Full Recovery
Full Recovery
Cha Seo-yun walked with quiet footsteps.
The world was still a desolate landscape of black-and-white points and lines, but a faint worry lingered in her heart.
She was on her way to the meeting place after receiving word from Hong Chae-yeon that the treatment was complete.
But Cha Seo-yun's steps weren't entirely light.
'I had a little hope when they said Chae-yeon eonni was treated, but her treatment method and mine must be different in nature...'
She thought to herself, half-resigned.
Extracting the Fire Energy dwelling in flesh and regaining the eyesight the system had taken as compensation were problems on completely different dimensions.
'Back then too, he just touched my eyes a little and left...'
She recalled the day they first met a few days ago.
At that meeting she'd attended without any expectations, the man had carefully caressed her eyes before withdrawing his hand so futilely.
But strangely, Cha Seo-yun realized that the man's warm touch from that moment was naturally lingering in her mind.
Why had only his touch been so warm?
Over the past 10 years, the touches of countless healers and doctors who had approached her claiming they would fix her eyes had all been uniformly cold.
Was he truly different from all those people who had said they would treat her?
Lost in such thoughts, recalling that tender warmth, she found herself already arrived at the meeting place.
She could feel familiar energies beyond the door.
It was Hong Chae-yeon's characteristic high body temperature and the man's clear, pure energy she had felt that day.
When she stepped inside, Hong Chae-yeon greeted her warmly.
Cha Seo-yun exchanged light greetings with the two of them.
The man said without delay that he would begin the treatment immediately.
She had expected some grand method or complex process, but the explanation that came from the man's mouth was far too anticlimactic.
"Just spray these eye drops onto your eyes. That's all."
With that single short sentence, Cha Seo-yun put down without hesitation the faint hope she had briefly held in a corner of her heart as she walked here.
These were eyes that couldn't be cured by any miraculous elixir or magic under heaven.
There was no way a few drops of eye medicine could restore her sight.
She nodded quietly, as if resigned.
"Excuse me for a moment."
Along with the man's low voice, the approaching touch settled gently over Cha Seo-yun's closed eyes, just like last time.
At that moment, the unforgettable warm heat seeped through her eyes and into her whole body again.
A coziness as if her frozen, ice-cold body was melting.
'It's okay if the treatment doesn't work... couldn't he just share his warmth a few times like this?'
Cha Seo-yun inadvertently thought to herself.
Because the time she had endured alone in a black-and-white world for 10 years had been so terribly cold and lonely.
In the abyss where nothing could be seen, the warmth this man offered felt like the only comfort.
The man's fingers gently parted Cha Seo-yun's closed eyelids.
A clear, transparent droplet fell with a ttok onto her unfocused, empty pupils.
The cool droplet gently enveloped her entire eyeball.
She could feel the eye drops being completely absorbed through the mucous membrane of her eyes.
"Now, slowly open your eyes."
At the man's gentle voice, Cha Seo-yun carefully opened her eyes, pushing up her trembling, fluttering eyelids.
The black-and-white points and lines that had filled her vision spread like paint, then soon began to clear away.
Brilliant sunset light was pouring into the room from behind the window.
For a moment, her head throbbed slightly.
Perhaps it was because she had been trapped in darkness for 10 long years and suddenly faced intense light.
But Cha Seo-yun had no time to care about the headache.
She fully opened both eyes and filled them with the red sunset crossing the horizon beyond the window.
She saw the color of the sky burning with a mix of orange and red light.
It wasn't points and lines, but a living, breathing, real world scenery.
It was precisely that light that made Cha Seo-yun forget her faint headache completely.
Because the deep sunset light passing through the window was warmly embracing her entire body, frozen solid for 10 years.
It was light as tender and dazzling as the warmth she had felt from the man's touch.
Transparent droplets streamed endlessly from Cha Seo-yun's two eyes.
The red sunset light seeped into the droplets flowing down her cheeks, making them sparkle brilliantly like jewels.
No one in that room knew whether those were the eye drops the man had administered flowing out, or tears flowing from emotions bursting from deep within her heart.
Only the quiet, overwhelmed breathing of a woman who had regained the light of the world was silently melting into the warm sunset glow.
I held my breath and carefully dropped a single drop of eye drops into each of Cha Seo-yun's eyes.
I gulped nervously as I watched the transparent liquid seep onto her pupils.
Cha Seo-yun slowly pushed up her trembling, fluttering eyelids and opened her eyes.
But as soon as she opened them, her brow furrowed deeply.
She pressed one hand to her forehead and bowed her head deeply.
To anyone watching, it was a painful gesture as if her head hurt.
"Uh...?"
My heart dropped and I panicked.
No way? Did I mess up the temperature control? Or was there an error in the length when I cut the White Phoenix Feather?
Countless thoughts flashed through my mind in an instant.
