Side Story 17
Yeon Ji-ho, who had entered through any door in Hwangseong, paused at the beautiful garden visible as soon as he stepped outside. Rustle—the grass beneath his feet collapsed softly. The peaceful scene of butterflies flying over the leisurely flower garden seemed so tranquil it might disappear like a mirage at any moment.
“…Gliese…ssi?”
Among everything, not seeing Gliese anywhere, Yeon Ji-ho quietly called her name. Perhaps, given how vast the garden was, she might be some distance away.
But there was no answer. Since his power had never led him to the wrong place before, Yeon Ji-ho quietly began searching for her throughout the garden.
Shango and Ganesha, who had arrived earlier, were also moving separately through the peaceful garden. Walking along a low path between flower beds, Yeon Ji-ho suddenly looked up at the enormous shadow cast at his feet.
There stood an ancient tree. Without thinking, Yeon Ji-ho stretched out his hand and placed it on the thick trunk of the old tree.
Saa-ah—it was the moment the wind brushed past.
“Jihooo.”
Yeon Ji-ho lowered his head at the small voice calling him from below. There was Ganesha, blinking and gesturing toward him. Looking at him with a puzzled expression, Yeon Ji-ho soon followed carefully as Ganesha began to move, seemingly indicating for him to follow.
Ganesha didn’t go far, just circling around the round perimeter of the tree. The tree was so massive and towering that the opposite side wasn’t visible.
And then Yeon Ji-ho discovered Gliese, sleeping against the tree.
“…Gliese?”
Seeing her sleeping so peacefully, Yeon Ji-ho unconsciously called her name, then hurriedly closed his mouth. Ganesha, who was nearby, also pressed his index finger to his lips, signaling to be quiet.
However, despite these efforts, Gliese’s eyelashes fluttered, and her beautiful eyes soon appeared.
“…Yeon Ji-ho?”
She murmured unconsciously as soon as she confirmed Yeon Ji-ho’s face right in front of her. Then, as if belatedly realizing what mistake she had made, she covered her mouth with both hands and apologized.
“Oh, my! I’m sorry! I made a mistake…!”
“No. It’s alright.”
Yeon Ji-ho smiled faintly at Gliese, whom he hadn’t seen for a long time. At that peaceful smile, Gliese, who had also begun to smile, noticed the moist liquid on her hands that had covered her mouth and hurriedly began to wipe it off.
“I’m not usually someone who drools in my sleep…”
“It happens, I do it sometimes too.”
In reality, Yeon Ji-ho, who had always been known for his very quiet sleeping habits, learned during Seho’s upbringing that his neat sleep habits only occurred when sufficient sleep time was guaranteed. There had even been times when he dozed off, dripping drool, in the brief moment while feeding Seho formula.
“Because I was dreaming about the tteok, tteokbokki I ate before. Haah…”
Gliese spoke while touching her forehead as if just thinking about tteokbokki made her dizzy. Then, changing her posture, she looked up at Yeon Ji-ho with desperate eyes and asked:
“Where on earth can I eat that food? No, Ji-ho nim, if you could just tell me the cooking method or where to source the ingredients…!”
“Ah, that’s, well…”
Yeon Ji-ho made a troubled expression, sensing she might grab his pant leg if he didn’t tell her. Just then, Shango, who wasn’t far away, approached them with big strides and said:
“No. …Can’t tell you.”
“What?! Why! Who are you to decide!”
“I don’t have enough… for myself.”
At those words, Gliese’s eyes narrowed sharply. In fact, among the Gorgon Knights, Shango had stayed the shortest time in Korea before getting a job at a company in the United States, so he hadn’t often tasted Yeon Ji-ho’s cooking as much as he’d expected. Unaware of these details, Gliese said with an indignant voice:
“That one time was my last!”
“…So?”
“So I’m more desperate!”
“I’m desperate too…”
As their voices seemed about to rise, Yeon Ji-ho stepped between them and began to mediate. It would be nice if there was a kitchen where he could cook something simple at a time like this, but sadly, there was nothing he could do right now, so all he could offer was a promise.
“I’ll definitely make you delicious tteokbokki when I get the chance, both of you.”
“…When?”
“When…?”
When they both asked with an expression that suggested this was their chance, Yeon Ji-ho hesitated with an “hmm” before saying:
“When… we meet again?”
