The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 121

< Healer (2) >

***

Adapting to a changing world wasn’t just for humans.

As the world changed, General also adapted to kibble. The owner said that he had to eat kibble for the new generation dog, Hongsi. Even the leader dog had no choice but to follow.

Because the one who gives food is king.

Of course, they also boiled unseasoned ingredients as a special treat. General liked dog food so much, and it was also influenced by veterinarian Park Bu-ro’s advice that it was good for his intestines.

Crunch-, crunch-.

The dog mother and daughter, having finished their daily routine of playing with the little one, chewed on the kibble.

“Good night, General-, good night, Hongsi.”

Son Yu-jin, with her clothes and face dirty and her hair a mess, smiled so much that her eyes disappeared as she said good night to the family in the yard.

Woof-!

You sleep well too, subordinate!

General, the dog of Eastern manners, also greets well.

Crunch- crunch-.

Dog food is quite edible.

Eating kibble reminds me of Bbomi.

Grrr-.

I wonder if that little one is doing well.

His fur is thick and long, so it must be especially hot in the summer.

Our Hongsi goes in and out of the pond a dozen times a day.

That’s because it’s so hot for a dog.

General is a smart dog, so he knows that too.

General hates water.

He hates it so much that he won’t even look at anything wet unless it’s dog food.

So, he doesn’t go near Hongsi when she’s wet.

Today, she tried to come near him while wet, so he smacked her nose with his front paw.

That’s when Hongsi got a scratch on her nose, and the subordinate treated it.

What a great subordinate.

I confessed that I caused the injury, but the subordinate put saliva on his front paw and then put it on General’s front paw.

That must be a sign of reconciliation and forgiveness. Dogs try to unite by licking each other, but humans don’t know how to lick directly, so they used their front paws.

General is a smart dog, so he knows this too.

Hehehe-.

But when I saw the subordinate’s younger sibling during the day, it seemed like they were sick.

Humans might not know, but dogs can see it.

They’re a gentle one, so they don’t cry, but their condition didn’t look good.

I found out when I went near them while the aunt was holding them in the shade.

I should bark or press the sore spot with my front paw to let them know, but the aunt wouldn’t let me bark because it would scare the baby. She wouldn’t let me touch them either, saying they’d get hurt. But she did let me lick them. She’s a generous aunt after all.

That baby won’t live long.

But it’s frustrating because I can’t communicate and tell them.

Woowoooooo-.

Woowoooooo-.

When I’m frustrated, I have to howl like a wolf to prevent getting sick.

When General howls, Hongsi follows, and the other dogs in the neighborhood follow too.

Copycats.

Even if I howl like this, the owner and the aunt don’t understand what it means, so it’s even more frustrating. This means your baby is sick! Woowoooooo-.

*

Son Yu-jin, having entered the front door, neatly arranged her shoes and headed to the bathroom.

Han Yu-young greeted her daughter with a bright smile. Even if she came home looking like a crow after playing outside all day, or if she fell and got hurt, she was a mother who didn’t scold, saying that’s how country kids grow up.

“Did our daughter have fun playing? Wait just a little bit.”

“Yes, ehehe-.”

She wanted to play more with Hongsi, but that’s why she hurried home. If she waited until after the baby was bathed and then went into the bathroom, her mother would bathe her. Now, her older brother doesn’t try to bathe Yu-jin anymore. He said it’s because he’s busy. After coming home from school, he exercises, talks with his uncles and aunts, and has long meetings with his father, spreading out papers.

‘My brother has changed.’

But she’s not sad about it. She vaguely knows how important her brother is. Her father said that the house wouldn’t function without her brother.

She also believes her brother when he says it’s not because he dislikes Yu-jin.

“Mom, are you going to sleep early again today?”

“Yes. I have to. Because the baby sleeps when Mom sleeps.”

Yu-jin nodded.

There was something on her younger sibling’s forehead, and although it was okay for now, it was growing bigger day by day. It seemed that her mother or other family members couldn’t see it, but Son Yu-jin could.

‘It’s better not to say anything.’

Mom’s face will turn sad. If Mom is sad, Son Yu-jin is also sad. What’s on her younger sibling’s head wasn’t something that could be solved by going to the hospital and getting a shot. A quince-shaped lump was growing black and red, but it seemed okay for now because her younger sibling wasn’t crying and her forehead wasn’t turning blue.

But judging by the speed at which the quince was growing, it seemed like it would hurt her younger sibling’s head soon. So, Son Yu-jin decided that today was the day for action.

Son Yu-jin counted her short fingers and thought of the things she needed.

‘Jung-won, oppa’s mya-mya [a child’s word for heart].’

Was the thing inside the mya-mya called a heart?

Nod-.

Her younger sibling and her older brother. That was enough preparation.

