Chapter 38 – Lee Ji-Yeon’s Past

Old military demarcation line.

Beyond the gloomy place that is now in ruins and the forest covered with demonic spirits, Lee Ji-yeon and Lee Do-gyeong came to find Yoochun.

She spat embarrassing words to Do-gyeong Lee, calling her dad for the first time in 10 years, and pretended to be rational, even turning away from Killian’s suspicious eyes.

It was because I was anxious and worried.

When Lee Do-kyung said that something happened in the north and that it was related to Yoochun, Lee Ji-yeon’s heart skipped a beat.

She was imagining that if she was wrong she would be bad. Sweat came out of her palms as if she had hyperhidrosis.

Someone she had a crush on that she didn’t think she liked, but she had a crush on for reasons she didn’t know. When she said that such a person might be in danger, she simply followed her heart.

“Mr. Yuchun!”

So I was relieved when I found him, who seemed to be fine, crawling through this dangerous land where I had never been before and crawling as fast as I could to a distant place called Seongcheon.

Next to him, his father, Lee Do-kyung, was taken aback by the appearance, but he didn’t care.

“Mr. Yuchun…? It’s really good right? Par, why the arm again?!”

When Yoochun said he was okay, she was startled when she saw his arm, which she thought was fine.

It was black and cracked, and it looked unusual no matter how you looked at it.

When a surprised Jiyeon Lee reaches out to her and tries to implement the best healing magic she can, although not her major.

“It’s not possible! Mr. Delay!”

Yoochun said that and tapped her hand! I hit it hard enough to make a noise.

“…Yoocheon-san…?”

Jiing… The ringing arm. Lee Ji-yeon’s turquoise eyes trembled at Yoochun’s reaction as he struck her so hard that her wrists were stained red.

I came all this way because I was worried… Do I really need to reject it so hard?

Don’t you like me?

What did I… Do wrong?

Ah…Maybe…Is it because I doubted you without knowing the subject…?

As a result of her weak emotional line being shaken, all kinds of negative thoughts ran through her head, and she eventually concluded with a vain delusion that it was wrong for her to doubt Yuchun’s power at that time.

Growing up as an elite Awakener, she was also influenced by her surroundings and had the idea of ​​being a strong person in the central world.

Her mighty force of arms qualifies her claim to arrogance, and Yoochun’s power to break even the sky was the one who proved it more than anyone else in this world.

The problem was that she, who dared not even rank a person like that, questioned herself. She went so far as to bruise him because her pride had been shattered. So, although he apologized, it was natural in the common sense of the central world that he would have been unpleasant in reality.

However, even with the power to see the world, she was humble and polite even to a single woman, and at the same time, she felt a sense of human stupidity that she showed once in a while.

She was curious to know what kind of person she was.

‘Why did you do that…’

But that didn’t work. Until now, I was afraid of getting hurt, so I couldn’t take out what I had hidden tightly. Look, aren’t you hurt by mistaking his courtesy for kindness?

“Could it be… Did I… Make a… Mistake…?”

“No, not that, this, that’s the situation…”

A lie… As you cut it so firmly…

Look at my arm, which is stained red.

Not even like this?

Was kindness just an illusion…?

Lee Ji-yeon’s eyes shook violently at the accident that ran amok on her own, thinking that the embarrassed tone was also because her hatred and dislike for herself had been exposed.

‘As expected, I can’t… I was fooled again…’

Ah…

As soon as you feel that you have been deceived, a nightmare from one day 10 years ago comes to mind.

‘I… I was fooled again…’

Things that were already considered old memories that were okay now began to regain their bloody color.

“Again…Again…Then…I shouldn’t have opened the door…”

In Lee Ji-yeon’s eyes, the woman from 10 years ago, wearing an eyepatch and pretending to be affectionate, and Yoochun in front of her overlapped.

“…Jiyeon…?”

She suddenly said something she couldn’t understand and Lee Ji-yeon’s reaction was unusual as her whole body started to tremble as if she had an epilepsy.

“Mr. Delay!”

‘What the hell is wrong again…?’

It was quite explainable. It wasn’t to the extent that something serious would suddenly happen. In fact, wasn’t Killian also quickly clearing up the misunderstanding with his urgent explanation?

Something I don’t quite understand. Yoochun felt that this was a trauma…

‘Trauma?’

“Mom…I’m sorry…I’m…For being tricked like that time…Black…Like an idiot…I’m sorry…”

‘It’s a trauma…’

Yoochun was also seen in her orphanage a lot. That appearance, which is usually fine, but when something triggers, as if a different personality has entered, is definitely that of those who have been deeply embedded in the past.

‘Damn it… Even if I know that, what can I do…?’

While Yuchun, whose emptiness had not yet subsided, was restless without being able to caress him, Lee Do-gyeong, with a hard expression, was walking behind him.

*

Surprised to see her own daughter who ran to her Yoochun with a happy face, Lee Dokyung saw her suddenly tremble and cry, and quickly approached Yoochun with hardened complexion.

Lee Ji-yeon’s suffering. Seeing something familiar somewhere, Lee Do-gyeong naturally recalled the past.

10 years ago. That day was a snowy day. It’s also a white Christmas. At the same time, it was also a very meaningful day for Lee Do-kyung’s family.

