"A witch......?"
Ryu Do-ha started violently and let go of my arms.
"W, witch? What witch?"
Visibly flustered, as though she'd said something she was never supposed to say.
"Miss Do-ha."
"Wh-why......?!"
When our eyes meet, she even avoids my gaze.
Hmm.......
When I first saw her, I assumed she'd be older than me because of how tall she is.
'Looking at her like this, she might actually be younger than me.'
"You clearly just said witch."
At my question her shoulders flinch.
"I...... when did I?!"
"You said it to me. That I'm the witch's son."
"......."
"Do you know about my mother?"
She seemed to think for a moment, then promptly shook her head back and forth.
"I don't know! And even if I did I couldn't tell you! So don't ask!"
Seeing her flustered like that feels, actually....... rather good.
Honestly, I'm not the least bit curious about my mother.
No, it isn't that I'm not curious.
To put it exactly, I don't want to know.
Who do you think is the reason I'm in this state right now?
I just don't want to be tangled up in it.
Even so, the reason I went out of my way to ask about my mother came from a kind of vindictiveness.
Because I wanted to corner her at least once, the way she's been cornering me all along.
Anyone hearing that might say I have a terrible personality, but that's my personality, so what can I do?
When I said I understood, Ryu Do-ha finally let out a sigh of relief and looked at the stopped timer.
Time Remaining
[ 01 : 00 : 00 ]
"So the timer isn't counting down at the moment."
"Yes, probably because we're outside the pool. In a sense we've left the game area."
"That would be it. That's why the staff member tried to send you back inside, too. Which means in the end we have to go back to the pool......."
After thinking for a moment, Ryu Do-ha suddenly walks toward the door.
"Where are you going?"
"There's something I need to check. Just wait here a moment."
"You aren't running off alone, are you?"
"What?! Why would I run?!"
Ever since that exchange a moment ago she's been strangely quick to flare up.
"I mean, you heard the whole story. What more is there to look at.......?"
"I said there's something to check! We don't have the luxury for this as it is, so be quiet. I'm the expert at these cases."
"......."
Not exactly the line you'd expect from someone who's been unconscious until now, but.......
I did want to rest a bit.
It hasn't been that long since I came into this place, but with everything that's happened, my body and my mind both feel like rags.
"Sure, off you go, then."
She scowls hard and leaves without answering.
Right, let me sit down too.
The place we're hiding in right now is a storage room.
Lost-and-found boxes and cleaning supplies are piled up any which way, and the only chair is the one belonging to the desk in the corner.
And sitting in that chair, Jang Seo-yun.
She must not have wanted to get involved in the argument with Ryu Do-ha earlier; she slipped quietly to the back.
When our eyes met, she smiled awkwardly and waved.
I sat down across from her.
'Sitting down, I feel like I might live.......'
As I sit, she stares blankly at the lost-and-found box.
In a sense, of the three of us, Ryu Do-ha, me, and her, she was the only ordinary civilian.
And I made someone like that carve this bizarre tattoo into the back of my hand.......
"Are you all right?"
"With what?"
She looks at me as though she truly has no idea what I'm talking about.
When I raise the back of my left hand, she even tilts her head.
"When you were carving this. Honestly, you weren't in a normal state. Your eyes were completely unfocused. Do you remember?"
"Oh, of course I remember. I'm fine. It was fun."
"What......?"
"Ah, it sounds a bit odd to say it was fun, doesn't it?"
A bit odd?
More than a bit.
Has there been anything in all of this that so much as brushes against the category of fun?
Whether or not she knew what I was thinking, she continued in a careful tone.
"Well...... it might sound strange, but how do I put it...... pff."
Laughter suddenly bursts out of her.
"......?"
"Like I've grown by one stage, I suppose?"
"What......?"
At this point it's starting to get frightening.
"Miss Do-ha said this place is inside a Ghost Story, after all."
"And?"
"The thing is, I've always imagined a place like this."
'What exactly did she imagine?'
Surely she doesn't mean she's been imagining security guards who tear people's arms off alive, or people shedding their skin?
The more I wonder what will come out of that small mouth, the more uneasy I get.
"Ever since I was little I was a really fearful child. I still am, of course. But......."
She suddenly gets up from the chair and walks toward me.
And then she suddenly took my hand.
My left hand, precisely, the one with the compass tattoo on it.
"Honestly, it isn't fair that I'm the only coward, is it?"
"......What?"
"I was born small and born fearful. That isn't my fault, is it?"
My mind goes blank for a moment.
What is she suddenly talking about?
She must have taken my silence for agreement; she continued.
"Maybe that's why, every time I saw children thrashing in terror at ghost stories......."
"Hold on,"
I had no choice but to cut in.
