Chapter 225

"You are home."

There was once a daily routine that belonged to Lee Yeon-woo.

"Did you sleep well, I wonder?"

"I slept."

"And at what hour did you sleep?"

"A little past midnight."

"Then the person who made the sound of coming in past two must have been a burglar."

"Dear me, what good ears…."

At times like that Lee Yeon-ho would go on, unruffled.

"I looked into it, and that burglar apparently stole nothing."

"So he only slept and left, which is pitiful. He might at least have had breakfast before he went."

"Live long enough and you get days like that, don't you."

"Give me your bag."

"No need."

Lee Yeon-ho set down a bag of side dishes along with his briefcase. As the bag tipped, what was inside showed through. To the Lee Yeon-woo of that time it had become a familiar sight.

"Buckwheat jelly salad?"

"There was some left."

"It is fortunate the thing you like was what was left."

"If there hadn't been, I'd have bought anything at all."

"Precisely. And when you buy anything at all, you yourself do not eat it."

"Is it fun, cutting me off every single time?"

"Sometimes?"

The second exchange was over.

"It rained here in the afternoon. How was it on your side?"

"It rained."

"And the umbrella."

"You put one in for me, didn't you."

"I heard all about you handing it to the youngest."

"I believe I told you there is a duty of confidentiality in official matters. Bring in the defendant."

"Oh dear. You should have come a little earlier. That defendant is asleep."

"Then nothing can be done."

Lee Yeon-ho shook out his wet shoulder once.

"I'll buy one on the way in tomorrow."

"I will put another in today."

"Then I am grateful."

The third exchange was over as well.

"Have you eaten?"

"Admirably, I waited for my father to come."

"How long do you intend to keep blaming me for the meals you skip because you've no appetite?"

"Until my father says only upright and honest things."

"So I'm to live like this my whole life…."

"This gentleman, at his age?"

"Never mind that, eat something. Anything."

While Lee Yeon-ho rummaged in the refrigerator, Lee Yeon-woo would set out the spoons.

"Did the youngest eat?"

"Fed at six. I left only your portion."

"You didn't eat either, and yet the nagging runs long."

"You are missing the chance to sit down to a meal with your children, every single day. Do come home a little earlier."

"Out in the world they call that a corrupt prosecutor…."

"Do they open an audit if you leave on time? Have I had the wrong idea about what a prosecutor is?"

"Ha…."

Letting out a breath that might have been a sigh or a laugh, Lee Yeon-ho picked up his chopsticks. He lifted a piece of the buckwheat jelly salad and dropped it onto Lee Yeon-woo's rice.

"They had buckwheat jelly today."

"I do not like this."

"You don't like the act of eating itself."

"Caught out."

"It's a problem if this is the only part of me you take after…."

Lee Yeon-woo ate it.

"How is it."

"It is good."

"It's, when you actually eat it."

"Mild, too."

"This place does its side dishes well."

"Honestly, jelly is not so bad."

"They said buckwheat is not bad for you."

"That does seem to be so."

"Next time, if they've boiled pressed pork, I'll buy some."

"That would be nice."

The Lee Yeon-woo of that time did not know a great deal. He knew only that the adult of this house might, one morning, not get up. That much was plain to see.

So every day he asked three things. All of them were trivial.

"……."

"……."

They had to be trivial, so that asking every day would not seem strange.

And Lee Yeon-woo wanted a 'every day' like that.

***

It was red.

Hearing came back first. The sound of water striking a wall reached him very far off, and very close. Touch was next. Something lukewarm and thick was wrapped around the nape of his neck.

It was a place where he did not have to breathe.

"……."

Without opening his eyes, Lee Yeon-woo tried moving his fingertips. They moved. His shoulder, his ribs, the pit of his chest. Everything that ought to be there was there. Including the organs mimicked out of blood.

And then something took his hand.

"……."

It was not, in fact, anything you could call a hand.

Something with no fixed form imitated a hand and covered the back of his, stayed like that a while, then climbed his arm and stroked his shoulder a few times. It was extremely careful.

'It is all right now.'

Lee Yeon-woo thought that, and perhaps the thought carried, because it stroked his shoulder once more and withdrew. Then it slipped back beneath his back and held him up.

"You drowned to death, and yet you're surely the only one who dreams."

"There is no law saying water may not dream."

