Then do it. And don’t waver. (1)
“How is it?”
Seok Hanbin narrowed his brow as though he found it absurd.
“Is it really right to offer alcohol to a kid who hasn’t even had his coming-of-age ceremony yet?”
“What’s the big deal? It’s not as if there’s a law saying kids can’t drink.”
“That’s true, but…….”
“If you don’t want to, never mind.”
Chung Myung popped the cork off the liquor bottle, then drank straight from the bottle in one go. Just as Seok Hanbin frowned at the strong scent of alcohol, Chung Myung lowered the bottle and shuddered.
“Keuh. This is what makes life worth living.”
“…It smells awful.”
“What? You’ve never had alcohol before?”
“I have had it before, but I never really understood why people drink it.”
“At times like this, you really are a kid.”
Chung Myung laughed faintly.
Perhaps because he had seen so many similarities between Seok Hanbin and himself, seeing a different side now felt strangely new.
A brief silence passed between them. Seok Hanbin hesitated, not knowing what he should say, while Chung Myung did not seem particularly inclined to say anything at all.
In the end, unable to bear the silence, Seok Hanbin spoke first.
“Um.”
“Hm?”
“Why me?”
Seok Hanbin opened his mouth without looking at Chung Myung.
“You…”
“Call me Taoist Master*, you brat!”
“…”
“What do you mean, ‘you’! You impudent little punk. If I had married early, I would have had a great-grandson your age!”
“It would be a son, not a great-grandson.”
“I said I’d have a great-grandson!”
“What kind of nonsense is that, seriously…”
Seok Hanbin’s lips jutted forward in a pout. He was trying to have a serious conversation here.
“If that’s how it is, then I might as well call you Taoist Hyeong-nim.”
“No. Not that.”
“Why not?”
“Tsk! If I say no, then no. There’s a limit to how complicated the family tree can be!”
“…Family tree?”
“There’s such a thing. Kids don’t need to know.”
“Ugh.”
Seok Hanbin’s face twisted immediately. Was it really the right thing to be having a serious conversation with this man?
“Understood, Taoist Master. Yes. I’ll call you Taoist Master. Happy now?”
“Yeah.”
“Ugh.”
After letting out another groan, Seok Hanbin glanced at Chung Myung’s expression and opened his mouth.
“That… I understand that you think especially highly of the Shandong Yu family. But I…”
“Who said that?”
“Pardon?”
“I asked, who said that? That I think especially highly of the Shandong Yu family.”
Chung Myung lowered the liquor bottle and looked at Seok Hanbin with a sullen expression.
“You don’t?”
“Until about half a month ago, I didn’t even remember that such a family existed.”
Seok Hanbin stared blankly, his mouth falling open.
“Well, I did happen to recall it again by chance, but if not, I probably would have gone my whole life without caring.”
“Th-That makes no sense?”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“So you’re saying you came all the way here from distant Shaanxi to check on the descendants of a family you didn’t even remember until half a month ago?”
“Yeah.”
“…”
“No, but why?”
“Because I felt like it?”
Is he seriously insane?
Seok Hanbin was so dumbfounded that his mouth fell open without him realizing it.
“Then… why have you been nagging me to study and live properly? If we don’t really have anything to do with each other, you could just leave me alo… aagh!”
Kicked in the backside by Chung Myung, Seok Hanbin sprawled face-first onto the ground.
“Why did you hit me?! Out of nowhere!”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. You brat, even if you’re going to throw your life away, there’s a limit to how much of a wreck you should be.”
“…”
Chung Myung clicked his tongue and said.
“A punk who’s still wet behind the ears is living like that – who could just look at it and shrug it off?”
“Other people did.”
“They didn’t. They all kept their mouths shut because they figured you wouldn’t listen no matter what they said. But me? I never learned how to keep my mouth shut.”
Letting out heavy sighs, Seok Hanbin pushed himself back up. He had gone through all the trouble of washing himself at the stream, and now his hands were covered in dirt again.
“Then, what will you do if I don’t listen to you until the very end? Beat me until I obey?”
