A Smile in the Darkness
“...Aun, you should go inside and rest.”
“It’s fine. I took time off for Mom’s funeral.”
The funeral hall was empty, with no one else around. Darkness pooled heavily across the floor, and in the only spot where light reached, there was me, my brother, and Mom’s portrait. Perhaps because the news had come so suddenly, my brother looked far thinner than the last time I’d seen him.
“You rushed here on a plane. Why don’t you sleep a little? I’ll wake you when the mourners arrive.”
“....”
My brother drank soju in silence. Countless unreadable emotions swirled across his face, casting his complexion in shadow. The atmosphere was as heavy and bleak as the darkness that filled the funeral parlor. In stark contrast, the woman smiling brightly in the portrait seemed to glow. No matter how many times I looked, it was a genuinely bright, beautiful smile.
“Do you know why Mom died?”
He asked in a flat voice that sounded like something was caught in his throat. I answered just as flatly.
“Heart attack.”
“...If someone had just been by her side, she could have lived.”
Once again, my brother emptied a bottle of soju without another word. He wiped the liquor that had spilled from the corner of his mouth and continued.
“I’m really sorry for saying this as your older brother, but what the hell were you doing for those two days? Weren’t you on vacation?”
“...”
I simply listened in silence. Before I knew it, a faint smile had formed on my lips.
“The last person Mom called wasn’t me. It was you. No one else.”
His voice grew more heated.
“Why didn’t you answer? You were the closest to her. You could have gone to see her anytime. Was that shitty nonsense you always spew from your mouth really that important?!”
“Sorry.”
“Why… why did Mom…”
“...”
I hadn’t looked at my brother’s face for a while now. Was he crying? Was he angry? Emotions truly felt so fleeting and meaningless.
“Sorry. I’m sorry, Aun… I’m really sorry for saying things like this…”
There was no need to apologize. This was inevitable. Human nature could not be helped. Pain too great for one person to bear—as I had said before—could never be endured alone. By sharing their wounds with others, people created a support to hold up a spirit that had been injured beyond its limits. That was what made it interesting. In one light it seemed kind; from another perspective, it was an endlessly cruel instinct.
Good. Very good. As expected, humans were creatures nearly perfect as living beings.
Smiling softly, I took the bottle from my exhausted brother’s powerless hand.
“You’re too drunk. Sleep a little and sober up first. We’ll talk afterward.”
“Sorry… I’m so sorry, Aun… really…”
Only then could I see his face, which had been hidden in the shadows. Sure enough, tears were streaming down it. He knew his actions were wrong, yet he couldn’t stop himself. Humans were animals incapable of denying their own existence. That fact was unbearably endearing. They would never admit they were fragile beings; instead they denied it and pushed forward with all their strength. Humans were the most diligent yet laziest lifeforms in existence. That was precisely why we could become stronger. We were beings capable of improvement.
“...I hope you become a better person next time.”
Leaving my brother asleep and still shedding tears, I stood and bowed to Mom.
“...Fuck, my whole body hurts.”
“....”
The morning after mating like beasts was utterly miserable. It felt like a brutal hangover mixed with the sensation of having downed an entire bottle; every ounce of strength had been drained from me. The fact that I could even sit here and barely maintain my sanity—was that thanks to the petals? The savage fatigue that made me think a normal man would have died was something I couldn’t shake. And I wasn’t the only one.
“.......”
Seo-hee had rushed into the restaurant because she felt like she would die if she didn’t eat something. The moment she finished ordering, she planted her face on the table and showed no sign of lifting it.
“Are you sleeping?”
“.......”
“No, you’re dead.”
Watching her head-down on the table, twitching faintly, I could guess exactly why she was acting like this. That proud, high-strung Seo-hee—though it had been because of the drug—the shame of everything she had said and done yesterday was finally crashing down on her.
“...You okay?”
“Don’t talk to me. I feel like I’m going to puke. And never use that drug on me again. It feels like my guts are turning inside out…”
“Why? What does it feel like?”
“Like mixing every alcohol you’ve ever heard of, chugging it in one go, and waking up the next day…”
“.....”
