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♛
Knock, knock.
“Prince, it’s Lenox. Please excuse my discourtesy for a moment.”
A familiar voice was heard along with the knock.
“Come in.”
The gray-haired man, who came inside as soon as permission was granted, looked like he was in his early 30’s and had a friendly amiable impression. Dressed in a red uniform embroidered with gold, he bowed politely toward Seth.
“We’ll just clean up quickly and leave.”
Having said that, he beckoned lightly to the attendants standing outside the door. The servants who came in with good manners quickly cleaned the area around the bed. They even wiped the splashed blood on the floor and walls then replaced the ruined beddings with new ones.
Meanwhile, Seth beckoned to the knight Lenox who was standing by the door. As he approached, he handed the dagger he was holding in his hand.
“Have you seen the bastards Kirsty dragged?”
“Yes.”
Lenox, who received the dagger with both hands, sent out the servants who had finished organizing the room with a glance. Then he lowered the volume of his voice and asked Seth.
“I looked at them for a while, and I don’t think it’s possible to get any information directly from them.”
The smile disappeared from Lenox’s face.
“They belong to the assassination group ‘Canael’.”
Seth’s eyebrows slightly twitched.
‘Canael’ is an assassination group spread all over the world and they are notorious for assassinating even the emperor of a country if you can give them what they wanted. Those who belonged to it had an iron rule that life itself was solely focused on killing a target, and that failure to assassinate means death. Even if they were caught trying to assassinate and were tortured, they would never open their mouths, still just in case, they even had their tongues removed.
“What a nuisance.”
It was said that Canael was difficult to contact and even more difficult to commission. Since the person who wanted to kill him dabble with such a place quite rashly, it was clear that subsequent assassination attempts would become more frequent.
‘Things would be even more fun.’
After getting absorbed in thought for a moment, Seth walked to bed and told Lenox to step back so that he could take a rest.
“What do we do with the guys we caught?”
“It wouldn’t open its mouth anyway, so play as long as you want with it then get rid of it.”
It was like talking about a toy. Lenox, who understood the meaning of Seth’s cold words, bowed deeply and left the room.
The spacious room quickly became quiet as if something big had never happened in the first place. Seth, who was looking down at the bed, raised his head.
“Hey.”
He called out into the air once, but he couldn’t hear any response. He thought it was quiet from the time Lenox came, wondering if that person had gone somewhere else. Thinking like that, it seems that the previous conversation was just an illusion.
‘It cannot be an illusion.’
Seth was not a single-minded person who easily thinks that what he had experienced firsthand was a mere illusion or a dream. How could he dismiss it as such, when the ghost’s voice was still vividly remaining inside his head.
⋆♚⋆♛⋆♚⋆
“Joo Yi-Gyeol!”
Yi-Gyeol opened his eyes to the sudden voice. The ceiling, which had been splendid just until earlier, had changed into a faded white color as if it had always been like that from the beginning.
He blinked his eyes as he couldn’t adjust right away, and the frown on his mother’s eyes, who was calling his name beside him as if she was frustrated, softened.
“Why doesn’t a kid who slept so much wake up like this? I’m surprised that you didn’t even wake up from the alarm.”
He turned his eyes and looked up at his mother. Wearing a coat as if she was about to go outside right away, annoyance was still written on her face as if she’s been trying to wake him up several times but still woke up late. As soon as he saw it, Yi-Gyeol automatically put a forced smile on his lips.
“Sorry, Mom. Are you going to work now?”
“En. I have to leave a little early today.”
He looked at the clock that was hanging on the wall and saw that it was already 7:30 p.m. the next day. He was surprised at how quickly the time passed in an instant, but he turned his head without showing any expression. Next to his squatting mother is a small table with a bowl of porridge with ground meat, soybean paste soup, shredded potatoes, and radish kimchi chopped into small-sized pieces. After lying in bed for a long time, his digestive system has already stopped doing its functions properly, so all he could eat was porridge and a few non-stimulating side dishes.
With the help of his mother, Yi-Gyeol raised his upper body and smiled brightly on purpose as soon as she put the pillow behind his back and sat down. He wondered if he was smiling strangely since there was no mirror and he couldn’t check for himself, but fortunately, his mother didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m fine, so you can now go ahead. You said you have to leave early.”
“Okay. When you’re done, just tell Yi-Jin to clean it up.”
