He Lost His Family in the Snow, He Returned to Save Them novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The Door Stays Open
Min-jun did not follow him.
He sat on the floor of the east wing with his back against the closed door and the baby boy asleep on his chest, and he waited.
The healer came and went on quiet feet.
The lamp burned down.
Around the middle of the night, his daughter woke and asked for her father with a long hiccuping cry, and he walked her up and down the room until she slept.
He did not go out.
Seo-jun had said *don't follow me*, and for six years Min-jun had been a man who looked away from a door.
He would be a man who waited at one.
At dawn the latch lifted.
Seo-jun came in with snow on his shoulders and his hair stiff with cold.
His eyes were red, and he held a rice cake in his hand.
"I went to the shrine," he said.
"I know."
"I put this on it. Same as every morning."
"Yes."
"For six years I didn't know why." He looked down at the cake. "I thought it was a habit. I thought it was a thing I did because I was lonely."
"Seo-jun."
"It was a thank you. I begged for a chance and I got one, and I've been thanking her every day without knowing what for." His voice shook. "Thank you for what, Min-jun? For a man who looked away from me, or for the one who knelt on the stone?"
"Both are me."
"Yes."
"I won't ask you to forget the first."
"Good, because I'm not going to."
Min-jun waited.
His heart was beating so hard that the baby stirred.
Seo-jun came across the floor and stopped in front of him.
"Here are my terms," he said. "No more doors. If you're afraid, you tell me to my face. If you're ashamed, you tell me. You never look at the wall again."
"Never."
"And I'm going to be angry, now and then. I'll have the right. I remember all of it. I'll shout, and you'll let me."
"I'll hold the cup you throw."
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