“That’s one way. But, well.”
Chung Myung scratched his head with an unreadable expression.
“I suppose I’d just leave?”
“Huh?”
“If I’ve done all I can and it still doesn’t work, then there’s nothing to be done. It’s not as if what you’re saying is wrong, either. It’s your life, after all.”
Seok Hanbin stared at Chung Myung with utter disbelief in his eyes. How could every single thing he said be so absurd in a new way?
“No, then why have you been doing all this until now…”
“You do what you can while you still can. Just because you think you might have to give up later doesn’t mean you should hold back from the start.”
“Uh…. Is that really okay?”
“What, again?”
“For a person to be that irresponsible…”
Thwaaack!
“Aaaaagh!”
Chung Myung clenched the fist he had just used to smack Seok Hanbin on the back of the head.
“You little bastard! Irresponsible? Irresponsiiibleee?! After everything you’ve done until now, that word comes out of your mouth? Then what, you expect me to cling to you for the rest of your life no matter how you turn out? I swear, I ought to hang you upside down and throw you into the river.”
“Th-That’s not what I meant…”
Seok Hanbin hurriedly waved his hands and moved out of the range of Chung Myung’s fist.
“Tsk. Forget it.”
Chung Myung waved a hand as if saying no excuses were needed.
“Irresponsible, huh. Well, I suppose it might be.”
Chung Myung looked up at the sky for a moment and spoke.
“I was just thinking about it. About what I was like in the past.”
“….What were you like?”
“To be precise, not what I was like. I was thinking about what the person who raised me must have been like…”
In the end, people can only understand another’s heart when they have stood in that person’s place.
Looking at Seok Hanbin made him think that. With what sort of eyes had Chung Mun looked at him in the past?
“Well… I don’t really know, but I think that old man simply wanted me to live the way I wished to live.”
“I’m not sure I understand what that means…”
“The truth is, if he’d set his mind to it, he could’ve forced me into line somehow, but he tried, until the very end, not to make me do anything I didn’t want to do.”
What if Chung Mun had tried to move Chung Myung by invoking the authority of the Sect Leader? No, he would not even have needed the authority of the Sect Leader. Chung Myung would never have been able to refuse Chung Mun’s request.
But had Chung Mun ever done such a thing?
Only now did he realize it anew. Chung Mun had not forced anything on him, not even once. He simply wanted him to live a righteous life. If the war with the Demonic Cult had not broken out, Chung Mun would never have bent Chung Myung to his will, not until the very moment he died.
“Thinking about that, it suddenly feels… kind of feels ridiculous for me to be telling you what to do in the first place.”
“…”
“A family or whatever else, sure, it would be good if it were revived. But if you don’t want that, there’s no need to go out of your way to revive it, is there? Probably… that man would have said the same. That what has passed is in the past.”
“…”
“Ah, of course.”
Chung Myung said firmly.
“You’re not allowed to do bad things. If I hear you pulled another scam, I’ll come running over immediately.”
“How would you know and come all the way from Shaanxi?”
“Try it if you’re confident you can avoid the eyes of every last beggar. But you’d better make sure you never get caught. Because when that time comes, I’ll strip you naked and hang you from the gates of Jinan.”
Seok Hanbin grumbled something under his breath, but Chung Myung let that grumbling go in one ear and out the other.
Chung Myung sipped at the liquor again. As the strong scent filled his mouth, oddly enough, it seemed to bring back old memories.
“Um… Taoist Master.”
“What.”
Before the lingering scent could grow any stronger, Seok Hanbin’s voice reached him.
“Do you think I can do it?”
“Do what?”
“That… restoring the family.”
“Why? Do you want to?”
“I don’t know.”
“..”
Chung Myung fell silent and looked at Seok Hanbin. But Seok Hanbin was looking not at him, but somewhere far off in the distance.
“Looking back on it, I don’t think I ever really lived with much awareness that I was a ‘Yu’. It’s just… the words my father repeatedly drilled into me when I was young are the only thing that stayed with me.”
