Chapter 194
Yoo Siwoon had always intended to confess everything to Eunseong once things were settled—that Eunseong was the being from the prophecy, that he was born with evidence of this, and the circumstances of their meeting. But though he always harbored this intention, he didn’t know when that time would come.
Knowing that Eunseong might bear his child, that when that day came Eunseong would discover he had a body capable of conceiving, Yoo Siwoon had been committing a willful negligence all along.
If a child were to be born between them… Yoo Siwoon had consistently considered it a blessing.
“I’m a boy, how could I have a baby?”
“…What if you did?”
“What?”
“What if you did?”
“…”
“Would that be so bad?”
Yoo Siwoon still considered it a blessing. Looking at the man staring intently at him and asking if it would be so bad, Eunseong felt the urge to pour hot coffee on him.
“Because you don’t want it.”
He calmly took a sip from the coffee cup that Eunseong wanted to pour over him and continued speaking to those shocked eyes.
“I don’t want it either. That’s my reason for not wanting a child.”
If Eunseong didn’t want it, then neither did he. More important than whether a child would be conceived or not was Eunseong’s feelings. For Yoo Siwoon, that was the only unchanging fact.
“I want to go to where my father is.”
“…”
“I want to visit there.”
Yoo Siwoon gave no answer, as if he hadn’t heard Eunseong’s firm statement about wanting to go. Eunseong pressed him sharply.
“Where is the place your family specially enshrines? If you won’t take me, I’ll ask Director Nam.”
Before Yoo Siwoon could say anything, Eunseong was about to jump up from his seat. Facing his back as he was about to rush off to Director Nam, Yoo Siwoon spoke.
“It’s a place you’ve been before.”
“Where? That columbarium from before?”
“No.”
“…”
Eunseong became frightened by his reaction, wondering why he couldn’t give a straight answer about where it was. A place he’d been before? Could it be the penthouse? Or did he mean the basement of this house? Was he saying his father was buried here?
“It’s where the Yongse Pacheon Church holds its ceremonies.”
“…”
Eunseong, who had been inwardly prepared not to be surprised even if it was under this house, felt a chill run through his entire body the moment he realized what place Yoo Siwoon was referring to.
He was talking about the place where he had taken Eunseong, waking him up at dawn, saying they were going to greet the elders. The place where dozens of eyes had stared intently at him alone. Eunseong now clearly understood what kind of place it was.
A place where people who were waiting for the god Eunseong would bear gathered to hold ceremonies, a place of worship, a place where all kinds of records about him remained. A place where people who served him gathered.
It was a shrine for people who worshipped him as a god.
Feeling a shudder run down his spine, Eunseong asked in a fearful voice:
“Those people… are they really all gone? They were all arrested… there’s really no one left now? Were they really all arrested?”
Yoo Siwoon’s brow furrowed painfully as he stared at Eunseong. Seeing Eunseong unable to shake off his instinctive fear despite his resolve, a heavy guilt and pain settled deep in his chest, knowing that all this anxiety stemmed from him.
“…Are they really all gone?”
“They’re gone. No one’s left.”
“How can you be sure they’re gone?”
“Because I burned everything.”
Yoo Siwoon’s answer was matter-of-fact in response to Eunseong’s trembling question.
Eunseong could intuitively sense that Yoo Siwoon would do dangerous things for him repeatedly, crazy things no different from eliminating those young children.
He also realized that those people were not fearsome beings to Yoo Siwoon. The destructive statement that he had burned everything gave Eunseong a strange sense of relief.
“Is my father there?”
“There’s a family grave next to the main church on the ancestral mountain.”
“I want to go see it.”
“…Do you always have to confirm everything with your own eyes like this?”
Yoo Siwoon’s eyebrows were furrowed slightly as if asking whether Eunseong wouldn’t be satisfied otherwise. The man who would kill anyone, child or adult, for his sake was making a subtly annoyed expression.
“Yes. I need to confirm everything with my own eyes.”
Eunseong retorted sharply with wide eyes, as if to say, “Are you really in a position to be annoyed?”
“…Sigh.”
Faced with a situation where he would have to show everything, including parts he didn’t particularly want to show Eunseong, Yoo Siwoon let out a low sigh.
Sitting in the car heading toward the ancestral mountain, Eunseong, who had been quiet the whole time, turned to look at Yoo Siwoon behind the wheel. Yoo Siwoon, focused on the road ahead, felt the gaze tracing his profile but pretended not to notice.
