By Zephyria 
Kang Suk-young, who was about to answer in the affirmative, closed her lips upon seeing the conviction etched on Yoo Jiha’s face. …If it had been Jeil Heon, he would have lied and said so without wavering. Jiha chewed on the pain in his heart, recalling the man who had been more than proficient at lying—especially lies told for his own sake.
“Team leader, you hid everything and lied to me. But I believe it’s right to know the truth and face it, no matter how difficult or painful it may be, rather than enjoying comfort in ignorance.”
“…Sunbae was trying to protect you.”
“Yes, I know. But if I had remained ignorant… I wouldn’t even have known what the Team leader sacrificed for me…”
“….”
“That’s why I told him not to hide things from me the night before, and told him not to get hurt because of me, but he didn’t say a word until the end…”
Without even realizing that the way he addressed the man had shifted from ‘Team leader’ to ‘Ahjussi,’ Jiha roughly rubbed his eyes with his sleeve as a cold sorrow welled up.
“…Was I really that unreliable to you, Ahjussi?”
“The opposite. It was precisely because I trusted you.”
With a sigh, Kang Suk-young handed him a handkerchief. Her face was distorted with grief as she roughly brushed back her hair.
“He must have been unable to tell you because he was certain that if you knew what Sunbae was, you would inevitably become the Sealed One.”
“What exactly is Ahjussi?”
A single word fell heavily from Kang Suk-young’s lips. Bearer.
Throughout the journey back to Pilgyeongdang, clutching a box containing a few selected belongings of Lee Yeo-jin, the word ‘Bearer’ would not leave Jiha’s mind. He belatedly remembered where he had encountered that word, which felt strangely familiar.
〈I am Jeong Ing-bar, captain of the 5th Response Unit of the Annihilation Execution Department. Bearer Sunbae.〉
He recalled that the Aberrations had also referred to Jeil Heon by that name, and though he had tried to investigate, he had only received the vague answer that ‘some agents of the Enforcement Division were called Bearers in the past,’ and the matter had fizzled out. …He should have looked into it more back then. He should have found a way to figure it out.
Kang Suk-young comforted him by saying that since the security level had been raised when the project was scrapped, it was information a mere employee could not have accessed, but the regret did not fade.
〈Since you carry the Essence of an Aberration within your body, how could you avoid being contaminated? A Bearer inevitably becomes an Aberration. That is why you, who stabilized Sunbae’s Corruption Level, were like a miracle.〉
However, it was said that by the time Jeil Heon reunited with him, his physical growth and aging had already stopped. While Jiha had prevented his condition from worsening, there was no longer any way for him to return to being human.
Jiha thought. If he could prevent Jeil Heon’s complete mutation as long as he remained alive, wouldn’t it be enough to simply live longer? Like that child who had lived for 200 years as the Sealed One of the Ten Thousand Waves Flute.
As if she already knew the answer before even seeing his expression, Kang Suk-young murmured.
〈That is why he hid the fact that he was a Bearer from you.〉
She went on to explain that the Sealed One of the Ten Thousand Waves Flute was ultimately a living sacrifice, regardless of how elegantly it was dressed up. The lives of those whose Vital Energy and Life Force were stolen, and the life of a certain prince who had sealed the flute for 200 years.
He did not consider their devotion and sacrifice trivial. But even so, sharing his own life for him was a lighter price to pay than losing Jeil Heon.
Even if he would not wish for it.
…In the end, they were the same. He and himself.
Only now did Jiha painfully understand Jeil Heon’s choice. However, that did not mean he would meekly accept this situation and simply manage the grief of losing him.
Since the man had left of his own accord, he would bring him back of his own accord. It was something no one had asked or ordered him to do, but he would do it willfully. As he pleased. By his own will.
「…Have you found out as well?」
Gong Ran-sa, sitting across from the returned Jiha, rubbed her chest as if in pain. Having had to swallow the truth even in front of Jiha, she offered a belated apology.
“Is there no way, by any means, for a corrupted Bearer to return to being human?”
