Moon's Whisper, Heart's Echo

48. The Farewell

The snow fell softly, blanketing the burial site in fragile white. The air carried a sharp stillness, heavy and unyielding, broken only by the faint rustle of Seong-hwan's sleeves as he knelt. His breath fogged in the cold, a fleeting proof of life against the quiet permanence of the grave before him.

The letter crumpled slightly in his hand as he unfolded it for the last time. Her handwriting—sharp strokes that mirrored her own unforgiving nature—was smeared in places, as though her fingers had trembled as she wrote. He stared at the words without reading them again. They had no meaning now.

With deliberate slowness, he placed the letter atop the mound of earth and struck the flint. The flame caught quickly, the parchment curling inward, shrinking into ash as the fire consumed it. He watched until nothing remained, the edges blackened and brittle, before turning his gaze to the headstone.

"Eomma," he said softly, the word brittle on his tongue. "In the end, there's no one here but me."

Yi Seong-hwan. Not Jae-hoon. Not today. Here, at least, he could be the son she'd twisted into shapes he no longer recognized.

His voice didn't carry far, swallowed by the vastness of the snow-covered hillside. There were no mourners, no flowers laid in her memory. Just him and the woman who had shaped his life with equal parts cruelty and care.

He exhaled, his breath a ghostly plume. "How unfair of you, to leave like this. To take even the chance of my hatred with you."

The wind shifted, sending a spray of snowflakes against his face. He stared at the stone, at her name etched into the surface. Yi Na Mi, it read, but no title seemed fitting for her now. Not mother. Not noble. Just a name.

He let out a hollow laugh, shaking his head. "I wanted to hate you properly," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "But even that, you've stolen from me."

The snow continued its relentless dance through the air around him, each flake a memory he couldn't quite catch.

Had he ever truly planned to forgive her? No. But now that option lay buried with her, and its absence felt heavier than any guilt she'd ever laid upon his shoulders.

How toxic it felt to miss her. How maddening, to hate someone who could no longer defend themselves - or hurt him further. His mother had taken even that small mercy with her, leaving him alone with questions that would never find answers.

The snow continued its quiet dance, falling around him, on him, softening the edges of the grave and the world around it. His knees pressed into the frozen ground, the cold biting through the layers of his robes, but he didn't move. He couldn't.

Had there been moments when she loved him? He thought so. Brief flashes, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds—her hand brushing his hair from his face, the way her eyes softened when she thought no one was watching. But those moments felt like ghosts now, fleeting and insubstantial against the weight of all she had done.

Behind him, the crunch of footsteps on snow broke the stillness. He didn't turn. A voice, soft but firm, came from over his shoulder.

"She's not innocent."

Seong-hwan's jaw tightened.

The mudang's voice carried no judgment, only quiet understanding. "But she, too, was a victim of your world. She loved you how she was loved by her family. As a woman in her world that suffocated her. She just never protected you from it despite knowing she hated it."

His fingers curled around his sleeve.

"Your father was the only one that gave her freedom. And yet somehow the loss of him made her think suffocation was love. That blaming you, chasing ambition would bring it back. Earn her the respect her husband could no longer get for her." The mudang's words fell as gently as the snow. "And that was her greatest failing."