115
A heavy silence lingered in the hospital room after the doctor left. Yeon Ji-ho couldn’t bear to look at Set’s face and kept his head bowed. Ji-ho’s thin hand, gripping the edge of the bed covers, trembled visibly.
“Ji-ho.”
Though Ji-ho knew Set was calling him, he couldn’t bring himself to answer.
He felt ashamed. He couldn’t face him. If he had known it would be revealed like this through the doctor’s words, he should have taken the initiative to tell Set the truth himself. But at the moment, he was just happy to see Set, and wanting to preserve this peace, he had kept his mouth shut.
The time had come to tell Set with his own words what had happened to Hadad and himself during Set’s absence. Ji-ho’s closed eyelids quivered.
“While you were gone, Set…”
Ji-ho struggled to open his mouth. He wondered what expression Set would make after he revealed everything. Just imagining it filled him with dread. Maybe Set would be as distressed and saddened as he was, or perhaps… he might even hate him.
“Ji-ho.”
As Ji-ho was speaking with his head bowed, unable to meet Set’s eyes, rough fingers touched his chin. Soon, Set’s large hands cupped both of Ji-ho’s cheeks. Set gently held his chin and lifted his face to look at him.
“You don’t have to say it.”
“But, I have to. So, what happened was…”
Ji-ho stumbled over his words. Hadad was still not gone from their side, and to stop him, everything needed to be said. And it had to come from his own mouth.
“I already know.”
But Set gently yet firmly cut off Ji-ho’s words. When Ji-ho looked up at Set with trembling eyes, Set leaned down and briefly pressed his lips to Ji-ho’s forehead.
“That while I was gone, Hadad toyed with you and our child.”
“…”
“Ji-ho. This time too, I crossed over to this world through the wardrobe.”
At Set’s seemingly unrelated statement, Ji-ho’s eyes widened. The wardrobe…?
Just then, he recalled the gate painted inside the wardrobe. As he was thinking that Set must have used it again…
“As soon as I came out of the wardrobe, what I saw was a darkened house. Ji-ho, it wasn’t that warm home where we lived together.”
Ah.
Ji-ho then realized that Set had seen everything. The thickly drawn curtains, the housework he had given up on because it was too hard to move, even the multiple locks he had installed to hide from Hadad. He had seen all that and rushed to him.
Ji-ho closed his mouth, feeling ashamed. All his words about how he had been doing well and protecting the child had become lies. Set knew this and had been pretending not to know.
“…I’m sorry.”
“Why should you be sorry?”
A shallow wrinkle formed between Set’s brows. It was then that Set, who had been standing looking down at him, suddenly knelt beside the bed. Set spoke, bringing his eyes level with Ji-ho’s.
“That’s… my sin for sending you away alone like that.”
“…”
“It’s my fault for not coming to protect you while you were suffering so much.”
Set whispered, bringing his nose close to Ji-ho’s. The dampness from Ji-ho’s face transferred to Set’s. Set rubbed his nose tip against Ji-ho’s as if to wipe it away.
“Don’t be ashamed, Ji-ho. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
Ji-ho sometimes regretted the past days. Knowing that Hadad was after him, yet not being able to come up with a proper countermeasure. He had been so preoccupied with protecting the child and himself that he couldn’t act smartly.
Set moved his hand from Ji-ho’s cheek to the back of his neck. Ji-ho’s shoulders twitched as Set’s thick thumb touched his delicate skin.
“They say that an imprint causes pain when separated from the imprinter.”
“That’s… true, but.”
Imprint.
Leaving an eternal mark on each other’s souls through pheromones.
Ji-ho, who had received training as a trait carrier, had learned about it in theory, but thought it was an education that didn’t really resonate in practice. The imprint, being as invisible as love, made it even more so. The fact that one could only truly feel the imprint when apart was equally unbelievable.
But the imprint Ji-ho knew was ultimately intangible, and so he was disappointed when Set said he didn’t feel pain when separated from him. The imprint, the imprint that Ji-ho had only learned about in writing, was just that much.
“Ji-ho. I’m a person insensitive to pain.”
“…What?”
“When I was seven, His Grace the Duke wielded a whip at me. One day, I was hit by a candle that hadn’t been fully extinguished, leaving a burn mark on my forehead.”
Ji-ho could see the faint burn scar among Set’s hair. It was a scar that had pained Ji-ho’s heart whenever the wind revealed it.
“After that, when I was dragged into the war, there was no time to cower in pain. If I showed that I was injured, the enemies would swarm in.”
‘War,’ which Ji-ho had only experienced through books, seemed distant when he first met Set. The gap between Ji-ho, who had lived his whole life in a peaceful world, and Set, who had endured in the midst of swords, magic, and war, was that wide.
However, after seeing Hadad’s knights overwhelm everyone, and sword energy cutting and stealing people’s waists, Set’s war became a ‘reality’ for Ji-ho too. He had lived his whole life in such a world.
“So I don’t know.”
“…”
“I can’t remember well what pain was anymore.”
Set calmly revealed his secret. It was the truth without a hint of lie.
When a sword was stuck in his body, he felt discomfort from the inconvenience of movement rather than thinking it hurt. Sometimes when he suffered internal injuries and pain welled up from inside his body, Set had made it a habit to swallow it down without blinking an eye.
That’s what pain was to him. A sensation that had been left to rot because it hadn’t been needed until now.
He knew something was broken in him, but Set didn’t think it mattered. Sometimes he even thought it was for the best. Because he didn’t have to waste time cowering in pain.
He had felt a sense of headache while Ji-ho wasn’t by his side. It was natural since he couldn’t sleep properly. But that wasn’t much pain by Set’s standards.
“Ji-ho. I, even if my body was burning in fire, I couldn’t feel the pain.”
Ji-ho’s mouth opened slightly. Then, as if realizing something, his eyes widened to the point of tearing.
The wardrobe he said he came through again.
Ji-ho had naturally thought it meant he had come through using the gate. But without himself as the coordinate, the gate couldn’t have operated, which meant…
Ji-ho raised his trembling hand and grabbed Set’s thick forearm. He gripped Set tightly and asked.
“Did you jump into the flames again? You didn’t, right? Tell me you didn’t.”
Say you didn’t.
Even as he urged him like that, Ji-ho’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Ji-ho, who had been asking Set with trembling hands, finally closed his eyes tightly when he didn’t get an answer. He then raised both hands to cover his face.
“…”
A muffled sob escaped. He couldn’t believe that Set had jumped into the flames again to meet him. He didn’t want to believe it.
As Ji-ho’s sobs continued, Set spread his arms and embraced him. When Ji-ho cried, Set felt his head turn white. No matter how much he tried to think of how to comfort him, his stupid head wouldn’t move at times like this. All he could do was hold him tightly.
“Why, hic, why did you do that? What if you died? What were you thinking? Then I, and this child…”
Even knowing it wasn’t something to blame Set for, Ji-ho kept bumping his head against Set’s chest. Set carefully hugged him tighter, worried that Ji-ho’s forehead might hurt from hitting his hard chest.
“It didn’t hurt.”
“Don’t lie.”
“It’s true. I told you, Ji-ho. I’m already broken somewhere.”
Haah…
Exhaling a wet breath, Ji-ho, trapped in Set’s embrace, organized his thoughts. Meanwhile, Set was slowly moving his hand to pat Ji-ho’s back. So that he could breathe comfortably.
“Set.”
“Yes, Ji-ho.”
“Let’s get tested. An imprint test. And…”
Ji-ho took a deep breath and exhaled. There was more to do than just testing their imprint.
“Your trait test too, Set.”
