Chapter 112
Chapter 112
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 112
Chapter Title: Birthday Party (2)
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Ye-hyeon looked at the cake with weary eyes.
“Yeah.”
He half-rose to blow out the countless candles.
Then he blew them out listlessly.
“Isn’t that too much?”
Jaeyeon scolded Ye-hyeon as she eyed the two-thirds of the candles that were still lit.
“There’s still that many left!”
“There are too many candles.”
Ye-hyeon said in an exhausted voice.
I understood his fatigue.
I turned to Jaeyeon and added sullenly,
“Don’t you know they have those big candles? That one big candle counts as ten years.”
“Are you dismissing the effort I put into counting out every single one of those seventy-eight candles?”
Jaeyeon arched her eyebrows and shot me a sharp glare.
I was about to retort that yeah, of course, that’s just obvious, when Ye-hyeon blew out the rest of the candles.
He must have anticipated I was about to give an unfriendly reply.
“Good.”
Jaeyeon clapped happily.
“Now let’s eat the roast chicken!”
That guy’s whims.
It didn’t surprise me anymore. Few could tolerate this creature’s pathological whims. To be precise, Colton was the only one. I was on the side that endured rather than accepted them.
Kyle and Ray had gotten fed up with Jaeyeon and refused to get involved with Colton.
Young, arrogant, cold, and beautiful—Colton.
Sometimes his latent potential took my breath away.
The problem was he only used that potential for bad. Well, there was no point bringing that up now. We started eating the roast chicken.
The roast chicken was infuriatingly delicious.
Jaeyeon watched us chew away contentedly.
She brushed my white hair behind my ear.
“How’s the sunny side up?”
Annoyingly perfect.
She always nailed it at times like this. I burst the yolk over the perfectly toasted bread and grumbled,
“Perfect.”
“Good.”
Jaeyeon propped her chin on her hand and smiled, genuinely pleased.
Then her gaze shifted to Ye-hyeon, who was shivering from the chill beside her, poking at his food sullenly.
“You—does the food suit your taste?”
“Yeah.”
Ye-hyeon scooped up some scrambled eggs with his spoon.
“It’s good….”
Should I just knock him out right now?
I pondered while tearing into the chicken. It might be best to take him out while she was in a good mood and secure some peace. The problem was the high chance she’d snap the moment I raised my hand and wreck everything around us.
As I agonized, Jaeyeon handed Ye-hyeon a gift box.
“Happy birthday gift.”
This was driving me insane.
It was a red box beautifully wrapped with a green ribbon. Ye-hyeon took it as cautiously as if it were a bomb.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it exploded the second he opened it.
I tensed up as my boss slowly untied the green ribbon.
Whatever blew, I had to shield Ye-hyeon right away.
The box didn’t explode.
“Come on, open it!”
When Ye-hyeon pulled out what looked like a massive album or diary with a dubious expression, Jaeyeon slammed the table.
Her eyes gleamed with anticipation.
“Hurry!”
I stopped clinking my utensils and watched my boss.
Ye-hyeon carefully turned the cover with his pale hand. The cover and gray inner page flipped over. I wouldn’t have been surprised if curse words were scrawled in red ink on the contents, but there was nothing like that on the back of the cover.
Instead, there were photos.
Several photos of unfamiliar people, neatly arranged.
As I peered into the album wondering what the hell it was, I noticed Ye-hyeon’s face draining of color.
“These are your subordinates from below.”
Jaeyeon made a flower bud with her hand and curved her long eyes.
“So you don’t forget.”
Oh.
My god.
These were the fallen ones.
“You crazy bastard.”
I averted my gaze from Ye-hyeon’s trembling fingers.
Jaeyeon grinned at my curt curse.
“I have a gift for you too.”
How generous.
I shot her a look filled with contempt and disgust, then replied curtly,
“Thanks so much. Sorry to say I didn’t prepare anything for you.”
“That’s why I’m so thoughtful.”
The woman gently stroked her braided hair cascading below her shoulders.
Then she reached down with one hand and lifted a small box.
“Isn’t this the Christmas spirit?”
I took the box.
Before untying the blue ribbon, I reached out and closed the album. Thud. As the album shut with a clear sound, Ye-hyeon, who had been unable to tear his eyes away from it, slowly raised his head.
Pretending not to notice Ye-hyeon’s shaking gaze on me, I pulled the ribbon.
The black box opened.
“Huh?”
The sound escaped reflexively.
No way….
“No way….”
“You were looking for this, right?”
Jaeyeon smiled blindingly white.
A smile beautiful enough to stop passersby in their tracks.
“You must be thrilled.”
FROM K.
A game that had faded from my mind for a while. But one I’d vowed to collect and play someday. And there it was, right in front of me.
The ‘FROM’ series we’d found at the game shop with Walker and Shu.
My jaw dropped.
I could feel Ye-hyeon lowering his head to check my expression, but I had no time to look back.
Jaeyeon chuckled and tilted her head.
“Of that series, I liked this one the best.”
A red-manicured nail tapped the small black box.
“The message inside really resonated with me.”
I stared at Jaeyeon in a daze.
My hunger was gone. My resolve to somehow drag this creature out of here had melted away. I just sat there, speechless, looking at her.
A being whose true form, age, or even humanity was unknown.
That’s when the change happened. As if keenly sensing my resolve to chase her away had dissolved, Jaeyeon suddenly grinned like a fox spirit and stood up.
Screech! The chair scraped back with a sharp noise.
Jaeyeon neatly pushed the chair back in and walked straight out of the cabin.
And just like that, she vanished.
As if she’d never been here to begin with.
Without leaving a single strand of her bright hair behind.
***
We didn’t snap out of it until long after Jaeyeon disappeared.
