Chapter 51
In the short time we spent on the bus, Yuna and I grew considerably closer.
One unfortunate thing was that Seo Yuna didn't really have any hobbies.
Even when I tried to get a conversation going, aside from magic, we had absolutely no common interests to speak of.
So our topics naturally shifted to the academy and magic.
“You were the one who used magic when I collapsed?!”
“You didn't know? Who did you think it was?”
“I naturally assumed it was Teacher Jackie... How on earth did you do it? Something kept sparkling, and my throat stopped hurting completely.”
“Want me to tell you again? If you want, how about opening your mouth for me one more time?”
When I waggled my index finger, Yuna finally seemed to understand what had happened and shook her head vigorously, apparently embarrassed.
She opened the window to cool her flushed face and let in the breeze.
“Just kidding. It's a spell that can be used anywhere on human skin or mucous membranes, actually.”
“That time, your finger... Did it hurt? I didn't bite down too hard, did I?”
“It doesn't hurt at all to be bitten by a little kid who hasn't even grown all her teeth.”
Yuna clapped both hands over her mouth with a gasp.
“Then, Noname, you...! How many teeth have you even got? Why do you keep teasing me as a little kid?”
Huh? She had a point.
Why haven't I grown any new teeth yet?
At this age, I thought at least four should have fallen out already, but for a moment I wondered whether I had misunderstood.
I couldn't tell whether this was another side effect of the disease or of the medication, but in any case, my body's development was clearly lagging behind that of other children.
It wasn't a particularly serious problem, but the saddest part was that I couldn't grow any taller quickly.
How long am I going to have to keep looking up at these kids?
“It's a secret.”
“Aaaaaah, what! Why are you hiding it from me?”
Yuna grew triumphant at having found some sort of weakness of mine and interrogated me relentlessly, but I wasn't someone who would meekly surrender just because of that.
“If you keep asking, I'll tell Sihoo your breath smells like spit.”
“Ugh.”
Our idle chatter continued even after we got off the bus.
I thought talking to an elementary school student would be childish, but this girl named Yuna was even more amusingly reactive than I'd expected.
Was this exactly how uncles felt when teasing their nieces?
The moment her “princess” persona at school fell apart, Yuna began baring her raw emotions without restraint, as if she'd gone berserk.
But before long, we encountered a major obstacle.
“We have to climb up this? Is there no other way?”
“Yeah. Once we get past this Stairway to Heaven, our house is there.”
There were too many stairs to count. Even a rough estimate using trigonometric ratios put the number at a minimum of five hundred.
A capitalist society operating solely on the principle of economic efficiency had chosen to install stairs over a hill rather than build a tunnel or create a detour.
The Stairway to Heaven seemed to have such an absurd slope, reaching toward the sky, that I wondered whether anyone who climbed all the way up would truly ascend to heaven.
Let's give it a try.
If it doesn't work, I'll surround myself with aura and force myself to walk up.
“Is this where you fell?”
“Yeah. You have to be careful going up.”
“If you slip here, it's definitely either heaven or hell.”
Or reincarnation.
What a horrible thought. I'd rather go to hell.
* * *
“Gasp... haaah...”
“Noname, are you okay? Do you want to rest a little before we go?”
“Yeah... Just a little. Sorry.”
I feel like I'm going to die.
All the muscles throughout my body that I never used were sending prickling signals converging on a single point.
If Yuna gave my calf a light poke beside me, it felt as if it would cramp immediately.
“Haa... haa...”
“I'm sorry. We could have transferred buses one more time and gone around. I messed up again...”
“No, you said this way was faster. Come on. I'll go all the way without resting now.”
“Yeah! Hang in there just a little longer.”
Since she was so pitifully berating herself, I felt self-conscious about resting, too.
I was the one who pestered Yuna because I really wanted to come, so how could I complain about being weak?
I should get up soon.
Yuna had such incredible stamina that, even after we'd passed hundreds of stairs, she hopped up one step and then back down two, bouncing around like a mountain goat on a cliff.
The red retriever, unable to contain her overflowing energy, came around behind me and put both hands against my back.
“We're almost there!”
“Don't push me...! It's dangerous!”
“Hehe.”
Yuna responded to my request with nothing but an innocent smile.
Yuna definitely had quite a few similarities to Arin from before.
Arin's problem was that people looked down on her too much, while Yuna's was that she bristled too much, but they shared the tendency to seek affection from those they were close to without filtering themselves.
“I'm going to play just today, and from tomorrow I'll really study hard.”
Another child might have scoffed and thought, Yeah, right, but there was a grim determination in her vow.
“But there's nothing at our house. What are we going to play?”
“Didn't you say your mother was there?”
“Yeah. That's right.”
“She'll be happy if you show her the magic you learned at the academy.”
“But our teacher said never to use magic outside, either.”
