Chapter 180

  “I will not forgive you tonight,” Mi-Yung muttered into Luke's ears and eased the chokehold. By memory, the matter with Kaufman seemed to taunt not just her brows but also her mind. It wasn't a good sign.

  “Yes, please... NO. I mean, I took care of him! Have I not? Tell her William!” Luke glanced up, begging William, who stared at this pair of half-naked adults as if they were children.

  Their arguments were quite…bold. Or maybe vivid was a better word since their talk was very powerful and the words scratched surprising opinions. William felt as if he was meeting both of them for the first time.

  “A-answer please...” Luke struggled for breath when Mi-Yung pushed him again, or he pretended it before the hold eased again, before returning once more.

  No answer came with a save.

  William found Luke odd, and this whole situation forgettable, if not outside of his mind already. With her attitude and words, Mi-Yung withheld from going too far and let go of her dear husband. Instead, she grabbed his face, got up in a flash, and dragged him to William.

  “Apologize to him for not explaining shit.” Mi-Yung ordered, lifting Luke like a doll and offering his head to William.

  “I apologize for not explaining shit,” Luke said to William withotut meaning it.

  “Not one BIT of sincerity? You haven't changed in a few days, eh?” Mi-Yung declared right beside him, grasping his head between her palms as she pulled him to apologize.

  “I like when you are angry,” he said and smirked. “Makes excellent nights unforgettable.”

  Blushing a little, Mi-Yung grunted and tossed Luke aside to the ground.

  “You... You wait. I will give it away, and then, you are about to regret the world itself.” She gazed from the higher ground, but Luke denied her by chuckling and doing a tactical retreat with military-style crawling. It was quick and like a dolphin swimming.

  He was gone in seconds.

  With this being over, Mi-Yung turned her attention back to William, who was, by some miracle, still there.

  She smiled at him, oblivious to her attire that miraculously, or with a curse, remained on her body.

  “I am sorry for showing you this. Luke is a military guy. He is good if he wants to be, but he can be mysterious, or wordless for no reason whatsoever. Oh, and he likes to project blame to others because he sometimes remembers blames put on him by others. He is a classic coward.”

  William caught on that she didn’t truly believe that, though there were bits of naked learning honesty in her expression. She cared, but she also cared about face and image.

  And him, who was... what?

  “Shaking his impression is like slapping me as well. He can be quite open if you crack that shell, so have my apology instead. I am here to give you justice.” Mi-Yung boasted her chest and asserted her position by slamming the revealed part of her Emblem.

  “I am... No. I don't have a problem with Luke at all, miss Mi-Yung.”

  “What? There is no need for honorifics, William. I may be a high-rank Walker, but I have no need for such measly words when everything is finally closer. You have no idea how long I've waited for this moment. Years!” She crossed her arms and smiled without hiding her gladness, expectations, and great mood.

  *What a lady. Once more, I've never met someone like her,* William thought, and agreed with everything he thought twice over.

  He might be slow, but he was still a healthy young man. His obliviousness, naked awkwardness, and inexperience showed a couple of lacking ideas. Which someone like Ellie didn’t mind, but it could be so much better! Also, this lady might be very different from those like Ellie. How much, though, was a problem or an unexpected mystery.

  “So, you do y-you live with Luke? I thought you were part of this Assembly or something, which makes you very busy.” William asked awkwardly.

  “Who says I can't be that and be with Luke at the same time? What a load of jokes!” she frowned and seemed not to like this at all. It was a little sensitive issue that pressed onto her family name and other qualities. Frankly, they shouldn’t matter, but some people just never know to mind their damn business.

  “I am not questining anything,” William tried to fix his mistake and moved his gaze somewhere else than away, but no matter where, this fierce woman was fierce no matter where.

  “I can tell that. When did you come here?”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere? Federation, boy. Here. This place. I got busy, you see.”

  “Well, Luke got me here four days ago if that's what you want.”

  “I want a whole lot of things other than that. You past, ideas, and what you've endure. For now, how are you liking the Federation?”

