Then, for the First Time in a While…….
A head came tumbling across the floor, and a trail of blood followed the path it rolled.
The hospital room, scrubbed sterile so the patient might rest, was soaked through and slick with blood.
Thump. The head struck the top of his foot, and the face turned toward the ceiling. Eyes of a flawless, clear green held Dan Miryu in them. Even drowned in blood, not one part of it looked filthy. If anything, only the hair stood out—green as vivid as an open field.
The head without a neck worked its mouth. There was no voice box, and yet the words reached his ears with perfect clarity.
"Miryu. You don't have to feel guilty."
Dan Miryu's legs shook like aspen leaves.
Rumble. Stones came down. It was the sound of flesh that had heaped itself into a mountain, falling away.
"There was nothing you could do. You know that, don't you?"
A few of the falling stones struck the head. A cheek caved in the shape of a fist. Teeth spilled loose in a scatter.
"It was the only way."
The stones fell again. From the roots, the hair turned a dark blood-red. The luster cooled, burned out, and died, and dead hair was all that remained.
"It's all right. I understand."
Thud. Thud. The last of the stones fell.
Bit by bit, the flesh of the head sloughed away.
Half human, half skull. Even as its own body was crushed to pulp, it didn't voice a single complaint, as if that were only natural.
The mountain was gone. No more stones fell.
Where the mountain had been, Dan Miryu stood—not as head of the Dan Clan, who had guarded Life for thousands of years. Not as one child's father, nor as a husband. Nothing so grand as that. Only Dan Miryu, exactly as he was.
"So……"
The head, looking straight at him, smiled brightly, glad as if the moment it had waited ages for had finally come.
Dan Miryu stumbled backward. He couldn't help it. Hands that had, at some point, bound his legs tight were holding him fast.
"Miryu……"
The voice rang right in front of him. Rotten green eyes hovered at the tip of his nose.
Dan Miryu shook his head, begging it not to say that one thing.
But the head spoke without a shred of hesitation.
"Mind saving me?"
"Honey……?"
"……Huh?"
The warmth in both his hands dragged Dan Miryu back to himself.
"……Are you really all right?"
Mi Soryeong looked up at him, worry written across her face. He licked lips that refused to part and answered in a voice gone hoarse.
"……I'm…… fine."
"Don't lie to me."
She turned his hands over. Sweat had beaded thick enough to catch the light.
"You don't even have sweaty palms. Since when do your hands look like this?"
"I was just…… startled."
He tried, carefully, to slip his hands free.
She snatched them instead and yanked both toward her. With a startled yelp he dove straight into her chest.
The fragrant scent of skin rushed up into his nose.
"Goodness…… look at the cold sweat on your forehead. You'll soak your clothes through."
"……Aren't you being a little too bold?"
The chest proved remarkably effective. Dan Miryu turned his face upward and let out a breath.
"What else am I supposed to do when someone's been sitting there like an idiot for over two hours?"
"……Two hours?"
He was dumbfounded. It hadn't felt like five minutes. That much time had already passed?
"……Honey."
Mi Soryeong took his face firmly in both hands.
"I know what you're worried about. I know why it hit you so hard. What happened to your brother hurts me too."
A lonely look crossed her face.
"But we can't go on like this. Your brother is your brother, and your nephew is your nephew."
A slender finger brushed beneath his eyes. The bulb on the ceiling became a halo and lit her from behind.
For an instant Dan Miryu had the illusion he was looking at a goddess descended to earth.
She must be reeling too……
She had seen that mysterious nephew, Dan Miryong, with her own eyes, and she had been attacked besides. Family or not, anyone put through something like that would struggle to keep hold of their sanity.
Mi Soryeong was not like that. No—at first she had suffered too. Her mind had gone white, and she hadn't known a single thing she ought to do.
Even so, she could not afford to look weak in front of a husband coming apart and an injured child. If she collapsed as well, what would become of them? Two hours was a short time, but not so short that she couldn't gather herself enough to hold a sorry excuse of a man.
"……I really did marry the right woman."
Dan Miryu let out a breath of a laugh. The gloom packed into his head flew clean away.
"You're only realizing that now? You should've figured it out sooner."
"Isn't it enough that I know now?"
"So you didn't before?"
"……Isn't it a good thing, realizing all over again something you already knew?"
"What are you even saying. You still haven't come to your senses."
She pinched his cheek and pulled. The flesh under her fingers was elastic in a way that didn't match his age.
"Haah. They say once you're married you start out already dragging a child along…… They weren't wrong. What am I supposed to do with this baby?"
"Waaah. I'm a baby. Spoil me."
"……Creepy."
