By Zephyria 
“Hoh, I knew a jewel-like Spirit was slumbering within the Ten Thousand Waves Flute, but to think that person was truly Princess Gyeongsune. I had my suspicions since the Special Guard Unit served her so devotedly, calling her ‘My Lady’…”
“Did you ever speak with her?”
“No. It seemed as though she lacked a clear consciousness.”
After a brief moment of reflection, Yi Yeong looked past Jeil Heon and slowly scanned over to Kang Suk-young, who still wore a confused expression.
“The Sealed One protected by my Head of Department likely possesses a constitution that prevents Contamination, much like myself. The nation has fallen, and the perception of the Imperial Family or imperial descendants is fading from the minds of the people. Thus, rather than replacing the Sealed One in short intervals as they did in the past, it seems they intend to choose someone like me to be enshrined for a long time.”
“Are you saying they intend to force a choice upon the individual—to be enshrined until both soul and body are worn away?”
“Precisely.”
“Crazy bastards.”
The low curse was a mutter from Kang Suk-young. Yi Yeong also wore a bitter expression.
“I volunteered because I could not pass down the pain my royal father endured to my own son, but to think it would lead to such consequences…”
“…”
“Since the moment I realized their ulterior motives, my regrets have not ceased. I should not have held on for two hundred years. When the Korean Empire fell and the Imperial House became the Yi Royal Family, the enshrinement passed through the bloodline of imperial descendants should have ceased then…”
As Yi Yeong’s face distorted in misery, he began to crumble like dust from his fingertips. Jeil Heon’s voice grew urgent.
“Even when we lost the country, and when things were chaotic due to the war between compatriots, the Management Bureau was able to survive because you were at its center. If not for that, how could I be here today?”
“There were plenty of bastards who sold out the country, so how can you guarantee the Bureau was any different? But the Sunbaes did not do that. They know what you sacrificed; how could they do something so shameful!”
Kang Suk-young also cried out, almost screaming, as she bowed her head before Yi Yeong.
“To be honest, I joined the company for the money. I was sick and tired of my poor household, where I had to take care of my older brother and younger brothers just because I was born a daughter! I was nothing but a materialistic brat when I met you. I learned what pride in protecting one’s country and people truly means! You alone were my hero, the guide for my life!”
The face of Yi Yeong, which had seemed on the verge of vanishing, finally softened, and the corners of his mouth loosened. Faint, but it was clearly a smile.
“I always considered becoming the Sealed One a curse, but I realized in my final moment that it was not so. I have left something behind in the souls of my descendants; you all are indeed my pride.”
Yi Yeong’s gaze sank. His eyes narrowed gently, as if recalling someone with whom he had shared a final parting in a place in the palace that closely resembled this room.
“There is at least one thing I can proudly report to my royal father, despite being an undutiful child…”
The voice, spreading calmly like a spring dream, lingered in the air long after the master of the room had completely departed. As long as the days he had silently endured. Carrying a brilliant pride that never broke, even amidst a despair where no future could be seen.
* * *
Simultaneously with Yi Yeong’s passing, the barrier of the Water Abnormality Worship Management Bureau’s central headquarters vanished completely. Even the Aberrations, which had been holding their breath, began to move slowly, and the fire of chaos, which had been in a lull, was lit once more. Without even time to mourn Yi Yeong’s death, the Bureau had to move to neutralize the anomalies.
It was a full two days later before the Aberrations were isolated or annihilated and the Water Abnormality Worship Management Bureau regained stability. Only after the cleanup had reached a certain point did Jeil Heon and Kang Suk-young finally find a moment to talk.
“Fuck’s sake…”
Ignoring all sense of decorum, Kang Suk-young flopped down onto a rooftop bench. She felt like she was about to die.
“I guess I really am getting old. Pulling this kind of all-nighter shit at my age makes me feel like I’m dying.”
“They say life begins at sixty, Suk-ja Noona.”
“Sunbae, I’m only in my early fifties.”
Even while looking at Jeil Heon’s perfectly intact arm as he sat on the ground next to the bench lighting a cigarette, Kang Suk-young couldn’t wrap her head around it. To have an arm severed by an Aberration and then just attach it back and keep fighting—she wondered if that man was a human or a starfish. Drenched in the fluids of Aberrations, he felt suddenly strange to her.