I had never drunk that heavily myself, but just hearing it made my stomach turn. I had been thinking of creating an aphrodisiac using both her abilities and mine, but if the lingering side effects were this severe for Seo-hee, using it on ordinary people would cause a disaster. Maybe I should weaken it a little.
“...Now that I think about it, my memory’s hazy. What happened to the person who was with us yesterday? Where did she go?”
“Ah, our department rep? She was already gone for school by the time I woke up.”
“Impressive.”
“I only told her to act normal so she wouldn’t draw suspicion.”
“....”
An awkward silence settled between us for a moment. Come to think of it, this was almost the first time we had ever met alone like this. Seo-hee had been busy working with her friends for a long time, so I had barely seen her face. After that, the sudden appearance of the pursuer had thrown everyone—me, Chae-yun, all of us—into chaos. Once the problem was resolved and I reflected on it, unlike Chae-yun who lived in our house, spending time alone together like this, just the two of us, was almost a first.
Maybe that was why Seo-hee seemed slightly awkward, and seeing her like that made me feel awkward too.
“...What are you thinking about?”
“I’m not thinking about anything.”
Seo-hee had thrown out the random question to break the awkwardness, but her body language screamed this isn’t it as she swept her palm from her forehead down to her mouth. Seeing her struggle this much, I didn’t know what to say either. I wasn’t particularly thirsty, but I picked up the water cup in front of me and drank.
“...Hey.”
“Mm?”
With the cup still at my lips, my answer came out like baby babble.
“What do you think of me?”
“....Khup!”
The completely unexpected question made me bite my tongue. The water going down my throat reversed course and shot back out through my nose and mouth. Seo-hee jumped in surprise and pulled out a tissue, but I waved it away.
“...What is this all of a sudden…?”
“...Don’t use polite speech with me.”
“Yeah. I mean—yeah.”
Seo-hee fidgeted with the hair at the back of her head, lowering her gaze. After a brief hesitation, she continued.
“I like you. So… what do you think of me?”
“....”
The awkwardness from earlier hadn’t been awkwardness at all. The fact that Seo-hee would make such a bold confession was, if anything, very much like her.
“At first I simply saw you as a mating partner for species propagation. But it’s strange. I keep feeling like you’re a special existence to me.”
It must have begun the moment Seo-hee stopped being herself and was reborn—the instant she was parasitized by the petal. She had unknowingly come to feel reverence for an existence beyond human common sense, and that feeling had carried over completely to the current Kim Seo-hee, who had taken the original human Kim Seo-hee’s brain as her own. That was surely why I felt like a special being to her.
If one obtained something previously out of reach, what would happen afterward? Once it was recognized as no longer distant, it would be no different from any human, friend, or family member.
Getting used to it.
Had she begun to feel the same affection one feels toward friends or family? Since I was not her, I could not know. And because I could not know, I had to answer.
“...At first we were just friends. Honestly, I thought you only approached me because of your own goals.”
“...”
“Still, if that’s how you feel, I like it. What could possibly be bad about it for me?”
“...Haah, you really are trash…”
Harsh words left her mouth, yet the corners of her lips were curved in a smile.
“Yes, you’re right. I’m the one who made you like this. In a way, I’m the one who ruined your life. And yet you still like me?”
“...Because you made me this way, that’s why I like you.”
I carefully reached out and touched Seo-hee’s face. Tears welled in the eyes that had always seemed so sharp and cold. Then she gave me the brightest smile I had ever seen from her and clasped my hand with her own.
“What kind of insane romance is this?”
It was exactly that—a love no one else could ever understand. I had stolen a woman’s mind from its very roots and completely remade it. And the bizarre tale in which the contradictory emotions born from that changed self overcame her, causing her to fall in love with the very culprit who had done this to her.
“...I can’t get used to it.”
“What? The polygamy?”
“Ah, right. Chae-yun.”
“Don’t worry. For us, that’s the default. An outstanding male takes as many females as he wants. And she’ll probably be happy about it.”
“I hope so.”
We sat in the restaurant for a long time after that, trading silly banter and simply enjoying our time alone together.
> ALL METRICS OF F-BW-003 ARE NORMAL
> ENTITY CONDITION: MILD HUNGER
> TODAY IS DESIGNATED EXPERIMENT DAY
> - L. LUKE