Honbul: Flame of the Soul

“You said you liked me. If that’s true, then kill me with your own hands.”

The only sound left in the silent hospital room was the ticking of the second hand on the clock.

Time itself seemed frozen.

For a long while, Yoon Taehee stared at Jaegyeom without blinking. Jaegyeom sat with his hands clasped tightly together, head lowered.

Eventually, Taehee slowly turned his gaze toward the window.

“Yeah... I guess two weeks was a long time.”

He murmured the words quietly to himself.

At that, Jaegyeom finally lifted his head.

Taehee’s profile came into view. After hovering between life and death without properly eating, the lines of his face had become even sharper.

“I left you alone with your thoughts for too long, didn’t I...”

Still mumbling as though sorting through his own thoughts, Taehee slowly turned back toward Jaegyeom.

“But even so, that’s a pretty terrible thing to say to someone who just crawled back from the brink of death.”

He tried to pass it off lightly, crumpling his face into a teasing smile.

But then—

“There wasn’t a single day I didn’t regret it.”

Jaegyeom lowered his head again as he spoke.

His voice sounded painfully strained.

“I shouldn’t have gone to that island with you...”

I shouldn’t have gone to that island.

For the entire two weeks Yoon Taehee hovered between life and death, that thought had consumed Jaegyeom completely.

Geoyeo was a strange and beautiful island.

The few days he spent there with Taehee were moments of light that would never come again in Jaegyeom’s life. He knew he would never forget the sight of the two of them standing together beneath that dazzling sea and sky.

But regret has a way of strangling memories by the throat.

Jaegyeom remembered the evening primrose field atop the cliffs of Geoyeo Island. The vast ocean glowing beneath the evening sunset. At the time, he had thought he would never witness anything more beautiful for as long as he lived.

And yet hidden beneath that beauty was the world’s malice.

It had lain there coiled like a snake, waiting for them.

And in the end, it opened its jaws and swallowed them whole.

Kneeling before Yoon Taehee as he bled out onto the ground, rain pouring over his face, Jaegyeom had thought blankly—

It can’t possibly be this cruel.

Again and again, he questioned himself.

Why did this happen?

Because Shin Jihye had been taken by the mermaids.

Because the mermaids bore a grudge against humans.

Because the barrier land had actually been the turtle-mountain, and he failed to realize it beforehand.

Because the barrier broke.

Because the earth split apart.

Because Yoon Taehee ignored the warning and tried to save him.

Because the water barrier talisman shattered.

Because there was a calamity god sealed inside him.

Because he recklessly handed his body over to that calamity god.

In the end... was it Myojeong again?

No. Was it because he drank Mesani’s medicinal water...?

His thoughts tangled together chaotically, impossible to untie.

He could not pinpoint where things had first gone wrong.

Nothing had happened because of a single mistake. Everything had meshed together like interlocking gears.

On a remote island of all places, they had been attacked by mermaids, awakened the calamity god, and Yoon Taehee had nearly died.

It all felt malicious.

As though someone had deliberately arranged every piece into place.

And eventually, Jaegyeom began regretting that he had ever come to Geoyeo Island.

That was where it started.

During the two weeks Yoon Taehee hovered between life and death, Jaegyeom shut himself inside his room without eating or drinking, curling beneath the blankets and sinking deeper into self-reproach day after day.

I shouldn’t have gone to the island.

The thought repeated endlessly.

One of regret’s cruelest qualities was how it spread like mold.

It crept backward through the past, staining even brilliant memories until they rotted. Moments that had once shone brightly lost all meaning beneath the constant repetition of I shouldn’t have done that.

And once every memory had been erased that way, only one conclusion remained.

I shouldn’t have done anything at all.

That was regret.

And the most important thing was this:

No matter how much he regretted it, nothing could be undone.

And Jaegyeom was someone who thought about death far too easily in situations like these.

The regret that he should never have gone to the island eventually became regret over his own existence.

After all, everything had happened because Yoon Taehee cared about him. Because Taehee wanted to break his curse.

And so the thought came naturally.

