After they had eaten, Chloe began cleaning.
“If we’re going to make room for the tree, we’ll have to clear some things away first.”
“Okaaay.”
Geuru lay on the sofa and watched Chloe clean.
Though it looked less like she was cleaning and more like she was searching for something.
After thoroughly checking every corner of the apartment, Chloe said loudly again, as if for Geuru to hear.
“Shall we go buy a tree?”
Geuru sprang up.
“Yes!”
*
Chloe bought a small tree that was only a little taller than Geuru.
Geuru’s suggestion that they buy a bigger tree was rejected, but in any case, having a tree at all was enough to make her happy.
The two of them returned to the apartment, smiling broadly, and were just about to get off the elevator.
A huge tree was blocking the way before their eyes.
Ding-dong—
Ding-dong, ding-dong—
They could hear the doorbell being pressed again and again.
“Looks like they’re not home. Call her.”
It was Jurim’s voice.
“I wanted to surprise them.”
This time, it was Ijo’s voice.
Chloe was about to take Geuru and press the elevator close button again when—
Geuru quickly got off the elevator first and ran at Jurim.
“Little princess!”
Ijo greeted Geuru, and Jurim familiarly scooped the child up in his arms.
Geuru’s face flushed red with excitement at the enormous tree the two had brought, and she asked over and over.
“A tree? A tree?! Is it a present?”
“Yeah.”
“How about decorating the tree with your uncles?”
“Yes!”
Now that she had two trees, Geuru looked like she was about to faint from happiness.
“Big sis! We have two trees!”
Chloe, who had been watching with displeasure, eventually burst into laughter at the sight.
Just then, Ijo approached, took the small tree from Chloe, and held her hand. His large, long-fingered hand enveloped hers in one grasp.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make you breakfast today. I went to pick this up.”
He quietly laced his fingers through Chloe’s hand, which remained docilely in his grip.
“……What are you expecting us to do with something so ridiculously huge? You just brought it without asking?”
“I’m sorry. But the size of the tree wasn’t my idea. I told you, that guy isn’t very delicate.”
Jurim shrugged and stepped into the apartment.
Ijo asked subtly,
“I’m still better, right?”
At the sight of him seizing the opportunity to appeal to her, Chloe ended up laughing softly again.
“I suppose so. This side is better.”
“……Really?”
“Really.”
When Ijo smiled brightly in delight, Chloe paused and met that smile.
Then he lifted their intertwined hands and pressed a soft kiss to the back of Chloe’s hand.
And before Chloe could protest, he pushed her lightly by the back and led her inside.
Chloe suddenly realized that she was enjoying this commotion, this pleasant sense of being swept up in it all.
Jurim, who was setting up the tree in the living room, and Geuru, who was holding decorations up against it to see how they would look, welcomed them.
Once the door closed behind them, Ijo took Chloe’s coat and headed to the Styler.
“…….”
Chloe quietly watched the peaceful scene.
When had she last decorated a tree?
Searching her memory, she realized it had been the final year her parents were alive.
‘Ah…….’
Pain swept over her.
Why did these people keep reminding her?
Of how much she had, in truth, longed for the warmth between people. Of how much she wanted to love someone.
*
Behind the tree, where ornaments were being hung one by one, the black tower was faintly visible through the balcony window.
While Jurim and Geuru decorated the tree, Chloe went out onto the terrace to get a closer look at the tower.
The tower stood like a mirage, visible from anywhere, and anyone who wished to go there could.
They still had not figured out how such a phenomenon was possible.
Geuru tried to follow Chloe outside, but Jurim shook his head.
Because Ijo was already heading out to the terrace with a shawl in hand.
After draping the shawl over Chloe, he gave her that soft, tender smile of his, the one that looked as if he were in love.
Leaning against the terrace, Chloe looked at the tower and asked,
“What do you think will happen with clearing the 99th floor?”
“We’ll do it.”
“Won’t it be difficult?”
