“I’ll be staying inside the workshop for a while,” said BM.
With a loosened gaze, Ha Saetbyul looked at him and giggled.
“Hihi, why…?”
“Taebaek died.”
“Euungg…?”
She asked, wondering what this was about.
“That’s all you need to know for now. Don’t look for me and let Bell know as well.”
“Uhh… umm…”
Before Ha Saetbyul could say anything, the workshop’s door came to a close. Limply swaying her dull body, Ha Saetbyul peeked through the window of the workshop so BM closed the blinds.
“Haa…”
Left alone, she scratched her hair.
The workshop of the underground labyrinth was pitch dark when the light was turned off. It was different when the area was filled with incubators and test tubes. Back then, the fluids had been generating light so it was never dark even when the lights were off and BM’s sleeping place had never been truly dark.
After making Jung Taebaek, he got rid of all the incubators and other apparatus which no longer served any purpose.
Even then, it was fine. Jung Taebaek was a child whose mere existence emitted light and it had never occurred to him that the workshop was dark.
And yet now that Jung Taebaek was no longer here.
The workshop with its light turned off, felt ever so dark.
“…”
Though he couldn’t see anything, BM could see it – the workshop decorated like a playground area still had toys although the child had disappeared.
In any case, he wasn’t my own child. He wasn’t the child of my two friends either.
Thus, BM should’ve been able to get rid of all the toys, books and lego blocks that the child was playing with, as soon as he recovered his feelings.
So why was it that he still couldn’t get rid of them?
BM reached forth and grasped the alphabet book which Jung Taebaek used to play with the most. Flipping past the first page, he found a name written with a scribble.
Jung Bongman
It was the first set of words Taebaek learned when he started learning the alphabet with Yu Yeorum.
‘I’m your father.’
‘My name is Jung Bongman.’
Those were BM’s words, facing the child who flowed out from the incubator with ambient fluids inside the boss room of an S ranked dungeon. Unable to even open his eyes, the child tilted his head and copied his words.
‘Ju Bo Man?’
Although it was but a chimera,
And the chimera was long dead,
The child, who was to him, none other than Jung Taebaek,
Wrote BM’s name, saying that it was his father’s name.
Though the child was dead, the ‘moments’ of the child thinking about him remained here as evidence. That’s why BM couldn’t discard these things.
If he were to meet the real Taebaek in the future, he had to get rid of these things for sure and yet the fact that he couldn’t do it, suggested that the left-behind objects were the proof of the lingering feelings hiding deep inside his heart.
Suddenly, the wooden block that the child used to cuddle in his sleep, was caught in his sight.
Reaching forth, he carried the block and touched the traces of the sharp teeth.
– Crazy.
That was when something spoke to him in his mind. It was the monster of Arandot, Kalyavan, a chimera attached to BM’s head.
– Why didn’t you just let it be if you were going to be this stupid?
– Oi human. Why can’t you be rational?
– You were this close to being f*cked.
– The thing was acting cute and all, pretending to be a kid asking for food, but if it accumulated more power, it would’ve escaped for sure, no?
– What would it do after escaping? Do whatever it wants to by mingling with other people.
– Eat by stealing from others, and absorbing their power after killing them.
– Who would ever catch that thing, when it can pretend to be the person it eats? If it creates 200 fake identities and changes its gender and appearance every time, how the heck would anyone catch it?
– Then it would make new chimeras with the engineering data left behind on its own body, create an army and act like a boss and go, ‘Ahem ahem, I’m your god~’ or some crap lol.
– What would that become in the end? Huh?
…
– Look at this idiot ignoring us…
– Wouldn’t it become the 2nd coming of Gnosis!!
Gnosis.
It was the crazy human-type chimera that pushed the alternate dimension Arandot into destruction. At the same time, it was the previous owner of [Eyes of Abraxas (S-)], which BM currently owned.
– Oi you stupid eyes.
– Mate, try say something you stupid bastard.
– …Hmm.
– What ‘hmm…’? Say something. Did your owner do that or what.
– He did…
– Is it dangerous or what.
– It’s dangerous…
– Right. So you did great getting rid of it. Jung Bongman! You did great!
– Lol right. You did.
– Lolololol. Agreed.
The chimeras blabbered inside his head.
BM remained quiet.
He knew it himself. Everything in the world seemed to be supporting the death of the child.
He knew it in his head. His head was clearly aware of it but…
– Oi, you heart!
– ?
– You stupid idiot. Damn retard. Aren’t you upset? You almost got eaten by that stupid little kid.
– Ye…
– Say something and complain to this bastard you retard.
– Dude. He’s sick, leave him alone.
– Ye…
It was a lot louder than usual, so BM turned their voices off.
He wanted to stay quiet, without any interruption.
But when he remained silently inside the darkness, a sense of emptiness reared its head. He had told Yu Jitae that he wasn’t planning to take any extreme measures and it was true. However, at least for now, it was agonising for BM to breathe. It was so painful that he would prefer to die instead.
Just for today, he wanted to die.
BM thought to himself.
A person with a wounded heart couldn’t see their wound. The fact that they couldn’t see the wound despite being in pain in turn made them more anxious. There was no reason for me to be in pain, so why?
Only by creating a physical wound on their own body were they able to get a peace of mind. They consoled themselves saying that this is why they are in pain.
That was the thought process of those that harmed themselves, and it was exactly the thing that was on BM’s mind.
If he was in so much pain, he wanted the proof of the thing that was causing him to be so distressed and confirm it with his own eyes.
Would my own dead corpse be enough?
It was when such extreme thoughts were going past his brain.
Maybe it had been a few hours, or a few days.
It started bustling outside.
Kung Kwang Kung Kwang.
