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soo-won · 1 year

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Rereading the beginning of the Eunyung's Home arc right now and yeah...when Eunyung's mom tells him "why don't you just apologize? Why do you bring up the school play event again after so many years?" it really connects with what Eunyung says to Haejoon in ch201, huh. That it would be so nice if he was nice like Haejoon and could accept everything and not be so hung up on things like that. Maybe if he was like Haejoon his relationship with his mother could be better?(I don't think so. but Eunyung maybe does).

But in parallel we also see how this aspect of Eunyung, being hung up on things and staying angry can also be helpful. It's because Eunyung is like that that he doesn't let Haejoon apologize to his mom when he shouldn't have to. It's because he is like that that he makes Haejoon have a medical diagnosis after his homeroom teacher hit him. It's because he is like that the bullying situation in the Marie arc could be resolved as well. As Haejoon says, it's also thanks to Eunyung that he could sort out things with his uncle and receive more allowance. This side of Eunyung that every adults around him try to make him suppress is good and healthy. It's this anger that causes change. It makes things harder for him and it causes more ruckus, sure, but Haejoon's acceptance in these moments is hurtful as well, it doesn't resolve the issue at hand, it just makes him carry all the burden. Haejoon grew up wanting to cause the less problems and worries possible to his mom (and now his uncle) and avoids confrontations with adults as a result (also a direct consequence of when he lost his mother probably), while Eunyung grew up fantasizing about his parents receiving punishments for all their abuse. The consequences were so bad to him when he tried it's the one thing he gave up on though, so it's no surprise he lashes out whenever else he can.

When you think about it it's also connected to their level of trust in adults. Haejoon relatively trusts adults. If you take the New Dorm arc, Haejoon was planning to tell other adults about the situation there, before Eunyung told him not to (pretty violently lol) because he can't trust adults to deal with it or believe them. So Eunyung uses his own way to deal with it and it works! But Haejoon trusts adults to deal with other adults and yeah. That's how it should be and go. But Eunyung presents the "but" of this. That's how it should be, but in some cases it doesn't work because adults are douchebags, and for Eunyung it's the majority of them. Haejoon grew up with a good(even if not perfect) mom getting angry for him so he knows good adults exist. He also was moved by Juwan's mom's kindness as well(even if that makes him embarassed too). Eunyung doesn't, though, so he has to rely on himself and get angry for himself, because otherwise who will?

Writing all this I'm like....yeah No Home is all about balance. Haejoon and Eunyung searching for the right amount of distance and closeness in their relationship. Searching for the balance in their distrust of adults too. Eunyung can't trust adults for very understandable reasons, but the arc with Haejoon's uncle shows us that adults are simply struggling sometimes and trying their best, even if they're clumsy. It's true Haejoon's uncle was drinking, but he's not an irredeemable piece of shit like his father either. But it was a situation where Haejoon couldn't rely on any adults either, after all his uncle is basically his only family left. And that's why Eunyung's point of view was so helpful.

Idk man I just love the hundreds of layers in this manhwa so much. Like it's not just "the best is not to be extreme <3 not too much not too little" it's "sometimes you have no choice but to be too much. Sometimes it's destructive, though. But sometimes it's the only solution. And /sometimes/ you need a bit of the two. Sometimes both solutions work equally well. Sometimes the consequences are bad and sometimes everything ends well" like yeah life really be complicated and unpredictable like that. There isn't one guide to follow and that will work no matter what, you constantly have to adapt to the situations and people around you. Something something Eunyung and his father but if I don't end this post now I never will.

#no home manhwa #txt #ch201 gave me severe no home brainrot im afraid #please read no home if you havent!! i say this every day i know but it's really .so good #i can't put it into words #but it changes your brain chemistry #Wanan the god of storytelling fr #I swear I didn't plan to write so much but I kept having new ideas and new things to say...#So scared to post this in the wild. Afraid to be cringe #But I'm free!!!#This is my default mode btw. I fight constantly the urge to talk non stop like that 7/7 and sometimes i lose.#no home #lumen rants

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hythlodaes · 4 months

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until we get it right emile/estinien - 1.9k words cw for references to past violence

wild west au heavily inspired by this gpose by @coldshrugs <3 estinien becomes something of an outlaw in seeking his personal vengeance, and emile is sent to stop him but ends up joining him at the promise of earning his own. title + fragments come from wishbone by richard siken!

let’s just get going, let’s just get gone...

—

They make camp for the night.

