Hwayeon's Story II (3)

After I spoke with Siha, and after I had come through the wallaby assault, a single goal took shape in my heart.

And that goal was—

"A sound decision. Anyone who stands above others ought, by rights, to have both the wherewithal to look after those beneath them and the judgment to match. Park Jiwoong is committed to the fighting inside the base, so the best course is for you—whose breakthrough power and striking power are second to none—to take the members and form a mobile strike unit."

Mother set the report down, smiled with satisfaction, and met my eyes.

"Well done. What with the Choi Soohan affair, it has been nothing but disappointments of late, but if you go on conducting yourself as you did this time, I will have you in Hwarang's Boss seat before long."

To defeat Mother.

"...I will do my best."

I, who for sixteen years had only ever moved as Mother wished...

"Good. Off you go."

To stand against Mother.

"Yes. I'll be going, then."

To succeed, on my own strength, out from under Mother's shadow.

That face, always the same, looking at me as though I were someone beneath her—I wanted to make it crease. That expression.

For the first step, I would leave Hwarang and build a raid team of my own.

The moment the resolve settled, I sat down across from the principal of Daehan High School and bargained hard, and I came away with permission to stay out of school except for events and exams.

A condition came attached: I had to hold an average of ninety or above on every test. But unlike Euihan High School, Daehan High School clung to a thoroughly rote education, so simply memorizing was enough to clear ninety. Convenient.

And every hour that remained, I poured into raids.

Siha watched with worry as I threw myself into them, but to found a raid team, the ability user who would be Boss had to be C-Class at the very least. If the Boss was only C-Class, though, no amount of struggle would carry a team inside the top thousand. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠To be recognized as a raid team at all, the Boss had to be B-Class, without exception. Only then could one even aim at the world rankings' top one hundred.

I was upper-mid C-Class. I still had to pile up more than a million before I could so much as set a foot on the threshold of B-Class. The Phase Power released when an Aberrant died varied with how many ability users had joined the raid, and with how close you stood to it at the instant of the kill—but if I stayed out of school and gave myself to nothing but raids, I believed I could gather something like a million before I turned seventeen next year.

Hwarang had four B-Class users. With them at the center, the team sought out only one High-Tier Variant, the one-eyed giant, and ran raids specialized for it. If I joined those and simply worked hard...

Mother mistook my zeal for ambition toward the Boss's seat, and she permitted my plan without hesitation.

...That isn't what this is. But a misunderstanding like this, I'll take gladly.

On the days I skipped school and devoted myself only to raids, Cha Soyoung and Sophia watched me with worry as well. I had already decided I would tell them everything the moment I became B-Class, so I turned away on purpose.

And four months later, on the twenty-second of December, in the instant I brought down the thirty-first one-eyed giant, I rose to B-Class.

"Yeah."

I had told Siha my intentions first of all, and sure enough she cheered me on in a voice full of the certainty that she believed in me.

A bright chime.

The call had only just ended when the messages arrived from Siha, and the instant I opened the file attached beneath the word photo—

The world tilted, and my legs went out from under me.

In the photo was Seoha, asleep. He looked like an angel.

"Ah..."

Click.

"...?!"

"Hwayeon~, so this is where you we— what is it? What were you looking at, to jump like that?"

"I-it's nothing, so please don't mind it!"

"Ack! Something important— is it a boyfriend?! Show me! You have to show me!"

I shot to my feet and thrust the hand holding my phone high overhead. Sophia plastered herself to me and rose onto her toes, grabbing for it. But I was already past five foot seven, a good four inches taller than she was, and I was up on my heels besides, so her stealing the phone was a distant hope. The moment I started setting a password, she took to bouncing up and down, still reaching.

"Aaack! That's not fair! Hiyah! Hiyah!"

When even that failed she went for a tickle attack, so I caught both of her slender wrists in one hand, took her down to the floor, pinned her, and finished the password.

