Pushed back, Bom collapsed on the ground as her long hair scattered across the floor. She raised her body again. Looking back into his eyes revealed her reddened cheek and the bursted lips with budding crimson blood.
“Didn’t I say it before?”
His impulse was soaring inside him.
“You have to stay in my sight.”
“…”
When his voice that had always been tranquil suddenly gained an intonation, slight fear appeared in Bom’s eyes.
“I told you. You must stay at a place where my eyes and ears can reach, and do things I know.”
“…”
“I definitely warned you before, that this world was different from the one you were living in; that I will put up a fence around you that you cannot jump over. So why the hell did you crawl outside. Why aren’t you listening to me.”
Again, he grabbed onto her arm and pulled it. “Let g…” Bom tried to retaliate but this time, it was pointless.
He shouted.
“Just do as I say—!”
In a flash, everything made of glass inside the room shattered with a sharp noise. The fear in Bom’s face deepened even more.
“I told you to listen. I told you I won’t harm you if you stay obedient, but you did not listen to me. How many times did I warn you, huh? To stop acting up and stay still.”
“I had to know it.”
“What did you have to know. How does anything change from you knowing stuff about me!”
“It is because you became weird. I–”
“Shut up! That’s enough. I don’t want to hear it so stop blabbering and shut your mouth. My patience is about to hit the bottom.”
Once again, he grabbed her by the collar. In response, Bom wriggled her body as if she was in a seizure and twisted her body to push him away. When that didn’t work, she used magic to try to push him away but it was impossible. He dispelled the magic and the impact was directly transmitted to her, making Bom groan in pain from a shock to her chest.
“…What if I don’t? Will you torture me again?”
However, her voice just did not stop.
“Will you lock me, hit me and bind my hands and feet? If I cry it hurts, will you shove a knife into my mouth and tell me to stop being noisy?”
“…”
“Without giving any food or drink, with no clothes to change into, injecting happiness like a drug, making us watch one of us go crazy next to us. Will you make us feel how it feels to slowly die without any hope in sight?”
“…”
“…Is that what you will do? Like what you did before?”
Yu Jitae looked at her.
Within the pitch black silence that continued without an end, Bom realised something.
Soon, her chest started to bounce and twitch. He saw her stomach shooting up and sinking down, and it looked like she was trying to contain a hyperventilation.
Her breath soon turned quiet and so did her voice.
With a very tiny voice, Bom asked him.
“…Do you even find me pretty?”
Even at this point, this kid still wasn’t in the right mind.
He didn’t feel the need to talk anymore. Besides, he couldn’t lie about anything either because he had no idea what he himself might say.
To slap her again, he raised his hand back up.
Bom instinctively shrunk her body. She dropped her head and used her two arms to cover her head, as her toes curled in from tension.
For some unknown reason, seeing those toes put a stop to his arm.
His hand paused in mid air, without him knowing the reason himself.
That slight hesitation was enough to stop the atmosphere from flowing in a strange direction. Looking into his eyes, Bom raised a question.
“How… how can a person be so shameless?”
“What?”
“How can you deceive us like that, and pretend like you didn’t do anything?”
Even though he was feeling a constant rise in his impulse to hit Bom, he did not reply to that question. He kept his silence just like always, because he was not confident that his tongue wouldn’t tell a lie if he were to open his mouth.
“How could you do that to us…?”
As if that was her opportunity, Bom continued her words.
“How could you pretend like we were a happy family? How…? How could someone be as shameless as you…?
“How could you act like a father to Gyeoul after neglecting her like that? And how can you be like a teacher to Yeorum who you killed with your own hands? How could you call yourself Kaeul’s guardian…?
“What were you thinking when you called me pretty…? You dug through my heart again and again. So how come you craved my body that day, after cutting it open time after time…?
“How, could you…”
Bom started weeping out loud.
“How could someone be that cruel…”
Tears formed droplets that started to flow down due to the heaviness behind them.
“You know, I only received the memories… Memories of us suffering from pain… memories of me dying… I, my heart feels like it’s about to die…”
She sobbed from her throat.
“How can you betray us like this… Why were you so nice to us… You said I was pretty… You were nice to Gyeoul… You consulted with me everyday to stop Kaeul from shaking… You healed Yeorum’s body after training… and massaged her muscles… Was all that just you pretending to live for us…?”
Unable to hold back her overflowing tears, Bom wept out aloud while throwing criticisms at his face.
