Chapter 167: The Shape of Family (3)
TL: SHW
"Student Hwijae, let's have a talk…."
"I'm busy."
"Student Hwijae, just a moment…."
"It's class time for the kids."
"Student Hwijae."
"Hunter Lee, how did that matter I asked you about go?"
After I'd brushed him off more than five times in just the morning, Hong Seok-young changed tactics. To watching me from a distance.
Instead of approaching me directly, the gaze boring into my back was fierce. I was starting to think I'd been the one who chose the wrong strategy. Instead of carelessly brushing him off by saying I was busy, I should have just heard him out. Should've told him what the hell he was going on about, asked if he'd already gone senile.
The regret came too late.
Even I could see that avoiding him this desperately was just making myself look guilty. Damn it, I didn't even do anything wrong, so why?
Then again, going up and talking to him first at this point... no? Would that actually be better?
Hong Seok-young still hadn't charged at me out of nowhere. That meant he had patience left.
Maybe if I just casually spoke to him now and acted like I'd genuinely been busy, it would be fine? No, I really had been busy. The more I thought about it, the stranger it was. I still seemed to hold some incredibly vague position here, yet whether it was Lee Mi-seon or Kim Chae-min, everyone kept coming to me.
Maybe it was because Hong Seok-young had been tailing me lately....
I let out a sigh.
I couldn't keep avoiding him forever, so I needed to make a decision quickly. I could open with the topic of Hope.
With that resolve, I looked toward where Hong Seok-young had been.
"......?"
"Teacher Woo? What's the matter all of a sudden?"
"Nothing.... Wasn't Teacher Hong just standing over there?"
"Huh? Oh, he suddenly went inside."
I furrowed my brow. There was no way Hong Seok-young would give up after only two days of following me around.
...What?
When someone who'd been right there suddenly vanishes, it's unsettling. The same principle as people who shout "No!" the moment their puppy disappears from sight. Hong Seok-young... was capable of that. Even the aged father from twenty years in the future had been like that, and now, when he had even more energy than back then. I didn't want to think about it. I had no idea why I had to feel this way about a half-grey-haired old man.
I glanced around briefly, looking for Hong Seok-young. But there wasn't a hair of him to be seen.
If I at least knew Hong Seok-young was busy, I wouldn't be this anxious. And I wouldn't feel so wronged, either. He'd been following me around all day? Meanwhile some of us were actually dying from being busy...!
I stewed in my anger toward the absent Hong Seok-young, then finally grabbed a Daseon Hunter and asked.
"Does Teacher Hong not have any work to do?"
Back at the Management Bureau, even when my father dumped work on me, I couldn't complain because I knew he was inside a Dungeon.
But what about Hong Seok-young these past few days? He wasn't entering any Dungeons, wasn't tracking the Ark. He wasn't even tidying up the wrecked Villa, for that matter. The only thing he was sort of doing was teaching? And even that, with the grounds in shambles, he couldn't push the kids very hard. He just had them sitting quietly indoors doing Dungeon lectures.
And that wasn't the kind of class Hong Seok-young was good at. The Dungeon levels he entered were so high that the kids couldn't keep up.
"Well... he's kind of like a totem, isn't he?"
The Daseon Hunters must have finally started losing their minds too, because Ji Yoo-geon spouted nonsense. He'd held out a long time. It wasn't just me; these people's workload was insane. With work piling up like that, I would have quit ages ago.
"Ah, right.... A totem."
I made a sour face.
"At the very least, there won't be any intruders, right? Hahaha. Ha. Haha...."
The ruined garden caught my eye. It would probably be faster to just finish building the Pilot High School building and move there. Restoring that mess would cost money, time, and labor. Listening to the laughter trail off, I walked past Ji Yoo-geon.
He wouldn't have left the Villa grounds anyway, so I thought about going to find him myself, but it stung my pride somehow, so I didn't. The one who's in a hurry should come looking. I wasn't in any hurry at all.
In the end, half the day passed without me seeing Hong Seok-young.
But it didn't take long to find out what Hong Seok-young was after.
"Hyung!!"
Because that evening, Woo I-rok came fluttering toward me.
Awfully cheerful for a kid who'd nearly been kidnapped. Maybe it was because he'd grown up seeing every sort of ordeal.
Lee Mi-seon had quietly asked me if I-rok was okay, said she knew a counselor.... Having been that kid once, I knew: he was genuinely fine. If he'd been shaken by something like that, he wouldn't have survived this long. Hyung didn't raise me to be that fragile.
I-rok ran up and latched onto me.
"What's wrong?"
The kid had been trying to act more mature lately, his childish clinging on the decline, so what was this all of a sudden? Had I been too confident about myself? I'm disappointed, Woo I-rok....
"What happened?"
"Hyung!!"
I-rok let out a shriek.
"Hyung, are you really gonna become that ajusshi's son?!!"
"Kh."
Some Daseon Hunters happened to be passing by, and at those words, they choked, clutching their throats and coughing. Fuck. This Villa was way too open.
I forced a smile. I couldn't get angry at my little brother. What had he done wrong? It was all my fault. My fault for forgetting that Hong Seok-young knew there was another me here.