The password would be Seoha's birthday...

Just then the office door opened and Cha Soyoung came in. She flinched at the sight of me on top of Sophia, pretended she had seen nothing, and went to sit on the sofa.

"Aaang~! Soyoung! Help meee!! Hwayeon's trying to ravish meee!"

"W-what are you saying! Sophia was trying to steal my phone, so I was only setting a password!"

"Mmph mmph. Mrrgh!"

Startled by the slander, I clapped a hand over Sophia's mouth, and Cha Soyoung smiled, just a little.

"Hwayeon. I heard you were looking for me. What is it?"

"That is... ngh?!"

Something soft and wet licked across the palm covering Sophia's mouth, and I snatched my hand away in shock. Sophia flicked her tongue over her lips, kicked her legs, and protested in a whining voice.

"That's too much! Handling a delicate woman this roughly!"

"...It was to protect my privacy."

"Between friends there is no privacy!"

I let her go and got up, and Sophia glared at me, puffed up and sulking. I sighed at her, went to the sofa, sat, and spoke.

"Don't talk nonsense. More importantly, I have something to say."

"Hmph."

Still sulking, Sophia went and sat beside Cha Soyoung. Her eyes were protesting, but I had no intention of telling anyone about Seoha.

"I'm telling only the two of you."

"Yes."

"Hmph!"

"..."

"Sophia, you're putting Hwayeon in a difficult position. That's enough of the joke."

"Aw, come on. Why'd you have to go and say it!"

I sighed, feeling stifled, and Sophia resettled herself into an elegant posture and looked at me with a demure face, as if to say go on, speak.

At that, I counted to five inwardly, and then I opened my mouth.

"A few days ago, I became B-Class."

"Yes. And I heard Her Excellency offered you the seat of Hwarang's Boss."

"I intend to refuse."

"So from now on we'll have to call you Boss... whaaat?!"

"...!"

I calmed Sophia, who was staring at me in shock as if to ask what I could possibly be thinking, and then I explained.

"I mean to leave Hwarang and build a raid team of my own. I haven't prepared a thing yet, but over this time I've handled Hwarang's work, joined a great many raids, and stored up knowledge. I haven't spent a single coin of what I've saved, so if it's a small building, I could even secure one in Yeouido."

Sophia only looked at me, quiet-eyed and silent, so it was Cha Soyoung who asked.

"Do you hold some resentment toward the President?"

"I don't. I believe Mother did what she had to do, from where she stands as my mother. It's because I've resolved to step out from under Mother's umbrella and stand on my own."

"Then why are you telling this to us?"

"...That is."

Just as I forced open a mouth that would not come unstuck, Sophia smiled brightly and cut across me.

"Soyoung, you're being mean, too. You know perfectly well Hwayeon wants us with her."

"...I won't force the request."

Cha Soyoung looked at me as if there were something she wanted to say. But the one who spoke was Sophia.

"Ahem. Hwayeon? The line you're supposed to say at a time like this isn't that one."

"...?"

"Sisters, please help me. Come on, repeat after me!"

"...Yes?"

"Repeat after me! Sisters, please help me!"

"..."

"Now! Sisters, please help me!"

Watching Sophia repeat the same words, smiling like a cat, I felt my throat close. Cha Soyoung, who in any other moment would have stopped her, only wore a quiet smile and watched my face.

A plea like that, from the two of them... how could I turn away.

"Uh, sisters, please... help me."

"Understood."

"Request received!"

What Sophia held, shooting to her feet, was... a recorder?!

Sophia, face alight, shaking the recorder—and my own voice, playing back out of it, over and over.

"Kh—!"

I knew I'd been had... and yet I didn't feel bad.

Once we went into earnest preparations to found the raid team, Cha Soyoung and Sophia entrusted me with every bit of the money they had saved while working as raiders.

"...This— I will pay it back double. No, triple. I swear it."

"Until you've paid back every last bit, I'll be stuck right to your side!"

