Black Badger

It would be a lie to say he had never lost even once.

Of course, Seunghyun had experienced defeat. Often when he was young, rarely as he grew older. After his second growth phase ended, he almost never lost—but that didn’t mean he was invincible.

The difference was that every time he lost, he could still see the summit.

He could see the point where, if he challenged it again, he would win.

So he would fill in what he lacked and eventually claim victory.

This time, he couldn’t even grasp which direction the summit lay in.

Shocked, Seunghyun pushed himself off the ground with his arms.

And then he saw the man standing alone, solid and upright, in the vast sparring arena.

The man was rubbing his neck.

He swept his gaze lazily over the soldiers sprawled on the floor and let out a small hm.

“You’ve gathered some kids with decent bones.”

Decent?

Including Seunghyun, everyone stared at him in shock.

They were all people who had been called monsters by those around them.

It was the first time they had ever received such a simple evaluation as “decent bones.”

“If you train them, a few of them could be genuinely useful.”

A few?

Useful?

“Shall we see where your limits are, then?”

The man took off his outer garment and tossed it into a corner.

Once he was down to a short-sleeved shirt, he rummaged in his pants pocket, pulled out a hair tie, and tied his long hair back into a single knot.

A face that held no sense of bravado or excitement.

Perhaps feeling humiliated by the casual sequence of actions he performed with such a cool expression, someone shouted a battle cry and charged at the white-haired man.

Seunghyun watched as the man calmly twisted his body aside.

What terrified Seunghyun was that the man neither looked surprised nor amused.

He regarded the fact that those he had knocked down were getting back up and charging again as entirely natural.

As if he would have been disappointed if they hadn’t attacked again.

Disappointed.

Reeling, Seunghyun sprang up as if bouncing off the ground.

And while trying not to acknowledge the sense of utter defeat he was feeling for the first time in his life, he rushed at the man like a bullet.

***

On the second day of sparring, two people didn’t show up at the arena.

The man who had beaten the soldiers so thoroughly it reminded Seunghyun of being beaten by the orphanage’s vice director didn’t look surprised even when he saw the empty spots.

The man whose name was Hildebert.

He glanced at the vacant spaces and said calmly,

“They broke.”

It was the tone of someone who had seen many people like this.

“Giving up early isn’t a bad thing either. Knowing your limits clearly and choosing to quit takes courage, too.”

Seunghyun understood exactly what context those words came from.

They were the same thoughts he himself had always had when looking at people who lacked talent.

“You can find another path elsewhere.”

But he was saying that while looking at them?

“Don’t get too discouraged just because you’ve hit your limit here.”

While looking at people who had been selected from each country purely on ability?

“Everyone has innate talent. For example, I have absolutely no talent for drawing.”

What was he supposed to do with that?

Everyone stared blankly at Hildebert.

But Hildebert seemed completely unaware of the malice and desire for revenge rising from the soldiers’ bodies.

As if he didn’t even realize that he was grinding their pride into the dirt.

“Anyway, shall we start today as well?”

This time, they would smash his face in no matter what.

The first day had been carelessness. Today was different.

With the same resolve, they all prepared to charge at the man before them.

That day, too, every last one of them was beaten senseless.

***

That period was the brightest time in Lee Seunghyun's life.

There was Sasha, and there was Hilde.

They weren’t wealthy, but they didn’t go hungry, and they had a place where they could sleep without keeping watch.

Seunghyun thought he didn’t need anything else.

If life could just keep flowing like this, that would be perfect.

He loved Sasha, and he respected Hilde.

Hildebert was the first person Seunghyun had ever met who truly deserved to be called a teacher.

Outstanding skill and unwavering composure.

An unfathomable existence who remembered the characteristics of each and every idiot and responded in ways tailored to them.

Seunghyun knew well that he would never become someone who shone as brightly as that—but at the very least, he wanted his skill to reach even the man’s feet.

Admiring someone is a strange feeling.

Different from love, yet equally mysterious.

Ah, Seunghyun married Sasha.

