The reason was simple.
It was because the dragons had to be happy.
Since they don’t forget, their memories remain forever including painful memories. Therefore, Yu Jitae had to act in a way that made them feel happy every single time.
Radically speaking, if Bom was a child that became happy for being rejected, Yu Jitae could deny every single word of hers. But in reality, Bom was not like that so he did not refuse her requests.
‘You always rejected me during the past year and I have never asked for the same thing more than once. This is the first time I’m asking you like this’
He could remember the Green Dragon of the fifth iteration. It was the only one that tried to communicate with Yu Jitae among the four dragons and asked him for a favour.
‘Can’t you just, do it once…?’
If he didn’t refuse her request, would the fifth iteration have ended differently?
‘Even though I’m asking you like this…’
It probably wouldn’t have been all that different, considering that he had gotten off on the wrong foot. However, the dragons of that iteration would have been slightly less unhappy at the very least.
He refused and thus the dragons became unhappy – such memories of the fifth and the sixth iterations became stuck in his head like a road sign. Despite being a forgetful human, those memories floated back up whenever he closed his eyes.
Of course, he couldn’t say that out loud. How could he say that it was because they were like sunfish that died from every single thing in the world*?
He therefore gave up on replying.
“Nn?”
“…”
“Nnnn?”
“…”
“I want to know…”
“…”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
She was persistent for some reason today. He decided to move away from this place.
While carrying Gyeoul, Yu Jitae tried to carefully stand up but couldn’t. After jumping down from the table, Bom sat down on his lap.
“Where are you running.”
After smiling, “Hihi”, she moved around until she was comfortable with her seating posture. Gyeoul was still soundly sleeping so Bom’s voice got softer after coming closer.
“Do you remember what my first request was, ahjussi?”
He didn’t.
“It was on the day we first met when I was asking you to not kidnap me. I became fond of that place and was staying there for half a month so please leave me be, is what I said. But ahjussi rejected my first request. And I was kidnapped.”
“You said you weren’t kidnapped. You came with your own feet.”
“But that’s the reality of it. An adult taking a child into custody. That’s a kidnap no matter what you say.”
“…”
“But you see, something strange happened. On the very next day, I asked the second request, to go shopping together. And ahjussi did not reject it.”
He vividly remembered that. It was when she suddenly said that she would cook a meal for him.
“It was strange – being nice after doing a bad thing. But I didn’t hate it. On the first day, I was trying to hide my fear but my thoughts changed slightly after that.”
“…”
“But then there was this doubt. Why did he kidnap me? How did he know who I was?”
“I can’t tell…”
“You said you can’t tell me that, but it wasn’t just me. Even Yeorum and Kaeul were curious several times.”
Yu Jitae closed his mouth. After taking all of them in, he thought their life together was somehow going well. He thought it was because they were young kids that didn’t know about the worldly affairs but…
“I persuaded them. I explained in your stead, ahjussi”
“Why.”
“In order to live? But you see. After living like that for some time, we all started thinking differently.”
“Thinking differently?”
“Yes. Or should I say we got attached to it? You know how sometimes we slowly start to like things that we hated.”
“…”
“Well, I did carry out some small revenges.”
A small revenge?
He suddenly remembered something.
“The first meal you made for me. That was on purpose, huh.”
Her smile became a level deeper. Thinking that he had suffered a loss, Yu Jitae gave an empty smile.
“That soup must be the same as well?”
“Sorry?”
“I think you should make that again. I get that it’s a medicine, but it’s not the best thing to eat.”
Even now, Yu Jitae refrained from saying that it tasted bad. Realising that, Bom smiled.
“Ah, but by the way, I didn’t make this for revenge.”
“Then, is that how it always tastes?”
“No? Don’t you know that, ahjussi?”
“Know what.”
Her eyes bent into crescents.
“You look cute when you’re eating.”
Cough.
