Chapter 74
"Cough, keh-ugh."
"A-are you all right?!"
"Here's some water. Chew slowly and swallow."
"Ngh, khk."
Even after waking from the dream, the lingering aftereffects of that pitch-black obsession still clung to my body and refused to come away.
At least I was feeling nauseated now because I'd taken my medicine. If I hadn't, by the time I woke up my mouth would already have been wet with vomit, my clothes covered in it. Since it was a rented suit, the cleaning fee would've been an added expense.
For two minutes, I repeatedly forced down the water someone beside me had handed me, trying to suppress the nausea. At last, I became lucid enough for my mind to recognize reality.
Two women...?
..."How did you get here?"
"Ah, well... You did tell me not to come... but I was indebted to Grandma, the landlady, too... and then I'd suddenly received such a huge gift..."
"Aia showed Miss Mia the way. Our Miss Mia was anxiously wandering around outside looking for the citizen."
"B-but... I wanted to search all the funeral homes around here... but that would be rude to the other people there... And I was worried about Mr. Sejin too... You weren't answering, so I didn't know where you were..."
..."Haa."
I told her not to come, and she tried to find me? But that would have been rude, so she couldn't actually search for me and just wandered around outside in a panic?
It was commendable that she hadn't inconvenienced anyone, but I still didn't like that she'd come in the end.
"Oh, brother... Even heaven is so heartless... Why take someone who still had so much to dooo... Ohhh... Ohhh..."
"..."
-Crack
It was the same now. Though my side was quiet, there were four funerals taking place on this floor alone.
The cries of people wailing over the death of someone close carried clearly despite the distance, weighing heavily on anyone who heard them and reminding them of death's weight.
There was nothing good about having a fresh-faced kid who'd only been in high school until last year here.
"I'm sorry... I understand why you told me not to come... but still........."
"......Since you're here already, let's pay our respects. It's the least we can do for the deceased."
"Yes..."
"Understood."
"Aia, you..."
I was just about to raise my voice at Aia—a third party who was trying to butt in without reading the room—when her outfit caught my eye.
Aia usually adorned her outfit with all sorts of decorations that looked mechanical as part of her machine concept. But what she was wearing now was quite unfamiliar.
"Aia isn't such an empty-headed tin can that she would think only of herself even in front of the deceased."
Her outfit itself was a rather demure black ensemble, and almost none of the mechanical-looking decorations remained. Her long silver hair was neatly tied back, and a black hat hid even her usual flashy colors.
...An outfit that was quite unfamiliar overall.
"If outsiders are said to have no right to pray for the deceased's soul, we'll just take turns giving a small bow."
".........Forget it. Both of you, come over here."
After that, we silently bowed twice. Since there was barely any incense left, I lit a fresh stick as well.
It was 2 a.m. A quiet hour, so when we came out to the table, a staff member silently brought us some food.
Come to think of it, Mia was wearing black clothes I'd never seen her in before either. Her hair was tied back more neatly than usual too.
"...Both of you, just eat this and go home. This isn't a good place to stay."
"But... I'm worried about Mr. Sejin..."
"...Please go. I'm asking you."
"Miss Mia. I think it would be best for you to go home for now. People sometimes need time alone."
"...Okay."
Seeing her downcast expression on that innocent face didn't make me feel at ease either. I wasn't a psychopath who enjoyed seeing people's expressions contorted in pain, after all.
Even so. This was something I had to do.
"...You're doing this because you're worried about me, right? I'm one of 'them,' too, even if I may not look it."
"..."
She was probably talking about magical girls. A B-rank, support-type magical girl with six years' experience was inferior to Alice, but still easily qualified as a veteran magical girl.
Was there any chance someone like Mia had never seen a person die? Of course not. Even if someone in their first three years could, with enough luck, avoid that, a six-year veteran who had never once seen someone die would be the abnormal one. They had either failed to respond to a dispatch or deliberately taken only safe missions.
And the magical girl I knew as Mia wasn't that kind of person.
"Even so... I understand why you're saying that, so I'll do as you ask. ...I've only known Grandma for a few months, at most. You said you'd spent years with her, Mr. Sejin. The weight must be different."
"...Thank you for understanding."
It wasn't exactly a conversation to have with an outsider like Aia beside us, but... wait a second.
"...So how exactly did you end up coming here, Ms. Aia?"
"Aia guided Miss Mia here."
"...I understand that you guided her. But how did you know I was here?"
"Magical hacking."
"That's stalking?!"
"Magical stalking."
"Adding one word to the front doesn't make a crime... Ah, my head hurts."
As if the troubling dream hadn't already left me feeling awful, now I was being attacked in reality too, and I couldn't get my head straight.
What was the point of answering "magical stalking" when I pointed out it was stalking? No, come to think of it, magical hacking was already a crime... Seriously, why was I taking this so seriously again?
"It seems your head hurts. Did you know alcohol is good for a headache?"
"...Huh? Isn't it bad for them?"
"Headaches like it."
"Headaches like it... You mean it makes the headache worse?!"
