Chapter 4: Myeong’s Unrequited Spring

“I’m going to head back now.”

Not wanting to take on any troublesome business, Yuseon left the shrine as though fleeing, abandoning the despairing Myeong behind. Myeong could not even bring himself to pick up the rag again and simply stood there, utterly listless.

But busy as he was, Myeong was not even given enough time to grieve. Roughly wiping away his flowing tears, Myeong forcefully picked up the rag again and returned to work.

‘If only my sense of injustice and sadness could be wiped away this easily, too. Why doesn’t the God of Spring come looking for me? Am I really not a servant of spring?’

Myeong blamed the God of Spring, then the immortals of the garden, and finally himself for having been born so weak.

‘No. Perhaps Lord Yuseon was mistaken. Being an immortal doesn’t mean he understands everything about the world.’

He had to be mistaken. Myeong could not believe Yuseon’s words. Clinging to that thought, Myeong vigorously wiped the wooden floor.

****

Eventually, pitch-black darkness covered the land of spring. Myeong soothed his exhausted body and trudged toward the southeastern garden. If he spent the whole night cleaning the fountain, dawn would probably arrive before he finished, but that was actually better.

With his heart in its current state, he felt as though he would only have nightmares even if he went to bed. Myeong kicked pebbles along the road as he continued forward.

Amid the darkness surrounding everything, only the Palace of Spring in the center shone brightly with lights. Multicolored lanterns glittered alongside the stars, while clouds filled with an enigmatic energy surrounded the palace on every side.

Myeong stared blankly at the colors before collapsing onto the ground. The spring energy flowing from the heart of the palace made his chest tremble.

‘I have to be a servant of spring. How could I not be, when I miss it this much, when my longing hurts this badly?’

As though trying to grasp the spring energy, Myeong waved his hands through the empty air.

“I just want to meet you, even if only once.”

‘I won’t ask you to hold me. I won’t pester you to give me a name. Just once. Even if it’s only for a moment, I want to see you.’

Myeong desperately prayed for a wish that would never come true.

“Myeong.”

Seodung, a flower child from the First Garden of the southeast, spotted Myeong sitting on the ground and called out to him. Pretending to wipe his face, Myeong hurriedly composed his moist eyes.

Myeong got to his feet, lifted his head, and greeted Seodung. Seodung was also a flower child born in the garden around the same time as Myeong.

Of course, by now he was much taller than Myeong, standing a full head taller, with broad shoulders and sun-darkened skin that gave him the appearance of a spirited young man.

“…Hi.”

“What are you doing?”

Seodung had been bothered by Myeong sitting there so dejectedly, so he casually asked what he had been doing. But even without hearing the answer, he knew that Myeong had taken on all the tasks the other servants of spring had put off until this late hour.

“Were you on your way back from dance practice?”

Myeong stood up and brushed off his clothes. Instead of answering, he looked at the paper flower in Seodung’s hand and asked about it. It was the same shade of red as the cockscomb flower from which Seodung had been born.

“Yeah. I heard the God of Spring has recovered quite a lot of his strength!”

“Really?”

“Maybe the full moon is giving him good energy. That’s good news, right?”

Seodung spoke happily. Myeong’s face also lit up with a broad smile as he nodded enthusiastically at the good news. It was the sort of news that should have made any servant of spring leap for joy, and somehow Myeong felt a little stronger, too.

“They say the flowers in the garden might bloom again because of it.”

“Huh?”

Flowers would bloom in the garden. That meant new servants would be born.

Not a single flower had bloomed in the garden since Myeong and the flower children of his generation had been born a hundred years ago. The power of spring had been declining for so long that no new young servants had been born.

It was undoubtedly good news. Yet Myeong felt as though something inside him were collapsing.

‘Then what will happen to me? The God of Spring will welcome his new servants and completely forget about Myeong, whom he found abandoned on the dirt floor…’

“Flowers will bloom in the garden… No, but where are you headed right now?”

Seodung noticed Myeong’s sinking mood and quickly changed the subject, but Myeong was already lost in a daze.

