WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 7: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (7)

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Though the sliding paper door opened and shut and the boy's shadow fell across the room, the boy's father did not turn to look at his son.

In the middle of the unlit master bedroom, the man sat like a still life, his gaze slanting down somewhere before him.

Onik felt that his father, still a stranger to him, had his eyes fixed on a time other than the present.

Mingled into that distant, dim gaze was an unidentifiable regret, one Onik had no way of understanding.

"......"

Hesitating in the uncomfortable silence, the boy cautiously knelt before his father.

Sitting across from his father, who seemed lost in a time Onik did not know and a dry, barren regret, he tried to place himself within the man's field of vision.

As if to say, I'm here, so please look at me.

Even so, the silence did not break.

His unfamiliar father remained a still life, cut off from the present.

Avoiding the ominous possibilities whispered by his dark instinct, Onik stole glances at the father who was still a stranger to him. Only then did he notice the plastic bag set in front of Jo Yun-beom.

'Ah...... A Classic Cheese Burger set......'

He had noticed it late because all his attention had been fixed on his father, who sat like a still life.

Only now did he realize that its smell filled the room.

That was how much Onik was concerned about the father he was seeing for the first time.

Unable to look straight at his father, the child studied the hamburger set instead.

It was much like a child being scolded by their parents and suddenly paying close attention to the pattern on the floor.

Droplets of condensation clung to the outside of the cup of cola.

No matter how quickly someone brought it from town, some of the ice was bound to melt.

......Even allowing for that, there was far more water running down the cup than when Yo-han delivered it. There was probably hardly any ice left inside.

Onik could easily imagine the man buying the hamburger set, then lingering before he could bring himself to leave.

The reason he had not come until now.

Or perhaps the reason he had been unable to come.

Whatever that reason was, it must have held him back again this time.

Perhaps the hamburger set might never have made it here and could have been thrown away somewhere along the way......

"I heard you like this."

The sudden break in the silence made the boy flinch.

Onik's wavering eyes quickly swept over his father's face before dropping back down.

Without focusing on the boy even now, his father remained somewhere between the present and another time, speaking indifferently.

"So I bought it."

"......"

"You can eat it."

"Uh......"

Both his father's appearance and voice were unfamiliar to the boy.

After all, it was a voice Onik doubted he had ever heard, even as a newborn.

Flustered, Onik managed to answer.

"Later... I'll eat it later. Thank you."

"All right."

After that brief exchange, silence settled over them again.

The father and son sitting across from one another looked strangely alike.

The son could not look directly at his father, and the father did not look directly at his son. Their reasons differed, but their actions were much the same.

Countless questions Onik had wanted to ask when he met his father whirled chaotically in his chest.

They only whirled there.

Yet just because the boy could not bring himself to ask did not mean his father could not guess what was in his unfamiliar son's heart.

Contrary to the way old Jo Jeong-ho spoke of him, Onik's father was not so mad that he could no longer think reasonably.

There was only a wound in his heart that had kept bleeding through the years.

Onik's father understood well enough how a child abandoned by him must feel.

At the same time, he knew he was committing a terrible wrong as a parent. He understood it with his head, but his heart would not follow. That was the problem.

"Haah......"

When the father who was still a stranger to him let out a sigh, Onik's shoulders drew in.

The sight of the child shrinking back made his father say what he believed he needed to say.

"Jo Onik."

"......Yes?"

"You haven't done anything wrong."

The boy's eyes widened. Though he had pretended otherwise, he had always felt the absence his parents had left behind.

His unfamiliar father drew out the faded guilt and old melancholy crushed beneath his regret and put them into words.

"I always thought I had to tell you this when I met you."

"Um, well......"

"I'm sorry. You've suffered a lot because you got such a pathetic father."

"......"

Though they carried emotion, his words were as dry as wind blowing across winter fields.

That was because the man himself was so dried out and cracked within.

Feeling that dryness, the boy opened and closed his mouth several times.

Still, he could not bring himself to offer even the empty courtesy of saying, "No, it's okay."

He wanted his father to stay with him now, but judging by the mood, it seemed better not to expect it.

Under the heavy air, the boy realized something.

His father would leave him behind again. Most likely, today would be their first and last meeting.

The child, who would be left alone with his grandfather again, had no room to comfort the father he was meeting for the first time.

There was no reason for him to do so either.

For a moment, his father's gaze rested on his son.

It was the first time he had looked directly at him since they met. Watching the child bow his head gloomily, the father repeated to himself as if trying to persuade himself.

'This kid did nothing wrong.'

The child before him had simply been born together with that thing.

His mother's death in childbirth, and being conceived as the twin of an ominous, grotesque brother, were only misfortunes the child had never chosen.

The child bore no responsibility for any of that misfortune.

Even so, the father found it uncomfortable to look at his son.

His emotions, which rejected reason, fiercely rejected even the blameless child.

The result was guilt that only continued to pile up.

It had piled up and piled up until it was almost a geological stratum, yet his emotions never followed. No matter how much it accumulated, that stratum never grew any heavier.

It only made the man's inner world drier and more desolate.

The regret the father carried was another reason he should feel guilty toward the child.

'I should've had the pregnancy terminated before it was too late.'

The regret that they should never have let him be born.

It was too cruel a thought for a father to hold before his child.

Closing his eyes, the father quietly sank beneath the surface of the regret in his chest.

#

A man who had abandoned his innocent son and spent more than twelve full years wandering the world in misguided regret, Jo Yun-beom remembered the darkest night of his wife's final winter.

That quiet Christmas Eve.

Before they went to sleep, he and his wife had sat side by side by the window, exchanging romantic whispers as they looked up at the sky.

There had been no moon in the pitch-black sky spread over the guesthouse in the woods.

