Chapter 1604. Standing Up (4)

Creak, creak...

Kang Jin-Ho cautiously pushed the swing back and forth.

Where’s that noise coming from?

He snapped his head up to look at the top of the swing.

Looks like it needs some oil.

This swing wasn’t the only thing requiring maintenance work, however. He could see the color of the fence surrounding the swing had faded a lot, with the paint peeling off here and there.

Yeah, that needs a fresh coat of paint, too.

The more he looked, the more he could see all the little spots needing attention.

After scanning every nook and cranny of the orphanage building with the eyes of a hawk, Kang Jin-Ho couldn’t help but chuckle softly.

Right... This is all I used to do back in the day.

Every weekend, he’d ride his bicycle up the steep hill and loiter around the orphanage, wondering if there was something he could do. Park Yu-Min looked troubled at this sight, but...

Well, Sister Yi was...

—You’re here, Jin-Ho? It’s great to see you again.

For a moment there, he thought he could hear Sister Yi’s welcoming voice again.

“What are you thinking about?”

Kang Jin-Ho lowered his head and spotted Choi Yeon-Ha staring back at him.

“It’s nothing important,” Kang Jin-Ho replied, his lips closing shut afterward. However, he cautiously spoke up again. “I... I was thinking about the past, actually.”

“Past? Like... Oh, like the old orphanage? The one before it moved here, I mean.”

“Yes, that.” Kang Jin-Ho nodded.

Choi Yeon-Ha grew puzzled when she noticed an expression she had not seen before on Kang Jin-Ho’s face. “It must’ve been nice back then?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I meant the old orphanage.”

“Rather than nice...” Kang Jin-Ho grinned softly. “I made a lot of good memories back then.”

“Such as?”

“For one... It had people who are no longer around.”

Choi Yeon-Ha slowly nodded. “Ah. Like the previous orphanage director? It’s... Sister Yi, right?”

Kang Jin-Ho’s brows rose higher in surprise. “You know about her?”

“No, not really.”

“Then, where did you hear that name?”

“Well... The older kids often bring her up, you see?” Choi Yeon-Ha chuckled softly. “Whenever the younger kids do something bad, they’ll say, if Sister Yi was here, she’d have scolded you good. If Sister Yi was still around, what would she have said? Sister Yi is still watching us from heaven. Things like that.”

Kang Jin-Ho wordlessly looked up. The starless night sky stared back at him.

“That’s why I figured she must’ve been an incredible person. Even though it’s been several years, so many kids still fondly remember her.”

“An incredible person, you say...”

The nuance this time was slightly off. In Kang Jin-Ho’s memory, Sister Yi was more like...

“...Yes, she was a good person.”

Choi Yeon-Ha tilted her head. “I’m sorry? A good person?”

“Yes. She was just a good person.”

She was a person who didn’t need a reason to be good but still was good nevertheless; a person who put other people at ease simply with her presence alone...

A person who remained composed even in the face of her impending death.

It’s... not easy.

Kang Jin-Ho’s vocabulary simply wasn’t good enough to describe Sister Yi the way he felt about her.

“Hnnng~?” Choi Yeon-Ha nodded in understanding. “Now I get it.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I used to think Mister Yu-Min was the reason why you got so interested in this whole orphanage thing, but that was not true.”

“...”

“With how big the scale of this thing was getting, I couldn’t help but think something was weird about it all. Even I can tell you’re not particularly interested in this sort of thing, after all. And I know you’re not a philanthropic person, and you basically have zero empathy, too.”

Kang Jin-Ho nearly tripped on his feet. Excuse me? Why are you suddenly dishing out critical hits?

“So, to see you build an orphanage, send orphans to a cram school, and even try to set up more orphanages... I just thought it was odd, you see?”

“Mm...”

Kang Jin-Ho scratched his cheek. Even he had to admit that Choi Yeon-Ha was right. He really was the type of person who didn’t care much about other people, after all.

He wasn’t interested in sacrificing himself for other people’s happiness. Especially more so if the other people in this equation happened to be total strangers.

However, what he was about to do was basically bringing those strangers, people he had zero relationships or connections with, under his wing. Which was something the “usual” Kang Jin-Ho wouldn’t even have thought of doing.

“Is it kinda like... you feel indebted to her?”

“No, it’s not that.” Kang Jin-Ho shook his head.