  A bit personal and curious, wasn't she? “Like... a weird trip? Outside is different, and I can't really get behind every little thing here. A lot of people here. It is different.”

  “Right. I know that feeling. Have you eaten today? I left you lunches when I was dispatched to do a minor—well, forget it. It was an extremely gratifying and monotonous job,” Mi-Yung said, turned, and walked to a table where she took a seat.

  “What are you waiting for? Have a seat,” she asserted with her crisp voice devoid of accents. She was of Asian ascend, and like her name suggested, a very pure ascend. She wanted a talk with him and gave him no other choice.

  Sitting before her, he shifted his gaze around awkwardly, holding onto his bottle or looking at the table. Mi-Yung stared at him as if he had something on his face.

  “What is up? I... would rather sleep after a long day. Trust me, I am not joking around.”

  “I knew your father a lot.” She revealed. “You look similar to him in many ways, but not as a whole, which makes quite an odd impression. Knowing is more like hoping. I desired something. A long time ago, I know. Reality is different, if not like a kid looking at a gigantic mountain. What I mean is I looked up to him a lot. Now, I am looking at you as if I am reminding myself of that history. It has been a long time since then, yet it is still fresh.”

  She spoke in a sweet voice, leaning forward to look closer at that half-revealed red Emblem, and her hands wavered back and forth between going onward and going closer to her neck.

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  “My father? Luke... mentioned him because he was from military divisions. Are you the same?” William leaned back, and thank god the table was large. The last thing he needed tonight was her pampering.

  Mi-Yung might be well into her forties, or even older, because looks could be deceiving.

  “He did? Where? Military is big, and... wait, how did he mention Viktor? How surprising.”

  “We... had a long talk in that helicopter.”

  Cocking her head, Mi-Yung didn't trust it comeptely or wondered what that talk was about. But first, she had to quench her curiosity.

  “Anyway, your father saved me from my former home, a last shred of South Korea. Heard of it before? That dark spot in Asia?” she asked in pain and remembrance, hoping to set things straight.

  “So you are Korean. That isn't hard to notice, yet your English is so... polite? How to call it?”

  “Well, I was young, not even a Walker, so I grew up here afterward. If I say so myself, my surroundings made my English into what it is today, while my Korean is almost entirely useless. Like many languages, I suppose. Mind you, do you think it isn't right?” She said in confidence, leaning back, and William swore that her eyes flashed in a colorful glint that wasn’t anywhere else.

  No one shall question her words. More often than not, no one would dare.

  “You are... pretty...” William figured she was fishing for a compliment. It worked.

  Mi-Yung chuckled and weighed her history and what she even wanted to mention and do at their first meeting.

  “That dark time was terrible. Korea lost its last place... and nothing prevented it. Some people survived, thanks to the Academy and the beginning bastion called the Federation. They were late. Too late.”

  She waited and wasted days to get here, so she had many thoughts in her mind and started to talk about old history. She didn't want that, yet it went out of her like a tide. She forgot many matters for sure, so she decided to give questions more weight.

  “I read about Korea. A sad stuff, really. It isn’t even that recent, and… the Dawn? The Fractures? I can’t even imagine a nationwide destruction, let alone the sky breaking.”

  “Than the camp-wide one?”

  Hesitating, William didn’t deny that. “I suppose that I do. Maybe a bit more than that.”

  “Yeah, I figured. Anyway, I suppose no one told you anything about your father besides Luke, who surely wasn’t very specific or brave to go very deep. That guy has issues, but no matter. This is about history and whatever else is between it and you, right?”

  “Luke said enough. Also, Kaufman said something too, but... I lived out there, orphaned, young, weak, and not that much alone. So I don't know what you mean by what I should know or not.”

  “Do you want to touch on this topic right now? I have no stops, just so you know. Am no Luke. I have no need for measly rules or healthy hesitation. Why, you wonder? Because I am strong!” She spoke vigorously, and yet another spark flashed in her eyes.

