M 174

I remember Lee Sehwa from back then, who seemed like he would crumble if one so much as touched him. Lee Sehwa, who was withering away, pale and devoid of life. Lee Sehwa, who limped constantly, suffering from phantom pains. Lee Sehwa, who couldn’t properly meet my eyes and stammered. Lee Sehwa, who was in so much pain that he would rather erase his memories in fragments. Lee Sehwa, who couldn’t even make a sound and only shed thick tears. I still remember him vividly.

Therefore, I have a duty to ensure that Lee Sehwa doesn’t experience any pain for as long as he lives.

Yes, it’s a duty. This is a world where cars fly in the sky, and babies can be taken out of the womb early and placed in incubators. If I lavish all sorts of medical techniques used within the military and take meticulous care of my young and tender spouse, he will be able to live without knowing the same pain as before until the day he closes his eyes. That’s why I’m continuing to keep my feet in this goddamn military.

Whenever I was fed up with the wasteful checks and the tiresome factional strife, I would think of Lee Sehwa, who seemed to bloom more and more like a flower. Then, even meaningless armchair discussions became bearable. Meaning, happiness, finally arose in Ki Tae-jeong’s life, which had been devoid of anything other than surviving.

‘If you have a C-section to take the baby out, and the bleeding doesn’t stop again…’

‘……’

‘Then A7, or any other medicine, might not work. What are you going to do then?’

‘……’

‘What are I, Hae-rim, and General Oh Seon-ran supposed to do?’

But why isn’t my language as gentle and beautiful as yours? I don’t know how to package the words “I can’t live without you” or “I don’t want to hurt you anymore” as beautifully as you do.

Ki Tae-jeong tried his best to suppress his shitty temper, but he couldn’t hide the boiling voice that came out without him realizing it, or the blood vessels in his temples that flared up. Even while knowing that Sehwa was shrinking his shoulders smaller and smaller as he watched.

‘…I see, alright.’

‘……’

‘I hadn’t thought that far.’

Only after Sehwa spoke with difficulty did Ki Tae-jeong shut his mouth. He felt sorry for him, who was so intimidated, but still, what was wrong was wrong. Even if the surgery was successful, it would take a long time for Lee Sehwa to fully recover, and if it failed…

Even if something happens, I will naturally prioritize Lee Sehwa and save him no matter what, but he is the kind of person who will be in pain for the rest of his life if something goes wrong with the child. He insisted on having a child, but if only he survives, he won’t even be able to complain as much as he wants because of guilt, and he’ll be sick for a long, long time. Why would he even try to start something that’s full of things to lose?

‘I just… every time the test results came back good, I thought it would be okay… If I really have become like a normal person, I thought there wouldn’t be a problem with having one more child.’

Fortunately, Sehwa didn’t shed the sorrowful tears like he did sometime in the past when he was hurt. He was just softly drooping like a tender leaf that had been drenched in rain. It goes without saying that Ki Tae-jeong couldn’t help but feel sorry for his pitiful face.

‘I’m sorry for being so immature and demanding. Just, please forget about it.’

The gazes they exchanged awkwardly missed each other, and the slightly rough breaths were filled with uncomfortable and stuffy emotions.

Even when they fought over where to go on their honeymoon before, it didn’t get this awkward… Well, compared to today, that incident couldn’t even be called a fight. It ended anticlimactically with Sehwa tearing up and getting annoyed because I kept insisting on taking a cruise as a joke.

‘I’m going to shower… no, I already showered… I’ll go eat something simple. I’m getting a little hungry.’

‘…Okay.’

‘You can go to sleep first.’

I know that Sehwa’s excuse to avoid the situation was something he just blurted out. Even knowing that, I replied indifferently, telling him to do as he pleased.

Normally, I would have told him to eat together. Even if I wasn’t hungry, I would have prepared something for Sehwa and sat in front of him, feeling pleased as I watched his chubby cheeks busily munching.