Yes, a part of him felt rueful. If only he had been a little stronger back then... Maybe, he could have found a way to save Sister Yi.

However, that didn’t mean he felt this massive weight bearing down on his heart. After all, she wasn’t that type of person. In fact, Sister Yi would’ve gotten mad and then pitied Kang Jin-Ho for feeling indebted to her.

“I’m not sure how to explain this, but...”

“Yes?”

“Mm...”

Kang Jin-Ho scratched the back of his head.

He found it tricky to define his feelings toward Sister Yi. If he were to dig out the emotion most similar to what he felt from deep inside his heart, it should be...

“...It’d be more like yearning.”

“Yearning?” Choi Yeon-Ha asked back, her eyes growing wider. “You? Mister Jin-Ho, you... yearn to be like her?”

“Why are you so shocked?”

“N-no, well, that’s because you look down on people, you know?”

“...” Kang Jin-Ho’s expression fell. “I’ve been getting curious about something lately...”

“Yes? What is it?”

“It feels like every word you say lately has been engineered to inflict maximum damage. If I have so many flaws, why do you still want to hang out with me?”

“Because you’re handsome?”

“...”

Choi Yeon-Ha chuckled softly. “It’s because this noona cares deeply about you, okay? I’m coming from a place of care and love.”

“...I see. Thank you very much.”

“That’s enough joking around. Let’s be serious, though. Mister Jin-Ho, you rarely care about other people’s situations. Someone like that shouldn’t be interested in becoming more like other people or find their actions remarkable, so... Hearing you say ‘yearning’ feels wrong? Kinda awkward? Something like that?”

Kang Jin-Ho chuckled wryly. “I... don’t know what to say to that.”

He just couldn’t think of a way to explain it better. To him, Sister Yi was someone who had changed his world, after all.

Yes, there’s no denying that.

Kang Jin-Ho used to be completely obsessed with strength. He believed that only the truly strong could live their lives on their own terms without the world dictating their actions. And only the strong could influence and order other people around.

However, one could say Sister Yi was someone who stood tall in a spot diametrically opposed to Kang Jin-Ho’s life philosophy.

“It means... There are people like that in the world,” said Kang Jin-Ho, prompting Choi Yeon-Ha to look up at him. “Someone who’s different, but still strong.”

She muttered quietly. “Sister Yi must’ve been an amazing person, then.”

Kang Jin-Ho shook his head. “No, she wasn’t amazing.”

“...?”

“And that made her amazing, I think.”

“What kind of logic is that?”

“Not sure myself,” said Kang Jin-Ho with a helpless chuckle.

Choi Yeon-Ha laughed as she got up from the swing. “In that case, I should be grateful to her, too. I can already tell it was Sister Yi and Mister Yu-Min who had planted the seed of humanity in you.”

“Mm...!”

That didn’t sound wrong, now did it?

“Okay, so...” Choi Yeon-Ha turned her head and stared at Kang Jin-Ho. “You’re doing all this so that you can become more like Sister Yi?”

“No, that’s not it, either.”

Kang Jin-Ho wasn’t trying to walk in her footsteps. He wouldn’t even dare. No matter how hard he tried, he wouldn’t be able to imitate someone like Sister Yi, after all.

“Even so...” Kang Jin-Ho’s expression grew sheepish. “I care, that’s why.”

“Eh?”

Kang Jin-Ho hesitated slightly before sighing deeply. “I care about not feeling ashamed, you see? I want to hear her say, Yes, you’ve tried your best. Even though I know she won’t scold me no matter how guilty I am...”

Yes, maybe that was it, his motivation.

Maybe he wanted to confidently tell Sister Yi and others that yes, he had tried his best, that he gave his everything to honor her legacy and fulfill his promise.

Choi Yeon-Ha’s expression was unreadable as she stared at Kang Jin-Ho, then she reached out to pat him on the back. “Aigoo~, you’re such a good boy.”

“...?” Kang Jin-Ho stared weirdly at Choi Yeon-Ha.

“What’s wrong? I thought you wanted to be praised?”

“No, wait, that’s...”

“It’s fine. Relax. I’ll praise you.”

“...”

This and that are subtly different, though?

Choi Yeon-Ha patted his back for a little while before grinning brightly. Seeing her smile also caused the ends of his lips to curl up without him realizing it.

“Anyone can talk about trying their best. And anyone can think about doing right by others, too,” said Choi Yeon-Ha.

“...?”

