Are You Still Anxious?
Are You Still Anxious?
"Child, where exactly do you think I'm going...? Abandon... you...?"
I'm leaving? Abandoning this child? Me?
Atra was dumbfounded.
Unless she had completely lost her mind, such a thing would never happen—not in a thousand chances, not in ten thousand. And right now, Atra had not lost her mind.
If anyone had suggested she do such a thing, Atra would have beaten them to death on the spot.
What she had said to Lee Ha-yul was for the sake of teaching him more.
She had merely been asking for his opinion.
How on earth he had misunderstood that, she didn't know, but Lee Ha-yul had seized up and clung to her.
I stepped on a landmine...
She didn't know the reason, but she had squarely triggered Lee Ha-yul's trauma.
The moment she realized it, Atra scooped Lee Ha-yul into her arms and brought him to her quarters. It was instinct—a gut feeling that whatever happened, she wouldn't be able to calm him down easily.
And indeed, even now, after some time had passed, Lee Ha-yul still hadn't settled much and remained in a state of terror.
- Hic...
Atra felt a cold sweat break out as she looked down at the figure in her arms.
Pure white hair without a trace of impurity, and a small frame burrowing perfectly into her embrace.
Body warmth seeping through skin pressed close, and a sweet scent filling her nostrils.
This was Lee Ha-yul, who had come crashing into her as if tackling her and buried himself in her arms.
There was nothing strange about it.
After all, Lee Ha-yul, who truly loved physical embraces, came into Atra's arms after every training session.
And wasn't it Lee Ha-yul who hovered near Atra, watching for cues, even when training wasn't over?
When Atra, catching that subtle signal, would quietly open her arms, Lee Ha-yul would smile brightly like the sun floating up and nestle warmly into her.
[I'm sorry...]
Right now, he was nothing like that.
He wasn't smiling.
His face was buried against her, out of sight.
But the gloomy, decaying pallor and the sniffling transmitted through the space between them...
His body, trembling as though steeped in fear, made it clear that Lee Ha-yul was not smiling at all.
[I did wrong...]
Squeeze... The arms wrapped around her waist tightened. He pressed his body against hers without a gap, hiding his face against her chest as if burying it, clinging desperately.
He was exactly like a puppy abandoned on a road in the rain. Even his hair seemed to have faded and gone limp.
The pitiful atmosphere, so sharp it made anyone's chest ache, darkened Atra's expression.
And why had this changed like this...?
Atra's eyes narrowed as she examined the Sky Wing Feather wrapped around her.
The clear, sky-blue color was gone, replaced by one that had turned murky and overcast like storm clouds.
It was coiled around both Atra and Lee Ha-yul's entire bodies. Wound tightly enough to press into the skin, it bound them together. She gave it a gentle tug, but it wouldn't come loose at all.
Actions brimming with the clear intent never to let go.
An attitude that seemed to assume Atra would mercilessly cast him aside and vanish.
For Atra, such an attitude was deeply troubling.
[I'm sorry, Master!! I'm sorry! Everything is my fault...!]
"No, no, no! I'm not trying to pull away... No, I'm the one who's sorry..."
"M-m—! Hrk! Hkk, koff, grrk..."
"Aaagh! Stop! Don't! Don't speak...!"
The moment she pulled lightly at the Sky Wing Feather, Lee Ha-yul convulsed. He suddenly started choking and gasping as if about to vomit blood.
For Atra, she had simply touched it, wondering what was going on—but to Lee Ha-yul, it seemed to register as an attempt to free herself from him.
Grrrk...! The noise the necklace spat out intensified. Then, at the desperately urgent voice that followed, Atra flinched and pulled Lee Ha-yul tightly against her.
.
.
.
After holding him like that for a long while, completely buried in her embrace, Lee Ha-yul's condition gradually improved.
[I'm sorry...]
He hadn't fully recovered.
The volume itself had dropped, but his voice, still steeped in desperation and fear, sounded low and subdued.
"Where would your master go? I will always... forever remain by your side."
