The Singing Contest was met with an extremely positive reception.
Fireworks were still embroidering the sky, but as expected of an event that was personally planned by the director of the PR department, the venue was crowded beyond what eyes could see. The seats were all filled up but more people around 1000 or so were standing without anything to sit on.
As if there was fire being added to the festival mood, cadets sang along whenever a famous song popped up, causing the area to be very noisy.
Various masked singers had their turns. An iron tin, a lion, a tiger, a snowman… 30 minutes soon passed and the sixth masked singer came up the stage but Kaeul was still nowhere to be seen.
“When’s she coming out?” asked Yeorum.
“Who knows…”
The singing order was determined by the PR department. It might be that she was allocated near the back because of the good impression she left during the rehearsal.
[Kaeuli ♥: adfasld;fkal T.T;]
That was when his messenger rang.
[Kaeuli ♥: snfdfnkijfnkiwd;]
[Kaeuli ♥: dsf23dsfnk]
Kaeul sent him an undecipherable array of letters.
[Me: ?]
[Kaeuli ♥: T.T T.T]
[Kaeuli ♥: T.T T.TT.TT.TT.T]
[Kaeuli ♥: I’m nervous ahjussi T.T]
[Me: You’re fine]
[Kaeuli ♥: How am I fine T.T]
[Kaeuli ♥: I’m not fineeee Q.QQ.Q…]
He could imagine her trembling from the words.
[Me: Where are you]
[Kaeuli ♥: Waiting room TT]
[Kaeuli ♥: Ah it’s seriously doomed–]
[Me: Why]
[Kaeuli ♥: I haven’t even understood the song yettt]
[Kaeuli ♥: Ahh T.T]
[Kaeuli ♥: Haha]
[Kaeuli ♥: Lolll]
[Kaeuli ♥: Lololololol]
[Kaeuli ♥: T.T T.T T.T T.T]
[Kaeuli ♥: Tqgejp jdffoslk]
Yu Jitae didn’t know how to reply so he instead showed the messages to Yeorum and Gyeoul. After reading the messages, Yeorum immediately tried a video call but Kaeul didn’t pick it up.
[Kaeuli ♥: I’m in the waiting roommm T.T]
[Kaeuli ♥: If by any chance, I go off-tone]
[Kaeuli ♥: Please buy me a loaf of bread. Haha]
[Kaeuli ♥: Hehe. I ‘love’ it… hehe]
[Kaeuli ♥: Hehehehe;;;;;]
[Me: I will.]
[Kaeuli ♥: T.T Nononono]
[Kaeuli ♥: I don’t need itttt Q.Q]
[Kaeuli ♥: Ehewww T.T.T.T.T.T]
[Kaeuli ♥: Ah, they’re telling me to come up T.T]
Was it her turn to go? He quickly typed a message into the watch.
[Me: Don’t wrorry you’l;l do fine]
She didn’t read the message till the end.
However, after standing on the stage, Kaeul started singing a great song despite her worries. The singing contest lasted for about an hour and Kaeul happened to be the last one to sing, right when the cadets were starting to lose their focus.
But when Kaeul’s voice started flowing out with the music, the crowd immediately turned silent.
“Ohh,” “Wahh,” “Uwah…” Gasps of admiration were heard from here and there.
Like a glass marble rolling down a silver plate, Kaeul sang with a sorrowful voice that sounded like it could shatter with one mistake.
Soon, the general pitch of the song jumped and lyrics that pledged for the future began flowing out.
One day, I’ll climb the mountain with you, hand-in-hand.
One day, I’ll dance with you, feet-to-feet.
One day, I’ll be right next to you.
[Some time or other—…]
Her emotions dramatically exploded as her high and deep timbre resonated across the sky. The voice shook the ears of the listeners and caused a ripple to travel across their blood streams. It could be considered a thriller at this point, and enveloped every listener with shock.
For an instant, Yu Jitae felt like he was listening to BY of the 4th iteration.
She had always been lacking something compared to BY when singing but now it was different.
Did Kaeul perhaps realise something?
