Kidnapped Dragons

ommonality between his life and Yeorum’s.

While he was thinking along the lines of that,

He suddenly thought of something that he wanted to share with her.

“I had a dream.”

With a light voice, he opened his mouth.
Still indulged in silence, Yeorum looked at him.

“It’s a dream I have had since I was very young and extremely weak.
Naturally, it was hard to achieve and I’ve repeated countless failures.”

Yeorum appeared slightly surprised. 

To her, Yu Jitae was the strongest human in the world.
The strong was a target of worship for the red race and yet such Yu Jitae was talking about the times where he had been ‘weak’.

“There was a method that I used to think was correct and I felt that I would achieve everything as long as I could earn it.
But that wasn’t the case.
I’ve gained a lot of things, but still couldn’t achieve my goal.”

His voice sounded slightly melancholic to her.

“Thus, I decided to grab more things, regardless of the means.
More and more.
Wouldn’t I reach my dream one day? I thought that but in the end, I couldn’t reach it.”

“…And then?”

“Repeating countless failures, I became impatient.
I started giving up everything I had tried for from the slightest of mistakes.
Let’s restart from the beginning whenever there’s a problem – that was my mindset.
Should I borrow your words?”

“Yeah?”

“Fuc*~ It was going well but I got f*cked~ Let’s just do it again from scratch~”

When Yu Jitae awkwardly copied Yeorum, she dumbfoundedly giggled.

“That’s not the same at all.”

“Isn’t it? Anyway, being impatient like that was a stupid thing to do.
My vision was narrowed and I couldn’t look far ahead.
Your head becomes a mess and it forgets what’s important.”

With the joke set aside, there was something inside Yu Jitae’s words that rang her heart.

“Hmm…”

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Yeorum closed her lips and contemplated.

“What is your dream,” he asked her.

Seeing her guardian with a different and unusual atmosphere around him, Yeorum also deeply thought to herself.
She remained hesitant so Yu Jitae asked again.

“Is it to survive? Or becoming stronger?”

“No.”

“Aren’t those the only two options? If not, then for what are you becoming stronger.”

Dream…

That mellow word touched the depths of her emotions.
It pricked at something inside her heart.

Lowering her gaze, Yeorum touched the glass with her two hands.

Words she had never let out of her mouth. 

Words she had never forgotten, not even for a single day.

Yeorum had such a dream.

“There are some words that I haven’t conveyed yet…”

Her honest thoughts escaped with a sigh.

“To your oldest unni?”

“Yeah.
And also to my youngest unni…”

He didn’t ask what it was.

“You’re becoming stronger in order to convey those words.
Right?”

Slowly she nodded her head.

He gave the child some time to think.
When he drank his glass of alcohol, Yeorum belatedly drank hers as well.
Soon, he could feel her fragrant breaths.

“Yeorum… Listen carefully to what I say.”

Hearing his words, Yeorum raised her gaze up from the glass and looked into his eyes.

“You and me.
For lacking existences like ‘us’ the path is always narrow and is covered with sharp pebbles.”

Us…

From the mouth of an undoubtedly perfect existence, whom she assumed had been strong from the beginning, left the word ‘us’.

“If you only look at what is right ahead, it is difficult to move forward.
There are tonnes of sharp rocks in the world.”

“Sharp rocks?”

“Yeah.
The world is filled with obstacles that will block you, interfere, scoff at your steps that are eager to hurt you.
Sometimes it might be painful and sometimes it will be sad.
You might become afraid of going forward.”

“…”

“That’s why we need to looking far ahead.”

Yeorum clenched her lips. 

She could finally understand why he had brought her to this place, as well as why he was giving such answers to the doubts in her mind.
She started understanding all his words.

Las Vegas.

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In this place, Yeorum got to experience various joys that she had never felt before.
Enough to remind how she was a red dragon herself, each and every moment had been fun and it was a shame that she had to return despite there being more enjoyable and exciting things here. 

However, the reason that she had to give up on such interesting things to become stronger was because Yeorum had a dream.

Didn’t she vow to herself on the day of her Amusement? That she will definitely convey those words that she couldn’t before on the day of her return?

“Of course, if you don’t look at what’s right ahead of you, you might easily miss trivial things.
You might stumble on a rock, or get scraped by a thornbush and you might even fall in a quagmire.
But that’s fine.
No matter what, we can stand back up and walk forward again.
Do you know why?”

“…Because, we are looking at what’s far ahead?”

“Yes.”

The road sign was pointing into the distance. 

There was no reason for Yeorum to consider Kaeul a competitor.

“So that means I don’t have to be overly considerate of the trivial things in front of me.”

“Exactly.”

Kaeul was just Kaeul, a being unrelated to Yeorum’s dream so there was no reason to be jealous of her even if she was in front of her, nor was there a need for self-hatred. 

“If you’re simply feeling the competitiveness and trying harder to overcome it, that’s fine.
Because although the talent Kaeul has is great, you can be more desperate.”

“Nn…”

“I believe you won’t be pushed back by Kaeul but what I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter even if you do get pushed back.
You do not need to be in a constant rush for now.
Have your feet on today, and your eyes on tomorrow.
Got that?”

“…”

Feet on today,
Eyes on tomorrow.

His lesson shook her mind from its core as the complex array of emotional knots became untangled. 

Being satisfied by getting stronger every day.

Feeling a sense of superiority from winning the competition,

Being anxious of a genius that was about to overtake her.

The times she spent worrying and those childish emotions began to dissipate as Yeorum finally felt her heart gaining peace.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She realised that this was his lesson not as a ‘guardian’, but as a ‘teacher’.

“…”

Yeorum looked up at him.

Today, he appeared all the more like an adult.
She had always considered him big but today he was even bigger. 

That might have in turn made her feel smaller in comparison.
The words that left her mouth after she contemplated and ruminated over his words were slightly wrong, when she reflected on it after a few seconds. 

“Yes sir…”

*

That was the end of their enjoyable time in Las Vegas.
On the way back inside the car, Yeorum built up everything that had happened in the last few days and carefully saved them in a corner of her memories.

Thinking that when something unbearably difficult happens,

That she would open it again.