"Miss Seo-yun, what are you suddenly talking about?"
"Oh! I'm a tattoo artist, but I also work as a kindergarten teacher."
My eyes went to her tattoo-covered arms without my meaning them to.
At which her eyes curve into half-moons.
"I do have to wear long sleeves even in summer, of course, but apart from that there's no problem at all."
"No, that isn't the problem......."
"Anyway! All this time I've been getting vicarious satisfaction from watching children tremble in fear......."
"......."
I can't begin to understand why she's bringing any of this up.
As if bewitched by something, she goes on, rambling.
"To think a place like this really exists! A world where being a coward is only natural! A world where I'm not the only coward!"
At this point a question arises.
Whether she was always like this, or whether she changed after touching the pen.
"......."
"Just knowing a place like this exists makes me feel I've gained the strength to keep living!"
I don't know the cause of whatever has happened to her, but one thing is certain.
That look, that voice, with something like madness in them.
Her present state is not normal.
"Miss Seo-yun, my head hurts a bit, so could we be quiet for just a moment?"
I deliberately cut the conversation off, because the longer it went on the worse her symptoms seemed to get.
At that, she looked briefly flustered, and then looked at me with the corners of her mouth slightly raised.
.......
Honestly, until just a moment ago she was a fairly dependable presence.
She was the one who worked out how to use the pen, and her composure helped when we were being chased by the staff member and during the standoff with Ryu Do-ha.
If I'd been dragged into this Ghost Story alone, I'd already have been caught by a Cop or a staff member.
But after that short conversation just now, she no longer feels like a dependable ally.
To my eyes she's started to look like a bomb that could go off at any moment.
"Mr. Do-yul."
When I stayed silent, she called me.
Brown-tinted pupils looking at me.
"I know everything you're thinking right now."
"......."
"What you're thinking, how you must feel, what you want to do. I know all of it."
I can see the irises inside those brown pupils writhing faintly.
Something is moving inside them.
"We were there together, after all."
There?
"The very bottom of the sea. The deepest place in the world."
The instant her words ended, the air in the storage room seemed to sink subtly.
And this stopped-up feeling in my ears.
The memory of that moment comes back.
The enormous eye looking down at me.
That yellow light burrowing along my optic nerve and lodging in my brain.
Until now I'd been forcing myself to look away.
Because it seemed like I had to.
Because in that voice ringing in my head, in that violent rapture wrapping my whole body, I'd felt a vicious malice.
But she didn't manage to look away.
If anything, she was completely bewitched by that light, by that enormous eye.
Now I understand.
She became like this because of me.
She became like this because of the pen I brought.
"We've been connected."
Whatever was sleeping inside her irises writhes again.
And beyond it, something yellow shows through.
"When you used the ability, you felt it too, didn't you? The gaze of that one, watching us from below."
"Shut your mouth."
My voice came out rougher than I expected.
"Mr. Do-yul?"
"I'm telling you not to say another word. Because I have no idea what you're talking about."
She looks at me with a face as forlorn as a woman abandoned by a lover of many years.
Seeing that face raises gooseflesh all over my body.
"Let's think only about how to get out of here. Other thoughts, other conversations, we can have once we're out."
Her expression hardens in an instant.
The corners of her mouth are still raised, but only her eyes have gone cold.
The mismatch feels all the more chilling for it.
"You aren't ready yet, Mr. Do-yul."
A cold voice leaked out from between her parted lips.
.......
The moment I hear it, this discomfort.
I'm uncomfortable around her.
No, I'm afraid of her.
I don't know what I'm supposed to say either.
Those words made me feel it clearly.
That she's no longer someone I can reason with.
I was still in a daze when Ryu Do-ha came back in.
"There's nobody outside."
"That's a relief!"
She responds to Ryu Do-ha's words at once, as if nothing had happened.
"If we're going, we have to go right now."
At her words, Jang Seo-yun got up from her seat at once.
The only one still sitting in a chair is me.
"What are you doing? I said let's go."
My feet won't move.
Is it really all right to act as if nothing happened?
While carrying that bomb that could go off at any moment?
"Could we hold a quick discussion?"
"Discussion? Why all of a sudden? We need to get to the pool first."
"The thing is."
When I spoke up, both of them turned their eyes to me.
"You know that getting to the pool means passing through that room, right?"
"And?"
"We probably won't even be able to get in. There's no telling how high the temperature in there has gotten......."
"Even so, we have no choice but to go that way, do we? Douse ourselves with water, whatever it takes, we have to get through."
"How about we just leave this place entirely? I could hide us with my ability......."
"No."
It was a last-resort move, but I thought it was fairly plausible, yet the response that came back was pretty cold.
"Why?"
"So what you're saying is, we use your ability to hide and get out of this building?"