"You're the exception in a great many ways, my friend."

"Haha…."

Lee Yeon-woo opened his eyes.

An enormous merman was swimming through a redly rippling sea. Long hair rippled languidly like seaweed, and a tail as gaudy as a betta's swayed.

When their eyes met, the Water Wraith bared sharp teeth in a grin.

"Sleep well?"

"I did not expect you to come this far."

"We go anywhere there is water." "I was waiting for you to wake." "Good dreams?"

"Your allowance for what counts as water is remarkably broad."

"To me it's water."

"Are you like this inside my lung as well?"

"Only you fail to know how wide your inside is, foolish thing."

"It is my strong point."

The red began slowly to shrink. Velmareth's body was drinking it. When he raised himself slowly inside that 'sea,' the red streamed down off his shoulders.

Drip, drip — 'water' fell to the surface.

"……."

Lee Yeon-woo was sitting in a bathtub.

"…How long has it been."

"Who knows. Not for me to say."

The Drenched One had at some point taken a seat at the opposite end of the tub. The small body chosen as today's form swung its feet a few times in the water. Like an utterly innocent child.

"Didn't it take a very long time to come out of 'that state' last time?"

"Dear me. I was asking how long it took me to recover in the bathtub."

"I know that too."

"Why is there no one around me who says a plain thing plainly."

Lee Yeon-woo shifted to sit on the rim of the tub and wiped his wet face.

"Haa…."

He had dreamed.

It had been nothing of a dream. Taking a bag at the entryway, looking inside a bag of side dishes, talking about umbrellas and setting the table. Eating the buckwheat jelly salad a family member laid on his rice with chopsticks, and saying it was good.

That was all it had been.

"I think it hurt."

"It hurt that much?"

"More than I expected."

Absurdly, a small laugh came out of him.

"When the 'General Manager' could not endure it and let go, that rather says it all, does it not."

Call it grief if you like, or call it a sense of being wronged.

Sticking a label on it was not so important. It only mattered that whatever it was, it was inside him now, and that insisting a thing that exists does not exist hurts worse later. That much he knew.

So he left it as it was.

"So it did hurt, then."

He was saying it to himself.

"……."

Lee Yeon-woo pressed his palm firmly against his eyes.

"I am tired."

"You're not weeping, so why act as if you were?"

"When one is tired there are times one wants to weep."

"We weep quite often ourselves."

"Then come to me. I shall soothe you."

Taking his hand from his eyes, Lee Yeon-woo smiled faintly.

"And in exchange, when I weep, you soothe me."

"Hmm…."

The Water Wraith looked quietly into that, and answered.

"I don't know how to soothe anyone, though?"

"Staying with me as you are now is enough."

"It won't be, for us."

"You may be spiteful about it. I knew that when I made you my friend."

"Then I shall not hold back."

'The Drenched One' splashed and kicked her feet. Red flew up and a few drops landed on Lee Yeon-woo's face. He wiped his face down again and looked at the Water Wraith blankly.

"……."

"Hehe."

"Do not play with my blood. Do you know how troublesome it was to collect that as an emergency supply?"

"You're special. Your blood's also my water. Therefore I bear no guilt."

"Sophistry, and of the finest kind…."

He looked down into the bloodwater.

"It has been a while since we faced each other directly."

Two eyes, half revealed through the blood.

Something small and formless, its shape indistinct because it was sunk in the water, had been stuck fast to his calf all this while. From then until now, never once coming loose.

"Thank you. I am alive because of you."

"……."

"You helped me when I fought Mr. Lee Yeon-ho in the sky over the Fox Den as well. I called you out on my own whim then, and you answered. It was a great strength to me."

The red surface rippled once, small. Splash, splash — it seemed pleased.

"That one's diligent, too."

"In what way?"

"Isn't it so."

The Drenched One spoke indifferently.

"Every time you bleed, that thing's the first to leap in. I'm always second."

"I am simply grateful to you both. And one cannot presume to put a price on gratitude."

"That tongue of yours is thoroughly oiled."

"Shall I bake you macarons?"

"Don't go out."

The Water Wraith came closer and gripped Lee Yeon-woo's knee as though pressing it down.

"If you'd soothe me, don't go out."

At some point she had taken the shape of an adult man.

"……."

"Just stay here today. That'll do."

Lee Yeon-woo thought it over sufficiently and gave his answer.