Or rather, Estinien makes camp for the night while Emile stands far too still in the distance. Estinien stares at the line of his back through the softening smoke. They’ve hardly spoken a word since they skipped town—what was supposed to be a quick stop for supplies ended in nearly getting caught, and more violence than either of them intended. They’re a safe distance away, enough that Estinien felt comfortable building a fire and setting out their bedrolls, gathering the food rations they have left, and all the while Emile has stood by the creek, unmoving.

He said he was just going to wash up.

Estinien’s jaw aches from clenching it this whole time. The answers to his questions feel too far out of reach—they’ve been through too much to know what’s wrong without asking. Estinien told him there would be bloodshed from the beginning, and it was a warning and a promise all the same. It’s the reason why Emile joined up with him at all.

Come on, he thinks to himself. Just move.

But nothing changes as the fire cracks to life, the only sound besides the wind chasing through this empty space.

It’s just them, and sometimes Estinien wishes it wasn’t.

“Emile!” he calls, gritting his teeth at the harsh sound of his voice cutting through the evening. Emile still doesn’t move, doesn’t turn his head, and Estinien swears under his breath before he gets up. He repeats his name as he draws closer, the sound of his boots crunching over the dirt. Emile’s hands are clenched at his sides, but as Estinien finally reaches him, he can see the way they shake.

“You over here sulking, or what?” Estinien asks, refusing to let his heart soften at the way Emile stares into the water, his face marked red with blood, his sleeve soaked with it from where the bullet grazed his arm. He finally looks over at Estinien, his eyes dark, his mouth pulled into a tight line, and it takes a long moment for Estinien to realize that he’s angry.

“Why did you do that?” Emile asks, and his usually soft voice turns sharp. He doesn’t need to clarify—Estinien can still see the gun pointed at Emile, can still recall the way he didn’t hesitate to raise his own to protect him. It was just one quick pull of the trigger...

“Because you’d be dead if I didn’t,” he answers, glancing at Emile’s injured arm. A few inches over and that would’ve gone through his heart. Emile’s brows pinch together before he looks away.

“I could’ve taken him.”

“You could’ve had a hole in your chest,” Estinien bites out. “Then where would I be?”

You. He’d meant to say you.

Luckily, Emile is too upset to notice. “His blood should’ve been on my hands, Estinien”

“You don’t owe me, if that’s what you’re wonderin’.”

“It isn’t about that,” he returns. “I...”

Estinien waits, but Emile doesn’t finish his thought. They stand side by side at the edge of the creek, and the setting sun ignites the shallow water in shades of pink and orange. Estinien kicks a rock into the stream. “Is this still about your honor?”

“No,” he answers, and the anger leaves his voice entirely. “Just forget it.”

Finally, he moves. He turns back towards camp, taking off his hat as he shakes his hair out. He looks golden in this light, like something that was made to reflect the sun, and this time Estinien is the one frozen where he stands, trying to understand what he meant.

He pulls his bandana free from his neck and wrings it out in the water a few times before he follows him back to their camp. He means to hand it to him but falters as he approaches him sitting by the fire, frowning at the flames. He looks up at Estinien with a question in his eye that only grows as Estinien crouches before him.

“You’ve got...” Estinien trails off. Emile glances between him and the bandana in his hand, eyes cautious, but he nods. Estinien lifts it to wipe at the dried blood on his cheek, keeping his touch as gentle as he can. He can feel Emile’s gaze still on him, but he focuses instead on his tanned skin, on the freckles that multiply daily as they travel by the relentless sun. He can feel Emile’s breath against the side of his hand—the way it comes shallow, the way he holds it as Estinien brushes the corner of his mouth.

There’s an ache in Estinien’s chest that never goes away.

“Take off your shirt,” he says as he pulls back, ignoring how his hand trembles the slightest at the thought of taking it off himself. “You can borrow my other one until we have the time to mend it.”

Emile shakes his head. “It’ll do for some time yet. It just needs a wash.”

Still, he undoes the buttons and Estinien looks away, retreating to grab his makeshift medicine bag from the saddle. It’s no more than a few tinctures and a bandage, but that’s all he needs. When he returns, he stops short at the sight of Emile by the fire’s glow. The flames lick at his naked skin, orange light ghosting over his exposed muscles as he pushes his hair to his uninjured side.

The wound, Estinien reminds himself.

It’s uglier up close, grazing his bicep, angry and raw. It’s stopped bleeding but it’s still completely open, and Estinien takes a breath before he touches his elbow, pulling his arm closer. There’s a chill that’s settled in with the night, but Emile’s skin is warm against his hands, making him want to draw even closer. Emile merely keeps his gaze locked on the fire in front of him as Estinien begins to wrap the bandage around his arm.

“My Ma taught me how to do this,” Estinien murmurs, just to fill the silence between them. “I was always bleedin’ from one injury or another—I think she knew it would save my ass someday.”