To save her younger sibling, she needed her older brother’s heart.

She felt sorry for her older brother, but her older brother had lived enough, and her younger sibling couldn’t even crawl or talk yet. Saving her younger sibling was the priority. Son Yu-jin concluded that.

Her older brother was a giant who would sacrifice his own life to save his younger sibling if it was dangerous, so he would understand.

Son Yu-jin put strength into her fingers and curled them like an eagle.

The fingernails, illuminated by the bathroom light, shone sharply. They felt strong enough to pierce anything. Son Yu-jin’s eyes also sparkled menacingly.

*

After dinner, she grabbed her yawning older brother’s hand and pulled him.

They arrived at her older brother’s room on the second floor, and she bounced around. Every time Son Yu-jin bounced around, her older brother would clap, saying she was cute. This was the only way to reassure him.

“Oppa! Let’s lie down on the bed.”

“Huh? Should we?”

Jin-hyuk lay down on the bed as his younger sister told him to.

Sometimes, she would pat his shoulder with her cotton ball-like hands, and it was so refreshing and nice that he looked forward to it.

“Should we cover you with a blanket too?”

“No?”

Yu-jin climbed onto the bed and patted her older brother’s chest.

“Sleepy-, sleepy-.”

“Oppa’s not sleepy yet?”

“A young calf is in the house-.”

“Ehehe-, what kind of song is that?”

Ah, is that not it? Jung-won would laugh and then fall asleep when she sang this song, Son Yu-jin tilted her head.

Then she had to change her method. She pretended to kiss her older brother and placed her hand on his forehead. And then she whispered in his ear.

“Tandog, lorbe nim-.”

Kaa-.

Her older brother fell fast asleep.

If she put him to sleep like this, he wouldn’t wake up for several hours.

The memories that had been ingrained in Son Yu-jin’s body since she was a baby told her so.

After confirming that her older brother was definitely asleep, she made an eagle claw. With her other hand, she felt for her older brother’s mya-mya and found the place where the pulse was strongly felt.

‘It’s here.’

Ssssup-, she took a deep breath and aimed for her older brother’s mya-mya.

Hap-!

“Akritz gime egg-.”

Puddeuk-, veins and tendons popped out on the soft and tender arm of the child.

“Ayaaa-.”

Her arm was stiff and her fingers were hot, but Son Yu-jin gritted her teeth and endured it.

To save her younger sibling.

Tears fell because she felt sorry for her older brother.

Tears flowed down the cheek of her lying older brother.

Her eyes were closed because of the pain, but it didn’t seem right to her older brother. Son Yu-jin forced her eyes open.

***

Hong Ki-joon’s family, who were having a late-night snack together in the hospital room, all opened their eyes wide.

“Turn up the volume!”

“The remote!”

The couple, surprised by the subtitles on the news flash, fumbled for the remote control.

Hong Su-jeong shook her head, with a piece of grilled eel in her mouth. How could adults do great things if they were so emotional? She sighed and pressed the volume button on the remote control she was holding.

[We interrupt regular programming to bring you a news flash. We are live from Mokpo Airport, where a man of unknown identity called in this afternoon to say he had planted a bomb. Reporter Kim Yu-deok-.]

The TV screen split vertically, and a young female reporter appeared on the right, with a dark airport in the background.

[Yes, this is Kim Yu-deok, reporting from Mokpo Airport. ······ The military and police who were dispatched are conducting a large-scale search, and they have announced that all passenger planes will be prohibited from taking off and landing until the situation is resolved. In fact, the airport is closed. The authorities are responding to the fact that it has become a target of terrorism only a year after it reopened after being closed in 1972-.]

Even as midges swarmed around, reacting to the lights, the reporter steadfastly continued her report, looking at her notebook.

[- Investigators are keeping the identity of the perpetrator a secret······. The 31st Infantry Division of the Army has set up a wide perimeter to control civilian access, and the police special forces and explosive detection dogs have been deployed to conduct an all-out search.]

Hong Ki-joon gulped down water as if he had something stuck in his throat.

Yu Se-ra nudged Hong Ki-joon’s arm.

“Oppa, what’s that?”

“I don’t know either······.”

He just muttered quietly with a blank expression. It was something Hong Ki-joon had no way of knowing.

‘Did something like that happen?’

Even if it was a real event, it wouldn’t be on the parchment. The information Hong Ki-joon had recorded was extremely limited.

And no matter how shocking an event was, Hong Ki-joon didn’t remember the year or date. It would be the same for anyone else.

‘It’s strange for someone to remember if they weren’t involved.’

How could he remember everything in detail when he wasn’t a computer?

There were other reasons too.

‘300 years.’

That was the time he had spent alone with the shadow. The shadow told him it was about 300 years in Earth time.

