CHAPTER 61: CHAPTER 60: UNEVENTFUL EVENING

Later that evening.

The fire in the makeshift stove had burned down to embers when I finally told Mother about the Owl King. Not all of it — I wasn’t about to bring up me being the centre of everything and start a whole new storm of questions.

Ye-Rin, who was sitting beside us heard everything and spoke,

"Natsuki Subaru", she paused and then continued, "It is a very unique name for a person to have. I suppose he is from Japan. Do you know Natsuki Subaru as a whole means, "Moon of the greens, Pleiades star" — a mix of nature and astronomy imagery."

"Thank you for your detailed description of the name that doesn’t even exist." I mocked her, by pulling my nostrils up with my little finger.

Mother’s eyes narrowed over her steaming tin cup and asked me "And you believe him?"

My tone shifted as I answered her seriously, "I don’t think he cares enough to lie. You know those types. They don’t bother making up stories — they just drop the truth like a brick and let you choke on it."

"He said..." I stirred the ashes with a stick, watching orange dust swirl like dying fireflies. "...that something worse is coming. Bigger than what we’ve seen."

"Bigger than Volt?" Ye-Rin asked as she pointed fingers at the three headed dragon, who sat on the top of the building nearby.

Mother’s gaze shifted past me, toward the boarded window. "Then we don’t have time to relax."

I smirked, "We never do."

She didn’t push for details. Maybe she saw I was holding something back.

Maybe she respected it. Or maybe she was just too tired to fight me over it tonight. Either way, the warning sat between us like another silent guest at the table.

[After some time]

[Third person perspective]

By the time we were done,the sky outside had gone dark.

Mother ladled out portions of whatever she’d made — some kind of stew that smelled vaguely like canned beef and herbs.

Ye-Rin sat cross-legged near the wall, balancing her bowl with both hands.

In-Ji and Seo-Yeon were shoulder to shoulder, quietly talking in the corner, their bowls untouched for the moment.

"Worried about your Mother?" In-ji, who was shoulder to shoulder with Seo-yeon asked.

"Hmmm.." Seo-yeon nodded slightly. "I hope she is doing Okay or atleast she is alive."

"Don’t worry. She is a strong woman who raised you well after you father passed away. I know she is doing well." In-ji comforted Seo-yeon.

"Let’s go find her as soon as we get a chance."

"But what about your father? Don’t you want to look out for him?"

"You know my answer don’t you. Then why asked me that." In-ji replied nonchalantly as if the life of his father doesn’t matter to him.

"But I didn’t knew you liked Children so much." In-ji tried to change the topic. "I never thought you would get so emotional with Eun-ha."

"Yeah. Maybe it is my motherhood in me that was fast tracked by her appearance."

"Miss Actress Seo-yeon, you are only twenty-one. Are you that eager to become a mother." In-ji said laughingly as he bring a spoon full of soup to his mouth.

"If this wasn’t our reality, I would have become a mother in a year or two." Seo-yeon reply was so serious that In-ji spat out his soup from his mouth as blush crept up from his neck to his forehead.

Seo-yeon realized this slightly raised herself to reach In-ji ears and whispered in a seducing voice, "You would have a little one who would have called you papa."

"Let’s focus on eating first." In-ji hurdily filled his mouth with food as Seo-yeon chuckled beside him.

Hana lee was out of sight, probably breastfeeding her child, Min-Jae. Eun-ha and the twins, Soo-min and Jin-ha have become friends and are always seen together. They had a larger bowl than us and three of them were eating together from the same bowl.

If there wasn’t an apocalyptic event occurring right now, this scene would have been common to see. For a few precious minutes, the room was filled only with the soft scrape of spoons and the occasional slurp. No roars.

No gunfire. Just breathing and eating.

Mother, who never really ate slowly, surprised me by savoring hers. She caught me looking and raised an eyebrow. "Don’t get used to this," she said.

"I’m not," I replied, because I couldn’t. Peace like this wasn’t built to last.

Later, inside the mall, when Hana lee came back to eat her portion of the soup, It was Hyun-tae who passed her.

Hana just silently took the bowl from his hand and sat down to savor her meal.

Suddenly, she choked on her food on which Hyun-tae passed her a glass of water.

"You should drink something," he said, his tone practical but not unkind.

She took it, staring at the water for a moment before taking a sip. "...Thanks."

After taking a few sips, she stopped eating.

"You’re not eating," he added.

"I don’t need word of concerns from someone who killed my husband." Hana’s words were sharp but Hyun-tae was unfazed with it and replied,

"Then you should have not married a killer." Boom-Boom, who was quite this whole time chimed in, "oye oye.... Are you competing with someone is half of your age?"

Then a tear slid down from Hana’s cheeks. She quickly wiped her tears away and said, "He wasn’t like that before. He was a kind man who even loved me for who I was. He didn’t even minded that I had a terrible past and had tattoos all over my body, so."

But Hyun-tae cut her off, "You should remove those Tattoos. They don’t look at you."

Hana huffed softly. "You sound like my father."

Hyun-tae shrugged. "He had some good eyes on him."

She gave him a sideways glance, not sure whether to be annoyed or oddly comforted.

In the end, she just took another sip, letting the silence sit between them.