By Zephyria 
[You still can’t get through to the company, right? T_T]
[The problem is that if we do get through, an anomaly will probably be the one answering…]
[No news from the Team leader either?]
[No T_T I keep getting strange calls from the Team leader’s number]
It seemed that even Song Hilda, with her wide network, hadn’t managed to obtain any particular information. Yoo Jiha sighed as he looked at the 7th Team’s group chat. It had been a long while since Gong Ran-sa left to check on the situation outside, but there had been total silence. He felt frustrated, as there was nothing he could do other than stay holed up in Pilgyeongdang.
Wuuuuung.
At some point, the sound of the flute began to ring out again, and another call came through from Jeil Heon’s number.
Jiha. You were worried, weren’t you? It’s all over…
“Hey. I told you I’m not picking up even if you keep calling!”
Exasperated, Yoo Jiha replied with a hint of irritation and abruptly hung up. He hadn’t slept a wink, and it felt like someone was just taunting him.
He wondered how much longer he would have to wait for his return while sitting on the wooden platform facing the main gate. Having stayed awake for two full nights, Yoo Jiha was nodding off while sitting, but he snapped awake at the sound of the gate opening. The person walking through the gate certainly looked like Jeil Heon. Just in case, he looked closer. There was no True Eye Text. It wasn’t an anomaly.
It was indeed Jeil Heon.
“Mister!”
As he saw him running toward him, a sliver of a smile appeared on his expressionless face, and a deep emotion of tenderness dwelled within—everything about him was Jeil Heon. Yoo Jiha was pulled tightly into those familiar arms.
“Gasp. Was that phone call earlier actually you?”
“Yeah. You seemed quite harassed, so I didn’t call back. I thought it would be better to show my face in person.”
“Honestly, I doubted if it was really you since you came without a car.”
“An eight-foot ghost smashed the parking lot to pieces.”
Even while talking, Yoo Jiha continuously examined Jeil Heon. His neck, arms, and legs were all properly attached, and his fingers were intact. His clothes were clean, with no tears or bloodstains, so it didn’t seem like he had been injured and healed. Not a single drop of blood had splattered on his skin, and his face was, well, as handsome as usual.
Only after confirming there were no major injuries did he finally feel relieved. No matter how quickly he healed, it always broke his heart to see him get hurt.
Meanwhile, Gong Ran-sa also returned home and listened to the story with them. Although it was classified for the time being, it seemed the barrier had been lifted following the death of the Prince, who had been the Sealed One of the Ten Thousand Waves Flute. Though he had only met him once, his heart sank to hear that someone whose face he knew had passed away.
「So he has gone…」
Gong Ran-sa also kept his head bowed for a long time, his face reflecting deep shock.
“Did anything happen at Pilgyeongdang?”
“A lot happened.”
Yoo Jiha recounted the sudden sound of the flute and the resulting anomalies one by one, mentioning dream-like landscapes he hadn’t even been able to tell Gong Ran-sa until now.
“Mister. I saw a strange sight back then.”
Yoo Jiha chose his words carefully. A bizarre, short vision that felt like an extension of the dreams he had occasionally since childhood. A dream can be dismissed as just a dream. But that vision wasn’t even a dream.
“I saw a photo next to a woman who was calling me Jiha. It was a wedding photo, and the husband next to her was the Smiling Man.”
“…”
“You and the Smiling Man were friends, right? And the Smiling Man’s wife was your Hubae, wasn’t she? So…”
The words he couldn’t bring himself to utter scratched at the inside of his mouth. So, isn’t there something you know, Mister?
「Je-gun.」
Gong Ran-sa observed the silent Jeil Heon with a worried expression. Jeil Heon looked down at Yoo Jiha without a word. Yoo Jiha’s faintly trembling pupils were clouded with a mixture of various emotions. Questioning. Anxiety. Fear. Impatience. And trust.
Even though he instinctively felt that something had been hidden all this time, this child still trusted him.
Jeil Heon recalled the conversation he had with Kang Suk-young before returning home. Having learned most of the truth about what happened 22 years ago, she had asked:
〈Are you going to tell the boy the truth?〉
When he had been asked the same question by Gong Ran-sa, he could answer with certainty. That he would never tell him. However, this time, he couldn’t answer. The situation had changed.