Forget about memories, it was amazing that Hong Ki-joon’s soul had maintained its ego without going crazy during that long period.

Chop-, he smacked his lips, and Yu Se-ra made a fuss.

“What if there’s a war? What about our baby? Huh?”

“Nothing will happen. It’s probably just a prank call from kids.”

Hong Su-jeong shook her head, watching her mother make a fuss. She muttered, wondering what kind of pathetic person had made a prank call.

Hong Ki-joon nodded, hearing Hong Su-jeong’s mutterings.

What did it matter if it wasn’t a prank by kids?

This incident wouldn’t lead to a national emergency.

Hong Ki-joon had been in frequent contact with the recent regime. He had asked about the inter-Korean situation as a side note. Perhaps they needed to look good to Hong Ki-joon, but a government official had kindly explained that the North and South had agreed to a live-and-let-live atmosphere. Of course, they added that neither side had the capacity for war, and who could bear the obvious result of mutual destruction if the war escalated.

And who knew, maybe one of the political powers was putting on a show to divert attention in order to pull off another trick. Wasn’t that common sense?

‘Did I mess up the future because of me?’

Hong Ki-joon, not knowing what was going on, just blinked as he drank the warm soup.

He was relieved that he had an informant in the government, but he was also worried.

What if there was a war? All his plans would be ruined.

***

In Jin-hyuk’s house, six-year-old Son Yu-jin was fighting a war alone.

‘Haaigoo-, it’s hard.’

She thought it would be enough once, but her younger sibling’s illness was serious.

Still, after repeating it three times, the red and black thing that looked like a quince gradually decreased.

She had to get rid of it completely, Son Yu-jin instinctively sensed.

So.

“Itcha-, itcha-.”

She diligently climbed the stairs.

Like a stray cat, she opened her older brother’s room door, and hap! She stuck her eagle claws into his mya-mya.

“Akritz gime egg-.”

When she did this, a bluish smoke-like thing would travel through her hand, up her arm. The color, which resembled the blue sea she had seen on TV, was engraved in Son Yu-jin’s heart.

It was probably just her imagination that her older brother seemed to be shrinking.

His eyes were also dark, and he looked sick, like a patient.

She kept crying because she felt sorry.

She couldn’t go to school for him, so what could she do?

It wasn’t that her older brother had to die to save Jung-won. It was just that he would sleep for a long time, an aunt named ‘Dugu Elil’ had told her. She didn’t know who that aunt was. She would sometimes call out to Son Yu-jin in the middle of the night to play, but she had only heard her voice in her dreams and hadn’t seen her face.

The reason she felt sorry for her older brother was because of school. Because he would have to miss school because he was sleeping. Her older brother was always trying to avoid his uncles by saying he had to go to school and do his homework, so Son Yu-jin’s worries were focused solely on that one thing.

The more she repeated it, the more power she could draw from her older brother’s heart.

It was possible because Son Yu-jin’s heart was gradually growing bigger and stronger.

“Itcha-, itcha-.”

When she was done charging, she went back down the stairs and moved to the master bedroom.

She would put her hand on the baby’s forehead and treat her.

“Ladroaeb gaejeu-, dalleh ilbeu-.”

She murmured quietly so that no one would wake up.

Son Yu-jin didn’t know what it meant or what world the words came from. She just muttered them as her soul told her to.

If she did this, the black and red quince in her younger sibling’s head would disappear, and her younger sibling would become healthy.

– “Jung-won is a weak and small baby, so now Yu-jin has to protect and take care of her.”

Son Yu-jin was a child who listened well to her older brother.

Son Yu-jin, who had gone up and down the second floor twelve times until dawn, put her hand on Son Jung-won’s forehead and closed her eyes.

‘Hooray-. It’s gone. I’m so happy-.’

The quince that only Son Yu-jin could see had disappeared, and the baby’s complexion, which had been unusually pale, had turned a rosy peach color.

She did it!

She collapsed next to the baby.

She wanted to go see her older brother, who had become emaciated overnight, but she couldn’t even move a finger.

***

Chirp- chirp-. Tap tap tap tap-.

Jin-hyuk’s consciousness awoke to the sound of sparrows and woodpeckers announcing the morning.

‘It feels like I had a long sleep.’

It was similar to the sensation he had when he woke up on the day he returned to the past.

There was something else strange.

‘My body won’t move.’

He tried to use his strength, but he couldn’t even move a finger, and he couldn’t open his eyes. He wanted to call for his mother, but he couldn’t even move his lips.

Heo-, what should he do? If he wasn’t careful, he would be late for school.

Napoleon said.

There is no such thing as being late in your dictionary.

Fortunately, air was entering through his nose, and he could feel his heart beating.

He immediately began meditation breathing.