My fault... my ass. How was any of this my fault? It was all Hong Seok-young's doing.
I clutched my head.
"Where is he."
"Huh?"
"I-rok, where is that ajusshi right now."
If I'd known he was going to pull something this petty, I would've talked to him long ago. Someone gutlessly dodges him a few times and he goes and uses a kid.
Was this the seasoned prowess of Korea's strongest Hunter? Making the prey come to him on its own?
Prowess, my ass. He was just throwing a tantrum because things didn't go his way.
*
"Mm. You came."
Hong Seok-young greeted me with a face that said he'd been waiting.
"What are you trying to pull?"
"There are diverse forms of family in this world...."
"No, cut the bullshit."
"Bullshit, you say."
Hong Seok-young looked disappointed.
"I'm confident this father didn't raise you to talk like that."
Fuck.
"What are you saying."
"Daddy is really hurt."
"What are you saying."
"There are many forms of family in this world."
"That again?"
"Families connected simply by blood, adoptive families, people who aren't family but are close enough to call family...."
Hong Seok was spouting his usual high-minded talk. He'd had those words glued to his lips the entire time lately. It had gotten so bad that Kim Chae-min had shuddered and asked if he was really that envious of Hope and Gamble's friendship.
But the two of them weren't what Hong Seok-young was talking about. When he'd deflected Kim Chae-min's comment with "A friendship that transcends the species barrier between monster and human. Isn't that moving?", I wasn't fooled.
Just watch.
"So couldn't a son from the future also become family?"
Hong Seok-young effortlessly summoned my irritation.
"I'm not your son, Teacher Hong."
"You called me Dad to your heart's content."
This....
Who called him that to their heart's content?! I nearly snapped but barely held it in. Stay calm.
"So what exactly are you trying to say?"
"Mm."
Hong Seok-young stared directly at my face.
"What, you don't remember? Is that it? Then I'll go along with that version."
"...So."
"But I've been thinking."
Déjà vu hit me.
Past experience that nothing good had ever come from this man thinking.
Because I knew Hong Seok-young wouldn't give up this easily, anxiety set in like staring at a Dungeon on the verge of a Break.
"Even if you were my student, you're not my current student, are you?"
"......"
"Right?"
Hong Seok-young pressed on tenaciously, as if he absolutely needed to hear my answer. This was a trap. A trap, but I couldn't shake free of it.
"Right.... So I figured we'd need some new definition for this relationship."
"And that's why you went and told my little brother that nonsense about becoming your son?"
"Wouldn't it be great to have a son like I-rok?"
His voice lilted upward, but he wasn't expecting my answer. He'd already reached that conclusion inside.
What I'd thought when I saw that small back curled up in the orphanage was still vivid.
I took that child's father away from him.
I'd racked my brain. 2041 aside, the Woo Hwijae of 2021 had very little to his name. Even diligently saving up a salary he barely had occasion to spend didn't change that. Lee Mi-seon's support was there, sure, but who knew how long that would last? In truth, wasn't Lee Mi-seon helping me out of goodwill because Hong Seok-young had asked her to?
Of course, I didn't think Hong Seok-young would cast me out. But I wasn't a child, and I didn't want to keep holding out my hand. Even if he was dying to help.
In that sense, Hong Seok-young was a suitable person to entrust my brother to, in case something happened to me. He was someone who'd been proven.
Getting Hong Seok-young to give up wouldn't be hard. If I dug into his wounds until they bled, even Hong Seok-young wouldn't be able to endure it. I knew the words that would make him back off.
"If you're seeing your dead son in me, give it up."
I'd done it once before.
Back then, because I was already Hong Seok-young's son, he hadn't given me up. But if it was before I'd become his son, could Hong Seok-young still keep insisting? Once he realized I was refusing hard enough to say something like that, he'd back off on his own. A perceptive ajusshi was convenient like that.
But....
I truly didn't know what would happen going forward. If it was just one insurance policy, for the just-in-case.
"And I'd like to have a son like Woo Hwijae too."
"That's way too greedy."
"Someone of my caliber is allowed to be."
"......"
That brazen confidence left me speechless.
"Daddy always wants to give his son only the best."
"That's not what this is."
"I already felt like something was missing from your explanation, and once I thought of myself as the father, everything fell into place."
Hong Seok-young grinned broadly. Somehow my face grew hot.
"I'm telling you, that's not it."
"Then that's fine too. Even if you weren't my son in the future, I've decided to make you my son."
"......"
"Yes. I'm probably not your father."
Hong Seok-young said it matter-of-factly.
"But I guarantee, your father was happy. I can say that because he was me."
I should deny it here. Staying silent was practically the same as confessing that I was his son.
But the words wouldn't come.
"Having raised such a fine son, how could he not be happy? Every time he looked at you, he must have wanted to dance with pride."
"......"
"You don't have to think of me as your father. But I'm going to think of you as my son."
Deny it. I could deny it. Say we were never like that, that we were just teacher and student.
But still, no voice came out.
Saying I'd been his successor rather than his son would have been easy. But saying I wasn't his son....
That was.......
Unable to deny it or affirm it, I barely managed to open my mouth.
"...If I-rok says he, well, wants to be that, I won't stop him."
Saying that was the best I could do.
***
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