BBDW 73 [Black Butterfly] - Nevereverland
In the dark, narrow living room of the
apartment, Alvin tapped on the keyboard quietly. As he sifted through the
stories of people named Hender Hill, he turned his neck lightly. The blond
detective who fell asleep on the sofa was still not making any signs of
anything - not even breathing. Alvin glanced over and soon turned to the
monitor. Hender Hill, Hender Hill. As he was humming inwardly and
scrolling down, Alvin's eyes suddenly narrowed as if he was smiling. That was when an
interesting article caught his eye. Alvin, who was checking the related
articles, had a slightly deeper smile around his mouth. As he slept quietly,
I could see why he asked about Hender Hill. And some of the incomprehensible
behaviour he showed. Alvin, who reconstructed the incident in his head, nodded
slightly. What happened was before the 1980s. The visual, that child should
have seen it. There was a little lack of data to infer the circumstances
perfectly, but the overall situation was fully imaginable. It would be rather
strange if there was no scar left.
But even that must have been only one part
of the child's life. Alvin grinned at the fact. It was nice of him that he had
left him to investigate this fact.
With a rustle, he heard a person moving from
behind. Alvin turned his head in no hurry. On the sofa, with only his
silhouette visible from the light of a streetlamp coming from outside, he
slowly raised his body like a puppet. Alvin briefly blinked to adjust to the
darkness in the room from the monitor. Jude, who was sitting on the sofa,
grinned as he looked into the air.
Looking at the face, Alvin tilted his head
slightly.
Jude came down from the sofa and stood up.
Looking around for a short time, he soon picked up a jacket that had been hung
randomly on the sofa. Alvin, who was looking at such Jude quietly, soon opened
his mouth.
"Jude?"
He jerked his head away. His eyes looking
at Alvin were somewhat different from his usual, and Alvin got up from the
chair where he sat. The step toward Jude was neither quick nor slow. There was
definitely focus in his eyes as he closely examined him. At least it didn't
seem to have happened in his sleep. Then why? Alvin asked quietly.
"Jude, what's wrong?"
"......it's you."
Jude suddenly smiled brightly. The moment
that he saw a pure mischievous-like smile, the blond man suddenly gave Alvin a
big hug, almost like a push. There was no malice in the sudden gesture, and
Alvin slumped to the sofa, wondering. Jude rubbed their cheeks lightly with a
giggling laugh. In his voice, there was something like sleepiness, which was
usually buried in Jude's tone.
"You're the one who makes Julie turn
the way Julie was trying to escape."
"Who are you?"
Alvin reached out slightly and pushed him
off his shoulder. Pulling himself away from Alvin with a sulky face, he
shrugged and spoke.
"I'm Hender."
His brows narrowed for a moment. Alvin, who
looked at his face silently for a while, tilted his head and asked back.
"Hender Hill?"
"Yes, I'm Hender Hill, Julie's root.
It's weird, I used to be the roots. Julie's been living longer, and I've become
a branch."
With his mouth sticking out, he tugged at
his hair. Alvin smiled faintly. He was self-aware of what he meant by what he
saw before his eyes. He didn't have the habit of being shocked or denying what
was happening right in front of him. And the fact that is now being pushed into
him made Alvin feels quite fresh. To Hender, who plopped next to Alvin, he
asked the blond man silently.
"So, since when have you been
around?"
"Since Julie's been around.... well,
since recently. The day before yesterday, I went to the place where Julie used
to play while Julie was sleeping, and no one was there."
"'Since Jude's been around.' Are you
talking about after 10 years old? So you're the one created from his memory
before he was 10 years old?"
"Yeah - it's not that simple."
Hender murmured and frowned indistinctly.
Rather than a troubled face, the child seemed to be agonizing over a toy.
"At first glance, yes, but I'm not the
original Hender. To be exact, it's the Hender Julie forced out. I had no choice
but to show up because Julie was being silly."
"Hender forced out by Jude? So you're
saying he needs you?"
"Yeah, Julie needs me. That's why he
called me.… Uh-huh, I don't know.”
"Why, why do you think he needs
you?"
He glanced back at Alvin. Hender, who was
playing with his own hair, soon began to pull Alvin's hair. Hender, who briefly
admired the pretty hair colour, said, rolling his eyes slowly like a student
solving a difficult math problem.
"That's because-- Julie's not being
honest. Julie is too... he kept on turning his head. But it can't go on forever
either."
"Not honest?"
He twisted Alvin's hair with his fingers.
He looked like some sort of animal playing with thread.
"Julie is so complicated. And he's
open. He's similar to you. But he wasn't like that in the first place. It's
because of me, too. It's partly because of you. But it's Julie after all."
It was a vague remark. Alvin tilted his
head slightly. Perhaps he didn't think Alvin understood, Hender squinted and
began to pick a word in his mouth. His head bobbed on both sides.
"I mean…. forgetting things can be
difficult. It's something he shouldn't forget…. yeah, like Jenny and
Toby."
Jenny and Toby. Alvin's eyes grew slightly
bigger. It was the names that popped up several times, but Jude himself
couldn't pick up anything. An unhurried voice came out of his mouth.
"Who are they?"
"My friends, they were with me on
146th Street. We were the only ones there. We played together all day. It was
really fun. I wasn't even lonely at the time. Of course, it was hard because of
him, but we had fun nonetheless."
