Chapter 21: Gyeoul / Winter (1)
The last ‘birth of a life’ he saw wasn’t that pretty.
In a certain round of regression, 15 kilometres to the East of the Gaza district, Palestine.
Following down the railway that had not even a road nearby, one would end up at a shanty town called Dyrrel. It was a place where those with no possession and those with nothing to gain gathered and sold whatever they could while avoiding conflict.
Yu Jitae, who had visited that place to find something he needed, coincidentally discovered a pregnant woman painted in dirt and blood, giving birth in the middle of an empty plot of land during broad daylight.
There was not even a proper sewage system, and the roads were filthy and contaminated while it was a conflict zone where refugees weren’t even allowed to dig up wells. With hollow cheeks and not even a sign of fat on her thin thighs, the pregnant woman wailed and screamed. Giving birth was a second priority as she cried in pain for help.
Although there were many onlookers, there was not a single one approaching her. Her appearance as she screamed from the depths of her lungs with an extremely thin body resembled a devil and the ignorant ones watched from a distance while treating her like a pandemic.
The only one that approached her was a sick, hungry wild dog, tilting its head and wondering when this will become its food.
He didn’t know why.
Following the strange feelings he felt inside, he threw some money to a midwife with lots of experience located in a nearby brothel and tried to help the woman giving birth. However, the experienced midwife saw the woman’s appearance and rejected the money, saying that she wouldn’t be able to give birth.
Yu Jitae did not take the money back, and told her to try it since it was okay to fail.
The door of the pregnant woman, that wasn’t properly opened, occasionally retched as if it was about to vomit and appeared to be seconds away from having something large escape it but she lacked strength at the last minute. In the end, her breath that barely held on soon stopped.
But when the woman stopped her movement, a baby flowed out along with a discharge of blood. In surprise, the midwife received the baby, but the baby was already dead for some reason.
A dead woman gave birth to a dead baby.
Without blaming the midwife, he walked away.
It wasn’t a great experience and he had never been reminded of that incident ever again. But…
Crack. Crackk–
Why did memories of that time resurface in his head while seeing the cracking egg of the Blue Dragon? It hadn’t happened in the previous round.
Crack…
The hatch was slow and the crevice slowly continued cracking in the shape of a cobweb.
“U, unni!”
Kaeul went and called Yeorum.
Sitting silently in the living room of the dormitory, Yu Jitae waited until the dragon could leave its shell on its own. Next to him was Bom hugging her knees while watching the egg and even Yeorum remained quiet in a time like this. Kaeul, who had been restlessly talking about how she would be having a younger sibling when the cracks first began, now held her breath and watched over the birth of a life.
Drop.
A fragment of the broken egg fell on the ground.
Soon, a small head of a reptile soared out from the hole. With a swollen face and eyes that couldn’t even open yet, the baby dragon slowly turned its face over to the surroundings.
Gyeoul, had been born.
*
By the time he returned from a nearby department store with powdered milk and a baby bottle in hand, the children were sitting in a circle in the living room, watching Gyeoul.
“Uwah, she’s moving! Uwahh… Look at her wings. Was I this small as well?”
Kaeul watched Gyeoul, as if she found her intriguing. A small kid was saying that while watching an even smaller being.
Bom hugged the not-so-small blue dragon and cleaned the unclean parts of the dragon with a wet tissue. Her hand movements were quite natural.
“Did you learn that?”
“Ah, this is what my mother did to me in the past. Normally you would lick it off though.”
Do they even remember things like that? Thinking that, Yu Jitae merely watched.
“Would you like to hold her?”
“I’m fine.”
When Yu Jitae rejected, Kaeul ran in.
“Me! Me me me! I want to!”
“Her skin’s still soft so you need to be careful.”
“Nn!”
Kaeul struggled to hold the blue dragon and looked at its face.
“…”
After that, she remained stiff for a long time, with a blank expression and a slightly open mouth. Soon, she handed the dragon over to Yeorum as if giving away the responsibility.
“What. What are you doing.”
“Hold her once. Unni, this, this is really like…”
“I’m not interested though?”
“No. Just hold her once okay? Wahh, this feels really… Uhh, ehh, ahh, just take her!”
