Rabbit Alliance (1)
On the screen, Baek Gi-yeom looked at his own crouched, overexcited pose from off-camera and let out an embarrassed laugh. Then he tossed out a sly remark.
“Ah, I should’ve just stood there holding the tube back then! I could’ve gotten rid of a powerful rival in advance, you know~!”
Half joke, half truth, but there was no real bite in it.
“It’s already too late.”
Neoul smiled and answered with easy composure.
* * *
About fifty minutes after the broadcast had begun, the clock was nearing noon when the doorbell rang outside.
“Huh? Who would that be at this hour?”
Before anyone could say a word, they were all pushing back their chairs, but Won Hasin came striding out of the room and waved them off.
“Stay seated. Stay seated.”
He walked over to the intercom and checked the face of the uninvited guest who had interrupted the viewing.
A woman with short black hair, wearing a pure white pointed hat, filled the screen.
“Oh. God.”
Won Hasin went deathly pale and started outside at once, then abruptly whirled back around.
“Hey, Geolneoul. You, come out.”
“What is the matter?”
“Your aunt’s here.”
Neoul was about to object—When in all the world have I ever had an aunt?—but then he sprang to his feet.
The Sea Witch!
He hurried past Won Hasin, faster than the man could react, and dashed down the hall, flinging open the door and running into the yard. There, the Sea Witch stood in a white pointed hat, dressed in fluttering old-fashioned robes that billowed like a white butterfly, with a scarlet sash tied around her waist.
“Sea Witch!”
“My, my, our prince! Have you been well?”
As Neoul came running barefoot to greet her, the Sea Witch smiled faintly.
“And your father? What became of him? He recovered without issue, did he not? Everything is fine now, yes?”
Neoul believed that she was about to bring him the good news he had been waiting for so desperately, the news he had counted the days for.
He imagined that his father, sturdy by nature, had swallowed the rabbit liver, surged with renewed strength, and risen quickly from his sickbed, and that the Dragon Palace had returned to peace.
But the Sea Witch only kept smiling in silence. She gave no answer to his questions.
“Let’s go inside and talk. I’ll be upstairs, so could you bring Baek Yuri and Dong-dong along and come up with Won Hasin?”
“Pardon? You want me to bring Baek Yuri, sir…?”
“Yes.”
It was strange to see the Sea Witch speaking without a trace of her usual teasing. Neoul could not help wondering if something serious had happened.
Neoul was generally an optimistic person. Whatever happened, he had a habit of imagining the best possible outcome. It would be fine. It probably wasn’t a big problem. Everything would turn out well.
But today, of all days, the words Baek Yuri had once said stabbed straight into his heart like a knife.
If you act while imagining the worst-case scenario, at least the result will usually be a little better than that.
Without hesitation, Neoul went straight inside to fetch Baek Yuri.
“No, no, don’t come out. You don’t need to greet me right away. Keep watching the broadcast.”
After sending the hesitating participants back into their seats, Won Hasin had just stepped outside when Neoul came in, and he blinked in confusion at the sight of him.
“Huh? Why are you already back in here? W-wait, where’s the auntie?”
“Baek Yuri, sir. For a moment, this way.”
Neoul called for Baek Yuri in a rush, as though he did not have time to answer Won Hasin at all.
Seeing Neoul’s serious expression, Won Hasin couldn’t crack a joke for once and just watched.
By the time Neoul had gathered Dong-dong too—who had been hiding in the room and enjoying a party of crustaceans—they were upstairs, where the Sea Witch was waiting in the middle of the second-floor living room with a chair set out for them.
“……?”
Baek Yuri, who had seen the Sea Witch before, clasped his hands and bowed politely in greeting. But he had no idea why he was being lumped into this gathering, and he looked bewildered.
“Such a polite child.”
In her beautiful voice, the Sea Witch invited Baek Yuri to sit. The softly curved line of her eyes and lips was dangerously alluring.
After darting his gaze around the room, Baek Yuri caught the mood, hesitated a little, and then sat down quietly.
What on earth are they trying to say that they’re making such a scene first?