***
Closing her eyes and immersing herself into the song, Kaeul’s mind was solely dedicated to the song before realising it. The surroundings were dark but when she looked down, the ground beneath was even darker. In order to express the song in more depth, she had to go into that murky darkness.
The surroundings turned darker and darker the deeper she went, so Kaeul had always been hesitant of going deeper in. That had happened multiple times and in the end, she always gave up and climbed back up to the surface.
However, she decided to try going down just for today. After all, it was the last day and everything she had prepared for was for today. Shouldn’t she at least try fully immersing herself? While saying that to herself, she decided to go into the unknown depths.
It turned darker and darker.
There was something waiting at the bottom of this pit. A mysterious fear struck her when thinking about confronting the thing waiting at the depths. She was scared – so scared that she really wanted to run away from time to time.
But Kaeul still immersed herself deeper and at last came across the thing that was buried inside the murky swamp of darkness.
Who are you?
Why are you in such pain?
What’s making you so desperate?
The doubts that continued one after another became a realisation the moment she was confronted by the identity of the bizarre existence. In that instant, Kaeul almost fainted from astonishment.
Inside the very depths of her immersion,
A green hatchling was gazing up into her eyes.
It was Bom.
Right when the song came to an end, her mind returned to reality like the shattering of a window. Kaeul had definitely sung a good song and the crowd loved it, but she blankly returned to the waiting room without even realising it.
Immediately after returning to the waiting room, she threw the mask away and looked for Yu Jitae. In the midst of the audience, she found him sitting on a chair and he turned his head towards her with a doubtful gaze.
Kaeul didn’t know how to word it properly, but she had to sincerely convey the emotions that were trying to force themselves out of her mouth.
“Ahjussi. Where’s Bom-unni?”
“Why’re you already here. Don’t you need to wait for the awards? The other kids went to get ice cream for you.”
“No. That doesn’t matter. What matters is Bom-unni. Where is Bom-unni.”
“Why are you looking for Bom.”
“Where is she. Just tell me.”
His eyes turned sharper from her strange attitude.
“Who knows. I don’t think she’s here yet.”
Kaeul felt like her head was about to flip.
“Why isn’t she here yet? We’re in the middle of a festival.”
“…”
“Ahjussi… do you really not know anything?”
Only now did Kaeul understand Bom’s words in full.
– …You sounded like a wife that lost her husband.
That was her evaluation after listening to her song. It was in fact no different from Bom saying that to herself, since the emotions that Kaeul immersed herself into were originally from Bom.
What were these emotions that Bom-unni was bottling up inside her? The moment she realised how deep it was, Kaeul felt something extremely similar to fear.
She grabbed onto her chest. Reflecting on those emotions again caused her heart to clog and her head to turn.
Right now, Bom wanted something desperately. It was a fierce greed that could scare off any other.
Wow, this is seriously no joke…
Isn’t Bom-uni crazy…?
But why?
And what did she want so badly?
Her doubts didn’t last very long. She soon remembered what she herself wanted.
When immersing herself in this feeling, Kaeul wanted to be with Yu Jitae no matter how short it may be. With just the two of them.
Naturally, this wasn’t her own feelings.
Maybe Bom was suppressing her greed and urge thanks to the strong willpower of the green race. If greed was water and perseverance a dam, Bom was practically holding onto herself thanks to a mountain blocking the ocean of greed.
From what Kaeul felt, this emotion was also similar to a tyre that was constantly being pumped with air. A large and serious greed that will one day explode for sure, if the air wasn’t let out from time to time.
“Listen to me carefully. Ahjussi. Bom-unni…”
Kaeul explained her feelings from Bom’s standpoint.
The Regressor’s eyes twitched.
***
Using very extreme words, Kaeul explained Bom’s condition. Those words didn’t fit Bom, who always appeared calm including the previous iterations where she had independently grown like wild weeds.
Yu Jitae didn’t ask how she discovered those things because he also knew about the traits of the gold race. There were times when he found Kaeul acting weird but those were most likely because she had immersed herself in Bom’s emotions.
