Honbul: Flame of the Soul

Yoon Taehee was holding the unconscious Jaegyeom in his arms.

Jaegyeom had failed to dodge the attack. Or, more accurately, he had chosen not to. If he had shoved away Jo Youngwoo, who was being controlled by the director, and counterattacked at once, Jo Youngwoo might have been hurt, but Jaegyeom would have escaped the blow unharmed.

“.......”

Yoon Taehee stared blankly down at Jaegyeom’s face as he lay limp in his arms. It felt as though something inside his head had snapped. Not a single thought came to him. Like a machine creaking back into motion, Yoon Taehee slowly lifted his head. In the distance, he saw Suhyang standing there.

Still cradling Jaegyeom, Yoon Taehee rose to his feet. Jeongju and Mesan, who had been standing far behind him, could only watch the scene unfold, unable to approach or run. Mesan was sobbing helplessly. Yoon Taehee lowered Jaegyeom to the ground.

Then he bent down and picked up a sword that had fallen nearby. Gripping the hilt, he stood facing Suhyang. Suhyang was surrounded by things that were not human. Yoon Taehee stood alone.

A bleak wind passed between them.

Suhyang clicked the tongue and murmured, “How truly weak. How foolish.”

At first glance, the meaning of those words was unclear, but Yoon Taehee understood what lay beneath them. Suhyang was lamenting. It seemed Suhyang sincerely regretted that he had invited disaster upon himself simply because he could not cut down one living human. It was, after all, nothing more than a passing connection of the season.

“You’re right. It is foolish...”

After a moment of silence, Yoon Taehee answered quietly. His face had gone expressionless, and his tone toward Suhyang had turned flat. From that face alone, there was no way to tell what he was thinking.

“Do you really think Myojeong simply died?”

The instant the name “Myojeong” left Yoon Taehee’s lips, Suhyang’s expression changed completely.

“...Myojeong?”

Suhyang’s face hardened.

“How do you know that name?”

Yoon Taehee raised one eyebrow slightly.

“So Myojeong really did leave something behind.”

“Yes. He did.”

“What did Myojeong leave?”

“Are you curious?”

Yoon Taehee muttered as if speaking to himself.

“What a man named Myojeong left behind...”

Suhyang was wearing an expression never seen before. From the moment Myojeong’s name was mentioned, all composure had vanished without a trace. Suhyang stared at Yoon Taehee with eyes that had turned cold and sunken.

“Speak.”

Suhyang took a long step forward.

“What did he leave?”

The question came in a low voice. Irritation edged the words. With the smile gone entirely, Suhyang now radiated a dangerous air, like a time bomb about to go off.

Yoon Taehee let out a laugh before he could stop himself.

“I wonder. What could he have left?”

Looking down at his bloodstained palm, Yoon Taehee whispered, “You wouldn’t even be able to imagine it.”

Suhyang narrowed those eyes.

“.......”

Yoon Taehee did not seem to have any intention of answering.

For a while now, he had been letting out quiet laughs, keeping up an attitude of detached indifference. Ever since Jaegyeom collapsed, he had also seemed dazed, hollowed out. Suhyang drew out the wooden tag that had been carried all along. When spiritual force was poured into the hand holding the tag, it began to tremble violently, as if it might shatter at any moment.

“Ugh, argh...”

Yoon Taehee clutched his left chest and doubled over, overwhelmed by the sudden surge of pain.

After groaning with his body folded in half, Yoon Taehee abruptly burst into laughter. The sight of him laughing with bloodstained teeth bared was grotesque and uncanny. Suhyang snatched a sword from one of the straw effigies standing nearby, strode toward Yoon Taehee, and pointed the blade at his throat.

“Speak.”

“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand.”

That faint laughter began to spread.

“No matter how much I explained, someone like you would never know...” 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

No matter how much I tell you, someone like you won’t know. Repeating those words, Yoon Taehee laughed like a madman. He could not stop, not even through the pain that felt as though his heart were being wrung in a fist.

His vision blurred. It felt as if he might lose consciousness at any moment.

Then, from behind him, a faint voice rang out like a hallucination.

“I don’t need something like you.”

The tears sliding from the corners of his eyes were hot. They cooled as they ran down his temples and gathered in his ears. Jaegyeom sobbed. He did not know why he felt so sorrowful, so wronged. He could not even cry loudly enough to empty out his chest, nor could he wipe the tears away. It felt as if the knot that had been bound tight inside him for years was suddenly coming undone. The tears would not stop.

“Don’t be ridiculous...”

A crack split across the boy’s face.

“You can’t exist without me.”

The boy’s form scattered into fragments, as if it were being torn apart, and vanished. At the same time, the landscape before Jaegyeom’s eyes began to crack, then soon collapsed completely.

