Chapter 66
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Chapter 66
Baek Gahyun bit down on his lower lip, his gaze fixed upon her.
The truth was. The absolute truth was....
Baek Gahyun knew it too. That his mother had never wished to leave them.
Because he had witnessed it. That day, as she cradled him to sleep, the tears that streamed down his mother's face.
Yet despite this knowledge, he had drawn a cold line between them, believing she had abandoned him—a petulant act of an underdeveloped child.
"...You don't know. How much I, with what heart, how I waited for you."
His voice spilled forth in fragmented bursts.
"Even after you left like that, I waited for you every single day, clinging only to your promise that you would return soon."
Baek Gahyun felt his voice trembling pathetically, but before he could steady himself, the words he had suppressed came pouring out.
"But you, in the end, you left us. You left us forever."
Seven years. Seven long years of resentment and sorrow accumulated and compressed.
"You abandoned Father and us because of some family duty or whatever!"
The emotion, which should have erupted long ago but never did, had become so densely concentrated that it clawed at his skin and gouged open wounds.
"And after all that, the first thing you say when we meet again is that it's been a while? That you hope I've been well?"
After realizing his mother would never return, Baek Gahyun had matured far beyond his years.
He had no choice.
It seemed the only way to forget the void his mother left was to become an adult.
"Do you think I could have been well? After you left like that, how could I possibly...."
Yet no matter how much he mimicked adulthood, a mere eleven-year-old child could never truly become one.
In the end, he remained nothing but a child who could not forget his mother....
"I... *sob*, *gasp*... resented you the whole time, longed for you without a single moment of rest, hated you, *sob*, and hated you again...."
At last, the tears that had welled up broke free, streaming down his face.
"I'm sorry, Gahyun. I'm so sorry. Mother is so sorry."
Chung Ha, who had knelt before him, wiped away the child's tears with her sleeve, apologizing profusely through her own sobs.
Her face too was wet with tears.
"Why do you keep, why do you keep only saying you're sorry? Why won't you even offer some common excuse...!"
Baek Gahyun cried out, his voice choked with emotion, clenching his teeth.
He knew there were so many things she could say to justify herself to him.
Yet he could not comprehend how she offered no excuse whatsoever, accepting his resentment entirely.
"Because no excuse could ever justify why I left you. It is purely my fault."
Chung Ha gazed at the child with sorrowful eyes and spoke.
"I thought of you every moment too, Gahyun. Not for a single instant did I stop."
At this confession, finally spoken, Baek Gahyun's wet eyes trembled violently.
"You... thought of me the whole time?"
Baek Gahyun asked, his throat aching as it constricted.
"Yes, every day, every single moment I drew breath."
"You missed me too...?"
"I did. Terribly. So very much."
Chung Ha answered with a faint smile.
"I always wanted to run to you. But because I couldn't, my heart ached...."
If I could, I would have torn out every drop of direct bloodline flowing through my veins—I had spent so many hours in such anguish.
"Then, you too.... You also...."
Baek Gahyun couldn't ask easily, his words trailing off.
But Chung Ha, understanding what he was trying to ask, answered with a tender smile.
"I love you. I love you so very much, Gahyun."
All those long years. Waiting for her who would never return—perhaps these were the words he had most longed to hear.
Soon, Baek Gahyun's shoulders trembled, and he burst into tears like a child.
Chung Ha held the boy who wept in her embrace for the first time in seven years, pulling him close with all her strength.
* * *
"The truth is, I kept waiting for you, Mother."
Baek Gahyun lay in bed, clutching Chung Ha's hand tightly as he spoke softly of the past.
He said he had held great hope when he heard last year that she was coming.
But at the same time, wanting to pout, he had deliberately locked the door.
Then, after the growth pains ended and his mind cleared, he learned she had already left, and he regretted it deeply.
Unwilling to acknowledge such feelings, he had deliberately deceived himself and resented you all the more.
"I shouldn't have done that...."
His voice grew quieter and quieter, and soon Baek Gahyun drifted into sleep.
Chung Ha sat by the dark bedside, gazing at him with a gentle smile.
Her sorrowful periwinkle eyes looked sadly upon the child's swollen eyes.
Eleven years old....
He had grown so much. When I left, I never imagined I would be unable to return until he had grown this tall.
Throb—
Pain radiated from my core.
In truth, my condition had been poor ever since I left the Blue Dragon Territory, and I had been enduring it.
I needed to return to the Blue Dragon Territory soon.
'I've only just confessed my heart to you....'
At that moment, rustling footsteps sounded behind Chung Ha.
"Good timing."
At the quiet voice, Chung Ha turned around. Sayeon stood there.
Soon the two of them stepped outside together and walked through the Garden in silence for a while.
It was Chung Ha who first broke the quiet stillness.
"Actually, Jeok Soya helped me."
"The cotton ball?"
At the unexpected name, Sayeon narrowed his eyes and asked back.
"Yes."
Chung Ha nodded with a faint smile.
This evening, before going to meet Baek Gahyun, Jeok Soya had sought out Chung Ha first.
[You see, Chung Ha. I was abandoned by my family when I was six years old. But I waited every single day for my father and older brother—the ones who abandoned me—to come find me again.]
[Even knowing they wouldn't come, I kept waiting. I waited for them to return and tell me they were sorry, and that they loved me.]
"Gahyun will be waiting for you too, I'm sure."
"I'm so sorry to ask this of you. But Gahyun is still young, and you're an adult, so...."
"So could you go first and tell Gahyun for me? Tell him I'm sorry for leaving. But that I love him very much."
"Those were the words I waited for most while I was alone in the Cold Palace."
Jeok Soya, barely nine years old and not yet through her first growth period, made this request of me.
She spoke of her painful past with such composure, asking this of me.
In that moment, I realized how cowardly and immature an adult I had been.
I had lingered by that child's side, yet I could not bring myself to speak the most important words—that I was sorry, that I loved her.
I had foolishly convinced myself that an apology would only reopen her wounds.
But perhaps the truth was that I feared not her pain, but my own.
I should not have done that. I should not have smiled and greeted her as though nothing had happened.
"A nine-year-old Soya understood what I didn't. I've truly failed as a mother."
Yet Gahyun took my inadequate hand in his once more.
How precious that small hand holding mine had been.
Remembering Gahyun's touch, tears spilled from my eyes again.
It was not only Gahyun.
My firstborn, Gaya, who at merely eight years old had already spoken as though he understood me.
My third, Gayul, still so young then that he did not even comprehend what it meant to be separated from his mother.
And....
A glance.
I lifted my gaze to look at Sayeon.
A man who bore the unmistakable resemblance of the three boys I loved most in this world—with hair as white as snow and eyes of blue.
The man who had held me back when I said I would leave, and who ultimately respected my will and let me go....
"Baek Sayeon."
Even now, thinking of this man caused my chest to ache in a way I could not explain.
Yet I suppressed that inexplicable feeling and asked in a bright voice.
"Where on earth did you find such a cute, kind, and clever daughter?"
"Our little cotton ball is cute, kind, and clever, that's true. She takes after me."
Sayeon chuckled and played along.
A man with the keen senses of a Baekho beast-kin blessed with superior physical abilities could not have failed to notice my reddened eyes.
He could not have failed to catch the scent of these salty tears.
Yet his kindness in pretending not to notice and smiling for me warmed my heart.
Baek Sayeon had always been that kind of man.
Not overtly affectionate, yet steadfastly waiting for me in the same place, always.
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