Why We Suddenly Visited the Orphanage
To explain why we had suddenly shown up at the orphanage out of the blue, I needed to turn back the clock a bit. It was the day we finished our first broadcast on Bukhan Mountain. In other words, the day I discovered I could log back into Raise a Hero.
When I got home, I told Siren, “Siren, I’ve got something to show you.”
“Really? What is it?”
When I hid my arms behind my back, she came bouncing over with an excited little hop. I revealed what I was holding. “Ta-da!”
“...What is that?”
“The house you used to live in!”
“...It is, isn’t it.”
“Isn’t it amazing?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
It was the house where Siren had lived during her Raise a Hero days. Her expression cooled in an instant, but I didn’t notice. I was too busy getting worked up, asking if she remembered this and that. Still, for her it was the first time seeing her own house in years. Soon she sat beside me and we chatted quietly.
“Didn’t you say you couldn’t connect?”
“I don’t know. It suddenly started working again.”
The moment the words left my mouth, the game booted me out.
“Huh? What the heck!”
I could log back in, but after a few minutes it would kick me again.
“That’s weird. It worked fine inside Bukhan Mountain.”
“Can’t be helped.”
“Ah, it’s such a shame.”
“By the way, who’s this Fianna?”
Siren suddenly asked while I was tilting my head. She must have seen the name on the character selection screen.
“Ah, Fianna is…”
The instant I tried to answer casually, a chill ran down my spine. I glanced sideways. Siren was smiling brightly at me. What? Was I imagining it? I opened my mouth again. With every syllable an inexplicable coldness crept higher.
“F… Fianna is your little sister.”
“Oh~ You mean the girl you were going to collab with before?”
“That’s right. You remember?”
“Yes. But the name sounds like a girl’s?”
“Because she is a girl…?”
That was when it happened. The air grew so cold it felt like winter had arrived, raising goosebumps all over me. What the hell was this chill? Had a monster appeared nearby? I looked out the window, but everything was quiet. Must be my imagination. I turned to Siren and finally realized the source of the cold.
“Siren?”
“Yes?”
“Why is your hair floating like that?”
“I wonder? Maybe I’m in a bad mood?”
“Um, why?”
“You’re asking why?”
“Ah, no…”
When it came to Siren I had a special ‘big-age-gap little sister’ filter, so I became unusually dense whenever I dealt with her. Well, after the massage incident last time that filter had been half peeled away and replaced with a ‘little sister who constantly has her eyes on me (not blood-related)’ filter, but… a little sister was still a little sister, so I tried to cherish her as much as possible. If she knew my inner thoughts she would probably breathe fire and throw a tantrum about who was cherishing whom, but anyway. Even if I was oblivious, my survival instincts weren’t completely dead.
My survival instincts screamed at me to change the subject, so I did exactly that.
“You must have had fun with Fianna, right? In places I couldn’t see? The same way you do with me?”
“W-want some ramen?”
“Come here and sit.”
“J-jjajang ramen… eep.”
My body, which had been trying to flee to the kitchen, floated up and landed neatly beside her.
“Tell me about Fianna.”
Don’t answer…! You’ll die. You will absolutely die…! My inner voice shrieked.
“...I don’t remember.”
“Then log back into Raise a Hero so you can remember.”
“But it keeps kicking me out?”
“You can see a little before it boots you, right? Keep repeating it and it’ll come back to you.”
“....”
“That’s…”
In the end I spilled everything about Fianna. Since the training period had been short, there wasn’t much to say. Red hair, energetic kid, used a sword… stuff like that.
“Hmm.”
Maybe because it was all too ordinary, she thought I was hiding something? Siren sat with her arms crossed, silent. Just as the pressure was starting to suffocate me, she spoke.
“Three years before I came to Earth, there was a swordsman who caused a huge stir in the empire.”
“A swordsman?”
“Yes. A woman who had just entered her twenties defeated members of the imperial knight order. She also had red hair and went by the name Fianna, so I believe it’s the same person.”
“Really? Wow, our…”
“Our?”
“....”
Siren glared at me with a pout, then let out a small sigh.
“I only had you, Hyun. But it seems you had others.”
“No. I only have you too.”
“There’s someone else who knows the side of you that only I knew.”
“T-that’s…”
“Between me and Fianna, who is more important?”
“Obviously you.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t know the difference between me and Fianna.”
Siren turned her head away as if depressed.
“Difference…”
The difference was huge. Their classes were completely different, the training time differed, and above all the money I had spent was on another level. But my inner voice screamed again. I shouldn’t say that. Then what should I say? I asked myself, but survival instinct only helps you avoid danger; it doesn’t hand you solutions.
In the end I had to find the answer alone. Why was Siren sulking? Why was she anxious? Is the bond shaking?
She had believed she was the only one connected to me, but that wasn’t the case. Hearing that I had a connection with another woman planted doubt about her own position. The solution was clear. To erase the doubt and anxiety, I just had to strengthen the bond. And the way to do that was obvious.
I had never told Siren my own story. I had always been on the receiving end. She filled the financial side, but she didn’t really know the human being named Lee Hyun. I knew she was curious about how I had lived and what kind of childhood I had… but I hadn’t wanted to talk about my porter days or the orphanage. So I had deliberately avoided it. But it seemed the time had come.
“Siren. You know, I…”
That was how I ended up telling her my story. About being a porter. About living day to day on what I earned each day. About my fierce, sometimes petty life. At some point Siren had turned back around and was listening intently.
“Thank you for telling me, Hyun.”