Yu Jitae unconsciously coughed out loud in reflex. For him, that was an extremely dumbfounding sentence to hear.
Gyeoul wriggled her body from Yu Jitae’s cough. When he carefully patted her back, the child went back to sleep.
“She almost woke up.”
“…What are you trying to say.”
“What do you mean?”
“…”
“Ah, what I mean by cute? You look really awkward when you’re eating something. You eat really slow and carefully.”
He suddenly thought that that might be possible because he had not eaten for over dozens of years.
“Your expression changes when it tastes bad, and I can tell them apart.”
“…”
“Today, this was the cutest.”
Bom raised a Bigyeong fruit. It was a dark green fruit the size of a fingernail.
That thing. He remembered that it tasted very bitter.
“That’s a bad habit. Do you laugh while seeing others in pain or something?”
“Sorry. But…”
“But what.”
“Because ahjussi never refuses it, I keep on giving you more.”
The Regressor heaved out a small sigh and shook his head.
“Are you still not going to tell me why you don’t refuse?”
“…”
“Maybe you like me?”
Now what was this about. The Regressor replied with an indifferent voice.
“No.”
Going, “Hmmm?”, Bom brought her body even closer. Her body was almost touching Gyeoul as she raised her face and looked into his eyes.
“You really don’t?”
“I don’t.”
It seemed that he had to draw a line.
“I don’t know what you’re expecting, but you and I, are in the relationship of a guardian and a cadet and nothing else.”
She widened her eyes into circles.
“If you don’t refuse and be nice, isn’t that because you like me?”
“Like I said, no.”
“That’s strange…”
“What is.”
“Every female dragon is pretty and males are handsome. We change it like that because we know that appearance is a very strong authority in human society. At the end of beauty, there is a power that transcends the limit of gender and age, so how can ahjussi not like me?”
His eyes reflexively turned to her face.
“When I’m this pretty.”
It sounded shameless that she was saying that herself, but there was not a single trace of embarrassment on her face. Like a child calling a dog ‘cute’, Bom expressing herself as ‘pretty’ sounded like her take on a natural fact.
In that instant, Yu Jitae felt something strange.
His senses that were always faint due to being covered by something like a fog, slowly became clearer. The scenery of the house became more vivid and the sound of Gyeoul’s sleeping breaths resonated clearly. The thing pressing down on his thighs felt slightly heavier.
When that happened, the green eyes appeared slightly more burdensome.“…”
His scattered emotions always gathered at one place and became clearer whenever he was killing an enemy. It was an effect that happened because he felt the increasing distance away from the Apocalypse.
Quietly pondering about it, he realised that it might be because the happiness of the dragons was also an element pushing the Apocalypse back like the deaths of the demons. It seemed that he would be feeling the distancing of the Apocalypse whenever they became happy.
There was also a difference. He would feel a sort of pleasure filling up his lower stomach whenever he killed demons. It was close to a dirty pleasure but there was no such thing right now.
In any case, the Regressor decided to cut things off here.
“Bom.”
“Nn.”
“I get it so just stop sitting on my legs.”
“Why?”
Her eyes turned into circles.
“We’re all living together so you need to keep a moderate distance. Other kids are not like that, but you tend to cross the line sometimes.”
“…Sorry?”
“I’m telling you to keep your delusions in check. Do you think everything in the world is yours because everyone calls you pretty?”
“…”
“If you continue being like this, you could end up ruining the atmosphere of the house. You need to act like an adult. You’re their unni.”
It might be slightly too harsh, but this was as delicate as he could get. But suddenly, the smile disappeared from Bom’s face as her atmosphere overturned in an instant.
“I never wanted anything in the world. What about the world? I never wanted even the smallest thing so ahjussi is the one having the delusion.”
Her words were profound yet mysterious. He didn’t understand what she was trying to say. Soon, Bom carefully caressed Gyeoul’s head.
“Do you really think I’m the older sister of these kids?”