Meanwhile, Mia took a while to catch up with the pun.
...Haa.
This was no place for trading jokes like this...
-Rattle
"Then Aia will be going now."
"...Huh? Already?"
"Aia has an instinct to keep bringing joy to the people around her. But this isn't a place where it's good to be carefree, so Aia is saying she will withdraw now. Those who have gone on, and those left behind, both need rest. It is not good to disturb them."
"...Ah. I... I'll go too. Mr. Sejin... I hope you can compose yourself... Please don't... take it too hard. And if there's anything I can help with, contact me."
And so the two uninvited guests who had suddenly shown up left.
"...Haa, seriously."
I scratched my head vigorously, habitually pulled out a cigarette, sighed, and put it away again.
They seemed to have misunderstood things in a rather amusing way.
They seemed to think I was this sensitive because I was close to Grandma and sad that she'd died, but to begin with, I hadn't been particularly close to her.
We were simply a landlord and tenant. Nothing more, nothing less.
Grandma might have projected her dead children onto me, but I had never projected my parents or grandparents onto her.
[Young man. This time, my friends and I made some kimchi as a bit of exercise. I can't eat all this. You should have some too.]
[I-it's okay... I...]
[You don't get homemade kimchi except at times like this. Think of it as this old woman giving you a present and take some, okay?]
[...All right.]
Whenever I came outside around Seollal or Chuseok without looking like I was headed anywhere, she would come over, force a container of kimchi reeking of salted seafood into my hands, and leave.
The paperwork clearly said that a brother and sister lived together, but I'd never once actually seen the younger sister. Yet after seeing my uneasy reaction once, Grandma never said another word about it.
[...You're getting on in years, so have someone come do things like this. You'll only end up with more hospital bills.]
[All right, all right. Next time I'll definitely call someone. Thanks for helping, young man. My body doesn't listen to me well now that I'm old.]
[...You have to.]
Perhaps she disliked calling someone over because of her age, because whenever something required physical work, she insisted on handling it herself until she ended up calling me for help.
I only learned later that her children had worked as installation technicians and gone to people's homes on repair calls before becoming stars in the sky.
[Grandma?! Grandma?! Are you all right?!]
[Oh my... A young lady... A young lady... I think my time has come... I can see such a pretty young lady... Her hair is white too...]
[Stay with me! The wound isn't deep! I'll stop the bleeding, so don't close your eyes! Stay with me! If you close your eyes, you'll go see your children, you know?!]
[By the way, miss... You look a lot like the young man who lives in our building... He said he had a younger sister... I've never seen her, but I suppose she'd look like this...]
[Save your strength!! Keep your eyes open as wide as you can! Don't open your mouth! Ignore anything about someone in black coming to take you away, saying it's time to go, or calling your name three times!! You can do that, right?!]
She was also the first and last person ever to make me, uncharacteristically, carry an injured civilian on my back and run all the way to the emergency room.
When images of Alice covered in blood and dust from head to toe were released, it became a hot topic again, and I had to lie low for quite a while before people forgot about it.
-Drip.
She was a troublesome person.
-Drip...
She kept trying to push things into the hands of people who said they didn't want them. She refused to listen to what people said, no matter what.
-Plop... drip...
Perhaps she thought that the two of us—one who had lost children and one who had lost parents—were in similar situations, and kept trying to use me to fill her own void.
"Ah..."
But even so, we were strangers, with no blood relation at all. Even if that gave her psychological comfort, ours would have been a relationship that simply crumbled when one of us disappeared from the world.
"Ah... ah..."
Why did she keep approaching other people? Why did she keep coming to someone who told her no?
Because I was afraid of being hurt and didn't want to trust anyone anymore.
In a world where I couldn't trust even my blood relatives, how could I trust, depend on, open up to, or take comfort from a complete stranger who had even less of a connection to me than that?
"Aah... Aaaaaah...!"
-Streaming
I had lost the world overnight.
Everything disappeared.
The people I loved most in the world were gone, and I could no longer trust anything.
[Oppa, I like you best in the whole world.]
And at the center of that ruined world.
[If something makes you sad, Oppa, I'll erase it all. I'll do my best so that you can receive only my love.]
'I' was there.
[Mom and Dad favor me way too much just because I'm the younger sibling. Oppa deserves to be loved equally.]
It wasn't 'me,' but there it was, the thing that resembled 'me' more than anyone else in the world.
[It's okay, Oppa. I told you. We're twins, aren't we? We were one to begin with, but for some reason, we were born split into two.]
When I looked in the mirror, I saw those eyes. When I opened my mouth, that voice was the first thing I heard.
Every single part of my body matched perfectly with the person I cursed most in the world.
[So,
Alice will
protect Oppa. I'll give you more love than anyone else in the world, in the safest place in the world.]
And that body was still a gift from the people I loved most.
In a world like that, I was still alive, unable to die.
[Sejin... Take good care of Serin... You're her oppa, so... You can do it...]
Because I still hadn't kept that promise.