Chapter 66
Gahyeon bit down hard on his lower lip as he stared at her.
The truth was. The real, real truth was……
Gahyeon knew it too. That his mother hadn’t wanted to leave them.
Because he’d seen it. That day, the tears she’d shed while holding him in her arms and lulling him to sleep.
Even so, drawing a cold line because he thought she’d abandoned him—it had been the petulance of a child not yet fully grown.
“……You don’t know. How much, what kind of feelings I had, how I waited for you.”
His voice broke in stutters as he spat the words at her.
“Even after you left like that, I believed only in your words that you’d come back soon, and I waited for you every single day.”
Gahyeon felt his voice trembling pathetically, but before he could steady it, the words he’d held back came pouring out.
“But you… you ended up leaving us in the end. You left us forever.”
Seven years. It was the resentment and sorrow he’d bottled up tightly over a full seven years.
“You abandoned Father and us for some nonsense about family duty!”
The emotions he should have unleashed long ago—but hadn’t—had condensed even further, now digging into his flesh and tearing at his wounds.
“And after all that, the first words out of your mouth when we meet again are ‘it’s been a while’? ‘Have you been well’?”
After realizing his mother would never return, Gahyeon had suddenly grown much more mature.
He’d had no choice.
He thought he could only forget his mother’s absence by becoming an adult.
“Do you think… do you think I’ve been well? After you left like that, how could I…”
But no matter how much he pretended to be grown-up, an eleven-year-old boy couldn’t truly become an adult.
In the end, he was just a child who couldn’t forget his mother……
“I…… hic, ugh…… I’ve always resented you, missed you. Hic, every single moment without rest, I hated you…… and hated you more……”
Finally, the swelling tears burst forth, streaming down from his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Hyeon-ah. I’m so sorry. Mommy’s sorry for everything.”
Cheongha knelt down before him, wiping at his eyes with her sleeve as she apologized tearfully over and over.
Her own face was soaked with tears as well.
“Why do you keep… why do you only say you’re sorry? Why won’t you even make the simplest excuse……!”
Gahyeon shouted in a choked voice, grinding his teeth.
He knew she had plenty of excuses she could make if she wanted to justify herself.
Yet he couldn’t understand her for accepting his resentment without a single one.
“Because no excuse could justify why I left you. It was entirely my fault.”
Cheongha gazed at the boy with sad, curved eyes as she spoke.
“I thought of you every moment too, without rest for even an instant, Hyeon-ah.”
At that long-held confession, Gahyeon’s teary eyes shook violently.
“You…… kept thinking of me?”
Gahyeon asked, his throat bobbing painfully.
“Yes, every day, every moment I was alive and breathing.”
“Did you…… miss me too?”
“I did. Terribly, so much.”
Cheongha answered with a faint smile.
“I always wanted to run to you. But I couldn’t, and it hurt my heart……”
If she could, she would have ripped out every drop of her direct lineage’s blood from her body—she’d spent so many years aching like that.
“Then, you too……. you too……”
Gahyeon trailed off, unable to ask easily.
But Cheongha, sensing what he wanted to say, smiled tenderly and replied.
“I love you. I love you so, so much, Hyeon-ah.”
Over those long years past. It might have been the one thing he’d longed to hear most while waiting for her, the one who never returned.
Soon, Gahyeon’s shoulders shook as he burst into loud sobs like a child.
Cheongha pulled the boy, wailing in her arms for the first time in seven years, into a tight embrace.
* * *
“The truth is, I kept waiting for Mother.”
Lying in bed, Gahyeon gripped Cheongha’s hand tightly and murmured about the past in a soft voice.
He said he’d been so excited last year when he heard Mother was coming.
But on the other hand, wanting to throw a tantrum, he’d deliberately locked the door.
Then, after his growth pains ended and his mind cleared, he’d learned she’d already left—and regretted it deeply.
Unwilling to admit those feelings, he’d deliberately deceived himself and resented her even more.
“I shouldn’t have done that……”
His voice gradually grew quieter, and soon Gahyeon drifted off to sleep peacefully.
Cheongha sat by the dark bedside, watching him with a gentle smile.
Her sad, pale purple eyes gazed mournfully at the boy’s swollen eyes.
Eleven years old……
He’d grown so much. She hadn’t imagined he’d be this big by the time she returned when she left.
A sharp pang—
Pain throbbed from her Spirit Core.
In truth, her condition had been poor ever since she left Azure Dragon territory, but she’d been enduring it.
It was time to return to Azure Dragon lands.
‘I’ve only just conveyed my feelings to you……’
Just then, a rustling sound came from behind Cheongha.
“That’s good.”
At the low voice, Cheongha turned around. Sa-eon stood there.
Soon, the two of them stepped outside together and walked silently through the garden for a while.
It was Cheongha who first broke the quiet stillness.
“The truth is, Soya helped me.”
“Cotton ball?”
Sa-eon frowned and asked back at the unexpected name.
“Yeah.”
Cheongha nodded with a faint smile.
That evening, before going to meet Gahyeon, Soya had come to Cheongha first.
[Lady Cheongha. When I was six, my family abandoned me. But even knowing they wouldn’t come, I waited for my father and brothers to come find me every single day.]
[I kept waiting, even though I knew they wouldn’t. Waiting for them to come back, say they were sorry, and that they loved me.]
[Brother Hyeon is probably waiting too, deep down.]
[I’m so sorry to ask this of you. But he’s still a child, and you’re an adult, Lady Cheongha……]
[So, could you go to him first and tell him? That you’re sorry for leaving. But that you love him so much.]
[While I was alone in the Cold Palace, those were the words I longed for most.]
The little girl Soya, not even nine years old and not yet through her Primary Growth.
Had calmly shared her painful past and made that request of her.
In that moment, Cheongha realized how cowardly and immature an adult she’d been.
She’d hovered around that child without ever saying the most important words: I’m sorry, I love you.
She’d arrogantly thought that apologizing would only reopen the child’s wounds.
But in truth, it might have been her own wounds she feared facing.
I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have smiled and greeted her as if nothing had happened.
‘Even nine-year-old Soya understood, but I didn’t. I’m truly unfit to be a mother.’
Yet Gahyeon had grasped her utterly inadequate hand once more.
That small hand holding onto her had felt so precious.
Just thinking of Gahyeon’s hand brought tears to her eyes again.
And it wasn’t just Gahyeon.
Her eldest, Gaya, who even at just eight years old had spoken as if he already understood her.
Her youngest, Gayul, who had been so young back then that he didn’t even grasp what it meant to be separated from his mother.
And……
She glanced up.
Cheongha looked at Sa-eon.
The man who bore the exact likeness of the three boys she loved most in the world—with snow-white hair and blue eyes.
The one who had tried to hold her back when she said she was leaving, but in the end respected her will and let her go……
‘Baek Sa-eon.’
Even thinking of this man made Cheongha’s heart ache strangely.
But Cheongha pushed down that inexplicable feeling and asked in a bright voice.
“Where on earth did you pick up such a cute, kind, and clever daughter?”
“Our baby cotton ball is cute, kind, and clever. She takes after me.”
Sa-eon smirked and chimed in.
This man, born with the exceptional physical prowess of a Baekho suin and thus gifted with heightened senses, couldn’t possibly have missed her reddened eyes.
He couldn’t have failed to catch the salty scent of her tears.
Yet his consideration in pretending not to notice and smiling like that warmed Cheongha’s heart.
Baek Sa-eon had always been that kind of man.
Never overtly affectionate, but steadfastly waiting for her in the same place.
