Chapter 71
A small child sat on a playground swing.
The child’s knee was scraped raw from a fall, the skin there red and angry. In front of the child stood a boy of about the same age and a woman who seemed to be his mother.
“I’m sorry. It was my fault.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, I’m really sorry. I won’t do it again.”
The apologizing child burst into tears and hid behind the woman. This time, the woman was the one apologizing.
“I’m sorry. My Donghyeon didn’t do it on purpose. I’ll apologize like this, so please.”
For an apology to a child, she bowed far too deeply. Fine beads of cold sweat had formed on her forehead.
“I’m really okay.”
The child with the scraped knee said again that it was fine. But the woman and the other child did not look fine at all.
“No. I’ll give Donghyeon a proper scolding. You’re bleeding because of him. Why are you causing trouble like that? Did your mother tell you to?”
Smack.
The woman slapped her own son across the face. Naturally, the child who was hit burst into loud tears.
“What are you crying about? You little brat, stop it already.”
Even as the woman shouted, the child who had been slapped wiped at his tears and looked at the child on the swing. In those tear-filled eyes, the scraped-knee child could see a feeling of resentment.
And from that day on, the child who had been slapped pretended not to know the scraped-knee child whenever he saw him.
Inside a classroom where exhausted students were attending night self-study.
One student, seated in the very back row, had his face buried in his arms and was asleep. Even with his low snoring, no one woke him.
Not even the teacher sitting in the chair at the podium bothered to wake the sleeping student.
Everyone else had their heads down on their desks, staring holes through their textbooks.
Then it happened.
Thud.
A book was knocked from the arms of a student sitting somewhere near the middle and fell to the floor. It was not a loud sound, but it was enough for everyone to hear. The student sleeping in the back row lifted his head at that moment.
The student’s forehead was red from however long he had been sleeping, and his eyes met the teacher’s.
The teacher sprang to his feet. Then he rushed over, as if running, and slammed the palm of his hand into the back of the student who had dropped the book with a loud crack.
“You punk. Who told you to drop your book?”
“S-sorry.”
“Keep it down. Do you not understand what being quiet means? You’re disturbing everyone else’s studying.”
He kept shouting at the student who had dropped the book, as though he had no idea that his own yelling was causing even more disturbance. All because he had dropped a book, the student had to take three more blows to the back of the head and listen to a lecture about home education.
“Make noise one more time and I’ll throw you out into the hallway.”
The teacher returned to the podium.
The student who had dropped the book trembled faintly in his seat. Transparent liquid dripped onto the desk. It was probably sorrow more than pain. The student couldn’t even make a sound as he sobbed in ugly, choking bursts for a long time.
The student who had dropped the book turned his head and looked back. His eyes were bloodshot red, and tears still welled there.
He was looking at the student who had just woken up.
The student who had woken up could see it. The resentment in the other boy’s eyes.
And not long after that, the student who had dropped the book transferred schools.
A cafe in a university district.
A man and a woman sat across from each other at a table, hot coffee steaming between them.
“Um... I have something to say.”
“Hm? Something to say? What is it? You love me?”
“N-no. It’s not that.”
“What’s wrong? Did I do something?”
The woman shook her head hard.
“No. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that I...”
She couldn’t finish. Instead, she twisted a napkin in her hands, needlessly worrying it apart. In front of her, there was already a whole heap of napkins that had been twisted into knots like that.
“I just... I’m really sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
“I’m just sorry. It doesn’t make sense for someone like me to be dating you.”
“What are you talking about?”
At last, the woman began to cry.
“Can’t we just break up? My dad still has years before retirement, you know. Huh? Ah, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was wrong of me. Can you just pretend you didn’t hear that? My dad was crying and apologizing on his knees. My dad... to me...”
The man let out a deep sigh.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I really didn’t know. I truly didn’t know you were that kind of person. So please...”
The woman wiped her tears with her sleeve and kept bowing her head, apologizing over and over. Then she suddenly shot to her feet and ran out of the cafe. Even as she opened the door and left, she kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.”
The man broke up with the woman he had dated for two years.
And the woman’s father broke up with the company he had worked for twenty years.
- Ho-sung. I’m sorry. Auntie’s sorry.
- Ho-sung. Sorry. I wasn’t trying to make noise.
- Ho-sung. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were Chairman Park Tae-hoo’s son.
- Ho-sung. I’m sorry.
- Ho-sung...
* * *
“Fuck. What’s there to be so sorry about?”
Leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, Park Ho-sung spat out the curse. Tears were streaming hot down his face.
“What the hell did you people do wrong? I’m the one who’s at fault. He’s my father. Why are you the ones apologizing?”
Ho-sung shouted wildly through his tears.
Yoon Sang-hyuk was sitting a little way off from him. Pink energy shimmered, and Lilith appeared beside Yoon Sang-hyuk.
Then she told him what she had seen in her dream.
After hearing everything, Yoon Sang-hyuk let out a hollow laugh.
