WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 13: By Chance (3)

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By Chance (3)

It had been seventeen long years since exile forced them apart.

The husband and wife had lived all that time separated, yet the moment they laid eyes on each other again, a tenderness too great to contain came pouring out.

Yu Yeop-kyung and Madam Jang held each other and wept without end.

They had longed for this day more than anything.

"My lady."

"My husband."

The whole household was overcome at the sight of the couple.

Even Deputy Commissioner Oh Ji-gang, who counted as an outsider, felt something rise in his chest and his eyes redden in spite of himself.

'She truly loves him so very much.'

In that moment, Yu Jin-hyeok could not help admitting it, just how vast a presence his father, Yu Yeop-kyung, was to his mother.

Seeing her so happy, he thought that with his father at her side, she might no longer ache with longing the way she once had.

Only,

'......Mumu?'

The instant he saw Mumu, who bore that odd name, a strange aversion welled up in him.

This was the father he had hated so deeply, yet for the seventeen years of his exile that man had raised the boy as something precious, and the thought stirred an unpleasant feeling that crept slowly through him.

'Hello.'

Mumu looked his way and waved.

The greeting was mouthed silently, but Yu Jin-hyeok, already set against him, whipped his head away.

'I think it's books, isn't it...'

Mumu seemed a little flustered too and scratched his head.

Once that emotional reunion came to an end, the family gathered for a meal.

Deputy Commissioner Oh Ji-gang, who had brought them all this way, was invited to the table as well, but he refused outright, saying he could not intrude on a family's first meal together after so long, and took his leave.

"Wow!"

The table was spread so heavily it could rightly be called a banquet, the legs all but buckling under the weight.

For Mumu, whose idea of a special treat had been grilled meat, this banquet table was a sight to cheer over.

'How simple-minded.'

Yu Jin-hyeok clicked his tongue at the sight of Mumu.

True, he himself had rarely seen a banquet like this either, but it was hardly something to whoop and marvel over.

"Is this five-spice braised pork?"

"This meat is so tender. Ah! You aged it for a long time before boiling it?"

"Dried carp, you say? It's the first fish I've ever seen in my life."

He was playing the country bumpkin to perfection.

It really did seem true that he had lived nowhere but in the mountains.

A snort of laughter nearly escaped Yu Jin-hyeok, and then his eyes fell on his mother, Madam Jang.

'......'

His mother was gazing at Mumu with a look of tender warmth.

At first she had been a touch awkward, but using the food as a way in, she explained one thing after another, and it seemed she had grown fond of Mumu, who took such joy in it all.

And on top of that, the way he marveled at these things, so unlike her own son, seemed to tug at her heart.

Snap.

The hand gripping his chopsticks tightened.

His mother was supposed to be on his side.

Yet there she was, wearing that look as she watched Mumu, and the unease that had been festering inside him now twisted into a strange jealousy.

And so the meal ended in a flurry, all thanks to Mumu.

The emptied dishes were cleared from the table and cups of tea were set in their place.

"To think a day like this would come. It feels like a dream, my lady."

"For me too, my husband."

The couple clasped hands and traded affections at every turn, as though they meant to make up for all the love of their long years apart in this single day.

Sipping their tea, they spoke of the many things that had happened in between.

As they unraveled, one by one, all they had been through across the seventeen years each had not known of the other, the sun had set before they realized it.

"It would have been so lovely if Jin-sung were here on a day like this too."

"He has the nation's work to attend to. It is all right, my lady."

Their eldest, Yu Jin-sung, had unfortunately gone away on assignment to inspect Shanxi Province.

The assignment stretched three whole months, so a reunion anytime soon seemed unlikely.

All the while their conversation went on, Yu Jin-hyeok had downed more than five cups of the tea he kept sipping.

'How dull.'

The two of them might find it pleasant, but he did not.

The little incidents of their exile days, the stories about his brother and himself that he already knew, all of it was tedious beyond measure.

'Mumu hauled a lot of firewood, blah blah... I'm sick of it.'

The talk about Mumu amounted to this: he was uncommonly strong for his young age.

That was all there was to it.

What was so impressive about carrying a heavy A-frame carrier load and the like?

He had never tried it himself, but having learned Martial Arts, he could do such things easily enough.

'Well. For an ordinary person who never even learned Martial Arts, I suppose these trifling feats might seem remarkable.'

There was nothing about it he couldn't understand.

The family had been reborn as a martial house now, yet his father's thinking had not yet crawled free of its old days as a scholarly house.

Could a father like this ever adapt to the changed times?

In the meantime, the conversation that traded news of recent days reached the present.

"But my lady. You said our Jin-hyeok would be entering Changcheon Martial Academy as well?"

Yu Yeop-kyung looked at Jin-hyeok and asked.

At this, Madam Jang answered with a gentle smile.

"As it happens, the masters of the Three Heroes of Jiangsu, who taught Jin-sung, said Jin-hyeok possesses martial talent no less than his brother's, and that we should send him to Changcheon Martial Academy too."

"Oh ho. Is that so? Who could have guessed our Clan, with no gift for anything but reading and teaching the written word, would produce not one but two who are made of the stuff of generals?"

Yu Yeop-kyung was moved as never before, that his own children should be so exceptional in martial talent.

Then again, it must have been so. How else would the eldest have graduated such an academy as Second Graduate and risen to high office?

Yu Yeop-kyung looked at his son, Yu Jin-hyeok, and said,

"My son. As a father I have given you nothing, and as a man sent into exile I am ashamed beyond words, yet I am truly grateful that you have grown up so well."

At these words, a flicker of interest crossed the eyes of the bored Yu Jin-hyeok.

He had been curious just what sort of person this father of his really was.

Footnotes:

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