Epilogue Chapter 47 - Summer Vacation (9)

A deathly silence fell in the hotel hallway. Oh Kang-Hyun rubbed his eyes after closing the hotel room door and shook his head as if denying what he had just seen.

“I guess I’m still half-asleep.”

‘Yeah, I must be seeing things.’

There was no way his respectable and stern father would force his mother to dance so shamefully. Kang-Hyun calmed his heart and took deep breaths.

“What are you doing here?” asked Kim Si-Ah as she exited the room.

“Wh-When did you wake up?”

“Just now.”

“What about Kang-Hee?”

“Still asleep.” Si-Ah crossed her arms and scanned Kang-Hyun. “What are you doing in the hallway?”

“H-Huh?”

“I said, what are you doing just standing blankly in the hallway? Did something happen?”

“N-Nope. Nothing happened.”

“That’s an obvious lie. You got extremely flustered the moment you saw me.” Si-Ah, wearing white sandals, walked right up to Kang-Hyun. “This is... the room Uncle and Aunts are using, right? Are they inside?”

“N-No! No one’s inside!” shouted Kang-Hyun hurriedly and shook his head. “I-I just opened it and no one was in there.”

“Hmm... that’s fine, but why are you so flustered?”

“Uhh... W-Well...”

“Anyway, since you said you opened the door, you have a key, right? The girls are still sleeping in there, so why don’t we stay in this room?”

“...!”

Cold sweats trickled down Kang-Hyun’s back. If they opened the door now, they would witness the scene which Kang-Hyun desperately hoped to have been a hallucination.

“What the holdup? Let’s go insi— Kyaah!”

“Follow me.”

Kang-Hyun grabbed Si-Ah’s hand and pulled her away, only thinking he couldn’t let her enter the room.

“Wh-What the hell are you doing?”

“Let’s go play somewhere.”

“Play...? Right now?”

Kang-Hyun turned to the blushing Si-Ah and nodded seriously. “Yeah.”

Si-Ah turned away to avert her eyes from Kang-Hyun’s blazing gaze and tapped the hallway floor with the end of her foot.

“I thought... you didn’t want to be with me.”

She recalled Kang-Hyun’s deathly expression when they were going around the swimming pool.

“No, I do.”

“Ngh...!”

Si-Ah flinched. She could feel the strength of his grip, his callus-covered palm, and see the veins on his forearm. She had seen his hands many times as they trained but after holding hands with him, the fact that Kang-Hyun was a boy popped into her head.

“Just... the two of us?” Si-Ah asked.

“Huh? Of course.”

“R-Really?”

Si-Ah grinned as she twirled the ends of her silky black hair around her finger.

“Let’s go,” Kang-Hyun stated.

Si-Ah nodded and followed behind Kang-Hyun as she gripped his hand tightly.

***

‘Phew. I managed to stop her from entering somehow.’

Kang-Hyun sighed in relief after successfully leading Si-Ah outside. He managed to prevent Si-Ah from witnessing the sight inside the hotel room.

‘But now that I think about it... isn’t this a date?’

Although they were childhood friends, a boy and a girl were hanging out together. It was a date situation he had only heard about.

“So? Where are we going?” Si-Ah asked.

“Huh...? Uhh...”

More cold sweat trickled down his back after he realized it was just the two of them. They had been together many times as Si-Ah trained him but this was not training.

‘It’s a date.’

It was his first date with a girl. He had dragged Si-Ah outside on impulse to stop her from entering the room but he was blanking on what to do now that they were outside.

“Well... Wh-Why don’t we get dinner?”

“Dinner? With the two of us? Even if people don’t pay much attention to others these days, they’re bound to ask us where our parents are if we enter a restaurant by ourselves.”

“Oh.”

“And I’m not hungry yet because we ate so much for lunch.”

“Th-Then how about shopping?”

“Do you have something to buy?”

“Not really...”

“Did you even bring money?”

“No...”

Kang-Hyun’s shoulders drooped as his various date ideas were rejected. Si-Ah sighed deeply and shook her head, which Kang-Hyun found scarier than a ghost in a horror movie. Sweating profusely, Kang-Hyun maximized his brain power to find something to do.

Just then, Si-Ah suggested, “If you have nowhere in mind, how about a walk?”

“A walk?”

“Yeah. There’s a beach at the back of the resort.”

“Y-Yeah! A walk sounds good! Let’s go!”

Kang-Hyun nodded. Si-Ah smiled as they walked to the back of the resort.

As Si-Ah mentioned, they saw the beach not long after they left the resort through the rear exit.

“...”

“...”

The sky was orange due to the sunset, and the sky over the ocean was so beautiful that the boy and the girl were lost for words.

“It’s beautiful...” muttered Si-Ah as she stared at the sunset.

The sun was not setting over the ocean horizon because it was the east coast, but the orange sky itself was beautiful enough.

“Yeah, it’s like autumn.”

“Autumn? What do you mean?”

“The leaves turn orange in autumn, like the sky right now.”