  William observed her briefly and hesitated even more than before. Depending on what he asked or thought, maybe this was a trick. Should he trust her? What if she lies? He questioned his life choices and found her voice way too good to be true, so he decided to test it out further.

  “I would lie if I wouldn't be interested in knowing my parents. I survived thanks to others, luck, or no simple things. For the start, Korea... my father, you. What is this about?”

  “Karma,” Mi-Yung revealed. “You lost everything. I did, too. Showing help to his son is one way to go forward, and I promised to give it justice. Not to him, but it is a choice I gave myself years ago. It isn’t about pity. When we lost him. When we lost you, for that matter, where no one truly knew you even existed. It is a shame, a blunder, and a very constipated topic.”

  Those simple sentences revealed much more than William assumed. Such reasons and history behind her aimed at a simple... karma? Bond. Maybe it was just a way people make promises or value, or it was a simple pride all along.

  Or it was an obsession since Mi-Yung apparently knew his father very well, or... did she? How much? Was it love or respect? It was entirely subjective, while this help sounded kind of excessive, or entirely normal, depending on how far William thought about it.

  Wasn't she giving him way too much credit for being a lost child of her idol? It almost sounded like her obsession, and William was just one part of everything. She wanted him back, but William couldn’t bring it to her or help her with that.

  Perhaps she was looking for the truth as well, even though she had learned it a long time ago.

  “I am... grateful.” William mustered the courage to speak.

  “For what, exactly?”

  “No idea. Just that you care? Maybe I can also learn what happened a decade ago and what happened to my parents. What about my... mother?!” In the end, his proper voice escaped, and even his palms slapped the table, revealing more red colors than before.

  He realized Mi-Yung cared about his father alone, and not a single mention of his mother went out of her mouth.

  Mi-Yung paused her thoughts, and this time, escaped with her eyes and glanced at the ceiling. “I don't know everything. Maybe I don't need to know it all. I wanted to help you out of my sheer hope and karma. Your existence is dear to me and your parents are gone. I accepted it over time, when I was kind of young to be wise. That changed.”

  “You... don’t have to tell it like that,” William said bluntly, but he didn't become angry. The reality was following him for the past decade, with the beginning years being numb and blank, and later ones being terrible, or straight up hopeless enough that he lost all hope.

  “But you know something, do you?” he begged.

  “I do and I am not afraid to share it with you.”

  “Afraid?”

  “It is a sensitive issue. You. Them. Academy and so on. Do you want it?”

  “Obviously!” He smacked the table, and Mi-Yung at least saw a brief shadow of Viktor in him.

  “Hmm. Incursion is a word, you is another, and the third thing is about your parents. One was quite adamant and stubborn, and the other quite clever and part of the Academy. They disappeared suddenly, and your existence was somewhere else or nowhere. I suspect you are the reason for their actions and how they abandoned everything they stood for.”

  “Everything? What exactly?”

  “Can you show me your Emblem a bit better? I see it is a bit out already, so…” Mi-Yung changed the topic and felt this was related.

  “W-what? Why again? What does it mean when everyone is asking to show off my Emblem? It isn't my face.”

  “Someone else already tried? Let me guess...Luke?” A bit of annoyance and a clenched fist showed her resolve.

  William nodded. “Not just him. Others and… wait, what does it matter?”

  “Want to see mine?”

  That shut him down. *Well, at least she doesn't want to see me naked,* William thought to himself, and revealed more of his right hand. Turning his forearm upwards, moonlight glinted in the glossy red finish of his Emblem.

  There were no other lights, yet it already looked much healthier than before, and his skin was the same. The previous stress was substantial, and William would lie if he wasn't tired or knew this thing was developing not just some lust or tolerance. It controlled him a little. It did things.

  Likewise, Mi-Yung had her share of tough times and sleepless nights, and the moonlight made her enchanting not only because of her Emblem.

  A small amount of red light escaped his little gem, coloring a small space around his forearm and the table. Light and aura were relatively common in every Emblem, even in babies and young Walkers.

  Then, there were the colors and thousands of other concerns, blessings, or gifts.