"It's all right. Please use it where it's needed."

"Yes."

I learned for the first time that being trusted by someone else could close your throat like this. It was nothing at all like the warmth Seoha and Siha put in my chest...

The rims of my eyes grew hot, and tears threatened, and I was forcing them down when Sophia proposed, in a perfectly casual voice—

"Hwayeon. We're picking up Lee Hyeryeong from Hwarang's accounting department, too!"

"Lee Hyeryeong? If you mean Lee Hyeryeong, the one from those rumors... Do you know her, Sophia?"

"Unbelievable! Better to see it once with your own eyes than hear it a hundred times!"

Shoved along by the unreasonable Sophia, I headed for Accounting.

Accounting handled the most basic, and the most important, of Hwarang's money work, and I had worked there myself for two months. I understood well enough why she would recommend pulling someone from that department. But of all people, Lee Hyeryeong.

I couldn't see why she would recommend a woman like that. Still, Sophia was enough of a social butterfly that nothing inside Hwarang escaped her, and her connections ran wide, so it occurred to me she might know something I did not. Thinking there was no harm in following her lead, I came to stand before the elevator.

At the entrance to Accounting, finished ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠elegantly in clear glass and white tile, I asked a member of the staff where Lee Hyeryeong was.

"If it's that woman, she'll be in the inner accounts room. But a woman like that isn't worth your talking to, Miss Hwayeon. If there's something you need done, we'll help you!"

"...I'll take the thought."

I answered adequately and walked deeper in. With every step, the staff's gazes of admiration and longing came flying, but the incomprehensible discomfort of it made me ignore them, and I found the accounts room the employee had pointed out.

It sat right beside the Accounting Chief's office, beyond a door whose design, at a glance, was hard to tell from the wall.

...?

The wrongness I felt then made me tilt my head. For some reason, I sensed an intention to hide Lee Hyeryeong from the outside.

Knock, knock, knock.

"It's open."

When I knocked, a soft, intelligent woman's voice—nothing like what I had expected—came quietly from within, and I swallowed a groan.

Mother had taught me that the eyes and the voice are the windows of a person's heart, and lately I had come to agree with that teaching myself. That voice simply did not feel as if it belonged to someone who had done those things.

Feeling the wrongness grow stronger, I opened the handle that looked like a piece of wall ornament and went in. In a cramped little room of scarcely a hundred and forty square feet, a single refined woman sat buried under a mountain of documents.

"What brings you... Oh my. Miss Yoo Hwayeon?"

A woman in her late twenties, black horn-rimmed glasses on her face and her hair pinned up, looked at me with startled eyes. The glasses and the heavy eye makeup were hiding it, but the skin under her eyes was stained black, and the dark circles were unmistakable.

"Are you doing all of these documents by yourself?"

"Yes. There are even more of them, it being year-end. I don't even have a seat I can offer you."

She looked at me with a tired face, and still her hands never stopped, sorting the papers. I checked the few sheets resting on top of the mountain piled beside her, put them back, and looked over another mountain.

Every kind of work document I had ever learned was gathered there, and the handling was first-rate besides—every sheet organized so that it was easy to grasp, and concise.

...An ability this superhuman. At this level, she could carry a section chief's post in General Affairs this very moment—no, a director's—without strain.

The wrongness swelled until it could swell no further.

A year ago, while I was deep in raids, I had heard there was a woman who had caused trouble in General Affairs and been demoted to Accounting. The details of that trouble had made me frown, and had driven me to resolve that if I ever rose to a place of responsibility, I would flush out every injustice inside the company, and every rotten current. The very person behind that incident was the woman in front of me.

I looked at Lee Hyeryeong again. With her left hand she was writing documents, and with her right she was working a terminal, closing out the financial accounts.

"Why are you doing this alone?"

When I asked, she looked at my face for a moment, gave me a weary smile, and dropped her eyes back to the papers.

