Chapter 196
“Was it because I’m the unfortunate child in the prophecy, destined to bear a demon, and they tried to eliminate me but failed?”
“…Demon? Who told you such a thing?”
“They said demon. The ancient scripture here was in a dead language that couldn’t be interpreted at that time, but later when some ancient language was discovered, they found out that if I had a baby, that baby would be some rider of death from Revelation. You know, like in movies. That kind of villain who tries to destroy the entire universe.”
“That’s nonsense.”
For Yoo Siwoon, it had been love from the beginning. There hadn’t been a moment when it wasn’t love. Though he didn’t know how Eunseong would receive it, for him it had been a growing feeling of love at every moment. A child born from their mutual love couldn’t possibly be such a being. It was a clear misinterpretation of the scripture.
An awkward silence was diluted by the distant sound of mountain birds. Eunseong plucked at innocent weeds and continued speaking.
“What if a child is born between us, and that child becomes the rider of death? There’s always that ‘what if,’ right? What if it destroys the whole world? What if it eliminates half of humanity?”
“…”
Yoo Siwoon looked at Eunseong with an expression that seemed to ask why he was saying such strange things. The person who had believed in and acted upon that absurd prophecy was now looking strangely at Eunseong.
The only thing Yoo Siwoon had ever feared was the worry that something might happen to Eunseong. He had truly never once been afraid or terrified that a child born between them might destroy half of humanity.
“Anyway, my father must have known about that prophecy too, and he tried to get rid of me just in case, but his heart softened and he couldn’t do it in the end.”
“Even so, Jeong-gi hyung didn’t reveal your existence, knowing what would happen.”
His eyes, which had been fixed solely on Eunseong, turned back to Yoo Jeong-gi’s tombstone.
As a breeder, he might have felt sexual desire toward Eunseong, or perhaps his twisted violence emerged because he couldn’t do such a thing to the child born of the woman he had loved, or maybe he couldn’t control himself when drinking.
Even Yoo Siwoon didn’t know the exact reason. Only that he was a weak person for handling Eunseong, for living the life of a breeder born in such a family.
“I don’t want to excuse him for just that… but still, but still.”
Eunseong slowly sorted through his complex feelings toward his adoptive father.
He felt sorry for him, pitied him, and at the same time, resented him, felt frustrated, and wanted to demand why he had done what he did.
As Eunseong tidied up around Yoo Jeong-gi’s tombstone, he looked around at the records of the bloodline that had been waiting for him.
Now that he had seen the whole story with his own eyes, the shock he had received from Yoo Siwoon felt like a lie.
“If you had shown me this from the beginning, I wouldn’t have doubted you or hated you.”
Eunseong, who had firmly misunderstood that Yoo Siwoon had killed Yoo Jeong-gi, had actually collapsed on the spot when he learned the truth.
“Bringing you here at that time would have been more dangerous than giving up my own life.”
Eunseong understood what that meant. Just as the enforcers had imprisoned him with such intentions, they would have violated Eunseong until death to create a child that would never have been conceived if his existence had been discovered.
As each misunderstanding about past events was resolved, Eunseong was coming to understand that Yoo Siwoon had been forced to make wrong choices from beginning to end to protect him. For him, Eunseong suffering such a fate would have been more painful than death.
“It’s true that I’ve only acted in ways that made you misunderstand me.”
“…”
“I think there’s no room for excuses about that anymore.”
After plucking at the weeds on the ground for a while, Eunseong looked up at him with a slightly pouting lip, feeling sorry for having hated him blindly.
“You’ve never been betrayed, so you don’t know how I felt. It wasn’t just like being stabbed in the back, it was really…”
It was an emotion that couldn’t be explained in words. That level of expression was insufficient. Eunseong knew what it felt like when the ground collapsed. It was exactly that feeling.
The sensation of collapse—as if the sky were falling, the earth sinking, the world crumbling and disappearing.
“My only possible excuse is… that it’s my fault for being born into this kind of family.”
“…”
He had said he would find a way to forgive him. It seemed unlikely that Eunseong could forgive him with just this level of explanation.
Yoo Siwoon looked around somewhere and then moved in that direction. His movements seemed quite uncomfortable, as if driving had strained his body.
Eunseong felt heavy-hearted, blaming himself for Yoo Siwoon’s inability to walk properly. If Eunseong hadn’t deceived Yoo Siwoon and run away that day, he wouldn’t have suffered such a devastating injury from the fanatics.