I came to my senses first.
I stood up and checked on my pale superior.
“Commander.”
The rigid Ye-hyeon lifted his head.
“I’ll escort you back to your residence.”
Big, dark eyes.
Eyes always hard to read, mingled with sorrow and experience, looked up at me quietly. I held his gaze until he blinked and emerged from the shock.
The emotional shock washed away.
Ye-hyeon slowly broke the silence.
“Question time.”
His pale finger pointed at the chair.
“Sit back down.”
It wasn’t a question—it was an order.
Relieved he wasn’t treating me like a superior, I obediently sat. The roast chicken on the aluminum foil was cooling. No more steam rose from the lattes.
No one touched the food.
Once I was seated properly, Ye-hyeon spoke in a husky voice.
“We’re alone, so ask whatever you want.”
The Supreme Commander spoke in formal language.
“I’ll be busy for a while, so you’d better ask everything at once.”
I stayed silent.
To choose the right questions. It wasn’t the mood to ask him to drop the formalities. I racked my brain and selected my questions. I eliminated anything someone other than Ye-hyeon could answer. He was that busy.
I started with the official ones.
“If we start clashing with the Titans, I won’t be able to hide that I’m not human forever.”
“Probably not. As long as the Elders’ existence doesn’t come to light, it’s fine.”
Ye-hyeon answered with his eyes downcast.
“As long as we keep hidden that the Titans stayed on Earth for a long time, and that the Elders who received their favors are operating behind the Core. Of course, it’s best if your identity isn’t exposed. If they find out you’re not human, most will suspect and hate you.”
“Traitors have nowhere to go anyway.”
I let out a short laugh.
“I’m prepared. I’ll try my best not to get caught. But if it looks like I will, I’ll respond as you instructed.”
Ye-hyeon nodded silently.
Then he didn’t move.
He still hadn’t fully recovered from the shock.
I’d be flailing in shock too if someone shoved something like that at me.
If his condition didn’t improve, I’d have to carry him home.
As I closely observed his pale profile, his eyeball rolled toward me.
“Nothing else?”
I looked at him and smiled faintly.
“Can I ask personal questions?”
Ye-hyeon gave me a look like, do you even have any personal questions for me?
He unclasped his hands and leaned toward me.
“If you want.”
“How long do you plan to keep using formal speech?”
“If you’re asking personal questions, I have to.”
His voice revealed his inner thought: why are you asking something so obvious?
I burst into a small laugh.
Then I took in the sight of him staring at me with wide eyes.
The unfortunate kid who’d inherited my sword.
“Lee Seung-hyun didn’t celebrate your birthday properly, did he?”
Ye-hyeon’s eyes widened.
For a moment, he reverted to a hurt child. Pain and sorrow from his father flickered in his dark eyes, then vanished.
His reaction told me the answer.
I’d suspected a lot the moment I heard Lee Seung-hyun say his name that day. But that fleeting expression revealed even more. I bitterly took in Ye-hyeon as he opened his mouth, then closed it.
“Have you ever gotten a birthday gift from Lee Seung-hyun?”
Ye-hyeon stared at me blankly.
Then, after a long pause, he slowly shook his head.
It was the answer I’d expected, but fury surged up, and I spat with a smile,
“That crazy bastard Lee Seung-hyun.”
“…Still, I survived the war thanks to my father.”
“Did he hit you?”
“…Not specially if I didn’t rebel…. As an Enhanced Body owner, he never completely lost his reason and beat me senseless….”
So he got hit even without rebelling sometimes.
I read the unspoken answer. I suppressed the urge to sigh.
A sinking silence.
An uneasy silence, but it held for a while. There was nothing left to say. I’d asked what I wanted to ask. No need to dig deeper—it would just hurt Ye-hyeon more.
Time to do one last thing and return him to the Choi siblings.
I’d worried if getting what I wanted from the angry, confused Lee Seung-hyun would cross a line.
I looked up at Ye-hyeon, who had his mouth shut.
Assessing his state, I slowly stood.
“To give you a birthday gift.”
I walked to the TV and picked up the envelope I’d placed carefully on top.
Back at the table, I held it out to Ye-hyeon, who was blinking.
“From Lee Seung-hyun.”
Ye-hyeon’s face filled with questions.
The man reached out silently. Fear and hesitation tinged the way he took the envelope.
But I didn’t add any explanation. I just stood quietly beside him, watching as he hesitated, opened the envelope, and pulled out the photo inside.
The photo revealed its subject.
A pale, beautiful woman.
“Sasha.”
I whispered down at Ye-hyeon, whose eyes were wide open.
“Sasha’s photo.”
Ye-hyeon’s hand trembled violently.
He snapped his head up. His eyes widened in shock as he looked up at me.
I smiled faintly as tears welled up in his eyes.
As Yoon said, it wouldn’t have been strange if his cervical vertebrae had snapped and he’d died from the request. Even if he’d ended up beaten to a pulp in the hands of the strongest human alive.
Thank goodness he’d come back alive.
“He said to pass it on.”
I whispered as teardrops fell.
“It’s annoying how he says something so obvious like he’s doing a favor.”
I hoped this would heal some of the wounds from his childhood, even just a little.
His outstretched arm reached for the photo slipping from his trembling hand, but I caught it. I let my body follow as Ye-hyeon grabbed my arm and pulled.
He didn’t let go of my arm.
Clutching my arm tightly, Ye-hyeon bowed his head and cried. Tears poured down, soaking the cabin floor. A trembling, gaunt body.
Suppressed sobs.
If only he’d given him even a fingernail’s worth of attention back then, he would’ve been so much happier.
If only he’d asked his name, or his birthday. Regretting it, I let Sasha’s son cry for a long time.