"Because I got marked."

"...Pardon?"

"It started when the General Affairs Director introduced his son to me. I had someone I was sincerely seeing, so I refused, but he clung on and wouldn't let go. I don't know how he found out, but he called, and he even came to my house, so I meant to refuse him firmly and I slapped him across the face... and this is the result."

It was different from the news I had heard. The woman in front of me was supposed to have lived dissolutely, seduced the men of General Affairs, thrown the company's discipline and morals into disorder, and privately pocketed what she was paid for selling her body...

Unable to believe it at all, I asked.

"You are Lee Hyeryeong, correct?"

"If you mean Lee Hyeryeong of Accounting, then yes, that's me."

The rumor was certainly false. The General Affairs Director must have seen her ability, appointed himself matchmaker, and tried to pull her onto his own line; Lee Hyeryeong had refused, and he had answered the refusal with a retaliatory transfer. And with rumors, spread to drag her name down.

Watching her now, pouring every bit of her attention into the documents alone, I worried for a moment over what to do, and then I asked.

"With ability of this order, I should think moving to another company would be simple enough."

"Miss Yoo Hwayeon. For me—no power, no money, and no backing—there are no options."

"..."

"The General Affairs Director's connections reach even to ability users. If I walk out of here, I may truly have to sell my body, or sell my smile. I don't want that."

"Is it a matter of money?"

"Yes. I need a great deal of money."

She answered that way, and the bitter smile she wore did not read as the want of someone merely mercenary. Then...

"That money—I will give it to you."

"..."

Lee Hyeryeong stopped the hands that had been working through the documents with clear eyes, and she looked at me.

I turned my gaze from her and listened. Mixed into every kind of noise, the electrical patterning of outdated wiretaps and surveillance devices flowed into my ears.

When I was learning this, I wondered why I should ever have to. One way or another, a use for it turns up.

I tracked the electrical sound, and from under the desk—from a place with a clear view straight up between Lee Hyeryeong's legs—I drew out a hidden camera the size of a screw.

"Ngh...!"

Leaving her there, flinching and pressing her skirt down with both hands, I searched the room. Three wiretaps, one camera. Each time I found another, Lee Hyeryeong's expression turned worse.

"If General Affairs Director Tae Inhyeok does not settle this himself, he will have to account for it in person before my mother."

I had said everything he needed to hear, so I put strength into my hand and crushed the wiretaps to powder. Lee Hyeryeong stared blankly at the powdered remains, and then she murmured.

"Why..."

"Isn't this what you were hoping for, from the start? Miss Lee Hyeryeong. Please come as General Affairs Director of the raid team I mean to build. The signing bonus will be however much you need right now. I can't promise the salary, but once the company grows and our finances improve, I will match it to your ability as far as I can. Even if I have to empty my own pockets to do it."

Lee Hyeryeong, who had been staring at me with dazed eyes, opened her mouth in a trembling voice.

"I thought you, Miss Yoo Hwayeon, would succeed Boss Park Jiwoong and become Hwarang's Boss..."

"A daughter trying to become independent of her mother isn't so uncommon, is she?"

Slowly, Lee Hyeryeong took on a smile.

"In your case, Miss Hwayeon, it is not a common thing. But I like it."

She flung the documents she had been holding back behind her, rose from her seat, and slowly bent at the waist.

"Inadequate though I am, I am in your care. Boss."

That very day, Lee Hyeryeong broke from Hwarang and began moving on her own, seeking out whatever she thought I needed.

"I'll help too!"

Sophia chased out after her, and Cha Soyoung, saying she seemed to have business of her own, went around meeting Hwarang's raiders.

A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠few days later, when I met Lee Hyeryeong again, she reported that she had succeeded in buying a twenty-story building in front of Yeouido Station.

"...Hyeryeong is a cheat character..."

Gathered at a cafe—I couldn't tell why Sophia looked so deflated—Cha Soyoung and I went on listening to Lee Hyeryeong's report.

