The platform filled with people in no time.
People whose clothing and appearance are all unfamiliar, as if I were watching a film set in the past.
"Think it'll come on time today?"
"Seriously, if it's going to come whenever it pleases, why make a timetable at all?"
From office workers fretting about the train time.
"Where are you off to at this hour, student?"
"Seoul, to take an exam!"
"My word, you must be a prodigy."
To students and elderly folk.
The area grows noisy with the conversations of countless other people besides.
Fortunately nobody is coming as far as the corner where I'm sitting.
The closest to me.
"Grandmother, what's in that bundle?"
"Dried seaweed and dried persimmon. Taking it to my daughter's place."
"It looks heavy, let me carry it for you."
A young man in a denim jacket standing there with an old woman.
When the man moves to take the bundle, she waves him off.
"I can just set it on the floor, it's nothing."
"You wrapped it in such a pretty cloth; it'd be a shame to get it dirty."
At the man's easy charm she finally hands the bundle over.
"Then hold on a moment."
Rummaging through the bundle he's holding, she takes out a few pieces of dried persimmon.
"Have some of this."
The man in the denim jacket readily takes it and eats it.
"Wow, this tastes wonderful."
She must have felt a little awkward giving it only to him; she begins handing out a piece of dried persimmon each to the people nearby as well.
And then.
Her head turns my way.
For an instant, our eyes met.
I hurried to lower my head.
'Please don't come this way.'
But at odds with my desperate prayer, I can see it at the edge of my vision.
The old woman's feet coming toward me.
One step.
Another step.
Getting closer.
And finally.
Her two feet stopped in front of me.
"Student?"
The feeling of my heart dropping.
I'm forcing myself to look only at the floor when.
It pushes into my field of vision.
A single piece of dried persimmon, shriveled and darkened.
"Have some of this."
Her voice from above.
And this gaze driving down into me.
I have to ignore it.
Yellow Head said so, after all.
No answering, no reacting.
"Grandmother! What are you doing by yourself?!"
"Hm?"
At the man's call the hand holding the dried persimmon wavers.
"I was sure somebody was here......."
Right, so that's the rule.
The moment our eyes met, she perceived me.
And when I ignored what she said, she stopped perceiving me.
So in the end, just as Yellow Head said, I only have to not react and ignore them completely.
Right, I just sit here quietly.
They're beings who don't exist.
They aren't beings of reality.......
.......
And yet.
Just as I thought it would pass smoothly.......
"Grandmother, are your legs hurting, by any chance?"
The man comes toward me.
'Still, since he doesn't seem to be able to see me.......'
I'm holding my breath and staying still.
"Please sit down a while."
The man sits her in the seat beside me.
And then he moves to sit down in the seat I'm sitting in!
I tried to move aside quickly before he could touch me, but.......
THUD.
Dodging in a rush, I landed flat on my backside.
The surroundings go quiet.
I can feel the gazes driving into the back of my head.
'This is maddening.'
Damn Yellow Head.
Would it kill him to be beside me at a time like this?
If he was going to leave me alone he could at least have taught me the rules properly!
"Are you all right?"
That charming man comes toward me.
"When did you get there......? Ah, it's a bit shaded here, so I must not have seen you."
He holds out a hand to help me up, but.......
I just squeezed both eyes shut.
"Excuse me? Can't you hear me?"
'Please just go!'
"Is he hard of hearing?"
'No, why is he so kind about it?'
With the sense of him bending down comes the sound of fabric brushing.
When I crack my eyes open, the man is bending down to help me.
What do I do?
Should I run before his hand takes hold of me?
.......
No.
I just have to stay still.
Moving out of the way here would itself be reacting to his action.
I have to stay still as if that person doesn't exist.
'But that's not as easy as it sounds.'
The man's two hands reaching out to me.
My heart pounds.
Just before those hands touched me, the approaching hands stopped.
"What?"
The man's bewildered voice from above.
"Grandmother, hadn't somebody fallen down here?"
The man, unable to see me even with me plainly in front of him.
"That's what I'm saying! Somebody was definitely there! A ghost, isn't it?"
"Come now, Grandmother, where would a ghost be in this day and age?"
"Do ghosts care what era it is?!"