Sour-faced, she shoved him away. Dan Miryu must have embarrassed himself as well; the back of his neck flushed red.
"Aigoo. The life I've got."
She sighed and stood. Guilty as he was, Dan Miryu took a step back.
"W-what. I'm fine. I've got my head on straight."
"Come here."
She caught him by the collar.
"Mmph!"
A long, drawing suction pulled at his lips and tongue. A moist tongue wound in and bound his whole body like rope. Dan Miryu's arms flailed, then circled her waist.
A wet kiss. A soft peck.
A little while later, the two of them drew apart. A thin white thread snapped between them.
"……Hang in there. I'm about at my limit."
"Yeah. Leave it to me."
Dan Miryu steadied. A will that would not allow so much as a crack set itself into him.
Beneath the collapsed mountain, a single brick was laid—harder than stone, steel that would not easily be tempered. There was only one for now, but as time passed they would stack, layer upon layer, until at last a wall of steel rose higher than the mountain itself.
"What are you going to do now?"
"Hmm. I don't know. We'll probably start by cleaning up the aftermath in Seoul, won't we?"
"So there's nothing else on the schedule."
"For now, no. We came in a hurry."
"Then, for the first time in a while……"
He flinched.
A sly palm settled atop the brick of steel, and the brick was drawn smoothly away. Dan Miryu felt as if his whole body were being stripped bare. A man's instinct warned him.
Run.
"S-S-S-Soryeong, this is a hospital room, the kid's here, your arm's hurt too."
He clutched desperately at the brick being dragged off. The hand paid him no mind and took Dan Miryu along with it.
"……It's a VIP room. There's a separate room set aside, and thanks to you the kid's all better—livelier than I am. As for the arm……"
A chill went through him.
He felt a palm cover one cheek. The warmth from a moment ago was gone without a trace. The palm was cold enough to sting.
"If you take the lead, it should be fine, shouldn't it?"
"T-t-t-take the lead?!"
He moved whether he willed it or not. He poured every ounce of strength into his thighs and the soles of his feet, stuck his hips back, and braced, and none of it did any good.
The neatly made bed beckoned. To Dan Miryu, it looked like a beast drooling.
"Soryeong! Think it over again. This really isn't the place! It's a nuisance! A nuisance!"
"If we're quiet, it's fine. Quietly……"
"The kid could wake up!"
"The kid already knows everything worth knowing, don't they?"
Yeah, right. Tell me another one.
Let your own child listen in on their parents' heated coupling? Wouldn't that be child abuse, in a sense? Wouldn't that be the behavior of rotten parents who ignored the distance a family ought to keep and forced it on them anyway?
Dan Miryu's thoughts accelerated as they never had before. They only accelerated. There was no answer.
No, no, no, no!!!
There had to be an answer! How in the world had things ended up going like this? This was supposed to be the moving scene where he wiped his tears and hardened his resolve! Why had the genre suddenly turned into a horror-survival adventure?
Reality was heartless. Stories that dreamy did not exist. Life was an unbroken string of struggle. Accept it. She was the woman he had chosen. Hold on with grit and guts.
"You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this moment."
Whoosh!
Dan Miryu was flung onto the bed. A plush steadiness caught his back.
Thud!
Mi Soryeong came in, and the door shut. To someone, it looked like the gates of hell closing.
Trembling with fear, Dan Miryu wrapped both arms around himself like a new bride on her wedding night. Mi Soryeong climbed onto the bed and came closer on her knees.
Thud!
The lioness's feet slammed down to either side of his head.
"Haah. Haah."
"Soryeong. Calm down."
He made one last desperate stand.
"Next time. Next time, we can……"
"There is no next time."
Riiiiiip!
"Gyaaaah!"
"We haven't been able to for ages. I thought if we were in Hawaii we finally could, but those damned fanatics ruined the whole mood!"
He'd been wrong. Her eyes had rolled.
"I've held back as long as I can hold back. It's not as if you can't get it up. You're perfectly lively, aren't you? Are we a sexless couple?"
"The times being what they are……"
"A lifetime of instinct is telling me."
If not now, there is no chance.
"So."
"Strip."
"Khhh—!"
Dan Miryu shed tears of humiliation. Mi Soryeong licked her lips and tore away every last irritating obstacle.
"Sturdy, just as I thought."
"G-go easy on me……"
"The strong are the ones who get to choose."
Thump! Thump!
The patient on the bed cracked their eyes open, ever so slightly. Desperately ignoring the sounds coming through the door, the patient brought their ability to bear.
Whooosh.
Wind rose and cut off the noise leaking out.
In the silent room, the patient pulled off the oxygen mask and let out a sigh, then closed their eyes again.
The hospital room was peaceful.