The Rival Who Killed Me Remembers Too novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Draw
We fight a perfect match before nine sects, and under the stands he finishes it with his mouth.
The first public match of the Sword Truce was at noon on the second day.
The arena was a round stone floor on the mountain shoulder, with wooden stands on every side.
The nine sects sat in their colors.
In Woo-jin's first life this match had ended in a draw.
At breakfast he and Mu-yeol agreed, without a word, that it should end in a draw again.
If they changed it, every sect in the Alliance would wonder why.
"Don't hold back," Mu-yeol said, buttoning nothing, because his robe never closed.
"I never hold back."
"You held back the first time."
"I was being polite."
"You were scared of me."
Woo-jin looked at the scar on Mu-yeol's neck, and his forearms, and the size of his hands.
"I was very polite," Woo-jin said.
Mu-yeol smiled at him over his tea, slowly, and Woo-jin forgot the rest of his sentence.
Now they stood forty feet apart on the stone.
Cold Crane hung from Woo-jin's hand, thin and bright.
Mu-yeol stood loose, with Dull Bell still in its cloth, and set one heel back.
The gong rang, and the stands went quiet.
Woo-jin had fought him six times in the first life.
He knew Mu-yeol's rhythm better than his own heartbeat.
He knew Mu-yeol would come in low and long, and that the heavy blade would leave its cloth on the second step.
He knew Mu-yeol would try the high cut when his shoulder tired.
Mu-yeol knew that Woo-jin would go left, always left, and that he counted his breath in threes.
So they fought.
Mu-yeol came in low.
Woo-jin went left.
The wrapped blade passed an inch from his ribs, and he was already turning for the second cut.
The crowd made a noise.
They had gone through the first four exchanges in the time it took everyone to breathe in.
Steel rang, the wrapped sword rang back, and for a handful of breaths Woo-jin forgot the war.
He forgot the cliff, and the reason he was here.
There was only the shape of Mu-yeol's body and the shape of his own, and the sound the stone made when they landed.
On the eleventh exchange Woo-jin's third turn came on time.
He had practiced it in his head every night for ten years.
Mu-yeol's eyes flashed.
He caught Cold Crane on the flat of his blade, and the two swords locked between them with a scream of metal.
They were close enough to share breath.
"You're not late," Mu-yeol said, under the noise.
"No."
"That's a shame. I liked you late."
Woo-jin almost laughed in the middle of a duel.
He shoved Mu-yeol off, and Mu-yeol let him.
They stood a few feet apart with their chests heaving and their blades up.
The Alliance Chief struck the gong and called the match a draw.
The stands roared.
Woo-jin's master clapped, with the stiff pride of a man who has never once said Woo-jin was good.
Mu-yeol bowed to the stands, wrapped his blade again, and walked off the stone without looking at Woo-jin.
Woo-jin counted to twenty.
Then he followed.
Under the wooden stands it was dim and hot and smelled of old cedar and sweat.
The crowd stamped overhead, and light came down in thin gold lines between the planks.
Mu-yeol was waiting in the shadow of a post.
Woo-jin grabbed his collar and hauled him down, and Mu-yeol came, laughing, into his mouth.
"Is this what you wanted," Mu-yeol said, "all those mornings you glared at me over the rice bowl?"
"Shut up."
"I counted. Twenty mornings."
"I'll kill you."
"You did try."
Mu-yeol backed him against the post, and the whole stand creaked.
Woo-jin got his hands under the black robe and found the hard planes of Mu-yeol's stomach, and the skin jumped under his palms.
"On your knees," Woo-jin said.
Mu-yeol looked at him for a long, startled second.
Then he went down, slowly, all six feet four of him folding to the dirt.
He looked up through his lashes.
"Say it again," he said.
"On. Your. Knees."
"I'm on them."
Mu-yeol undid Woo-jin's belt with big careful fingers.
Woo-jin was aching and hard before his trousers reached his boots.
Mu-yeol's mouth closed warm and wet around his cock, and Woo-jin's head knocked back against the post.
He swore.
"Slower," he said.
Mu-yeol slowed.
"More."
Mu-yeol sucked him deeper, his tongue flat against the underside of the shaft, until Woo-jin's knees shook and his fingers curled into the stubble on that shaved head.
The crowd stamped and shouted overhead, and a woman's voice called something about the draw.
Woo-jin clapped a hand over his own mouth.
Mu-yeol hummed, low around his cock, and the sound went through Woo-jin's whole body.
"Please," Woo-jin said, muffled.
Mu-yeol did not stop when Woo-jin begged him to stop.
He did not stop when Woo-jin came down his throat, gasping, with his forehead against the post, while Mu-yeol swallowed every drop of his cum.
When he finally sat back on his heels, his mouth was red, and he looked wicked and very pleased.
"Your turn," Woo-jin said hoarsely.
He dropped to his knees in the dirt in front of Mu-yeol and freed his thick, heavy cock from his robes.
Mu-yeol was huge, and Woo-jin could manage only part of the shaft in his mouth.
He tried to take him deeper anyway, and choked.
Mu-yeol put a hand on the back of his head, very gently.
"Slow," Mu-yeol said. "Breathe through your nose. You're doing well."
Nobody had ever told Woo-jin he was doing well.
His eyes stung.
He sucked the heavy head and used his slick hand to stroke the rest of the shaft.
Mu-yeol came into his mouth with a low broken sound and a name on his tongue.
"Swordsman Gang," he said, and then, softer, "Gang," like a word he had never been allowed to say.
After a while Woo-jin leaned back against the post with Mu-yeol's hand in his hair.
Mu-yeol dug in his sleeve and held out a small twist of paper.
It was a plum candy.
"It's only the second day," Woo-jin said. "You told me the sixth."
"I wanted you to have it early."
Woo-jin put it in his mouth, and he did not cry, and that was the end of that.
They came out from under the stands one at a time, and Woo-jin was the second.
The sun was blinding.
Across the arena, in the Alliance box, sat a small woman in pale grey with a silver-streaked bun and a jade bracelet.
Ok Hwa-rim was the Deputy Chief of the Alliance, called the Compassionate Hand.
She smiled at Woo-jin, the warm, wide smile of someone who remembers your birthday.
She raised her hand and waved.
Woo-jin looked away first.
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