Siren gave a gentle smile.
“Where did you live when you were little?”
“It’s called Haetsal Orphanage…”
Since I had already started, I told her about my early childhood too.
“Then the orphanage director is to you… what I am to you?”
“She picked up an abandoned kid and raised him, so… yeah, there’s that side to it.”
“I want to meet her!”
“No need. Why go out of your way?”
And that was why Siren and I had come to the orphanage.
The children at the orphanage adored Siren. A magical girl they had only seen on broadcasts was standing right in front of them; no child could possibly hold back. I watched from a distance as they swarmed her, chirping for magic.
“Must be tough.”
Siren wore a rather troubled expression. It was probably her first time dealing with beings who approached without hesitation, without considering personal space, driven by pure goodwill alone.
“Big sis!”
“Sis!”
“K-kids, wait a moment.”
Meanwhile, it wasn’t exactly comfortable for me either.
“Hyung! Give me an airplane ride!”
“Oppa! Play doctor with me!”
One on my head, one on each limb, one on my back, one sitting on my lap… I was completely surrounded and being pawed at from every direction. Still, since I’ve always loved cute things…
“Come here! Belly fart attack!”
“Kyaaahaha!”
“Cheek fart!”
“Kyarururu!”
Our levels matched, so we played well. And Siren watched the whole thing. The smile she gave me was different from the one on her face now, a different expression, a different atmosphere. It looked good. I didn’t feel jealous at all. If anything, it sent my imagination down a completely different path.
“Oh! Big sis! Your face is red!”
“Sis? Are you sick?”
“Ah, no…”
Whatever she was imagining made her blush, but no one else knew.
Quite a bit of time passed like that. The exhausted Siren came over, sat beside me, and leaned against me. I wiped the sweat from her forehead.
“Ugh. I’m tired…”
“You worked hard.”
“It’s so hard…”
“Then why did you want to come to the orphanage?”
“I said I wanted to see the director…”
“But we couldn’t just ignore all those kids, right?”
“That’s true…”
After resting a suitable amount, we stood and headed behind the orphanage.
“Let’s go see.”
It was decorated like a park, but the occasional tombstones told me this place was a cemetery. I walked up to a grave adorned with white flowers.
“This is the orphanage director who took me in.”
“Ah, um…”
I took the wrist of the flustered Siren and gently led her forward. Then I opened the small box beside the tombstone and took out a photograph from my pocket. It was a picture the two of us had taken together some time ago.
“I have someone precious now.”
I placed the photo inside the little box, stood in front of the grave for a while, then stepped back. Siren spoke softly.
“...The director was a precious person, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Umm…”
After hesitating, Siren opened her mouth.
“Thank you for raising Hyun.”
I grinned. “What is this, a formal introduction?”
With slightly flushed cheeks, Siren stepped away from the grave and we left the cemetery. Just before we did, she glanced back and snapped her fingers.
“Siren?”
“I’m coming now.”
The flowers on the director’s grave burst into full bloom. At that moment a breeze blew past. The flowers swayed, as if waving a hand.
“I’ll drive you home comfortably!”
“You really waited…”
“This man, Yu Gang-hyeok, always keeps his word.”
We arrived home in Yu Gang-hyeok’s car. Maybe because it was the day we personally experienced the saying that it takes a whole village to raise one child, we were especially tired. We washed up right away and prepared for bed. I lay down, and soon Siren snuggled in as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
After some light conversation, I said, “Shall we sleep now?”
“Yes!”
I closed my eyes. It was an utterly ordinary action, yet for some reason it looked a little desperate. And sure enough…
Fidget. Fidget. Fidget.
Siren was touching my hand and side.
“Aren’t you sleeping…?”
“I will. After you fall asleep, Hyun.”
It was the same meaningful remark I had heard at the hospital last time. I was too anxious to sleep. So I tried to hold on, but… every time, I was the one who fell asleep first. We had spent every night like this since I left the hospital.
But… today Siren’s hands were unusually bold.
“W-wait. What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you stroking my thigh…”
“Was I~?”
“....”
Look how shameless she is. No choice. I turned her around and pulled her into my arms. A back hug, basically. Siren wriggled, but I didn’t let go. Now I can finally sleep comfortably, I thought, but then she looked back at me with a pout and said,
“You like kids, don’t you?”
“....”
I couldn’t answer. Taken at face value the statement was true, but I was terrified of what would come after.
“You like children.”
I tried not to answer, but… I sensed that this kind of standoff would continue tomorrow and the day after that. Ignoring it wasn’t the right move. So I came up with one clever counter.
“If it’s a child who looks just like you, how wonderful that would—”
“Do you like kids too, Siren?”
“! Of course I do!”
“So you like kids, right?”
“Yes!”
“Then you’d also like doing the things kids like? Because the kids you like would enjoy it, right?”
“...Yes?”
I smiled brightly. “Then you’d like magical girl tokusatsu too!”
“....”
“Why? Don’t you like kids that much?”
“...Hyun.”
It was a stratagem to make her prove the purity of her love for children through magical girl special effects. If she couldn’t prove it, she wouldn’t be able to use the hidden killing move disguised as ‘you don’t like kids.’ It was my trump card, remembering how much Siren had shuddered at magical girl tokusatsu.
Seeing the ‘I’ve been had’ look on her face, I was certain my clever move had landed.
However.
“What if I film a tokusatsu?”
“Huh?”
“If I film one, then what?”
“Uh?”
“At that time, can I do whatever I want?”
“Ah?”
This… this isn’t what I had in mind.