Cheon Sa.
That was the name Seo Reun gave when the Chief asked for it.
He should've expected to be asked his name but the thought had never crossed his mind. He'd made no plan for it, had no answer ready. So when the Chief asked, the question struck him like a stone. Unsure how to respond. But he couldn't let the pause stretch too long.
He had been going by "Sa" throughout the journey. Changing it now would only cause confusion. Ah Li, especially, might not understand. The boy had miraculously come up with that name on his own, and something about it had stuck. To keep things simple and make the name feel real - Seo Reun added a few characters to it.
"Cheon Sa," he finally said.
Of course, the Chief announced it moments later to the council when he welcomed him. It was just a name. Still, it felt strange hearing it spoken aloud.
"Cheon Sa," Old Man Choi repeated, testing the syllables. "Unusual. Beautiful, even. Suits your face perfectly." He leaned in slightly. "So tell me something, Cheon Sa… how..."
He never got to finish.
Someone came tearing into the village square, his scream ragged and breathless.
"We're in trouble! CHIEF!"
Seo Reun and Old Man Choi froze, their conversation cut clean. Heads whipped toward the sound.
The man stumbled forward, eyes wild, face drained of all color. Sweat streamed down his temples, and his legs nearly buckled beneath him. He crashed into Old Man Choi, who grabbed him by the shoulders, steadying him with a firm shake.
"What is it? Speak!" Choi barked.
The man gasped, struggling for air. "It's Ah Li... he's by the cliff! He's falling!"
Seo Reun blinked, stunned. That didn't make sense. That can't be right. When they arrived, Ah Li had been fast asleep, his sister Hae Rin took him inside. There hadn't been enough time for him to wake up, much less wander off.
"Ah Li... the Chief's son?" Seo Reun demanded, his voice low and tense.
The man began, "He left before the warriors..."
"Is it the Chief's son!" Seo Reun's voice cracked like a whip, laced with fury and dread.
The man flinched under the weight of his stare, confusion flashing in his eyes. "Yes!"
Seo Reun's blood went cold. His heart slammed into motion.
Without another word, he turned and took off like a bolt of lightning, sprinting in the direction the man had come from. His feet pounded the earth, breath sharp and hard, eyes locked ahead. The trees became streaks of green and brown, wind howling past his ears. Branches snapped underfoot, brambles tore at his clothes, but he didn't stop not even for a breath.
He only paused once briefly, ears twitching, eyes narrowing.
Voices.
Shouting.
Wind carrying panic and fear.
That way.
He pivoted sharply and surged forward again, faster. Faster.
The trees thinned and then vanished.
The cliff.
Seo Reun skidded to a stop, boots digging hard into the soil.
Two children were huddled near a tree, screaming. Two men lay at the edge, staring helplessly below.
Seo Reun darted forward and dropped to his knees at the cliff's edge.
There, dangling from a crooked, splintering branch halfway down the cliff face was Ah Li. The boy's tiny hands were clamped desperately around the branch, his entire body swinging in the wind. His arms shook. His feet kicked uselessly at open air. One shift, one snap, and he'd fall.
Seo Reun's heart twisted violently.
Below, a massive black boar paced at the base of the cliff, its tusks long and jagged, eyes gleaming with predatory rage. It snorted and huffed, foam dripping from its jaws. The ground around it was littered with spears thrown and missed. Some lodged in rocks. Others lay broken. The two men had tried to scare it off.
They'd failed.
The boar wasn't leaving.
Seo Reun's fists clenched. His gaze shot to the branch cracking now, creaking with every heartbeat. No time.
"Ah Li! Don't let go!" he roared.
The boy whimpered in reply, too scared to speak, tears falling freely.
Seo Reun scanned the edge for a way down, but the cliffside was jagged, steep, and treacherous. The men nearby were frozen, overwhelmed.. no plan, no rope, no time.
And then the crowd arrived,
a stampede of feet, shouts, and frantic breaths.
The Chief, robes flapping behind him, came first, flanked by warriors in half-fastened rough-stitched leather and bent metal scraps to serve as armour and villagers still clutching some poorly made farming tools, their expressions shifting from confusion to dawning horror as they neared the edge. The Shaman, staff in hand, whispered incantations beneath his breath as though trying to will the world into slowing down. Even Hae Rin, her face pale with dread, pushed through the growing throng, her eyes already brimming with tears.