He was a little suspicious, but he suppressed his wariness and took his seat anyway.
The Neoul he had seen so far had not been a dangerous mermaid, after all. And Neoul had said this woman could be trusted.
Then, at that very moment, came a sharp tearing sound—tchiiik.
Baek Yuri stared with trembling eyes at the Sea Witch’s hand.
“You’re holding tape in your hand…?”
The Sea Witch gave him a sideways smile.
“Oh? What quick eyes.”
“You don’t seem to be trying very hard to hide it.”
“I thought you were only good at singing. Didn’t know the head worked too.”
“…….”
Clatter!
The moment Baek Yuri tried to stand and flee.
“Dong-dong, kid. Grab him.”
At the Sea Witch’s command, Won Hasin and Dong-dong hurriedly seized Baek Yuri and forced him back into the chair. In the meantime, the Sea Witch used the tape to bind Baek Yuri’s wrists.
They had been told to hold him, so they did hold him, but when they saw the Sea Witch actually tying Baek Yuri to the chair, Won Hasin and Dong-dong’s eyes went wide.
“H-hey, Dong-dong. Is this okay…?”
“I-I don’t know.”
Neoul was just as startled.
“Sea Witch. What on earth are you doing?”
The Sea Witch cut the end of the tape with scissors and took a step back. Baek Yuri studied the situation with anxious eyes.
Neoul, thinking she might be up to some nasty trick again, lifted the chair and carried Baek Yuri a good distance away from the Sea Witch.
Realizing that Neoul was not in on whatever this was, Baek Yuri tried to stay calm and said to her,
“My cousin and some younger brothers are downstairs. If there’s any commotion, they’ll come up or call the police.”
The Sea Witch tossed the tape and scissors onto the carpet and raised both hands, speaking gently.
“You’re a nervous little thing. Don’t worry. I’m not trying to hurt you. I just want to ask you something.”
What kind of question required tying someone up first?
Baek Yuri’s temper flared, but he kept his mouth shut so as not to provoke her further.
For some reason, she didn’t seem fully human, and she didn’t seem innocent like Neoul, either. If he tried to run too soon, he had a feeling he’d only bring on greater disaster.
“Sea Witch. Why are you doing this to Baek Yuri, sir?”
Neoul gripped the back of the chair and studied the Sea Witch with serious eyes. Yet he still couldn’t understand her intentions in the least.
The Sea Witch sat elegantly on the sofa and looked back at them.
“You too, little one. Come here. And the baby octopus too.”
“Munyeo-nim. I’m already thirty-four years old.”
“I am a proper warrior of the Dragon Palace! Show some respect!”
Won Hasin sat down meekly on the edge of the sofa. Dong-dong, offended by the word baby, declared that he would stand stiffly beside them instead.
“If Munyeo-nim’s going to get up to anything, I’ll follow Prince Neoul’s lead no matter what! I’m from the Dragon Palace, after all!”
And with that, he declared that he would side with Neoul.
After sweeping her gaze around the gathered group, the Sea Witch looked to Neoul and began.
“Listen carefully, Prince. First things first, we did deliver the rabbit liver to the Dragon Palace. The retainers ground it up and made medicine from it.”
“...! Did his condition improve?”
Neoul asked worriedly. The Sea Witch shook her head.
“He opened his eyes for a moment, but that wasn’t because of the rabbit liver. I offered a rite to the sea god.”
The Sea Witch had tried to rouse the Dragon King by holding a ritual to drive away misfortune and illness through an offering to the gods. But it had not been enough to defeat the Dragon King’s sickness, and instead she had learned something new.
“The god said this: it can’t just be any rabbit liver from some rabbit raised on a farm.”
“Pardon…? What is that supposed to mean…?”
So it wasn’t enough for it simply to be rabbit liver?
Neoul’s expression hardened.
Baek Yuri, the one who had actually brought the rabbit liver in the first place, quietly watched the Sea Witch and listened.
N-no way. She’s not going to kill me because the rabbit liver didn’t work, is she…?
As always, he imagined the worst.
The Sea Witch bit her lip as though she were truly troubled, then went on.