"The Boss's ability is B-Class at present. Report that to the Bureau of Ability Users, and raid-team approval would come at once; it's that grade. But if we consider the Boss's position, standing in the shadow of Her Excellency the President..."

"I intend to settle that part with Mother directly. If even that fails, I'm also considering crossing to the United States, or to Britain, forming the team there, and then coming home."

"I'll trust the Boss on that front. Then the problem is funds... We've used half of what we hold to buy the building, and if we use the remaining half we can meet the best conditions for operating the team. But the most important thing is missing."

"We don't have the money to bring ability users in."

At Cha Soyoung's point, Lee Hyeryeong's face turned a little troubled.

"It isn't that there's no way at all. We could hire fixed-term mercenaries and operate for the time being, or concede a little of the split and employ a well-known ability-user group on contract..."

"No need for any of that! Four elemental ability users are waiting to join!"

At Sophia's confident look, I asked, thrown.

"What? What do you mean?"

The day I had announced that I'd succeeded in bringing Lee Hyeryeong in, Sophia and Cha Soyoung had made a rather forceful demand: that they call me Boss, and that I drop the formal speech with them. If the Boss of a fledgling raid team showed a weak face, they said, people might look down on her.

Truly—if I could choose my older sisters, I thought, I would want sisters like Sophia and Cha Soyoung.

"I managed to sweet-talk the four people the Boss saved during the wallaby assault! Soyoung helped!"

"Ah! Then the minimum roster is complete! We have enough left to run the team for about two months, so if we keep the work tight over those two months, the plans ahead won't slip. Here—I've drawn up an organization chart in advance, so the three of you look it over as well, and if you have suggestions or questions, ask."

My name sat in the Boss's seat, and beneath it the chart split three ways: Special Operations, General Affairs, and Business Support. Under Special Operations were Cha Soyoung and Sophia as vice-captains. Under General Affairs was Lee Hyeryeong. And under Business Support, beside a mark that read provisional, several names had been written in.

"Special Operations will be made up of the ability users who become the core of the company we found. Business Support, true to its name, will be composed of those who assist Special Operations. Supporters will be included there as well. And General Affairs is exactly what the name says."

"The chart's too simple. Is it really all right like this?"

"Our company's purpose is one thing only. Raids. For people like us, a complicated organization would only be poison."

"You mean like Hwarang?"

"You hardly need to say it... hohoho."

"Exactly. Hohoho."

While I listened to Lee Hyeryeong and Sophia and turned it over carefully, Cha Soyoung put a question to Lee Hyeryeong with a grave face.

"You say you'll post a notice for the equipment the paperwork needs, and for ordinary employees. But what do you mean to do about the people who will be the officers? One can hardly sit just anyone in a post of responsibility."

"Hwarang's General Affairs Director, Tae Inhyeok, was exceptional in ability, but narrow and small-minded as a man. However outstanding a subordinate's ability, if that subordinate failed to please ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him he drove them out by any means he could find, and he was vicious enough to block even their employment afterward."

"The absolute worst."

"...And your point?"

"Even a man like Tae Inhyeok will not have what it takes to bar the Boss's way. Which is to say, there are a great many first-rate people we could bring in this very moment without trouble. The pity is that if the company is to be run on rational lines, we have to build a system worthy of that, and that much is beyond what I can do."

When Lee Hyeryeong said it with uncertainty on her face, Sophia and Cha Soyoung answered in small voices that it was the same for them.

"We won't be able to operate as a raid team right away. But if we commission a specialist separately to build the system and leave it in their hands, and if—while the seven of you, the Boss among them, together with Miss Soyoung and Miss Sophia, give it everything you have and bring in revenue from your work in the Phase World—I somehow build that system with the staff we hire, then within seven months..."

"You don't need to worry about that. I've already found someone who will help us build the system."

I said it calmly, and Lee Hyeryeong answered in surprise.

