A Rainbow of the Heart
With something like this having happened, it seemed he needed to make things very clear to Seia once more.
“Okay, sweetheart?”
“Yeees?”
“If a stranger says he’ll give you chocolate and asks you to come to his car with him, what should you do?”
“Ch-chocolate…?!”
Why did the conversation keep veering in that direction?
The stranger was supposed to be the main subject, yet inside Seia’s head, the sweet, sugary chocolate had already taken center stage.
“I… I wa…”
“You wa…?”
What on earth would come after that?
“I wanna gooo…”
She wanted to go.
Was there any answer more perfectly Seia than that?
And of all the possible replies, it was the one that rang with the most sincerity.
“But I’m not s’posed to go!”
“That’s right. Wouldn’t it be better to just ask Daddy to buy you some?”
As if she had been waiting for those very words, Seia broke into a bright, cheeky grin.
“Hehe. Buy me chocolate, please!”
What a crafty little glutton.
“If you get all of Daddy’s questions right, then I’ll buy you some. How’s that sound?”
“Yay!”
“Good. Then here’s the next question.”
Somehow the conversation had turned into a full-blown riddle session.
Both Seong Ye-eun and Yuhyeon watched with keen interest, waiting for the next problem.
Seia’s answer was one neither of them could have predicted.
If she had boldly declared she would go, that would have been one thing. But saying she wanted to go while knowing she wasn’t supposed to was simply because she wanted the chocolate.
“He’s a stranger, but he says he’ll take you to Daddy. What would you do?”
A stranger was the perfect example of someone she didn’t know, yet if he claimed Daddy had asked him to bring her…
The difficulty had risen quite a bit.
What answer would Seia give this time?
“Umm…”
It must have been a hard question, because Seia looked like she was actually thinking it over.
“But Daddy is always next to Seia…”
“Even so, things like today could still happen, right?”
“But that only happened ‘cause Seia followed the kitty I know! If it’s not someone I know, I won’t!”
Oh, that was actually a fair point.
If she hadn’t followed anyone in the first place, she and Jeong-woo would never have been separated.
“If something like this happens later, you mustn’t follow anyone except people you know. Not even a cat!”
“Okay!”
After explaining it this way, it became hard to tell whether her answer was right or wrong.
She had breezed through such a difficult question so easily.
“Hehe, looks like the boss has his work cut out for him,” Seong Ye-eun murmured.
“I agree,” Yuhyeon replied.
Both of them had picked up on the strange atmosphere. It felt like they were somehow being pulled into Seia’s orbit. From a third-party perspective, however, the whole situation was simply entertaining to watch, like spectators at a show.
“A stranger lady.”
“A stranger… lady?”
“Yeah. But she’s really, really pretty.”
“Like her?”
At the words “really pretty lady,” Seia naturally pointed straight at Seong Ye-eun.
Seong Ye-eun, who had been observing the situation with detached amusement, suddenly broke into a radiant smile—the first one she had shown all day.
To be hit with something like that so suddenly.
Her expression looked almost pained, yet she couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
“…Just let me hug you once.”
At this point, Seong Ye-eun had decided not to hide her true feelings anymore.
It was hard to put into words.
If Seia had come right out and said, “You’re so pretty, sis!” it might have felt a little burdensome. Of course Seia was a sweet, adorable child, but children’s straightforward affection could sometimes leave adults unsure how to respond. It could even feel overwhelming at times.
But Seia was a little different.
The way she dove straight in without any warning—it was as if she instinctively knew exactly how to wrap someone’s heart around her little finger.
“Hug Seia?”
At Seia’s question, Seong Ye-eun realized she had failed to restrain her primal urge, but she didn’t back down.
Looking into those wide, curious eyes, it was impossible to tell what Seia was really thinking.
“Yes.”
This time, neither Jeong-woo nor Yuhyeon said a word.
Seia was certainly kind to people. She always greeted them brightly and smiled at them with her whole face. But that didn’t necessarily mean she had opened her heart to them.
It wasn’t that Jeong-woo wanted her to open up to everyone. He simply hoped that if someone was trustworthy, she would learn how to trust them in return.
The person named Seong Ye-eun that Jeong-woo had observed…
In truth, he didn’t really know what she did.
From what she had said earlier, she seemed like an ordinary office worker. Beyond that, he knew nothing—her age, her past, any of it.
But those things were only pieces of evidence for judging a person.
Jeong-woo trusted what he had felt directly far more than any such evidence.
And as a result, he believed Seong Ye-eun was someone they could trust. He wanted Seia to come to the same conclusion.
So when Seia looked up at him with those questioning eyes, he answered in a different way.
He gave a small shrug, as if to say he didn’t know either.
It was his way of leaving the decision entirely up to her.
“Hehe.”
Seia flashed her usual adorable smile and walked right up to Seong Ye-eun.
Then she spread both arms wide, waiting to be picked up.
Seong Ye-eun answered that smile with one of her own, crouched down, and pulled Seia into a tight embrace.
It was strange.
Seia was the one disappearing into her arms, yet Seong Ye-eun felt as though she herself were the one being held.