"…Then shall I try that."

"What's this, you listening to me?"

"Sometimes even I need rest."

It was a situation that warranted a good rest.

'The body is sound again.'

More than sound — even the stiffness that had hung about somewhere in his ribs for so long had cleared away entirely. He had adapted it from a Blood Magic text, and the effect was better than he expected.

'But did I… use rather too much of it.'

Half of the amount he had kept in reserve. Next time he would have to be more sparing.

"……."

Next time.

Lee Yeon-woo rolled the word around in his mouth for a moment, then folded it away. He folded it away without pushing it off. A 'next time' would come one day too, and when it came he could pass through it like this again.

Yes. That would do.

"Haa…."

He swept back the hair that had fallen onto his forehead, wet with blood. It ought to have felt clammy, and yet it was as comfortable as being sunk in clean, clear water.

'This too must be because I have become Velmareth.'

He knows that fact inevitably calls up Lee Yeon-ho's killing intent.

'It would be a lie to say it does not leave a bitter taste, but I do not resent it.'

The man had judged only by what his eyes showed him, and taking the situation as it appeared, that judgment had been right. Lee Yeon-ho was a person who could, in the end, call a dangerous thing dangerous.

Lee Yeon-woo cherished that trait of his.

'That man has not changed a bit either.'

In the end, Lee Yeon-woo decided not to try to fix that killing intent. The moment he tried to change it, it would become a denial of the man himself.

That they had been able to talk like that at all was enough for him.

"What are you thinking about."

"About what to buy for him tomorrow."

"That old man?"

"Yes."

"I don't like it."

"Boiled pressed pork would be good."

"Give me some too."

"I shall have to go and see the Head Chef."

"I don't want the bloodwater bastard's. Make it yourself and hand it over."

"How demanding."

Lee Yeon-woo leaned deep into the tub.

Red blood rose to his shoulders, the small being at his feet came close and clung again, and across from him a sulking young Water Ghost kicked and splashed.

"……."

It was really rather nice.

"…Not bad at all."

He had decided to rest, so resting was all there was to do.

***

Her wings were heavy.

A bird's body is not suited to long flight. More precisely, Seome was not used to using this body for long. Coming from the Fox Den to the hotel without a rest had left her chest aching.

Alighting on the rooftop railing, Seome staggered once.

"……."

The landing was a mess. She hoped no one had seen….

"Oh my."

Someone had.

'Damn it.'

Something white was standing among the flower beds.

A woman white from head to foot, nightgown included, had stopped tipping her watering can and was looking this way. Water was falling, but it made no sound.

Everything that stayed in this hotel was like that.

"You're clumsy at coming down."

"……."

"And you a bird."

"…Hoo-hoot."

Seome answered vaguely and put her disordered feathers in order. A little of the soil she had carried from the Fox Den pattered loose. 'The Lover of Dawn' looked down at it blankly and said,

"On my flower bed."

"…Hoo."

"It's all right. Soil'll sort itself out with soil."

The woman tipped the watering can again.

Seome looked the flower bed over once. Things that were neither sunflowers nor evening primroses were all facing the same way. It did not appear to be the way of the sun or the moon, at least.

It looked rather as though they were watching someone.

"So, how was it, now that you have been?"

"……."

"The village the 'lady' made, I mean."

"……."

"You've grown sparing with words. You always were, though."

Seome moved from the railing to the edge of the flower bed. Only after that did she think about why she had moved.

Seome instinctively disliked being near this woman. There had been a time when this person had been very tender with her, and Seome knew perfectly well what the substance of that tenderness had been.

"Seome, my sister."

"……."

"We can be happy forever."

The woman spoke.

"You remember that."

And then, did she smile?

"I don't remember such things well."

"Hooeng."

"And yet you remember it."

Her smile was round.

"That must feel unjust."

She was not apologizing, and yet somehow she was tender.

The woman moved between the flower beds. Each time she tipped the watering can, clear drops could be seen falling, and still there was no sound. The soil did not dampen, and not even a footprint was left.

'So is she only miming watering them?'

And even so, the flowers grow.

"How is flying."

"……."

Her shoulders hurt, she lost her bearings often, and if the wind blew even a little hard her body turned over. When she used a human body, falling had cost her a scraped knee at worst.

'With this body, the moment you fall you drop straight down.'

