Love Advice? (1)
Love Advice? (1)
Hong Yeon-hwa looked around as if seeing it for the first time.
A long crimson carpet stretching down the corridor.
Countless doors lining both sides, pottery and paintings dotting the way.
Beyond the windows—a view better described as a forest or a plain than a garden.
Magnificent buildings rising past the park.
And the architectural style, the staff crossing the halls with deference and courtesy—and the warmth of welcome in their greetings.
The Calamity Flame family estate.
She'd spent most of her life here.
Houng Yeon-hwa was born here, and for the sake of Calamity Flame Harmonization she'd always stayed in the inner core where the estate's most stringent protective facilities were located.
Even after she gained control over her flames and began external activities, she mostly lived at the estate.
A place she could practically say she'd spent her entire life.
Looking at it now, Hong Yeon-hwa felt familiarity—but at the same time, a strange, subtle emotion.
If she had to name it, maybe something like gladness.
It had only been a few months away, but the days spent at Siyoram had been so densely packed.
Not that her time at the estate had been shallow—but the memories from recent days were too vivid.
The emotional impulses she felt these days ran far deeper than anything she'd experienced while living at the estate.
And most recently—she'd felt surges of emotion that were genuinely hard to contain.
"Ah."
As she walked down the corridor, lost in idle thought, Hong Yeon-hwa let out a small sound. She turned her head and asked Eriel, who was following behind.
"Where's Mom?"
"She is in her office attending to the morning schedule."
"Just checking—can I go straight there?"
"Yes. I anticipated this and contacted her in advance."
"Thanks."
She'd forgotten, having been away so long. Thanks to Eriel's forethought, she could skip the hassle.
After a short walk, she headed upstairs.
As an ornate door came into view, Eriel, who'd been quietly following a few steps behind, stepped forward without hesitation.
She checked her uniform, then knocked on the door before her.
- Knock knock
"Chief Administrator, the young miss has arrived."
- Oh, come in.
The answer came almost instantly. Eriel took the door handle.
She opened the door without a sound and stood to the side, bowing.
"......"
Always so formal, Hong Yeon-hwa thought, stepping inside.
As soon as she entered, she saw a desk of aged wood—and a mountain of paper piled on top, stark white.
Mountain was the wrong word. Hong Yeon-hwa blinked.
It wasn't a single white mountain, but heaps of documents—a whole mountain range of paperwork stretching long, not just one peak.
From the middle of that paper range, a woman who looked like a stranded hiker raised her head.
Her swept-back black bob spilled forward, and her deep copper-brown eyes held a dull glint.
"...You're here. Catching a glimpse of my daughter's face is not easy."
Choi Ji-yeon.
The wife of the current clan head, and the family's Chief Administrator—a key figure.
Also Hong Yeon-hwa's mother.
"...What's all this?"
Reuniting with family after so long, Hong Yeon-hwa's expression held more wariness than joy.
She was glad to see her mom, of course, but the paper mountain range and her mother's haggard face—like she ought to be laid down on a cot immediately—drew her attention more.
"What do you think? Crap work."
At her daughter's guarded reaction, Choi Ji-yeon pressed hard at her brow. The deep shadows under her eyes silently broadcast her exhaustion.
Hong Yeon-hwa could see it plain as day. Debating whether she should just shove her mom onto an emergency cot right now, she continued.
"Uh... it wasn't originally this much work. And why paper? Wasn't everything supposed to be kept in hologram files?"
"Work piles up when things overlap, that's just how it is... And for security reasons, there's always been plenty of paper documents..."
The exhaustion seeped through her matter-of-fact tone.
As Hong Yeon-hwa's internal debate tilted more toward the cot, Choi Ji-yeon suddenly narrowed her eyes and stared straight at her.
"More importantly, isn't this something I clearly explained to you? Myself. Personally. Repeatedly?"
Hong Yeon-hwa is the heir of the Calamity Flame family.
The next clan head, set to lead one of the world's most prominent forces. Naturally, she's been trained in various academics and all the necessary education for running the family.
Choi Ji-yeon—who is now practically running the family herself—personally taught her.
"Hey, how am I supposed to remember all that? Just the Siyoram theory work already feels like my head's gonna split..."
And the result of that personal instruction was right in front of her.
The heir meant to lead the Calamity Flame family was standing there scratching her head, asking how she was supposed to remember all that. A part of Choi Ji-yeon's soul crumbled away.