After putting the small table above Yi-Gyeol’s leg, his mother immediately jumped out from her seat and hurried to the door. Yi-Gyeol, who saw her mother off with his eyes, thought of Yi-Jin who was in the next room, and called her at once.
“Mom, I….”
“What?”
He was at a loss for words. His mother’s eyes, which stood by the door and turned around, showed a ‘you’re being a nuisance’ light. After receiving such a gaze, he couldn’t continue saying anything even if he wanted to.
“…It’s nothing. Please take care of yourself.”
In the end, without being able to say what he wanted to say, he saw her mother off with his eyes. She muttered quietly as she closed the door without answering Yi-Gyeol’s greeting,
“Wasting my time, tsk.”
At the end of the speech, the sound of the tongue clicking was heard and the noise of the door slamming shut followed. With a smile still on his lips, Yi-Gyeol listened to the sound of her mother opening the front door and leaving the house.
As soon as he heard the sound of the door being locked from the tightly closed front door, the smile disappeared from Yi-Gyeol’s face.
‘I just wanted to ask for some stationery.’
As he was walking around the streets yesterday and felt that the College Scholastic Ability Test was getting closer, he wanted to write a letter and give it to Yi-Jin just the way she did for him before. Because there was nothing else he could do other than that.
‘I can’t also ask Yi-Jin, who is busy studying… She’ll be annoyed.’
With a dark face, he looked down at the table placed on his leg. He raised his weak arm and picked up the spoon. Although it was clear that the thing was light, it still felt heavy for Yi-Gyeol.
Yi-Gyeol precariously ate the lukewarm porridge with a trembling spoon and recalled the products he had seen on the street the day before. He couldn’t go out in person, and he had no money given to him since he doesn’t go out, so it was impossible to buy something. That’s why he decided to write a letter.
‘Oh, come to think of it, the memo….’
Recalling the square memo paper slightly larger than the palm of his hand, Yi-Gyeol turned his head and looked up at the nearby small chest of drawers. As he remembered, the memo was placed on top of the chest of drawers filled only with tissues and wipes.
It had been there for a few years. His father left it to Yi-Gyeol to write down what he wanted or if he had something to say. Due to the increased debt for borrowing money in order to treat Yi-Gyeol, his father goes to work during the day and acts as a substitute driver at night. Because of that, it was quite a long time ago since they’ve actually met.
Perhaps because of his busy schedule, his father’s visits are cut off now, but in the past, he often visited Yi-Gyeol’s room. He looked down at his son who was silently asleep for a few minutes without saying a word, and checked the memo on the chest of drawers. Seeing the faded note that was never left a single word, he sighed with relief. Had it not been for the OOBE condition, he would not have known that his father was doing that.
Recalling his father, Yi-Gyeol looked over the chest of drawers then suddenly turned his attention to the flowers adorned next to the memo paper. It was an artificial flower that Yi-Jin bought when he left the hospital and stayed in this room, saying that the unfurnished room was too desolate. It was a pretty dark purple iris flower at that time, but now, it is a little lighter because it has already faded like the memo paper.
Yi-Gyeol, who was quietly looking at the purple iris, dropped the spoon he was holding in his hand and opened his eyes wide.
“It’s even more surprising that no one has ever heard it when it sounds so clear.”
“I never thought I’d ever talk to a ghost.”
His heart raced uncontrollably when he remembered the purple-haired young man he met lately in his OOBE state. It was a strangely fascinating place he saw for the first time, but what was even more fascinating was that young man. With a cold, emotionless face, he calmly listened to Yi-Gyeol’s voice. No one has ever heard of his voice, not even the souls he met nor the butterflies.
‘It wasn’t a dream.’
He just couldn’t think of it as a dream. He’s been dreaming until he’s had enough of it, and now it has become his daily thing to go out with the OOBE state instead of dreaming. He can never misunderstand that.
It was not uncommon for his eyes to suddenly feel distant and wake up during the OOBE period. In those times, he did not come back of his own volition, but he always finds himself inside his own body. It wasn’t surprising because the same thing happened this time, but it was really regretful.
‘I wanted to talk to him a little more.’
He wondered what kind of place it was since it’s the first time that he had been there, and what kind of person he was, the first person who’d heard his voice.
He heard them call him ‘Prince,’ was that really true? Is there still a country with Constitutional Monarchy that uses such a title?
The rising curiosity made him happy for some reason. And a natural smile appeared on Yi-Gyeol’s lips for the first time in a long time.