It wasn’t much of a proposal compared to others.

But he did try to make it a surprise. He suggested taking a photo in front of the Christmas tree, set his phone on a tripod with a timer, and walked back. While Sasha, unaware of anything, posed for the camera, he turned and dropped to one knee.

After the flash went off, Sasha turned to look at him.

Seunghyun remembered her eyes growing impossibly wide.

He remembered how she stared blankly at him, then suddenly started jumping up and down in the air.

Unable to speak, bouncing in place, Sasha soon collapsed into his arms.

“Yes!”

Sasha cried and laughed in his embrace.

“I’m so happy!”

I’ll protect you for the rest of my life.

It was cliché, but that was what Seunghyun thought.

No matter what happened to Sasha—even if her heart changed and she came to despise him—he would protect her forever without complaint.

Running his rough hands through her fine brown hair, Seunghyun made a vow.

He would let her take peaceful naps forever.

No matter what....

***

Sasha became pregnant.

The child didn’t trouble his mother much during the pregnancy.

But as the due date approached, Seunghyun grew more frightened than ever before.

Had he ever been this scared in his life?

He stayed glued to Sasha’s side to the point where she had to struggle to say that she needed some time alone.

When the due date was close, they even had a conversation like this.

“If something goes wrong, you have to prioritize the mother, no matter what.”

Sasha’s eyes rounded.

Seunghyun looked straight at her, even as she wore an expression that asked whether this really needed to be said.

“You’re far more important to me than a child who hasn’t even been born yet.”

“Don’t worry. Everything’s gone well so far.”

“I know. I know it probably will on the day, too. But I’m saying this just in case.”

Sasha blinked at him.

As he stubbornly held her hand, she erased her bewildered look after a moment and gave a bitter smile.

A smile filled with affection tinged with sadness.

“Okay. Do that.”

The woman Seunghyun loved with his entire life squeezed his hand and said,

“It won’t happen, but if you ever have to make that choice, choose like that.”

***

Reality was the exact opposite.

***

He didn’t remember the time when everything collapsed.

He only learned later that the people who had trained with him heard what happened and helped him indirectly.

Thanks to them, he probably didn’t die. Seunghyun couldn’t remember how he ate or slept, how he handled all the procedures, or how he made it back home.

He couldn’t understand why there was a newborn baby in his arms.

Who had found a nanny for the child he brought home....

Why Sasha had been reduced to ashes inside a small urn.

He ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ couldn’t understand how he himself was still alive.

He probably never would.

Forever unable to understand, forever unable to remember.

***

He couldn’t bring himself to love sincerely.

Even when he tried to love with everything he had, the child’s existence inevitably touched upon Sasha’s death. He didn’t know how hard he had tried to separate the two in his mind. Sasha’s death was death, and the child was a child. Think rationally.

He couldn’t.

The existence of the newborn acted as a catalyst that violently shook his emotions.

Seunghyun's feelings toward Yehyeon were always extreme.

When he saw the child’s gentle eyes or mild disposition, unbearable affection would sometimes surge up toward the child.

There were times when the child looked so adorable that he could momentarily forget Sasha’s death.

And there were times when the opposite happened.

Why is this here instead of Sasha?

I wish she had never gotten pregnant.

If only that hadn’t happened, everything would have stayed the same. Sasha had even said to prioritize her life.

So why did you end up being the one left behind?

When rage and murderous intent surged up alongside those thoughts, Seunghyun would hurriedly remove himself from the room.

He was afraid that, with his reason gone, he might strangle the child.

He knew well that his reactions weren’t normal.

They just couldn’t be controlled....

Would counseling help?

But he didn’t have the money or time for counseling. Paying for two nannies left him constantly strapped for cash.

Would keeping his distance help?

It didn’t. The fact that the child resembled Sasha only drove him further mad.

Both the positive and negative emotions were far too intense.

Sasha wouldn’t want him to be like this....

But what did her wishes matter? She was already dead and gone.

Shouldn’t he cherish even the last piece she left behind...?

