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"Does the pain ever go away?"
Yoo Joonghyuk paused what he was doing and looked over his shoulder to address the question.
"...No." he said finally. "It will never go away. You will adapt to it, learn to cope with it, but it will never leave you."
Lee Hyunsung nodded, exhaling at the answer. Though his captain was very nice to their whole company, the man was very reserved. Which is why it shocked him so much when Joonghyuk told him about the fact that he was a regressor. At the time, his captain had looked so tired, so done with everything, and Hyunsung wondered what exactly he had seen and been through for a man as strong as Joonghyuk to look so tired. Hyunsung didn't even know just how many times Joonghyuk had regressed, but his guess was a lot.
Joonghyuk was a beacon to all of them. A father figure and master to the two teens, Jihye and Namwoon. A friend to Uriel, a constellation who had joined them on their journey. And a partner and leader to Hyunsung.
It hurt Hyunsung to know that he couldn't do much about his captains regressions, but he made a vow to himself that he would give his all, and his life, for Yoo Joonghyuk. The captain held all of them in the palms of his hands, yet none of them would have it any other way. They would all lay down their lives for him, he would never even have to ask.
It hurt. It was absolute horror, terror, and rage that filled Hyunsung as he watched, helplessly, as his captain, the one man he'd sworn to protect with everything he could give, died at the hands of a constellation. He screamed in rage and he charged the constellation, cursing it and promising pain.
Hyunsung didn't remember much after that, finally blinking back what he found were tears continuously falling as he dropped to his knees in front of the mutilated body of a man who tried to fight for everyone. That's when it finally hit. Hyunsung had always known death would come to all, but he never guessed it would find its way to Yoo Joonghyuk. He seemed so invincible, it hurt even more to look at the severed arm and leg off the body.
With shaking arms, Hyunsung wrapped them around the fallen captain as he cried even more. He felt a hand on his back and he turned and saw Uriel, tears also tracing their way down her cheeks. Namwoon let out a cry on pain when he saw his mentor dead, and both he and Jihye fell to their knees. Jihye sobbed even more, begging for it to all be a dream. Her master couldn't be dead. He couldn't. She turned to Hyunsung, tears still spilling over all of their faces as they knelt around the body of their captain.
"Why?" she whispered. "Why does it hurt so much?"
None of them had an answer for her.
"Will it ever stop hurting?" she asked Hyunsung.
He flashed back to when he had asked that same question to Joonghyuk.
"No." he muttered back. "It will never stop hurting. We can adapt to it, and we could learn to cope with it, but it will never go away."
He looked across the bloody battlefield. They were the only ones left alive. He turned back to face the rest.
"I am going to go find him. No matter what I have to do. I will follow my captain."
Jihye, Namwoon, and Uriel all stood with him.
"Then we will go too." they said in unison.
It will never stop hurting, but Hyunsung was willing to do whatever it took to find him again.
Whatever it takes, he thought.
So be it.