“Are you aware,” demands Seokga in a low voice, “that you’re violating several of Hwanin’s rules—”

“I don’t care,” Dr. Jang says firmly. “The subjects that you need to talk about most regard your feelings for Mireuk, and I’m certain that I will not be adequately able to help you if I don’t create some sort of safe environment for it. I want to help you. Is that so hard to believe?”

Yes, thinks Seokga, but he lets Dr. Jang continue.

“For you, I fear it probably is. Any help you’ve received in your life has been double-bladed. Hani, who agreed to help you find the eoduksini with the purpose of sabotaging your hunt for the Scarlet Fox…”

“I’m well over that,” he snaps, balling his hands into fists.

“…Hwanin, who allowed you to become a god once more only if you killed the woman you loved…”

Seokga bites down on his tongue. He’ll never be truly over that one, but Hwanin is currently a sleeping baby without the capacity to hurt anybody.

“…the Gamangnara monsters you led to Okhwang. They abandoned you the moment things turned sour. And, of course, there’s your father.”

“I don’t have one of those,” grits out Seokga, who is being purposefully obtuse. “I was born from old household items, like dokkaebi. I was a steak knife, I think.”

The doctor piously ignores him. “It all circles back to Mireuk. Did you ever get closure?”

“Shutting him up in a prison after he invented murder, rape, plagues, floods, serial killers, orphanages, et cetera, was closure.”

“Was it?” Dr. Jang shakes her head. “Do you mean to say that a part of you doesn’t still long for his approval? Doesn’t wonder about what would happen if you earned it?”

Seokga hesitates.

Yes, he wonders about the crazy old man all the time. He wonders if Mireuk regrets any of his crimes, if the meager amounts of food and water the prison provides are enough to keep him alive, but in a desiccated form incapable of exerting any power. If the magic-restricting skeletal shackles will continue to work for the coming millennia. His dreams are filled with memories of Mireuk choosing Hwanin, each and every time. The following waking hours are spent trying not to be like his father, although he inherited his curmudgeonly streak. When Seokga is feeling especially depressed, he plays morose songs and wonders what his life would be like if Mireuk hadn’t gone mad and had loved his second son as much as his first.