Until now, Lee Do-gyeong had worked five or six times a year at most, not in another country, but in a different dimension, so time with his family was always lacking.

“Now we can be together for a long time.”

But not anymore. Today is the day to finish all the work of the central world and settle down on Earth. So it was a meaningful day.

Now his wife Ha Yu-min did not have to take care of her daughter in her loneliness. The new head of the Mana Management Organization will be busy as well, but now you can always go home.

Lee Do-kyung looked at the flower in his right hand. The name of this white flower, which is not flashy but contains purity, was quite hard to find because it only blooms in the snowy mountains in the northern part of the central world of ‘Promise’.

The language of flowers is ‘noble oath’. Nobles there have a custom of dedicating this flower to the other person when proposing eternal love.

He imagined To kneel down on one knee, to his beloved wife and little daughter, carefully lift this promise with both hands and swear to him that he will be with them forever, now until he dies.

“Um…It’s embarrassing…”

The blunt Lee Do-kyung’s face grew hot and his hands and feet shriveled when he imagined it, but he calmed himself down by thinking of his wife who had suffered alone and his daughter who must have been lonely.

A luxurious detached house appeared before my eyes. As a ranker, it was easy for him to find a house of this size. Now, behind this door, his beloved family will be waiting.

Perhaps her wife is preparing steamed kimchi. It was not a dish suitable for Christmas. However, since it was Lee Do-gyeong and Ji-yeon’s favorite dish, they probably wouldn’t have cared about that.

Christmas is not the day that matters, but the person you spend it with is important.

Jiyeon Lee, her daughter who is now in her second year of middle school, must be grumbling with her cheeks wet.

Lee Do-gyeong and Ha Yu-min’s couple didn’t tell her that he was coming today to surprise her daughter.

Perhaps because puberty had arrived, he would have lost his temper because he was teased, but when he thought that he would be happy inside, his expression became as cozy as snow falling.

Pounding… Pounding…

“Whoa…Let’s go in…”

A scene in which the heart beats more intensely and deeply than when facing a powerful monster and the front door clicks open.

There, Lee Do-gyeong forcibly stopped his flashback. If he went deeper, he would have lost his temper and attacked Yoochun in front of him.

‘Let’s stay calm… This is not the enemy of sleep…’

If you think about it calmly, what kind of pain did Yoochun give to his daughter in that short period of time? So, I decided to ask him in front of me.

“What is this…What is going on? Yuchun-kun…?”

But the trembling voice could not be calmed down. It was good enough.

“Hi-! Mom…Sorry…I…Was wrong…Dad…Huh…Why did you come now…Huh…”

Because his daughter, who had to wear mourning clothes on a white Christmas day when she should have been happier than ever, was the same as she is now.

Lee Do-gyeong looked down with trembling eyes at his daughter, who was sitting with his knees together and holding her head, and turned his head to Yoochun.

“Please tell me. What happened…?”

Yuchun himself, not knowing what to do with the current situation, opened his mouth after scratching his head.

“That’s… Hah… That’s how it happened…”

“First, please tell me about the White Demon King. Regarding Ji-yeon… I’ll listen to it later.”

The seriousness of her daughter now was important, but her immediate survival was more important than that.

Even though her heart was burning black, Lee Do-gyeong, who calmly grasped the seriousness of the work, wanted to hear her daughter’s story first, but asked Yoo-chun a more urgent question first.

“…Yes then, start by going to Fallen’s stronghold with Killian…”
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“Whoa…You worked hard…And I’m sorry…”

Even after Yuchun quickly finished only the important stories and told everything about what had just happened with Lee Ji-yeon, Lee Do-kyung didn’t say a word for a while, but silently patted the trembling Ji-yeon and recited words of apology.

“No… First of all, I was wrong…”

“No. Yuchun didn’t do anything wrong. This… Is my fault…”

Dokyung Lee stopped Yoochun from talking and smiled bitterly.

While patting Lee Ji-yeon, who fell asleep as if she had fainted from crying all over her body, he turned his head to Yuchun.

“Yoocheon-gun”

“Yes?”

“I just contacted Manseong-hyung that the White Demon King has been resolved…So until Miss Hayeon arrives…Would you like to talk to me?”

“What are you talking about…?”

“…Ji-yeon and my past…So I want to tell you about the day this child became like this.”

“What is the reason you want to tell me about that…?”

It must be a serious story because it is related to Lee Ji-yeon’s trauma. Yoochun didn’t quite understand what he said about telling him about it.

Yuchun stared at this stately middle-aged man who did not respond to his words.

Tuk… Tuk… Tapped Lee Ji-yeon’s back with his hand in a steady rhythm and raised his head while he was still thinking.

“I just…Somehow…I thought it was okay for Yoochun-kun to know, no, he should know.”

“That…What do you mean…”

“So would you like to listen?”

Lee Do-kyung’s expression shows a certain determination. Seeing this, Yuchun put on a pod.

‘…These are not people to be seen very briefly…’

Their cooperation was essential to Yuchun, who was planning to work in Korea, and after thinking that he needed to know what problems his collaborators were having, he clasped his hand.

“…Yes, then…If you don’t mind, Director…”

“…Thank you. Then first…”

In such a desolate forest where not a single grasshopper cries, the tragedy of a family that does not match the clear sky resounds quietly.