Cheok Jun-gyeong
"And..."
She continued.
Her voice seemed to tremble, just the slightest bit.
"This place... is my only home."
Only home.
The weight of those words crushed down on me.
I had tried to take everything from her. The title of fiancée, the promises of a future, and perhaps even this fence called "home"—the only place she could lean on.
"I waited."
She looked straight at me once more as she spoke.
"For you to come back, Taejun."
The words that she had waited. The ten years contained in that single phrase. I had no confidence I could bear that weight. Shock and guilt tangled together until my mind went blank.
What have I done? With what right did I show my face in front of her again?
"Because of me..."
The voice barely scraped out of my throat. It was hoarse.
Because of the man who had declared the engagement broken, she had nearly been left with nowhere to return once our house vanished. Because of me she had let ten years slip uselessly through her fingers. Because of me she had been forced to shoulder the heavy burden of caring for my parents.
Everything was because of me.
In the middle of that hammer-blow of shock, something cold suddenly brushed the length of my spine.
The senses forged across ten years of battlefields. The sixth sense honed razor-sharp under the constant threat of death. It was sending a warning signal now.
Faint, yet unmistakable hostility.
So the bothersome flies had already started gathering.
Around the house. Not one. At least five or six. Presences holding their breath, watching our every move. The way they concealed their movements and energy was fairly skilled. Not the level of clumsy neighborhood thugs.
Trained people.
Management Bureau? Guild hunters? Information brokers sniffing after my data? It made no difference. The moment they set foot in my territory, I had no intention of sending them away gently.
A flicker of irritation crossed my mind as I muttered inwardly.
Outwardly I gave nothing away. My expression remained drowned in guilt, shoulders still slumped. Yet without letting anyone notice, I drew up the energy inside me—just a thread of it.
The power of Cheok Jun-gyeong.
The fragment of that overwhelming force that had once dominated me inside the Gate, and that had now become part of me. I pulled it out thin as silk and released it in a quiet ring around the house.
The wave spread without a sound. Inaudible to ordinary human ears, yet to their keen senses it would feel like a scream rising from hell itself—a powerful warning. Pure killing intent.
A silent message: get lost if you want to live. A clear threat that if they came any closer, their very existence would be erased.
The instant the wave of my energy rolled outward, the presences circling the house flinched as one and scattered. They fled as if they had been burned, some so frantic they even collided with each other.
Ugly.
As though nothing had happened, I lifted the teacup still in my hand and took a sip. Lukewarm corn tea. I had no leisure left to taste it.
Then I saw Seoa, seated across from me, give the faintest frown. Her gaze flicked to the window for the briefest moment before returning to me. Had she caught something strange? Perhaps the cold edge of my aura that had brushed past, or the sudden shift in the outside presence. Yet she asked nothing. She simply raised her own cup again and drank her tea in silence.
That girl might be more sensitive than I thought.
I glanced at her while the thought settled. My parents still had no idea what to do with the heavy, awkward air hanging between Seoa and me. They kept exchanging glances, restless. They almost certainly had not noticed that I had released energy, or that watchers had been outside. They only wanted this uncomfortable situation to end as quickly as possible.
I set the empty teacup down on the table. The small sound of porcelain meeting wood cut through the living room’s heavy silence once more. It rang out unusually loud—a sharp, clear note that sliced the stillness. When it faded, only the same suffocating quiet filled the room again.
Father and Mother continued to watch each other, fidgeting. More than any joy at my return, they seemed desperate to clear away the awkward weight between their son and the young woman who had waited for him. They would never have sensed the uninvited guests who had ringed the house earlier, or the killing intent I had briefly let slip. They were simply trying to read the old sediment of feeling between the man who had come home after ten years and the girl who had waited for him in silence.
I looked at Seoa across from me once more. Her expression remained calm. The tiny furrow that had touched her brow a moment ago had already vanished. Had she felt the release of my energy, or had it been pure coincidence? It no longer mattered. What mattered now was that she sat in front of me, and the wrongs I had committed against her in the past.