The man sweeps another glance my way, tilts his head, and goes back to sit beside her.
And promptly forgets my existence and talks with her.......
A sight pleasant enough that, if this weren't this kind of place, they'd look like a grandmother and grandson on good terms.
The problem being that they aren't actually people.
Haa.......
I quietly let out the breath I'd been holding, and slowly straightened my posture and sat up.
I just breathe quietly here on this floor.
Only until the train passes through the station.
.......
.......
But when on earth is the train coming?
Just then, a faint tremor in the floor.
Soon the whole platform begins to vibrate.
Light blooms in the darkness of the distant track and comes rushing through it.
It's a subway train.
An old-model train, quite different from modern ones, with the driver plainly visible through a wide front windshield.
My eyes met the driver's in his old-fashioned uniform for a moment, but the train quickly sweeps past me.
Along with a strong wind that mussed up my bangs.
SCREEEEECH—.
The train stopped.
The doors open along with the sound of a whistle.
Nobody gets off.
The people who had been standing on the platform stream into the train, and the old woman and the man who'd been sitting in front of me get up from their seats and walk to the doors.
'Right, hurry up and go.'
Just as every passenger on the platform had boarded and I was inwardly relieved.
EEEEEEEEAAAAAH!
'Wh, what is it?'
A sharp scream that seemed to pierce the eardrums came pouring out of the train.
When I whipped around in shock, I could see people rushing out of the train screaming, as if woken from hypnosis.
"Grandmother, what's come over you all of a sudden?!"
The old woman who'd held out the persimmon to me comes running out of the train too, and sinks to the floor clutching a pillar as if terrified.
The man in the denim jacket goes toward her.
"Grandmother, you packed all these lovely things for your daughter, didn't you? If you're going to your daughter, you need to hurry and get on."
"Get away! You too are trying to take me, aren't you?! You were the ghost! You were the ghost!"
She clings to the pillar and screams.
At that, the man crouches to bring his eyes level with hers.
"Then would you like to go back home?"
"......."
Only then does she shut her mouth and look at him.
"You want to go home, don't you?"
When she nods, he holds out a hand to her.
"Then let's hurry and go up together. It'll be hard climbing the stairs holding this, so I'll carry it up for you."
The way he does it is like soothing a child throwing a tantrum.
When she lets go of the pillar, the man takes her hand.
And so the two of them go up the stairs.
And they weren't the only ones going up.
Every passenger who had come down to the platform a moment ago is going back up the stairs.
Everyone vanishes in no time and the platform falls quiet.
FWEEEEEET—!
The train doors close along with a whistle.
And the train departs.
As it leaves the platform, the incandescent bulbs on the ceiling begin flickering again.
And the platform returns to the state of an abandoned station in an instant, as if a switch had been thrown.
"......."
THUD.
I sprawled out spread-eagled, just like that.
I don't have the capacity to care whether dust gets on me.
I don't know the reason, but though it was the train they'd all waited for so eagerly, not even a few seconds after boarding, the passengers came rushing out as if fleeing.
Why on earth?
Why did they all get off at the same time?
I don't know.
But one thing is clear.
He said a train comes once a day, so at least four times.
Over the five days I have to hold out here, I have to go through what I just went through at least four more times.
Compared to what I went through at the pool you might call this nothing.
But simply being together with beings that aren't human, the situation of having to forcibly ignore those beings, the stress that comes from that alone, is by no means light.
And on top of that I'm going through this again right after coming out of the pool.......
"You made it, then?"
When I lifted my head, I could see Yellow Head's obnoxious face looking down at me.
'When did he come out, without a sound?'
He's the one who holed up in the restroom alone, so why is he grinning like that?
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure, we've got plenty of time, ask whatever."
"What's your name?"
"My name?"
Yellow Head looks slightly surprised, as if he hadn't expected me to ask his name.
Yes, your name.
I can't keep calling you Yellow Head, after all.
"That's what you're most curious about right now?"
"You said we have to be together five days. Then I should at least know your name."
"Well, that's fair. I'm Gu Se-min. And you're Kang Do-yul, right?"
"How do you know my name?"
"There's no way I wouldn't. I came to arrest you."
Right, he said he came to arrest me.
