Chapter 39

Bitter self-derision surged up from deep within his chest. Choi Yook sparked his lighter to a cigarette. The flickering flame looked more hideous than ever before.

“I can’t fathom how he managed to find anything to strike on such a fragile body,” Choi Yook mused darkly. “Considering that, shattering only his ribs feels far too lenient. What else should I snap to ensure he properly reflects on his sins?”

Han Seo-yoon looked at Choi Yook with a heavy, troubled countenance. He understood all too well just how deeply his superior was fixated on that child. In truth, virtually all of their intricate schemes had been initiated for the sake of that single child.

Han Seo-yoon had observed Choi Yook for well over a decade. He had watched him study with ferocious, desperate discipline to break free from this household, and he had witnessed the exact moment on the day of the college entrance exam when Yook was locked inside the estate, seeing years of unyielding effort dissolve into foam. To crush Choi Yook’s spirit, Choi Hak-gyun had indulged his dreams until they grew grand, only to trample them at their absolute peak. Just as he had done to Lee Yeon-jae.

Enduring day after day, Choi Yook had begrudgingly complied with Choi Hak-gyun’s directives. He had submerged himself in self-loathing, appearing completely hollow and powerless. Yet six years ago, when a new order was handed down by Choi Hak-gyun, everything inverted entirely.

Choi Yook resolved to bring down his family in retribution and protect that child. Even as private investigators sent to Mangcheon suffered sinister, inexplicable misfortunes, he had never once surrendered his conviction that the child remained alive.

Look at him even now. Regardless of when the child had surfaced, they had vanished while injured, and six entire years had passed—more than enough time for a missing person to be legally presumed dead. Yet he refused to entertain such a grim reality for even a fraction of a second.

It was an excess of optimism entirely out of character for him. Han Seo-yoon worried that Choi Sijin’s careless disclosures had only fortified Choi Yook’s futile hopes. He feared that when brutal reality finally struck, his superior might collapse so completely he could never stand again.

Yet no matter how irrational that conviction seemed, he dared not voice a single disagreement. That child was nothing less than Choi Yook’s imperial scale—his untouchable, lethal threshold.

“Excuse me, Section Chief,” Han Seo-yoon began with hesitation. “However…”

Han Seo-yoon cleared his throat. As someone standing one pace removed from this emotional tangled web, he felt compelled to establish the objective facts—or at least the baseline truth.

“To refer to them as a child… wouldn’t that kid—no, that person, be the exact same age as Sijin-ssi?”

“…” Choi Yook released a slow plume of smoke in silence.

“Moreover, even if they were an innocent child when you last laid eyes on them, Section Chief, people change as they grow up,” Han Seo-yoon reasoned gently. “Regardless of whether they were female and ultimately took the beating, there’s no telling whether they provoked Sijin-ssi first—”

“Han Seo-yoon,” Choi Yook interjected.

Choi Yook severed his words. His face was a mask of frigid indifference, completely devoid of warmth. As Han Seo-yoon fell silent, Choi Yook exhaled another stream of tobacco smoke.

Smoking had long since solidified into a reflex, despite his hatred for the very flame of the lighter. The acrid smoke that saturated his lungs would leave indelible stains across his body as it billowed back out, corrupting and reshaping him in ways distinct from the past.

“Indeed, people change,” Choi Yook murmured. “Just as you and I did.”

“…” Han Seo-yoon kept his eyes lowered.

“However, not everyone in this world is made like you and me,” Choi Yook stated.

That child was fundamentally different from someone like him, who had forgotten even the meaning of self-respect. Choi Yook refused to believe a single shred of Choi Sijin’s biased assertions. There was no way that child would have lunged forward with the intent to harm another human being. At most, they had merely gone to demand accountability between right and wrong.

What a pure, pitiful notion it was. To honestly confront one’s tormentor without so much as a blade or a hidden camera in hand. One might have expected a victim to grasp a utility knife and strike with venomous malice, but that child possessed no such cunning.

“That child is too soft-hearted to ever fight alone,” Choi Yook said softly.

Choi Yook recalled the warmth of the child who had once held his hand. It had taken place on the very day Lee Yeon-jae, confined within the psychiatric ward, finally ended her own life. Back then, it had felt as though the final thread tethering him to the world had been severed.

The name Lee Yeon-jae had suited her exquisitely. Delicate and ethereal, belonging to a world so entirely removed from his own, it was a name that effortlessly inspired longing and reverent awe.

His own name, in contrast, had been the target of mockery since childhood. Clunky to pronounce and burdened with an excessively harsh cadence, it lingered in memory in the worst possible way. Worse still, that name had been bestowed upon him by Yang Ui-ju, the very person Choi Yook despised most.

His loathing for his own name had only intensified once it was compared to that of his half brother, Sijin (翅震). Derived from a conception dream of a soaring eagle, Sijin’s name carried an auspicious meaning that blended effortlessly among ordinary names. Choi Hak-gyun had even rebranded his moneylending firm to Yeongchwi (靈鷲)—the Divine Vulture—to harmonize with it. Naturally, every scrap of that naming had originated from Yang Ui-ju.

Wherever he went, Choi Yook postponed introducing his name for as long as possible. That remained his habit until the day he happened to step into a dilapidated library in Mangcheon. Upon noticing that Yoon Hee-sook was compiling the patron registry by hand rather than through a computer system, Choi Yook had offered an impulsive falsehood the moment she inquired of his identity.

“I’m Lee Yeon-jae. It’s ‘Yeon’ as in hone and ‘Jae’ as in talent—meaning to cultivate one’s gifts.”

