The biting cold of the day I was driven out, the voices that had constricted around me, and the fear I had desperately tried to turn away from all came rushing back at once.
“Father……”
I had barely moved my lips, yet my voice would not come out properly.
“Do you know how your father died on the battlefield?”
“I heard he blamed you.”
Those words that had clung to me even after his death pressed down on my chest once more.
My body trembled faintly.
Father pulled me into an even tighter embrace.
I had always thought of him as a harsh, rough, and taciturn man, but at that moment, his touch was strangely careful.
“Father’s here. It’s all right.”
His low voice sounded distant.
And with those words, the consciousness that had been holding on tautly finally snapped.
The medicine had worn off.
***
There was nothing but darkness all around me.
‘It’s this dream again.’
I knew instinctively.
I was inside a familiar nightmare.
But knowing it was a dream did not mean I could escape from it.
I was submerged in black water that seemed to swallow me endlessly.
My body was heavy, and my fingertips were cold.
Familiar voices kept flying at me from all directions.
“It’s all because of you.”
“The disgrace of Yakryeong!”
‘Your father resents you.’
No.
I hate it.
That can’t be true.
My lips moved, but no voice came out.
Even when I struggled to escape, I couldn’t move so much as the tips of my toes.
The black darkness only grew deeper.
Then, in the distance, I saw someone’s back.
Broad, solid shoulders.
A familiar build.
It was my father.
“Ah……”
I desperately reached out my hand.
But Father never once turned around.
He only continued walking farther away, toward the battlefield drenched in blood.
‘Don’t go.’
‘Please.’
His figure slowly disappeared into the blood-scented fog.
Only then did the voice that finally broke free sound more like a sob.
“Father.”
I groped through the air with trembling fingertips.
“Father, d-don’t……”
That was when it happened.
A warm sensation seeped into the cold darkness.
Someone was stroking my head.
A very large, firm hand.
“I, I……”
“……”
“I’m sorry.”
The words came out brokenly, my throat so tight they were barely more than breaths.
“Because I was sick…… because I was useless……”
“Because of me, because of me……”
Sobs constricted my throat.
Father had left three years ago and never returned.
And after his death, all that remained was the guilt that everything had happened because of me.
Even so.
There was one reason I could never give up on my father, even after living through several lives.
“I missed you.”
I wanted to be with my father.
That was all.
That was what I wanted.
“Ryeonghwa. Wake up.”
“Ugh……”
Suddenly, a faint light seeped through my closed eyelids.
The darkness of the dream slowly lifted.
My consciousness gradually rose to the surface.
When I lifted my heavy eyelids, I saw a familiar ceiling.
The familiar scent of medicine, the quiet sound of breathing.
And the shadow of a man sitting beside my bed.
I blinked blankly.
‘What? Is this another dream?’
It was Father.
I didn’t know how long he had been there, but he was sitting beside my bed, his large body hunched over.
“Father……?”
A hoarse voice barely escaped my throat.
“Yes. Father’s here.”
“……!”
“You were whimpering like a puppy. Are you all right?”
My lips trembled.
As I thought, it was hard to believe.
In my previous life, Father had not returned at this point.
‘Did Grandfather really send him a letter?’
The fact that he had returned this quickly must also have been one of the futures I had changed.
Pat, pat.
Father roughly wiped my tear-streaked face with a clean cloth.
His touch was so clumsy that it was hard to believe he was a physician.
Still, I didn’t dislike it at all.
“What kind of dream did you have that made you suffer so much?”
I couldn’t bring myself to answer and only pouted my lips.
Father let out a small sigh, then folded his arms and looked at me askew.
“Come on. Tell me.”
“……”
“You were desperately calling for me even in your dream. Was there something you wanted to say?”
“Th-That!”
Flustered, I pressed my lips tightly together.
How long had I spent thinking about all the things I wanted to say to Father?
But the moment I actually faced him, all those grand words vanished from my mind, leaving it completely blank.
In the end, only my pitifully honest feelings slipped out.
“I-I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Because I keep getting sick…… because I’ve been a burden and an obstacle to Father.”
“…What?”
“I’ve only caused harm to Father and the family. All this time.”
“Hah.”
A hollow laugh escaped Father’s lips.
His cold, expressionless face was filled with bewilderment.
I flinched.
Without realizing it, I shrank my shoulders.
The fear etched into me by instinct raised its head again.
Has Father eventually come to see me as a troublesome and bothersome person, too?
The things Yeon So-taek had told me remained like shackles.
I had denied countless times that they could be true, but I couldn’t erase the anxiety buried deep within my heart.
“Who told you that?”
Father tilted his head while keeping his arms folded.
His piercing eyes stared at me.
Watching his expression, I hesitantly opened my mouth.
“Father went to the battlefield…… because of me, didn’t you?”
Because I was sick.
Because he was far away from me.
It was something I had never been able to properly voice, despite carrying those feelings all this time.
“Hmm?”
Father raised an eyebrow as if he found the question strange.
“Isn’t that only natural?”
“…What?”
“There might have been a way to cure your illness there. If so, of course I had to go.”
“But even so…… it’s a dangerous place. And you went because of me.”
The front lines were a battlefield, and all sorts of contagious diseases were spreading there.
Before leaving, Father had said he would research the illnesses affecting the patients there and the medicines being used to find a way to treat them.
That was why I felt even more guilty.
I was the reason Father had gone to such a dangerous place.
“Hm.”
Father still frowned as though he had no idea what I was talking about.
Then, suddenly, he stared straight at me.
“So.”
“……?”
“Is that why you never answered my letters?”
My expression froze.
“…Letters?”
Father’s brow furrowed at the same time.
“Why are you making that face?”
“I…… I never received any.”
“What?”
Silence descended over the room.
I stared blankly at Father.
‘No way.’
Someone suddenly came to mind.
My uncle.
‘I had no idea.’
Even after repeating my life several times, I had never realized this fact.
I knew that Yeon So-taek had driven a wedge between Grandfather and me.
But Father, too?
I had been so consumed by guilt toward my father that I had never even considered questioning the truth.
I had vaguely believed that Father had eventually come to hate me.
But what if that wasn’t the case?
What if it had all been a lie fabricated by someone from the very beginning?
“Ryeonghwa.”
Father’s voice sank low.
“Tell me clearly.”
“……”
“Have you truly never received a single letter I sent you?”
“No.”
I answered without hesitation.
“Not even once.”
“……”
“Actually, I sent letters to Father. But I never received a reply.”
Father’s face hardened.
“You sent me letters?”
“Yes.”
“……”
“You didn’t receive them?”
Father’s gaze turned cold.
The brief flash of bewilderment was instantly dyed with heavy anger.
After a long silence, he finally spoke.
“I sent you a letter every day after I left the family. Ever since you were four.”
My heart sank.
I clenched the edge of the blanket tightly.
“I even specifically instructed someone to read them to you since you didn’t know how to read yet……”
Father did not say whom he had given that instruction to.
But I didn’t need to ask.
I already knew.
“Yes.”
Father murmured in an extremely low voice.
“So that’s what happened.”
After that, he said nothing more.
Father briefly stroked my head, then immediately stood up.
“Father?”
“You don’t need to get up. Rest.”
There was an unsettling lack of emotion in his voice.
No.
It wasn’t that there was no emotion.
It had sunk so deeply that it looked empty instead.
Father walked toward the door.
Then he suddenly stopped.
“And.”
I held my breath and looked up at him.
Without turning around, Father spoke.
“Ryeonghwa. You have never been a burden to me.”
“……”
“And you never will be.”
The door opened, and Father left the room without another word.
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