Chapter 73: The Bittersweet Afterimage

Yeo Jae-won silently watched Anok, who had lowered his eyes and calmly refused his goodwill.

I knew as well that I had acted in ways Anok did not want. But even so, I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t bear the anxiety. Even now, with him before my eyes, I was anxious. Would Anok even understand this feeling?

In that moment, Yeo Jae-won laughed bitterly at himself. There was no need for Anok to understand. He was the one who held these feelings, but Anok no longer wanted them.

Hadn’t he said it himself? That now that the time had passed, I wanted to give it. When he had wanted it so badly, I hadn’t given it, so why now?

But that didn’t make the anxiety of not keeping him by my side disappear, nor the vague unease and impatience of not knowing how long I would have to wait.

Only one thing was certain: there was no need for Anok to understand this. So Yeo Jae-won tried to hide it.

Meanwhile, seeing Yeo Jae-won with his mouth firmly shut, Anok found himself wondering if he had spoken too coldly.

The reason he had been especially harsh toward him lately was because his own wounds ran deep. He had forgotten because Yeo Jae-won took it all so well, but the thought suddenly struck him that just because he was hurt didn’t mean Yeo Jae-won had to accept everything.

Even though he had thought he didn’t want to become anything to Yeo Jae-won, in the end Anok was sick of himself for thinking of him even in moments like this.

While the two were silent, the sky, where even the last traces of sunset had vanished, quickly darkened, and fireworks decorated it with great sound.

With the sound of something bursting, bright colors dyed the sky for a brief moment and then vanished, and cheers followed from below.

Anok’s gaze was completely stolen by the scene outside the window as well. He forgot the persistent stare clinging to the side of his face and focused on the fireworks outside.

“Actually, you see.”

At the voice that flowed out as if soaked in emotion, Yeo Jae-won naturally replied, “Yeah.” Anok turned to look at the person beside him.

His eyes were sparkling, shining brightly. Yeo Jae-won gazed into those clear eyes directed at him and newly became aware of the emotion tightly filling his chest.

“I wanted to float a lantern on the river.”

“To make a wish?”

“If I were worthy of making one.”

“What wish?”

Still, it was only early summer, so the wind blowing in the evening wasn’t all that muggy. Perhaps because he had been walking around outside, a thin layer of sweat had formed along Anok’s forehead, and when the wind swept past, a few strands of hair clung to it.

Yeo Jae-won reached out and smoothed the hair on his forehead and temples. Receiving that touch, Anok unknowingly let out words that had surged up.

“…I want to apologize to the child.”

In that moment, Yeo Jae-won’s hand, which had been tucking hair behind Anok’s ear, stopped.

The fireworks, which brightly lit the world for a moment before vanishing, still repeated their brilliant moments, while the two people’s silence continued in a shabby, threadbare state.

After speaking, Anok regretted it. What good would it do now to say such things in front of a man who had been indifferent even to his child’s death? He shook his head and thought about trying to take it back, saying it wasn’t that, but he gave up.

The matter of the child was also one of the reasons the two could never grow close. The thick, deep river between Yeo Jae-won and Anok had flowed down from a past life. No bridge could span it, so in the end they could never close the distance of that river’s width.

Meanwhile, since this was the first time Anok had opened his mouth about the child, a subject difficult to bring up, Yeo Jae-won wanted to hear a little more.

His memories were limited. It was too much to expect to know everything that had happened from only fragments of the past seen through a third party’s eyes.

What Yeo Jae-won remembered about the child was only that the death of that small, young thing had burned away even the last remaining will to live in Anok, and a few letters of the name he had given.

“What… do you want to apologize for?”

His voice, which seemed as if it would never waver in any moment, trembled slightly. Anok’s eyes also wavered a little as they gazed at Yeo Jae-won.

He hadn’t known Yeo Jae-won would be curious. Rather, he had expected him to retreat with a fed-up expression if he brought up the child. Withdrawing his hand was expected, but he hadn’t thought he would ask what he wanted to apologize for, so Anok blinked and then shook his head.