"A CRC specialist from a major corporation—a corporate restructuring expert—would command an absurd fee, and yet they're offering help so readily. Someone to be grateful for. Who is it?"

"Sorry I'm late!"

Speak of the devil. Just then, Siha arrived.

Siha stepped into the cafe dressed to perfection, and everyone inside stopped what they were doing and looked. There were still twenty minutes until we had agreed to meet, but seeing us already gathered, she seemed to think she was late.

Just like her. Polite, good-hearted Siha.

"We got here early and were already talking, so you aren't late. Come on in, Siha."

The others were startled as well, at Siha appearing out of nowhere.

"S-so pretty..."

"A new colleague?"

"No. It seemed Miss Lee Hyeryeong was carrying a great deal of work alone, so I asked a friend for help. This is my childhood friend, Jung Siha. She serves as student council president at Euihan High School."

"Oh my! You mean the student council at Euihan High?"

When I introduced her, Lee Hyeryeong's eyes flashed as she looked Siha over.

"Hello. I'm Jung Siha, Hwayeon's friend."

She offered the greeting prettily, and Sophia, Cha Soyoung, and Lee Hyeryeong all made a fuss over how lovely she was. Watching Siha take the praise, I felt my shoulders threaten to square themselves.

"Euihan High—that's the high school under the foundation the President established, isn't it? Are there a lot of remarkable children on the student council there?"

"The Euihan High School student council is society in miniature. Children with the talent, the qualities, and the skill to hold their own even if they walked into the world tomorrow. Major corporations watch the student council officers of Euihan High very closely, and when you see how many senior officials and businessmen came out of that student council, you can call it a certified guarantee!"

"Sit down first."

I sat Siha beside me and spoke to Lee Hyeryeong.

"Before, I remembered Siha saying she would help, so I called her to this meeting. She belongs among geniuses, and she has the achievements to show for it. She'll be a great help to the work you're doing, Director Lee."

"Oh, I'm looking forward to this. By any chance, Miss Siha, are you thinking of a path in corporate restructuring?"

"I only have a little interest."

I explained to Lee Hyeryeong in the modest Siha's place.

"By custom, the student council president of Euihan High serves for one year, in their second year. But Siha became president in her first year—and partway through the year, at that. More than that, she is the very person who took that famous system of Euihan High School and reformed it for efficiency in a matter of mere months."

"Oh my~! The system of a first-rate private school, in only a few months! Now I understand why the Boss went out of her way to ask for her help!"

"You flatter me."

Yes. Siha truly was a genius. Even Mother, so particular about people, had her eye on Siha. Had there not been Mother's unspoken consent, it would have been hard even to go on keeping close with her.

"But Miss Siha really is beautiful enough to fall for. You're not an ability user?"

"Hehe. Thank you. But I'm an ordinary person."

"Th-the power of unbelievable DNA...!"

Leaving the astonished Sophia where she was, I introduced the others to Siha.

"Clockwise from the left: General Affairs Director Lee Hyeryeong, Vice-Captain Sophia Adelberg, Vice-Captain Cha Soyoung."

"A pleasure. I'm Lee Hyeryeong. Even if it's only for a little while, I'm looking forward to the time we work together."

"I'm Sophia. Please take good care of me!"

"Cha Soyoung. Please take care of me."

"Yes. Once more, I look forward to working with you. Miss Sophia Adelberg and Miss Cha Soyoung in particular are like older sisters to Hwayeon, so they are no different from older sisters to me. Please don't stand on ceremony."

"Kyaa~!"

Kh—!! S-since when did she have the recorder!

Flustered, I grabbed for it, but Sophia clutched the recorder tight in both hands and resisted, shaking her head from side to side like a child who will not give up a toy.

"This is Sophia's! Take it and I'll hate you!"

"Pfft."

"Hehehe."

...Hoo. If offering up my image is what brings harmony among them... then I'll just have to bear it.