If side effects occurred because I had made the medicine wrong, this was an irreversible, catastrophic accident.
But completely different from my terrible imagination, thick teardrops began falling from Cha Seo-yun's two eyes with a ttukttuk.
She shed tears without ceasing and opened her mouth with a trembling voice.
"Heuk... heuk... I'm sorry and... thank you...."
Apologies and thanks mixed with crying repeatedly flowed out.
At the sudden sobbing, Hong Chae-yeon and I could only stare wide-eyed and scramble about.
"Um, Cha Seo-yun-ssi? Please calm down first...."
"Seo-yun-ah, what's wrong! Does something hurt?"
We hurriedly patted her back and calmed her down first.
After shedding tears for a long while, Cha Seo-yun barely steadied her breathing and looked at me with reddened eyes.
Then, with an awkward expression, she revealed the reason she had cried.
As it turned out, she had initially thought I was just a common quack scam artist.
So the part of her that had constantly doubted inwardly and hadn't even had expectations was so sorry, and she meant that she was sincerely grateful for healing her eyes when she thought she would have to live her entire life in darkness.
At her honest confession, I finally let out a sigh of relief.
"Ah, so that's what it was. But earlier when you opened your eyes, you seemed to be in a lot of pain with your headache. Are there any other side effects?"
When I asked worriedly, Cha Seo-yun shook her head.
"The headache wasn't because of the eye drops. It was just a momentary headache because I saw light for the first time in so long. Other than that, I don't feel anything that could be called a side effect at all."
At her firm answer, I realized the treatment had been a perfect success.
Hong Chae-yeon and I looked at each other and nodded quietly.
A few days ago, Hong Chae-yeon had subtly given me some advice.
If I succeeded in healing Cha Seo-yun's eyes, how about revealing that I was SW, the creator of that item, she had said.
When we first met today too, I had only been introduced as a mere acquaintance of Hong Chae-yeon, and my identity hadn't been clearly revealed.
Hong Chae-yeon's logic was quite reasonable.
'Seo-yun-i isn't the type of frivolous kid who would go around blabbing about someone else's secrets in the first place, and besides me, she hardly meets anyone. You don't have to worry at all about your identity spreading elsewhere.'
What she added to that moved my heart.
'Plus, Seo-yun-i is one of the top rankers in the country too. If you succeed in treating her and get her indebted to you, it'll definitely be a huge help later on.'
In a situation where I didn't know what variables might arise while climbing the tower in the future, creating one more powerful ally wasn't a bad deal at all.
Since I fully agreed with those words too, I made up my mind to reveal my true identity to Cha Seo-yun.
When she learned of my existence, Cha Seo-yun's eyes widened in great surprise.
Seeing shock spread across the face of someone rumored to usually have no emotional changes was secretly gratifying.
"......I also tried to find you for a long time before giving up, and now I learn of you like this. Um...."
After realizing my identity, Cha Seo-yun suddenly seemed at a loss for words.
As if she didn't know what on earth to call me, she just moved her lips with a troubled face.
At that sight, I smiled gently and told her my name.
"Kim Si-woo. I'm the same age as Chae-yeon-i, so I guess I'm a little older than you, Seo-yun-ssi? An oppa?"
Hearing my introduction, Cha Seo-yun adjusted her posture and formally introduced herself as well.
"Kim... Si-woo. I've remembered it. As you seem to already know, I'm called Cha Seo-yun."
She rose from her seat and bent her waist deeply at a 90-degree angle before me.
"Thank you for releasing the curse that has bound me for 10 years. I will live my entire life repaying the debt I owe to Si-woo-nim."
Just as I was about to wave my hands, saying it was too burdensome, Hong Chae-yeon, who had been watching the situation from the side, lightened the mood and spoke.
"Now, now, let's stop with the heavy talk and have some tea, shall we? We've got to have a celebration party!"
We moved to the large sofa placed in the center of the living room.
It was a spacious, top-quality sofa so large that even three people lying down would leave it empty.
I naturally settled my butt on the far end.
I naturally thought we would each sit at a comfortable distance from one another.
But Cha Seo-yun, deliberately ignoring all that vast space, sat right next to me, sticking close.
It was a distance close enough for our shoulders to touch.
Close enough for a subtle shampoo scent to brush the tip of my nose.
Flustered, I glanced sideways.
Cha Seo-yun wore a calm expression, but her cleared eyes were fixed solely on my two hands.
Like a stray cat pestering, desperately wanting to feel that warm heat from my touch just one more time, her expression clearly showed something earnestly longing.
Hong Chae-yeon's movement, who had been seated on the single sofa across from us and bringing a teacup to her lips, paused.
Hong Chae-yeon, from behind her teacup, side-glanced very intently at Cha Seo-yun, who was stuck right next to me.