The moment the Chief caught sight of what lay below, his son, dangling by a thread over the void, the air was yanked from his lungs.
His steps faltered. His body folded.
He dropped to his knees with a strangled cry, his hands scrambling for the earth as though trying to claw himself closer, as if proximity alone could save the child. His eyes widened, locked on Ah Li with a father's terror - raw, helpless, soul-deep.
"No… no…" he whispered, voice cracking, fingers trembling. "Ah Li a.…"
The warriors hesitated behind him, caught between instinct and disbelief. None of their training had prepared them for this. They looked to one another, then down to the writhing beast below, unsure whether to act or pray.
The villagers were silent now not knowing whether to throw thier farming tools at the boar or not. Old men bowed their heads. Not even the wind dared to speak.
Only the creak of the breaking branch echoed across the cliffside.
And then, the Shaman roared, voice like a strike of thunder:
"ROPE! We need rope... NOW!"
"Rope!" Tien shouted, his voice cracking under the weight of panic. His whole body trembled from fear. He was the one meant to protect Ah Li. And now the boy was hanging over death.
Beside him, Dong Ha and Min Ho knelt at the edge, eyes wide, faces pale, frozen in helpless confusion. Their hands hovered over the ground, unsure whether to reach out or pull back, caught in the awful stillness of not knowing what to do.
But everyone already knew the truth.
There wasn't enough time. Running back to the village, tying a rope, lowering someone, it would all be too slow.
The branch was a drop away from snapping.
Seo Reun stopped thinking.
He moved.
In a single motion, he turned and sprinted toward the nearest warrior, ripping the dagger from his belt without a word. Another step, and he yanked a second blade from a second man. Before anyone could register what was happening...
Seo Reun leapt.
He plunged off the cliffside like a diving hawk, falling fast but steady. Gasps erupted from above. The villagers scrambled to the edge, eyes wide in disbelief.
The boar had no time to react. Seo Reun drove both daggers deep into its back just as he was about to land.
The beast screamed. It thrashed wildly, bucking and turning, its fury now squarely fixed on him as he was still holding the handle of the daggers.
"AH LI!"
Seo Reun looked up and in that instant, the branch snapped.
The boy fell.
But Seo Reun moved. In one fluid motion, he kicked off the boar's back, leaping halfway up the cliff, his foot catching a jagged stone, launching again..
And caught Ah Li in mid-air.
He cradled the boy tight to his chest, twisted midair, and landed squarely on the boar's back. The beast shrieked, bucking in rage.
This made Seo Reun jumed on the ground and dropped low into a crouch, keeping Ah Li secured on his back. The boy clung to him, dazed but alive.
With a cry, Seo Reun grabbed two fallen spears, one in each hand, and slammed them into the boar's snout. It squealed in rage, stumbling.
Then, with a final motion, he yanked the dagger from the beast's back and plunged it deep into its neck.
The boar howled, reared...
...and then collapsed.
Its body struck the rock wall and slid to the ground, blood pouring from its wounds.
Silence followed.
Above the cliff, the villagers stood frozen, mouths open, stunned into stillness. No one spoke. No one breathed.
Seo Reun stood next to the fallen beast, breating hard, dirt and blood streaking his face, Ah Li still clinging to him, small hands tight around his neck almost choking him.
He looked up, squinting into the patchy sunlight that streamed from above, but the faces peering down from the village cliff were blurry and indistinct, smudged by the shadows of leaves and distance. A quiet hum of murmurs floated down, but nothing clear enough to recognize.
With steady hands, Seo Reun gently placed Ah Li on the grass beside him. The child's face was streaked with tears and dirt, cheeks flushed from fear and exertion. Seo Reun knelt, lowering himself until he was eye level with the boy. His expression was unreadable at first - half stern, half weary - but his lips parted, prepared to scold.
Then Ah Li burst into tears again.
"I'm sorry…" the boy sobbed, his small arms throwing themselves around Seo Reun's neck in a trembling embrace.