"Right?"
Ryu Do-ha looked at me steadily, then asked in a low voice.
"Do you suppose the outside of this building is reality?"
"What?"
"A Ghost Story isn't that much of a pushover."
"......."
I gritted my teeth.
Because of the gaze I could feel at my back.
Jang Seo-yun.
As she listened to our conversation with her head tilted, the corners of her mouth were very faintly raised.
"Everyone came here after seeing the flyer, right? And to take part in the game."
At Ryu Do-ha's words, Jang Seo-yun finally lifted her head and nodded.
I couldn't bring myself to nod.
Because I hadn't come after seeing the flyer.
"From the moment you came after seeing that flyer, you can't think of this place, this building, as the space you knew before."
"Still, it's worth trying, isn't it?"
Ryu Do-ha's eyes go cold.
"Do you still not understand the situation?"
"No. I understand it perfectly well."
I countered.
"Which is exactly why I say we get out. This is a game. Games have rules, and every rule has a hole in it."
A brief silence.
Jang Seo-yun tilts her head and looks at me.
With an interested expression.
"That's plausible."
"What's certain right now is that this game itself is stacked against us. You recognize that too, don't you?"
Ryu Do-ha folds her arms, as if telling me to keep going.
"So why do we have to follow their rules? We already have a kind of 'bug.'"
"A bug?"
"My ability! If we just don't take part in the game and go outside......."
"No."
Ryu Do-ha cut me off flat.
"You haven't understood the situation at all."
"What exactly haven't I understood?! I'm only saying we should check......."
"Do you think we're the only ones who know the timer isn't counting down?"
"What......?"
"Those things in there must all know it too. Which means they already know we aren't in the pool. So why are they leaving us alone?"
.......
Now that she says it, it is strange.
Why are they leaving us alone?
They could push their numbers and come catch us right now.
"There are two things we can infer. First, catching us in a space outside the pool has no meaning for them."
"No meaning? Why?"
Ignoring my question, Ryu Do-ha raised a finger.
"Second, they know we have no choice but to come inside anyway."
"But......."
"Besides, you used your ability in front of a staff member, didn't you? They already have some idea of what your ability is."
I know her reasoning is sound, but.......
I found myself looking toward Jang Seo-yun.
Watching us with her usual face, as if nothing had happened.
"I'm only saying we should try it."
"Sure, we could try it, like you say."
Ryu Do-ha nodded as if granting the point.
"But that ability of yours only hides you for as long as you can hold your breath. And you said it's harder to hold out with several people than alone, didn't you?"
"That's true, but......."
"Could an ability like that get you completely out of their sight? And if the outside of the building still isn't reality, then you'd have to take the risk and come back again, wouldn't you?"
"......."
Ryu Do-ha perched on the desk in front of me and gripped it with her hand.
SCREEEEK—
At which the steel desk slowly begins to crumple.
"I have an ability too. Mine is simple. I use accumulated gi to strengthen my body. That doesn't mean it's infinite enough to beat them all down."
"......."
"There's no all-purpose ability in this world that solves everything. So you have to use it in the right place at the right time. Rely on an ability and throw it around and you'll never see a good end."
With her words a strange silence settles.
The atmosphere has grown heavier.
I thought it over carefully, but no rebuttal to her comes to mind.
She must have thought I was deflated; Ryu Do-ha tapped my shoulder.
"And actually there's a separate reason we have to go back to that room."
"A reason?"
Jang Seo-yun suddenly cut in.
With a face where regret showed faintly, as if getting out of here were inconvenient.
Ryu Do-ha didn't seem to catch that subtle change in her.
"My bag, the one you left behind."
"Bag?"
"That's right. Inside the bag you left in that room is a tool that can get us out of here."
There's an escape tool?
I found myself looking at Ryu Do-ha.
That confidence on her face.
It isn't a lie.
There really is an escape tool!
And not far away at all!
But at the same time as hope rises, my thoughts grow tangled.
Even at the words "escape tool," still no expression at all has surfaced on Jang Seo-yun.
Should I tell Ryu Do-ha about her state now?
The woman who went mad while carving a tattoo into the back of my hand.
And then what about me, the one the tattoo was carved into?
Besides, Ryu Do-ha said it to me earlier.
'The witch's son.'
"What are you doing? I said let's hurry and go while there's nobody around."
At Ryu Do-ha's urging I shook off the thoughts.
Right.
We only have to get as far as that room.
Then we can get out of here.
Until then it should be fine.
...... Probably.
TL Notes:
gi: the cultivated internal energy of Korean and Chinese tradition, the same word as Chinese qi. Kept romanized because Do-ha uses it as the specific mechanism of her ability, not as a loose word for "energy."