Chapter 21: Gyeoul / Winter (1) (1/2)
The last ‘birth of a life’ he saw wasn’t that pretty.
In a certain round of regression, 15 kilometres to the East of the Gaza district, Palestine.
Following down the railway that had not even a road nearby, one would end up at a shanty town called Dyrrel. It was a place where those with no possession and those with nothing to gain gathered and sold whatever they could while avoiding conflict.
Yu Jitae, who had visited that place to find something he needed, coincidentally discovered a pregnant woman painted in dirt and blood, giving birth in the middle of an empty plot of land during broad daylight.
There was not even a proper sewage system, and the roads were filthy and contaminated while it was a conflict zone where refugees weren’t even allowed to dig up wells. With hollow cheeks and not even a sign of fat on her thin thighs, the pregnant woman wailed and screamed. Giving birth was a second priority as she cried in pain for help.
Although there were many onlookers, there was not a single one approaching her. Her appearance as she screamed from the depths of her lungs with an extremely thin body resembled a devil and the ignorant ones watched from a distance while treating her like a pandemic.
The only one that approached her was a sick, hungry wild dog, tilting its head and wondering when this will become its food.
He didn’t know why.
Following the strange feelings he felt inside, he threw some money to a midwife with lots of experience located in a nearby brothel and tried to help the woman giving birth. However, the experienced midwife saw the woman’s appearance and rejected the money, saying that she wouldn’t be able to give birth.
Yu Jitae did not take the money back, and told her to try it since it was okay to fail.
The door of the pregnant woman, that wasn’t properly opened, occasionally retched as if it was about to vomit and appeared to be seconds away from having something large escape it but she lacked strength at the last minute. In the end, her breath that barely held on soon stopped.
But when the woman stopped her movement, a baby flowed out along with a discharge of blood. In surprise, the midwife received the baby, but the baby was already dead for some reason.
A dead woman gave birth to a dead baby.
Without blaming the midwife, he walked away.
It wasn’t a great experience and he had never been reminded of that incident ever again. But…
Crack. Crackk–
Why did memories of that time resurface in his head while seeing the cracking egg of the Blue Dragon? It hadn’t happened in the previous round.
Crack…
The hatch was slow and the crevice slowly continued cracking in the shape of a cobweb.
“U, unni!”
Kaeul went and called Yeorum.
Sitting silently in the living room of the dormitory, Yu Jitae waited until the dragon could leave its shell on its own. Next to him was Bom hugging her knees while watching the egg and even Yeorum remained quiet in a time like this. Kaeul, who had been restlessly talking about how she would be having a younger sibling when the cracks first began, now held her breath and watched over the birth of a life.
Drop.
A fragment of the broken egg fell on the ground.
Soon, a small head of a reptile soared out from the hole. With a swollen face and eyes that couldn’t even open yet, the baby dragon slowly turned its face over to the surroundings.
Gyeoul, had been born.
*
By the time he returned from a nearby department store with powdered milk and a baby bottle in hand, the children were sitting in a circle in the living room, watching Gyeoul.
“Uwah, she’s moving! Uwahh… Look at her wings. Was I this small as well?”
Kaeul watched Gyeoul, as if she found her intriguing. A small kid was saying that while watching an even smaller being.
Bom hugged the not-so-small blue dragon and cleaned the unclean parts of the dragon with a wet tissue. Her hand movements were quite natural.
“Did you learn that?”
“Ah, this is what my mother did to me in the past. Normally you would lick it off though.”
Do they even remember things like that? Thinking that, Yu Jitae merely watched.
“Would you like to hold her?”
“I’m fine.”
When Yu Jitae rejected, Kaeul ran in.
“Me! Me me me! I want to!”
“Her skin’s still soft so you need to be careful.”
“Nn!”
Kaeul struggled to hold the blue dragon and looked at its face.
“…”
After that, she remained stiff for a long time, with a blank expression and a slightly open mouth. Soon, she handed the dragon over to Yeorum as if giving away the responsibility.
“What. What are you doing.”
“Hold her once. Unni, this, this is really like…”
“I’m not interested though?”
“No. Just hold her once okay? Wahh, this feels really… Uhh, ehh, ahh, just take her!”
“Have you gone mad? I said I’m not interested!”
Today, Kaeul was unusually forceful. Yeorum, who received Gyeoul with a displeased expression hugged the dragon with a dissatisfied look on her face as if she wasn’t inclined to do so.
After scanning the dragon up and down a bit, she lowered her head and laid her nose closer to smell Gyeoul. Starting from the dragon’s white stomach, she smelled up towards the chest, and then the wings, as well as the head. Then, she used her tongue to lick the dragon’s small horn.
As for the meaning behind that gesture, he had no way of knowing it.
“Well, she is pretty. You hold her as well.”
“I’m fine.”
“Here you go okay?”
Yeorum handed the dragon over in a throwing motion. Having no other choice, Yu Jitae held Gyeoul up.
She was heavy. Whenever it wriggled its body, its movement clearly reached him through the blue skin and when he held it into his arms, he felt the loud beating of its heart. The small dragon heart embedded in the small body was already carrying out its task.
“Hehe.”
What are you looking at.
“No, no, no. It’s a bit interesting. This just looks strange. Ah! Can I take a picture?”
You can’t.
He was about to say that but Kaeul had already turned on the camera app on her watch.
“Ah, Kaeul, wait.”
“Nn?”
Right when Kaeul was about to take the photo, Bom held her hands together and fidgeted. Soon, dirt was created out of nothing, after which a small flower showed its head. She created a flower with magic.
She picked the flower up and placed it behind the dragon’s ears that resembled the wings of a bat.
“How does this look?”
“Uwah… so pretty.”
After saying that, Kaeul went “nn? Nn?” Something seemed to have popped up in her head.
“Ah, Bom-unni. Give me one more flower please.”