──────
* * *
"Wait here a moment, please. I'll bring some tea."
"Ah, thank you. I was already sorry to trouble you so late at night..."
"As I've said before, sleep time has no meaning for me. Wasn't it the same for you too, Mr. Undertaker?"
"Ahaha. That's true."
"Please sit and wait just a little."
After guiding the Undertaker to the living room sofa, the Saintess walked to the kitchen with a perfectly calm face and then crouched down.
Both hands completely covered her face.
Of course, she did not forget to click the pause button on time first.
'Wh, wh, wh, what do I do?'
'What should I do?'
Even in her thoughts, polite speech got mixed in. Having to flawlessly play the "Constellations" twenty-four hours a day had rubbed their manner of speech onto her in daily life as well.
'Earlier... there was a faint smell of alcohol.'
The Saintess recalled greeting the Undertaker at the front door just now.
Yes. Definitely. It had been very faint, but there had been a trace of alcohol.
It absolutely had not been unpleasant, and if anything it had been soft, like stepping into some dimly lit bar.
'After he finished dinner with Dang Seo-rin... he didn't go to a bar afterward, but he did have a drink? Maybe it was something like that.'
If so, then rather than serving only plain tea, it would be better to prepare snacks too.
'Chocolate... I'm all out. Sh, shrimp crackers? Uuummm. Isn't that too old-fashioned? Honestly... I don't really know what makes a good drinking snack.'
Rustle, rustle.
The Saintess rose onto her toes and rummaged through the ceiling. She had a fair amount of snacks stockpiled up there.
The people around her had arbitrarily decided that the Saintess must have refined, luxurious tastes, but that was a tremendous misunderstanding.
As evidenced by the fact that she used a top-class barista like the Undertaker as little more than a machine for making slightly better instant coffee, the Saintess's palate was extremely friendly to common folk.
'Something. Something that would look stylish to serve at a time like this... but still wouldn't be strange. If only I had a snack like that!'
For a snack like that, fruit or cheese would have been the standard answer, but sadly, neither of those was stored in the ceiling of the Yongsan house at the moment.
Should she quickly bring something from somewhere else, no, but if the hypothesis that Mr. Undertaker could move even inside [Time Stop] was true, then freezing time this long over mere snacks would be such a disgrace...
"Ah?"
Crinkle.
At that moment, her fingertips caught on supplies stored deep in the ceiling. The wrapper felt metallic, almost aluminum-like, and it was roughly square.
The eternal luxury item of the apocalypse.
It was ramyeon.
"..."
The Saintess's body froze solid, as if she had been struck by a petrification spell.
Of course, it was not that the ramyeon had suddenly awakened to its identity as an anomaly and gone, 'Gasp, I was actually Medusa?' If that had been the case, the Saintess's heart would not have been racing like mad right now.
'R, ramyeon...'
Gulp.
Secretly, where no one could hear, yet within that inner space where her own ego and superego could always listen, the Saintess mumbled:
"Would you like some ramyeon before you go, Mr. Undertaker?"[1]
Bang!
Without realizing it, the Saintess slammed the ceiling shut. Had she closed it too hard? Her palm stung.
Strangely, her face was burning too, but that was obviously because of the gust of air from shutting the ceiling. There was no room for doubt.
'To, too... too old-fashioned. Old-fashioned! That's not a line a person... a human being can survive saying!'
The Saintess covered her face again.
'H, how do people say lines like that so casually? Shameless. Incredible... It, it takes unbelievable courage.'
Thump-thump-thump.
Her chest pounded so hard that even the Saintess could not understand it. After all, she was the very person responsible for erasing the concept of "privacy" from this world.
She had seen every kind of sight imaginable. Even while monitoring such things, the Saintess had never particularly been flustered.
It had been like watching educational footage of insect reproduction in biology class, or expressionlessly pressing the skip button.
And yet.
'Why over something as trivial as this? Wh, why now?'
Cool.
Cool down, Jeong Ye-ji.
Realizing that the state of her mind was not normal, the Saintess immediately summoned the personalities of the Constellations. It was an attempt at objective self-assessment through third parties.
['The Saintess of National Salvation' cheers on your love. Love is a wonderful thing that God has permitted.]
No. Mr. Undertaker already has Dang Seo-rin!
['The Saintess of National Salvation' points out that she is French. That is no concern of hers.]
That doesn't help at all!?
['The Chancellor of the Red Cape' reminds you that romance is also a kind of diplomacy. A classic technique may feel dated, but there is a reason it became a classic.]
You're French too, aren't you?
['The Chancellor of the Red Cape' gives a sly little smile, as if to say my, my, have I been found out, and slips into the dark.]
Please stop joking around!
This really isn't helping at all!
['The Conquerer of the Alps' insists that the word impossible does not exist in your dictionary.]
That's Napoleon. Not Hannibal, Napoleon!
['The Monarch of the Crimson Horse' counters, asking whether killing your own father, even killing your own sovereign, isn't a matter of course for the sake of love.]
['The Monarch of the Crimson Horse' scoffs that a comrade's affections aren't even worth considering.]
"..."
Jeong Ye-ji suddenly realized something.
'Huh? Could it be... the Constellations I've been acting out this whole time aren't even the slightest bit helpful when it comes to love advice?'
Objective self-assessment, failed.
'How on earth did Dang Seo-rin manage to ask Mr. Undertaker to go eat with her all this time without trembling even once?!'
'And how did Cheon Yo-hwa manage to run over and cling to Mr. Undertaker's arm every time she saw him?!'
'As for Sim Ah-ryeon... ah, no. There's no need to admire the thought process of someone half human, half anomaly.'
The Saintess stood up.
Firmly. She rose with the solidity of the life-sized Gundam statue in Odaiba.[2]
Then she pulled various snacks down from the ceiling.
Simply handing over unopened snack bags would be too much, so she tore each one open and arranged them neatly in a porcelain bowl, which she had not used in a while and had hurriedly scrubbed clean.
Chocolate mushroom snacks. Spicy shrimp crackers. Potato chips. Chopsticks, because potato chips should be eaten with chopsticks. Digestive biscuits... no. Not the digestives. They overlapped a little too much with the chocolate mushroom snacks. And, and, and.
"..."
Rustle.
Ramyeon. Not boiled ramyeon, but raw ramyeon. In other words, broken into quarter-sized pieces and quietly tucked away between the other snacks... This much, at least, was fine.
'D, decoration.'
The Saintess nodded.
'This is decoration. Raw ramyeon also has an aspect of being a snack. It's a different genre from boiled ramyeon. Therefore... this is absolutely not a drinking snack prepared for some shady or shameless purpose.'
It was perfectly logical.
If Descartes and Kant had seen the Saintess right now, they would surely have leaped from their graves in a standing ovation, moved to tears by the discovery that pure reason had been here all along.
'Tea... tea, green tea? It's late, but yes. Caffeine doesn't really matter to the two of us. Yes. Green tea and matcha. Strong.'
She tore open one green tea bag and two matcha bags and divided them between two large porcelain cups, which she had washed along with the dish earlier.
As she released Time Stop and slowly poured in hot water, the Saintess realized something keenly.
'Ah. I see. S, so this was exactly why other people invested in cooking skills...'
That was not really the reason. Cooking was simply a lifestyle hobby and a craft.
But the Saintess's overheated brain had already become rather unsuited for normal reasoning.
'If I had opened a can of tuna and made canapes, that would have been much more... no, no. Then it really would have turned into a drinking session. Yes. Right. This is exactly appropriate as it is.'
Green tea ready. Stand by.
'Sh, should I go?'
Stand by.
'I have to go.'
Ready.
'...Uuugh!'
With her eyes squeezed shut, she lifted the tray, loaded with drinking snacks and green tea, and finally launched from the kitchen into the living room.
The play began.
"...Have I kept you waiting?"
The voice that flowed from the Saintess's mouth was extremely calm. Her expression was as blank as ever too.
The same went for the Undertaker. The moment he saw the Saintess, he quickly rose and approached her.
"Ah. Thank you. Please give that to me."
"No. Please sit. Taking care of a guest is only natural."
"Wow, there are so many snacks. All these precious things. As expected of you, Saintess. Could it be you knew I'd been drinking...?"
The Undertaker tried to take the serving tray from the Saintess, and the Saintess refused and stubbornly held on to it.
Naturally, the distance between them became awkward. The Undertaker's hand touched the tray, and it lightly brushed the Saintess's hand as well.
