By Zephyria 
“But my father was ordinary until that happened. He cheated on the side, but at home, he fulfilled his duties as the head of the household. If I hadn’t touched his reverse scale, I wouldn’t have known about his duality. Did I overstep by saying that?”
“……No.”
“I don’t want Jiha to belittle himself too much.”
In the night breeze, which had grown a bit chillier than before, Yoo Jiha lightly bit his lower lip. He felt he understood a bit of what the man wanted to say. It was a clear fact that his biological parents had not raised him. However, rather than letting him resign or mock himself for not receiving a shred of love from them—buried under the weight of that fact—the man embraced Jiha’s wounds with his own.
Having stepped half a circle around the swing that had returned to its position, Jeil Heon stood before him and tilted his gaze. Even though the streetlamp’s light created a backlight that dimmed his vision, he could picture the man’s expression as clearly as if he were seeing it.
“Jiha, I really like you as you are now. I like that you grew up to be a decent and bright person, and I like that you have a warm heart that accepts a ruined human like me. I’m so glad that I can tell your current parents raised you with love.”
“…….”
“You aren’t a product of your past; you are the person you’ve made yourself into now.”
Throughout a not-so-short life of seventeen years, the one who chose what kind of person to become was not his biological parents, but himself. The time accumulated in that way had formed the human known as Yoo Jiha.
And the man always affirmed the insignificant version of himself that remained trapped in the pain of a discarded childhood.
The remnants and the past of his biological parents would cling to his feet like shadows, occasionally circling his heart with a stinging pain; Grandmother’s cold reproaches might continue until the day her breath ceased; nevertheless, Yoo Jiha knew love. Even at this moment, it was a clear vibration, like a quiet but deep river in the center of his chest, never stopping.
He buried his face in the chest of the man who rested quietly at the end of that vibration.
Whenever longing stained his wounds, he had imagined it countless times. Since they abandoned their child, they couldn’t be good parents. They must be very bad people. Imagining just how bad they were sometimes carved new wounds akin to self-torture, but he felt that it wouldn’t be that way anymore.
“……In the past, just imagining what my biological parents were like was hard, but I’m okay now.”
Because there was this man, who affirmed the current version of him—composed of everything he had built himself, rather than the shadows of the past.
Feeling a bit embarrassed after such a rambling conversation, he intentionally continued in a lighter tone.
“If I had kept living with my biological parents, I might not have met you, Mister.”
A faint, blurry something resembling a smile flickered at the corners of Jeil Heon’s mouth.
“Maybe I would have become the mister next door.”
“At your age, you’d be the elderly man next door.”
“If I were an elderly man, I wouldn’t be able to do this with Jiha……?”
Lips that had playfully bitten his cheek brushed down across the bridge of his nose and softly captured his lips. It was just as the kiss, licked sweet enough to make a wet sound, was about to deepen.
The sudden ringing of a cell phone cut between the two. It was a notification that the waveform of the Smiling Man had been detected.
* * *
The world was in an uproar over the Grinning Killer, who murdered people and left a smile mark behind. Because a criminal who leaves such a strong impression and becomes a topic of public conversation risks transforming into an anomaly if not arrested, the Management Bureau kept a close watch. It was around that time that Nam Soon-ho died and Nam Hyeon-woo went missing.
Having received a call from Nam Soon-ho asking him to come to the Prayer Chamber, Jeil Heon arrived to find an old man in a near-death state, collapsed in a pool of blood. And rolling beside her were one arm and one leg of an adult male. A smile mark drawn in blood on Nam Soon-ho’s body.
‹……The Forbidden Seal…… please, stop……›〉
Grabbing the hand of Jeil Heon, who had rushed to her side, Nam Soon-ho left an incomprehensible final testament. Before Jeil Heon could even dwell on the meaning of those words, he learned that his cherished hubae had also disappeared. The owner of the severed limbs rolling on the floor was Nam Hyeon-woo.