Only now did he understand why Ho-sung had built such a wall around himself.
He had been born into a family that was too accomplished, too perfect.
Chairman Park Tae-hoo knew that his son had some kind of personality defect, but it seemed he did not understand why it had formed in the first place.
Most likely, Ho-sung had never told his father. Or perhaps Ho-sung hated him.
“Wake him up.”
“Yes.”
Lilith opened her hand and blew a breath from her lips. Pink currents drifted toward Ho-sung and slipped into his nostrils.
“What’s there to be sorry for...”
As Ho-sung was muttering curses, he opened his eyes and spotted Yoon Sang-hyuk looking at him. He jolted in surprise.
“M-masked Lord.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk walked up without a word and pulled Ho-sung into a hug.
“It was hard, wasn’t it?”
“...”
“You had so many people around you, and yet not a single one you could call a friend.”
“...”
Yoon Sang-hyuk patted his back.
“It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”
“...Hngh, ngh...”
Ho-sung clamped down on the tears that were about to break free.
“You can cry. It was hard. You couldn’t tell anyone. If you said anything, they’d leave again. You were afraid they’d apologize to you again. So you couldn’t say it, could you?”
“Huk...”
At last, Ho-sung broke down and cried hard.
“B-but the one who was wrong was me... everyone kept saying sorry to me... hngh, hngh... I’m sorry... I’m really sorry, everyone...”
“It’s okay. Cry as much as you want. It’s fine to cry in front of me.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk held him until Ho-sung finally stopped crying.
* * *
Ho-sung emptied the alcohol in the glass he held in one swallow.
“Even in that world, if I told people who I was, I thought it would happen again. I thought they’d leave again. I thought they’d start apologizing again. So I only hung out with the natives. They didn’t know me. They didn’t know what kind of person I was. They didn’t know I was Chairman Park Tae-hoo’s son.”
“You were lonely.”
Ho-sung nodded with a sad smile.
“I was lonely too. Of course, mine was a little different from yours, maybe even the opposite kind of loneliness. Want to hear about it?”
“Yes. I want to hear.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk began to unravel the bundle of his own story.
“I was dragged over to that world with my younger brother. I was lucky, in a way. I had someone to rely on. But my brother died in the twelfth year. After that, one by one, the people I’d grown close to, the ones I depended on in that strange world, started dying off. That was when the Masked Lord was born. I didn’t want to watch anyone else near me die anymore. So I chose to be alone.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk drained the alcohol in his glass.
“If I was alone, I wouldn’t have to keep watching people die. At first, it was really comfortable. But I was lonely as hell. I wanted to see the end of that shitty world somehow, no matter what. So I hunted like a madman. My level went up, I got good gear, and I even earned the title of the Masked Lord. Once I became famous, people started gathering around me. But you know what? Even with all those people around, being famous didn’t ease the loneliness even a little.”
“...I think I know.”
“Yeah. Maybe you’d understand. The only people who swarmed around me were the ones trying to get something out of me, or the ones trying to use me. There were more people around me, but I was lonelier than before. I didn’t trust people either, just like you. But then I suddenly thought, why am I living like this? Did I really go crazy hunting and doing quests just to end up like this? The world was already full of death. Did I really need to worry about that on top of everything else? If people came to use me, I’d just use them back. Once I thought that way, it felt easier.”
Ho-sung filled Yoon Sang-hyuk’s glass. He emptied that drink at once too.
“Of course, even then, there were a lot of good people. The Masked Mercenary Group around me now, Brother Cheol-woo from Twilight Smithy, and the others... Most people wanted to use me and get something out of me, but there were good people among them too. I only realized it after I’d barely survived long enough to look around me, and I realized it far too late. After I came back, I decided something. I’d embrace not just myself and my one and only brother, but everyone who gathered by my side too.”
“Can I... meet people like that too?”
Yoon Sang-hyuk thought for a moment, then raised a hand and removed the Mask of the Lord covering his face.
“Consider yourself lucky. There aren’t many people who’ve seen my face.”
Ho-sung stared at Yoon Sang-hyuk’s face as if stunned.
“There were all sorts of rumors about you having a face full of scars or having bad burns, but they were all bullshit.”
“Hahaha. There were rumors like that? Why do you think I’m showing you my face?”
“I’m not sure.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk tapped Ho-sung on the shoulder.
“At least I’m okay. No matter who you are, no matter what kind of situation you’re in, I’ll be here right now.”
“...”
“Not as the Masked Lord. I’ll stay by your side as Yoon Sang-hyuk.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk smiled, and Ho-sung gave a small smile in return.
“Thank you.”
“You look better when you smile. Keep doing that from now on.”
“Yes. I’ll try.”
“I’ll keep your secret forever. In return, you promise me one thing too.”
“What...”
Yoon Sang-hyuk gripped Ho-sung’s hand tightly.
“Promise me you’ll try to trust the world. Promise me you’ll try to trust people.”
Ho-sung smiled and nodded.
“Yes. I promise.”