Purely An Act of Survival

Hatred & Kim Rok Soo

Hatred. 

An intense negative emotional response towards a certain person and an absolute pain in the neck. 

Cale Henituse wasn't the kind of person who would spare much emotion for hatred. Cale had not hated people, some people yes, but he certainly hated a lot of things rather than people. 

Like, how he hated that his mom was dead and how Harris village was the last thing that represented her death. Or another example, he hated the nobility for how they're treating his new family, and hated the reality why strawberries only grew in late springs or early fall. 

(Why can't they bear fruits earlier? Cale wanted to eat strawberries everyday.) 

Cale had never felt any extreme dislike and a simply undeniable feeling where such consistent loathing would build up in his heart and lose all his self-control. 

So he really needed answers to his questions. 

The reason why Cale hated Choi Han from the moment they first met was pure and simple. He hated how suspicious he looked, his expression dark with the same undeniable feeling and dried blood sticking to his clothes. Hated how he could easily access the territory that the people had protectively reinforced for many many years; he hated how this suspicious creep was demanding an audience with his father after jumping over the wall and just got his ankle twisted in an pathetic way.

Pfft! It was laughable. Cale chuckled everytime he strived to recollect that memory. He found it so fucking embarrassing Choi Han should've seen it and reconsidered his choice of action, oh my god! In his opinion, everybody should have witnessed such an embarrassing feat! 

So he hated Choi Han, his Harris village, and beyond all of that, Cale hated himself for using Choi Han as his scapegoat for all the problems that had nothing to do with that clearly dangerous man. 

Not like it was his fucking fault though. 

Cale was practically asking to get beaten up. He should be glad he isn't dead.

Choi Han had been true about it as well. Extremely cruel, brutally honest with his feelings, and yet mercilessly violent. 

Cale sneered at the memory. 

Perhaps he should've settled with drinking poison after all. Well it was too late now, what has happened had transpired before he even knew it. 

Cale's dark pupils moved towards the gentleman reading a book at his side.

Kim Rok Soo had ‘found’ him bloodied at an alleyway and called the guards. Strangely, this man knew who had beaten him up and also told him everything ‘he had to know’.

The man glanced up from his book and lifted an amusing eyebrow at Cale before introducing himself. “Do you need anything? I'll get you some water.” 

“You killed me, bastard!” Cale exclaimed.

Cale had absolutely no fear and hoping to get his point across the border to get the man's direct attention of what the hell happened between them in their previous lives.

A tense silence hung in the air and Kim Rok Soo's eyes blew wide from shock. He coughed awkwardly. “I know I offered to drive you to the airport but I wouldn't have expected an assassination that took both our lives. I can't see the future, you know.” 

What the fuck. 

“Get to the fucking point. Why are you even here?” Cale interrogated, since he found it too difficult to punch that man because of the excruciating pain. “Go on then, talk.”