'~~~~~!!'
The Saintess felt as if her head would melt.
Or rather, now that they were this close, it became clear. Just as she had suspected from the moment she saw him at the front door, the scent coming from the Undertaker's body was slightly different from the smell of alcohol. There definitely had been alcohol. But that was not all.
It was perfume. She was not particularly knowledgeable about scent the way Dang Seo-rin or Yu Ji-won were, so she had no talent for commenting in detail about oud wood or anything like that, but it definitely had the feel of a jazz bar.
Subtle. Sweet. Deep.
'So this wasn't perfume he wore for Yu Ji-won...?'
Her chest tightened.
'Why now, of all times?'
It was hard to breathe.
'N, no. No. It doesn't mean anything. Yes. Trying to infer someone's intentions from perfume is the domain of mind-reading!'
The Saintess repeated Descartes in her mind.
'I doubt, and I doubt the me who doubts, and I keep doubting even that doubting self...'
Apparently, she had forgotten for a moment that Rene Descartes had also been French, but well, all the Saintess needed was some kind of European-made mantra.
"My goodness."
"Ah?"
Before she knew it, she was already sitting beside the Undertaker on the carpet, leaning her back against the sofa in complete comfort.
When had she sat down? She did not know. When had she placed the tray on the table? She did not know that either.
It was not her fault. The Saintess did not have [Complete Memory].
From across that distance, too vague to call far, yet also too ambiguous to call close, the Undertaker was smiling.
"I'm sorry. I didn't hear properly. What did you just say, Mr. Undertaker?"
"No, I didn't say anything. I just smiled. It's only that bringing chopsticks even in a situation like this feels very much like you, Saintess."
"...Your hands get dirty if you eat snacks with them."
Thank goodness. So it had been nothing important.
The Saintess let out a sigh of relief inwardly.
Though even that sigh was no more than turning on a little handheld fan under the summer sun.
It was absurdly insufficient to cool the heat gathered in her heart and her head.
A parasol light enough to hold in one hand. Tree shade to drape over her head. A soft breeze along the riverside.
Even if every such way of escaping the heat had been laid out before her, it would have done little to help the Saintess now.
Her summer was sitting right in front of her.
"..."
The cry of cicadas.
Ever since childhood, Jeong Ye-ji had thought cicada cries were beautiful. That clamor, slicing from nearby into the distance, had always seemed to foretell her life in advance.
"Oh, right."
As her head grew hot and her hearing blurred, only the beating of her heart became astonishingly clear, and that heartbeat sounded exactly like cicada cries.
"Today's gathering ended safely. Cheon Yo-hwa and Lee Ha-yul went off to drink with a few others."
"I'm glad to hear they're doing well."
"Come to think of it, you had plans to meet Dang Seo-rin today too, Mr. Undertaker..."
Sunlight. Deep blue shade. Echoes.
"Ah. Originally, I made plans to meet Dang Seo-rin because I had something to discuss with her privately."
"Privately..."
"Yes. Saintess, so you really didn't eavesdrop on our conversation at all? No wonder."
"..."
His gaze. His speech. His voice. The firmness of the arm visible beneath his slightly loosened sleeve.
The chocolate snack dangling from those fingertips. The crunch as it broke between his teeth.
The chocolate melted and swallowed down with the matcha. The bob of his pale throat. Perfume. Skin scent.
"..."
The Saintess
stopped time.
And then, just a little, really only a little,
she moved.
Squirming, she lifted herself and shifted sideways. Three centimeters, maybe? Or perhaps five. At the speed of a falling cherry blossom petal. Only a little.
She moved her body toward the direction where the Undertaker sat. Narrowed the gap a little.
Time Stop, released.
"That's right. I thought today was private time for the two of you, Mr. Undertaker and Dang Seo-rin."
As if it were nothing.
"Today... you say."
"Yes. Today."
But unlike her, the Undertaker possessed flawless memory.
So whether it was three centimeters or five, even one centimeter, if the Saintess had suddenly moved closer, he could not possibly fail to notice.
No, had he noticed?
Had he not noticed?
If he had been drinking a little, then maybe moving about three centimeters closer was the sort of thing he might dismiss as his imagination. Maybe that was possible.
Then, in that case.
Time Stop.
Five centimeters more, again. A slight shift to the side.
Time Stop, released.
"But I feel sorry that my own consideration made you come all the way here, Mr. Undertaker."
"..."
"If I had kept watching with [Clairvoyance], Mr. Undertaker, you could have requested [Telepathy] at any time. I'll be more careful from now on."
"No. Even if you had been watching today, I think I would have come in person."
"Today, you mean?"
"Yes. Today."
Still, there was no sign from the Undertaker. No sign at all that he had noticed the Saintess inching closer bit by bit. In that case.
Time Stop.
Five centimeters more, to the side.
Time Stop, released.
"Mm. Certainly. When you really needed to have a serious conversation, you preferred speaking face-to-face, Mr. Undertaker. Same with the study."
"Yes. After all, there is a kind of atmosphere you can only feel when you're directly facing the other person, isn't there?"
"I agree completely."
Excuse me, Mr. Undertaker?
I've already moved fifteen centimeters closer to you, Mr. Undertaker. You have it, don't you. Complete Memory.
There's no way you could not... know, right?
The truth is, you've already noticed, haven't you?
'Time Stop.'
Closer.
'Time Stop.'
Closer still.
'Time, stop.'
Closer again.
"..."
"..."
Tap.
The Undertaker's shoulder and the Saintess's shoulder touched. The Saintess tilted her shoulder away again, as if a little startled, but it did not mean much anyway.
The two of them were already so close that they could clearly hear each other breathing.
"..."
"..."
Time Stop.
The Saintess stopped time once more. And this time, although it might have looked strange, she moved the cups.
The porcelain cups. The porcelain cups filled with tea steeped from green tea and matcha together.
There was the Saintess's cup, and there was the Undertaker's cup. By chance, the two cups looked exactly the same. By chance, the level of green tea inside them was similar too.
The Saintess picked up her own cup and swapped it with the one in front of the Undertaker.
Exchange.
They looked exactly the same, and there was no outward difference. So even after time resumed, there was no possibility that the Undertaker would notice the exchange.
Time Stop, released.
"..."
"..."
They were close.
Suddenly, her throat felt dry.
The Saintess's, and probably the Undertaker's too.
So the Undertaker reached out, took hold of a cup, and drank the green tea.
The teacup in the Undertaker's hand was not the one placed in front of him. It was the one in front of the Saintess, the cup the Saintess had just set there.
"...Ah."
The Saintess made a sound. Perfectly ordinarily. In the same tone as always.
"Mr. Undertaker. That's my cup."
"Oh. Is that so?"
The Undertaker made a sound. Perfectly ordinarily. In the same tone as always.
"I'm sorry. Ah, maybe it's because I drank a little earlier, but I got mixed up. I'm truly sorry."
"No. It's fine. You could make that mistake."
"Thank you."
Time Stop.
This time, the Saintess switched the positions of the cups once more. In other words, the teacup now placed in front of the Undertaker was the cup the Saintess had originally been drinking from.
Time Stop, released.
The Undertaker reached out once more. As if determined not to make the same mistake this time, he did not take the porcelain cup in front of the Saintess, but the porcelain cup in front of himself.
And drank. Gulp.
"..."
"..."
Clink.
The sound of the cup being set down.
Clasp.
The sound of a hand taking another hand.
Softly.
The sound of a head leaning against a head.
A kiss.
The sound of breathing.
"..."
In that first kiss,
there was a chocolate fragrance.
Footnotes:
[1] "Would you like some ramyeon before you go?" references a famous Korean euphemism for inviting someone to stay the night, popularized by the 2001 film One Fine Spring Day.
[2] The life-sized Gundam statue in Odaiba is a real landmark in Tokyo.
-x-X-x-
──────
* * *
From that day on, strange things began happening to the Undertaker.
"G, Guild Leader."
"Hm?"
"My hair... could you brush it?"
Take this ordinary slice of everyday life, for instance.
Whenever he sat down on the couch in the guild Azit for a short rest, a head of green hair would come pattering over from somewhere and plop right down onto the Undertaker's lap.
"Sure. All right."
"Ehehe..."
The Undertaker was a master of aura. No matter how thoroughly Sim Ah-ryeon defied the entire hygienic history of human civilization all on her own, he could wield his aura with such precision that it ran the full course of shampoo, conditioner, hair dryer, and scalp massage, every step handled with care.
