You may be wondering why hadn't I uploaded the chapter after a few hour days before yesterday.
Because you see, When I was away from my work. My brother had the audacity of clearing all my webnovel draft about this fic.
And ohh boy what can I say, that day I beat the shit out of him for his trouble, and few moments later, my mother gave a flying slipper across my face.😂
Jokes aside,
Fortunately, I had separately placed my writing in case of such accident. Apologies for the delay.
....
The wind howled across the rooftop as Charles knelt, blood dripping from his lip. His light gray sweater torn and round glasses broken from the fight. He could barely keep his vision straight from the earlier beatdown.
Across from him stood a woman, Yamazaki Harue.
Her jacket was tied loosely around her waist, exposing her midriff. The wind whipped through her hair, strands dancing wildly across her face.
She wore loose-fitting pants, moving with a relaxed confidence. Her eyes held a mischievous glint, like someone who had grown up fighting, and found a strange kind of joy in it.
{Image}.
Charles managed a weak, forced smile as he spoke. "You're certainly stronger than a rumors. Miss. Maybe we could work together."
She lightly tilted her head, walked towards him before crouching down to his face.
"Hmm... Charles Choi. A man who recently got invited by the fist Gang leader Gapryong Kim. If the news got out that you wanted to side with a Yamazaki, how would your gang members react."
She paused for a moment, and gave a sweet smile. "Beside... I really hate that fake smile of yours."
Charles smile vanished entirely, intensely glaring at her.
Harue unfazed from his glaring, continued. "That fake politeness. That fake mask of yours."
"Do you think you can outmaneuver everyone with that pretty little smile?"
Then with a flick, she dropped him on the ground.
"Men like you always think they can manipulate the whole board, until they meet someone who can flip a entire table."
Charles lay motionless on the ground, humiliated. Never in his life had he imagined being brought to his knees except that man, let alone by a woman.
She gave him a final glance, and walked away without looking back.
He never forgot that moment.
The scene faded.
Back in the present, Charles sat in silence. He hadn't moved for several minutes.
The memory was almost a decade old. But it had resurfaced the moment he saw Ha-Joon.
Charles slightly shook his head dispelling his thoughts.
He reached for his phone, dialing James.
The call rang for a few second before James responded. "Yeah?"
He got straight to the point. "Prepare your body as soon as possible... It's about time we face the variable for the safety of our plan."
James chuckled feeling the urgency in his voice. "No need to worry. I should finish this in a month or two. After that we can start the end of 1st generation alongside him."
"Ahh.. I've met him. Sorry. Catch you later."
James hung his phone from the other side. Charles slowly exhaled and rose to his feet, before departing at his next destination.
....
Seoul was getting closer as their SUV sped up towards their destination. The faint silhouette of Seoul was rising from the distance.
Inside the SUV.
Hyun-Woo drove the vehicle in silence for a while. Eventually, he glanced at the rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of Ha-Joon in the back seat.
"I gotta say, boss… wasn't that a little petty? That kid. What was his name. Ahh yes, Taejin. I could hear his screams from a mile away."
Ha-Joon was lost in his own reflection from the side window. His reflection stared back at him, long hair with a more defining face than a years ago.
"More than petty act. I prefer a simple word, kindness." Ha-Joon said. "Had I been more unrestrained, the boy wouldn't live to see a new day."
Having said that, Ha-Joon involuntarily lost his thought towards his mother, the woman from this life he never had the chance to meet. He had found the recording of his mother from her old days, while visiting Japan last time.
She was filled with passion for raw brawling yet deeply obsessed with political power. But in the end, she gave up on chasing it.
Ultimately she choose to follow easier path of marrying because the world had its own expectation for woman. Their inherit weakness to man, which she had flipped that expectation upside down.
In the end, she had given up her dream all for the sake of her two brothers. And buried between the memories, he had found the small clip of her raw power, path and her unique technique.
It was the first time Ha-Joon understood the true peak of this world. A path filled with countless possibilities yet the least bit of achieving that peak.
Yet, Ha-Joon hadn't quiet literally grasped the true power or how to create his own unique technique which he likely needed a intense combat with anyone who had his own path or unique technique born from their blood, soul, and struggle.
He needed to experience first handed to grasp his path.
And Harue all for the hype, choose to bury all her potential, all for the sake of her brother's glory. In the end, she chose love over legacy. She gave up her dream, and faded quietly from the stage where she once shone the brightest.
Ha-Joon who had watched her from afar. From a figure of unmatched talent to someone slowly forgotten by time, it struck a chord in him . She had the strength to feel emotion and know when to stop her action.
In that, Ha-Joon found himself to reflect on his recent acts.
Ha-Joon had become increasingly a man with coldness in his path to conquest. He had become a man hardened by ambition, numb to everything that didn't serve his goal.
Except for Park Somi and Park Jong-Gun.
They were the last thread tying him to something real. The only two left he could still call family.
From them, his emotion returned. But everywhere else, he was forgetting what it meant to feel the 'right' things at the 'right' time, which terrified him the most.
If not for that old clip of his mother, Taejin might not have lived to see another day.
Ha-Joon slowly looked outside his window and said almost to himself. "Have I become emotionless.... A man with no expression,"
Hyun-Woo, caught off guard by the sudden question, glanced at the rearview mirror. "Why would you say that?" he asked. "I don't see you that way… Boss, are you losing your mind or something?"
Ha-Joon chuckled at his word, the corner of his lips twitching. "Forget it." he said, brushing it off. "Just talking to myself."
He couldn't exactly say about his past life now. Could he? About his personality in his previous life compared to now. Even if he didn't fully feel it yet, the more Ha-Joon reflected on his mental state, deep unsettling feeling began to take root inside of him.
At the start, it may not be noticeable as later it would be but he could feel it. At the beginning, Reincarnation had filled him with excitement, even a sense of wonder.
He'd dreamed of building something lasting, carving out a legacy in this new world with all the knowledge and strength he carried over.
But over time, that dream had twisted into an obsession. And from that point on, his perspective about the world began to shift. People no longer felt real.
They became characters to him, figures in a webtoon panel, following predictable arcs, playing roles in a story where he was always one step ahead.
That sense of detachment. It was was beginning to place root at his heart.
Ha-Joon suddenly recalled her words at the end of the old clip. The image had long faded, but her voice remained clearly in his head.
"My son... or daughter… if ever your heart grows too quiet, not from peace,
but from absence, know that something is slipping away.
Not from your hands, but from your soul."
"Because you see, this world has its weight, and yet feels drawn,
like ink upon a paper dawn.
They breathe, they bleed, they laugh, they cry,
but somehow, still, it all feels wry."
"Their rage, rehearsed. Their love, a frame,
each heart a line, each soul a name.
Even pain feels oddly neat,
as if it knew it must repeat."
"Once, I reached with trembling hands,
to shape a fate, to leave my legacy.
But now I walk through page and scene,
a ghost inside a printed dream."
No matter how their fists may fly,
I blink and ask, 'But did they try?'
No matter how the story bends,"
"Sigh.... In the end."
"I could see it from the start.
.....And I already knew its end."
_ From your mother,Harue.