‘Oh no…’

Clicking his tongue softly, Seodung patted Myeong lightly on the shoulder. Even Seodung did not understand what the garden meant to Myeong. There had always been a vague expectation and hope that someday Spring would find him there.

Sometimes, Seodung had even indulged in the fantasy that no other flower children had been born because Spring had yet to find Myeong.

“Myeong.”

Seodung called Myeong back to his senses.

Perhaps because he had never received a name, Myeong’s body was thin and small compared to the flower children born around the same time. He did not even possess enough power to control a small breeze or make wildflowers bloom.

Seodung had also found Myeong’s strange birth puzzling, but the immortals above had said there was nothing wrong, so he had stopped wondering about it.

‘Myeong was simply born this way.’

And so, it was natural that he did odd jobs, was ignored, and was treated poorly… At least, Seodung had always thought that it was fine and simply the way things were.

But seeing the sorrowful expression on Myeong’s face made even Seodung feel sorry.

“I have work to do. You should go inside.”

“You’re still working this late?”

“Yeah. I still have to clean the fountain.”

“Your work, too…”

‘It isn’t your work.’

Seodung swallowed the rest of his words. He had no right to say such a thing. Today, too, Seodung had dumped all the Vermilion Bird’s care on Myeong and gone out with the other flower children.

“It’s okay. Do it tomorrow and come back to our quarters with me.”

“No, I have to finish it today.”

Myeong smiled brightly as he looked up at Seodung. Although they had both been born a hundred years ago, Seodung was already a boy on the verge of becoming a young man, while Myeong looked like a pitiful little child.

“Okay, then.”

That was the extent of Seodung’s cowardly kindness. He simply paid Myeong a little attention while standing by and doing nothing. And because of that, Seodung knew very little about Myeong.

He did not know that working until dawn was nothing unusual for Myeong. Myeong could never put off his work because there would always be new work waiting for him the next day.

Moreover, unlike the other flower children, Myeong had no assigned quarters and slept in an abandoned storage room far from the eastern and western gardens, so there was no way for him and Seodung to ever head home in the same direction.

With an uneasy feeling lingering in his heart, Seodung waved goodbye to Myeong. It was only a feeling that would disappear after he slept, anyway. And so, once again, Seodung ignored the pitiful Myeong.

****

Myeong returned to the storage room around dawn and welcomed morning without having slept a wink.

‘This is when I need to stay strong.’

Myeong had to comfort his exhausted self. If he did not do it himself, there would be no one else to comfort him. And someday, when he finally met the God of Spring, he did not want to accidentally let a word of resentment slip out.

“He must be watching over me.”

The master was the source of a servant’s existence. Both their beginning and their end depended entirely upon the God of Spring.

When Myeong had been abandoned in the storage room and forced to grow up alone, when other immortals kicked him, and when other flower children ignored and mocked him, Myeong had always called out to the God of Spring as though reciting a spell.

‘Don’t get tired. Don’t cry. I’m a strong servant of spring, so I mustn’t do that. This is only a passing stage.’

Myeong steeled his heart as though making a vow. He even held onto the flimsy belief that perhaps the garden really wouldn’t bloom after all.

Myeong firmly closed the front of his rough hemp clothes and tidied up his shabby bedding. He had patched and repatched the worn fabric so many times that it had become tiny, barely covering him below the ankles.

Soon afterward, Myeong checked his reflection in a broken piece of mirror he had found and tidied his hair. He had cut it himself with a rough pair of scissors, so the strands were crooked and uneven, but he could see that his skills had improved year by year.

Perhaps next year he would be able to cut it more stylishly.

With that hope in his heart, Myeong finished grooming himself.

‘Today, I should finish my work quickly and try to prepare a gift.’

He had been depressed after hearing what he had heard yesterday, but he still could not suppress his desire to give Spring something.
Perhaps he could secretly slip his gift in among the others.

With that hope in his heart, Myeong hugged the laundry he had collected in advance the day before and left his home.

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