「There is none. If there were a way, the Management Bureau would have used any means necessary long ago. Considering that Kang Gun, who could cut off his own flesh and blood for the greater good, scrapped the project as soon as he became Director, what more can be said?」
She must have felt it acutely, just as the close friends Lee Yeo-jin and Jeil Heon had suffered human anguish.
Despite the heavy denial, Jiha was not discouraged. He had expected as much. Even Kang Suk-young, who likely desired Jeil Heon’s return as much as he did, had been unable to find a way.
“Then, perhaps there is a way through the anomalies?”
「That too does not exist. It was originally a human incantation performed to gain power. Why would an Aberration create a spell to remove contamination and return to being human?」
“What about Mae-gu? I heard they’ve lived for a very long time; wouldn’t they know at least a clue?”
At those words, Gong Ran-sa looked as if she had been caught off guard and sank into deep thought for a long while.
「…The Aberration that Jei Gun mixed was originally a fox that Mae-gu had taken as a sister. Thus, Mae-gu hoped that Jei Gun would deviate from the human way and become an Aberration. Even if they know a method, it will not be easy to change their mind.」
* * *
He dreamed. It had been a long time since he last dreamed.
〈Jiha, you must listen to Ahjussi. Mommy will definitely protect you.〉
His mother’s face, which had never been clear, appeared vividly. Hiding a gaze filled with sadness and pain, she watched for a very, very long time as the child held the man’s hand and entered beyond the white mist.
White, white mist and a strange place where strange people did strange things flowed repeatedly around the child. Conversely, the flow of time bypassed the child. The world of a child who cannot grow cannot expand.
There was only one person by the child’s side. A man who watched over the child tenderly, even when the child complained and threw tantrums because they were tired of wandering aimlessly without parents or a grandmother. The child walked held in the man’s arms, dozed off leaning against his chest, and clung to his neck while whimpering. Clinging to the warmth of the large embrace that held them.
In that white and strange place, the man was the child’s world.
Waking from the dream, Jiha rubbed his stinging eyes with the back of his hand. Memories that had been sunk to the bottom of his subconscious, consumed by the fear of facing the Smiling Man, surfaced faintly to the top of the dream. The few Aberrant Realms he had crossed through the Dividing Mist and the Aberrations he had encountered there.
Even while facing terrifying monsters, the child had never been afraid. Because he knew instinctively that he would be safe by the man’s side.
The world that had protected Yoo Jiha was Jeil Heon.
Even in the face of a fate decided as a living sacrifice before he was even born, Jeil Heon did not give up. He would not give up either.
“Ahjussi, please wait just a little longer.”
As if making a vow, Jiha steadied his heart with a loud voice, tidied his spot, and stood up. He would start immediately today.
The fact that it would be difficult to change a mind meant that it wasn’t 100% impossible. Even if the probability was extremely slim, it was far better than simply letting go and grieving.
Jiha sent a DM to the Dokheukri Instagram account, but it wasn’t marked as read. Looking at the posts, there had been no uploads since before the barrier of the Ten Thousand Waves Flute was released. Gong Ran-sa also told him that she couldn’t reach him. Since no sightings could be found on the internet, he panted his way up Baegundae on Bukhansan, a place he often visited, but it was a wild goose chase.
Still, he could not give up. By his standards as someone lacking exercise, he hiked for over four hours round trip almost every single day, and he recalled the Aberrant Realm where he had met Mae-gu, searching for places that imitated the End of Goryeo, Beginning of Joseon. Unfortunately, there were no results, but he did not give up and scoured the Management Bureau’s archives and databases whenever he had a spare moment. Clinging to the hope that there might be a method that even the Management Bureau had failed to discover.
Despite exhausting his body all day, he often spent entire nights awake, not from fainting, but because anxiety surged within him.
“Ahjussi, I went to Bukhansan again today, but Mae-gu wasn’t there. I got scolded for littering while I was sticking a post-it note on a rock asking them to contact me…”
Jiha, who was venting about being nagged by an oblivious hiker in front of the temporary isolation room where Jeil Heon slept, suddenly widened his eyes and bolted up from his chair.
In that moment, his finger twitched.