Rumble...

The first thing he felt when he came to was the cold dirt floor beneath him. Blinking in a daze, Jaegyeom realized he was lying on the ground. The moment he understood that he had blacked out and woken again, he tried to stand up at once. But for some reason, he could not move so much as a finger.

It was strange.

His mind was clear, yet some enormous, indescribable force seemed to be pinning his limbs down like a boulder. He felt as if he had been glued to the ground, crushed beneath an immense gravity.

He could not even twitch his hand. It was as though his body were no longer his own.

No matter how hard he tried, all he could manage was to make his limbs tremble slightly. His vision was wrong, too. The whole world looked red. It was as if he were looking out through a layer of opaque film. He had returned to reality, but control over his body had been completely taken from him. Jaegyeom clenched his teeth.

Lifting his head and looking forward—something that simple felt like struggling against the entire world. His skin scraped over the rough dirt. His chin was abraded, and his cheeks stung. Even moving his lips was difficult. Barely twisting his head, he forced himself to look ahead. Jaegyeom struggled like a newborn animal that had only just entered the world.

In the distance, he could see Yoon Taehee’s back.

It overlapped with the memory of Myojeong’s back as Myojeong left him behind that day.

Jaegyeom planted his hands on the ground and slowly forced strength into his arms. It felt as if he were trying to stand with a mountain loaded onto his back. His arms shook violently, and every muscle in his body seemed to scream.

He had managed to lift his chin about a hand’s breadth from the ground.

Then, as if mocking all his effort, an invisible force pressed down on his head. Like a man unable to resist gravity, Jaegyeom slammed his chin back into the dirt and was pinned to the ground again. It was his power.

“Hgh....”

A groan full of spite escaped Jaegyeom.

You can’t exist without me.

Humans know one thing and miss the next. Even if something harms humans in the immediate moment, from a broader view, it may benefit something else. New birth can only come after the destruction of what already exists, and good and evil are always one body. They are twins born from the same umbilical cord.

Some will call me disaster, but others will not.

Isn’t that right? It is only natural for the moon to wane once it is full. A season in which everything withers must exist for spring to arrive. That is the core that makes up the world. Winter passes eventually, anyway.

The cycle of seasons will wear you down. Some will despair that winter comes again after spring, while others will rejoice that spring comes again after winter.

So, which side do you think you will be on?

You. Your trust will be betrayed, and what you cherish will be cast aside. Beautiful things will wither, and shining moments will inevitably fade one day. Each time it happens, you will be wounded.

The world will sometimes be malicious to you, and misfortune may pile on top of misfortune.

Even then, will you go on living?

“Yes.”

Why!

“Because I have no choice.”

If you live like that, you will keep wanting to die.

There will be dozens, hundreds of moments when your heart breaks. You cannot live without being hurt. The kindness you give will be ignored again and again, and the expectations you hide away in a corner of your heart will be betrayed without fail. Even so, can you really live without me? You will keep wanting to die!

“It doesn’t matter.”

That was true.

Even if there were moments when the optimism that a better day than today would come shone like sunlight, when the moment arrived where the pessimism that no better day would ever come stepped ahead of it, he would undoubtedly want to die.

Even so, he would live with the heart of a foolish human.

Keeping human kindness close. Believing in warmth. Holding it like a beautiful pressed flower, like a precious and fragile bookmark. Believing that this was what it meant to be human, what it meant to be humane—he would live that way. Even if he felt no curiosity about his own future. He would solve today like an assignment and wait for tomorrow.

Therefore, he would remain awake.

He would stand on this dark, desolate earth with only his own two legs.

Fate will hold a blade to your throat. Misfortune and trials will prowl around you like a pack of starving jackals, baring their fangs. Your comfortable home will fall into ruin, your efforts will come to nothing, and you will not be able to move forward, only circle the same place again and again. Even then, can you keep yourself from dying?

Yes. Even if it was a life endured through nothing but forced persistence, that was fine. Even if it was a paltry life where, much later, rusted by the inertia of time, the only answer he could give was that he lived because he could not die—that was fine too.

He would keep living like this, stubbornly, with fire in his eyes.

So,

“Get up.”

He had decided to live with his feet planted on this earth.

“Get up! I said, get up...!”

Jaegyeom screamed.

“Get up...”

Tears of blood streamed from his eyes.

With his elbows braced against the ground, Jaegyeom slowly raised his upper body. He pressed strength into his palms as though pushing the earth itself away. He focused on every breath entering and leaving his body, on every tremor running through his muscles. Put strength into your knees. Straighten your back. Open your shoulders. Lift your head. Tuck your chin. Yes. Now look forward.

Now, walk.

Walk.

Keep walking.

Jaegyeom took a step, like someone learning to walk for the first time in his life.