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Mun's gaze has changed. Hana refuses to pretend like she doesn't see it.
Hana isn't angry. She could've been, but everlasting dull grief consumes her, leaving too numb and paralyzed to manage any other feeling. She doesn't even know what exactly she's mourning. Or whom.
Hana can't remember when was the last time she saw Mun cry.
Was this too tough on him? Being the youngest yet strongest member of the team, always expected to stay strong, stay put, stay energetic. Constantly missing school, constantly lying to his grandparents, constantly wearing himself out to the point when waking him up in the mornings is nearly impossible, a terrifying in its casualty routine both of them got used to. Reliving his parents death, saying final goodbye to them, the one he was robbed of, the one he wasn’t supposed to have, and then linearly acting more and more fine, cause that's what he was supposed to do. Accept his closure. Move on. But did he really?
Hana knows it better than anyone else. She never did.
She watches him destroy each and every enemy meticulously, obsessively, with blank expression and robotic movements. She watches him breathe heavily and wipe sweat from his forehead in the training room at 1 am. She leaves quietly, gently closing the door. She reaches out time and time again, pats his shoulder, her smile bitter and brief, his eyes cold and absent. Years of pushing people away made her excruciatingly awkward. She steps back with her fingers weirdly trembling.
How did he grow up this rapidly? When did they grow apart? Was it when the warmth in his eyes got replaced with blind determination? When despite Motak's jokes about how's he will definitely ask her out after his graduation ceremony, he never did? Was it when he stopped looking for excuses to stay with her, always finding better, more important things to do now? Or when he started hanging out with Ungmin and Juyeon less and less, pages of his sketchbook flooded with evil spirits' photo portraits, taking place of where comic outlines and original characters used (ought) to be? Was it when he missed his haircut days a few times and then went with it? Ms. Chu kept tutting and offering to cut his hair herself until she gave up. Mun was always too busy.
Mun is busy, oh so busy. Jeokbong brings more trouble than help, and Mr. Ma is stronger than any evil spirit they have ever fought, or so he thinks, lowering his gaze, not letting it meet Hana's worried one. Mr Ma is in danger (Mun's heart is too, and he is not sure he'll manage to save them both).
Sometimes he wishes to turn back time to the day he first met her, when everything was impossibly hard and majestically new.
Now she has to commit to an extra effort to knock him out. Now he is in charge of the trainings. Now when she looks at him so softly it makes his head spin and ache and yearn, he blinks and turns away. Now, they are swept into the hurricane of recent events, torn apart and blindfolded.
Now Hana is spitting blood, and he is too focused on his rage to notice it. Too preoccupied with his grief to hear her struggling with Gelly's spiked brass knuckles at her neck. Later, when the danger has passed and she is already healed by Ms. Chu, lying with her lips impossibly pale, impossibly still, all he can feel is guilt. It's all he knows, as he watches her chest move so quietly, so faintly, practically unnoticeable to a fleeting gaze. Mun notices, counting her every breath. It's all he knows when he slips out of her room with the first morning rays. She doesn't need to find out he was here the whole night.
He is still not enough.
He has done everything for this not to happen, making their job his first and only priority, trained himself until his hands started to act before his mind did, until his feet were swift and steady, until his mind was clear in the face of danger.
And yet, she is here, she is hurt, and he is to blame.
Dohwi is sweet and definitely deserves Hana. Mun pretends not to see her worried eyes once again, when he confidently says they are family. He smiles nonchalantly and pours some more soju instead. After all, he is old enough to drink now. So he drinks until he's sick.
He has no one to blame, really. Because nothing was an accident. Every time he turned away from her, chose another counter to partner with, avoided her hand (if she'd touched him, she'd know), smiled in a little (lot) bit more restraint way than he'd craved to, evey single time he chose to praise her improvement way less than she deserved — he took a step back.
Now it is already too late to take a leap forward. The ice they are walking on is too thin, too crisp, too sharp.
And yet...
Mun's heart has never once changed. Mun makes sure to pretend like it isn't killing him.