"He has already lost the battle, Father. If he is still there, I shall show you who is a better candidate for the throne. I shall show you why you should have chosen me from the start instead of that imbecile."
"What do you mean by 'if he's still there'? Jeonghyun, what have you done?!"
Jeongguk could hear the panic in his mother's voice. He could hear teacups slamming on the table. He could hear his father slamming his hand on the table.
And he couldn't take it.
He finally opened the door and stepped in, ignoring his mother's shriek and frantic questions in favour of not breaking eye contact with his brother as he walked towards him with his bloody sword still dragging behind him.
How had he never noticed the fire that his brother's eyes contained?! Maybe he was too blinded by his love for him to see the hatred burning in his eyes.
And now that he had finally seen it, he couldn't un-see it anymore.
Without even acknowledging his father, he walked close to his brother and threw his bloody sword in front of him. The sword clanged loudly on the floor, making a few drops of blood displace from it. They fell on his brother, one drop making its place right on his forehead.
Jeonghyun stared in shock as Jeongguk bent forward and smudged the drop of blood until it made a huge horizontal mark on his forehead.
Without another word, Jeongguk sat down right where he stood, just a couple of feet away from his brother, the sword, his mother and his father.
"You want to fight me? In a one-on-one battle? Why, hyung?" he asked despite already knowing the answer. He was just in a shocked daze, unable to properly process anything yet.
Jeonghyun didn't talk for a few seconds, but when he did, it made Jihyo shriek again and rush forward to slap him on his face left and right.
"I do not want to battle you one-on-one, little brother. I know you would win. But it is not individual strength that matters for a ruler. It is the strength of people. I have people behind my back. People who are ready to sacrifice their lives right now if I ask them to, just in order to kill you for me. And that is exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to show Father what a useless weakling of a King you would make with no support behind you."
"You've made a mistake, brother. You are blind for not being able to see how much I loved you. If you had just asked me for the throne, I'd have gladly given it up for you. But now that you've gone down this path, you leave me with no option but to show you what it is like to betray me."
Jeonghyun let out a bark of laughter.
"Betray you?" he got to his knees to lean closer to Jeongguk's face. His eyes burned harder than ever as he growled. "The throne belongs to me, little brother. If anything, it's you that has betrayed me," he said.
Jeongguk pushed Jeonghyun away and poked his tongue through his cheek in his burning rage.
"You want a battle? I shall battle you, brother. I don't know how long you've been preparing for this. Just to be fair, give me ten days to collect my own resources. On the dawn of the coming full moon day, I shall meet you on the battlefield. You try anything on me until then and the crown automatically belongs to me. Deal?"
Jeonghyun took his own sweet time thinking Jeongguk's words over. He looked over at his father, who looked almost scarily calm over his only two sons talking about a battle right in front of him. His mother, however, was a crying mess in her husband's warm arms.
"Alright," he said and looked back at Jeongguk with a smirk. "See you there on the full moon day, little brother. Don't you dare run away."
Jeongguk scoffed but didn't bother to say anything back. He just got up and left after throwing his still-calm father a poker-faced glance.
It was surprising just how many people he had thought he could trust actually turned out to be supporting his brother.
He wasn't a fool. He didn't foolishly believe he would win the battle with almost little to no resources and support with him.
Still, he didn't want to back away. He would rather die a warrior than live as a coward.
Two days before the battle, when he was setting up his tent on the outskirts of the battlefield along with the very few people that were on his side, his father visited him.
"Jeongguk-ah. I don't know what to say to you. You still keep proving to me why you would make a better leader than your brother. A kingdom needs a calm and wise king. You might be too young to be wise, but you are definitely calm in the face of such betrayal. Your brother is neither," he said.
It made Jeongguk tear up. "Thank you, Father."
At least, he would die knowing his father considered him a better leader than his brother.
"I shall extend my military support to you, my son."
Jeongguk's eyes widened to the size of the almost-full moon outside his tent. "What?!" his voice came out as a shocked whisper.
Jaewan gave him a small smile. "The officials have extended their support to Jeonghyun under the confidence that I wouldn't bring my soldiers into a fight between my children. They should have known that I stand on the side of righteousness. No matter who is on that side - my son or my enemy."
Jeongguk didn't care about the action of crying being a sign of weakness. He just let those heavy couple of tears clinging desperately to his eyelashes roll down his cheeks.
"Thank you, Father."
"There's more you need to know, son. Your brother has been meticulous at collecting his support. I must give him that credit. He has also contacted the neighbouring kings for their support. It was only the day after he tried to kill you that I found out about it.
I immediately sent messengers to a few other kings that are close to me. You shall receive their support as well, but it won't happen soon. It will take time for them to send their army over. As all of this is very sudden, you must battle hard with the limited resources you have until the rest arrives. The officials can't take their support back now, it is too late for that, but trust me. You have my entire support."
"Thank you, F-Father," Jeongguk's voice broke. He felt like a parrot at this point, repeating the same three words over and over again, but he didn't know what else he could say. He had gone to every single officer on his brother's side to talk them out of their support for Jeonghyun, but except for two officers, the rest of them had stayed stubborn.
Leaving everything to his fate, now that he had his father's support and was waiting for more support which was on the way, he let one of the bloodiest battles ever commence.
The battle went on for almost a fortnight. There were bodies lying everywhere and the ones that were alive and were in a condition to fight were jumping all over them without a care, just to kill more people.
By the time the battle ended, there were only a handful of gravely injured men left alive. Jeongguk was the most injured of them all. Still, he slowly stumbled his way to his brother and collapsed onto his knees next to him.
He was almost about to pass out, but he still shoved at his brother's dead chest weakly.
"Are you happy now?" he whispered and took his brother's hand into both of his hands.
"Do you see this? All of this blood," he gestured weakly to all the lifeless bodies lying around, letting the blood in his own hands smear all over his brother's hand before letting it fall limply against his chest, "right on your hands, brother. May you rot in hell," he said and closed his brother's open dead eyes before closing his own and falling right on top of him.