Seo Reun inhaled sharply at the sudden gesture. For a moment, he remained frozen, his arms hovering awkwardly in the air before folding around the fragile body. The child's thin frame quaked in his arms. The reprimand melted on his tongue.
He held Ah Li tighter.
A beat passed. Then another.
That was when realization struck... sudden, breathless, unshakable.
Seo Reun's eyes widened in quiet disbelief. He had risked his life, with no hesitation, for a child he had met only days ago. The scene flashed again in his mind: Ah Li's scream, his small form dangling over the cliff, and Seo Reun leaping forward with pure instinct, not thought. No plan. No strategy. Just motion. And if he had been late... if his grip had faltered…
He swallowed.
"You're alright now," Seo Reun finally said, voice softer than he expected. "But you mustn't ever do that again. Don't come near this cliff. Ever."
Ah Li nodded solemnly, still pressed against his shoulder, the motion felt more than seen. His tears had lessened, but the hiccuping sobs hadn't stopped completely.
Seo Reun let out a quiet sigh of relief. He hadn't realized just how close the village had been built to such a dangerous ledge. It felt careless, reckless, almost absurd. He made a mental note to speak to the village chief about it. But then again… the village had likely existed here for generations without any major accidents. Maybe they'd grown used to living beside danger. Still, that didn't sit well with him.
When he looked up again, he noticed the crowd above had thinned. Some of the villagers had likely gone to find another path down. A safer route.
His gaze returned to Ah Li, who had pulled back slightly, his face red and puffy. A trail of snot now glistened from his nose down to his chin, and he wiped it unceremoniously with the back of his sleeve before launching himself back into Seo Reun's arms.
Seo Reun almost recoiled, instinctively grimacing. The damp smear on his shoulder made his skin crawl, but Ah Li had already settled against him, resting his head there like it was the safest place in the world.
He sighed again. There was no point in complaining now.
"I don't come here," Ah Li sniffled, responding at last to an unspoken question, "our Shaman said this place is forbidden. We're not supposed to come near the edge."
Seo Reun's brow furrowed. "Then why were you here?"
"I.. I want to follow the warriors… I wanted to see them hunt. I saw a rabbit, and I chased it. I thought I could catch it before it fell. And then… I opened my eyes, and I was hanging off the edge. But Brother Sa came."
He hugged Seo Reun tighter.
"I love Brother Sa."
Seo Reun froze.
The words struck a place deep inside his chest that he had locked shut for years. He had heard them before, from people who had cared for him. People he had left behind. People who had died.
He didn't answer. He couldn't. Instead, he slowly raised his hand and ran it gently through Ah Li's hair.
The boy finally released him, collapsing into a seated position on the grass, but he was still tangled around Seo Reun's lap. Seo Reun leaned back slightly and allowed it. The boy's weight was a small comfort, and patting his head seemed to soothe them both.
"Ah Li," he began, "do you remember what I told you? About wandering around without an adult?"
The boy nodded slowly, eyes cast down.
"Will you listen to me this time?"
"Yes… I will."
"Then you have to promise. And you have to swear by the sacred string."
Ah Li's eyes went wide. He looked both worried and curious. "What if… what if I forget?"
"You're not supposed to forget once you've sworn. That's the point."
A long pause. Then Ah Li sat up straighter, placing his hand over his chest.
"I swear by my sacred string… I won't wander off again."
"Very good," Seo Reun said with a faint smile. "Very good."
He lifted his head at the sound of leaves rustling. A figure was pushing through the narrow path beyond the cliff's edge, trying to make his way down. It was the Chief, his robes snagging against thorns and low branches as he struggled forward with a mix of urgency and relief.
Seo Reun watched him with a strange, quiet amusement.
Ah Li shifted slightly in his lap, and Seo Reun's arms instinctively adjusted to hold him more securely. It was then, as he felt the child's heartbeat slowing against his own, that a subtle awareness stirred in him.
A faint whisper of something unfamiliar.
Maybe… this is what it feels like. The quiet panic. The instinct to protect. The overwhelming relief. The ache in your chest when you realize how close you came to losing someone… even if they're not truly yours.
Just maybe, this was how a father feels.