“And yet, now how can you come to me… and not even apologise…? Is it because it was all fake? Because you weren’t even considering us as people in the first place…?
“How laughable must it have been when I wanted to be embraced by you…? How funny would it have been for you, when Gyeoul asked you to hug her like a father…? We were all dying in your hands for years… right?
“You, are a really, really evil person… No devil in this world would be as hideous as you…”
His sins were flooding him.
Like a storm, that unstoppable might,
Countless evil deeds that had been built up in his past;
They became poison that started pouring down like rain.
“I… Without even knowing that, I…”
Bom wept with sorrowful gasps.
But even at this point in time,
Yu Jitae was feeling nothing but irritation.
Even though he had been seeking condemnation, something that he had been suppressing inside his chains shattered open the moment he heard those words of condemnation from her.
Over the past thousand years,
Yu Jitae had never said anything similar to the hatchlings.
Even though he had never done it–
Now at this moment when Bom was throwing curses at him, he realised that it was time to drop all the deceit and convey his honest thoughts.
Even though it was an emotional judgement, it wouldn’t be a problem because whatever it was, Bom wouldn’t end up dying.
***
Inside Yu Jitae’s past memories, when the fundamental emotions and memories of Yu Jitae that the white bird had been laboriously trying to keep away from sight were revealed in front of his eyes…
Clone 2 collapsed on the ground in fright. Because he had never even considered this a possibility, and because he had only been thinking that his current life was a fortunate one changing his future…
The memories repressed from the surface were mind-numbingly shocking for the clone.
Yu Jitae did not treasure the baby dragons.
***
“I had a nemesis.”
Bom’s eyes that had been squinted with tears ripped wide open.
“From a very long time ago.”
At the end of the 4th iteration, he regretted.
Was it because Kaeul died from heartache inside the blood-soaked bathtub?
No. He regretted his own judgement of making her become a celebrity, because he thought there would have been a more decent method elsewhere.
And looking at the appearing dragons, he despaired.
“I despised them so much that I would have loved to rip them to death only if I could.”
At the end of the 5th iteration, he despaired.
Was it because Yeorum was in pain asking for death?
No. He regretted not cutting off her arms and legs. Because he thought there would have been a more natural method, that could force her to accept her powerlessness.
And looking at the appearing dragons, he despaired.
“They were disgusting and hateful. I wanted to eradicate them completely from this world and kill every one of them only if I could.”
At the end of the 6th iteration, he despaired.
– And you are the one that ruined everything.
– I will not forget what happened today. Forever.
He was filled with all sorts of emotions and wanted to come up with excuses. Was it because he regretted belatedly after hearing Bom’s words?
No.
He wanted to justify to himself why he couldn’t lock them better.
Because he found himself pathetic and incompetent that he couldn’t crush their personalities any better.
Because his inability to lock them thoroughly and completely was an insult to himself.
Those emotions were all that of self-hatred.
Even though the trash green hatchling was spouting some gibberish at him, that was not what he was concerned about.
What about it?
“Look at me. You green dragon offspring.”
Bom’s eyes widened into circles.
“I’ve been a convict, locked inside time. I have experienced two thousand lives and deaths and was forced to live a thousand years against my will. Do you know who it is that locked me in this detestable timeline? Do you know who it is, that made me infinitely drift along in an endless life?”
“…”
With a heap of hostility, he said to Bom.
“The dimensional garbage that thinks they are the only noble ones.
“It is you.
“You dragons.”
Words he had never told anyone before were flooding out now that lies were forbidden from his mouth.
“I was involuntarily dragged into hundreds of years of war. I had to kill my loved one with my own hands and I had to face my loved one sacrificing herself in my stead with my very eyes. I had to experience everything I considered precious disappearing and forgetting about me endlessly.
“I couldn’t die even if I wanted to. In a world with locked time and locked space, I was all alone. For a thousand years, at the centre of all my despair was you. You are the ones who locked this Yu Jitae into despair. You dragons.”
Lowering his body, he looked into Bom’s eyes.
Even now, reminding himself that this young girl was a dragon immediately made him want to twist its neck to death.
“Did you call me a devil? No. You are the ones that made me a devil. You wicked dragons are the ones that made me like this. And yet did anyone apologise to me? Did anyone guide me down the solution? No. Nothing like that. So what was I supposed to do, huh?”