“Have you gone mad? I said I’m not interested!”
Today, Kaeul was unusually forceful. Yeorum, who received Gyeoul with a displeased expression hugged the dragon with a dissatisfied look on her face as if she wasn’t inclined to do so.
After scanning the dragon up and down a bit, she lowered her head and laid her nose closer to smell Gyeoul. Starting from the dragon’s white stomach, she smelled up towards the chest, and then the wings, as well as the head. Then, she used her tongue to lick the dragon’s small horn.
As for the meaning behind that gesture, he had no way of knowing it.
“Well, she is pretty. You hold her as well.”
“I’m fine.”
“Here you go okay?”
Yeorum handed the dragon over in a throwing motion. Having no other choice, Yu Jitae held Gyeoul up.
She was heavy. Whenever it wriggled its body, its movement clearly reached him through the blue skin and when he held it into his arms, he felt the loud beating of its heart. The small dragon heart embedded in the small body was already carrying out its task.
“Hehe.”
What are you looking at.
“No, no, no. It’s a bit interesting. This just looks strange. Ah! Can I take a picture?”
You can’t.
He was about to say that but Kaeul had already turned on the camera app on her watch.
“Ah, Kaeul, wait.”
“Nn?”
Right when Kaeul was about to take the photo, Bom held her hands together and fidgeted. Soon, dirt was created out of nothing, after which a small flower showed its head. She created a flower with magic.
She picked the flower up and placed it behind the dragon’s ears that resembled the wings of a bat.
“How does this look?”
“Uwah… so pretty.”
After saying that, Kaeul went “nn? Nn?” Something seemed to have popped up in her head.
“Ah, Bom-unni. Give me one more flower please.”
Around the time he oddly began feeling worried, Kaeul received the flower from Bom and walked up to Yu Jitae before placing the flower behind his ear. Then, she started laughing out loud like a baby chicken while Bom and Yeorum both seemed to be laughing as well.
Yu Jitae’s dark expression despite having a beautiful pink flower was like a painting.
“I’ll take the photo then!”
“…”
Click!
Taking a few more pictures, they showed it to each other and laughed. Meanwhile Yu Jitae remained still while hugging Gyeoul.
Soon, the Blue Dragon’s eyes quivered before being carefully lifted up.
It stared at Yu Jitae.
And Yu Jitae stared back.
*
It was late at night.
Since Bom volunteered to take care of the child, Yeorum returned to her room and Kaeul went back to her room with the declaration script and a regretful expression.
He heated the milk until it was warm and poured it into the baby bottle. When he asked ‘what do baby dragons eat?’ Bom replied by saying they don’t need to. But when they do eat something delicious, they would enjoy that feeling, it seemed.
In curiosity, he tried tasting the powdered milk and realised that it tasted like a plain version of milk. He wasn’t sure if it would suit the baby’s taste.
“Ah, I’ll do it.”
Bom received the bottle from him.
Gulping the milk down her throat, Gyeoul stared back and forth between Bom and Yu Jitae. Although he had no talent in reading the expression of dragons, the dragon’s favourability when checked through [Eyes of Equilibrium] was a continuation of ‘like’, ‘like’ and ‘like’.
It meant that Gyeoul enjoyed it.
Late at night, when he was about to return to his own room, Bom asked if he could stay a bit longer.
“Why.”
“It will start getting busy after the semester begins, but we have some free time now right? I was thinking of doing a magic transference for Gyeoul.”
“Magic transference?”
“Yes. She will get bigger and bigger as time goes and she can’t stay in this form for a few years so I wanted to teach her how to polymorph.”
He asked not because he didn’t know what it was.
[Magic Transference] proceeds with the life force of the caster as a mortgage and uses a tremendous amount of mana. It could be compared to the process of cutting up one’s own flesh and having someone else eat it.
It wasn’t as extreme as sacrificing half of their remaining lifespan or something but those he knew of would stay in bed for a few months with a weak body after completing magic transference.
“Will you be alright?”
“Yes. I think it would be better for this child as well if she could gain interesting experiences together with us as fast as possible.”
“Got it.”
