Retire 554

554 (Hunter Academy Side Story 21) A Father’s Heart_2

Woo Hee-jae took the news with less visible emotion than even Hong Seok-young had expected.

It was almost embarrassing for Hong Seok-young, who had braced himself for a difficult conversation.

“So… are you all right?”

“What’s there not to be all right about?”

Woo Hee-jae ran his fingertips over the business card inside its plastic sleeve, as if he might be able to read the memories it held.

“I’m not Woo I-rok, not that little kid anymore.”

“Hmm…”

“It’s been too long to just blame anyone.”

Hong Seok-young watched him carefully. He knew his son was grown, more than grown, and always did his part, but he also knew how much Woo Hee-jae hated to show weakness or reveal his true feelings.

He said he was fine, but it was hard to take that at face value.

But Woo Hee-jae’s eyes didn’t waver.

Of course, there was sadness—memories that had weighed on his heart for years. There was no way there wouldn’t be.

But there was no agitation. He wouldn’t break. He had no intention or will to do so.

He really had grown up.

Hong Seok-young felt proud looking at this son he hadn’t raised, but who was his in every way. No, of course I raised him. Who else did?

“I never expected he’d be safe… and honestly, if he was, I’d probably resent him.”

“Really?”

“If he’d been alive all this time and never came to find me. Well, maybe now I could understand, but…”

Woo Hee-jae gave a bitter smile.

“When I was younger, I couldn’t have. But all that’s in the past.”

He never claimed he’d never felt resentment.

“That’s why I said before that I wasn’t sure. If I didn’t look for him, I could pretend he might still be alive. I just decided to focus on living well with my family. That way, I could believe it.”

Hong Seok-young could easily picture young Woo Hee-jae. It helped that he had Woo I-rok, who looked just like him. He imagined a much angrier, more defiant Woo Hee-jae, glaring at the world.

Woo Hee-jae didn’t like to talk about it, but he didn’t hide the fact that he’d had a rough adolescence. Maybe in some world, Hong Seok-young had a hard time raising his son… 

“Just… that’s how it is.”

Woo Hee-jae didn’t go on at length. Hong Seok-young nodded.

“Don’t drive tonight. Go home quietly. I’ll be heading home early too, so let’s go together.”

“What am I, a kid?”

“No matter how old you are, you’re still my kid.”

Woo Hee-jae snorted in disbelief, but didn’t refuse. He knew it was his father’s way of showing care and comfort.

He continued to run his fingers over the scrap of paper. The plastic sleeve crinkled.

“So this was found while chasing Lehmann.”

He muttered it more to himself than to Hong Seok-young.

“Mm.”

Hong Seok-young felt a surge of anxiety, which he struggled to hide. His son was perceptive.

“Hee-jae, are you going to go?”

……

He could almost hear the gears turning in Woo Hee-jae’s head. If he nodded here, Hong Seok-young would do whatever it took to let him go search, or track, or whatever he needed.

Of course, Hong Seok-young would. If it were children, he’d have told them to leave it to their father, but with Woo Hee-jae, that didn’t work.

He’d have to let him go.

But still, he wished he wouldn’t.

No matter how much Woo Hee-jae said he was fine, this was reopening an old wound. Hong Seok-young would do anything to help his son say goodbye to his long-lost brother.

But to be the one to oversee and witness that process was something else entirely. He didn’t know what had happened to that brother. No matter how much he tried to be hopeful, he doubted it had been a good situation.

Just look at the last trace they’d found. Kim Yoo-hwa’s body hidden in a dungeon, with traps set. The body had been burned, so they couldn’t know the exact time of death, but considering when contact was lost, they could estimate.

About a year. He’d asked the Jirisan fairy to deliver a final message to his brother… knowing it probably wouldn’t get through, he’d left a photo. If Woo Hee-jae hadn’t gone back to the past, if Alex hadn’t recited the dungeon’s story, they’d never have met that fairy.

And then the business card he’d carried ended up found in the wilds of the Americas.

Did he cross the Pacific? By whose will? Or did the card just end up in someone else’s hands for some reason?

There was no guarantee they’d find anything. They might never know what really happened.

Hong Seok-young didn’t want to push Woo Hee-jae into that mire. As much as he wanted to send off that lost life properly, as much as he felt for him, his living son mattered more.

Call it selfish. Hong Seok-young wasn’t a good person. Family was what mattered most.

That was a father’s selfish heart.

“…No.”

……

Thankfully, Woo Hee-jae shook his head.

Hong Seok-young fought to keep his heart from pounding. He didn’t want his son to see how he felt.

Woo Hee-jae, apparently oblivious, smiled faintly.

“I was never any good at that sort of thing anyway.”

“Not even going to try?”

“You wouldn’t teach me.”

“Would you want to learn?”

Woo Hee-jae looked straight at Hong Seok-young.

A son who’d never learned how to kill looked, as always, less like a Hunter and more like a clean-cut young man on his way to work at a securities firm. Not just because he was his son—anyone could see it. Even Lee Mi-seon had said he was too pretty for his own good.