“No.”

Refusing to answer felt like the only choice he could make. Anok turned his head again, let his gaze be stolen by the scene beyond the window, and wanted to leave all his thoughts there too.

But Yeo Jae-won did not allow it. He reached out and carefully turned Anok’s head toward him.

The hand that touched his cheek was warm, even a little feverish.

“Answer me.”

“There are so many things I must apologize to the child for that it’s hard to say them all.”

“If it’s something you must apologize for, then I must too.”

“Your Highness…! …No.”

He barely swallowed the words that had surged up, asking if His Highness had ever cherished the child, and tried to push away Yeo Jae-won’s hand holding his cheek. But instead, his hand slid down and slowly wrapped around Anok’s neck. At some point, the distance between them had naturally narrowed.

“What do you want to apologize for?”

His eyes truly held the question.

As he had said, there were many things he needed to apologize to the child for. So Anok had to go through countless thoughts before bringing up even one. Breaking the silence that had lasted a while, Anok opened his mouth hesitantly.

“On the day he died, I went into the shrine to say a last goodbye to the child, and before the memorial tablet, I said to myself that we should never meet again. How could the bond between parent and child be light? But even so, I didn’t want to meet again.”

The thumb of the large hand wrapped around his neck gently stroked Anok’s neck again and again. It was as if it were soothing him, telling him he could keep speaking.

The fireworks vanished, leaving only a brief afterimage and lingering trace, and outside was filled only with the quiet, calm light of lanterns.

The noise of the bustling district was pushed far away, and Anok chose to be buried in his own story, while Yeo Jae-won chose to be buried in him.

“I thought that was the path for the child.”

“Not meeting again?”

“Yes. In that life, I had no power at all, so in the end I couldn’t protect the child. And selfishly… after I learned that life was repeating, I didn’t want to have a child. If the same thing repeated, I would lose the child again, and if that happened, I would have to go through that pain again. …I am a weak person. I can’t endure it twice.”

That was also one of the ultimate reasons Anok wanted to leave Yeo Jae-won. What will happen will happen, and the anxiety that someday a child might come again and be lost again made Anok impatient.

Was that all? If he stayed by Yeo Jae-won’s side, no matter how much he killed his love for him and gave up wanting as much as he had given, he would never be able to forget him completely.

Yeo Jae-won was not simply an object of longing for Anok. Both affection and resentment were directed at him.

Whether attachment or obsession, from the moment a feeling sprouts in the heart, it gains meaning. The moment Anok defined his feelings for Yeo Jae-won, he knew he could not leave him.

His wish not to become anything to him was, in fact, in line with his wish that Yeo Jae-won would become nothing to him.

So he hoped desperately that Yeo Jae-won would do nothing. That even if he ran away, he wouldn’t search for him, that he would simply let him go, that no matter what he did, he wouldn’t care, that he wouldn’t try to listen to feelings like his…

In that moment, Anok felt long arms pull him into a full embrace. A cool, heavy scent enveloped him in an instant. The warm heat wrapped around Anok as if comforting his past days.

“I’m sorry.”

Anok hadn’t told him everything, but it was clear that he himself was forgetting something very important. But since nothing was certain, the only thing Yeo Jae-won could say was an apology. He repeated the words “I’m sorry” over and over.

Anok, held in Yeo Jae-won’s arms with hollow eyes, felt tears flowing down his empty cheeks. His throat was tight, but his regrets instead poured out like a dam bursting at Yeo Jae-won’s apology.

“I am selfish. I said we should never meet again because I didn’t want to be hurt, and yet I miss the child so much. I can’t forget that feeling, so small and warm.”

“…”

“If you were determined not to give the child a name, I should have named the child myself… You don’t know how many days I regretted that.”

Even as tears kept flowing from his eyes, a self-mocking smile hung on Anok’s lips. What could regret now change? Even so, the resentment lodged in his heart, like frost in early summer, did not melt.

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