Chapter 133 - ■■ (1)

1

The director of the orphanage where I grew up was an indifferent person, for better or worse.

The children at the orphanage grumbled about it.

["It's so half-assed. All our birthdays are January first, aren't they?"]

["It's because throwing a bunch of birthday parties is too much trouble."]

["And what the hell is my name supposed to be? Kim Maengja?"]

["Hey, at least yours sound natural with Kim in front. I'm Kim Hanbija... Should've just called me Hanbija."]

I thought so too. I kept thinking so even after entering the Tower.

But now, after meeting so many people—the Sword Emperor, Master, Raviel, and all the others—when I thought back on it...

["Why do you do that, Director?"]

Strange as it might sound, the director always seemed worried and wary of loving us too much.

["Don't you love us?"]

I recalled the conversation we'd had on the day I received a hand-me-down middle school uniform.

After hearing my question, the director grew serious and said, ["Give me a day."] Whenever asked a serious question, the director always deferred the answer with ["Give me a day."]

Then came the answer.

["Yesterday, you asked why I don't love you all a little more."]

["Yes..."]

Over the course of that day, I'd begun to feel a little guilty for asking at all. But as though my guilt didn't matter, the director clearly and carefully delivered the thoughts gathered over the past day.

["Gongja, it's easy for people to pretend they're something more than they are. It's the easiest thing in the world. Pretending to be smart, strong, kind, to really know something... You do it with your friends too, don't you? And so do I, naming all of you after sages. All grown-ups do it."]

The director rubbed both hands over their face.

["Everyone wears a mask. There's no need to get rid of it. But if you grow too accustomed to it, at some point you forget you're wearing a mask at all. You end up forgetting. That's what it means to become intoxicated."]

The director studied my face carefully, searching my eyes to see whether I was following.

["Imagine this. If I snapped at you children, what would you think?"]

["Uh, the director's had a stressful day today...?"]

["Yes. Exactly."]

The director smiled bitterly.

["Sorry. I do that sometimes."]

About once a month.

["Anyway, what matters is that I'm someone who snaps at you sometimes, and you know that very well. Do you understand? That's the kind of person I am. And you know me."]

But, the director said.

["What if I were someone who always loved you? Someone who constantly told you, 'I love you,' smiled and said, 'You give my life meaning,' and hugged you, saying, 'There's nothing I cherish more than you'? If I were that person, what would happen if I snapped at you just once a year?"]

The director shook their head.

["Then you'd start thinking, 'Why is the director angry with us?' You wouldn't understand. Because you'd believe I was the person who loved you most. 'If the director loves us more than anything, why get angry?'"]

["..."]

["You're still young. So in the end, you'd only come up with the easiest answer. 'Oh, I must have done something wrong.'"]

The director shuddered ever so slightly.

["Even if I only snapped once a year, Gongja. Look, over ten years, that's ten times. Even if you only remember half of those ten, that's five. And five memories are more than enough to shape someone's character."]

Then the director fell silent for a while.

["Don't do that,"] the director murmured.

["Remember me as someone who gets stressed easily and snaps easily. Think of me as someone who can't even be bothered to throw birthday parties. That's the truth. Don't blame yourselves. You haven't done anything wrong. Don't let someone like me warp you."]

["..."]

["You can become strong. Please become as strong as you can."]

A photocopied sheet of A4 paper was posted on the wall in the director's office. It hung directly opposite the desk, but things like that easily become part of the background. Something always there, like the pattern on the wallpaper or the grain of the flooring.

But that day, I found myself stealing a glance at that sheet.

+

So that all people may lead lives worthy of human beings,

on the basis of my belief in human dignity and social justice,

I stand together with individuals · families · groups · organizations · communities · society as a whole.

I always stand on the side of the marginalized and suffering,

protecting their human rights and interests,

rejecting injustice and corruption in society,

and placing the public interest before personal gain.

By adhering to the social workers' code of ethics,

I dedicate myself to service as a social worker with integrity and responsibility.

Of my own free will, I solemnly swear this on my honor.

+

I looked at the director.

["..."]

The director silently gazed into space, seemingly lost in thought.

Black eyes.

Those eyes remain in my memory.

2

"I'm sorry, Raviel. I can't go home with you today," I said as I came out to the school gate.

"Hmm."

Raviel looked at me. Her gaze slowly lowered.

There was my hand. It was holding someone else's.

"..."