“I heard from the police officer. About how my birth mother and father met in college. Do you know anything about that?”
Even before Eunseong spoke, Yoo Siwoon already knew that Lee Joon-seung had told him the whole story. Yoo Siwoon also knew that his own mistake of acting in a way that invited misunderstanding was greater.
He didn’t resent Lee Joon-seung. Rather, it was fortunate that Director Nam had stopped him from being driven to extremes by anger at that time. Whether Lee Joon-seung had revealed it or not, the fact that Yoo Siwoon had deceived Eunseong remained unchanged, and if it hadn’t happened this way, things might have ended differently already.
Yoo Siwoon felt that as long as Eunseong didn’t hate him, even if he didn’t love him again, just this much was fortunate.
“All breeders in the Seongha family are born through surrogates. I was too. Jeong-gi hyung must have resonated with your mother because he also carried the bloodline of a breeder. He probably broke up with her because he didn’t want to draw your mother into our family. But for some reason, you… were born with the evidence on your body.”
“…”
“My father has long opposed the heretical forces within the Seongha Group. When Jeong-gi hyung asked for help, he tried to help your family escape overseas.”
“…”
“An accident… a major accident occurred.”
Yoo Siwoon’s brow hardened as if the terrible traffic accident was unfolding before his eyes. Even Yoo Siwoon didn’t know exactly how the accident had happened. He only knew that it was a major accident where both died instantly.
“I heard about that too. That my father would have thought your father was trying to take me away.”
The fortunate part was that Lee Joon-seung had told the events as they had happened. He had merely interpreted them unfavorably toward Yoo Siwoon, but at least the facts were facts.
“That’s right. Jeong-gi hyung misunderstood that my father had betrayed him because of that traffic accident. He thought he was trying to take you. My father, for his part, blamed himself for the death of your parents. He judged that actively intervening wouldn’t help either you or Jeong-gi hyung.”
“…”
“He said we should just quietly protect you so others wouldn’t know about your existence, and then send you overseas when you were old enough to be independent.”
That was why he had come to the house then, saying he would take Eunseong. He was of an age where he would understand the ways of the world to some extent, and the judgment was that he could live well abroad on his own.
“But why didn’t you send me? Sending me far away… that was your goal, wasn’t it?”
“…”
He knew very well that he should send him away, and Director Nam had even urged him to send Eunseong away as soon as possible. But Yoo Siwoon had hesitated each time. He had made all kinds of excuses and postponed it.
Just until after the college entrance exam, just until graduation, because it was still cold, because Eunseong was too young. He had delayed, citing the weather and circumstances as reasons. Even when Eunseong ran away and was in danger, even when Seo Jeong-gi became a corpse, even when they noticed Eunseong’s existence.
“Why didn’t you just send me away from the beginning?”
If he had sent him away like that, there would have been no falling for each other, no getting hurt like this, no having to show him the emotions that sometimes rose uncontrollably in frustration, no one having to die if the other disappeared… none of those things would have happened.
“…I guess I didn’t want to send you away.”
He said quietly.
Yoo Siwoon had no intention of sending Eunseong away from the beginning.
Making all kinds of excuses, he had ignored Director Nam’s opinion and kept Eunseong by his side. Knowing it shouldn’t happen, he was drawn to him; knowing it shouldn’t happen, he looked away from his restraint, his endurance, under the pretext of not wanting to hurt Eunseong’s heart anymore. That was his honest feeling. He never had any desire to send Eunseong far away to a place where he might never see him again.
“Then who made my father like that?”
“Yoo Oseon, another cousin of mine. He was one of the breeders. Yoo Oseon found out that you were with me. So I decided it was better to reveal you to them and protect you than to keep hiding you. If you were officially recognized, no one would be able to treat you carelessly.”
“Was that the person I saw at that strange temple back then? The one who cursed at you?”
Eunseong remembered the person he had met at the place he had visited with Yoo Siwoon. That man who had pointed at Eunseong with his finger, trembling all over as if struck by lightning, and stared with wide, shocked eyes.
Yoo Siwoon nodded.
It was a chilling story. Eunseong shuddered. He looked at Yoo Siwoon’s profile as he calmly related the story while rubbing his chilly arms.
If Yoo Siwoon hadn’t been there… what would have happened?
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
