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Yoon Tae-ha ran her fingertip over the face of the man who stood stiffly, unlike the brightly smiling woman in the photo. Although one of them seemed to reject the device called a camera, the two looked happy.
Cheoltan is my father.
In their first encounter, Cheoltan had said that he, too, had lost someone precious because of Ark. That person was her mother, Yoon Seo-hyun. When she belatedly noticed that their hands were clasped tightly, the inside of her throat began to sting.
“Did you call him?”
“The Black Lion? He doesn’t know you’re here yet. You saw on the way here. This is a remote area, so communication isn’t smooth. He recently asked me for help with something else. That’s why the meeting was set.”
“It seems the Black Lion is also included in your means of gathering information.”
“Think of it as mutual cooperation.”
“Did this person approach me knowing everything from the start?”
“I can’t make excuses for him as an outsider, but he also has his circumstances. However, you, his child, also have a choice.”
Yoon Tae-ha placed the photo on the desk. She was suddenly afraid it might get wrinkled if she held it. The fact that this was the only photo remaining of both her parents didn’t feel real.
“Meeting him is up to your choice. Besides, you’re currently in a somewhat inappropriate situation for a touching father-daughter reunion. Some people feel more comfortable receiving help when they’re struggling, but others don’t, right? People who feel like their standing shrinks the more help they receive.”
“Was Yoon Seo-hyun the former or the latter?”
“Seo-hyun was the latter. You asked because you guessed, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Anyway.”
Jeon Ye-rim stood up and fully opened the door to the balcony. Fresh air entered the bedroom. Jeon Ye-rim briefly looked down at the garden, then returned indoors. Until then, Yoon Tae-ha was in a staring contest with the photo of her parents on the desk.
“Aren’t the forget-me-not-like flowers very pretty?”
Yoon Tae-ha recalled the field filled with blue flowers. The flowers swaying in the wind were like waves on a calm sea.
“It was like a small sea.”
“Yoon Jung-hoon also doesn’t know that his daughter prepared a separate inheritance for you. If he knew, I wouldn’t be alive. Seo-hyun knew she couldn’t safely pass on the money in her bank account or the gold bars in her personal safe to you. Instead, she prepared an inheritance far away in Korea, something others couldn’t easily take away.”
“It’s more than I deserve. In any way.”
“Seo-hyun would have wanted you to grow up in a place like that. Not a place like Green Sea.”
Having said that, Jeon Ye-rim sat next to Yoon Tae-ha. Her keen gaze turned to Yoon Tae-ha’s ankle. The injury sustained from Kali was still not fully healed.
There was no inflammation or bleeding, but a gruesome purple bruise and an unknown, dark scar remained. Jeon Ye-rim leaned forward to examine the injury more closely, her expression grave as she furrowed her brows.
“Did you get that injury there?”
“A sea serpent bit me.”
“We have a capable wizard here. A specialist in healing. If you permit, I’d like to call her around evening to see if it can be fixed. What do you say?”
Yoon Tae-ha, finding no reason to refuse, nodded.
“And your father will arrive in the afternoon. Do you want to meet him?”
She couldn’t refuse this offer either. Yoon Tae-ha picked up the photo, looked at her smiling parents’ faces, and then nodded a second time.
________________________________________
After eating breakfast, Yoon Tae-ha packed Nox’s share of food and headed towards the house where the relics were hidden. There was an offer from Jeon Ye-rim to drive her there, but she politely declined. She wanted to teleport for the first time in a while.
As she got closer to her destination, the number of drones above her head decreased. Noticing this, Yoon Tae-ha soon arrived at the red-roofed house.
Surprisingly, finding Nox was easy. He was standing in front of a short fruit tree planted within the wall, his eyes closed.
Yoon Tae-ha, thinking it wasn’t the time to ask what he was doing there, deliberately made a sound with her footsteps to announce her presence. Nox turned to look at her. Yoon Tae-ha offered him fruit and bread in a paper bag.
“She told me to bring this for you.”
The extraterrestrial ungraciously took the bag. Yoon Tae-ha idly fiddled with a fresh leaf on the tree. The touch felt pleasant. She was rubbing the leaf with her fingertips for a while when Nox suddenly spoke.
“When I was in Lethe, I examined my brother’s memories to confirm something personally.”
“Oh, really?”
“He also stayed briefly at this mansion. The memories I gathered to show you didn’t include that.”
From the usually unchanging face of the extraterrestrial, a sense of impermanence and loneliness, like that felt when seasons change, came to mind. Was he thinking of his deceased brother?
“He planted this tree.”
“Do you want it? If you do, you can take it. If I pull it out, the tree will be damaged, so you can take care of it yourself.”
“That would not be what he wanted.”
“Then what does the First Prince want? Did you find anything in the memories?”