She sat leaning back against the headboard of the bed and offered her arms to Lee Ha-yul.
She opened her chest wider so Lee Ha-yul could nestle more comfortably, her hands ceaselessly soothing him.
She stroked his hair, soft as silk, untangling the places where it threatened to snarl, and ran her hand down his neck and back, patting gently in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Under that tender touch, steeped in all the experience she had accumulated, the emotions that had been shaking Lee Ha-yul as if he were seizing began to subside a little.
[Please don't abandon me...]
Oh dear.
But his deep-rooted terror showed no sign of disappearing.
No matter how much she soothed and coaxed him, he only repeated like a parrot that it was his fault and begged her not to abandon him.
"What could you possibly have done wrong? You've done nothing wrong. If anything, I'm the one who erred. I'm sorry I said something that could be misunderstood..."
[That's not true! It's not Master's fault!]
[It's all my fault...!]
Lee Ha-yul shook his head vigorously.
He desperately rejected Atra's apology and insisted it was his own fault.
Atra's fault? That couldn't be. If his master was at fault... then what was he supposed to do about it?
You can't arbitrarily rewrite someone else's feelings.
If Atra... if his master had simply grown tired of him on a whim? If she had come to dislike him for no reason at all... then there was nothing Lee Ha-yul could do.
So it had to be his own fault.
If it happened because Lee Ha-yul was lacking, because he made a mistake, then he could change, he could act, he could make amends.
He could change himself and fix it.
But if the problem lay outside himself... what in the world could Lee Ha-yul possibly do...
"Hmm..."
Atra didn't grasp the detailed psychology behind it.
Still, she guessed that a crack had formed in their relationship of trust.
In short, this had happened because Lee Ha-yul couldn't trust Atra. A situation caused by the loss of his belief that Atra would not abandon him.
In that case, she needed to rebuild that trust...
What should she do? How could she give him faith?
...Faith?
As Atra mulled it over, her eyes abruptly narrowed.
She recalled what the red-haired brat, backed by the Calamity Flame, had been blathering on about.
The story she had boasted about, like a knight boasting of her exploits—about how she had stolen her disciple's lips.
Since Atra had been suppressing her rising fury with great effort while listening, the memory was crystal clear.
Something about the moment Hong Yeon-hwa stole his lips, Lee Ha-yul's eyes had opened and his voice had come forth.
'......'
Her mind spun rapidly for a moment.
Lee Ha-yul's condition, presumed to be a curse. Its side effects. The release through Hong Yeon-hwa, the proof of the phenomenon. Master and disciple, age, Lee Ha-yul's reaction...
...Truthfully, Atra had been feeling hurt.
No, abandoning her disciple? Did Lee Ha-yul truly think of Atra as that kind of person?
After how much she had cherished and loved him, to feel such an absurd insecurity...
The more she thought, the more a sense of resentment surged within her.
Atra made her move.
"To begin with, talk of abandonment is preposterous. Who is abandoning whom, I wonder..."
She carefully cupped Lee Ha-yul's head, still buried in her arms, and slowly drew him away from her chest.
"There, good boy..."
When she did, as if a spark had ignited his anxiety, Lee Ha-yul's body trembled. She soothed and coaxed him as she detached his face from her chest, and what came into view was a ruined face.
His bangs plastered down, soaked with cold sweat, and his ragged breathing.
The area around his unfocused, half-open eyes was stained red, and even now, tears like chicken droppings dripped steadily down.
Even in such a wrecked state, his appearance was fraudulently beautiful—strikingly so.
If anything, the added pitifulness and poignancy seemed to kindle a taboo thrill in a person's heart.
That fanned the flames of Atra's resolve.
Atra's hands moved.
With one hand, she cupped the back of Lee Ha-yul's head and tilted it back, and with the other, she lightly cupped his cheek.
And lowered her face.
[Huh? Uh? Ah? Ah?]
Lee Ha-yul's body jolted.
A thread of consciousness pierced through his mind, which had been consumed by fear and set ablaze with Calamity Flame.
