#mysranks

.

"There's nothing you can do for me," he says. His coat sleeve flickers in the corner of Han Yoojin’s vision. From empty, fluttering in the wind, to whole again.

Han Yoojin thinks, what makes you think I'd want to help you? He hears himself say, hollow, "You don't know that."

"Maybe you could have, before, and I was wrong,” Sung Hyunjae goes on as if he hasn't said anything at all. “But you and I both know there's truly no way for you to help me this time."

A magic stone, he wants to say. It worked before. But Han Yoojin's mana reserves are at an all time low; Attempting the transfer would kill him without a doubt, and he cannot afford to die. Sung Hyunjae wouldn't allow it either.

Sung Hyunjae looks at the conflicting emotions Han Yoojin knows must be warring on his face, and something in him seems to soften, just the tiniest amount. 

He lifts a hand to gently card it through Han Yoojin's hair, as if soothing a child. Han Yoojin doesn't stop him.

"I was living on borrowed time anyway."