There was a reason Sim Ah-ryeon scurried over to the Undertaker like a hamster the moment she spotted him. Just sit on his lap and her hairstyling finished itself automatically. How was she supposed to resist that?
If word ever got out that the aura other awakeners coughed up blood to train was being used as a cheap shampoo substitute, more than a few people would faint dead away, but as far as Sim Ah-ryeon was concerned, that was none of her business.
So Sim Ah-ryeon had to pay a price.
What kind of price? The stern and self-evident truth that if you ignore others, others will ignore you right back.
[Time Stop].
"...Mm."
"..."
While the giddily smiling Sim Ah-ryeon froze like a stone statue, a faint sound of breathing stirred above her. For a good long while.
The Saintess, who had drawn close at some point, was sharing a kiss with the Undertaker.
"Mm, Saintess."
"Yes."
The Saintess laughed softly, as if embarrassed.
"Good morning... Mr. Undertaker."
A short while ago, the two of them had agreed not to tell anyone they'd started seeing each other.
It was mostly because of the Saintess's fervent insistence.
-If the Regression Alliance and our other companions suddenly found out about our relationship, the shock might be too much for them.
-And above all, love. How should I put it, it doesn't need to be that loud. There's no reason to go spreading word of it around.
In any case, the Undertaker would believe the Saintess even if she claimed she'd built the Eiffel Tower out of beans. He nodded readily, fully convinced.
'...But who would have guessed we'd end up carrying on a secret romance like this.'
And it wasn't only when he was with Sim Ah-ryeon.
When he was having a serious talk with Yu Ji-won in the hallway, when he was in a one-on-one meeting with Noh Do-hwa, when he was chatting on the roadside with Cheon Yo-hwa, [Time Stop] came regardless of time or place, and each time the Saintess and the Undertaker indulged in a 'secret romance' no one would ever witness.
'No. Surely not, but... Saintess, surely you aren't just enjoying the thrill...?'
You couldn't say that element was entirely absent, but it was closer to the screws in her head simply coming loose over her first romance.
The Saintess wanted to be with the Undertaker even a little more. And she had both the means and the method to make it happen. What reason was there not to press the [Time Stop] button to her heart's content?
And it was exactly the same for the Undertaker.
The Saintess and the Undertaker alike always looked composed and level-headed to everyone else, but crack open their heads and you'd find nothing but a pink hue spread out inside, plain and simple fools.
'It's fine. If it ever gets truly dangerous, Mr. Undertaker will surely know to stop on his own.'
So the Saintess thought as she kneaded and stroked the Undertaker's leg.
'It's fine. If a line ever truly gets crossed, the Saintess will tell me herself.'
So the Undertaker thought as he shared his twenty-first kiss of the day with the Saintess.
It was a miraculous relationship of trust.
Because each believed in the other's character, the result was a rollercoaster nobody could put the brakes on, and naturally, as time went on, the intensity could only keep climbing higher and higher until, finally, one day.
"Mm...?"
The Tower of Babel meeting room.
Noh Do-hwa, seated at the round table, tilted her head.
"That's a rare sight. You always join the meetings remotely by video, so why have you come in person today...?"
"I happened to be in Busan."
The Saintess answered with an unbothered face, the same blank expression as always.
"It'd be one thing if I were in Seoul, but it didn't feel right to skip when I'm right nearby."
"Hmm. Well. Not that it matters either way..."
Soon the Regression Alliance meeting began.
The Undertaker happened to sit right beside the Saintess, but no one found it the least bit odd. From the start, that seat had always been left empty out of consideration for the usually absent Saintess.
"I'm considering whether to ask the SwordMarquess and put into effect a plan to expand the farmland beyond its current size."
In the middle of Yu Ji-won's report.
"Thanks to His Excellency the Undertaker spending so much time with the SwordMarquess lately, the response is that the National Road Management Corps's request will be reviewed favorably."
And then Yu Ji-won stopped.
Frozen exactly as she stood. Still gripping the scrap-paper documents. Her silver hair turned to black-and-white too.
Over at one side of the round table in the meeting room.
"..., ..."
"..."
The Saintess and the Undertaker had clasped hands tightly under the table and were pressing their lips together.
"Saintess."
"Y, yes."
"So this is why you came to the meeting."
"Mm. No. But I think it's fine."
Why hide it.
The two, having now reached the monumental milestone of a 'first romance,' had realized that the authority of [Time Stop] was an extremely convenient tool.
Want to hug? Just hug. Want to kiss? Just kiss.
The romantic escapades of lovers, who always seem to throw down a gauntlet against the etiquette of public order, posed no problem at all for the Undertaker-Saintess couple.
Since nobody could notice [Time Stop], no one had any reason to frown. And this couple had no need to read the room as they enjoyed their romance.
Of course, it was a luxury for the two of them alone. For someone in the position of always having to dial the filtering to an appropriate level when describing reality, it was quite a bother.
Just between us, this particular manuscript was patched a whopping three times.
And so a meeting that ended in thirty-five minutes for everyone else somehow took, for a certain two people, about three times that long.
"..."
When the meeting ended and everyone was heading back.
As the Undertaker and the Saintess walked side by side, a firm tug. Something caught the Undertaker's collar.
He turned to find Sim Ah-ryeon standing there.
"What is it, Ah-ryeon?"
"Uuung..."
"What's the matter, Ah-ryeon?"
Sim Ah-ryeon stared blankly at the two of them.
"Y, you two. Are you, by any chance, dating?"
"..."
"..."
It had been a foreseeable ending.
* * *
'E, extraaa, extraaaaa! Extraaaaa! The Guild Leader is dating! The Guild Leader is dating the, the Saintess!'
Stopping Sim Ah-ryeon, who was about to bolt out the door and kick up a nationwide-scale ruckus, took a great many promises and bribes.
One way or another, they succeeded in muzzling Sim Ah-ryeon. Muzzling her, at least.
-[Samcheon]WitchJudge: (photo) When it comes to the experience of a meal, maybe the company matters more than the taste of the food? The food I ate with a friend today was delicious again.
└OldManGoryeo: lol[1]
└[Samcheon]WitchJudge: ? Why are you picking a fight again?
-[Baekhwa]NinthGraderInHighSchool: I went to Busan! And I confirmed that Busan does not look down on Sejong! >_<);;
└OldManGoryeo: lololol
└[Baekhwa]NinthGraderInHighSchool: ??
Some other people who had no idea what was going on caught a little of the fallout, but as prices for getting a secret romance discovered go, this counted as pretty mild.
"Love really is beautiful."
A beach at sunset.
The Undertaker and the Saintess were savoring a day ten times longer than anyone else's again today, enjoying an evening stroll.
Time was stopped, of course. A black-and-white sea stained with an eternal sunset watched over the two of them without a sound.
"If I'd known I'd be this happy, I should have confessed to you a little sooner, Mr. Undertaker."
"I feel the same way."
The Undertaker smiled.
"A thought I keep having lately is, maybe the Saintess and I ending up together was inevitable. That thought keeps coming back to me."
"Why is that?"
"In the end, I'm living out my own timeline where I can't truly connect with anyone else. And it's the same for the Saintess. We're in similar circumstances."
"...Yes."
The Saintess kissed him. And the Undertaker kissed her back.
The two sat side by side on a bench in the sand and leaned half their weight onto each other.
"I don't want to leave this cycle."
"..."
The Saintess, who had been resting her head against his chest, looked up at him.
"Then..."
"Yes. Even if I can't save the world, I'll make this one my terminal station. No. I'll save the world thoroughly enough that I can say with confidence this one is my final destination."
"..."
"Don't make that face, Saintess. I just want to be with you right here in front of me, that's all."
"Me too."
In that moment the Saintess and the Undertaker were dwelling on a similar thought.
Saving the world might be impossible. But avoiding 'world annihilation' was always possible.
How?
Just engage [Time Stop] and never release it.
"For us, one year could become a hundred years, even a thousand. If we only wished it, we could spend even more years than that together."
"That's right."
"There are still at least ten years before the world is definitively annihilated. In the worst case, we just have to stop the flow of time so the scheduled ten years never arrives."
"..."
Was this right?
It couldn't be. Both she and he knew it. They knew this was, at the end of the day, nothing but a loophole. But.
They couldn't lose the one in front of them.
"I love you, Mr. Undertaker."
"I love you too, Saintess."
