The End of the Apricot Tree
…….
Even at his gentle greeting, Yeo-won offered no response. She stared at the paper door with quiet eyes, then staggered to her feet and walked toward the window.
When she opened it, cool air flooded the room. At the same time, a few pale pink petals drifted past her side.
The place remained exactly as it had been yesterday. The soft moonlight, the towering apricot tree, the meticulously tended garden.
Nothing had changed. Nothing had faded.
That made everything she had experienced feel even more like a dream.
If only she could say she had simply suffered a terrible nightmare.
The cruel words Grandmother had spat at her, the moment of devastating rage that had risen within her, and even the irreversible words she herself had spoken because of it.
“The last family I had was my grandfather, who’s already passed.”
The words she had thrown to wound Grandmother became a dagger that now stabbed into her own chest.
Tears welled up again in eyes she thought had run dry. As if they would never tire, the tears kept flowing. Having no strength left to wipe them away, she simply let them fall.
Grandmother’s voice filled with malice, every moment she had calmly driven that dagger into her heart over and over—they were all unbearably vivid.
Gazing at the beautiful garden, Yeo-won let out a hollow laugh.
The reality that had been more brutal than any nightmare was over. All that remained was emptiness and sorrow.
Yeo-won slowly turned her head to look at Shin-wol.
At some point he had cleared away the game board and now sat quietly, watching her. He was as beautiful as an incarnation of moonlight, and just as serene.
At the sight of him, unchanged as ever, a wave of grief crashed over her like a tidal surge.
“It’s over.”
With her hand resting on the doorframe, Yeo-won slid down as if melting. Her slowly curving back trembled faintly with her sobs.
“It’s really… all over now……”
Shin-wol reached out a hand. When she remained motionless, he let out a small sigh and lifted her body, settling her onto his lap.
His hand stroked down her back. At the gentle motion, as if soothing a child, Yeo-won quietly leaned into his embrace and wept. Her tears soaked his clothes, yet Shin-wol showed not the slightest hint of displeasure, focusing entirely on comforting her.
Her small frame shook so pitifully. The breaths she drew were as faint as a butterfly’s wingbeats, and the tears that fell flowed endlessly, like a spring that would never run dry.
After crying silently for a long time, Yeo-won’s lips parted slowly.
“……Did you put me to sleep?”
Her voice, dried out from so much weeping, cracked hoarsely. Shin-wol let out a small sigh and waved his hand. A teacup appeared in his grasp, filled with clear water that rippled gently.
“Yes.”
He answered calmly and lifted the teacup to her lips. But Yeo-won turned her head, refusing it. The gesture was so weak it was almost laughable to call it refusal, yet Shin-wol did not press her. Instead, he set the cup down and gently wiped the corners of her eyes with his thumb. Apparently this was acceptable, for Yeo-won accepted his touch and asked again.
“Why did you do that?”
“If I had left you any longer, you would not have endured.”
No matter how much he wiped, the tears would not stop. And because he kept rubbing, the raw skin around her eyes had turned red and inflamed. The brush of his fingers must have stung, for Yeo-won let out a small whimper.
Finally, frustrated that he could not even dry her tears, Shin-wol clicked his tongue openly.
“Tsk. Look how raw the corners of your eyes have become.”
His lowered lashes were soaked and weighed down. The resulting shadows made Yeo-won’s face appear even more somber.
“Just leave it……”
“If I had, you would have collapsed before long.”
“I wanted to collapse.”
At the whisper-like words, Shin-wol’s expression hardened.
“I wanted to never get up again.”
The sincerity in her voice, like a candle flame guttering out, was unmistakable.
The words Who are you to decide to die? rose all the way to his throat, but he knew that saying them now would not reach her ears, so he swallowed them in silence.
Instead, he covered her eyes with his palm.
His hand, deliberately chilled, pressed firmly against her fevered eyelids. The cooling sensation eased the heat and dulled the pain.
But the tears did not stop.
He let out a sigh as if exhausted and spoke to her gently.
“If you cry any more, you will become dehydrated. Your vitality is already so weak that I cannot even treat you properly right now, so stop weeping.”
…….
Yeo-won’s body was already greatly weakened. Even if he wanted to treat her, she lacked the strength to endure it, and putting her to sleep again was not a good solution.
He thought that a human body, so heavily influenced by emotion, was truly inconvenient. Shin-wol could not understand how something as simple as crying could cause such pain.
“How can these tears be stopped?”
As he pondered ways to halt her tears, he reached the conclusion that he must eliminate their source.
And that source pointed clearly to one person.
“Should I kill that old woman?”
At Shin-wol’s question, Yeo-won’s body gave a small shudder. Then she bit down hard on her trembling lips. It was an attempt to suppress the emotions swirling inside her, but it only had the opposite effect. A sob she could not swallow slipped out between her clenched teeth.
