After Story 5: After Story: Happily Ever After (5)
Wondering what was going on, he tried to raise himself up but his body shrieked in pain and refused to listen to him.
“You should stay down. I’m healing you right now.”
“Thanks. Where’s Bom?”
“She went outside with Gyeoul. That startled me just then, you know? You suddenly started gasping and stuff.”
While collecting his breath, Yu Jitae shook his head.
“It’s nothing. It was a nightmare as you said.”
He felt an excruciating pain all around his body and frowned. The injuries he got during the fight against Yeorum wasn’t fully recovered yet.
“Like, ahjussi. Why did you have to fight like that? How is fighting to kill each other a part of training? You could have been seriously injured with one mistake.”
“Because that’s the fastest way to regain my power.”
“Is there a reason why you’re in a rush?”
There wasn’t.
It was just the way of his life – he had to obtain something as quickly as possible if it had to be obtained.
In any case, lying down using Kaeul’s lap as a pillow was weird no matter how he thought about it. Thus, he tried to lift his body up again but Kaeul pressed down on his forehead.
“Just stay still. Come on. Stop interrupting me; I’m trying to heal you.”
“…”
“By the way, ahjussi.”
“Yeah.”
“You really are a lot weaker now.”
“Huh?”
“Actually, I accidentally… saw your dream.”
Drip.
It felt like a droplet of water had dripped onto a lake.
“Sorry. That must have been startling.”
“It’s okay.”
That was all she said in response. Feeling slightly awkward, Yu Jitae added.
“But still, how could you peek at someone else’s dream like that? If I was having an obscene dream, that would have made it uncomfortable for both of us.”
“Ahh, I guess you didn’t know about it because you’ve always been strong, ahjussi, but we always live while passively accepting the emotions and memories of other races. So me looking at your dream just then, was not because I wanted to.”
“I see…”
“You should hurry up and become stronger if you want a sexy dream, hehe.”
She joked with a smile as he shook his hand in response. Even that small movement of his arm made his chest muscles scream due to the wound carved by Yeorum so he lowered his hand back down and closed his eyes.
Kaeul closed her mouth after the little joke, and Yu Jitae also stayed silent for a long time.
Her hand resting on his forehead started to convey warmth down his skin. She slowly began caressing his hair.
Leaving behind a rustle, her fingers travelled through the short strands of his hair from the forehead to the crown of his head. Kaeul stroked his hair which was probably dirty from the dust.
He couldn’t easily open his mouth.
They had been living together for almost 2 years by now, but they still hadn’t talked much about the past 1,000 years, let alone the stories that laid at the bottom of everything. Although he decided to be honest, that didn’t mean all of his problems would be resolved in an instant.
He had initially chosen deceit because of how immensely difficult it was to come out clean, and thus it was still challenging to find the right occasion even after deciding to be fully honest.
Let’s do it one day when the time comes. Let’s do it when we can open our hearts a bit more.
He was delaying things and had been waiting for the right timing until this day. And now, while feeling her cautious fingers that were caressing his hair and her quiet gaze looking at him, he realised that the time had come at last.
“Kaeul.”
“Uun.”
“I have something to confess to you.”
“Unn. What is it about?”
“About the sins I’ve committed.”
He was scared. What if this occasion and this method was wrong? What if it created a crack in their relationship?
Even though Bom had been telling him, ‘There should be no problems,’ several times until now, the sinner still couldn’t control his fear.
Rustle, rustle–
The fingers stroking his hair did not stop, and that gave him the courage.
“Firstly, I need to explain… about everything that happened.”
Lying down, he began telling Kaeul the start of everything.
From how he met the gold hatchling for the first time in the distant past; her life that ended with a suicide multiple times; and everything that cornered them. He talked about all the unfortunate events.
Throughout his story, Kaeul did not say anything. All she did was silently look into his eyes and blink. He was currently very weakened and couldn’t censor every piece of floating memories and those were thus being conveyed to Kaeul.
Everything that happened to BY at the 4th iteration;
The imprisonment in the 5th and the 6th iteration;
And all the atrocities he committed within the countless forgotten iterations in the middle were all fully conveyed to Kaeul. His detailed emotions during that time were also in the mix.
Yu Jitae did not try to defend himself because excuses were not necessary in an atonement.
Yu Jitae did not try to explain himself. He did not try to decorate his wrongdoings. It might have been possible if he wanted to, but he didn’t.