The sound echoed regularly, as if they were bashing something. Even when he tried to ignore it by closing his eyes, the vibration was sent to him through the floor.
That abnormal sensation shook the time he was trying to spend alone.
He endured it,
But after enduring it for so long,
He finally couldn’t help himself and irritatedly opened the door of the workshop to confirm what was happening in the inner room of the underground labyrinth.
There, a large picture of Taebaek’s face was hanging like a poster. The corners of the large image were taped off with black tape, like a portrait of the deceased but the strange thing was that the special force agents were dancing in front of the portrait.
Were they playing around?
In that moment, his emotions furiously surged forth.
“Oi. You—”
BM bellowed.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING—!”
It was the shout of the second officially strongest person in the world. The yell resonated through the entire inner room and the dust that had accumulated on the Fragment of Paradise all scattered.
“Uhht…? You’re here, Mister Nurse…?”
“Hahahat…”
Despite being surprised, they gave murky smiles. The faces which he usually found bright and cheerful were kicking a few safety pins away from his head today.
BM ran up, picked the portrait and threw it down on the floor. The frames that were awkwardly crafted by putting pieces of wood together crumbled and the windows of the houses inside the inner room shattered.
Clank!
The dancing ones awkwardly stopped their bodies.
As the music came to a stop, the energy of the ones that were dancing and drumming their instruments all sank. BM’s force was strong enough to momentarily shatter the prevailing happiness caused by the Light of Paradise.
“Bell Baryon–!”
BM shouted. Soon, the captain of the special force squad, a large woman, carefully walked up to him.
“What is this about, Bell.”
“Mister Nurse… could you tell me why you’re so upset…”
“My child died, and yet you’re dnacing and playing in front of me?”
“…”
“Explain this right now. Make me understand!”
Unable to control his fury, BM’s hands trembled.
The calm nurse is angry…! Someone might die if he doesn’t calm down…!
The agents turned nervous and racked their slow brains.
“We were, paying respect to the deceased child…”
“Do you express dancing and playing as paying respect? You must have all gone seriously insane. If I kill all of you and dance on top of your corpses, is that paying respect for you too? Huh–!?”
Nervously, Bell avoided his eyes.
“Get rid of this crap. Right now—!”
However, there was no-one who readily moved themselves. Right when BM was about to burst off into another shout, Bell Baryon opened her mouth with a tiny whisper.
“You’re saying bizarre things, Mister Nurse…”
“What?”
“Is staying holed up in darkness and crying the only way to pay respect…?”
Behind the pair of sunglasses, the gaze of the thin man turned sharp like a sword.
“Then are you telling me jumping and dancing are paying respect?”
“Yes. I have already heard it from the doctor…”
“Heard what?”
“He said it was a meaningful death… the child was a fake and had to die… and had no choice but to die…”
“And?”
“A life going to and from is in accordance with Providence… Then the death of a child that should die, although sad, is the correct thing, is it not…?”
BM’s head started being muddled with complex thoughts.
“Although the child has already left us… we were together for a while… He was like my son… It’s not just me. That’s what everyone here thought… The red-haired boy; although he looked different on the outside, he was just like my son who’s in a very distant land… so we were able to smile… although it was only for a short 3 weeks…”
BM clenched his lips.
“Look. Mister Nurse. That’s the child’s face…”
Bell Baryon pointed at the portrait that BM threw onto the ground – the face of the boy taken with the camera, that was intended to be used for sending a photo for Kaeul.
“And that, is the drum we made with the child…”
BM turned to the clumsy drum, made unskillfully with leather.
That was true. Once the anger that covered his eyes dissipated, he remembered that all the agents here that were from Africa, had made a traditional drum and played with the child for three weeks.
“And, our dance, was the dance the child learned from Saetbyul…”
After laughing, ‘Huhu’, Bell Baryon twitched her muscles and started a strange dance.
“Although it was a short meeting… and he’s not here anymore… we will remember the child till our death and we are paying respect for his final moments…”
“With such stupid baseless acts?”
“Is the method a problem…? It’s ‘our’ method, what we did together with the child…”
His surging fury gradually dissolved. His emotions that reached into the endless depths, slowly calmed themselves down.
“……Got it.”
With staggering steps, BM walked far off to the walls of the inner room and collapsed on the ground.
Taking that as an approval, the muscles started wriggling again as they began a bizarre dance.
Kungtatak! Kungtatak! The drums echoed with a difficult rhythm which Taebaek had been unable to follow. However, the dance and the drums were off-beat.
It was all over the place.
Staring at them, he couldn’t help but laugh bewilderedly.
They’re all mental.
Why was I seriously listening to the words of some idiots…
But as the mental patients continued dancing,
Hearing the clumsy sound of the drums,
And when the crumbled portrait was finally lifted albeit awkwardly,
BM couldn’t stop his tears from gushing out.
“Hehe… Nurrse is cryingg…”
“Are you crying…? Hahat…”
As if they had never been scared before, the agents walked up and teased him. BM was crying continuously without even having the power to tell them to go away, when Ha Saetbyul approached him with a smile and opened her mouth.
“Hehe… Apparently you can die if you want to…”
“What? Are you telling me to die?”
“Nn… Just die…”
“Go away, lady.”
“But… if you don’t want to die, he said to think of things that are worth expecting…”
“…”
“Expectation makes people live on…”
It was unclear who she heard this from, but after finishing what she had to say, she started dancing by twitching her butt around.
Those words were strangely consoling.
Soon when he was left alone in the corner, he thought to himself.
Instead of the boy who left after a short period of time, there was the child who had been the objective of his entire life – the son of his two friends who cannot be substituted by anything in this world,
If he expected the second meeting with that child…
Maybe it was fine to live today.
*
The next day,
BM got rid of all the belongings of the child that had once filled the workshop.