an unfortunate change in genre

Part 58

The path ahead looked a bit rough. It was a good thing that Roksu didn't have to worry about it at all from his perch on Choi Han's back. He rested his chin against the swordmasters shoulder as they continued the journey.

"Tired?" Choi Han asked and there was just the hint of teasing amusement to his voice that caused Roksu to huff in discontent.

"How much longer?" Roksu asked instead of answering and he could swear that Choi Han thought his response was amusing. It wasn't that Choi Han really did or said anything, there was just something about the feeling between them.

"Shouldn't be long now." Choi Han informed him. "Would you like me to speed up, Roksu-nim?"

'Scary bastard. Hiking for this long while carrying a weight and he can still speed up?' Roksu shook his head and closed his eyes, thoughts drifting away as he contented himself with Choi Han's warm back.

How strange.

They were right at each other's sides and there was absolutely nothing wrong in their current mood.

And yet Roksu couldn't help but feel like there was a distance between them. Some unfillable gulf that left him feeling unsatisfied.

It was a weird and senseless feeling so Roksu dismissed it and ignored the aching in his heart that grew alongside it.

And if maybe he stayed a bit closer to Choi Han after that, who was to say why or what inspired it?

Roksu was sporting a headache.

His favorite spot to nurse a headache, leaning against Choi Han, was currently unavailable and so he was left with the three rather obnoxiously loud dragon's in front of him.

To be entirely fair, Eruhaben wasn't as loud as the other two but he also didn't do very much to quiet him down. Then there were the guards that had come and gone due to the third dragon's invasion of palace grounds and the brief conversation with Alberu where the crown prince had the nerve to shoot Roksu a look like he was the cause of this headache. Which was ridiculous.

And now in the groggy post napping state that had been so rudely interrupted, Roksu was trying to decipher what the ever loving fuck was going on around him.

So far as he'd been able to follow along, the cotton candy pink dragon who was excitedly holding up a rather gaudy looking book with the reference that most religious folk reserved for holy texts and proclaiming all sorts of headache inducing things about Roksu that only held a sprinkle of truth to them. Raon was meanwhile passionately correcting the cotton candy sycophant with even stranger misunderstandings about Roksu that made him sound like some sort of saintly figure. Eruhaben oscillated between expressing a disingenuous desire for them to leave and asking for more information.

It didn't leave Roksu with a lot of space to interject. Perhaps he would have found a way to do just that regardless of the difficulty level of the task but the exhaustion had begun to eat away at his consciousness yet again and he was beginning to wonder if he could manage to just sleep through the noise.

"...human?"

Roksu blinked groggily, he must have fallen asleep again. Raon's large blue eyes were sparkling with worry as the noise around him spiked again.

"I'm okay." He said, in a voice that didn't sound remotely okay, and attempted to pat Raon's head. He missed by a lot and that caused even further noise.

He'd deal with it later. He was too tired right now.

By the time Roksu woke up again, he was in his bed. He could feel the children cuddled up alongside him and the sound of their breathing let him know they were asleep. The quiet darkness of the room let him know that he'd been asleep for a while now.