Beneath a sunset that would never fade for all eternity.
Stay, moment.
You are so beautiful.[2]
The two were ready, prepared to exchange a vow like that.
"Mm."
After the kiss, the Saintess muttered with a slightly flushed face.
"It's a little hot. I'll go grab some ice cream."
"Ah. I'll come with you."
"No! I'll go by myself. You rest here, Mr. Undertaker."
Pat, pat, pat.
The Saintess hurried off somewhere in a rush, so unlike her usual self. The Undertaker watched her go with a smile.
'Keeping up a secret romance like this is fun, but someday we'll have to tell the kids too.'
Sim Ah-ryeon had already caught on, after all. There was no telling when it might get exposed again.
In that case, it was better to lay the whole situation out cleanly. The Undertaker trusted his companions.
A little while later.
Trudge.
The sound of footsteps in the sand. Since there were only two people who could make a sound in a frozen world, he turned his head toward the other one.
"Ah, Saintess. You're back sooner than I thought...?"
The middle of the sandy beach.
There stood the Saintess. Her face and her clothes were, without question, identical to the Saintess who had run off a moment ago saying she'd buy ice cream.
But.
"..."
The Undertaker shot up from the bench and backed away on his heels. He laid a hand on the hilt of his sword and took a stance ready to draw at any moment.
He glared at her.
"Who are you?"
"Oh my, my."
The lips of the one who looked exactly like the 'Saintess' parted in a wide half-smile.
Crackle. Some noise mixed in, and words came spilling from her mouth in a pronunciation that no longer carried any human tone.
"Impressive. You can tell even in a situation like this? Is it intuition? Is it instinct? Either way, the power of love is mighty!"
"...I'll ask one more time. Who are you?"
"The Saintess. I'm Jeong Ye-ji."
"Don't lie."
The Undertaker's voice turned cold.
"You aren't the Saintess. I can feel it."
"Yes. But it would only trouble me to tell you my name. My name has already been eaten. By all of you."
"...?"
"And my voice holding up like this won't last long either. At this rate, a week. Hmm, no. Three days and my voice will be eaten too, I suppose. It's a problem. It's really a problem."
Eaten? What did that mean?
The Undertaker couldn't understand, and because he couldn't understand, he furrowed his brow.
It was true that the 'incomprehensible' was the very nature of an anomaly. It was just that the sight of this anomaly appearing as a copy of his love was not the least bit pleasant.
"A doppelgänger."
"Ahaha."
She laughed.
"You really are a hard one to look after."
And then even more incomprehensible words followed.
"Because I attached no penalty to [Time Seal], you went around sealing people all over the world at random. A bad ending. So I hastily attached a condition."
"What?"
"If you monopolize Sim Ah-ryeon's attention, another problem comes up. So this time I made an appropriate hobby for you both. For Sim Ah-ryeon and you, the two of you."
"..."
"So what was the problem this time? No. Actually, I know. I'm the problem. It's nothing but a problem with myself, the self that can't be satisfied with this. And I'm forcing it onto all of you, so all I can do is feel sorry."
"What on earth are you talking about..."
"But I won't give up."
Trudge. She drew closer.
"I'll have to push Jeong Ye-ji a little harder. To still believe you can share your time with someone... Really. Your faith in humanity is far too stubborn, Ye-ji."
"..."
"I didn't want to take it this far either. But I have to plant the terror in you that you can never, no matter what, no matter what happens, intersect with another person."
He realized it then.
It was strange that the Saintess, who'd gone to buy ice cream, still hadn't come back. Even now she should have been sharing the Undertaker's field of vision.
Which meant the Saintess was dead. Or at the very least, incapacitated.
The instant that conclusion formed, the Undertaker attacked her without a word. He gave it everything.
This was an enemy who moved as though it were the most natural thing even in a frozen world, who had defeated that world's very master. He couldn't let his guard down for even an instant.
"You too."
But he didn't reach her.
After only a few exchanges of blows, the Undertaker's body lay collapsed on the beach. All his limbs pinned.
The one wearing the Saintess's face pressed him down, looking down at him with a beaming smile.
"You're the same."
"..."
"It troubles me if you let me slip away this easily. Then I'd become a monster, wouldn't I. My goodness. Me, having even learned [Time Stop]. If even the traces of having once been human vanish from a me like this, what means will you have left to beat me later?"
Slide.
She drew something from inside her clothes. A glass bottle filled with a red liquid. She popped the stopper out.
"Now. Ahh."
As if a lover were offering cake to her lover on a fork, she pushed it toward the Undertaker's mouth.
The Undertaker refused. So she pried his mouth open by force. He tried to bare his teeth and bite down on her finger, but it didn't work.
"Swallow it."
"..."
"Ah, sorry. I misspoke. You'll end up swallowing it anyway."
And so it happened.
Feeling a scent endlessly similar to human blood fill his mouth and throat, sensing his vision recede at a rapid pace, the Undertaker spoke.
"You... so you're Go Yuri."
"Correct!"
"Why... are you doing this to me?"
"I can't explain it. It can't be understood. But I suppose I can tell you this much."
Beyond his already dimming vision.
A small sensation touched his forehead. The Saintess's face was faintly smiling.
Her index finger pressed playfully against the bridge of his nose.
"Foolish couple. Forbidden."
An incomprehensible remark, as expected.
Still, one single fact served as a comfort to the Undertaker.
That, at the very least, he was glad the last face he saw in this world was the face of the one he loved.
That.
Was the end of the Undertaker, who never reached a certain day of the week.
-That Woman J. Fin.
Footnotes:
[1] The handle is "OldManGoryeo," a folkloric term for the legendary practice of abandoning aged parents in the mountains to die. As a username it reads as a darkly ironic troll persona.
[2] An allusion to Goethe's Faust: "Verweile doch, du bist so schön!" ("Linger a while, thou art so fair!"). Faust wagers his soul on the moment he ever wishes time to stop, fittingly echoed here as the lovers try to freeze time forever.
-x-X-x-
──────
* * *
It was summer.
"..."
A young man.
Go Yuir looked up at the sky without quite meaning to.
The sky was blue. But if the white clouds hadn't cast their shade, how deep could that blue ever have grown?
Everything was shade for the sky's sake.
The cries of the cicadas that had hatched too soon and now wailed somewhere far off. The leaves whose green was being scorched dry by the sunlight. The hazy chime of a wind whose source no one could name.
"Mr. Matiz."
A crisp tap of footsteps.
And a voice that came from behind, riding along with them.
Go Yuir turned around.
"I've finished packing the bicycles. The bike carrier you gave me really did make it easier. The hauling should go smoothly too. With this, every preparation for the trip is complete."
"...Ji-won-ah."
"Yes, Mr. Matiz."
A girl. Yu Ji-won tilted her head.
"There's no strength in your voice. Has something happened?"
"Yeah. Truth is, something came up out of nowhere. That Japan trip we've been planning for a year, looks like our schedule won't let us go. Sorry."
"I see."
Yu Ji-won nodded.
Expressionless.
"That's a lie."
"Tch. How'd you catch on?"
"Because you've teased me forty-one times now with that same brand of lie, so I've gotten used to it. There was never any way the trip was actually canceled to begin with."
"Why's that?"
"It's a trip you literally started planning a year ago. Someone like you would have controlled every variable from the start so the schedule couldn't slip. I believe in your abilities, Mr. Matiz."
Go Yuir lamented.
"Ah. Where did the cute little Ji-won go, the one who used to sulk because she couldn't tell whether my words were lies..."
"It eases my mind that a friend of yours will look after my grandmother. Still, I'd like to meet them in person to give my thanks."
"No. I'd recommend you don't meet her."
"Is there a particular reason?"
"No comment."
The truth was, Go Yuir didn't know the reason either.
'She refused so desperately, said the one thing that absolutely couldn't happen was Ji-won and her meeting. That girl.'
The woman who occupied the bizarre position of being his master, his colleague, and his little sister (?) all at once. Go Yuri was the one keeping her distance from Yu Ji-won.
From Go Yuir's standpoint, it was quite a surprise. It was the first time that girl had ever avoided a single person so badly.
-Beep boop! Absolutely not! If we meet, the variables get distorted!
-No, then at least explain the reason...
-Ugh. Do you have any idea how many times I've broken my back trying to make something resembling a decent person out of you, Go Yuir? The thing about you is, the moment you fall in love, you go blind. If explaining the circumstances were going to make things any better, I'd obviously have explained them by now, wouldn't I?