I waited. For you to come back, Taejun.
Her voice circled my ears again. Only home. The duty of repaying a debt of gratitude. And waiting. All of it pressed down on me. The weight I should have carried, this young woman had borne in my place—for the past ten years, entirely alone.
My thoughts tangled into knots. Guilt, apology, and a nameless frustration mixed until my stomach churned. Not knowing where to rest my eyes, I looked back at the teacup. Already empty. Hollow, like my heart.
Time crawled. In the awkward silence my parents finally rose first.
"Aigoo, I should start dinner," Mother said with a forced smile, heading for the kitchen. Father followed awkwardly. "I’ll help a little."
From their retreating backs I felt both relief and the worry that still clung to them. Once more only Seoa and I remained in the living room.
I could not find the courage to meet her face directly. Head bowed, I stared endlessly at the grain of the wooden floor. What was I supposed to say? Sorry? Thank you? Any words would sound empty in this moment. A few sentences could never lift the weight of ten years.
"Have dinner… first."
Seoa broke the silence. Her voice was still calm, yet something in it made refusal difficult—as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"…All right."
I managed the answer. I had neither reason nor right to refuse.
Dinner proved an even greater ordeal than the earlier silence. My parents tried hard to brighten the mood, but the awkwardness refused to lift. I barely spoke; Seoa only answered their occasional remarks in quiet tones. Every dish on the table was something I had loved in the past. Mother’s cooking, finished with Seoa’s care. Yet I could not taste any of it. It felt gritty, like chewing sand. A feast prepared for a son returned after ten years—and I was not ready to accept its warmth.
When the meal ended I was shown to my room. The same room I had used ten years ago. Almost nothing had changed—desk, bed, even the old bookshelf. A space where time itself seemed to have stopped. Spotless, not a speck of dust. Seoa’s hands had clearly reached here as well.
Outside the window the night had already settled into deep darkness. A countryside night, deeper and quieter than any city. Only the faint chirp of insects reached me. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared into the dark beyond the glass. Closing my eyes brought no sleep. Instead my mind grew sharper, and unwanted memories rose to the surface—the events of that day ten years ago, right here in this room.
Twenty-year-old Kang Taejun. The day I received the forced conscription warrant for the S-rank Gate known as the Abyss Rift.
The world had clamored as though the end had arrived. Night after night the television news warned of the Gate’s danger; internet communities overflowed with lurid headlines—“Omen of Humanity’s Extinction,” “One-Way Ticket to Hell.” Rumors spread that the elite hunter unit first sent in had been annihilated, that the survival rate was zero. No one—not even the nation—knew exactly what lay beyond that Gate. The only certainty was that it was the threshold of death.
The hand that held the warrant did not tremble. I had already steeled myself to a degree. Yet deep inside, anxiety slowly uncoiled. Not fear of death so much as worry for those who would be left behind. Especially the words my father had spoken that evening.
He had called me quietly into this very room. In a voice heavy and low, he told an old story he rarely brought up.
"Taejun."
Father’s voice had been unusually deep and grave.
"This is from long before you were born. There was a time I was in a terrible accident and my life hung by a thread."
I waited in silence for him to continue. He drew a slow breath, gazed out the window, and went on.
"If it hadn’t been for Seoa’s late father, I would not be sitting here now. He risked his own life to save me. A debt of gratitude I can never forget as long as I live."
His eyes had wavered with distant memory. Because he was a man who seldom showed emotion, the sight struck me as both strange and heavy.
"I made a promise then. That I would never forget that favor, and that I would protect Seoa for the rest of her life. A promise the four of us made together—your mother, me, and Seoa’s late parents."
His gaze turned fully upon me. In it lay worry for his son, and the unbreakable weight of that vow.
"It is a debt our family owes them. Seoa… lost her parents young and has nowhere else to turn. You must keep that promise. No matter what happens."
Father’s words drove into my chest like a blade.