“Even so, we have to do it.”
Chloe gazed farther into the distance.
In the center of the park stood a massive tree strung with tiny lights, perhaps to create a Christmas atmosphere.
Families and couples had come out to enjoy Christmas there.
‘Can those people not see the tower?’
Beyond the tree, the black tower stood like a gravestone, a symbol of destruction.
Even as the world was collapsing, why did people fall in love?
“Geuru asked me something.”
“What?”
“She asked if, when you know you’re going to part, you shouldn’t like someone in the first place.”
“What? So what did you say?”
“I asked her why she was meeting a bum like that. They met at a kids’ café, right?”
Ijo burst into laughter like a flower bud blooming open.
“I’m not sure. I didn’t see any bum like that. Maybe it’s an unrequited love. Like me.”
Ijo said that and shrugged.
He appeals to me as naturally as breathing. Chloe no longer had the energy to retort, so she changed the question.
“What about you, On Ijo?”
“Me?”
“How would you answer? That you shouldn’t start at all?”
“No. I’d tell her she doesn’t have to let tomorrow’s unhappiness stop her from enjoying today’s happiness.”
The answer came so readily, as if it were as self-evident as the sun rising in the east, that Chloe found herself accepting it without room to argue.
I see. So that’s how you live.
Ijo smiled deeply and lowered his eyes.
“When the raid is over, I’ll come back to you first.”
“…….”
“Then let’s go on a trip together. With Geuru, too.”
“A trip?”
At his words, so naturally speaking of “their” future, Chloe let out a small laugh.
Honestly, he was like a fox.
“Cici, do you like the sea?”
“Yes.”
And I’m no better, unable to push that fox away. Chloe thought self-deprecatingly.
“What about places with no people?”
“I like those too.”
In a place with no people, Geuru would be able to run around and play freely.
She smiled as she imagined walking along a quiet beach with Geuru.
“Then what about me?”
“…….”
“Do you like me?”
His large hands slid down Chloe’s arms and clasped both of her hands.
Chloe slowly closed her eyes, then opened them again.
A world where the tower had disappeared.
A quiet sea.
Geuru laughing as she ran away from the waves.
And in that imagined scene, On Ijo was there.
Holding her hand as her belly swelled round, watching Geuru together.
It was the shape of happiness she had unconsciously wished for.
In truth, she had been drawing, again and again, a future in which they raised a child together and loved each other.
“I wish someone……”
Chloe continued in a small voice, her cheeks flushing red.
“I wish someone would teach me how to dislike you.”
She had not wanted to fall this deeply.
“It’s too late.”
Chloe’s two hands cupped On Ijo’s cheeks.
Then she kissed him, softly.
At the sudden kiss, On Ijo’s eyes went round.
Chloe laughed happily.
“When you come back, I have something to tell you.”
That the research institute had been deceiving him, and that she had been a bystander.
But because she had fallen in love with him, because she had come to care for Geuru, she could no longer keep her mouth shut.
Today, she decided to bring down everything she had built—her career and her life.
“So come back as quickly as you can, and safely.”
Once she resolved to tell him everything, her mind became frighteningly calm.
She could not tell him everything now in a burst of emotion.
She had no idea how the Company would react.
If she received On Ijo’s help now, she and Geuru could run away, but……
She wanted to save all the children in the laboratory as well.
To do that, she needed time, and during that time, Ijo had to go save the world.
That was why she could not tell him yet.
Instead, after Ijo entered the tower, she would have to protect the children in the laboratory and even the child in her belly all on her own.
Chloe glanced at the listening device and pressed her lips into a straight line.
If she said, in a place where the Company could hear, “I don’t want the child,” she could probably buy some time until she gave birth.
Until then, it would be better to remain under the Company’s surveillance as one of their obedient researchers.
‘This is going to be hard.’
But it was all right.
‘Even so, I have to do it.’
Because Chloe Han’s way of loving had always been sacrificial and consuming.