Chapter 21: Surprise Worship (1)

A few days of commotion passed, and the difficult situation seemed to have been roughly resolved.

The rumors about the ‘miracle’ circulating in the back alleys had also died down.

There seemed to be no need to worry about any cult forces pestering or investigating, as their leader and top brass had disappeared.

There was no sign of corporate entities trying to intervene, and once proselytizing stopped, no one came looking.

I thought we could finally return to a peaceful daily life.

===========

A few days after the chapel incident, Joseph’s long-awaited contact finally came.

When we met again, he looked a bit more gaunt than a few days prior.

But his eyes were different.

From the deep guilt I had seen last time, a faint will to overcome the past and stand up was now beginning to emerge.

I cautiously asked how he was doing.

“How are you? Have you managed to sort out your feelings a bit?”

He quietly nodded.

“Yes. It’s all thanks to you, Eve-nim. Thankfully.”

Then, bowing his head once more, he got to the point.

“And about the offer you sent through ST-nim the other day…. I would gladly like to accept it.”

It was about the bodyguard matter we had originally planned.

In exchange for treating his younger sister Yoanna’s illness, he would respond to our calls whenever needed and perform bodyguard duties.

He hesitated for a moment before confessing his hidden feelings.

“Actually….. I’ve been very anxious. Even though it was an incredibly generous offer, because of my experience being deceived by the Leader under the pretext of a ‘miracle’…. I was afraid I’d embrace false hope again and break down in front of my sister.”

No wonder it took him a while to respond, even though I said I’d cure his sister.

A similar experience seemed to have left a deep trauma in his heart.

“However…. Yoanna’s condition has started to worsen again these past few days. I realized I no longer have the luxury to hesitate over my meaningless anxieties. I will do whatever you ask. Therefore…. I implore you to bestow the miracle you showed me that day… upon my sister as well.”

He looked at me with desperate eyes.

My answer was ready.

“Alright. There’s no reason to drag this out. Shall we go see your sister right now?”

At my words, a brief flush of color returned to Joseph’s face.

But instead of readily guiding me to his sister, he fidgeted, seeming hesitant about something.

“Um, Eve-nim. There’s one thing I need to tell you beforehand.”

“Yes?”

“My sister Yoanna…. has lived only within the church since she was very young. After she grew up a bit, she had almost no interaction with outsiders. So, she’s a little…. different from other children in some ways.”

Joseph said so and then lowered his head deeply again.

“Please, I ask for your understanding in advance regarding that point.”

His expression looked genuinely worried.

What part of her was so unusual?

I was momentarily puzzled but didn’t make a big deal out of it.

There are all sorts of people in the world.

I ended the conversation by acknowledging his point for now.

Having reached an agreement, we followed Joseph’s lead and headed towards where his younger sister was staying.

========

The place we arrived at was a small room in an old apartment building.

Upon slowly opening the door and entering, there was a girl in a wheelchair.

‘That child……’

Yoanna.

Joseph’s only younger sister, whom he had wanted to protect so desperately.

The girl looked pitiful enough to evoke the word itself.

Her skin was pale to the point of transparency from lack of sunlight, and her body, revealed beneath her clothes, was incredibly thin and frail.

Beneath long, dry blonde hair, her round, large, deep green eyes met mine.

She looked to be around fifteen.

Though visibly very weak, she was nevertheless a beautiful girl.

It was easy to imagine what vibrant beauty she could blossom into if she regained her health.

Thus, her appearance intensified the viewer’s sense of pity.

Joseph tried to speak to his sister in a bright voice.

“Yoanna, have you been well?”

[“Oppa!”]

The girl’s lips barely moved, yet a clear, youthful voice was heard.

An electrode device was attached to the girl’s slender neck.

An artificial voice flowed from the speaker on the wheelchair, which had received the signal.

Her entire body’s muscles had already atrophied, rendering her unable to even produce her own voice at will.

At her pitiable state, I unknowingly let out a small sigh.

Then, Yoanna’s green eyes turned towards me.

Her gaze was filled with curiosity about the unfamiliar guest.

[“Who is this person?”]

Joseph was about to introduce me to his sister but then choked up, seemingly overcome with emotion, and couldn’t continue speaking for a moment.

His eyes wavered anxiously as he looked at me, as if asking, ‘Will it really be okay?’

I gave him a slight nod and knelt on one knee in front of the girl to meet her gaze.

“Nice to meet you, Yoanna. My name is Eve.”

The girl blinked, looking surprised for a moment.

I smiled and continued.

“Could you close your eyes for a moment? It’ll be over quickly.”

At my request, Yoanna looked up at her brother with a puzzled expression.

When Joseph nodded slightly with a tense face, the girl hesitated for a moment before quietly closing her eyes.

Her long, soft eyelashes fluttered.

I gently placed my fingertips on her pale forehead.

As always, I closed my eyes and concentrated as if in prayer…..

There was light.

Paaaat-

A halo of light bloomed from my fingertips and gently enveloped the girl’s entire body.

The room momentarily brightened as if it were daytime.

The radiant glow that bloomed brightly soon began to fade slowly.

Even after the light completely disappeared, Yoanna blinked a few more times, as if her eyes were dazzled.

Faint tears had already welled up in her eyes and were streaming down her cheeks.

Due to the blurry, shimmering tears, Yoanna unconsciously raised her hand to rub her eyes.