-...You're being awfully snippy about this.
-Ahahaha. Someday you'll understand too, Go Yuir. Someday.
There had been a strange conversation like that.
"Hmm."
Yu Ji-won clearly wasn't satisfied, but she didn't voice any particular complaint.
A trivial gripe or two didn't matter.
The first overseas trip of her life. And on top of that, the event of touring the Japanese archipelago by bicycle, just the two of them, was right around the corner.
"Then I'll see you early tomorrow morning."
"Sure. Oh, Ji-won-ah."
"Yes?"
"You haven't forgotten airplane manners, right? When kids your age ride a plane for the first time as students, there's always a fuss. If you don't want to embarrass me, get yourself ready properly."
"Of course. Haven't you warned me about it several times already?"
As if she'd predicted this exchange was coming, her face expressionless but her tone brimming with confidence, Yu Ji-won raised her left hand.
Up it went.
A shoe bag hung from it.
"It's proper etiquette to remove your shoes right before boarding the plane. I'm fully aware of it."
"That's my Ji-won. I don't think I've ever seen a kid as smart as you."
"I place a fair amount of trust in my own intelligence as well. Then I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yeah. Sleep well."
"Yes. Good night, Mr. Matiz."
It was summer.
* * *
"Hff, pfft, hk. Hu-hu-hk-."
"..."
"Pfft. Pbbbt, pp. Pwup."
"..."
"Bwahahahaha! Ah, heh, ahahah!"
"..."
Jab.
Yu Ji-won silently poked Go Yuir.
You shouldn't expect a cute little gesture from her, like a nudge with the elbow.
A ballpoint tip. A metal ballpoint pen, that was what she poked him with. Yu Ji-won always kept up some self-defense art to protect herself.
The unfortunate fact was that Go Yuir did the same.
As if he'd already predicted exactly when and where she'd strike, he skillfully blocked Yu Ji-won's wave of attacks.
Jab. Jab. Jab. Ja-ab, jab.
"D-did you see? You saw, right? The stewardess's face. No. Sorry. You can't do facial recognition, Ji-won, so you can't read her expression. Ah, this. If I were a poet I'd have explained it to you in style. But I just can't, this one."
"Mr. Matiz."
"Ah, um, sir, ma'am. Ah. I'm terribly sorry, but our airline asks that you keep your shoes on inside the cabin-."
"Is this fun?"
"Funny as hell."
"You're telling me you laid down a whole year of buildup just to pull off this gloriously childish stunt?"
"They say a lion gives it everything even when it's catching a rabbit. I've got the heart of a lion."
"Then go catch heartworms and drop dead, please."
"Hahahahahahaha!"
There were various incidents and mishaps, but at any rate the two of them got through immigration safely.
The purpose of this trip was simple.
'Yu Ji-won's ability is [Mini-Map]. And the condition for triggering the Mini-Map is to set foot in a place like the local convenience store or city hall.'
According to a certain reincarnator's claim, once the apocalypse broke out down the line, it would be wise for the organizations of the Korean Peninsula and those of the Japanese archipelago to forge close cooperation.
'Once the world starts ending, there's no way anyone gets the luxury of leisurely travel. Realistically, now is the last chance to light up the [Mini-Map].'
Of course, there wasn't only this official sort of purpose.
A glance. Go Yuir looked over at Yu Ji-won, who had come into the lodging and even changed into her pajamas.
Even on a trip, Yu Ji-won was using the spare scraps of the night to throw herself into studying Japanese. Scratch, scratch, the sound of her pen shaved a thin layer off the rind of the night.
'...I want to make some room for Ji-won to catch her breath.'
This, more than anything, might be closer to the true purpose, Go Yuir thought.
Yu Ji-won had murdered her birth father and birth mother. She had dismembered the bodies and dumped them. And then, alone, she balanced her studies with modeling work while supporting a grandmother with dementia.
'Ji-won herself acts as if it's nothing, and she really does handle it all skillfully, but...'
For a weight of life that a child had to carry, it was far too heavy.
'You could have a different life, you know, Ji-won-ah. You're a kid with countless possibilities.'
Honestly.
If Yu Ji-won so much as wanted it... Go Yuir was even prepared to throw away the reincarnator's project at a moment's notice.
'She's a child who suffered her parents' violence her whole life. Just a little girl.'
'She barely escaped that, and now she's being jerked around at the whim of strange people's schedules, reincarnators and regressors and the like... I have no excuse to give her.'
So they had set off on a trip.
If lighting up the Mini-Map had been the only goal, it would have been far simpler to just put Yu Ji-won to sleep and use Go Yuri's [Teleportation]. There was no need anywhere to go to the trouble of flying.
If she wanted to leave, it was fine to leave.
If the thing called 'world annihilation' could only be stopped by deceiving and taming the child in front of him, then a world like that could go ahead and end, for all he cared.
That was what Go Yuir believed.
"..."
A halt.
Yu Ji-won's pen, which had been filling the notebook with dense rows of Chinese characters as she studied, came to a stop.
"...Haa."
A small sigh slipped from Yu Ji-won's lips.
"It's noisy. Far too noisy."
"Hm? I don't hear a thing, though?"
"I'm talking about you, Mr. Matiz."
Yu Ji-won set down her pen and drew her brows together. She was deliberately putting her attitude on display across her face.
"With you gazing at me that intently, how am I supposed to focus on studying?"
"?"
Go Yuir was dumbfounded.
"What, did you learn mind-reading or something? Now you read my heart with your eyes?"
"There's no need to read it. If you've been staring at me without pause for over two minutes, it means one of two things."
"What, what?"
"One. That despite skillfully deceiving me for a whole year, you've actually been moved to lust by my looks, and using the excuse of saving on lodging, you intend to seize the chance of living together to build a romantic relationship with me."
"Are you out of your mind?!"
"Two. That you're sunk in pointlessly serious thoughts, fretting over my future again."
"..."
"I've already chosen my own fate, Mr. Matiz. I'm always grateful that you think things through on my behalf, but if you keep those thoughts to yourself, they carry no meaning at all."
"...I see. That's true too."
"Speak to me. Talk it over with me."
Yu Ji-won looked him straight in the eye.
"Without conversation, I can't understand."
"..."
"I'm aware there's a sort of person who treats the absence of conversation, the silence, as some greater form of understanding instead, but that isn't understanding meant for me."
"...I'm sorry."
"It's all right."
Yu Ji-won rose and sat on the sofa.
This small place, booked through Airbnb, was charmingly well decorated despite its modest floor space, whether that was the owner's character or not.
Tap, tap. Yu Ji-won patted the spot beside her on the sofa. Go Yuir rose without a word and sat there.
"From the day before we left, your mood was different than usual. I'll ask again. What worry are you carrying, Mr. Matiz?"
"...This is a secret between just you and me."
"Is it weightier than the secret that I murdered my birth parents?"
It was her way of saying, what secrets could there possibly be between us at this point. Go Yuir huffed out a laugh.
"The truth is."
"Yes."
"There's a reincarnator named Go Yuri, who was supposedly my little sister in a past life."
"Hmm."
Yu Ji-won nodded.
"Is it a setting? Or a delusion?"
"No. It's astonishing, but it's true."
"That truly is an astonishing fact. I ask just in case, but how many years of buildup does this amount to?"
"Ah! I didn't take the lesson of the boy who cried wolf to heart."
They traded the conversation like this, but in truth Go Yuir knew it well.
That she was already assuming his words were 'truth.'
To Yu Ji-won, Go Yuir's claims were absolute. It wasn't that they were objectively absolute and therefore trustworthy. It was that, because she trusted, she simply granted the other person an absolute value.
"Please go on."
"She's a reincarnator. So she knows everything about what's going to happen in the future. The reason I ever met you came from her too."
"..."
"In the end, I wonder if that person and I forced a fixed fate on you. It's been weighing on my mind for a long while."
"I see."
Yu Ji-won nodded.
"That's a truly pointless worry. But, I finally understand. Why you've always been so desperate to give me what you call 'freedom' every time you look at me, Mr. Matiz."
"Are you disappointed?"
"Not at all. If anything, it's become clear."
Go Yuir's head tilted.
"Become clear, how?"
"The way for me to repay you, Mr. Matiz."
Yu Ji-won rose from the sofa.
"I'll sleep first. You should hurry to bed too, Mr. Matiz. We're set to start riding early at dawn tomorrow, aren't we?"