〈Anyway, wouldn’t the flute have a rough idea of the situation by now?〉
The Ten Thousand Waves Flute had made a wish upon the Monkey’s Paw. Instead of designating a new Sealed One whom the Ten Thousand Waves Flute could easily deceive and dominate, it sought out a Sealed One who had already been designated in the past. He would be safe inside Pilgyeongdang, but he couldn’t keep him locked away for a lifetime.
…In the end, it came to this.
Just as clouds can cover the moon but cannot erase the moonlight, no matter how much one deceives and hides, the truth is revealed. The veil of ignorance he had cast to keep the child safe and peaceful had to be torn down by his own hand. What a foolish and selfish servant he was. A bitter taste slid down his throat, leaving a black stain on his heart.
If possible, I wanted to keep the truth buried from you until the very end.
Jeil Heon gloomily suppressed his own reflection mirrored in those trembling eyes and moved his lips.
“Twenty-six years ago, when Yeo-jin gave birth to a son, she gave him a name that wouldn’t feel awkward as either a boy’s or a girl’s name. That name was Nam Jiha.”
“Nam Jiha…?”
Yoo Jiha recalled the time Jeil Heon had accidentally called him ‘Nam Jiha’ in the past. …It hadn’t been a simple mistake. As the shock of his intuition becoming reality set in, Jeil Heon’s face distorted in pain as he looked down at the boy’s pale complexion.
“Yes, that child is you. Jiha.”
Nevertheless, he unfolded a piece of a long yet short past in an unchangingly tender voice. Lee Yeo-jin’s dream. The fate of the Sealed One, which was no different from a curse. Lee Yeo-jin’s struggle to save his child. The transplant of the true eye.
Yoo Jiha realized that one person was missing from his story.
“What about the Smiling Man? He is my father, right? Was the reason he became an Aberration also…”
「No.」
The firm denial came from Gong Ran-sa. It would be hard enough to accept the reality that his father was a serial killer; how much more guilt would he feel if the cause were himself?
Gong Ran-sa volunteered to play the villain to lighten the burden on Jeil Heon, who had to layer lies even within the truth.
「It is the malice that Nam Hyeon-woo had been suppressing. Since his birth and growth were not smooth, although he found stability after marrying Lee-gun later in life, it was not enough. He judged that if he had to avoid his fate, he would rather kill you.」
“Ah…”
Unable to find a proper response, Yoo Jiha simply nodded blankly. After fiddling with his fingers and chewing over the words, he finally managed to raise his gaze after a long while.
Because that gaze held a will to know the unhidden truth, Jeil Heon continued speaking before he could ask a question like, ‘Was my true eye really transplanted from Bak-su?’
“At first, I planned to take you and hide overseas with Yeo-jin for a while, but the Smiling Man attacked. Because he tore through an Aberrant Realm and emerged into reality, I didn’t notice him in time.”
While Lee Yeo-jin blocked the Smiling Man, Jeil Heon escaped with Nam Jiha. Utilizing the psychology that the darkest place is often right under one’s nose, they fled into the Aberrant Realm from which Nam Hyeon-woo had emerged. The first Aberrant Realm he saw looked like some kind of basement. To soothe the terrified, crying Nam Jiha and protect him from potential danger, he dressed him in field gear and scooped him up.
「Oh my. This oppa is sooooo handsome♥」
After wandering through a vast basement without a single speck of light, Jeil Heon finally found stairs and climbed up, only to encounter a burly Aberration wearing a frilled dress. An Aberration that would later be measured by the Management Bureau and given the identification name ‘Delusional Patient.’ That place was the Eight Phases Mental Hospital. The Smiling Man, out of spite, had contaminated the hospital and the Chinese physician who had taught them how to transplant the true eye, where the physician had served as the Hospital Director.
It was quite daunting to find a way to escape while carrying a terrified young child in an unfamiliar Aberrant Realm. While contemplating, Jeil Heon remembered a Tool that Mae-gu had given him in the past to use for escapes during emergencies. The Tool, which resembled a traditional silk lantern, allowed humans to open the paths of the Dividing Mist that connected Aberrant Realm to Aberrant Realm, or Aberrant Realm to reality.
“But Mae-gu didn’t tell me something important.”
Jeil Heon, who had continued his reminiscence without mixing in emotion as much as possible, sighed for the first time.