Despite searches continuing for several days, Nam Hyeon-woo was never found, and a provisional conclusion was reached that he, too, had been murdered by the Grinning Killer. Lee Yeo-jin, who lost her family overnight, was devastated, and Jeil Heon handled the funeral acting as the chief mourner. The young daughter of the couple, who was not yet old enough to clearly understand the concept of death, was terrified by the strange atmosphere and clung to Jeil Heon.
While the Grinning Killer continued to kill, Lee Yeo-jin took a leave of absence and shut herself away. Despite visiting several times out of worry, she didn’t even answer his calls; it was a full month later that he met her again.
〈Are you eating well? What about Jiha?〉
〈I sent him to kindergarten. The living have to survive somehow.〉
As she spoke, she scribbled words in a diary. Jeil Heon looked down without thinking, wondering if it was just a doodle, and his expression hardened fiercely.
[Hyeon-woo is the Grinning Killer]
Words have power. Lee Yeo-jin did not utter a single word that could give power to an anomaly or be detected by the Management Bureau; she only moved her pencil.
[Hyeon-woo is transforming and trying to become an Aberration. An Aberration that can contaminate anything.]
[He probably already became an Aberration when he murdered the Mansin.]
〈……Why?〉
[To contaminate Jiha.]
[Jiha has a constitution that can never be contaminated. To be precise, even if he is contaminated, it slowly reverts, so there is no need for purification. In short, it means contamination has no effect on Jiha.]
[To Jiha, contamination would be nothing more than a bit of dust landing on him for a moment.]
[Hyeon-woo is crazy right now.]
[If he is an Aberration whose contamination ability is maximized, he is certain that he can contaminate and mutate Jiha into an Aberration as well.]
It was already difficult to accept the truth that Nam Hyeon-woo was a cruel serial killer, but stories that were impossible to understand continued. The act of not only becoming an Aberration himself but trying to turn his own child into one could not be explained by the single word “crazy.”
While Jeil Heon was unable to clear his confused mind, Lee Yeo-jin’s writing continued rapidly.
[I had a dream before I even knew I was pregnant with Jiha.]
Warriors dressed in attire from hundreds of years ago and people with queues declared in the dream: they would take the fate of her son, who would not be invaded by anomalies, within three years. Just in case, she checked with a pregnancy test and found she was indeed pregnant. She thought it was just a strange conception dream, but the dream continued for three days. In shamanism, ‘3’ is a fundamental number. She could not shake off the ominous feeling.
[That’s why I raised Jiha disguised as a girl.]
Four years passed after the child was born. She didn’t have similar dreams again, and there was nothing wrong with the child’s well-being. She thought it had been a needless worry. Just as she and her husband were discussing whether they should reveal he was a boy before he entered elementary school, as it would be irreversible then, she had the dream again.
[Where has your son gone?]
The warriors scolded her sternly. The dream continued for three days again. Nam Soon-ho stopped eating and drinking, offering sincere prayers and petitioning the presiding deity. She barely received an answer from the spirit who ignored even a Divine Artifact.
[They were Vengeful Spirits. Vengeful Spirits from 600 years ago bound to the flute.]
Sensing something from the word “flute,” Jeil Heon groaned softly and grit his teeth. Lee Yeo-jin was of the Joseon royal bloodline. Then everything became clear. The son who inherited her bloodline must have been born with whatever conditions the Ten Thousand Waves Flute desired.
Nam Hyeon-woo was trying to mutate his son into an Aberration to protect him from his fate.
〈Sunbae. Please help Jiha.〉
Before he even heard her earnest plea, Jeil Heon had already made up his mind. Even if it resulted in betraying the Management Bureau he had served his entire life, no matter what price he had to pay, he would protect the child.
From the Vengeful Spirits bound to the flute, and from Nam Hyeon-woo.
The place where the Smiling Man appeared was not a location he had been associated with in life. Jeil Heon slowly approached the entity, which sat leisurely in a park on the outskirts of Seoul. The hand shoved in his pocket was fiddling with the Wooden Locket containing the Aberrant Mother sample.
When he received this sample from Mae-gu the day before yesterday, Gong Ran-sa had been present. Though he didn’t oppose the plan, his expression was one of lingering apprehension.
“Will your hand truly be free of delusion before the Smiling Man?”