Then, suddenly, the girl’s movement stopped.

Her innocent face contorted in disbelief.

Just now…. her own hand…. had moved according to her will.

A trembling voice, from both her lips and the wheelchair speaker, echoed simultaneously.

“……Ha…..Hand….”

[“……Ha…..Hand….”]

A strange situation where two voices overlapped.

Yoanna, startled, fumbled with the electrode on her neck.

And, surprised again by the touch of her fingertips on her own neck, she froze, dumbfounded.

She looked back and forth between her hand, my face, and her brother with trembling eyes.

Joseph, too, was frozen, as if he had forgotten to breathe, unable to believe the scene before him.

Then, in a pitifully trembling voice, filled with desperate hope, he asked.

“Yo…. Yoanna…. could you perhaps…. try to stand up….?”

“…….”

Hearing her brother’s words, Yoanna very slowly…. like a newborn baby, cautiously extended her toes out of the wheelchair.

Her emaciated legs trembled violently, but she gritted her teeth and tried to lift her body, gripping the wheelchair’s armrests.

And finally.

Though it was only for a very brief moment, she stood on the floor with her own two feet.

“…..!”

Due to her weakened muscles from long disuse, she immediately swayed and collapsed, but she had definitely stood up on her own.

The moment they realized that fact, the siblings’ suppressed emotions burst forth all at once.

“Heuu…. Heuk….”

Thick teardrops streamed endlessly from Yoanna’s eyes.

She burst into tears and reached out her arms towards her brother.

“Oppa…. Oppaaa….! Huaaaang….!”

“Heuk….!”

Joseph, too, could no longer hold back and collapsed beside her, embracing his sister.

The two siblings clung to each other, shedding hot tears for a long while.

How much time had passed?

Finally, the girl, having stopped crying, looked up at me with reddened eyes.

Though she was still breathing shallowly, as if lacking strength, she opened her mouth with sincere gratitude.

“Thank you… Eve unni. Really, thank you so much….”

(TL: Unni is a Korean honorific used by younger females to address older females.)

Though a little clumsy and cracked from long disuse, it was unmistakably Yoanna’s own voice.

Hearing her own voice for the first time in years, the girl, overwhelmed with emotion, repeated the same thanks dozens of times like a broken record.

No one stopped her.

Instead, they merely watched her to the end with warm eyes.

================

Finally, as if a great burden had been lifted, the girl, having composed all her emotions, let out a deep sigh.

And looking at everyone in the room in turn, she began to speak.

“Could I… perhaps ask for just one thing?”

“Hmm?”

“I have something I’d like to discuss with Eve unni alone. I’m sorry to both of you, but could you please leave us for a moment?”

At the sudden request, we stared at each other blankly for a moment.

Then it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps for a sensitive adolescent girl of her age, even without anything special, expressing sincere gratitude while others were watching might feel embarrassing.

So, when I agreed, ST, without any change in expression, quietly withdrew from the room with Joseph.

Kkiiik-

The door closed gently, and now only the two of us remained in the room.

The girl’s expression as she faced me seemed considerably calmer than when she was crying in her brother’s embrace a moment ago.

However, beneath that calmness, a subtle sense of incongruity lingered.

She seemed hesitant about something, so I gently initiated the conversation.

“Yoanna, was there something you wanted to tell me?”

“…….”

But the girl didn’t answer immediately and just stared up at me for a moment.

A meaningful glint flickered in her deep green eyes.

As she just stared intently at me, an awkward silence briefly filled the room.

Around then, I too began to feel that something was strange.

‘Hasn’t the atmosphere changed a bit from before?’

Suddenly, the girl called out to me in a calm, gentle voice, different from before.

“Evinia-nim.”

In an instant, I felt an instinctive sense of unease.

The girl’s tone and expression, even the atmosphere filling the room.

It was very subtle, but something had definitely changed from just a moment ago.

As I tried to find the source of this incongruity, I suddenly realized.

The name.

It was because of the name she had just called me.

‘Evinia?’

When we first met, I had introduced myself to Joseph only as ‘Eve,’ and even ST always shortened it that way.

‘Evinia’ was my full name, one I rarely used myself and had almost forgotten… a name a child I had just met couldn’t possibly know.

‘But how?’

Before that question could even fade, the girl spoke again.

“I am truly grateful. I never, ever doubted that this day would come.”

She smiled faintly, as if genuinely happy, and hugged herself tightly.

A somewhat yearning gesture, as if trying to suppress some overwhelming emotion.

‘Something’s strange.’

Suddenly, I thought I should leave this place.

So I inadvertently tried to step back-

Thwack!

I felt a cold hand suddenly grab my wrist.

“….!”

I flinched, my shoulders trembling.

The pulling force was stronger than I expected.

She looked so frail and sickly, her frame smaller than mine, yet for some reason, I couldn’t easily shake off her grip.

Was it because of the oppressive aura emanating from her meaningful demeanor?

Or was it because of the incomprehensible emotions swirling intensely in her green eyes, which met mine?

Yoanna, who had been gazing intently at my eyes until then, finally smiled dazzlingly and spoke.

“You wouldn’t know how much I’ve longed for this moment. Yes, how much I prepared and yearned to meet you….”

A rosy hue spread across her once deathly pale cheeks.

Her excited voice gently permeated my ears, as if tickling them.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve been waiting.”

And then, with a look of ecstasy, she added softly.

“My God.”