A Promise I Couldn't Keep
I spent the entire afternoon running all over the city looking for her. I searched like a madman in every direction, desperate to ask her just one thing—how she knew about Earth. By the end, I was out of breath and my thighs were cramping. Even then, I kept limping around. But despite all that effort, she didn't show her face once.
“Nancy! Naaancy!”
Eventually, when night fell, I had no choice but to turn back in exhaustion. I walked home with my head hanging low and my shoulders slumped. Nancy had come like the wind and vanished like the wind. Her one-sided behavior secretly pissed me off.
“You were always like that back when you were with the bandits too. Always doing whatever the hell you wanted.”
Suddenly, I felt someone's gaze on me. I quickly spun around, but the empty alley was shrouded in pitch-black silence. There wasn't a single sign of life except for me. The watchful eyes that had been there just moments ago disappeared without a sound or a trace, like it had all been an illusion.
When I finally got home late at night, Dana came to my room.
“Where have you been all this time?”
It must have seemed strange that I'd vanished without a word all afternoon. I'd made it a habit to report to her first whenever I went anywhere. She always needed to know my whereabouts so she could feel at ease.
Thinking this was the perfect opportunity, I asked her something I'd been pondering.
“Dana. What if… just what if… one day I suddenly disappeared without a trace? Could you live on by yourself?”
“Why are you saying that?”
Her immediate response was tinged with hurt. She frowned slightly, looking like she might burst into tears at any moment, then stepped closer and pulled me into her arms.
“Don’t abandon me……”
Once a princess of a fallen kingdom, she now had no one left to rely on but me.
“It’s not about abandoning you. Just… think about it. What if one day I get hit with some weird magic and get sucked into another dimension? It wouldn’t be my choice. Even if I didn’t want to go, some powerful force could make me disappear from this world against my will. It’s a one-in-a-million chance, but I’m just saying we should consider the possibility.”
“It’s scary. Don’t say things like that.”
Dana hugged me even tighter, as if afraid I might slip away. She looked up at me with anxious eyes.
“Did you get tired of me?”
She had interpreted my words in a completely different way.
“Absolutely not.”
“Then why are you talking about disappearing? Are you bored with this life?”
“That’s not it. I said what if. It’s hypothetical. Just a scenario. An assumption. A hypothesis.”
No matter how hard I tried to explain, Dana seemed to take it as me saying I was going to leave her. Even though I kept reassuring her, she couldn’t hide her anxiety. She simply refused to believe me. Normally she maintained an emotionless, expressionless face toward others, but right now her feelings were so raw it was almost annoyingly sensitive.
“I have a question.”
“I’ll answer it with all my heart, so stop worrying now, okay?”
“I’ll decide after I hear the answer.”
“If it’s a weird question, I’m not answering.”
“You have to. No matter what.”
She stared straight into my eyes and emphasized it again.
“It’s an important question, so answer me honestly. No lies.”
The way she widened her eyes and stared at me felt ominous. I instinctively sensed it was going to be a heavy question—something about our lives together. We had never really talked about the future before. Our conversations had mostly been about work, daily life, jokes, teasing, and whispered words of love. There had never been any real planning for our shared future.
But judging by the look in Dana’s eyes right now, that was exactly what this was about. Our future together.
“Why won’t you embrace me?”
While she asked with a serious expression, I burst out laughing as if it were no big deal.
“What do you mean I won’t embrace you? I hug you all the time like this.”
I wrapped my arms around her tightly to prove my point and even gave her a kiss on the forehead as a bonus.
“See? I kiss you and do everything else.”
“That’s not all of it.”
“Is there more than that?”
“……”
Dana narrowed her eyes in clear displeasure. I knew exactly what she meant but played dumb anyway.
“If that’s not enough, should we try something bolder tonight?”
I cupped her face with both hands and lightly pressed my lips against hers. I didn’t use my tongue—just a gentle touch before pulling away.
“Does that put your mind at ease?”
“Not at all.”
Dana’s expression didn’t soften one bit. If anything, she looked even more sulky, as if asking if that was really all I could do. She wanted something far more intimate. Then a bold statement slipped from her lips.
“I want to bear a son to carry on the Kang family line. Not just one. I could give birth to ten sons if that’s what it takes. Are you rejecting me because you’re afraid I’ll only have daughters? That the family line will die out?”
