes open fully this time - something was wrong. “Deplorable! They should stone you in the streets for this!”
“I didn’t know, I didn’t-, I’m-, I didn’t know,” Songbaek babbles, voice thick and tearful. “I swear, I didn’t know I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.”
“Do you think that matters?” the compound guard sneers, hateful and disgusted, eyes focused on Songbaek even as Jonghui and his attendant clatter noisily to the ground next to him.
“Cheongmyeong!” the attendant calls out horrified and sick. “Doctor, doctor please! Dear heavens, there’s so much blood. Young master, there’s so much blood!”
“C-calm, calm down,” Jonghui says, looking everything but calm himself; his eyes dart from Songbaek to Cheongmyeong’s confused wide-eyed stare to the blood crawling across the stone courtyard. “He’ll be-, just fine, he has to be fine-, doctor! Damn it all, hurry!”
“What-,” Cheongmyeong rasps out before he’s cut off by the attendant’s tearful shushing.
“Shh, no, save your strength, shh, it’s okay, it’s going to be just fine,” which, yeah, he knew; they both knew everything was just fine - he had told both the vice president and this attendant what was going to happen, why were they acting so shocked? “Don’t move, Cheongmyeong-ah, be still.”
He recognizes the cooing tone, the uncomfortable and unasked for affection, the too familiar way they’re referring to him even though they had been mostly neutral, if hospitable. A sheepish dread crawls up Cheongmyeong’s spine at the way Jonghui looks at him shell shocked, regretful and furious as the scent of a hurt omega child starts to cloy the air in earnest.
“Shit,” Cheongmyeong mutters under his breath, closing his eyes again to avoid the reality he just upended. “I should have never left Mount Hua.”