“Up to the second circle is fine.”
Since her mother was so ill, she would surely be proud if Yuna herself used a reliable, bread-and-butter healing spell like Tissue Regeneration.
I planned to do nothing more than quietly supervise her from the side.
“This is our house. It's pretty old, but... If you bad-mouth our house in front of Mom, I'll never forgive you! I might even... break off our friendship...!”
“So that means we're already friends? Thanks for thinking of me that way.”
“A-anyway! Hoo, haa. How should I introduce Noname to Mom? I've never brought a friend over before... What if she gets mad because I brought you without telling her?”
“If you worry about such trivial things, you won't live long.”
Knock knock knock
Yuna stood stock-still in front of the door, clutching her head, so I knocked instead.
There was no sign of movement from inside.
Yuna said her other brother had probably stopped by and then gone back out to make deliveries.
Then she punched in the numbers on the old-fashioned button-operated digital door lock, neither iris- nor gene-activated.
“Mom, I'm home!”
She murmured the name of the person she cherished most.
“Mom, I said I'm home. Are you asleep?”
The house was dark.
Even in a home with a patient who could barely see, the atmosphere inside was as eerie as could be.
“Mom...?”
Yuna groped along the wall until she found the switch.
The single fluorescent light serving as the living room, bedroom, and kitchen flickered on.
In no corner of the cramped room could we find any trace of a person.
“No...?”
Yuna's pupils dilated.
Without even setting down her schoolbag, she immediately threw back the bedding, but there was no sign of a person, nor even a trace of human warmth.
“It can't be...”
Yuna shook her head fiercely.
Her innocent expression had vanished completely, and a flat, mechanical moan escaped her.
A yellow note stuck to the inside of the front door lost its grip, fluttered down, and landed on the top of my foot.
“Seo Yuna. Here.”
[Come to Severance Hospital right after school - Seo Noeul]
* * *
“Yes, Professor Cheon. Yes. I stopped by a friend's house today, so I think I'll be home late. Yes. Don't wait for me; have dinner first.”
The delicious Chateaubriand steak Professor Cheon was making would have to wait until much later.
“Mom will be okay...? Sniff... sob.”
“If you're that worried, shall we call your brother?”
“Noeul's phone was at home earlier... Why did he leave it behind? Mom... I miss Mom so much...”
As soon as we checked the note, Yuna ran out of the house with her shoes half-crushed onto her feet.
The lively Yuna had grown deathly pale, repeatedly losing her balance, falling, and getting back up.
In contrast to how she'd helped me on the stairs, I was now forced to drag her along.
“Thank you, really... I... sob... Noname, if it weren't for you, sob.”
I stopped Yuna, called a taxi, and headed to Gangnam Severance Hospital.
Fortunately, the distance that would have taken more than an hour and a half on foot took only fifteen minutes by taxi.
Had she really been planning to walk that far?
If it were Seo Yuna, she would have run rather than walked.
[She must be in very poor condition. I'll get you there quickly by the least congested route possible.]
The taxi driver, who had overheard our conversation, encouraged Yuna as if it were his own concern.
He was a kindhearted man.
“Seo Yuna, look at me.”
How could so many tears come from such a tiny face?
Today had been nothing but a day of crying for Yuna.
At school, on the bus, at home, and in the taxi.
“Your eyes are practically black and blue.”
I had gone through times like that, too.
When the woman who had once been my mother coldly abandoned me, and to make matters worse left me with an enormous debt, my life had never been more miserable.
Afterward, I firmly vowed never to cry again, but even in my previous life, when beloved Niobe died, when my elder siblings were devoured by darkness, when my master disappeared, and when even my comrades and disciples fell before an inevitable nightmare, I was always a weak being.
Even if only once, even if only one person.
The wish that someone, anyone, would please help me was only barely fulfilled at the very end of my life, by Hiasen.
Life is what most perfectly embodies the definition of the butterfly effect.
If that woman hadn't abandoned me,
If I'd had even one friend who reached out a hand despite my being bullied,
If I...
Even knowing that all those ifs were meaningless, people cannot help making them.
When life feels hopeless, we always search the past for the error. The more miserable the present and future are, the more we do so.
That I involve myself excessively in Yuna's life,
That even now, as I wipe Yuna's tears, I pat them away so her skin won't chafe,
If someone condemned me, saying all of it was merely a deeply personal and selfish act born from my own trauma, I couldn't refute them.
But what do you want me to do about it?
Had any of you ever been of the slightest help in my life?
I was a lamb thirsting for salvation that badly, after all, so I knew better than anyone that salvation was not actually as grand as the word sounded.
A diligent child who greets everyone indiscriminately with a cheerful “Good morning” at school every day can sometimes become someone's reason to keep living, especially for someone who finds going to school day after day like hell.