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Cale couldn't help but let his eyes soften at the sight of that very small trunk growing green with a brown base and confidence, the leaves a little gnawed by nature's insects but stubbornly alive.
He had never been the "plant parent" type but Lee Soo Hyuk and Choi Jung Soo had once convinced him to plant a tree together, and even more than a decade after they had died he had managed to keep alive that tree, which was nourished by the soil of Choi Village and which his Team Leader had so happily dubbed as their child.
Although it was now a full-grown tree, he hoped that Kim Rok Soo would take care of it if there were any particularly difficult times.
He had no plans to "raise another child," not with so many already under his care, but he simply wasn't able to control his impulse that day weeks ago and by the time he wanted to realize it, the seed was already showing its first stem.
A part of him even felt proud of how well it was growing in such a hostile place as the borders of the Henituse territory and the Forest of Darkness.
He couldn't help but let his mind wander a bit between memories of bright smiles and memories of laughter bursting with energy, of vividly colored forests that mocked the apocalypse, of death and monsters ravaging the land, refusing to lose their vitality.
“Ah, I'm becoming a sentimental old man.”
Lee Soo Hyuk and Choi Jung Soo were definitely going to make fun of him when they found that out.