Why on earth does the Formless Special Division have it in for me so badly?
"Why did you come to arrest me?"
"Because they told me to, from above."
Only a sigh comes out at the sight of this working man living without agency, without a self.
"But you listened to Ryu Do-ha and smuggled me out?"
Yellow Head, no, Gu Se-min nods at my question.
"Ryu Do-ha must be fairly high up in your organization?"
"She is, isn't she? She's one of only nine squad leaders."
She doesn't look all that old, but she must be higher up than I'd thought.
But hold on.......
"But why did you tie me up?"
"Hm?"
"You smuggled me out because you got an order or something from Ryu Do-ha."
"That's right. Sister told me to hide you."
"Then why did you tie me to that chair?"
"......?"
"I mean, there was no need for it, was there? You weren't even taking me in!"
"Ah, I'd driven the restraint vehicle all the way out, so I might as well use it once."
What......?
"It felt kind of good. Every time I checked the rearview mirror along the way to see whether you were still tied up properly, I got this thrill, like I was transporting a heinous criminal."
So he was a lunatic.
I should have caught on when he said he got caught stealing from the kiosk.
That Gu Se-min, no, Yellow Head, feels several times more dangerous than the passengers waiting for the train earlier.
Do I just happen to meet only strange people, or is the Formless Special Division itself an organization that's gathered up nothing but strange people?
My head is starting to ache.
Thinking about getting through the remaining time with that man, my stress level is already shooting up.
"Anyway, there are some rules I didn't finish going over earlier."
Right, hurry up and tell me.
You're going to be in the restroom when the train comes in anyway!
"I'm not very thorough, so if I say it out loud I might leave a few out, and you might forget quickly too, so......."
Yellow Head takes something out of the bag at his waist.
"Here, take it."
What he handed me was a thin notebook.
"What is it?"
"Maybe it's because we're an agency attached to the state, but everyone loves putting things in documents."
Documents?
"So they organize uncanny phenomena in a kind of catalogue format. This place isn't one our organization manages, of course, but I put together what I know about it when I came here before."
When I turn one page, a page laid out like a report cover appears.
The page is composed, in order, of date of writing, classification number, title, grade, author, and reviewer.
'The date of writing is about two years ago.......'
Hold on, he said he'd never come here since becoming an adult.
Which means, counting as generously as possible, Yellow Head is twenty-one.
A guy younger than me has been talking down to me this whole time?
Haa.......
My head went hot for a moment, but for now I decided to let it go.
'Let's just keep reading.'
The classification number written beneath the date is USI-P-D-232.
I have no idea what that means, and what's written in the title field is 'Manggok Station.'
The grade is...... D?
"And what is this grade thing?"
"Put simply, it's the danger level. The closer to A, the higher-risk the phenomenon."
Danger level.......
If A is the most dangerous, then D means it's comparatively less dangerous, doesn't it?
"How dangerous is a D?"
"D is, well, a comparatively safe uncanny phenomenon where casualties barely occur as long as you follow the rules."
"......."
Hearing that puts me somewhat at ease.
But.......
D isn't the end of what's written in the grade field.
To be exact, it's D~.
"There's a tilde after it."
"That means there are variables. Like I said earlier, only Sister and I know about this place. So it isn't as though we've verified every last thing."
Now I'm getting uneasy again.
"Besides, that kiosk owner. It doesn't touch you if you pay properly, but when I got caught stealing something......."
Yellow Head suddenly shuts his mouth.
"No, forget it. It'd do you no good to hear."
Then don't bring it up in the first place......!
Haa.......
Calm down.
There are a lot of days left that I have to be with him; I can't get this worked up already.
For now, let's keep reading the notebook.
I've checked the grade.
Next is author and reviewer.
Naturally the author field has Gu Se-min, Yellow Head's name, written in it, and the reviewer field is blank.
"I told you, I wrote it down just in case."
Which in the end means.
He just wrote whatever he pleased!
Haa.......
I said don't get worked up.
When I turn one more page, information about this place is finally written out.
.......
But.......
What's written here is supposed to be true?
"......You expect me to believe this?"
"Most of the body text is copied straight from what Sister told me. If you want to argue, argue with her."
"......."
Copied from what Ryu Do-ha said?
Then this is real?