Dana suddenly boasted that she could give me sons.
“I can give birth to a black-haired son who looks just like you, Hyunwoo. That child will grow up to become the great heir of the Kang family.”
It was so unexpected—and honestly a little absurd—that I paused for a moment before replying.
“I don’t care if it’s a son or a daughter. Even if we only have ten daughters and no sons, that’s fine with me.”
“If that happens, the whole world will laugh at me and point fingers, saying I brought in the wrong woman and failed to prosper the family line. And your retainers will pressure you to take another woman. I must give birth to a son. I want a son too.”
“Alright. You’ll definitely have a son, Dana. But we’re both in our twenties. We still have plenty of time. There’s no need to rush. We can have kids even after we turn thirty.”
Dana furrowed her brow.
“Princesses of royal families marry at fifteen or seventeen. Some even marry around ten, as soon as they get their first period. If a princess reaches twenty without marrying or having children, people look at her strangely. They assume she’s mentally ill or has some disease. Why are you so relaxed about this? Is everyone in the place you were born so casual about marriage?”
“Uh……”
So that was why she was so anxious. In this world, early marriage was the norm, and she was worried about not being able to be intimate with me. She was twenty-one this year. If she had stayed in the palace, she would have already become a mother, yet she was still a virgin. That must have weighed on her.
“Can’t we wait just a little longer for a child? I think it would be better once the mercenary group is firmly established.”
Dana thought about my words for a long time before quietly speaking.
“Then reassure me.”
“How?”
“Swear that you won’t suddenly leave.”
“I told you, that was just a hypothetical.”
“I can’t trust that. You disappeared without a word this afternoon too.”
I let out a deep sigh. This was the first time she had ever been this stubborn, and I was completely helpless. Asking her earlier, “If I suddenly disappeared, could you live on alone?” had clearly triggered her anxiety. It had pulled the trigger on her fears. I had basically shot myself in the foot with that unnecessary comment.
In any case, this awkward situation was entirely my own doing. And it was all because of that damn letter from Nancy.
“How should I swear it? Should I say, ‘I promise I will never leave Dana’s side for the rest of my life’?”
“No. That’s not enough. I don’t trust it.”
With a soft click, the sound of a button being undone echoed as Dana’s dress slipped to the floor. Her body, clad only in underwear, was revealed. My eyes widened.
“What are you…?”
“Embrace me.”
Dana stared at me with resolute eyes and unhooked the strap of her bra, which had been covering her chest.
“If you make me your woman tonight, I’ll believe that what you said earlier was just a joke.”
“Haha. You think I can’t do it?”
I chuckled and pounced on her as if to prove a point. I grabbed her soft, pale breasts and kissed her passionately, then skillfully laid her down on the bed. I took off my own clothes as well.
Dana trembled slightly, clearly nervous. On the outside I acted like it was nothing, but in truth my mind was a mess.
Is this really okay? Can I do this?
Suddenly, a line from the letter Nancy had sent flashed through my mind.
Do you really not want to go back?
I still hadn’t given up hope of returning to Earth. I firmly believed that someday I would be able to go back. That was why I had searched so desperately for Nancy today. If I had no intention of returning to Earth, why would I have bothered looking for her?
I missed my parents back on Earth. I missed Korean food and living in a democratic society. Life in this fantasy world wasn’t nearly as happy as I had once dreamed it would be. There were too many monsters, too many villains, and it was a cruel, cold place where status determined everything and common sense meant nothing. In short, it wasn’t fun.
If given the chance, I wanted to return to Earth. Anyone would want to live in a peaceful place.
So what if one day I suddenly vanished back to Earth? What would happen to Dana, left behind?
And what if, hypothetically, there was a child between Dana and me? If I left her to raise the child alone while I returned to Earth? That would ruin her life. It would destroy her.
If I truly loved Dana, then for the sake of her future—one that might not include me—I had to cherish and protect her right now. I wanted to safeguard her purity so that even if we parted, she could move forward, meet a good person, and live a bright future.
In the end, I couldn’t embrace Dana. I stopped moving, quietly got off the bed, and walked out.
“I’m sorry… I can’t do this to you……”