“In the place where I was born, people plant a tree or flower they’ve personally chosen on the land where they will be buried after death. Not only remains, but small objects the deceased cherished while alive are also buried. They believe that by doing so, the soul finds peace.”
Yoon Tae-ha listened to him until the end and readily said, “If there’s anything you want to bury, you can bury it here. If Raphael, your brother, wished for it.”
“Will you permit it?”
Nox seemed slightly surprised that she had brought it up first. His face showed that he remembered Yoon Tae-ha being chased by the footless soldiers summoned by Raphael.
“Researcher Hyeon Yi-jeong would have permitted it without hesitation. It’s true that he planned to use the裂罅 (fissure/rift) to kill people here, but it’s also true that he helped the researcher. I think both were Raphael’s true intentions.”
“You seem to understand him more deeply than I do, his brother.”
“I don’t think so.”
Yoon Tae-ha left, telling Nox to perform the funeral as he wished. The next place she headed was the forest opposite the house.
The afternoon forest was warm. Walking there, she oddly felt as if Amducias and Cheon Geon-yeong might suddenly appear. She felt as though if she walked just a little further, she would reach the lakeside where she had once lain beside him.
After about an hour, Yoon Tae-ha returned to the flower field. She was captivated by the gently swaying blue light and stood for a long time, admiring the flowers.
As she was about to turn to head back to the mansion to prepare to greet Cheoltan, she sensed an unfamiliar presence. Yoon Tae-ha’s head slowly turned towards the sound. Although it was a situation that called for caution, her right hand remained motionless. It was the familiar silhouette of a man.
The man’s shadow, towering above the blue horizon, saw her and then staggered. Yoon Tae-ha met the eyes of Cheoltan, who looked several times clearer and hundreds of times more exhausted than in the faded photograph.
Cheoltan, stiff and rigid, stood rooted in the middle of the flower field, unable to bring himself to approach her.
He was confused. He seemed to be intensely deliberating what to call her. Yoon Tae-ha fiddled with the necklace around her neck for no reason, then spoke first.
“She told me to come here.”
The necklace was an item that had been in the jewelry box left by Yoon Seo-hyun.
“Mom did.”
Cheoltan approached her with an incredulous look, then suddenly stumbled forward. Startled, Yoon Tae-ha pushed through the flowers and ran to him.
“Cheoltan!”
He was on both knees on the ground, his hands trembling slightly.
“Are you hurt?”
Cheoltan shook his head repeatedly. He seemed unaware of what he was doing. Yoon Tae-ha helped him up and led him out of the flower field.
Stumbling, Cheoltan pushed away her supporting hand in front of the wall, which was half-covered with vines, and then slumped down. Leaning against the wall, he gave a look of disbelief.
“Is this a hallucination? It’s tangible, so it can’t be a hallucination. Is it someone who can use transformation magic? There’s no information you can get by torturing me. Killing me would save you trouble.”
“How would I torture Cheoltan?”
“...Are you real?”
“Don’t you recognize the necklace?”
Cheoltan stared blankly at the pendant necklace around her neck, as if unable to believe what he was seeing. He even slapped his own cheek.
At the shocking act of self-harm, Yoon Tae-ha tightly grabbed his wrist. Cheoltan tried to forcibly pull his arm away, but Yoon Tae-ha overpowered him with brute strength. Being restrained from what he was trying to do, he burst into anger.
“Are you trying to break my arm!”
“This won’t break with just that!”
“What immense, brute strength!”
“You’re the one who gave birth to me so strong! What are you doing in front of your grown child?”
At the word ‘child,’ Cheoltan flinched significantly. Confusion washed over his face, belatedly revealing shame and despair.
“I read Mother’s letter.”
Yoon Tae-ha’s mind was on the verge of exploding from using a word she had never uttered in her life.
“I saw the photo too. The Polaroid you took together.”
Suddenly, Cheoltan buried his face in his thick palms. Soon, sobbing sounds began. The sobbing gradually turned into a mournful wail. Yoon Tae-ha, who had not expected him to cry at all, knelt in front of the man.
“Are you crying, are you crying?”
Upon hearing the question, he wailed as if the world were ending. Yoon Tae-ha was flustered. She, too, was sad and confused. But with the other person weeping so completely, her sadness vanished as if by magic. For now, her only thought was to somehow comfort the bear-like man.
“I’m alive. I’m not a chimera either. I’ll answer anything you ask. Should I tell you what happened at Green Hive? Or should I tell you what Rev’s favorite snack is?”
Despite her coaxing voice, his wailing didn’t stop. Yoon Tae-ha hesitated, then patted the crying man’s shoulder. His violently heaving shoulders were pitiful.
“You were alive, sniff, how dare you not contact me...”
He vented his resentment in a tragically broken voice.
“I have a lot to explain.”
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