I should die.

All this time, Jaegyeom had unknowingly held onto a small hope somewhere deep inside himself.

If the unbearable curse of immortality could truly be broken...

If, just as Taehee had said, he could someday live normally and die normally...

He would be lying if he claimed the thought had never shaken him.

The future he imagined then had seemed peaceful somehow.

But reality was nothing like that.

For the first time, Jaegyeom felt the vast distance between ideal and reality.

The problem was that the world he lived in had never been ordinary to begin with.

As an immortal being, Jaegyeom could do almost anything once he set his mind to it.

He could see things others could not see.

Hear things others could not hear.

A broken branch picked up off the ground could become a sword in his hands.

He could summon a ghost horse and ride through the sky.

No matter how grave the wound, Mesan could heal it completely.

Things impossible in ordinary reality existed naturally in Jaegyeom’s world.

And because of that, Jaegyeom had grown careless without realizing it.

He only understood that truth while watching Yoon Taehee die.

There had been absolutely nothing he could do for him.

And only then did he realize how complacent he had become.

It was a brutally painful realization.

On that distant island, Jaegyeom had possessed no way to save Yoon Taehee as he bled to death.

Standing helpless beneath the pouring rain, he finally understood how powerless and insignificant he truly was.

He could retrieve Taehee’s wooden tag and return his name to him.

But he could not save his life.

And so Jaegyeom thought—

What if Yoon Taehee dies here?

Only then did his senses return to him, as though ice-cold water had been dumped over his head.

Someone with a poor heart always thinks about loss the moment they gain something.

That was exactly the kind of person Jaegyeom was.

From the very beginning of every meeting, he thought about parting instead.

He imagined the day they would separate. The moment he would be left behind.

For someone condemned to live forever, it had become instinct.

Jaegyeom was someone born with a poor heart.

A poor heart is like a jar with a hole in the bottom. No matter how much you pour into it, nothing remains.

Jaegyeom’s heart was exactly like that.

Which was why ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) he believed he had nothing to give anyone.

Throughout his endless life, countless people had come and gone.

Large farewells. Small farewells.

And because he was always the one left behind in the end, Jaegyeom had long ago made a habit of imagining himself alone.

Without ever showing it to anyone, he feared separation.

Only recently had he finally begun opening his heart to Mesan and Jeongju.

And after finally confronting that fear head-on instead of avoiding it, he had thought perhaps he could someday face partings calmly.

That when the day finally came, he could smile and let them go without pain.

But Yoon Taehee was different.

The moment Jaegyeom tried imagining a world without him, all he saw was darkness.

The thought terrified him like a child.

There had once been a time when he thought that if everything worked out someday, if they truly found a way to break the curse of immortality, maybe happiness would not be impossible.

But there was one thing he had failed to consider.

If he became mortal like everyone else, then he would no longer be able to protect Yoon Taehee the way he could now.

There was no guarantee something like this would never happen again.

Someday, Taehee would face danger again.

And worst of all—

Jaegyeom no longer trusted himself.

The calamity god had remained quiet since that day, but he had still unsealed it with his own hands. There was no telling when it might emerge again.

The thought that he might lose himself and hurt Yoon Taehee again terrified him beyond reason.

There was only one way to escape that fear.

Leave first, before being left behind.

One day, a tiny sprout had bloomed in the wasteland that was Jaegyeom’s life.

And before he even noticed, sunlight had begun to fall on it.

Rain had nourished it.

Wind had carried through it.

The fragile sprout that once seemed ready to wither had grown into a vast forest before he realized it.

That forest had a scent.

What was it that had taken root in those ruined lands and grown into something so lush?

Jaegyeom knew the answer.

It was made from all those trivial moments that had quietly piled up over time.

Riding in a car Yoon Taehee drove.

Eating meals together.

Exchanging pointless jokes and idle conversation.

That forest had grown from moments like those.

And Jaegyeom loved that forest that had appeared before he even realized it existed.

Which was why he decided to burn it all down.

And so, Jaegyeom set his entire heart on fire.