"Huh? Ah, right. Yeah. I should sleep. Yeah."
"Do have a good night."
With that, Yu Ji-won lay down on the bed off to one side of the room.
Unable to grasp the meaning of the words she'd left behind, Go Yuir tilted his head.
'What's that supposed to mean? A way to repay me.'
But just as Yu Ji-won said, the real bicycle trip began tomorrow, so Go Yuir too tidied up around himself and lay down on the sofa.
Ka-tok.
His smartphone gave a small buzz around the half-hour mark, just as he was drifting off to sleep.
"...?"
Go Yuir checked his phone.
-Little Sister (?): Come outside for a sec!
-x-X-x-
──────
* * *
The lodging Go Yuir had booked was a budget business hotel, good bang for the buck.
It sat a little outside the city center, but since the plan was to get around by bicycle for the whole month anyway, that hardly mattered.
If anything, there was an upside.
"Ah."
Just a short walk from the hotel led straight into a dim back alley like this, untouched by any streetlight.
"You came out quick," she said.
"And you? Teleportation?"
"Yes!"
Go Yuri.
The mysterious woman who claimed to have been his little sister in a past life stood there, the shade of night draped over her alone like a coat.
"I figured it'd take you longer to slip past Yu Ji-won's eyes, Undertaker."
"She happened to turn in for the night. First trip abroad. She must've worn herself out without even noticing."
"Hmm."
Go Yuri smiled with her eyes.
"Yu Ji-won, you say..."
"What? Something bothering you?"
"No. It's just. I have my doubts that someone who calmly counts even the number and force of each breath she takes could really fail to manage her own condition."
What alien from what planet are you even talking about, Go Yuir was about to fire back, but he stopped.
His attention scattered right then as he caught the drink Go Yuri tossed him.
He saw what kind of drink it was and his brow furrowed.
"...A protein shake?"
"Yes!"
"Hey. Don't you usually go for something with a little romance to it at a moment like this? A warm canned coffee or something?"
"Ah, sorry. Come to think of it, Oraboni, you haven't taken up strength training yet."
"..."
"Still, it's much better for your health than caffeine in the middle of the night, so drink up and don't worry!"
There it was. Again. This kept happening.
Whenever Go Yuir spent time with the woman in front of him, his stomach churned at a feeling that crept up on him again and again.
'...Even while she's dealing with the present me, she's mixing me up with a future me.'
The very way she addressed him shifted from one moment to the next. Sometimes Guild Leader. Sometimes Oraboni. Sometimes Undertaker.
Inside her, far too many versions of 'him' existed.
'Of course, it's only the future me from my perspective. From hers, it'd be the past me.'
Go Yuir had no idea how to put what he was feeling right now into words.
He didn't blame her for it, though. The number of cycles she had 'reincarnated' through was beyond anything he could even imagine.
How many years had she lived? A thousand? Ten thousand? No. Surely even counting was meaningless.
She had lived far too long and been through far too many events. A little confusion in her memory was a natural penalty.
"To get to the point. Now then, Oraboni? There isn't much to share with you today. The situation with the Cheon family's Cult is..."
The night deepened.
In a remote alley of a foreign land where no one was around to eavesdrop, just two people quietly conspired about the future, vowing to stop the world annihilation that would come someday.
If anyone else had known, they'd have been dumbfounded, wondering what kind of crazed lunatics these two were.
"I keep quietly laying the groundwork about you, too, Oraboni. Once this trip is over, you'll naturally step in as my successor..."
"Go Yuri."
"Yes?"
Go Yuri's mouth, which had been chattering away so cheerfully, paused for a moment.
"What is it, Guild Leader?"
"You told me before. To share anything and everything without holding back, no matter how trivial the feeling."
"Yes!"
Go Yuri smiled brightly.
"I rate your 'feelings' extremely highly, Oraboni. When dealing with anomalies, rational judgment alone often isn't enough to solve things."
"Right. About that. From yesterday up until now, something's felt off."
"...Something's felt off?"
Blink.
"How is it off, specifically?"
"I'm not sure."
"..."
"If I had to be specific. It started yesterday afternoon. I was looking up at the sky, the cicadas were chirping, and all of a sudden this world stopped feeling like my world... that kind of feeling?"
Go Yuri's face.
Turned chilling.
"..."
What kind of expression was that, anyway? That one.
Cold. But not cold because it was empty. Rather, cold the way deep water turns cold, the flow of thought running too thick beneath the surface.
Like the sea.
Go Yuir felt as if, for the first time in his life, he was seeing his 'little sister's' true face laid bare.
"Yesterday, huh."
Go Yuri murmured.
It was nothing more than 'something started feeling off,' so she could easily have let it slide, and Go Yuir himself wouldn't have minded in the least.
Yet her tone was as serious as could be.
"Please tell me in a little more detail."
"Hm."
"Right after the feeling set in, what happened? That part might be the most important."
"What happened... Ah. Ji-won."
"Yu Ji-won?"
"Ji-won called for me. Today was departure day, so she said she'd finished packing the bicycles."
"Aha. ..."
Go Yuri propped her chin in her hand.
She didn't drag out the deliberation for long.
"Please close your eyes for a moment. Open them when I tell you to."
"You're going to teleport?"
"Yes."
He did as told.
The instant Go Yuir closed his eyes, the presence that had clearly been right in front of him suddenly vanished. The sweet apple scent, too.
Only after about a minute did that familiar fragrance drift back into the night air.
"Eyes. Open them, please."
He did as told again.
Go Yuri was there. But her appearance had changed.
She must have used [Teleportation] to go somewhere, and now she held several fairly large picture frames in her arms.
Inside the frames were portraits. Photorealistic paintings so precise you might mistake them for actual photographs.
"Look at this person first. Turn on your flashlight."
"..."
"What do you feel, Oraboni?"
The figure in the portrait.
Curiously, wore a monocle. Draped over them was a white coat like the ones doctors wore. And whether their hair was a touch wavy or just carelessly combed, it sat in disarray.
What caught Go Yuir's eye most of all in the portrait was the figure's eyes. You might say they held shadow. Or that soot had settled into them.
At those pupils, which looked as though every appraisal of this world had already been settled, the tender flesh of Go Yuir's heart was stirred up.
"...My chest is churning."
"Good. Next."
Go Yuri showed him fifteen portraits in all, one after another.
Since the alley was pitch dark without a single light, Go Yuir had to examine each painting with his smartphone flashlight.
"How about this person?"
"I feel nothing at all."
"Even though they're this pretty?"
"I'll grant that they're pretty. But still, no real reaction."
"..."
Among them were portraits that moved Go Yuir's heart, and far more that did not.
When the puzzling test was over.
"...Ms. Noh Do-hwa, Ms. Sim Ah-ryeon, Ms. Jeong Ye-ji. You reacted to exactly three people, right on the nose."
Go Yuri's expression grew even graver.
She kept up a string of meaningless mutterings, hm, hmm, mm-mm, before her lips popped open.
"This is really, truly, tru-ly strange, Oraboni."
"Can you explain it to me too?"
"Normally I'd never go through with a 'spoiler' like this. But yes. Given how extraordinary the situation is, I have no choice but to throw a gamble myself."
Go Yuri said,
"The three people you just reacted to. As it happens, they're all partners you shared love with in your last, second-to-last, and third-to-last lives, Oraboni."
"...What?"
The content was too far over the line, and Go Yuir's mind hit a momentary stun.
But the other party went on serenely, as if that sort of thing didn't concern her in the least.
"It's not exactly your past life or the one before that. I was just counting the 'meaningful' lives as I saw them. But it's true."
"Uh. Um. Uhh... The, what exactly do you mean by sharing love...?"
"Aack! No sexual harassment! I think the lewd stuff is off-limits!"
"..."
That reaction alone was answer enough.
Go Yuir's mind reeled fast into a haze. Without thinking, he dug back through the portraits Go Yuri had just set down. These people? Me? We become lovers?
"Uh. It's, their looks. Hm. I don't know if I should be the one saying this, but they're so... Everyone's traits are different, their looks are different..."
"Yes. I was startled too, you know? Goodness. To think, no matter how off guard I was, that you'd end up in that sort of relationship with Ms. Sim Ah-ryeon of all people. You really are a monster of possibility, Oraboni."
"What's that supposed to mean??"
"You'll come to understand. Hm, no. Since you've been spoiled, the route may have gotten completely tangled now. You may never come to understand it."