“That rabbit from long ago—the one who deceived Byeoljubu and the Dragon King with lies.”
“Pardon?”
“We need that rabbit’s liver.”
“……!”
It was as if a thunderbolt had fallen from a clear sky.
While learning Hangul and the internet, Neoul had naturally searched up rabbits, too. Through that, he learned that wild rabbits lived only ten to fifteen years at most.
A rabbit could never live 1,400 years.
Just as Neoul, as a mermaid, could live only around 200 years, and small, frail humans lived not even a hundred.
Then that rabbit…
Neoul looked at the Sea Witch with a darkening face.
“That rabbit… would have died by now.”
His clenched fist tightened so hard that his nails dug into his palm.
The rabbit was dead and could never be found. Which meant his father’s illness could never be cured, either.
Does that mean there’s truly no way to treat Father’s sickness?
Now there were only eleven months left.
His heart grew restless and dizzy.
Rumble—
The sky answered with a great roar. Thick clouds gathered above the roof. As the corners of Neoul’s eyes gradually grew damp, the weather turned more and more violent. The large window leading to the terrace rattled hard in the wind.
Raindrops began pelting the glass with a heavy patter.
“W-what the hell?”
Won Hasin peeked outside. Rain and wind were raging only around his house. Not a single tree was moving on the road across the way.
“Why is it only here…?”
The thin drizzle was quickly thickening into a downpour. Won Hasin looked back and forth between the window and the house with a frightened face.
Neoul gnawed at the inside of his cheek.
No. There must be another way.
When Neoul was still a baby, the Dragon King had saved him from death. Neoul had heard that his injuries were severe and that he had cried so hard he could barely breathe, to the point that even the doctors had given up—yet the Dragon King had stubbornly kept him alive.
So there will be a way for me too, somehow.
Nothing was impossible if you clung to it with enough determination.
Thinking that, Neoul tried to calm the storm inside him. But it wasn’t easy to settle his heart.
Thud-thud-thud!
The rain hammering the window grew louder and louder.
Then Baek Yuri, who despite being tied to a chair had remained the most composed of all of them, asked,
“What’s so different about that rabbit compared with the others?”
Why did it have to be that rabbit’s liver, and only that rabbit’s liver?
The Sea Witch pulled her pointed hat down a little more and answered,
“That’s a very good question.”
“…….”
“That rabbit wasn’t an ordinary rabbit. He was a thief who stole every last drop of the Mountain God’s elixir and ate it. That’s why he could travel to and from the Dragon Palace deep beneath the sea and still survive. Eventually, he returned to land, lived out his natural span, and died. And then he was reborn.”
“Reborn…?”
Suddenly, the wind stopped.
The raindrops still fell, but they were thinning out.
Even in Neoul’s hand, clenched so tightly that the bones stood out, some of the tension began to leave his grip.
“Yes, reborn. As a human, too.”
The Sea Witch looked away from Neoul and fixed her gaze on Baek Yuri as she continued.
“The reborn rabbit has a striking face that stands out wherever he goes, one that looks like a rabbit’s. He was born with the full power of the elixir, so his body is incredibly strong and his skin is excellent. And he is destined for longevity.”
As soon as she finished speaking, everyone in the room turned to stare at Baek Yuri.
The owner of a rabbit-like face that called to mind a pure white rabbit at a glance.
Pure and delicate, with exceptional looks.
A healthy, sturdy body that could run fast, too.
By sheer coincidence, the conditions lined up perfectly.
Even Won Hasin and Dong-dong, who had just been watching the broadcast, knew that Baek Yuri was strong enough to hoist Neoul’s massive frame up like luggage and carry him away.
“And the person himself will have the memories of his previous life. If he’s still young, the memories may not have returned yet. But before the age of twenty-five, his past life will definitely come back to him. That’s as far as I was told.”
With that final addition, the Sea Witch fell silent.
With all eight eyes on him—even Neoul’s—Baek Yuri felt a chill run down his spine.
“W-why are you all looking at me…?”
Cold sweat broke out as his eyes darted around.