#he'd go mad w raw sheer anger.. lashing out ..hurting others hurting himself..until it fizzles away into nothingness..

[ge]

ouugh... old, jaded tang bo who has locked himself up into his own corner of the family home. children of the tang family grew up with warnings to not go anywhere near his dwelling

this tang bo he saw how his family did nothing to help while his hyung-nim's sect was burnt down, how their sacrifice was rewritten and discarded by the ten great sects. in the position he was in, i actually think he would have gone mad with anger.... only when chung myung came back does he start going out again but he still treats everyone else coldly

(along with his smoking habit, he's also picked up another: constantly polishing that red plum blossom hair pin of his. its tips are chipped and the paint has faded. however, considering how old it was, it's a testament to its owner's reverent care that it can still serve its purpose)

(chung myung buys him a new one, but tang bo only does the same thing to the second)

UR SOO NUTS SAYING THIS TO MEEEEEE i literally think about this all thee fucking time ohh my days theres such a stark difference between a man mentally reincarnated just moments after his death, thrust into a new world with no time to adjust or settle vs a man who survived his death and had to live every single one of those long aching days alone and weary and aging and never finding a way to move on.. a man who lost everything and nothing, forming new bad habits to break the old, lighting incense for new tablets he can hardly stand to look at, locking himself away and becoming his families most revered recluse…

the worst part of tang bo survives the war au is that, like chung myung, he never expected for anyone to suddenly return from the dead for him (reincarnation is not real of course), except if he did, once, entertain the idea when he was still young and mourning and grieving and in the throes of denial, that desperate spark would have thoroughly been squashed as the days turned to months turned to years turned to decades turned to centuries and nobody came for him