“What did he say?”
“…Abandon the Yu name and live under another surname.”
“…”
“Think of it as though the family no longer exists. It is enough simply to take care of yourself. Do not try to learn anything, and do not try to accomplish anything.”
Chung Myung’s brow narrowed slightly.
Those were not words one should say to a child. But how could Chung Myung know what circumstances they had had?
“So I just thought that would be enough…”
“Hm.”
Chung Myung shrugged.
“If you truly wanted to abandon the surname Yu, you should have left Shandong. Both you, and your father.”
Seok Hanbin’s expression stiffened faintly.
“But you didn’t, did you? Your father may have had his reasons. But there should have been no particular reason for you not to leave Jinan, right?”
“…”
Seok Hanbin could not answer immediately and kept his mouth shut. Seeing that, Chung Myung let out a faint chuckle.
“Sometimes, people don’t even know what it is they want. No, they know, but they turn away from it. Because when the road ahead is too difficult and harsh, it’s easier to convince yourself you never meant to walk it in the first place than to admit you gave up halfway.”
“…Is that cowardly?”
“No, it’s wise.”
Chung Myung shrugged again.
“At the very least, it’s no reason to be criticized by others. That would be ridiculous. However…”
Chung Myung pictured one person’s face in his mind. Someone who had borne the same surname as them, yet had been different from them.
“In this world, there are… foolish people who do not choose that wise option, too.”
“…”
“Well, that’s just… how it is.”
Chung Myung grabbed the liquor bottle and rose from his seat.
If he said any more, it felt as though the atmosphere would only grow needlessly heavy. He was now in a position where a single word from him could carry far too much.
And for this child, that weight would still be too much to bear.
“Play around a bit, then come back. We’ll clear out your house soon enough.”
Just as Chung Myung was about to turn away, Seok Hanbin’s urgent voice rang out.
“Hey!”
“Hm?”
Seok Hanbin closed his eyes.
– Abandon your surname and live on.
His father had certainly said that to him. And Seok Hanbin had followed those words. Because that was what his father had wanted of him.
But Seok Hanbin also knew. He knew how sorrowful his father’s eyes had looked when he said those words.
Honestly, he still did not really know. What his father must have felt, having had to cast aside his own roots with his own hands. If Seok Hanbin himself had to erase the few remaining memories he had of his father, would it feel the same?
“Tell me just this. Do you really think I can do it?”
“Well. I told you, I don’t know.”
“…”
Chung Myung shrugged.
“However.”
His gaze grew firm.
“I don’t think I ever once stopped to wonder whether I could do something or not.”
“Then?”
“First, you try. Otherwise, you’ll spend the rest of your life thinking about it over and over.”
“What if I fail?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The firmness in that voice pressed down Seok Hanbin’s question.
“As you live, you come to understand. Failure is painful, but sometimes, there is something worse than failure.”
“What is that…?”
“Not even being able to fail.”
“…”
As though something had struck him, Seok Hanbin fell silent.
“You only need to be honest. About what it is you truly want right now.”
Seok Hanbin lowered his head and thought for a long while. Then, slowly, he raised it again.
“Then……”
By the time their eyes met once more, all the hesitation that had lingered in Seok Hanbin’s gaze had vanished.
“Then… would it be alright if I tried?”
“…”
“Like you said, Taoist Master, if I can’t even fail, then perhaps I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. No….”
Seok Hanbin pressed his lips tightly together.
“I will regret it.”
Chung Myung laughed faintly.
“If that is what you truly want.”
That was his answer.
But perhaps, it might not have been his answer at all.
“Then do it. And don’t waver.”
Chung Myung’s gaze reached the distant sky.
‘Am I a little late?’
It would have been better if he had realized it just a little earlier.
The young heart hidden within those eyes that had once looked at him.
‘Sect Leader Sahyeong.’
For some reason, today of all days, he missed that face terribly.
________
*For whatever reason in this SS biga keeps using dosa-nim instead of dojang? Imo dojang would have suited this situation much more. But. oh well.
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