With a “brother” around, even Woo I-rok could be stubborn, but without one, who knows what he’d have become. Thinking about what that child must have gone through to grow up into a man like this, Hong Seok-young understood why so much information had been hidden. If he were in Hong Seok-young’s place, he’d have made the same choices.

And if he thought of Woo Hee-jae’s sister, Yoo Ji-eun, wielding her brother’s sword, maybe those two had known even more than Woo Hee-jae realized.

Hong Seok-young still understood the choices of that wretched father and daughter.

“No.”

Once, he’d hesitated to answer, but now the reply came immediately.

This time, Hong Seok-young smiled faintly.

“I’ll stay at the school.”

Woo Hee-jae was unwavering.

Because he had many precious people now, not just his brother. Family. Father and grandmother. Grandfather. Siblings and cousins. Most not related by blood, but family all the same.

Hong Seok-young’s son, Woo Hee-jae, chose a new future over the past.

“The school is finally starting to feel like a real school. How could I leave now?”

He had earned that right.

“Careful, or you’ll be after the principal’s job next.”

“Not yet. Maybe in twenty years or so.”

“Should I reserve it for you?”

“It’s not like the principal does anything these days.”

“What do you mean, I don’t do anything? Who do you think brings in the school’s operating funds?”

“Teacher Kim?”

“……”

Woo Hee-jae tossed out a light joke.

“Really, I’m fine. I never expected any of this… It even feels like, finally.”

And perhaps sensing the worry in Hong Seok-young’s eyes, he reassured his father instead.

“At least now, if we can find him, I can let my brother go properly.”

“……”

He was sharp enough to have realized what it meant that his sister had their brother’s sword.

Unable to find more words, Hong Seok-young simply squeezed his son’s shoulder once more.

There was nothing left to change. Woo Hee-jae, Hong Seok-young’s son, had done everything he could, and had no regrets. Hong Seok-young couldn’t take on regrets his son didn’t have.

All he could do was his own best.

“I’ll let Tae-kyung and Alex know. Tae-kyung may be slippery, but he knows what to look for.”

“…Does Teacher Han have one of those cards too?”

“I gave him one a long time ago.”

“What hasn’t that guy done?”

“He’s competent, that’s why I called him to the school…”

Of the useful people, the only one trustworthy and with free time was Han Tae-kyung.

Woo Hee-jae looked like he had plenty to say about his father’s choices, but let it go.

As the mood lightened, Hong Seok-young brought up one last heavy topic.

“What about I-rok?”

Woo Hee-jae’s hand paused as he slipped the card fragment into his wallet.

He finished what he was doing, then sighed. For the first time since hearing the news about his brother, his eyes darkened.

“I’ll tell him if he asks.”

“…You won’t tell him first?”

“There’s no need. He…”

Woo Hee-jae trailed off.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t find the words, but that he didn’t want to admit them out loud.

But it was something that had to be said. In a complicated voice, Woo Hee-jae spoke.

“He probably figured my brother was dead as soon as he realized I wasn’t him.”

“I suppose so…”

Hong Seok-young had nearly fainted when Woo Hee-jae told him that I-rok seemed to know he wasn’t really his brother. I-rok had never shown any sign.

What could have been going through that little head?

“Still, even if I’m not his real brother, he’ll probably still think of me as one.”

Woo Hee-jae spoke grudgingly.

“He was… well, an experiment, right? Even if there are more brothers he never met… With those people as parents, it’s not impossible. Honestly, even he must think it’s weird if we’re not related by blood.”

“Well…”

There was no denying it. Of course, they were the same.

“He knows things only my brother would have known… so he probably thinks I was asked by his brother.”

“Do you plan to tell him directly?”

“You mean, tell him I’m his future self?”

“No, no. Just, you know… tell him you’re his brother.”

Woo Hee-jae frowned, thinking for a moment, then shook his head.

“If he asks first, I won’t deny it. He already knows, and I have no intention of lying.”

“But?”

“He should have time to process it, too. It took me over ten years.”

“……”

“But he’s in a more stable situation than I was, so maybe it won’t take as long.”

Hong Seok-young suddenly felt parched.

The “Hong Seok-young” who lost students in Myeong-dong probably wasn’t in any position to raise a child. Even just from the things Woo Hee-jae let slip now and then, it was clear their lives had been different.

The same, yet different. Like Woo Hee-jae himself.

“Hee-jae.”

“Yes?”

The current Hong Seok-young bore no responsibility. But as a fellow father, half out of duty and half out of anxiety, he asked,

“Was it… all right, being Hong Seok-young’s son?”

Woo Hee-jae blinked slowly.

His clever son understood exactly what he meant. Hong Seok-young had prided himself on hiding his feelings, but looking at that face, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

After a moment that felt like an eternity, Woo Hee-jae squeezed his father’s shoulder tightly.

He remembered the small hands that had clung to him in confusion when he first picked up Woo I-rok.

“You were the best father I could have had.”

His grown son’s hands were strong enough to steady a trembling father.

“Still are.”