Even the stars, which should have stood out more in the absence of moonlight, looked dimmer than usual on that strange night.

On that strange night, his beautiful wife had a terrible dream.

She woke screaming, soaked in cold sweat, then trembled for a long time in the arms of her husband, who had woken with her.

She had been so badly frightened that it seemed to take nearly half an hour for her to calm down.

Yun-beom asked his wife what nightmare she could have had to frighten her so badly.

Merely recalling what she had seen in the dream made her tremble again. Still, stammering and rambling, she struggled to tell him what had happened.

「A black sky...... Just looking at it felt like it was making me lose my mind...... It looked like it was swirling...... or wriggling...... So I don't know if it really was the sky......」

「You don't know?」

「In the middle of that strange, frightening sky...... there was one star that felt much scarier...... Around it, there was this...... halo? A glow of an indescribable color...... Was it even a halo......? Anyway, something like a haze of light was spreading around it......」

「And then?」

「That frightening star, wrapped in that glow, came down from the sky...... It kept coming closer to me...... I was crying and trying to run away, but no matter how far I ran, it was no use...... In the end, the moment that frightening star pierced into my stomach...... I screamed...... and then I finally woke up......」

At the time, Yun-beom felt somewhat at a loss.

The nightmare was too metaphysical. He could sense only an abstract foreboding, making it hard for him to empathize with her fear.

Ordinary nightmares usually had a specific object of fear, did they not? A person, a ghost, a monster, a particular event.

But looking back, that ominous dream appeared to have been a conception dream.

「Congratulations. You're having twins. Since there's only one amniotic sac, they're identical twins.」

The following February, the couple visited an obstetrics and gynecology clinic after seeing the result of a pregnancy test. There, the doctor told them she was eight weeks pregnant.

Judging by the dates, implantation had most likely occurred around Christmas.

Yun-beom was happy.

His wife, though, did not seem able simply to be happy.

The doctor, who had congratulated them with a bright expression, stopped smiling a beat later and carefully watched Yun-beom's wife's reaction.

As they left the hospital side by side, Yun-beom asked why she looked so troubled. His wife hesitated before answering, then let out a sigh and opened up.

「I know this will sound strange...... but it reminded me of the nightmare I had last Christmas Eve. Thinking that it might have been a conception dream makes me feel anxious for no reason. I'm sorry.」

「What are you sorry for?」

「It's a day when we should be sharing joy together as a married couple. But I can't do that.」

「Don't say that. Didn't you hear what the doctor said? Hormonal changes during pregnancy can make you anxious or depressed. Maybe that's what's happening with you. If you go home and get plenty of rest, you'll feel better.」

「Do you think so......?」

「Let's eat something good before we go home. What should we have? How about mint-chocolate broccoli pineapple pizza?」

「Don't joke around. There's no such pizza.」

「I heard there is one.」

「Liar. That's not fit for human consumption.」

His good-natured wife gave a faint smile even at her husband's silly joke, and as usual, he was content with the smile of his beautiful wife.

After that day, his wife did not show her anxiety for a long time.

Looking back, Yun-beom deeply regretted his complacency during that period.

He should not have done that.

He should have quickly realized that his kind wife, who did not want to worry her husband with groundless anxiety, was forcing herself to sound all right during their calls while he was at sea.

No, even if it meant overextending himself a little, he should have stayed by her side instead of going to sea at all.

「Are you really going to be okay? If I go on this voyage, you'll be alone for six months.」

It would have been better if she had at least had her parents' home to go to. Unfortunately, his wife had lost her parents at an early age......

In response to her husband's concern before departure, his wife smiled sweetly and shook her head.

「You're going to be the father of two children now. Thinking of the children we're going to have, both of us need to work hard and earn money. We need to earn lots, move to a bigger home, and find a better school district. Don't worry, just go.」

「Hmm......」

「What's with that hmm? You're already taking a longer vacation than usual. If you want to stay with me all the way until my due date, you'd have to apply for leave or quit altogether. If you suddenly do that, what will people at work think of you? Won't that make finding a new job harder afterward?」

「That's true, but......」

As his wife said, Yun-beom had already stayed in Korea from before Christmas until the end of February, which was a longer vacation than usual.

The shipping company where he worked generally rotated its sailors on a schedule of six months aboard ship and two months of leave.

The dates were not fixed. They varied according to vessel schedules, staffing needs, and other factors, but that was the basic arrangement.

Compared to other countries, the conditions were much worse.

Shipping companies in the United States and Europe gave three months at sea followed by three months of leave, and even neighboring Japan gave four months at sea followed by two months of leave.

Still, Korea was full of small and midsize shipping companies with conditions worse than the company he worked for.

So even though the industry as a whole was suffering from a labor shortage, he still needed to remain at his current company and preserve his reputation as best he could.

If he suddenly dropped out while they were short-handed, more than a few people would curse him.

Yun-beom had other calculations as well.

'I need to manage my career well if I want to move into a land-based position even one day sooner.'

At that time, Yun-beom still believed a father absolutely had to be beside his growing children.

That belief had not changed even now.

But whether he still had the will to act on it was another matter. The soul of the man named Jo Yun-beom had turned to ash along with his wife's body when it was cremated.

The wife in his memories spoke gently.

「Talk to the company in advance. Tell them that after this voyage, you think you'll need a longer break. If you tell them six months in advance, the company will understand your situation too...... won't they? It's fine for you to go this time, so be with me when the due date comes. If possible, anyway.」

「I'll make it possible.」

「Hehe. You've got this, honey.」

That was how Yun-beom reluctantly set off.

Then, when he returned after completing a voyage that had run a little more than four days longer than scheduled, the sight of his wife, visibly thinner, shocked him deeply.

Footnotes:

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