He simply chose to be honest.
“……Can you please, forgive me?”
Kaeul stopped her hand. That acted like a small signal that made Yu Jitae feel uneasy. No matter how happy Kaeul was in the 7th iteration, a change in history tended to negate happy memories.
An approach with a hidden agenda.
Pretentious kindness.
Those hands that tied and imprisoned me were the same ones caressing my hair all the time, huh…
That must be how Yu Jitae appeared to Kaeul.
Anxiously, he held his breath and waited for her next words. Soon, Kaeul slowly opened her mouth.
“Uun.”
Yu Jitae widened his eyes.
There were drops of tears budding in her eyes. The child gave a faint smile as the tears travelled down her cheeks.
Kaeul smiled at him.
“I don’t know if I have the right to forgive but… if I do, I will forgive you.”
He felt his heart beating rapidly.
Because of how hard it was for him to pour those words out, and because of the long moments of his fear and uneasiness,
Kaeul’s one word felt like a breeze warmer than anything else that started to melt his past regrets and fears.
“So promise me, you won’t have a dream like that again…”
.
.
.
“It’s definitely chocolates when you’re feeling down!”
“That’s right.”
“Here. Hurry up and have some.”
Yu Jitae was unable to even lift a fork and was leaning on the backrest, when Kaeul suddenly came up and fed him a piece of the chocolate cake like what he used to do when Kaeul was sick one day.
“You see, after returning to Askalifa.”
“Nn.”
“I looked after gnomes.”
Kaeul started talking about the ‘things that happened in a world without Yu Jitae’ which she had been hiding in her heart.
“Raising kids is not easy, right?”
“Egugu. Don’t even mention it…”
She gave another silly smile before cutting off a piece of the cake and bringing it to his mouth. Looking back on the time she spent with the gnomes, there were in fact more memories of her hardship than her happiness.
“That made me think about ahjussi a lot.”
“About me?”
“Uun. Because I was clearly the biggest problem. You never showed it on the outside, but you must have been very frustrated and tired on the inside, right?”
“No?” Yu Jitae denied while shaking his head.
There was no need to be honest about every single thing.
“As if it’s a ‘no’! Hehe.”
Kaeul chuckled before raising the coffee mug and bringing the straw to his mouth.
It was on a certain sunny afternoon of early autumn.
In the middle of the background noise of the small cafe, the two people who had once been a guardian and a ward continued talking to each other. In a world where they no longer had to feel hurt, they shared the warmth of the past and that brought a small amount of peace to his sick heart.
“Thank you for apologising to me.
“I will do a lot better from now on…”
Kaeul said with a bright smile.
.
.
.
That day,
Yu Jitae received redemption from a girl.
.
.
.
However, that was only the beginning. He still had to ask the other kids for their forgiveness.
When would be the right timing? Who should I apologise to first?
He was pondering and deliberating on the right occasion as time rapidly flew by.
As he was starting to regain his power through his usual personal training sessions, Yu Jitae suddenly realised that he had recovered a large portion of his strength and said to Yeorum.
“Let’s have a fight, Yu Yeorum.”
“Do you want to be humiliated again?”
“…”
“Sorry. Master~?. Pleaseeee stoppp?”
Yeorum chortled after copying someone’s (?) lines.
Yu Jitae denied it.
He had no idea what she was talking about…
It was quite straight-forward after they arrived at the training grounds. Yu Jitae picked up a wooden sword and immediately dashed at Yeorum.
Kwang kwang kwang kwang!
After several bouts, Yeorum went for a close combat again while remembering how to deal with Yu Jitae.
But unlike how he had to dodge her attacks a few months ago due to insufficient power, he chucked his sword away and punched back. He smacked Yeorum’s head with his fist and bashed her as hard as he could on her stomach. ‘Uhk! Fuck!’ In return, Yeorum kicked his jaws with her knee as he wobbled and began to stumble back.
A chance!
Yeorum grabbed him by his collars and gave his forehead a headbutt. Bbaakkk! It rippled the surrounding air as dust soared up from the ground and covered the area.
His body was falling – his back was about to reach the ground.
However, he suddenly shot his eyes wide open and made use of the power behind her frontal dash. He twisted his back and pulled Yeorum down until she was underneath him.
Kung!
After a rotation in the air, Yu Jitae was able to press down on Yeorum from above.
