Chapter 91: For a dragon (3) (1/2)
“I was holding myself back already.”
Yeorum grumbled.
“You didn’t have to help me. I know how to read the atmosphere at least.”
Yu Jitae remained quiet without saying anything.
“Do you think I’m a kid that causes problems left and right?”
Yeorum added excuses on top of excuses.
“I had it all planned out.”
And she did not look like a typical red dragon.
“You got that? Even if you didn’t chime in, nothing would have happened. Do you understand?”
“…”
“…Why aren’t you saying anything? Or what, don’t tell me you think I acted like a child?”
“…”
“Ah, why are you silent! If you’re treating me like a child and ignoring me, I’m really going to get angry okay?”
“Got it.”
Hearing the sudden response, her energy that went up along with her voice was immediately cut in half.
Yeorum lowered her head.
“You could’ve… said that earlier…”
She then murmured as if there was a candy in her mouth.
“…I’ll let you off this time.”
“You know.”
“Yeah.”
“You wanna kiss?”
Yu Jitae did not respond.
“How boring… I wasn’t gonna anyway.”
Huu– the smoke dispersed from her mouth.
They were at a dark alleyway with not a single person nearby due to the current school holidays, next to an empty parking lot. The red-haired girl was crouching down and hugging her knees while leaning on the outer wall of a building. She slowly let smoke flow out of her mouth and because there was nowhere else to be at, the man was crouching down next to her.
Yeorum sucked air in deeply through the cigarette before breathing it back out.
“You know, it kinda feels like I’m becoming weird staying here.”
“Why.”
“You should know what kind of race the red dragons are. To be honest, I really hate living in a box like this.”
–.
Smoke gushed out from her mouth.
“Who would lock you inside a box.”
“Who wouldn’t? Even you’re doing it right now. And dragons aren’t gods either and when I was young, I was locked up in a very small place.”
She raised her hand up and touched her cap. Was it a story about her time at her mother’s lair?
“I could hear others clamouring and moving outside. I want to go out, talk and move my body but something’s just blocking me from all around. I can’t speak, and because something sticky was holding my body back, I couldn’t move either.”
No. This was probably a story from even before that.
“If I leave this place, I’ll be free – I remember thinking that and when I did come out…”
“Was it bad?”
“It was the best. Feels great to do whatever the fuck I want.”
She seemed excited, as she fluttered her legs left and right while spewing smoke from her nose.
“So when I was caught by you, I thought about running away every single second. If I didn’t get the sword as a gift, I probably would’ve ran straight away.”
“…”
She probably would have, because that’s how she had always acted in the previous iterations.
Therefore, Yu Jitae was slightly surprised by Bom who had kept Yeorum nearby at the start of the seventh iteration because he had been unable to have her stay no matter what he did without relying on force.
“You can’t adapt to it?”
“No? It’s doable. At the start, it felt shit but now that I see it, it’s a good shit.”
‘So like, large and aesthetic…’ she murmured before heaving out a deep sigh.
“Anyways, and now I just feel slightly confused.”
“Really?”
“Nn. Well, it’s like this. Ahhh fuck am I doing the right thing. Does it make sense that I’m living in a place like this. But then, it doesn’t feel too bad and I feel like holding myself back isn’t so bad as time goes. But then what would happen to my identity? Hey, hey wake up~ You’re a red dragon you retard, be like you~ Ahht, like me huh~? Sex sex~~.
“But then that makes me wonder.”
After murmuring with a soft voice, she took a deep breath through the cigarette.
“What does it mean to be like me?”
Yeorum muttered to herself before turning to Yu Jitae. Her blurry and unfocused eyes were facing Yu Jitae and she nonchalantly opened her mouth.
“You know what.”
“Yeah.”
“If you don’t want a kiss, can I hit you once?”
Then, she slowly raised the cigarette which was still burning up.
“Or can I use this to burn your face a little?”
“Why.”
“Well, you have nothing to lose right. You’re not good-looking and you already look like a murderer so what difference would a little scar make?”
He quietly looked into her eyes for a bit.
“Do you think you’ll know what it means to be you then?”
“Nn… Our race is all like that. Hit, fight, gamble, do drugs, sex, steal others’ stuff and drink. That’s our entertainment.”
Yeorum snickered.
“Whatever. It’s just something trivial – don’t worry about what I said.”
He did nothing but listen to Yeorum’s words of concern. She might be waiting for his advice but the Regressor remained silent.
What does it mean to be like oneself.
In the end, one had to define it themselves.
The Regressor had no plans to interfere with the process of this young red dragon’s self-definition. If there was a red dragon who adapted decently into the human world without resulting in some sort of a problem, he would just watch on from the sidelines.
However, he did know that she was in an extremely anxious state, though she was pretending to be normal.
For them, this was probably an unwanted Amusement. It began with the twist of the dimension and when they fell on a foreign land, a random man suddenly kidnapped and locked them up into a place.
Since their surrounding environment had suddenly changed, it was their time to adapt to the environment.
Yeorum had to find the answer herself, and what the Regressor had to do was to maintain his attention on her by keeping an eye out so that she didn’t go astray.
“You know, I’m actually on the docile side for kids from my race. I don’t live everyday addicted to sex and drugs like others, and I’m not a gamble addict crazy about money either. I’m not interested in harassing others or being a dictator of a territory.”
Those were the definitions of a red race.
“I just know how to fight, and that’s all I like. So when I lost to that Javier or whatever, I really wanted to kill myself.”
There was only one thing remaining in her.
“This is all I got. If I give up on being a dragon here as well, then I really don’t know what I am.”
This was her last resort in order to not lose her sense of identity as a dragon.
“That’s why I didn’t want to learn from you. In the end, you’re also a human right?”
“…”
“So it’s fine now. Just stop following me.”
After finishing her words, Yeorum rubbed the cigarette bud and turned the fire off.
“Right. I thought that might be what was on your mind.”
He already knew what she was thinking about but teaching her how to fight was a different problem. Whatever the case, she had a definite goal and in order to enjoy this Amusement and become stronger, she had to learn how to fight.