The Heaven-Slaying Star's hand.

I'd brought him all the way here by the hand. He hadn't asked why I was holding it or where I was dragging him.

He merely stood quietly with his head lowered.

"... My boyfriend sometimes displays a peculiar capacity for action. One bordering on the inexplicable. I find that side of him admirable," Raviel murmured.

"Do as you wish. Follow your heart. Is there anything I can help with?"

"Not yet. But I'll tell you right away if there is."

"I'll trust you. Always."

Raviel kissed my forehead. Then, without hesitation, she turned and got into the limousine. Driven by a butler who resembled the empire's chamberlain, it disappeared down the road.

"All right, then."

I turned to the Heaven-Slaying Star.

"Let's go."

"... Where?"

"To your house."

"..."

For the first time, the Heaven-Slaying Star hesitated. He seemed almost to recoil. But my mind was made up. I intended to visit his parents first and begin by apologizing.

'I have no idea where to start untangling this thread, but...'

Of course, an apology couldn't end this [trauma]. It couldn't resolve it. With the increased difficulty, the trauma itself seemed to have turned into a stage I had to solve.

'For now, let's do what I can, one thing at a time.'

As I always had.

But my attempt to resolve the trauma was thwarted from the very start.

"... Here it is."

At the sight of the [house] the Heaven-Slaying Star had led me to, I lost my words.

It was a garbage dump.

At the foot of a mountain, amid scattered pine trees, lay a clearing. That clearing was one of the city's little trash cans. Plastic bottles, filthy Styrofoam, bundles of paper, and other things discarded by the city's residents lay in messy heaps.

A shack stood in the middle of it.

[■■ lives in a garbage dump. Even his indoor shoes and uniform are recycled. There's only one piece of trash that can't be recycled, and that's ■■ himself.]

My head throbbed.

I'd thought the text was nothing but a jumble of malice.

Bastards.

"What about your parents? Do they work?"

The shack wasn't a haven, but a place to hide. The walls didn't reach the roof, leaving gaps everywhere. Gray plastic sheeting covered the roof.

"My father collects scrap and sells it."

Plastic waste surrounded the shack like a moat. Unlike the other garbage nearby, the plastic encircling it had had its labels removed.

It was clean.

Perhaps that was why the shack seemed to float on a beach of white plastic.

"And your mother?"

"I don't have one."

"..."

Right.

"Are you ■■'s friend?"

After we'd waited two hours, the Heaven-Slaying Star's father returned home. He was a poor man. But more than poverty, life itself had crushed him. I knew it the moment I saw him.

A tiny single room.

Sometimes, when I looked in the mirror, that was how I had looked.

"No. I'm not his friend."

"Hmm...?"

The old man furrowed his brow. He looked far too old for someone with a child in high school.

His face resembled that of the elderly boatman I'd glimpsed through trauma in [Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon].

"I'm the person who hit and bullied your child."

"Hmm...?"

The old man blinked vacantly.

"..."

Within a minute of beginning our conversation, I realized.

'It's too late.'

It was already too late.

The old man before me was worn out; there was no wick left to set his heart alight. Unlike me back when I'd lived in a single room. That was the difference between who I'd been then and this man. I couldn't tell where that difference had come from.

"Here's the evidence. There are text messages on this phone. If you look at these..."

Only one thing was certain.

This man had no strength left to take responsibility for the Heaven-Slaying Star.

"Hmm."

I showed him everything I could show him right then. Looking at the hell his child was enduring, the old man blinked, blinked, and closed his eyes.

"I see..."

The old man stared at me.

That was all.

When I stopped talking, his murmurs of acknowledgment stopped too. It felt as though we'd exhausted our topics of conversation. He merely waited to see if I had anything else to say, and if I didn't, he kept waiting anyway.

He seemed to have absolutely nothing to say to me.

'Hmm.'

I studied the Heaven-Slaying Star's expression. He wasn't looking at his father. Nor did he look shocked or insulted by the conversation we'd just had. Expressionless, he sat quietly on the floor.

As though the inevitable were simply taking its inevitable course.

'Right.'

That was how it was.

"I'm sorry to have troubled you."

I stood and bowed to the old man.

"If it's all right with you, sir, I'd like to stay with your child for a while. I'd like to invite him to our house. Would that be all right?"

"Go ahead..."

It was clear the old man hadn't understood me. He was powerless. But I explained again and again, if not for his sake, then for the Heaven-Slaying Star's.