So, to speak honestly, it was not very good.

"Hooeng."

"Is that so?"

The woman asked,

"Then why do you keep flying?"

Because the wind is good.

"……."

She liked the feel of wind striking her face.

She liked the air slipping through feathers puffed up by a deep breath, and she liked how the ground beneath her feet drew away as it never could when she was a person. She was not even good at it, and she kept doing it because she liked it.

She had rarely, in all her life, liked anything for no reason.

"Doesn't the sky seem a little crowded these days?"

"……?"

Seome looked up at the sky but could not feel anything in particular.

'What does a crowded sky even mean.'

"Just a presentiment I had."

"Hooeng."

"Yes. Not yet."

It has long been said that black mages are skilled at reading the future.

"So practice a little more."

A wind passed through once, but the flowers, still staring at one place, did not stir in the least. It was a thought she had had before, but it was a very strange garden.

And just then,

"I support it."

"!!!"

Seome nearly shot into the air.

An Inspector was sitting on the railing. Still in uniform, still with the whistle in his mouth. Truly, think it over three times and the man was still out of his mind.

"…Hoo-hoo-hoot."

"I was here from the beginning."

"Hooeng."

"My apologies."

With a face that looked not in the least apologetic, he climbed down off the railing.

"Lover of Dawn."

"Yes."

"Your flower bed is lovely."

"I am grateful for the guest's words."

After trading remarks as dryly as if they were reading from a Script, Hyeon Si-gyeong turned his head. He was looking straight at Seome, and yet it gave no impression of looking at 'her'… a subtle sort of gaze.

"……."

"……."

What.

"Is the sword to your taste?"

Seriously, what.

"Hoo?"

"Is the sword to your taste?"

"Hoo-hoot?"

"Not yet, then."

Seome could find nothing to say back.

"The one you are looking for is on the fourth floor."

"Hooeng."

"Yes, Room 404. You have stopped by there before."

At those words it suddenly came to Seome.

'The direction the flowers are watching was toward Mr. Lee Yeon-woo.'

Before the thought could be tidied away, Hyeon Si-gyeong's voice bored into her ears again.

"He is in the water."

'Out of nowhere?'

Was this the Water Wraith's doing again?

"He will not come out before the sun goes down."

"……."

"Go safely."

And then he began staring fixedly at the garden's flowers.

'I cannot believe that thing is purely human.'

She would sooner believe he was some fragment of an Offered sacrifice. Hyeon Si-gyeong was a person who suited this hotel far too well. He would not have been out of place as a part of the Labyrinth.

'Perhaps more so than I, who became staff.'

Seome stood there a while.

"……."

She had something to say to Lee Yeon-woo.

'It does not seem to be fully sorted out.'

Seome still had no feel for how to convey what she had seen and felt in the village. If she were asked to point at what was wrong, she could not point at it, and yet to act as though nothing had happened….

Because her insides kept feeling as if something were stuck.

"……."

What is a being who has never been taught right and wrong supposed to say at a time like this?

'…If I do not know, then I suppose I just say what I saw.'

She decided to think of it that way.

She spread her wings. This time she did not stagger.

***

"There are three rules."

The Pathfinder walked ahead as he spoke. He was a man who looked past sixty, and the pack on his back was larger than his body. He was one of the Pathfinders who specialized in going in and out of the 'Fox Den.'

"One. Follow directly behind me. If you stray to the side, from that point on I cannot find you."

"Yes."

"Two. If anyone in the mountain calls your name, do not answer. If it is a voice you know, all the more so. The Fox Den does not readily let you hear the voice of someone actually on the mountain."

"Understood."

"Three. Whatever you see in the fog, never, ever point at it."

Two Sensitivity Bureau investigators for the Gyeonggi region exchanged a quiet glance. One was in his third year, the other a rookie of barely four months.

The new investigator hesitated, then spoke.

"…Excuse me, is that not superstition?"

"Would you prefer it were superstition?"

At the Pathfinder's counter-question, the third-year investigator answered in his place.

"I apologize. He is manpower drafted to the Fox Den in a hurry, so he does not know much about mysteries yet."

"No need to apologize to me. Come in from outside, has he?"

"Yes."

"Then let me say this much."

The Pathfinder added it without breaking stride.

"The gentlemen who said they would check whether it was superstition did not, as a rule, come back."