At the sight of her weeping with stifled sounds, Shin-wol’s eyes grew coldly dark.
“If you wish it, I will kill her this very instant.”
Killing an old human was easier for Shin-wol than crushing an insect.
He had no duties to uphold, no rules to follow. If Yeo-won said a single word—or even just nodded reluctantly—he truly intended to kill that human.
He would suffer some karmic consequences afterward, but it did not matter. What mattered to him now was not karma, but Yeo-won’s body.
He had thought she would agree.
Yeo-won had broken far more completely than he had expected. The old woman had thoroughly shattered her spirit, and because of that, she would no longer cling to her blood relative. It was obvious that her willingness to give him her spiritual energy had vanished as well.
Shin-wol considered it a mutually beneficial outcome. He could not absorb spiritual energy from a dead body, but he could from a living one.
The old woman’s body was like rotten firewood, yet it surely still held decades’ worth of accumulated spiritual energy from the marble.
Shin-wol planned to kill the old woman, extract that energy, and pour it into Yeo-won’s body.
With eyes filled with intense conviction, he urged her.
“If answering is difficult, at least nod.”
Yet despite his urging, Yeo-won remained still like a corpse. Then, after a moment, her small hand twitched and rose, grasping the hand that still covered her eyes.
It was a grip weaker than a child’s, but Shin-wol lowered his hand without resistance.
The moment their eyes met, Shin-wol froze.
Her bright brown eyes, wet with tears, sparkled like fish scales beneath water. Within those calm, sea-like eyes, there was no anger, no hatred—nothing remained.
As if every emotion had burned away, she shook her head with hollow eyes.
“Don’t do that.”
Yeo-won wiped away the falling tears and stopped him.
“Keep the promise we made at the beginning, until the very end.”
“Hah.”
At her words, Shin-wol laughed sharply. His face grew colder than it had ever been as he snapped at her.
“Have you mistaken me for a gentleman simply because I told you so? Do you even understand what words you have just heard?”
“I do.”
“Knowing that, you still intend to give your spiritual energy to that blood relative of yours? There is a limit to foolishness.”
Seeing Shin-wol this angry was unfamiliar, and at the same time, she could faintly sense his anxiety.
“Do you truly believe that if you sacrifice yourself like that, that human will understand? Or do you think she will even thank you?”
“No. She’d probably just curse me and tell me not to do anything unnecessary.”
Despite her blunt words, Yeo-won smiled faintly. The sight of her, as if she had let go of everything, was so sorrowful that it displeased Shin-wol even more.
“You are drunk on cheap pity.”
“Maybe I am.”
Even in the face of his blatant mockery, Yeo-won affirmed it. Her resigned demeanor made irritation flare up inside him; for a moment he considered forcing her emotions to rise.
“Shin-wol, I’ve been thinking about it all this time.”
At those words, Shin-wol frowned.
“About what?”
Yeo-won took a deep breath and let it out slowly. After carefully steadying herself, she spoke.
“Why does Grandmother hate me? We’re the only two family left in this world—wouldn’t it be okay to hope for just a little more? Even if she couldn’t say she loved me, couldn’t we at least live like normal people? If so, shouldn’t I try harder? Or would time eventually fix it? I’ve wondered about these things my entire life.”
She laughed quietly. Her voice, cracked from crying, sounded pitiful, yet her face somehow looked relieved.
“But after hearing Grandmother’s true feelings this time, I think I’ve finally found the answer.”
When Yeo-won leaned further into his arms, Shin-wol instinctively pulled her tightly against him.
“I wanted us to overcome the pain together and move forward… but Grandmother couldn’t do that. She was already overwhelmed by grief—asking her to love someone was far too selfish a request.”
Yeo-won paused between sentences to take deep breaths. Whenever emotions she couldn’t fully swallow surged back up, she closed her eyes and waited for them to pass.
“When I think about it, it wasn’t a difficult question at all. The fact that I lost my family… meant that Grandmother had lost her family too.”
“That is still no reason to cast you out. If it were me, I would not have done so.”
Yeo-won gave a small laugh, then suddenly wore a sorrowful expression.
“Even though I knew it was a bottomless jar, I kept pouring water into it. I thought that if I kept trying, someday the jar would finally fill up.”
“Blood relatives who do not recognize your efforts are better off abandoned.”
“It’s not a matter of abandoning or not. What matters now is that I no longer have to keep pouring water in.”
“So you mean to forgive her now?”
At his sharp tone, Yeo-won shook her head.
“It’s the opposite. From now on, I won’t make choices for Grandmother anymore. I will make choices entirely for myself.”