The riddle session had suddenly turned into this, but Jeong-woo simply watched the scene in silence.
This was the precious moment when Seia was opening her heart to someone other than her father for the very first time.
He also hoped that, from now on, there would be many more people she could open up to like this.
After the moment of shared warmth came a brief, slightly awkward silence.
Just as that silence threatened to stretch on a little too long—
“Since we’re all here, how about showing everyone some magic?”
Yuhyeon, who had barely spoken until now, suddenly suggested.
It was something both Seia and Jeong-woo had momentarily forgotten.
Magic.
“Oh, that’s right. We still need to see that.”
“Seia was a mage?”
When Seong Ye-eun asked with a surprised expression, Seia puffed out her chest with a slightly smug look and nodded.
“It’s a secret, but Seia is a mage.”
“Wow, really? Big sis likes mages too.”
“Heehee. Today Seia’s gonna show you magic!”
Seia was bursting with excitement at the thought of showing off her magic.
She had practiced so hard last time—would she be able to show the results of all that practice?
It wasn’t the kind of thing that improved just by practicing, but Seia was confident.
Everyone followed the self-assured little girl outside.
Unlike the circus Seia had seen before, the only audience members were the three of them, but that didn’t matter.
“Let’s see just how well you can do it.”
Yuhyeon had the air of a rather strict judge.
Still, since he was the one who had first taught Seia magic, to her he was no different from a master.
“Yes sir!”
With a spirited reply, several magic stones appeared from Seia’s pocket.
“……”
There was one pair of eyes watching them with deadly seriousness.
That gaze kept shifting back and forth between the magic stones and Yuhyeon.
‘Mr. Yuhyeon. What exactly are those magic stones?’
‘What do you mean?’
The conversation was carried through the flow of mana—a discussion that neither Jeong-woo nor Seia could hear.
‘Those aren’t ordinary magic stones, are they?’
‘Aren’t they?’
‘…Aren’t those the kind that can only be obtained from the gate where you were trapped?’
In short, they were priceless magic stones that might never be obtained again.
‘Does that matter?’
‘It’s not that it doesn’t matter. They literally can’t be obtained again.’
Even if the amount of mana they contained was small, the fact that no more could be acquired gave them special value.
And he had given her not just one, but several of them.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘These are magic stones that haven’t been properly studied yet! If they’re dangerous…’
‘That won’t happen.’
‘Well… then it’s fine.’
Magic stones were generally stable, but there had been occasional cases of them exploding. Although such incidents had become rare lately, Yuhyeon’s stones were special, so her worry was understandable.
Completely unaware of the silent exchange, Seia was busy recalling the proper sequence for her spell.
“First I do this…”
Since she had been practicing nonstop, she remembered the order perfectly.
“Then I do this…”
When she poured power into the magic stones in the correct order, they vanished and the mana sealed inside flowed out.
“Tada!”
This was the signal for success.
Along with that clear sign, the other magic stones that had received the mana unfolded in the air.
What would appear this time?
Fireworks? Or flowers?
In Seia’s eyes, sparkling with anticipation, a rainbow was already filling her entire field of vision.
“It’s a rainbow…!”
From red all the way to violet.
It was a shame that her favorite brown wasn’t there, but a rainbow was beautiful in its own right.
This was the first time Seia had ever seen a real rainbow.
She had seen them in cartoons and on TV, but never in real life.
It had been an incredibly long time since Jeong-woo had seen one too. He had only caught faint glimpses before—this vivid, brilliant rainbow was a first for him as well.
“Wow, did Seia make that rainbow?”
At Seong Ye-eun’s question, Seia, who had been completely mesmerized by the rainbow, gave a little start.
“Y-yes! Seia made the rainbow!”
When a mage used magic, even they couldn’t always predict the result.
Was there any other mage quite so whimsical?
From Seia’s point of view, this wasn’t a lie.
A mage who showed off magic without knowing what it would do would be committing a grave sin against the people watching.
It was a white lie, one might say.
And the rainbow wasn’t finished yet.
Each color turned into particles and scattered through the air.
They seemed to carry the exact feeling of their hues—red felt warm, blue felt refreshing.
“You have talent.”
“Mister…!”
At Yuhyeon’s single comment, Seia’s eyes sparkled with delight.
To think her magic teacher—the one who had taught her—would personally say she had talent.
“I’m going to become a mage just like you, Mister!”
Did Seia even realize?
That the master she had chosen as her goal was actually one of the few S-class hunters in all of South Korea.
“It won’t be easy.”
“Yes!”
Watching Yuhyeon speak with that same serious, heavy expression, Jeong-woo couldn’t help but think of martial arts novels.
There were still quite a few magic stones Seia hadn’t used yet, and after that came more time spent simply watching her magic.
Just when it seemed she was almost out of stones, Yuhyeon replenished them for her.
While leaving behind the words, ‘A mage must not use magic recklessly.’
After promising to show her magic only to precious people, Seia accepted the new stones.
There were still many precious people who hadn’t seen her magic yet.
There was her great-uncle and little-uncle, the former building owner and his wife, the old lady from the market, and more.
Showing her magic to all those people.
It was the day a brand-new hobby was born for Seia.