Walking in the Darkness || Yeosang (A Treasure Tale)

Kang Estate

"No, Mr. Yuma, my good sir. I'm afraid you are incorrect. While the latitude hook is the basic principle for most navigational tools, the astrolabe additionally relies on gravity so that you can calculate your position without seeing the horizon."

Yeosang clucked his tongue gently at Mr. Yuma and promptly returned his nose to his book. The horse let out a content whinny from where he rested across from his human. "I'm glad you seem to remember now, Mr. Yuma," Yeosang smiled at his companion, the horse staring back eagerly. "Now I have to catch up on calculating relative longitude. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you?"

Yeosang sighed and regarded his horse, who had begun chewing on the post of his stall. Yeosang's eyes went wide and he rushed to grab Mr. Yuma's harness and pull him back, pages of schoolwork flying. "Yuma!" He scolded, grasping the horse's face and shaking it from side to side. "You'll damage the wood and get it stuck in your teeth and I'll get in trouble for it."

Yuma let out a frustrated whinny and nosed Yeosang in the chest. Yeosang frowned. "You want to go out?" He didn't expect a real answer, but it got him thinking once the question was out in the air. "If I don't finish my assignment, you know I'll get in trouble with Father."

Yuma made a huffing sound and nuzzled Yeosang's face. Yeosang giggled at the sensation and pushed the long snout away. That was all it took to convince him. "Alright, alright. A quick jaunt and we come back so I can finish."

Without even saddling his steed up, Yeosang opened the stall gate and swung himself onto Yuma's back, urging him on out of the stables and towards the forest.

It took only a gentle squeeze with his thighs into the horse's side and Yuma knew which way to go.

The grove wasn't far from the Kang Family Estate, and Yeosang took to the wooded hills frequently for his stolen moments of tranquility and relative solitude. Relative because he had somehow acquired a number of animal friends.

Yeosang wasn't sure what it was that attracted them, surely the host of creatures living in a wild area would flee from hoofbeats and humans, but at some point in time they had begun to emerge.

They had no quarrel with Yeosang and Yuma once it was clear that they meant no harm, and day by day the two became engrained in the landscape, just two more creatures playing their parts in the symbiotic chain of forest life.

Yeosang found solace in the birds, the butterflies, the deer, and even the occasional fox. He had never fit in at the schoolhouse, and sometimes the other boys said things to him that made him consider running away to this wooded paradise forever.

To the other students, Yeosang was an outcast for any number of reasons. They called him privileged pet, or damaged, or weak, or ugly. Yeosang raised an unconscious hand to the birthmark near his left eye. A few weeks ago, one of the bullies had poked at it and asked why he didn't wash it away like the blemish it was.

Yeosang sighed and dismounted, leading Yuma the rest of the way to the sunny little clearing where he usually lazed the afternoon away.

It was hard enough to be poked and prodded and insulted for his looks. But there was one name that no one would dare call him to his face, though he knew it always circulated behind his back.

Mother-killer.

It choked Yeosang just to think about it.

No matter the lengths his father went to convince him it wasn't his fault, the burdensome load of survivor's guilt followed Yeosang everywhere.

His mother had died giving birth to him, and he had never known her. When his older sister was born, there were no complications. When Yeosang was born, despite the care of some of the best physicians in the country, his mother descended into a fit of convulsions and died a shocking death.