If that was how extreme Bom’s thought process was, it might be that he had made a great mistake when Bom was asking him to call her pretty on the terrace. Should he have said that at the very least? As a person who was inexperienced with relationships, the Regressor found it difficult to understand.
In turn, that caused him to hurry his steps.
Near the back entrance of Hilton Clocktower, located at the entertainment district.
When Yu Jitae arrived there while relying on Bom’s presence, he found a girl with grass-coloured hair off in the distance. Walking a bit closer, he could see the clothes of the child sitting down on the field of grass.
A short, white jacket and a long, light-pink skirt.
Bom was wearing hanbok, the traditional clothes of Korea.
While hugging her knees, she was vacantly staring at the fireworks colouring the night sky and didn’t even notice him until he was near her. It was only when he was right next to her, that her vacant gaze finally regained its focus.
“Nn? Ahjussi?”
“Hi.”
“Hi… When did you get here?”
Unlike Kaeul’s words, Bom looked completely normal on the outside.
“I was about to leave soon.” With a smile on her lips, she added.
According to Kaeul, it didn’t make sense for the unstable Bom to give such a normal smile.
However, he felt strange. He had a doubt that she might in fact be inches away from exploding, despite resembling a still surface of water on the outside.
For the benefit of the doubt, he decided to calmly have a conversation with her.
“Why didn’t you come. We had your seat ready for you.”
“It’s nothing. I just, wanted to be alone for a bit…”
He sat down next to her while she pulled in the long hems of her skirt so that he wouldn’t sit on it.
“Did you finish what you had to do?”
“Yes yes. Did Kaeul do well?”
“She did. It would’ve been better if you saw it with us.”:
“There were too many people nearby. So I thought it would be hard to squeeze through them.”
In any case, why was she suddenly wearing a hanbok?
He thought for a bit, before abruptly remembering that in the morning, he had called the clothes pretty on a whim.
Is that why Bom was wearing hanbok?
Linking the points like that made Yu Jitae feel slightly perplexed.
“Ah, by the way, does this look nice?”
Bom asked while throwing her arms out and touched the small jacket.
“It does. But why are you wearing them.”
“I tried borrowing it since it was a festival. Is it pretty?”
Perhaps because of what he was thinking on the way here, Yu Jitae replied half-instinctively.
“It’s pretty.”
Wearing a strange smile, she nodded. Mischievousness was soon added to her smile, and she asked.
“Which part do you think is pretty?”
“What?”
“Here?”
She threw her arms wide and showed off the jacket.
“Or here?”
This time, she carefully picked up the hems of her skirt and elegantly bent her back.
The question, ‘Which part do you think is pretty’ was a difficult one to answer for the Regressor. While he was zealously pondering for the correct answer, Bom realised his thought process and the mischievousness hanging on her lips turned a level deeper.
“Why aren’t you saying anything? Didn’t you say it was pretty? Or were you just saying it?”
“No. It is pretty. Both top and bottom… overall it’s nice.”
The response that he somehow forced out was sloppy to the point that even he could see how sloppy it was. Bom naturally thought the same and giggled under her breath.
“Thank you. Ahjussi, you look slightly cuter than normal as well.”
Looking back, Bom tended to compliment him very often. Was she always detailed with her compliments though? Trying to find out what was different from her response and his, Yu Jitae asked.
“Which part do you think is cute.”
“What you’re doing right now.”
“What?”
“This thing. How you’re copying me.”
She immediately saw through it.
Yu Jitae shook his head. As usual, it felt like he was being caught up in her pace whenever he was talking to her. He didn’t come here to have a chat like this and yet she had taken control of the conversation before he could even notice it.
“Should we go then? The fireworks are almost done as well.”
Normally, Yu Jitae would have agreed to her. But not today.
If Kaeul was right, Bom wouldn’t want to give up the time she was spending with him right now.
“No. Let’s stay here a little bit longer.”
“Sorry? Why?”
With an awkward tone, he spelled each word one by one.
“I think, we need to have a chat.”