Go Yuri let out a small sigh.
"There's a good interpretation and a worst-case interpretation. Which would you like to hear first?"
"...The bad one."
"The good interpretation is the hypothesis that you're a hopelessly love-crazed sap, a romanticist who instinctively remembers even loves from two lifetimes ago."
"..."
Why, when he'd clearly asked for the bad one first, had she handed back the exact opposite answer?
It made no sense, yet it was perfectly consistent so long as Go Yuri insisted on her little-sister persona. What little sister in the world ever does exactly what her older brother says?
"I don't really seem like a guy that crazy about love, though."
"Should I just kill this man? Seriously."
"Hm?"
"It's nothing."
Go Yuri smiled sweetly.
"Next. The worst possibility is..."
"The possibility is?"
"That without you or me realizing it, we've fallen into some kind of anomalous phenomenon. While we ourselves are even under the illusion that we're cleanly regressing and reincarnating."
"Uh..."
Such a thing.
"It's possible."
Go Yuri snatched the question one step ahead, before Go Yuir had even retched it up from inside.
"At the very simplest, we could assume all of this is a dream, couldn't we? To get a little fancier, we could interpret it as a simulation running, like a brain in a vat[1]."
"...Horrifying."
"Yes. That's what an anomaly is."
Go Yuri nodded, then said,
"So first I'll kill the Cheon Yo-hwa twins and check how this world reacts."
She said it as if it were nothing.
"What?"
"I told you, didn't I? That there's a chance this is a simulated universe. If that's the case, it means Taeguk is at work, so killing the Cheon Yo-hwa twins should provoke a reaction one way or another."
"Wa, wait."
Go Yuir grabbed her shoulder. He felt that if he let go here, she'd hop on a teleport straight to the murder scene any second.
"Yuri. Wait. That conclusion is strange. All I said was that yesterday and today my mood's been off. So why does that lead to killing someone... and not just anyone, but children you raised yourself, playing teacher to them since they were small, without the slightest hesitation?"
"Because I trust your feelings dearly, Guild Leader."
"Are you, are you serious? What if you killed them. Killed them, and your guess was wrong?"
"Please calculate the risk coolly."
Go Yuri's expression didn't waver.
"If I kill the Cheon Yo-hwa twins and nothing at all happens, that's actually for the best. From the next life on, we won't have to worry about whether we're trapped in a simulation or not."
"A person would die!"
"This is the path that saves people. Yes, I know. It'll sound like sophistry. But the moment I went through with spoiling you, this life became a 'discard card' for me. If it's a discard anyway, I should put it to the best possible use..."
That was when it happened.
Tok. Something fell onto the back of Go Yuir's hand where it gripped her shoulder. And onto Go Yuri's cheek.
"...Rain?"
It was a raindrop.
Tok, ta-ta-ta-ta-tat-.
In less than ten seconds, the raindrops grew into streaks, and the streaks into a downpour.
No matter how often East Asia's climate got mistaken for Southeast Asia's these days, this was a downright uncanny shower.
Go Yuir thought, rather, that it had worked out well. Now he had an excuse.
He gripped Go Yuri's hand firmly.
"For now. You're too worked up. Let's at least duck into a convenience store and cool your head for a bit..."
"No."
A murmur.
"Yuri?"
"No. This isn't rain, it's..."
Pak.
Along with an extremely faint tremor, redness mixed into the rainwater.
Go Yuir's breath stopped at the sight that unfolded before his eyes.
And the same went for the one who had drawn out that redness.
"...Ah?"
Go Yuri looked down at her own chest with a slightly dazed face.
Drip. Drip.
Red rainwater was running down a kitchen knife slick with blood.
"Ah, ha."
Soon the knife twisted at a bizarre angle. With that, even the breath that had been leaking from Go Yuri's lips at a more or less steady pace lost its rhythm.
A dim, pale blue chill clung to the kitchen knife.
"Ora, boni."
A voice thin enough to be washed away by the rain.
Go Yuri pressed more strength into Go Yuir's hand, the one she already held.
She was soaked through, her bangs plastered to her forehead, but her gaze stayed fixed straight on Go Yuir.
"Next time. Again..."
The sound of a person collapsing wasn't erased even by the rain, and a soft thud rang out.
Now there was nothing left to obstruct the rainwater.
Behind where Go Yuri's body had blocked the view, the figure of the one standing there with the kitchen knife also came fully into sight.
Go Yuir looked in turn from his sister's corpse fallen on the ground to the culprit before him.
And with difficulty, he opened his mouth.
"...Ji-won."
"Yes."
Yu Ji-won wore the hood of a raincoat pulled over her head, hiding hair that flowed down not in black but in silver, and spoke with the same expressionless face as always.
"So now Mr. Matiz has become a little freer too."
Footnotes:
[1] A classic thought experiment in philosophy: if a disembodied brain were fed simulated sensory signals, it could not tell its experience from reality, casting doubt on whether anything we perceive is real.
-x-X-x-
──────
* * *
There were two sentences here.
A. Go Yuri had died.
B. Yu Ji-won had committed murder.
Either one was an absurd thing to face on a first trip abroad.
But if you asked which of the two shocked Go Yuir more, the answer was clear.
Go Yuri had died.
Go Yuri could die too.
And this easily, at that.
"..."
Go Yuir stood there blankly, soaking in the rain.
The corpse sprawled on the pavement, the hair scattering strand by strand into the puddle, none of it felt quite real.
Ever since he was a child, she had felt invincible to him.
She was family. She was a teacher.
Whether she was calling him by that odd title, "Guild Leader," or by the even odder one, "Oraboni," or whether she occasionally used his real name, "Go Yuir."
There was always mischief and confidence hovering at the corners of her mouth.
Ah, with her at his side he could surely keep going right up to the day the world ended. Before he even realized it, that was the kind of thought she inspired.
But now she lay there bleeding. She had made her exit, long before the "world annihilation" she always had on the tip of her tongue ever came.
"Hm."
Another member of the family.
A girl whom Go Yuir, in his heart, felt closer to as a younger sibling than even Go Yuri, though they had never called each other older brother or younger sister.
But objectively she was simply "the kid next door," Yu Ji-won, who crouched down and searched through the corpse's clothes.
"Just as I thought."
Yu Ji-won nodded. Strangely, in the madly pouring rain, only her voice came through clear.
"There's no passport."
"..."
"Now and then I found it strange."
Why did you kill her.
When did you start tailing me. When you decided to follow me, it shouldn't have been raining yet, so why did you bring a raincoat first. Are you in your right mind.
Go Yuir could have asked a great many things. With family murdered right before his eyes, he hardly lacked the right.
"...Strange? What was?"
But the fact that not only the victim but also the perpetrator was as good as family made him automatically cut away those pointless questions.
Swallowing so much without ever asking "why." For better or worse, that too was a property of the bond called family.
"Now and then, I noticed an unidentifiable fragrance in Mr. Matiz's room."
"..."
"There were times Grandmother gave off the same fragrance, faint as it was. Grandmother even mumbled to me on occasion that I had a 'younger sibling.'"
Yu Ji-won set down her backpack.
Zzzip. As the zipper opened, familiar tools came into view. Gloves. A large sheet of vinyl.
In an instant, Go Yuir's mind flashed back to one summer night a year ago. These were none other than the "work tools" he had taught her about.
"Did you know, Mr. Matiz? I installed a small CCTV camera so I could keep an eye on the alley. My parents had 'gone missing,' and Grandmother is a dementia patient on top of that. In any worst-case scenario, I had no shortage of excuses."
"..."
"So even before Mr. Matiz confessed about the 'reincarnator,' I had already confirmed this woman's existence."
In Go Yuir's eyes.
Yu Ji-won's true talent was neither the looks nor the intellect she was born with.
It was her capacity to act.
Imagine, for instance, that you reached out to drink some water.
A glass of water sat on the table right in front of you. Would you often stop your hand halfway?
Almost never.
For the girl Yu Ji-won, every action worked that way.
She decided, "I will drink water." Therefore, "I reach out my hand." It was an utterly natural process, so there was no reason to hesitate. There wasn't even any reason to put the task off.
Murder. Even an act that for most people would be the greatest of events fell, for Yu Ji-won, under that same category of "action."
"With the stepping stones gathered this far, I can now make a bold leap toward a conclusion."
Yu Ji-won wrapped up the corpse and set off.
