Bom opened the window wide open.
Light from the warm midsummer sun showered in through the window. They were at the house she used to stay in, and this was also where they were going to bring the kids to for the time being.
It was a great day with a refreshing breeze and not a speck of dust visible in the blue sky. Has sunlight always been so warm? Despite being in a setting that he had experienced countless times already, it gave him a completely different impression.
“…”
Before long, Bom turned around and faced him. Slowly, she walked towards him so in return, he reached his arms out and bent his back. Standing on her toes, she wrapped her arms around his neck.
He gave the child a tight hug as she took a deep breath out while feeling the arms pressing down on her ribs. That breath made it feel all the more realistic.
“What is going on. Why are you here, and what happened to this iteration? And how…”
Yu Jitae used to know everything as the one at the centre of the regression, but now that he wasn’t, he had no idea what was happening to him.
“Mhmm…”
A teary look appeared on her face again.
She started a short and brief explanation of everything that happened until now.
1,000 years. Throughout that unbelievably long period of time, she suffered and was bruised until she was at last able to reach this moment. Her journey was conveyed with a small amount of her memories.
“…”
Yu Jitae gave Bom another tight hug along with a deep sigh. He didn’t know how he was supposed to console her.
Although he only heard a portion of it, her story was shocking, astonishingly agonising and that in turn made him realise how priceless and valuable this moment was.
That was the same for Bom. She squinted her eyes, and heaved a sigh while seemingly holding her tears in.
“Ah, I promised not to do this…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
They were bound to be closer during a deep hug. He lowered his head as Bom lifted hers and looked into his eyes. There was something permeating inside in their distance of touching breaths.
Supporting herself by resting her hands on his shoulders, she stood on her toes. The two of them brought their lips closer at the same time. Their mixing tongues conveyed the warmth that proved they were alive.
‘Hnn…’ A small moan was heard as he bit on her lower lips. In that moment of long-awaited happiness, Yu Jitae slowly coveted her lips.
At one point, the two of them separated their lips. Without even voicing it out loud, they both knew that staying together in such a steamy atmosphere might make them waste a few days.
He slowly wiped the smudged lipstick on her lips with his thumb.
“I’ll bring the kids back.”
“Okay…”
In order to not ruin his reunion with the other kids, Bom decided to wait at home.
However, Yu Jitae had to stop while he was in the middle of opening the door. Bom, who was behind him by the time he realised it, was wrapping her arms around his waist while leaning her forehead on his back.
“Don’t be late…”
***
Bom said Yeorum and Kaeul would be waiting at the same place as before.
Dragons could remember something and never forget them in their lives. Because of that, standing in the same environment and comparing the scene to their memories to find ‘differences’ was an enjoyable experience for them. It was slightly different from how humans tended to look for ‘similarities’ by comparing their environment to their hazy memories, but it was apparently fun nonetheless.
That was why Yu Jitae headed to Africa. Walking across the desert under the scorching sun for half a day, he felt deeply fatigued and exhausted for the first time in a very long time.
Due to his soul being worn out over a long period of time, his mana and body were both very weakened.
A portion of his power had been permanently lost, but even the leftover remnant in his body wasn’t being used to its full potential. He would have to train himself again.
In any case, right now he was at one of the desolate deserts of South Africa.
“…”
A red-haired girl was sitting on a large rock with some sloppily-crafted wooden mask on her face.
She turned her head.
The moment his eyes met with the crimson eyes behind the mask,
Yeorum shot out of her seat and threw her arms into the air.
“YUU— JIII— TAEEE!!”
She then yelled with a voice loud enough to make the desert cover its ears.
He returned a bright smile while wiping the beads of sweat flowing down his forehead, and that was when Yeorum jumped down from the rock and began dashing towards him. Soon, she jumped from a distance, wrapped her arms around his neck and grabbed onto his body like a koala.
For a moment, he almost fell down, but he returned the hug after somehow standing his ground.
“It’s been a while, Yu Yeorum.”
Hugging her, he tapped her on her back.
“I really wanted to see you again.”
She, however, did not say anything in response. Cuddling onto him, Yeorum stayed silent for a long time and what next broke the silence was her trembling breath.
“You know…”
While hugging his head as if it was a precious baby, Yeorum added in spite of finding it difficult to collect her breath.
“…Me too.”
There were a lot of things Yeorum wanted to tell him. From the things that happened until now to how she had been longing to meet him again, as well as how everything she learned from him was able to change her.
However, she couldn’t do so because pouring her thoughts out right now might make her emotions explode like a bomb.
Yeorum found herself unbearably cringe from how teary she was getting. So, she gave a bright smile instead, threw her mask and shouted.
“I missed you so much! Dear!”
She then drove her head into his forehead as hard as she could.
Slammm–!
For some unknown reason, the sound was a lot louder than she expected, and the impact was also far greater.
What she saw next was Yu Jitae who had fainted with his eyes still open.
“Huh? Dear? Dear…?”
*
His skin was swelling up in red. There was a bump on his forehead…
“Sorry…”
Yeroum said but she did not look sorry in the slightest. Soon, she giggled, ‘Pfft, huhp…!’
It was probably because of the red mark on his forehead alongside the tall lump.
“You are seriously too much, Yeorum.”
“Aingg ♥”
“How can you try to break the head of a person you’re seeing in a thousand years?”