“It’s already been three years since we last met like this!”
Gliese’s voice quavered at the end, showing how aggrieved she felt. It seemed she had greatly missed tteokbokki all this time.
Yeon Ji-ho realized that even to his own thinking, saying he would make it “when he got the chance” was far too vague. As Yeon Ji-ho was considering options, a rather plausible idea crossed his mind.
“I think I just had a good idea.”
“…A good idea? What kind?”
“Where’s the nearest door around here?”
Yeon Ji-ho looked around quickly searching for a nearby door, but there didn’t seem to be anything that could be called a door in the spacious garden. Gliese responded, puzzled by Yeon Ji-ho’s sudden search for a door:
“This is a garden inside Hwangseong, so to find a building, we’d need to walk a bit.”
Hwangseong?
Yeon Ji-ho questioned the fact that Gliese was in Hwangseong. That meant that after meeting Hadad earlier, he had moved from Hwangseong to Hwangseong again.
Unlike Yeon Ji-ho, Gliese seemed preoccupied with the thought of eating tteokbokki. Gliese, who was thinking hard while holding her chin, said:
“Ah! There’s a greenhouse I use often, and it has a door. Would that work?”
“Yes, that’s perfect.”
Gliese, who smiled softly at Yeon Ji-ho’s answer, stood up. Only then did Yeon Ji-ho notice the style of clothes she was wearing. The splendid dress was heavily embroidered with gold ornaments that only the imperial family could use.
As Gliese grabbed the hem of her dress and strode forward, Yeon Ji-ho followed behind and asked in a voice that suggested “surely not”:
“Gliese-ssi, but why are you in Hwangseong…”
“Oh, haven’t I told you?”
Gliese, who turned her head slightly while walking, smiled brightly and said:
“I got married.”
“…To whom?”
“Who else? To His Majesty.”
Yeon Ji-ho stared at Gliese with a dumbfounded expression. He had just received the surprising news that the protagonists of the novel he had read had reunited and even gotten married. He was now curious about the behind-the-scenes story of how they ended up getting married.
“How in the world…?”
“At that time, I broke up with him because I didn’t like that Hadad unexpectedly became the emperor. If he became emperor, I would have to become empress, and that’s too boring a life, you know.”
Gliese shrugged her shoulders, referring to the position of empress, who could control an empire, as a “boring position.” It was certainly a bold expression that only the female protagonist of a romance fantasy novel could make.
“But when we met again by chance this time, he said to me.”
‘Want to build the most powerful empire with me, Gliese?’
Gliese said she would never have married Hadad if he had proposed to her or told her he loved her again. But the proposal Hadad made to her was different.
‘What? Suddenly?’
‘Isn’t it boring to live just for the gods?’
‘…’
‘You’ve never wanted a life without your own goals or purpose.’
Hadad spoke to her with a face she had never seen before. A somber expression without the slightest smile. The Hadad who had always smiled like a picture and whispered that he loved her was now gone.
‘I’m going to build a country so great it will go down in history.’
“Actually, if he had just said that, I wouldn’t have been interested, but there were various other conditions exchanged. For instance, he would fully support any business related to the temple that I undertook.”
Gliese, once a female protagonist yearning for freedom and adventure, had now become an “adult” who calmly planned for her future. She was certainly far from the typical female protagonists in ordinary romance novels.
“So I accepted. That means we’re married, but we can divorce anytime—a very business-like relationship.”
Gliese even raised her finger to firmly warn Yeon Ji-ho. She said they had even promised to let each other go cleanly if either of them found someone good after the wedding.
“How is life as an empress? Does it suit you?”
“So far, yes. Sometimes I escape like this when I get bored… Well, I console myself with the thought that Hadad must be just as bored.”
It was as they were approaching the greenhouse she had mentioned. Stopping in front of the greenhouse door, Gliese suddenly looked into the void and murmured:
“Sometimes the Hadad who once loved me feels like a character from an illusion.”
“…”
“That’s probably because the current Hadad is more ‘Hadad-like.'”
“‘Hadad-like’?”
“Well…”
Gliese chewed on her answer for a moment, seemingly searching for the appropriate expression. Then she quietly said:
“It’s like he’s really living and moving according to his own will.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