“Pfft...” Si-Ah held her laughter with one hand covering her mouth.

“What? Why are you laughing?”

“It’s just that your expressions are so poetic.”

“I-I’m not trying to act cool!”

“I never said that.”

Si-Ah smiled teasingly and twirled as if dancing. The boy gulped as he stared at the hems of her white dress fluttering from the sea breeze.

“Then should this be called the autumn sky instead of the summer sky?” Si-Ah asked.

“I... don’t like that.”

“Why not?”

“That would mean summer break is over.”

“What?”

Si-Ah was left wide-eyed by the unexpected answer, but only for a moment. She burst into laughter as she grabbed her stomach.

“You sure love summer break, huh, Kang-Hyun?”

“Isn’t that true for everyone?”

“I thought an honor student like you couldn’t wait to go back to school.”

“What in the world do you think of me?” asked Kang-Hyun sulkingly as he pouted.

Si-Ah smiled teasingly. “What do you think I think of you?”

“...”

The sight of the orange sky over the ocean, the black silky hair and white dress fluttering in the sea breeze, and the blindingly beautiful girl made the boy think again that he was still half-asleep.

“Hm? What do you think I think of you?” Si-Ah asked again.

“I-I don’t know.”

Kang-Hyun found it fortunate that the orange sky helped him conceal his reddened cheeks.

Riiing.

Just then, a bell chime rang from inside Si-Ah’s handbag.

“Oh, it’s Mom.”

Si-Ah pulled out her smartphone. However, she did not answer immediately and stared at Kang-Hyun.

“What’s wrong? Shouldn’t you take it?”

“... Yeah.” Si-Ah smiled faintly after a short hesitation and brought the smartphone to her ear. “Yeah, Mom? I’m on a walk with Kang-Hyun at the beach. Huh? You’re on a walk here with Dad too? Okay. Got it. We’ll meet up with you at the rear entrance.”

Si-Ah put her smartphone back in her handbag.

“...”

“...”

The boy and girl stared at each other in silence and simultaneously turned to the resort.

“It... was nice,” said Si-Ah cautiously on their way to the resort.

“Huh? What was?”

“Our walk. It was nice.”

“Oh.” Kang-Hyun coughed and turned away. “...too.”

“Huh? I didn’t catch that.”

“I-It was nice for me too!”

“Pfft,” Si-Ah giggled as she covered her mouth with her hand.

“...”

Kang-Hyun managed to see several instances of Si-Ah’s rare smiles today. He turned back to Si-Ah as he relished the feeling of cloud nine.

Rustle!

Just then, he saw a black shadow suddenly rush out from the bushes along the street, aiming for Si-Ah.

“...!”

Kang-Hyun’s body moved quicker than his mind.

Schwing!

A black blade sprouted from his palm. He swung with one hand at the unknown shadowy figure charging at Si-Ah and used his other arm to grab Si-Ah by her waist and jumped backward.

Crash!

Losing his balance, Kang-Hyun tumbled across the asphalt floor. The sharp pain on his back wiped away the feeling of cloud nine from earlier, dragging him back down into reality.

“K-Kang-Hyun? What are y—”

“Who are you?”

Kang-Hyun paid no attention to the confused Si-Ah in his arm and glared at the unidentified man who rushed out of the bushes. He seemed to be about twenty years old, was wearing worn-out leather armor, and wielding a sharp sword.

‘Who is he? A kidnapper? In a luxury resort where security is everywhere? Something’s wrong.’

There were no cars anywhere for this to be a bold kidnapping attempt at a luxury resort. Besides, if this was a kidnapping attempt, there would have been no reason for him to charge with a weapon— especially since the target was a little girl who wasn’t even ten years old yet.

“A-Aaaahh,” the man groaned unsettlingly as he glared at Kang-Hyun, his eyes dyed red from vessels popping.

He scratched his neck in dissatisfaction and looked around.

“Wh-Where is it...? I’m sure.. I-I smelled... it.”

The man looked around as if searching for something. Kang-Hyun gulped as he stared at the clearly deranged man.

“Huh?”

Just then, the man’s gaze fixed on Si-Ah in Kang-Hyun’s arm. He sniffed like a dog and tilted his head in wonder for a moment. Then, he looked down at Si-Ah and smiled widely.

“Yeah, this is the smell... H-Hehe! This is it!”

The man scratched his neck so hard that his nails ripped away his flesh. He walked staggeringly toward Kang-Hyun and Si-Ah as his sword dragged on the ground.

“Urgh...!”

Kang-Hyun quickly got up and stood between the man and Si-Ah. The man stuck out her tongue and licked his lips.

“All... as...” The man looked up at the darkening sky and widened his arms like a devotee praying to a god. “The

Celestial...

wishes.”

Darkness fell on the beach. A blue light shone from his left chest, between the scratches on his leather armor.

“That’s...”

Kang-Hyun stared at the light shining from the man’s chest and thought it looked like a

constellation

.