Her husband, the current clan head, was the same.
He'd fled from paperwork countless times, claiming to detest it. The work he couldn't avoid was sluggish and lacking, so in the end Choi Ji-yeon always had to assist from the side.
Naturally, the burden all fell onto the Chief Administrator. Even if she pushed tasks off onto others, the critical matters and final decisions always ended up getting shoved back to her...
So she had at least hoped her own child—at least Hong Yeon-hwa—wouldn't torment the future Chief Administrator. She'd personally trained her for that. And this was the result.
"Future Chief Administrator? If Mom just keeps extending her term—"
"You crazy girl! Why don't you just kill your mother, kill her!?"
"Why are you suddenly cursing at me?"
"You're telling me you're going to keep grinding your bone-weary mother into the dirt and you expect me not to curse?"
Choi Ji-yeon, who'd reeled off the profanity in shock, clutched the back of her neck. The tingling sensation was infuriating.
Lately she'd been getting the distinct impression that her once-sturdy superhuman body was gradually breaking down...
"Haah... Sit down."
At Choi Ji-yeon's words, still massaging her nape, Hong Yeon-hwa promptly planted herself on the guest sofa.
While Eriel, who'd been waiting, prepared tea, Choi Ji-yeon gathered her shattered spirit and sat on the sofa opposite.
Comfort. That was the sensation Choi Ji-yeon felt the moment she sank into the sofa.
Her office chair was technically higher quality, but just having the paper mountain range out of her direct line of sight brought mental relief...
"So. To what do I owe the visit from my daughter?"
"Didn't you get my message?"
"I did get the message! But—I'm going over it again just in case there was some sort of communications error..."
The trade-off, perhaps, was that instead of paperwork, she now had her daughter—who was practically a golden child—in her view.
Appearance often likened to beautiful flame and gleaming ruby.
In some ways, a daughter with a delicate and lovely disposition—and in other ways... well...
Choi Ji-yeon took a sip of the warm tea Eriel had brought, then spoke.
"You said you'd be bringing your almost-boyfriend over the break. Seems like things are moving fast."
"Hey. Why are you summarizing it like that."
Hong Yeon-hwa scrunched her face in disbelief. Not the kind of prickly reaction she used to have. Had she gotten that used to the word "almost-boyfriend" already?
Choi Ji-yeon sipped her tea, a little disappointed. The tea's fine fragrance seeped into her nose. The throbbing headache eased just slightly.
"Then... should I call him a member of the family now?"
"That's exactly what I'm bringing him here to find out."
And as she recalled the message Hong Yeon-hwa had sent, the headache returned.
Lee Ha-yul.
The unprecedented Special Admission Cadet.
The Young Hero of Sipnaha.
And the almost-boyfriend her daughter, unusually, was so fiercely protective and doting over.
And—owner of Calamity Flame...
'......'
She swallowed a sigh that almost escaped.
Over twenty percent of the paperwork piled on that hateful desk was material related to tracking down information on Lee Ha-yul.
Choi Ji-yeon, who'd been smoothing the corners of her eyes, looked up. She saw Hong Yeon-hwa with a somewhat tense expression.
It seemed Hong Yeon-hwa understood how significant this matter was.
"To put it simply, I couldn't find Cadet Lee Ha-yul's blood relatives."
"Even you couldn't find them, Mom?"
Hong Yeon-hwa's eyes went round.
At her daughter's fairly surprised look, Choi Ji-yeon wore a complicated expression.
Should she be pleased that her daughter had such faith—that she'd assumed her mother would definitely track them down?
Or should she be sad that her daughter apparently thought of her as a people-finding machine...
"Ever since I got your message, I've been looking. We've had separate informants working on it... We traced as far as was possible, and there's genuinely not a single trace."
Lee Ha-yul's records began at the entrance to an orphanage.
The starting point was the orphanage director's statement that she'd found a baby—abandoned naked on the ground without so much as a simple cloth or swaddle, yet not making a single cry.
Records before that? Not a trace of a trace. Just a total blank. No matter how thoroughly they hunted, they simply couldn't find anything.
At this point, even cross-referencing through some kind of test didn't seem likely to produce parents.
They might be the sort simply not registered in any database to begin with... and it was questionable whether someone that far off the records could even be a member of the Calamity Flame family.