“…What?”
Bom sorrowfully smiled.
“I’m, not their unni.”
He felt like something had smacked him on the back of his head. The tower of relationship that had been built up with difficulty felt like it was crumbling down from its foundations.
Indeed, Bom was right. They were all dragons of a different race and Bom wasn’t an older sister of Gyeoul. That was just a framework made from the regulations and the customs of human society which Yu Jitae was using to manage them with more ease.
“Do you see me now?”
Do you see me, the Green Dragon instead of the older sister that you had defined – that was what Bom was asking.
Suddenly, he thought that the distance between them was very perplexing. It was closer than necessary.
No, wait. He knew what Bom’s current expression was entailing. Whenever she was trying to pull a prank at him, she would look at him with an overly serious expression.
So around three seconds after his confusion, she would break out into a laughter and laugh out loud. He waited for that timing.
…
But Bom did not smile.
Her eyes became thinner.
“I can see you though.”
Reaching her two arms forward, she approached Yu Jitae even more. Her face was now closer than Gyeoul’s face. When his level of perplexity was about to break through the limit.
“KYAA—”
Bom began laughing.
The risky atmosphere that had been built disappeared in an instant. In a fit of laughter, she couldn’t even breathe properly as she dropped down from Yu Jitae’s legs and ended up on the floor.
“…?”
Due to that, Gyeoul woke up in a fluster and faced Bom with unevenly opened eyes of sleepiness. The Regressor who had remained quiet on the outside, readjusted Gyeoul’s posture and pressed on his temples with his freed hand.
“Oi, Bom…”
“Sorry…!” she shouted while almost rolling on the floor. Without even knowing why, Gyeoul laughed ‘hehe’ in suit.
After rolling on the floor for some time, she collected her breath and wiped her tears as she gazed up at Yu Jitae.
“Sorry, ahjussi. Were you surprised?”
It was the first time he was seeing such a smile on her face. She seemed to be dying from excitement.
She was being really cheeky but he didn’t feel like getting angry after seeing her enjoying it so much. Even after that, she laughed out loud for a long time to the point that it made him wonder whether she was the same Bom he knew.
“Hukk… nnnnn…! Ah, ahhh, my stomach hurts…”
‘……?’ ‘……¿’ When Gyeoul tilted her head at Bom after coming down onto the floor, Bom barely managed to control her smile and lifted her up while collecting her breath.
“…What, happened?”
“It’s nothing, Gyeoul. Sorry your unni woke you up.”
She then naturally referred to herself as an unni. He checked the authenticity of her words with [Eyes of Equilibrium (SS)] and the result that came up was Truth.
Her words were true and that meant it had indeed been a prank.
He had suffered big time.
When Gyeoul smiled once again with sleepy eyes, Bom caressed her hair. “Should we go back to sleep?” she said before handing her over to Yu Jitae.
“Ahjussi. Can I ask you for a favour?”
“…”
“Please put Gyeoul to sleep today.”
Giving a random nod, Yu Jitae hugged Gyeoul up with powerless movements and headed to Bom’s room.
*
After leaving the house, Bom followed the road without an end. Thinking back on Yu Jitae’s troubled expression almost made her laugh once again. She tried to settle her breath but ended up laughing out loud.
‘Ah, I need to stop laughing…’
Even her diaphragmatic muscles hurt from laughing too much.
No wait, this wasn’t the time for this.
With a lively expression, Bom took out a notebook from the alternate dimension. She then added a new clause.
[25. Ahjussi is really cute.]
Whenever she teased him, ahjussi was always perplexed but he was good at hiding it and appeared indifferent.
But today was definitely different. Didn’t his expression change ever so vividly?
His face of extreme fluster was so funny that her heart didn’t settle back down whenever she thought of it. While deciding to think back on today whenever she was depressed, Bom closed the notebook.
[Ahjussi Observation Diary ★☆]