Yu Jitae was smiling.
From an unknown point in time, from the moment he dropped his thoughts, Yu Jitae had to experience his consciousness driving away from himself. That was why the world was hazy in front of his eyes, and it was similar to how a young child referred to themselves in third person due to their inability to discern themselves.
“Now I can finally tell you.”
The man blabbered with his open mouth, regardless of Yu Jitae’s intention.
“Yes. I am the one that locked you.”
Bom blocked her mouth with her two hands. With a heavy tremble, she faced him with eyes tainted with fear.
“So what? I slapped the infant blue dragon to drive it into the ground, tortured the ill-tempered infant red dragon and killed it. I don’t even want to mention the weak gold dragon. It was such a massive pain.
“And what about you? At least you were obedient so that was good. Your heart was especially more resilient and fit for experiments. Four hundred times, I believe, was the number of experiments I had with your body. But the only problem with you was that you were noisy. Somehow, you just wouldn’t stop crying and sobbing that it hurts.
“It hurts. It’s painful. Help me. It’s hot. It’s burning. I can’t breathe. My bones are broken. Please let me see. Please don’t do that. I’m sorry. Please kill me. Please kill me. Please kill me–”
In the middle of his words, he suddenly shouted out loud.
“WHO DOESN’T KNOW IT HURTS–!!”
The world quivered as Bom stopped her breath.
His heart was pulsing faster and faster but he couldn’t stop his own mouth. The impulse that he had been forcing down until it overflowed had ended up breaking the glass cup itself.
He could no longer control his impulse.
“You were noisy and annoying so I placed a knife into your mouth and twisted your neck. So what? What about it? Will you condemn me? Curse me for being a devil? Do it. Do as you wish. Curse me as much as you want and remember today to your heart’s content. Do that for that amazing eternity of your life. Do you think I will even give you a sliver of my attention?
“It was dumbfounding. And yet later I started feeling guilty about my actions against you kids. I started regretting lying to you all. And like you said, you started looking pretty. Yu Bom. Do you think you were the only one that found it weird?
“I have never wanted a day like this to come! Do you think I would have wanted to become like this? I had become a devil when I realised it. And I was destined to live with the offsprings of my enemies despite crushing them to death.
“Do you think that I, would have wished for a day like this to come ever? Did I want to become this type of human? Me?!!
“Answer me! You filthy offspring—!!”
Right when he flooded out all his hidden hatred, Bom started to move.
And then.
Because he couldn’t understand what had happened to him,
For a split moment–
He paused.
Pausing his breath and dropping his gaze, he froze stiff.
Bom had her lips laid on top of his.
Pushing Bom by the shoulders and grabbing her arms, he pressed her down on the ground. This time, Bom did not retaliate.
“What are you doing, you crazy bitch.”
“Do you know why I didn’t tell the other kids about your past…?”
A strong ominous feeling struck him, that he shouldn’t listen to the following words.
“Shut your mouth. Before I tear your mouth apart.”
“It’s because I still like you.”
“Don’t you hear me telling you to shut up! Are you still trying to be pretentious? Trying to use that tiny brain of yours to escape? There is no way out for you. You have no place to escape to!”
“It’s okay…”
Their words were out of joint.
Communication was crumbling down.
With tears falling down her cheeks, Bom continued her words.
“Even though you harassed and abused me, I like you…”
He could feel madness.
“You tortured me. Even though it must have been extremely painful, I still like you…”
Madness, in a different shape and form to his.
“But, my heart was in too much pain… I needed time to think to myself…”
He thought it was a mask.
“That’s why I couldn’t say it… You wanted a daily life… And wanted happiness even through deceit… What you want is what I want… so I couldn’t break it… The kids don’t need to know… I can keep it buried in my heart forever…”
Had it not been a mask all along?
“……Because you are more precious to me.”
Bom was saying that she will become an accomplice.
He was falling.
His body was falling into the quagmire covered with filth.
Inside the world of shivering coldness,
Something more twisted than him was embracing his body.
Am I falling?
Or am I advancing to reach something?
That overly distorted something was hugging him inside the quagmire. Even though he couldn’t comprehend it and was concurrently feeling the impulse to twist and smash it into pieces, he couldn’t bring himself to do so.
“It’s okay even if you are a devil.”
He couldn’t do anything.
“It’s okay even if you kill me.”
Bom gave a bright smile.
“I love you.”