But what good would that do? It wouldn’t bring her back.

Isn’t this just full-blown mental illness?

When he came to that realization, Lee Seunghyun decided he had to completely sever his emotional attachment to the child.

Maybe then the emotions that spiraled to extremes every time he saw the child would calm down.

It would probably be better for the child, too.

There was no one harder to deal with than a fickle adult.

It was better to not have someone like that around at all.

Children could grow up without parents.

So from that moment on, Seunghyun stopped looking at the child.

He decided to think of the child in his home as just one of the many parentless children he had seen at the orphanage.

Then he wouldn’t go insane one day and kill the child.

“If it cries, feed it formula or put it to sleep.... You know better than I do.”

Entrusting the child to the nanny and living without ever looking back.

That was how Seunghyun lived for six years.

***

It was only when he rolled up his sleeve after finding it strange that the child was clinging to his pant leg and sobbing hysterically that he understood the situation.

Bruises covering the arm, dark and purple.

Crying that showed no sign of stopping.

Seunghyun knew marks like these well.

He was a child who had grown up in violence.

“Wait.”

But why that familiar violence felt so shocking now.

When he spoke while lifting Yehyeon, he was barely sane.

“Just wait a little.”

Lee Seunghyun ran for the hospital.

He ran through the streets without even realizing that his surgically treated leg had burst open.

***

Lee Seunghyun lost his way.

It was a life without balance. He loathed himself for neglecting the child and yet approached him. He watched the child closely and felt irrational anger. When he vented that nowhere-to-go anger as irritation, the child naturally became afraid, and after the anger subsided, Seunghyun regretted snapping at him. And then he would think: See? Keeping distance was the right choice.

Of course, there were times when he felt affection for the child.

The small life that turned around when he called him Yehyeon.

The way he would wobble and smile when Seunghyun occasionally picked him up.

Everything was a problem with his own mental illness.

He just didn’t have the money for treatment, nor did he know how.

He had tried therapy a few times when he could make the time, but there was no improvement at all.

So they lived a life that was bad for both their minds.

Even so....

He made sure Yehyeon could live a better life than growing up in an orphanage.

That he wouldn’t go hungry or be humiliated for lacking money.

That he wouldn’t be beaten so badly he couldn’t get up the next day.

Until the child started to rebel, he never raised a hand.

From middle school on, the child suddenly began rebelling like he’d gone mad, and from then on, Seunghyun occasionally raised his hand. He controlled his strength so the child could still get up.

Having grown up in violence, he knew exactly how hard someone could be hit and still stand the next day.

Ah. But maybe it would have been better if they had never met at all.

If he had put the child up for adoption to good parents when he was a newborn, he would have grown up much happier.

Seunghyun longed for the child to hate him freely, so they could both be at peace.

Because he knew well that no matter how much time passed, he would never be able to give his son pure love.

If he could choose, anytime, he would go back to before Yehyeon was born.

He would choose a life where he lived even one moment longer with Sasha.

“Dad....”

But unfortunately, Yehyeon constantly craved his affection.

“I got first place.”

The certificate hesitantly placed on the table.

Seunghyun had never learned how to react in moments like this.

Recognizing Sasha’s resemblance made his stomach burn.

He stared at the certificate, then pushed it aside.

“Eat dinner and go to bed.”

He had to grit his teeth not to snap at the child.

Yehyeon lowered his head and quietly sat at the table.

After eating in silence, he shut himself in his room just as told, and when Seunghyun heard the small, stifled sobs coming from inside, he was left dumbfounded.

Why is he crying?

Because I didn’t praise him?

Is that really enough reason to hole up like that and sniffle like a—

[Hey!]

Seunghyun, who had been roughly summarizing everything up to this point, blinked at Hilde’s shout.

He narrowed his eyes and listened to the voice coming from the other end of the phone.

[Do you hear yourself right now?!]

Hildebert, who had called him out of the blue, was raging at Core 15.

[Get your ass over here the moment you have time, you idiot!]