At Choi Ji-yeon's words, Hong Yeon-hwa's face sank into thought. She must have felt something was off, something suspect.
Choi Ji-yeon felt the same, but there was no way to find out more beyond this.
She had a gut feeling that even if Lee Ha-yul himself came and cooperated, there wouldn't be much progress.
"More importantly."
So she pushed that question aside. Fretting over something you can't solve no matter how hard you wrack your brain is just foolishness.
This is the world after the Great Cataclysm, after all.
It's an era where basic common sense is supposedly established, but you never know when something might happen that defies all common sense.
Who could have predicted the Great Cataclysm?
That phenomena like mana and monsters would appear?
That a Tower would come slamming down from the sky into the heart of the African Demon Realm?
"How is my daughter's love project coming along?"
So Choi Ji-yeon simply brought up what was discussable now.
She didn't know whether Lee Ha-yul had originally been Hong Ha-yul.
But she did know he could become Hong Ha-yul.
It wasn't common to change surnames just for marriage, but it did occasionally happen. Families with some degree of prestige—the kind who puff out their chests—tended to lean that way more.
"What the he—no, no! What are you talking about?"
The reaction was immediate. Hong Yeon-hwa's eyes went wide, then she began to fuss.
"Oh-ho? Look at you fluster. Something happened, didn't it?"
"Something? What something? Happened? What could possibly have happened to me? Don't make ridiculous accusations."
"It appears the young miss's own mistake has caused her to incur a slight degree of displeasure from Master Lee Ha-yul."
"Yah!"
At Eriel's small aside from the side, Hong Yeon-hwa let out a yelp.
"Tsk tsk... As expected."
"What's that reaction. So annoying..."
Whether Hong Yeon-hwa was grinding her teeth or not, Choi Ji-yeon clicked her tongue. She'd wondered, given her daughter's lack of delicacy, and sure enough—she'd committed some kind of blunder.
"What kind of discourtesy did you commit? Spill it to your mom."
"What's there to spill..."
"Why do you think there's a whole profession called counselor? Put your heads together and hash it out—a decent answer tends to come of it."
"She's right, young miss. Sometimes sharing things helps more than agonizing alone."
At Choi Ji-yeon's look that said help me out here, Eriel subtly joined the conversation too.
"Um, well..."
Under the pincer attack from front and back, Hong Yeon-hwa's defenses loosened.
She could act prickly all she wanted, but her opponent was the mother who gave birth to her and the person who'd been at her side since childhood—guard, friend, and protector all in one.
On top of that, Hong Yeon-hwa was completely clueless when it came to anything resembling romance, so it was practically a law of nature that her ears would perk up.
As expected, Hong Yeon-hwa's eyes wandered without a place to land, and then her tightly shut lips slowly began to open.
"Ha-yul said hi... and I... ran away."
"Oh, you rotten girl."
"......"
No sooner had she spoken than the swear erupted from in front and a look brimming with sheer disappointment pinned her from behind.
Hong Yeon-hwa's shoulders hunched, uncharacteristically small.
"...Why did you do that?"
Choi Ji-yeon, who'd smacked her own forehead, pressed for more.
"......"
At that, Hong Yeon-hwa's mouth clamped shut. Her defenses had been pretty thick earlier, but this silence was even thicker. Choi Ji-yeon's eyes narrowed.
It seemed there was a reason, after all.
Choi Ji-yeon waited patiently for Hong Yeon-hwa to continue.
As if rewarding that faith, Hong Yeon-hwa's lips parted.
"...thought I might."
"Even superhumans have trouble understanding when you speak like an ant crawling."
"...I thought I might... hit him..."
Why was she dragging this out so long? With a bit of irritation—and quite a lot more interest—Choi Ji-yeon fixed her gaze on Hong Yeon-hwa's lips.
Eriel, standing behind the sofa, had her ears pricked up just the same.
Other people's love lives are supposed to be more entertaining, aren't they? It was true. And this was about Hong Yeon-hwa, whose temper was so foul they'd genuinely worried she might live her whole life single—so it was even more fascinating.
And so, with Choi Ji-yeon and Eriel concentrating hard enough to catch even the sound of crawling ants—
Face flushed, Hong Yeon-hwa ducked her head and mumbled.
"...I thought I might... jump him... so I dodged..."
"?"
"?"
Did I mishear that?