Lee Yeon-jae had endlessly ground and honed herself down. And so, sharpening and smoothing herself beyond endurance, she had shattered into dust at last. The one who delivered that news was Choi Hak-gyun, over the phone.

“Well done.”

Words of chilling praise followed for Choi Yook: “Your mother has finally killed herself. Sending you off to Mangcheon was well worth it after all. I’ll give you a gift, so go ahead and tell me what you want.”

His voice even dripped with the relief of a man who had at last finished a tiresome chore. That was because of me? How utterly ignorant. There was no way such a thing was possible. It was pure nonsense.

Yet baring his true thoughts would only strip him of the opportunity at hand and invite retaliation. Choi Yook gritted his teeth instead.

“Please let me stay here as long as possible. I want to live on my own, away from everyone.”

If his purpose in Mangcheon was served, he would likely have to move into the main house, as the home where he had lived with Lee Yeon-jae had already been liquidated. But under no circumstances did he want to step foot into the house where Choi Hak-gyun, Kim Jeong-seon, and Choi Sijin lived. On top of that, Choi Yook had a child to look after.

Choi Yook had always loathed young children. It was all because of Choi Sijin, who had been hell-bent on tormenting him at every turn. Rather than cute, that pale, pristine face had struck him as grotesque and shudder-inducing.

But the child he met at the library was different. When he was with that kid, it felt as though he had become precious simply for being himself. Everything the rest of the world had chipped away from his worth, that child restored in full.

Only after realizing that did Choi Yook begin to notice the marks of neglect and abuse on the child. Chapped cheeks that never saw a dab of lotion, attire out of season, bloody bruises etched across the calves exposed beneath a rumpled skirt, and hair sticking out in tangled, unruly tufts.

The child bore that unmistakable grime unique to youngsters untouched by an adult’s care. Having once lived through it himself, Choi Yook recognized those signs better than anyone.

Even if he could not bring the child home to raise, Choi Yook wanted to look after him as far as his reach would allow. To a boy tormented by the curse of blood ties, that child was no different from a sibling he had chosen for himself.

Choi Hak-gyun laughed with amusement upon hearing the eldest son’s very first request.

“I’ll take it you have no intention of watching your mother placed in her casket, then.”

He called back repeatedly to demand what that was supposed to mean, but no answer ever came. Only then did Choi Yook realize that he had been stripped of his final chance to see Lee Yeon-jae’s face. He was denied even the chance to say a parting goodbye to Ms. Lee Yeon-jae—a woman who had been neither ‘Mom’ nor ‘Mother.’

From that moment on, Choi Yook was half out of his mind. Far from shedding a single tear, he felt utterly nothing at all.

The food he forced down his throat tasted like chunks of styrofoam. Walking to school hardly felt like walking, and even when he mechanically opened a book at the library, the words failed to register before his eyes.

No one noticed anything amiss with Choi Yook, for he had always been taciturn and impassive. But while he was turning pages he could not read, a clumsy, crooked scrawl slipped into the space between the neatly printed typesets.

—Are you hurting, hyung??

Thrusting the notebook forward, the child peered up into Choi Yook’s face with worried eyes. The instant that question reached him, sensation flickered back to life in Choi Yook’s world.

With it came an agonizing wave of pain. It felt as though a colossal boulder, suspended midair, had finally crashed down upon his head, crushing his heart to pieces.

The person from whom he had poured every ounce of strength hoping to receive love had taken her own life. Because he had never seen her body with his own eyes, he could not even make sense of the reality, yet he had to accept it. All his past efforts to exchange even a single word with her had been stripped entirely of meaning.

Dizziness surged, warping the neat, printed letters on the page into a grotesque blur. The bookshelves packed tight with volumes seemed ready to devour him like a monster’s fangs; cold sweat broke out as dry heaves clawed up his throat.

Unable to bear it any longer, Choi Yook bolted out into the back courtyard. The child dashed after him, grasping Choi Yook’s hand with both of his own. Stamping his feet in helpless distress, the child hurried to write across his notebook.

—Don’t hurt.

He had not wanted to look at words of any kind. It had felt as though he would throw up before he could ever read or digest their meaning, and yet…

—If you hurt, I’m sad.

There was someone in this world who received his pain as their own sorrow. At least one such person truly existed.

—Really really really × 1,000,000 sad.

That sorrow was conveyed through nothing other than written words. It was a sorrow whose consonants and vowels danced in a jumble of mismatched sizes, shaped in frantic haste.

In the end, Choi Yook broke down in tears. Clenching his teeth tight so as not to make a sound, he let the tears spill down his cheeks, squeezing the hand held fast in his own.

That tightly clasped hand felt like a brand-new cord tying him to the world. It was the very lifeline that kept Choi Yook alive.

Tapping the ash from his cigarette, Choi Yook murmured, “I owe that kid nothing less than my life.”

Because he believed the child was alive, Choi Yook had dragged himself forward day by agonizing day. Because he realized he had to take vengeance on the child’s behalf, he had resolved to trample Choi Hak-gyun and rise above him.

His eyes turned flinty and cold. “So I should at least live up to my name.”

Yook. A name he hated so deeply that he avoided introducing himself at all costs. A single character bestowed upon him to suppress a destiny deemed excessively fierce.

The Yook (戮) meaning to slaughter and desecrate.

A horrific execution that severed once more the neck of an already dead corpse. To repay his debt, Choi Yook intended to carry out that very punishment. It was the principle of a loan shark, handed down to him by his father.