However, if he hadn’t been there, the chaos caused by the anomalies would likely not have been resolved yet. The casualties were also fewer than expected. That was enough.
Ignoring the thick scent of blood emanating from Jeil Heon, Kang Suk-young borrowed his lighter. The rooftop, where there was no one to annoy them and they could smoke to their heart’s content, was the optimal place for a secret conversation.
“The Bureau is mostly sorted, but if that damn flute flips things upside down again looking for a Sealed One, we’re fucked. Our kids took a lot of hits.”
“You can rest easy on that front.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“The Special Guard Unit would never do something to harm innocent people. Yi Seong-gye was a virtuous leader who truly cared for his people, and the Special Guard Unit is loyal to Yi Seong-gye.”
“…So you’re saying those people are still loyal to Yi Seong-gye even after hundreds of years, but because they can’t forgive Yi Bang-won, they’re squeezing his descendants?”
“Correct.”
“Dammit. I wish they’d just stop at tormenting Yi Bang-won or his family; why is this grudge so damn persistent!”
“If they had, we probably wouldn’t be using Hangeul right now.”
“…”
That was true. As Kang Suk-young smoked chain-cigarettes, her mind becoming incredibly cluttered, Jeil Heon shared his organized thoughts with her.
Even Yi Seong-gye only forgave his son decades after his death. Forgiveness is not simply letting the past flow away, but it means the heart is moving forward, stepping over that event. And for the heart to move forward means one has come to see the future.
However, the souls were bound to the flute by resentment, and thus, trapped in the past, they could not see the future. At this rate, they would never be able to step over the past and move forward.
“Sigh…”
Kang Suk-young let out a deep sigh. Though she was utterly exhausted by the Aberrations’ rampage, the object had been the symbol of the Bureau for over a thousand years. The shock was not small.
“Who the hell is the next Sealed One you’re protecting? If you confess now, I’ll forgive you for lying to me all this time, so spill it quickly.”
Instead of speaking, Jeil Heon tapped on his phone’s keypad.
[The loveliest child in the world. Someone you know too.]
What the hell is this. Deep furrows formed between Kang Suk-young’s brows. Since he was a man who lived and died for his younger sister, she thought it might be Je Eun-jung, but her surname was Je, not Yi. As Kang Suk-young pondered which ‘Yi’ it could be, a certain person suddenly flashed through her mind. There was an orphan from a foster home around him whose biological parents might have been Yis.
Mouth agape, she asked, “Yoo Jiha?” and he tapped the keypad again.
[The Ten Thousand Waves Flute must have been in a hurry to meet the conditions. It picked him even though the Yi lineage is maternal, not paternal.]
“Maternal?”
[He is the great-grandson of Prince Ui on his mother’s side.]
That meant his mother was the granddaughter of Prince Ui, and among those people… wait, hold on? Kang Suk-young’s eyes widened. As Jeil Heon smiled brightly instead of answering to her violently shaking eyes filled with suspicion, Kang Suk-young’s lion-like roar exploded across the rooftop.
“You son of a bitch! How could you hide Yeo-jin’s kid from anyone but me!”
“If you had heard the circumstances from Yeo-jin twenty-two years ago, what choice would you have made?”
“Well…”
Kang Suk-young was speechless. Now that she was over fifty, having encountered the dark side of the Bureau, her thoughts had changed from her youth, and she had been gradually reforming the interior. She had questioned the sense of stability maintained by anomalies and became certain of it through this incident, but she hadn’t been that way in the past.
The child of a friend for whom she would have even taken their place in death—no, even if she had children of her own, she likely would have believed they should be sacrificed for the greater cause of the Bureau. Jeil Heon, knowing the Kang Suk-young of twenty-two years ago better than anyone, must have chosen silence.
“…Sunbae, fuck. The most annoying thing is how you try to carry everything alone. If there’s a human nearby to use, live your life by forcing the burden onto them. You’re so resourceful in other areas, but you’re completely blocked in this one.”
Messing up her hair wildly, Kang Suk-young sat up from the bench.
“What do you plan to do now? And exactly what happened twenty-two years ago?”