“Hoh?”
Yeorum retaliated while hiding her fluster. What she didn’t know was that Yu Jitae was also a master in grappling.
“Uaahk! For fuck’s sake!”
No matter what she did, she couldn’t push nor pull him away. Whenever she somehow raised her body back up, his foot came flying in from a mysterious angle and made her fall back down.
As if she was stuck in a quagmire, Yeorum could not get up despite trying everything she could.
When none of her tricks worked, she tried to shoot flames to burn his body but after recovering his power, Yu Jitae was able to withstand her flames.
Bouncing her back, she tried to stand up so Yu Jitae held onto her neck and squashed her down.
He suppressed her thighs to stop her legs from floundering around, and immediately sat on top of her body when she stopped moving.
Pressing down on both of her wrists, he used his other hand to take out a dagger and rest it near her neck.
“Huuk, huuk… Fuck…”
That was the end of their fight.
It was the grappling fight of two existences that were at the level of adult dragons. The ground was squashed and crumbled into fragments during their fight and the entire region was in a complete mess.
“Haa. You became hella strong in those few freaking months…”
Yeorum shook her head with a dejected smile.
It was the declaration of her loss.
“…”
However, Yu Jitae did not move.
With her eyes stuck on him who was still pressing down on her body, Yeorum blinked her eyes.
Did he not understand what she meant? Although Yeorum detested losing more than death, losing to Yu Jitae wasn’t really that big of a problem.
It didn’t hurt her pride as much so she tried voicing those words out.
“What are you doing? It’s over. I lost.”
However, Yu Jitae still refused to move.
His eyes were still indifferently gazing down at her. In that instant, she felt spooked.
“What you looking at? I’m telling you I lost. Why are you still there?”
In the middle of her words, Yeorum denied the thought that sparked in her mind. It was Yu Jitae out of everyone in the world.
There’s no way.
There was no way that ‘Yu Jitae’ would be so narrow-minded that he wanted revenge right?
But… her line of thought was crushed due to the smile hanging on Yu Jitae’s lips.
“…Yu Yeorum.”
Oh no.
He mischievously called her name, as Yeorum felt goosebumps appearing all over her skin.
“Why. Fucking what.”
“You didn’t forget, did you?”
“Forget what…?!”
Even though she pretended like she was clueless, she was a dragon.
And dragons did not forget.
“That thing on that day was the biggest humiliation of my entire life.”
“W, what are you talking about!”
“And I’m the type that always takes revenge.”
“Huh? Revenge for what? This is just a spar, isn’t it?”
She felt spooked.
Yu Jitae raised his dagger and stabbed it next to her neck as a handful of her hair was cut off. After lowering the knife, he grabbed onto the bundle of red hair.
“No no no. Stop.”
Yeorum gave a straight face, but that in turn brightened up the look on Yu Jitae’s face.
“This is wrong. It’s a crime if you do it!”
“Who says?”
“Everyone does! Fuck. Anyway, no! It’s fine if I’m the one doing it, but you can’t, you crazy freak!”
A smile appeared on his lips. She got goosebumps from that smile and quickly tried to cut off her senses but Yu Jitae’s mana squeezed in before she could and repressed her mana.
“Wait, fuck–”
Soon, the red brush went down and reached her body. It landed somewhere between her neck and her collarbones.
“Wait, wait! You fucker! Don’t– Kyahahahh?”
Yeorum resisted like an electrocuted fish but it was in vain. With an amused smile on his face, Yu Jitae moved the brush around.
“Oi oi oi! You damn bastard! I’m telling on you! I’m gonna tell Yu Bom you love tickling girls!
“I warned you. You do this and we’re no longer friends. Okay? Ahhnnng! Seriously, I’m betting on my mum that we will no longer be friends! Kyaaakk!
“O, okay. Okay. My bad. I will scrap that, okay? I won’t tell Yu Bom either. Nn? I, I can pretend like this never happened…!
“Please h, help me. Sir! I don’t want to be ticklledd…!”
Yeorum tried everything she could to try to stop Yu Jitae but he ignored them all. Goosebumps were covering her skin as her stomach caved up and down following her coarse breaths.
“Waittt! Seriously, no ears! Please! My ears are hella sensitive– Kuuaaaahahah?”
*
That day, the barren wasteland was filled with screams.
Yeorum was tickled until she broke out in tears.