A shadow fell over his face. His master's face was gradually... drawing closer to his. The distance narrowed.
Lee Ha-yul squirmed.
[Ah, n-no...]
This isn't right... kissing should only be with the person you're going to marry...
The voice that was about to form cut off abruptly.
The squirming stopped too.
He was terrified that if he resisted, his master would dislike him even more.
Atra, his master. An adult who cared for him, a guardian.
He didn't want to be abandoned by someone like that.
He didn't want to be hated either.
He should refuse... but he couldn't bring himself to.
In the end, the only resistance Lee Ha-yul managed was to shut even his thinly opened eyes tight, as if fleeing reality like a fool.
- Chu...
"......!"
Even that was wrenched back open.
Their faces overlapped.
The bridges of their noses touched, their breaths mingling chaotically.
Moist, soft lips rubbed together.
- Thump!
In that moment, Lee Ha-yul's heart beat violently.
It was unlike an ordinary pulse. It was a sensation he had felt once before—a strange feeling that spread through his whole body like a ripple.
And Atra, whose eyes were open, could see it.
Light seeped into those dark gray irises, and focus found its way into pupils that had seemed directed at nothing.
Atra's image came into clear view in Lee Ha-yul's hazy eyes.
His eyes were truly opening.
At that, a dizzying sense of elation—guiltily—raced through Atra's mind.
- Chu...
After a while, she pulled her lips away.
[Uh, eh? Ah...]
Lee Ha-yul's mouth fell open dazedly.
Though their tongues hadn't mingled, a liquid—whether saliva or sweat, she couldn't tell—hung between them, top to bottom.
That indecent sight... entered his field of vision.
The liquid snapped and settled on his lip, and dazedly, dazedly, it trickled into his mouth.
"H-hic...!"
Lee Ha-yul's body quivered. The liquid that slid over his teeth and onto his tongue... was so sweet.
His body trembled as if jolted by electricity. At the same time, the Sky Wing Feather, which had been dull and overcast like storm clouds, stiffened and straightened, even recovering the blue color it had lost.
"How is it? Are you still anxious?"
Atra spoke, looking down at Lee Ha-yul, who was flushed bright red and glitching like a broken machine.
No answer came. At that, Atra's eyes curved gently. She still hadn't fully released her feeling of being wronged.
"I see, you're still anxious. Don't worry. I'll keep expressing it until your anxiety fades."
"Uh, ah...? N-no—smack, smoooch... chu..."
The mouth that tried to protest was sealed.
Instead, as if she intended to keep going until he was satisfied, moist and fragrant lips continued to rub against his.
The arm wrapped around his waist pulled him tightly, and the hand cupping his head kept Lee Ha-yul fixed so he couldn't escape, compelling the kiss.
"Chu, smoooch..."
Strangely, under that coercive behavior, Lee Ha-yul felt a sense of security.
His master didn't hate him. She had no intention of abandoning him. She was cherishing him.
On the contrary, she was expressing her affection... her love, this much.
And with that, his anxiety faded. In its place, an indescribable happiness settled in his chest.
* * *
[Player Correction System: Affection]
Lee Ha-yul → Atra Clyde
●●●●●●●●○○(87/100)
｢Master｣ ｢Expectation｣ ｢Sense of Security｣ ｢Affection-Seeking｣
▼Dramatic Change▼
Lee Ha-yul → Atra Clyde
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♡(87▷90/100)
｢Affection｣ ｢Master｣ ｢Expectation｣ ｢Sense of Security｣ ｢Affection-Seeking｣ ｢Anxiety｣
...
[Player Correction System: Pioneering Progress]
[Sub-quest ｢Atra Clyde｣ completed]
[A large amount of Points is being accumulated]
...
[Partially satisfies the curse-lifting conditions for ｢Curse of Silence｣]
[｢Curse of Silence｣ is conditionally (Atra Clyde) weakened]
...
[Partially satisfies the curse-lifting conditions for ｢Curse of Solitude｣]
[｢Curse of Solitude｣ is conditionally (Atra Clyde) weakened]