Their target had been Seo Eunseong, The Great Crevice. If he had been at home that day, Eunseong would have been captured by them, and since they couldn’t do anything to Eunseong, no one would have been hurt.
If Eunseong hadn’t run away, this wouldn’t have happened.
Eunseong, who had been watching Yoo Siwoon’s back as he walked with his crutch, got up from his seat and followed him.
Yoo Siwoon stopped in front of his father’s tombstone. Yoo Siwoon was his only descendant.
Standing beside Yoo Siwoon, Eunseong looked at his grandfather’s tombstone for a long time.
He was another person who had tried to protect Eunseong. He had been a good adult who had kept Eunseong’s parents’ death insurance money intact to give to him when he grew up.
“…Will you be buried here too when you die, ahjussi?”
“No. I intend to end the Seongha family here. No one else will be buried here.”
Neither Chairman Yoo nor his cousins were buried here. Yoo Jeong-gi would probably be the last of the Seongha bloodline buried here. If anyone else were to die, it would be an individual’s death, no longer the death of the Seongha family. The Seongha family no longer existed.
After a brief moment of silence, they descended from the family grave. The place, which had been transformed into ruins like a battlefield, no longer retained its former splendor. They silently walked out of the Yongse Pacheon Church’s main temple, which had been reduced to a desolate skeleton.
“Shall we go now?”
“…Yes.”
In the car returning home, they didn’t say a word, each lost in their own thoughts.
Yoo Siwoon, who had concluded that he would never be forgiven by Eunseong, kept his distance, and Eunseong also remained silent in response to Yoo Siwoon’s seemingly cold reaction.
Having spent the entire day visiting the ancestral mountain, it was past dinner time when they arrived home. At Director Nam’s insistence that it was still too early to feel safe, security staff, though fewer in number than before, were guarding the entrance.
After stopping briefly at the barrier, Yoo Siwoon stepped on the accelerator and drove the car up the hill toward his residence.
He parked the car in the parking lot and turned off the engine. With the vibration sound gone, the already quiet car became even quieter.
As Eunseong was about to get out, Yoo Siwoon spoke.
“About the moving issue… have you thought about it?”
“What’s there to think about?”
“If you stay beside me, you’ll never be able to live a normal life.”
Yoo Siwoon spoke bluntly. It meant for Eunseong to leave him. The pain that would follow would be Yoo Siwoon’s burden, a problem he would have to bear alone. It had nothing to do with Eunseong.
“You want me to leave? After all this chaos… you’re telling me to get out now?”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“If that’s not what you mean, then what?”
“I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”
“How would you hurt me more? Is there anything left that would hurt me? Is there more?”
“…”
Just because he had barely pulled Eunseong back from the threshold of death, just because he had risked his life, just because he had given an understandable explanation, it didn’t erase what he had done. Nor did it immediately heal the wounds in Eunseong’s heart.
If they stayed close, Eunseong would be constantly reminded of the terrible things that had happened to him and would come to hate Yoo Siwoon even more.
He had decided not to be greedy when it came to Eunseong, not to hold onto unnecessary hope. If Eunseong lived a normal, peaceful life, Yoo Siwoon could be satisfied with that. Even if he wasn’t satisfied, that’s what he had to do.
“Have you found it by looking?”
“Found what?”
“A way to forgive me. Director Nam told me. You said you wanted to forgive me.”
“…”
Yoo Siwoon was coldly accepting the reality that he would never again feel that sweet sensation, like the pain of a knife entering his body along with overwhelming relief, in the moment of holding Eunseong in his arms, enclosing him in his embrace. He had concluded that Eunseong would not be able to forgive him.
“I don’t want to make you suffer more with this issue.”
“So what? Since I can’t find it, should I disappear somewhere out of sight? Would that make you feel better?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Eunseong sharply questioned Yoo Siwoon, who kept trying to send him away.
Eunseong would know better that wasn’t what he meant, but right now Yoo Siwoon was exercising the maximum patience he could muster. He was drawing out the utmost rationality he could squeeze out and enduring.
Only by experiencing something like having his life broken would it be possible for him to let go of Eunseong; there was no other way. Yoo Siwoon’s belief remained unchanged. He still considered Eunseong his mate and believed that the reason he was born was to meet Eunseong.
He was trying to give that up and let Eunseong live a normal, free life, but Eunseong kept misinterpreting his intentions.
“If I disappear somewhere out of sight, what will you do, ahjussi… Will you die again?”
“…”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