Hender's face quickly perked up. Glittering
like a child telling his friend's story to his mother, he turned to Alvin and
sat down. His hands fluttered in the air as if they were engrossed and lively.
"You know, Jenny, she was such a
coward. She's a girl, she cries a lot and she's nice. She always played mom
when we were playing house. Well, well, and Toby's a boy, and he was really
scary. He was kind of cool, but if we get beaten, Toby usually deals with him.
I mean, he was a scary kid, good at fighting and cursing. But he was great
though, he did it for my sake a lot anyway."
"Oh, I see. So, what happened?"
At Alvin's question, Hender's smile was
completely gone. His eyes toward Alvin quickly became desolate and he turned
elsewhere. He shook his leg as if he had quickly lost interest. A moment later,
a muffled sound came out.
"Jenny's dead."
"Oh, how'd that happen?"
"Toby killed her."
It was a concise tone. It was like
swallowing bitter medicine all at once, and as soon as Alvin tried to ask
again, Hender stretched his body back.
"Yeah- I don't know, I don't want to
talk anymore. It wasn't that good either."
"So, what happened to Toby after
that?"
"I don't know, I said I didn't want to
talk!”
A face with an angry voice rang. He pushed
Alvin away with his feet and plopped down on the sofa. He seemed sleepy seeing
that his eyes were half-closed.
"Today… I was going to go there again.
Tch, but you made me feel bad.”
"I'm sorry about that. Is that where
you used to be with your friends?"
"Yeah, there was a big fireplace. It
wasn't very warm even in winter, but... Huaam, you, uh, don't tell Julie
that you saw me..."
"Why? Didn't you say you were born
because of Jude and said he needs you. Is there any reason why you’re hiding
from Jude?"
Hender glanced at Alvin. It was a poor
look.
"......if Julie finds out, Julie will
be anxious. And.... will try to get rid of me.”
"Just because he wanted to get rid of
you doesn't mean you're gone."
"But... Julie can do it... Yeah, I
don't know if it's good or what, but don't tell him. I'm scared of Julie. I’m
scared of him a lot more than him….”
Hender shuddered once. Alvin's eyes
narrowed slightly. Hender soon closed his eyes, babbling something like a
whimper. The way he curled up was just like a young animal. Alvin, who had been
looking at him with his chin on his hand for a while, picked up the blanket
that had fallen on the floor, put it back on him, and got up from his seat and
sat down in front of the laptop. Alvin's face, lit by the weak light of the
monitor, was overshadowed by a simple shade of colour.
* * *
Omg waiting for more chapters ....
ReplyDeleteYou might have to wait a bit longer 😭 I wish I could update faster but rl didn't agree with me 😢 And thanks for reading ♥️
DeleteThank you for the chapter<3 Oh, and to Agent J too ofc haha. I'm just feeling blissful from Alvin and Jude being together irl and not only through a phone call, this novel has made me tresuring even the slightest intimate interaction between them - just from how Alvin is happy that he was trusted by Jude to investigate or putting the blanket on him got me squealing inside haha. I'm really looking forward to when Jude will show affection to Alvin, but it also feels right that the development is slow considering his trauma and that they've actually not interacted that much
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome 😘 hahah I get it. Let me add one more spoon of sugar there. Remember how Alvin lets HenJude messes with his hair 😍 Okay we can scream now 😆
DeleteSplit personality? So the reason why Jude doesn't have any memories from before he arrived at the orphanage was because he was a newly created personality to cope with whatever traumatic event (probably Jude and Toby were forced to kill Jenny for some reason in order to live). If everything took place in NYC, maybe he had a similar childhood to Joshua, where the adults forced them to do stuff. His earlier claustrophobia from the airplane also probably has something to do with it (going on a stretch, but perhaps they were all locked in a room together? cannibalism? hopefully not)
ReplyDeleteI've been following this novel for years now haha and im so excited with all this new plot. ty for the chapters!
Your theory is very interesting 😌 Look at my smile full of meaning hehe. I guess we are fellow fan of this novel since Hwarang posted the first chapter during Kill the Lights 😆 Waiting all these years sure is not easy ♥️ And you're welcome.
DeleteAhh i can't wait to know more about Jude/Julie and his story it's really interesting and Alvin acting so normally in that situation he even covered Jude 🤭
ReplyDeleteThank you ❤️💯
Yeah knowing about Jude will be the best part ever ♥️ And you can expect many more normal interactions between them after this 😆 And you're welcome 😉
DeleteHi.. I want you to ask for your permission to re-translate this novel to my language, Arabic on Wattpad.
ReplyDeleteI will give credit to both you and author.
Hopefully waiting for your reply.
Thank you for your hard work on this novel.
Thanks for asking but sorry, no. I've got quite a few re-translation requests actually but the idea of someone else interpreting my interpretation of this novel didn't sit well with me. There are a lot of reading between the lines I've done here and there are some sentences where I didn't translate them literally and instead translate the implicit meaning behind them since I know people wouldn't understand if I use the literal meaning. Because we need to be a Korean speaker or be familiar with how a Korean speak to understand them. I'm aware that I have a lot of shortcoming at translating this novel (and as you can see all the chapters are marked unedited because these are not the final version that I'm satisfied with) but I hope you can respect my wish. And thank you for reading. I hope you're still a fan of this novel even though I decline your request ♥️
Delete