But that night, I went to bed first. Even though I read a faint wound in Sehwa’s hesitant steps as he returned to the bedroom, I didn’t open my eyes until the end.

I wish Sehwa had wanted something that money could buy. If he had told me to get rid of the snake and only cherish the monkey and the bird, and to cross the midday desert barefoot, I would have gladly done so even if I died from the heat…

Even with my eyes closed, I couldn’t fall asleep. I knew that Lee Sehwa, who was lying next to me, was the same, but it was a night when everyone closed their eyes because they wanted to avoid the immediate difficulty.

And about two days later, Ki Tae-jeong secretly peeked at Sehwa’s diary. Sehwa had started writing a gratitude diary a few years ago, and he meticulously placed something on the cover of the notebook every time. Sometimes it was a few flower petals, and sometimes it was gift wrapping paper or ribbon. It seemed that he was using it as a means of surveillance, so that if the position of the object changed, it would mean that someone had touched the diary.

Whatever it was, the items that Sehwa chose were all things that I had bought for him, so I felt a strange sense of elation every time I opened the drawer where the diary was hidden.

Anyway, despite all those efforts, unfortunately, Lee Sehwa’s husband was a persistent pervert, as he sometimes criticized in his diary, and even one of the most talented soldiers of all generations. It wasn’t difficult to recall the location of the scattered trinkets, so Ki Tae-jeong sometimes, no, honestly, often looked at Sehwa’s diary without hesitation.

At first, I was proud of the fact that the simple sentences were becoming more colorful. When I looked at the lines that he had frantically drawn over the letters, as if he was ashamed of the misspelled words, I somehow thought of the powdered sugar that Sehwa sprinkled on the cookies.

One day, I asked him why he bothered to sprinkle powdered sugar here and there when it didn’t taste like anything, and Sehwa smiled softly and replied, ‘But it’s pretty.’

I felt the same way. For no reason, even the cancellation lines drawn like decorations looked pretty. Even though it was just a line drawn, a piece of paper whose taste could not be known just by looking at it, it felt as sweet as sugar because Lee Sehwa’s touch had reached it.

If I discovered that a word he often used was still a mess because he firmly believed that what he knew was correct and didn’t bother to look it up separately, I would want to kiss Lee Sehwa and shove my cock into him right away. Originally, the violence that I didn’t really hide whenever Sehwa acted cute was boiling gloomily, but I didn’t know that I would get an erection just by looking at the letters he scribbled.

However, this time, I wasn’t trying to satisfy some kind of mental erogenous zone in secret from Sehwa, but I went to the study with the intention of figuring out his true feelings.

As always, when I opened the drawer on the bottom shelf, the diary with four or five slightly discolored flower petals on it greeted me. Is it already time to buy new flowers? It seems like they didn’t last as long as usual… I opened the notebook, counting the date when I last gave Sehwa a bouquet of flowers.

Ever since I made the excuse that I had found a flower that resembled Sehwa and gave him a huge bouquet of roses, I developed a habit of buying new ones and giving them to him regularly before the flowers at home all withered. At first, I only insisted on pink roses, but at some point, I started giving him other flowers that suited the season.

Without realizing it, flowers that Sehwa had haphazardly arranged according to Hae-rim’s instructions began to take their place in the vase on the dining table, and at some point, the scene of counting the time while looking at the colorful, tender leaves became natural.

‘Lieutenant General, my name. A Hwatu card player gave it to me. Oh, have I ever told you this?’

Was it the day I gave him the second bouquet? Sehwa staggered for a while, unable to bear the weight of the huge flower, then poked his head out and smiled. It was the melted cotton candy smile that Ki Tae-jeong loved so much.

‘When I was a baby, I was put up as a stake instead of money, and that card player named me Sehwa, roughly, so that I would become a really strong flower. The surname was attached according to my origin. Since I was born in 2-Hwan… no, was I not born? Anyway, since I was traded in 2-Hwan, Lee Sehwa, like that.’

Then, Sehwa once again told his past, which he had mentioned several times.