It was a thoroughly natural movement. Come to think of it, Go Yuir thought, they had shared with the girl before him exactly when and at which lodging they would be staying.
A business hotel out away from the city center. A night road without a single streetlight in sight.
Even if an investigation got underway, surely no detective would imagine that foreigners had abruptly committed murder on "the very first day of their trip."
If you were going to kill, do it the first day.
That was Yu Ji-won's judgment.
"I respect Mr. Matiz's opinion. I respect Grandmother's too, not quite as much, but still. I have no memory of ever having a younger sibling, but if I assume this being is a 'reincarnator,' the two testimonies fit together cleanly."
"..."
"In that case, it's highly likely the reincarnator had gathered an abnormally rich amount of information about me. It also made sense, in a number of ways, that Mr. Matiz intervened so neatly in my parents' 'disappearance.'"
A supplement.
Ordinary people did not listen so closely to others' opinions.
That the world would end. That reincarnators existed. That there had been a younger sibling who didn't exist in one's own memory. There was no way to trust such tall tales, such unrealistic testimony.
Yu Ji-won was different.
To her, "realism" was unimportant. To Yu Ji-won, reality had always been something without any sense of reality to begin with.
The two propositions "humans exist" and "reincarnators exist," Yu Ji-won knew how to weigh equally, without any prejudice.
A conclusion.
"Mr. Matiz and I. The case the two of us thought we alone knew about actually had one more person involved, an instigator and a witness."
Yu Ji-won faced the fact calmly.
"And Mr. Matiz. I don't think there's any need to spell this out, but just as I trust Mr. Matiz, I do not trust this reincarnator."
"...So."
"Yes, so I killed her."
Of course, that isn't the only reason, Yu Ji-won mumbled.
Then she set the corpse down lightly.
"Hm. Heavier than I expected."
"..."
"Would you help me?"
To help family bury family.
That utterly simple summary suddenly felt heavy to Go Yuir. As heavy as the corpse's silent weight.
A heaviness he could explain to no one.
* * *
Compared to the "disappearance" that had unfolded one summer a year ago, the way the corpse was buried this time was rather slipshod.
But Go Yuir sensed it.
Even if the corpse were found, the odds of the two of them ending up in an investigation's net would surely converge on zero.
"...The police won't even be able to confirm the corpse's identity."
"Yes."
Dawn.
As planned, Yu Ji-won and Go Yuir set out on their bicycle ride. Before departing, the two of them stood side by side in front of the lodging, warming up.
"That's why whether there was a passport mattered."
"Did you actually figure out that Go Yuri was a Teleporter too?"
"No. I only guessed that a reincarnator preparing for world annihilation would naturally keep her identity hidden. Even if she had a passport, there was a strong chance it was fake."
"..."
"But, well. So she had the ability of Teleportation."
Every strength came with a weakness.
Teleportation. That ability, which had been Go Yuri's strongest weapon, in a case like this had turned into the very cause of a "perfect crime."
Where did this corpse come from? How did it suddenly appear? Who is it?
From abroad. By teleportation. A reincarnator.
Naturally, no one would arrive at that answer. There was no alibi to speak of.
The investigation was as good as closed before it ever began.
"If the ambush hadn't succeeded, it could have gotten dangerous. I'll have to broaden the scope of my imagination a bit more."
The bicycle wheels rolled briskly along.
For two hours.
By then it had become a time you could call morning, and the two stopped at a restaurant in some town along the way.
"It's sweet for my taste."
The moment she took a bite of the chain restaurant's gyudon[1], Yu Ji-won gave her flat verdict.
"I'd heard plenty of rumors that Japanese food is generally sweet. They weren't lies."
"...So the one who spent a year's worth of buildup on this trip wasn't me, it was you."
"Ah, yes. That's right. To be precise, I just repurposed an already scheduled itinerary as buildup."
"She's a cautious sort. Thorough to the core. But she surely never dreamed that a trip planned a year in advance, the first day no less, would be used for your plan. Here, the karaage[2]."
"Thank you. Mr. Matiz takes out a girl who'd been confined by her household. By anyone's eyes, it would come across as a romantic story. It wouldn't have been easy to spot a planned incident hiding in there. Mm. The karaage is decent."
"Yeah? Isn't the pepper a bit strong?"
"It's surely a franchise trick to keep the taste consistent regardless of the chicken's condition, isn't it. A reasonable enough method."
On the surface it was the picture of an ordinary breakfast, yet the topics passing back and forth across the table were truly bizarre.
Go Yuir sighed.
"...I'd been hoping for something romantic too. For family to meet a fate like that. It's the worst."
"Mmm."
Yu Ji-won let out a low groan. Her expression looked somehow ashamed.
After the meal, they bought Pocari Sweat[3], and in front of a convenience store Yu Ji-won picked up the thread again.
"Mr. Matiz."
"What."
"A person who speaks of others' deaths as if they were nothing must also accept a death of their own as if it were nothing."
"..."
"Above all, Mr. Matiz had been living a life half-brainwashed by her."
"Brainwashed..."
"You could call it gaslighting too. Living the way that person planned, building your own character the way that person laid out for you. It doesn't look like a very healthy relationship."
"..."
Go Yuir fell silent.
The ride again.
Three hours later the conversation resumed, over a simple convenience store bento for lunch.
"She says the world's going to end. And she says she needs me to stop it, so honestly, isn't a little brainwashing worth putting up with?"
"Hmm. That's no concern of mine."
"You psychopath..."
"I couldn't understand why Mr. Matiz was suddenly set to leave, saying he had to go teach some pair of sisters. That too must have been a schedule she had booked in advance, like the 'disappearance' in my household. Am I wrong?"
"You're right."
"Drop it."
"..."
"Mr. Matiz. Has there ever been even a single time you made a plan purely from your own thoughts, with no input from her?"
There had been.
It was this very one.
"Isn't this trip the first time?"
"..."
"Go Yuri, was it? From her standpoint, this trip must have looked like an utter waste of time. Whether you bothered to take a trip or not, the weight Mr. Matiz holds in my heart wouldn't change in the slightest."
"...That's true."
"But Mr. Matiz went through with the trip all the same. Why did you do that?"
"..."
"If I may presume to tell you the reason."
Yu Ji-won finished her bento and set it down. After wiping her mouth with a napkin, she looked straight at Go Yuir across from her.
"Because Mr. Matiz wanted to make the relationship with me wholly 'a relationship between just the two of us.'"
"..."
"The girl Yu Ji-won will kill her parents. The girl Yu Ji-won can play a crucial role in the world annihilation project. And so, choosing a time while her heart is still soft, win Yu Ji-won over and draw her in as an ally. I'd guess that was Go Yuri's plan. Mr. Matiz was nothing more than a chess piece moving according to it."
"..."
"But Mr. Matiz meant it sincerely."
No, Yu Ji-won shook her head.
"More precisely, the very person who could 'treat me sincerely' was Mr. Matiz. That's surely why you were chosen as the chess piece."
"..."
"Mr. Matiz felt guilty toward me. He blamed himself, wondering if he had deceived me. So, to be sincere with me, and to prove his own sincerity to himself as well, he set off with me on a 'completely useless trip.'"
"..."
"I'm sincere too."
Yu Ji-won pulled out another napkin.
Then she rose, came closer, and with her own hand wiped away the streak that had run down at the corner of Go Yuir's eye.
"She was precious to you."
"...Yeah."
"I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?"
"Yeah."
Yu Ji-won embraced him.
Burying her head against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry I didn't consult you beforehand."
"Because there's no way I would have agreed."
"I didn't fix murder as a constant either. I listened to the conversation. I judged that killing was the better choice."
"She's a reincarnator. She knows everything about what you did. There's no telling what she might do to you in the next life."
"I'm not afraid. It's no concern of mine."
Yu Ji-won stroked the back of Go Yuir's head.
"Right now you are here before my eyes."
"..."
"Let's set off on a trip, Mr. Matiz. Just the two of us."
Go Yuir thought to himself.
That it would, most likely, be a long trip.
Footnotes:
[1] Gyudon is a Japanese dish of simmered beef and onions served over rice; ubiquitous as cheap fast food at chains like Yoshinoya and Sukiya.
[2] Karaage is Japanese-style deep-fried chicken, marinated and coated in starch; a common side dish and bar/restaurant staple.
[3] Pocari Sweat is a popular Japanese ion-supply sports/electrolyte drink (made by Otsuka Pharmaceutical), widely sold across East Asia.