“However, only a few can actually roll their sleeves up and step forward to do something meaningful. That’s why I can confidently say you’re doing a great job, Mister Jin-Ho.”

“You think so?”

“Yup, I definitely think so.”

“...”

“The ‘Mister Kang Jin-Ho’ I know isn’t the type to make a big deal out of doing stuff like this, after all. And that’s why I believe in you. That you are doing something remarkable, something that takes a lot of effort to succeed.”

Kang Jin-Ho turned his head and looked at the distant sky.

Even he wasn’t sure why he wanted to increase the number of orphanages and accept more children. He wasn’t doing all this because his head had understood everything. It was more like...

He simply found himself naturally gravitating toward it.

Was it his way of atonement? No, that wasn’t it.

One couldn’t pay for the sin of killing people with caring for people. If Kang Jin-Ho was serious about atoning for all the crimes he had committed... Rather than ten, he could build thousands of orphanages, and it’d still be not even close to being “enough.”

It was not possible to wash away the sin of a human murdering other humans, after all.

Even so... How should he put it?

“Some people might...”

Choi Yeon-Ha tilted her head. “Yes?”

Kang Jin-Ho faltered slightly. He closed his mouth, his eyes withdrawn. He organized his thoughts some more before finally breaking his silence.

“I genuinely believe I was lucky to discover this orphanage.”

“...”

“If I hadn’t met Yu-Min, I wouldn’t have come here. That means I wouldn’t have met these kids and would never have gotten to know Sister Yi, either.”

“I guess so?”

If none of it had happened, what would Kang Jin-Ho’s life look like?

All the happiness he had been trying to protect stemmed from the seemingly insignificant choice he had made back then.

“Did you know that all this was purely coincidence?”

If he had made one different decision back then, Kang Jin-Ho’s life would’ve unfolded in a completely different fashion.

Whether it was Bang Jin-Hun, Lee Hyeon-Su, or Wiggins... They probably would’ve been killed by Kang Jin-Ho. And he wouldn’t have met Choi Yeon-Ha, either.

In that case, what would he have left in his life? Nothing, that was what.

That would’ve been nothing more than a repeat of his past life. He would’ve been “protecting” himself and his family in the modern era as Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor, not Kang Jin-Ho.

But doing so would’ve changed nothing.

What if there was a version of Kang Jin-Ho in an alternate universe, roaming around the world with an expressionless face and still stained in blood from head to toe, with the singular purpose of protecting the things he held in his hands?

What a horrifying possibility that was.

But this Kang Jin-Ho was different. It was here that he had acquired that “difference.” Only by coming here did he get his hands on this crucial life-altering piece of the puzzle.

“That’s why...” Kang Jin-Ho muttered, his voice sounding a little stupefied. “I would like someone, even if it’s only one person, to have a similar opportunity to mine. Maybe that is the debt I’m supposed to repay.”

Choi Yeon-Ha silently stared at Kang Jin-Ho.

Wasn’t this strange? Even though she had seen Kang Jin-Ho plenty of times until now, this was her first time seeing him making that kind of face.

He looked slightly embarrassed, somewhat nervous, but more determined than ever.

Choi Yeon-Ha subconsciously smiled when a thought entered her head. Maybe this was the deepest part of Kang Jin-Ho she had not been able to reach yet.

“That is enough, isn’t it?” Choi Yeon-Ha said.

“...”

“You’re doing great, after all. I think that’s enough.”

Kang Jin-Ho closed his eyes. That was when Choi Yeon-Ha wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

Am I really doing well?

Kang Jin-Ho sometimes felt the urge to ask this question. To ask the person who held his hand when he stumbled on the lengthy, foggy, and undefined path called life.

Was he doing well?

Was he living his life well?

Of course, he’d never get to hear that person’s answer. Even so...

Kang Jin-Ho looked up at the sky again.

He imagined Sister Yi’s face in the night sky and stared at her with his withdrawn gaze before closing his eyes again.

Sister Yi, I...

I am not protecting it.

And I’m not trying to follow you in your footsteps.

This mantra had become the force behind Kang Jin-Ho’s life at this point.

I want to become someone who can extend a helping hand first.

The dawn’s cool air settled all around him. The silence of the darkness felt strangely comforting.

While enjoying Choi Yeon-Ha’s warmth within this comforting darkness, Kang Jin-Ho stayed still, his eyes deeply closed.