It gets Emile to look at him, his eyes still so dark. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, but then, quietly, “Do you miss her?”

Estinien swallows hard. “Every day.”

He thinks Emile’s the only person that knows this side of him. He’s the only person he’d let see this side of him. They’re in this together, and sometimes that feels like a vow of its own. They’re married to their vengeance, and they will see it through or they will die—they would rather walk through hell than leave the crimes against them unanswered.

It’s something only they can understand now, and as much as they rile against each other, it binds them together.

It leaves room for confessions like this:

“I don’t know how I can go home after this,” Emile chokes out as his breath hitches. “I don’t know how I can face my mother.”

Estinien doesn’t let his hands pause. He finishes wrapping the bandage around his arm, each motion smooth and methodical, something reassuring where words can’t be. There’s nothing he could possibly say—they aren’t good men, and they’ve walked too far down this path to turn back now.

“Is that what you want?” he asks. “To go home?”

Emile shakes his head. “No, I… I need to do this, but I won’t be able to forgive myself for it.”

Estinien ties off the bandage but finds that he can’t let go of him yet. He smooths his thumb across the skin beneath it, and his next words come hushed: “Can you forgive me?”

“You don’t spare me any guilt by killin’ for me.”

“I’m not trying to,” he murmurs. “I’m just keeping you alive.”

“Why?”

The sky grows darker, and with it the fire glows brighter. It highlights the pain in Emile’s eyes, and Estinien thinks he could do anything for him—he could protect him, he could avenge his father, he could bandage any wound, but there’s nothing he could do to take that hurt away.

He thinks he’d still like to try.

“Because you hum when we’re on the trail—for hours at a time. It must be every song you ever heard, because each time I look back, I think, he’s bound to stop after this one, and then you keep humming. It annoys the hell out of me,” Estinien says, and he finds his smile threatens to crack at Emile’s soft laugh. He takes a breath, sobering as he feels the full weight of it in his chest. “It would be awfully quiet without you, Emile.”

Emile stares at him for a moment before he turns away, scrubbing his free hand over his face, and his voice is muffled and shaky when he says, “I can stop humming, if it annoys you.”

“No,” he says, and he laughs despite the way it aches. “We’ll keep going, okay? Just as we are.”

“Just as we are,” Emile repeats. He looks back at Estinien, eyes a little watery but he nods. He pulls his arm away from where Estinien still holds it, and then he gets up, digging through their bag for the spare shirt they have. He throws it on while Estinien throws another piece of wood on the fire, and it seems that they agree on letting the conversation go.

He doesn’t say anything when Emile lays on his bedroll after—doesn’t say that it’s too early to sleep, that they haven’t eaten yet, that he feels like all his emotions have spilled out everywhere to be seen. He stays up, staring into the fire as the stars begin to turn in the sky, and he listens for any danger in the distance. It’s just them.

It’s just them, and most of the time Estinien is grateful for that.

He doesn’t remember when they started placing their bedrolls next to each other, but it’s become part of their routine. It makes it easier to share body heat when the night grows cold, but neither of them say anything when they curl up together regardless of the temperature. Estinien tosses one more piece of wood on the fire before laying beside Emile. He listens to the sound of his breathing, judging if it’s heavy and even enough to mean he’s asleep, before he inches closer to press his back along his.

Like this, they guard each other through the night.

In the morning, they can pretend that this didn’t happen. In the morning they can wash the blood clean from Emile’s shirt and stitch up the hole in the sleeve. They have a lead on their next destination, and they’ll pack up their horses and take to the road, where Estinien will count the minutes since the last time he looked over his shoulder at Emile. He’ll memorize the slight smile that pulls at Emile’s lips under the shadow of his hat, and he’ll ignore the warmth in his chest, the weight of his gun at his hip, and all that he would do to keep him safe.

And maybe, one of these days, they’ll find what they’re looking for.

—

Do you know how it ends? Do you feel lucky? Do you want to go home now?

#emile/estinien #oc: emile jenidaut #estinien varlineau #my writing #ffxiv #IDK WHAT THIS IS #i just. couldn't stop when my brain started rotating around the idea #small essay but it's so important in canon for them to find their vengeance separately #that they need to heal on their own #and in this au they're doing it together and it brings out the worst sides of them #and the guilt of what they have to do to get there #bc they could be good guys !! they just had a lot happen to them #and they only enable each other #initially they were supposed to be a lot more angry at each other #but emilien are so in love they wouldn't let me #also i was going to have estinien kiss the bandage but he wouldn't #so maybe there's still more to come.....#this is so funny to me byeeeee

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