Although she would be safe as long as she stayed in the dorm, she was asking him to stay nearby regardless because she would be in a completely defenceless state during the process of a magic transference.
He sat on the sofa.
“Gyeoul. You can’t move from now on okay.”
Perhaps having felt Bom’s feelings, Gyeoul straightened her body stiffly.
After hugging Gyeoul, she placed her forehead on the Blue Dragon’s forehead. Since the ritual and the communication of emotions occurred from a brain to another, it was a required contact.
Soon, mana started flowing through from Bom’s forehead over to Gyeoul’s. Without a word, Yu Jitae kept his seat until the transfer ended.
Magic Transference didn’t end with just once. It lasted around six hours a day, for two days, before continuing on to the third day. Meanwhile, Yu Jitae helped Kaeul prepare for the declaration audition, while waiting for the polymorph to work.
On the fourth day, Bom’s face drastically turned muddled in exhaustion. With a sunken face and a pair of unfocused eyes, she blankly ate the sushi Yu Jitae bought, a tiny bit at a time.
“Are you okay, unni? You almost look like a zombie.”
“Yeah, a bit tired.”
“Is there still a lot left?”
“I think today will be the last.”
“…That sounds like a lot of trouble. But at the same time, I’m a bit jealous. I want to touch Gyeoul as well.”
Kaeul found it regrettable. Gyeoul slept for over ten and a few hours a day and received magic from Bom whenever she was awake. Due to that, there was no room for Kaeul or Yu Jitae to approach her.
Fortunately, Bom’s hard work wasn’t betrayed. By the end of the night on the fourth day, right before dawn, Bom drove her head in the wooden tile like a fermented spring onion kimchi after having completed the magic transference.
“Are you done?”
“…”
The back of the head placed on the wooden floor gave a faint nod. She used up all her power to the point she couldn’t take care of her own body. Raising her up, Yu Jitae brought her to her bed.
“Take a good sleep.”
“I won’t be sleeping for that long.”
“Why.”
“Kaeul still has her audition so… I’ll sleep just a few days… and wake…”
Her voice stopped in the middle of a speech as she started dozing off while snoring. Yu Jitae placed a blanket over her and left the room but the moment he did, something he was seeing for the first time entered his sight.
A back of a head and hair resembling the colour of the ocean could be seen. The curly long hair was in an unkempt, messy state.
Other than that, a small body, a small head, and an even smaller shoulder, as well as a diaper he bought was seen beneath the tiny back. Bom seemed to have made the child wear it despite there being no need to.
That was the appearance of Gyeoul in her polymorphed state.
The child that took the form of a human was sitting on the floor tilting its head in every direction. Yu Jitae quietly approached the child and crouched down before calling it.
“Hi.”
Gyeoul turned around.
There seemed to be exhaustion and sleepiness hanging on her large, clear, blue eyes but the moment they found Yu Jitae’s eyes, a smile instantaneously flooded her expression. Making a bright smile, Gyeoul moved her lips but stuttered, perhaps because she didn’t know how to speak yet.
Yu Jitae raised the child up on her two feet. She already appeared like a three year-old human child and could stand on her own feet. Dragons in their polymorphed state grew extremely rapidly and kept their youth for thousands of years. Thinking back on the previous rounds, the Blue Dragon was ought to grow up and be like others before long.
When he raised her up, he realised that she should wear something so borrowing a shirt from Kaeul, who had a shorter height than others, he put it on the child.
Feeling the lower ends of the shirt reaching her legs, she seemed intrigued. But it was late at night, and Gyeoul appeared exhausted from the aftermath of the magic transference.
“Let’s go to sleep now.”
As Yu Jitae was about to raise Gyeoul up for a hug, she threw her arms wide open towards Yu Jitae. When he remained still, she leaned forward and held Yu Jitae’s two cheeks before pulling him towards herself.
Thinking that it might be thinking of a peck on the mouth, he attempted to turn his head away when a small forehead reached and touched his forehead.
In that small distance with touching foreheads, the pair of blue eyes blinked and looked directly at Yu Jitae.
He made a faint smile.
It seemed that the child thought of this as a way of expressing affection.