after that day, jang-ho began to teach him.
he started simple—stances, breathing, balance. lucen listened in silence, nodding when he understood, blinking when he didn't. he rarely spoke, still self-conscious about his rough pronunciation, but jang-ho had long since stopped expecting perfect words. the boy's effort was louder than language.
day after day, they trained in the quiet backyard, beneath the open sky. jang-ho was patient. lucen was relentless. and slowly—almost without noticing—something became clear.
lucen was talented.
no—more than talented.
his movements, though rough at first, sharpened quickly. his strikes grew faster, his steps more precise. where others would hesitate, lucen flowed. his body seemed to remember things even before his mind could name them. as if somewhere, deep in the marrow of his bones, he already knew how to fight.
jang-ho noticed.
he's not just learning, he thought. he's remembering.
lucen didn't speak about it. but something in him had changed long before this peaceful place. something from that cursed land, from the monsters, the horrors, the hunger. the tricks he used to survive. the ways he'd run, hidden, fought with rocks, traps, fire. and that final monster—the terrible one he killed with his own hands—that left a mark on him.
not on his skin.
but deep, in the way he moved.
as if, without realizing it, lucen had learned how to kill long ago.
he just never knew it.
because before—back in his world—everything was handed to him. his food, his clothes, his safety. he was the boy who lived in golden halls, surrounded by soft things and kind smiles. he never had to fight for anything.
until the world took all that away.
and in the ashes, something else had risen.
now, when he trained, there was no fear in his eyes—only a quiet, heavy focus. and each time he moved, he looked a little less like a child, and a little more like someone who had seen death and walked through it.
jang-ho didn't say much.
but he began to train him harder.
and lucen never once complained.
jang-ho never asked him where he came from.
not once.
he had thought about it, of course. many times. the boy's eyes, his strange mannerisms, the accent that didn't belong to any land jang-ho knew… it was clear from the beginning that lucen wasn't from here. not from this country. maybe not even from this world.
but jang-ho didn't ask.
not because he wasn't curious.
but because he simply couldn't afford to ask.
there were some questions that carried weight—weight that changed everything once spoken. jang-ho had lived long enough to know that silence was sometimes kinder. and in lucen's silence, he saw wounds too deep to touch.
the only thing he ever asked was his name.
and the boy had answered, quiet as a whisper, "lucen."
even the name was strange.
jang-ho had heard many names from far kingdoms and remote regions—some flowing, some harsh, some ancient like the wind itself. but lucen... it didn't belong to any of them. it was like a thread pulled from a forgotten tapestry, woven in a tongue long lost.
jang-ho had turned the name over in his mind many times.
lucen...
it was too soft, too bright. it didn't match any dialect, not even in the foreign lands he had read about or passed through in his younger days. the boy's language, too, had the same odd flavor—one that carried no roots in this soil or any nearby nation.
but still…
it didn't matter where lucen came from.
not really.
jang-ho had seen too much in his life to care about borders or bloodlines. the boy could have fallen from the sky or crawled out of the sea, and it wouldn't have changed a thing.
in the end, he was just a child.
a child who needed warmth.
a child who needed protection.
and that was all that mattered.
jang-ho didn't need to know the whole truth. he only needed to make sure lucen was safe… fed, clothed, and slowly stitched back into life. the boy's past might have been swallowed in shadow, but the present—the quiet mornings, the warm meals, the laughter when he stumbled through new words—that was real.
the boy had always been quiet. not because he chose to be, but because silence was what he had grown used to—forced silence, the kind that settled heavy in cursed lands, where even breathing too loud might attract the wrong kind of attention. and even now, though he was no longer in that nightmare world, the habit lingered. besides, he still struggled with pronunciation. he could understand most of what jang-ho said, but his own tongue was clumsy, tangled. he hated how it sounded. how childish it felt.
but time passed.
slowly, the light returned to his eyes. it had taken nearly a year, but it was there again—faint at first, like a candle in wind, but real. after so many months of proper meals, warmth, and care, the boy no longer looked like he hadn't reached ten. now, if you looked at him, you might guess thirteen. his frame had filled out. his cheeks held color. his bones no longer jutted like they had fought to escape his skin.
and though his words were still rough, he was learning. not just language, but martial arts—jang-ho's true specialty. the man always had something to teach. a technique. a movement. a way to breathe. it wasn't just routine—it was rhythm. and lucen responded to it better than either of them expected. he was a natural, and jang-ho knew it.
but training wasn't the only thing on the man's mind.
he had begun to wonder if it was time to let the boy see the village. not speak to anyone—just see. to feel the world beyond the house, even from a distance. but there was a problem. lucen's hair—long, golden, and too striking. anyone would remember it. the boy was already different enough.
so jang-ho had an idea.
a stupid one.
he thought, what if he dyed the boy's hair? just enough to dull the color. he found an old trick—beetroot. crushed it, mixed it, and spread it through the strands.
the result?
a disaster.
purple? orange? something in between? no one knew. what they did know was that it looked awful. so awful, in fact, that lucen had no choice but to cut off all his hair.
he looked in the mirror and frowned.
"i look like an egg," he muttered with narrowed eyes, and then didn't speak to jang-ho for three whole days.
jang-ho couldn't stop laughing.
he tried to apologize between fits of laughter, but that only made it worse. still, somehow, they mended things—through shared meals, quiet evenings, and a mutual understanding that family doesn't always mean blood.
sometimes it just means staying.
even after a purple hair disaster.