Chapter 65
“Cheep!”
Soya spread her wings wide and flapped toward Gahyeon.
“It’s late, so what are you doing up instead of sleeping, Soya?”
Gahyeon concealed the prickly, sensitive air he’d had just moments before and asked in a gentle voice.
“Cheep, cheep!”
“You want to go see the snow-covered Horim Mountain? But it’s too dark out.”
“Cheep, cheep!”
“What? That Gayul kid said something useless like that…? Ah, sorry, Soya. I take back ‘useless.’ Then let’s go together, big brother and you.”
At the baby bird’s fussing, Gahyeon smiled softly and climbed up onto the windowsill.
Then, cradling Soya in his arms, he hopped lightly down to the ground.
Poof!
The moment he landed, he transformed into a massive tiger.
Gahyeon had Soya climb onto his back and leaped toward Horim Mountain.
As a Baekho beastkin whose physical abilities far surpassed those of ordinary beastkin, he reached the midpoint of Horim Mountain in just three bounds.
“Big brother, look over there! Horim Mountain is really sparkling!”
At some point, Soya had released her beast transformation and returned to her young girl form, peering down from his back and crying out.
“You wanted to see this that badly?”
“Yes! Gayul big brother said that once the snow piles up, we absolutely have to come see Horim Mountain at night!”
Once, Gayul had told Soya that the night view of Horim Mountain blanketed in snow sparkled like it had been sprinkled with sugar, so beautifully.
They had promised to come see the night of Horim Mountain together after the first snow fell, but that day Soya had caught a cold, and afterward Gayul had been laid low by growing pains, so they hadn’t been able to go.
“I was so sad thinking we wouldn’t get to see it until the snow melted, but thank you so much for bringing me all the way here.”
Thanks to the pure white snow gleaming under the moonlight, the entire Horim Mountain sparkled like jewels.
The snowy night mountainscape was so beautiful and mystical that Soya felt as if she had arrived in the heavenly realm from the old tales she’d heard.
Gahyeon burst into laughter at Soya’s entranced silence for a while.
“If you want, I’ll come with you anytime. More importantly, you’re not too lightly dressed for the cold, are you?”
“Yes, I’m dressed very warmly. Yeon-jeong got me a blanket made from fire mole fur because I caught a cold last time.”
Soya pulled the blanket draped over her shoulders tighter as she answered.
“Shall we go a bit higher up to look around?”
“Yes!”
Gahyeon bounded toward the mountain peak.
With the sudden rise in altitude, Soya’s heart swelled too.
Gahyeon deliberately took a path through a forest of white birch trees for Soya’s sake.
The snow settled on the bare white branches was truly lovely.
“The white snow looks just like you, Soya.”
“Like me?”
“Yeah, pure and white, just like you.”
“I thought I resembled you, big brother.”
Soya found it amusing that she and Gahyeon had thought the same thing, so she covered her mouth with both hands and giggled.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch….
The sound of stepping through snow blended with the serene forest path.
“You know, big brother. Back then, I hated that I was so white.”
Soya, who had been quietly savoring the night air from Gahyeon’s back, suddenly began to share her own story.
“I hated my white hair and my white fuzz. But now I love it so much.”
Her soft, gentle voice brushed through the night air, echoing through the snow-covered birch forest.
“Because it’s white like Father and my big brothers, so to others, we’ll look like a real family.”
“You’ve been thinking like that?”
Gahyeon asked in surprise, then spoke in a tender voice.
“I like that you’re white like me too, Soya. But regardless of that, we’re family.”
“Right, you said that to me here during the Mountain Lord Festival.”
Soya smiled faintly and nodded.
The words Gahyeon had said to her here during last autumn’s Mountain Lord Festival had left a deep resonance in Soya’s heart.
[Real family doesn’t abandon each other over something like that.]
[I want to be real family with you, Soya. No matter what we look like, whether we’re birds of prey or beasts of the field—real family that protects and cherishes each other, regardless.]
Until then, Soya had always seen herself as a child abandoned by her family.
But Gahyeon’s words had changed her from an “abandoned child” to a “child who found real family.”
They had been fake family from the start, so she hadn’t truly been abandoned.
That was why Soya thought:
The fact that Gahyeon, who had taught her that crucial truth, saw himself as “abandoned” by Cheongha…
Wasn’t it because he thought of Cheongha as “real family”?
“Big brother, I was born without a mom.”
Gahyeon faltered at Soya’s sudden confession.
“But there was someone I thought of as my mom. Then I found out she wasn’t my real mom after all.”
“…….”
Gahyeon’s steps slowed.
“I’ve never had a mom from the start, so I probably can’t fully understand your feelings, big brother.”
“…….”
“You had a mom and then lost her, so it must have been even sadder for you than for me.”
“…….”
“Because even I, when I was very young, had a father and big brothers, but then they were gone in an instant, and it made me so sad and upset and hard.”
“…….”
“More than when I found out I had no mother.”
“Soya.”
Gahyeon stopped walking.
Soya hopped down from his back and faced him.
“I’m not upset anymore about the hurt those people gave me. Because you told me, big brother. That they were ‘fake.’”
Soya gazed into Gahyeon’s blue eyes, trembling faintly, as she spoke.
“But the reason you keep holding Cheongha in your heart… isn’t it because she’s not ‘fake’ to you?”
“I’ve never kept that woman in my heart—”
“Liar.”
Soya cut off Gahyeon’s words. It was the first time she had ever interrupted him.
“I saw it all. Yesterday, when Cheongha was in the garden, you were watching from the window, weren’t you? And today too. You came all the way to the stone dining hall at mealtime, stared at Cheongha for a long time, then turned back.”
“…….”
Poof!
Gahyeon released his beast transformation and returned to human form.
“…Why are you saying things like that, Soya?”
He asked in a voice full of incomprehension.
“You’re my little sister. You should be on my side, not hers. So why do you keep talking like you’re on that woman’s side?”
“It’s not taking Cheongha’s side. If I had to take one side, of course I’d be on yours, big brother.”
Soya answered him in a slightly hurt voice.
“That’s why I’m saying it. I just don’t want you to be hurting, big brother. That’s all.”
* * *
After escorting Soya back to her room, Gahyeon headed to his own.
In truth, he knew too. Why his mother had to make that choice.
He had learned about the duties of the direct line as he grew up.
And in truth. The absolute truth was…
Gahyeon stiffened for a moment, his expression hardening.
“Hyeon-ah.”
That woman was waiting in front of his door.
“…….”
Gahyeon tried to pass by as if he hadn’t seen her.
“I’m sorry.”
A slender thread of a voice suddenly halted his steps.
“I should have said this first. But I’m a cowardly, worthless mother, so I couldn’t.”
“…….”
“I’m sorry, Hyeon-ah. For leaving you behind that day when you cried and clung to me. For saying I’d come back soon and then not coming back.”
“…….”
“Your mom is sorry for everything.”
“What good is an apology now…!”
The moment Gahyeon whirled around in anger.
Clang—
Seeing Cheongha’s face crumbling as if she might burst into tears, Gahyeon froze on the spot.
He had seen that expression on her face before.
That day.
The night his mother had abandoned him and left.
His mother had held him in her arms and shed tears with exactly that look.