"He might stay at our house for quite some time. A week, a month. Perhaps even longer. Every weekend, on Saturday evening, I'll visit and tell you how he's doing. Would that be all right, sir?"

"Yes, go ahead."

Good.

I turned to the Heaven-Slaying Star.

"Let's go."

"..."

"Pack whatever you need. As I told your father, you may be staying at our house for a while."

He looked up at me steadily.

"What are you trying to do?"

The words coming out of his mouth were no longer polite.

"Now that you're marrying some rich girl, you're trying to clean up your past? Afraid it'll cause trouble later? Smart."

My heart ached.

"Or is this another new game? If you want to play, just say so. Tell me what game it is. Don't make it such a pain. I'll play along again. Should we go to the school field tonight?"

His voice was flat. There was no inflection whatsoever. It was the voice of someone one day before choosing to jump to his death.

"I'm sorry."

"Are you crazy? You've gone crazy, Kim Gongja."

"Please give me just one day. I'm begging you. I'll find a way. Please hold on for just one more day."

"..."

For me, it was one of countless days I had left to live. For the person in front of me, it was the last.

All I could do was desperately hope. All I could do was beg. Beyond wishing and praying, there was nothing I could do.

"Do whatever... Whatever you want."

The Heaven-Slaying Star murmured wearily.

I took him by the wrist and headed [home]. To find my way along unfamiliar streets, I had to go by way of the school. Only after the sunset had faded and the sky had darkened did we reach the residential neighborhood.

"Please wait here a moment."

"..."

"I'll be right back. Within twenty minutes. Will you wait for me until then?"

"I told you to do whatever you want..."

Leaving him by the roadside, I went home first.

"Oh."

My attendant spirit was out in the yard. Apparently he'd been admiring the night sky alone; he raised his whiskey glass.

"You're back, son? A little late today. Heh. Don't tell me you've been out playing because you've got a girlfriend now? I'll tell you this right now: graduate high school before you get serious. When it comes to relationships, stomping on the accelerator won't do you any good."

The Sword Emperor. My partner.

The person who had taught me how to look ahead.

In this world, my...

"Father."

"... Huh?"

My attendant spirit blinked.

"Huh, that's strange. What is this? Having you call me Father feels weird. Not just a little weird—really awkward... So awkward I'm getting goose bumps and feel like I might pass out. Huh. Is it because I'm a little tipsy?"

"Father."

I called him again.

"There's no way you would have raised me like this."

"What?"

"The father I know is an incredible person. A frightening person, too. He looks like a psychopath who only cares about himself—and he does have a bit of that in him—but at the very least, when he reaches a point where he thinks, [This is wrong], he absolutely sees it through to the end."

My attendant spirit furrowed his brows.

"What are you talking about... son?"

"If you were my father, there's no way I would have grown up to be a thug. I might stray, yes. But before I went completely astray, you'd beat me if you had to. Even if it meant half killing me, you'd bring me back."

That's the kind of person you are.

"And especially when I've bullied a weaker child... driven him to suicide. You..."

["I hear a lot of bastards are making a fuss about it. Don't pay them any mind."]

["They wouldn't dare say a word to your face, but their fingers are alive and kicking, making all that fuss."]

["Bah. Someone ought to cut off every last one of their fingers."]

"You'd never talk about it that way. You're simply not a person capable of that. You're the person who sees someone suffering and swears to teach them how to be happy."

"..."

"I'm the kind of person you despise most. You would never affectionately call someone like that your [son]. It's impossible. This is an impossible world."

Silence settled beneath the night sky.

In the yard, where not even a single insect could be heard, I looked straight at my attendant spirit.

And spoke.

"You're not the Sword Emperor."

"..."

"Get the hell out of my sight. Right now."

At that moment.

—■■■■■.

My attendant spirit's body collapsed.

His skin slid off. His bones melted. Everything that made up his flesh evaporated. By the time I closed my eyes and opened them again, something of indeterminate shape stood there. Nothing but a quivering shadow, lingering like a ghost.

—■■■■, ■■...

I couldn't understand what it said. I couldn't recognize its face, either. I only knew that this was the bare face beneath [my father's] mask.

The bare face of this world.

"..."

I walked past my attendant spirit and entered the house.

"Welcome home, Gongja."

Master sat on the living room sofa.

With the face and form I had thought I would never see again.

"Was school all right today, my son?"

Master was smiling gently.