“I didn’t kno you would bee soo weaaak ♥”
“…”
“Knucklehead Little Yeorum~~ ♥”
Copying how she used to talk in the distant past, she even acted cute even though it now felt very awkward to do so.
Acting as similarly to the past as possible – that was the second agreement the kids had come up with, so that Yu Jitae would not feel a sense of loss from all the time that went by.
And their first agreement was to ‘not cry’. If they all started crying, the several sorrowful memories would end up making them cry for a few days, and that would make him sincerely concerned.
But this was separate from that, and it really was very amusing for Yeorum.
“…”
Meanwhile, he was dumbfounded.
She should at least be holding her laughter in, but was pretending to apologise with a face that was threatening to erupt into a laughter.
He was about to irritatedly run his fingers through his hair but accidentally ended up touching the bump. Seeing him frown, Yeorum at last bursted out into laughter and rolled on the floor.
Telling her he would be going to pick up Kaeul, he suggested they enjoy the reunion in full later, and only then did Yeorum stop laughing and stand up from the ground.
Wearing a bright smile on her face, she showed the thing that was on her right hand.
“You want the mask?”
No.
***
On the way to meeting Kaeul, he stopped by a bakery. He bought all types of bread as well as macarons and sausage buns. It was because he heard Kaeul still liked bread and sweet desserts despite all the time that went by.
According to Bom and Yeorum, it seemed that the kids had spent nearly 1,000 years at Askalifa.
But for some reason, their appearances were the same as the one in his memories but he didn’t ask why that was the case.
He was now going to check it with his own eyes.
Yu Jitae wanted to see the chattery Kaeul, and Gyeoul who would now be an adult.
Thus, he was in the rainforests of Amazon. Wiping the sticky sweat of the extremely humid forest, he was walking when a voice reached his ears.
– Ahjussi!
It was the voice of a girl who found him before he did.
That especially clear and pure voice was the same as Kaeul’s voice which he used to hear like a radio in his dreams while he was floating adrift in the Non-Providential World.
Soon, Kaeul showed up from the dense trees of the forest. Her bright gold hair and bright gold eyes were the same. Although the naive and fragile smile was no longer on her lips, her face brightened immediately after seeing him.
“Ahjussi…”
“I missed you Kaeul.”
“Uun. Me too…”
Clenching her lips, Kaeul walked up to him. He reached his arms out to give her a hug but Kaeul flinched and stopped her feet.
“Ah, please wait. Wait.”
“Why.”
“I haven’t prepared myself yet, so you can’t suddenly come up to me like that.”
With his arms still out wide, he slowly took a few steps back as Kaeul tilted her head and cleared her throat with a few coughs, ‘Kuhum.’
She then opened her mouth while slightly looking away from him.
“Uum! Don’t tell me you brought some bread again?”
“How did you know that. I brought all sorts of them. I bet you will like all of them.”
“Like, ahjussi, do you think of me as a pig or something? How come you always buy sweets and bread all the time?”
“Well, you like these don’t you?”
“But what if I don’t want them?”
“Listen. I’ve never seen these fail before.”
“Woww. No? When I went back home, I made the chef cook it sooo many times. I had so many of them that, uum, I don’t need them anymore okay?”
Sometimes, Kaeul tended to deny the truth like this. He grinned before swinging the bag of bread in front of her as the sweet scent of bread travelled across.
“So, you don’t want them?”
“Likee, hah, seriously…”
She turned and started approaching him.
“Being always on the receiving end like this…”
Ignoring the bag of bread, she leaned her head on his chest. He gave her a confused hug when her voice left her mouth like a sigh.
“…I regretted it a lot, you know?”
Her voice turned watery so Kaeul needed another empty cough to clear her throat. Hmm, kuhum–.
Then, she whispered with a softer voice.
“That’s why I tried preparing something in my own way.”
“You did?”
“Uun. This…”
Kaeul rummaged through her dimensional storage before taking something out.
It was a bottle of alcohol.
“The only thing I saw you look for sometimes was alcohol, so…”
“Oh, alcohol. That is very good.”
Yu Jitae was quite delighted. It was true that there was nothing else he really looked for except for alcohol.
“Really? Here you go. It’s for you.”
“I’ll give you mine as well.”
“I don’t need the bread…!”
“There’s nutella and cream inside.”
“Don’t need them…!”
“There’s two slices of cheese on your favourite sausage bun as well.”
“Uaahh! I’m telling you it’s fine…!”
They shared their gifts. Despite heaving a sigh, Kaeul took in a sneaky smell of the bread before taking the bag of bread and placing it inside her dimensional storage.
“Let’s go back home.”
“Okayy.”
After saying that, Yu Jitae asked about Gyeoul. Hearing his question, Kaeul who was looking half-dejected until now, suddenly giggled with a bright look on her face.
“You know what? Gyeoul is actually very mad right now.”
“Gyeoul is mad?”
“Uun uun. She’s saying it’s very unfair…”
“Why?”
“Ah, right. How old do I look to you ahjussi?”
“Dunno. You look the same as before.”
“Right? I was actually more of an adult than this, but I came into this body. And it was the same for Gyeoul.”
What?
“That means Gyeoul is at…”
‘Kuhihi,’ with a giggle, Kaeul pointed at her neck; at the necklace with a downscaled dragon egg.
“Uun, she’s here!”