Atonement, About it's Cruelty - Chapter 27
A cracked voice, strained and tight, scraped through her throat. The man turned his back and walked toward the door, his long legs striding purposefully. He extinguished the cigarette in the ashtray and glanced back.
With an unspoken pressure to follow him closely, Seo-ah felt as though her heart might burst.
Beyond the opening door, a menacing, heavy presence coiled like a venomous snake.
Where am I? Who are the people waiting for me to wake up?
The man who immediately came to mind was the one who seemed to have been fashioned from darkness itself.
At the same time, Seo-ah recalled her master’s words about her life being precarious like a candle in the wind the moment it was revealed that the key was with her.
But she was not afraid of a precarious life. If the beginning of life is the beginning of sin, then redemption is ultimately death itself.
The only fear she had was meeting death without meaning, without being able to bring her grandfather with her.
As the pounding of her heart thundered in her ears and her breath felt frosted, the man with the red eyes disappeared through the door. Seo-ah stepped through the door as well.
The sounds that had been hidden from before surged vividly.
An expansive, exotic landscape unfolded before her. Brilliant light streamed through the numerous windows. Yet the darkness of the place was due to the black-clad men filling the space.
The men, unlike the guards at Felpe Bank, exuded a qualitatively different aura. Each was as sharp as a finely honed blade and as immense as a renowned mountain.
One by one, their gazes shifted to Seo-ah, and she felt as though she was standing in the midst of a vast and rugged canyon. Sharp rocky peaks, a chilling wind whipping through the air, and the mist from a massive waterfall soaking her face.
Seo-ah found herself frozen, though the man with the red eyes continued to walk away.
He crossed the room with the ease of a beast traversing a canyon. As he walked, the men on either side of the path moved aside, finding their designated places. The scene in the room gradually shifted into a well-orchestrated tableau, like a carefully arranged painting.
When they had lined up on either side, stretching out like bird wings, the man walking across the room came to a halt. He then bowed deeply to the right with the utmost respect.
Sunlight poured over his deeply bowed black back.
Everything flowed as usual, but it seemed that only sound had vanished. The sound of breathing was unusually loud, and the sunlight reflected off the black back was almost blinding.
At that moment, a curtain of light, so glaring it made the eyes ache, was pulled apart.
Ancient scriptures speak of this: In the beginning, there was light, and darkness was born from the light.
The figure who emerged from the bowed man’s back seemed to be the darkness born from the light described in the scriptures.
The men standing on either side bowed their heads as the figure approached them. Like crossing a dense canyon, the man approached amidst the greeting of black beasts.
As the man with red eyes straightened and took his place on the right, he relaxed into a spot that felt like a throne among the men.
With towering presences like named mountains flanking him like screens, he casually slipped his hands into his pockets. Despite his exceedingly relaxed demeanor, the aura of those arranged as screens could not compare to his own.
When Seo-ah locked eyes with the intensely blue-eyed man, she lowered her gaze. Her tightly clutched skirt and pale hands were visible, and her breath was as white and shaky as her pounding heart, which thudded against her eardrums.
Her nerves, standing on edge, were entirely absorbed in sensing his presence.
As he took a step forward, the sound of his steps made Seo-ah’s breath catch. But just as one cannot avoid the oncoming tide from a distance, Seo-ah had no way to halt the approach of the man drawing closer.
Without a moment to react, Seo-ah saw the glinting black shoes and long legs appear before her. His shadow streaked a long line across the left side of her vision, and a laugh that seemed to slip through the wind settled on her scalp.
“Don’t just stand there, look at me.”
The amused voice was surprisingly low.
As the words fell, Seo-ah automatically tilted her chin up. She hesitated, her trembling lips parting as she lifted her head. But once her vision became level, she couldn’t bring herself to look up anymore.
The black coat, shoulders broad enough to seem several times wider than hers, and the low laughter made her shoulders instinctively hunch. Suddenly, his face loomed down from above.
“…!”
Without warning, his face was etched into her retinas, perfectly aligned with her eye level.
His elegantly curled black hair, the contrast of his straight nose, the elongated eyes that slanted sharply, and the jawline that seemed even sharper, along with his eyes as blue as the autumn sky.
He was astonishingly beautiful in the bright sunlight and up close.
As her gaze rested on the corners of his red lips curving upwards, Seo-ah lowered her head once more, and the laughter descended again from above.
The elegant laugh tightened around her throat.
“Th….”
Her voice cracked in a way that seemed almost comical. She took a deep breath, trying to ignore her wildly beating heart.
She had to plead, thanking him for saving her, offering to repay him in any way she could, and begging to be let go.
With a deep breath, Seo-ah raised her head again.
“Thank you for saving me…”
Her words faltered and faded away.
On his black suit, something sparkled impressively. It was a golden metal shaped like a star, with a fierce beast engraved in its center.
“The wolf is coming.”
It felt as if her master’s voice echoed in her ears, and over it, the sound of laughter intertwined with his voice.
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