Side Story: At Another Time

With a ripple, the siblings vanished before their eyes, and the underground parking garage sank into silence.

Clatter. A bright crash. Thud, and thud.

Things that looked to be the siblings' belongings lost their owners and pattered down onto the floor. A beauty whose long platinum-blonde hair fell all the way to her hips moved slowly among them and lifted a round, egg-shaped pendant gleaming gold.

"F-Franc? Why are you still here?"

Yoo Hwayeon looked as if she could not breathe. Staring at Franc as she picked up the pendant before her eyes—the pendant egg that held the Soul Stone—she forced down a heart that threatened to burst out of her as a shout, and asked.

She had been certain Franc would cross over together with Jung Seoha.

But Flandre had no composure left with which to answer Yoo Hwayeon, the woman she counted as a friend. He had said they would always be together. She had believed that no matter what came, they would never be parted. And she had been separated from him. To think that a resolve to remain at his side through anything would break in a manner like this. Amid the confusion crashing over her, Franc wanted to lose her mind and simply faint, but the spirit she had tempered across a whole life of living would not permit even that.

"Seo... ha..."

Watching the dazed Franc, Yoo Hwayeon took a moment to set her thoughts in order, and looking at the woman whose soul had gone out of her, she quieted the stifling feeling in her chest. That her one and only—the man who was everything to her—had thrown himself at his sister in the instant she was being forcibly summoned was startling. But when she called his strength to mind, she did not think it would prove a serious problem.

He was, somehow, a young man who made her worry. Even so, his sister was intelligent and wise, and his own gift stood high enough to be counted on one hand among every ability user in the world—outstanding, and tough. With a keen mind and overwhelming power, he would survive even the Phase World without particular hardship, and come back.

It unsettled her a little that Franc, who lent her strength to his martial might, had been left behind. But was he not the one who had taken down a High-Rank Variant as if it were nothing, even without her help? So once fifteen days had passed, her young lover would surely return to reality together with his sister, wearing that clear, childlike smile.

When she sorted her thoughts with a cool head, she understood why Franc had remained here as well. In a forced summon, nearly everything but the clothes one was wearing dropped back into reality. If Franc had gone with them, Hwayeon would have taken it for an incomprehensible phenomenon and fallen into a worse confusion still.

Then she looked at Franc, standing blank as a wife turned to stone while she waited for a husband, her face that of someone who had lost the world, and an ominous imagining suddenly pierced her thoughts.

As if he might never come back from the Phase World...

"Boss. Let's move to the grand banquet hall for now. If we explain the whole of it there, we ought to be able to head off the confusion."

Kim Pyochung, his excellent mind at odds with the shabby, rumpled clothes he wore, grasped the situation in an instant and urged Yoo Hwayeon, who was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠standing still.

Yoo Hwayeon let out a small breath, as if to cast off the ominous imagining that had risen at the last, and turned to Department Head Kim Pyochung, who had spoken to her.

"Understood. General Affairs Director Lee Hyeryeong, please gather Seoha and Siha's belongings. Second Boss Park Jiwoong, take charge of the people assembled here and move them to the grand banquet hall in Business Support Building Two."

She put force into her voice so that it would fill the parking garage sunk in silence, then left the ability users who had begun to move behind her and caught the hand of Franc, floating blankly in the air with her soul gone.

"Franc. Seoha will come back safe and well, together with Siha. Without fail."

"I know that, too."

Yoo Hwayeon faltered at Franc's emotionless voice—a tone she was hearing for the first time. And she felt something like fire boiling up inside her. Setting the cause aside, this stifled feeling, these emotions, were hard to keep in hand.

"Then why are you showing me a face like that?"

"I... I had decided I would stay at Seoha's side no matter what happened. And yet..."

Franc, beautiful past the point of making sense even to Hwayeon herself, a woman, trembled at the corners of her eyes as if a single drop of dew were slipping from a pure-white petal, and let one tear fall. At that sight, Yoo Hwayeon barely managed to recover her reason and her self-control.

And she thought.

Was I the strange one?

What slipped in between the two of them, locked in silence, was a single small fox.

Nngh.

Miho. The fox kit the man had named to mean tailed fox followed, with her tiny nose, the scent of the man who had been sucked into empty air and vanished. She tapped a wallet that was unmistakably his with the tip of her dainty nose, then stared at a large rainbow-colored droplet that had formed in the air.

At the sight of the wilted Miho, Flandre loosened the complexion that had seemed about to freeze, and apologized to Hwayeon.

"I'm sorry, Hwayeon. I think I grew emotional for a moment..."

"It's all right. I understand how you feel, Franc. I, too... had fallen into confusion."

As she spoke, her chest suddenly clenched, and it seemed tears might come.

Just how many times does Seoha have to tear my heart apart before he's satisfied?

When he faces us he's always grinning like a fool, playing mean little tricks and teasing us—and yet his mind turns so fast, so keenly, that it's hard to believe he's only a high school senior now. And with those impulsive moves of his, he never fails to leave the heart of the one watching him clenched tight with worry.

Following the thought, emotion welled, and the rims of her eyes grew hot.

"Hwayeon. Don't cry. Just as you said, Seoha has power now that the two of us together couldn't match. And the wise, brilliant Lady Siha is with him, so he'll surely come back without any real trouble."

She was putting on a strong front after the fact, but the traces of tears clinging to her eyes proved that she, too, was forcing herself to seem strong.

The women looked at each other for a moment, then smiled faintly at the same time, and each wiped away the single tear hanging at the corner of the other's eye.

"I suppose so. When he comes back safely, this time I really think we ought to give him a sharp scolding."

"That sounds tempting. Something to think through with Yeongeun."

"...We had better hope the Madam doesn't fly into a frenzy."

Recalling his third wife-to-be, and whether she might rave and run wild, their faces clouded.

An unforeseen disaster had forcibly summoned Grand Blue's young Master together with his sister, and the grand banquet hall was full of anxious murmuring, the same unease repeating over and over.

"Hey. If he doesn't come back like this, we end before we even get started, don't we?"

A man with his hair dyed white, a recovery ability user, voiced his anxiety to a sensory ability user he had grown close to during the five-day subjugation meant to foster unity.

"No way. He's the Master who pounded a High-Rank Variant into pulp by himself in one minute. His ability is something ordinary ability users like us couldn't even dream of. No chance anything serious happens on a mere first summon."

The sensory ability user was just as anxious. But the boy slated as Grand Blue's provisional Master was too strong an ability user for that anxiety to hold.

"But looking at the verification footage, he seemed a little... off, you know..."

"Hey, hey. The Master's only eighteen. He's a brat who's lived less than half as long as we have, and it hasn't even been a year since he awakened."

There were bound to be rough edges. So you looked to the future, and you looked at the people standing at his back.

"And I hear the Integrated Management Director who got dragged into the summon has an IQ over 200. Nothing worth worrying about is going to happen."

Tossing the words at his anxious recovery-type friend as if they were nothing much, he reached for the tempting snacks set out on the table.

"Besides. I heard the money the Master made by himself during the last verification was 1.2 trillion won. You or I would have to run hundreds of raids to earn that."

"Weeell... but jumping in during someone else's forced summon is something I've never heard of or seen, so I am a little worried."

"You worry way too much. If it falls through, Time River and Hwarang just split again. What's there to worry about?"

"Yeah. That's true."

"Anyway, this isn't the time to fuss over a diamond spoon who puts even a gold spoon to shame. We should just do our own jobs."

"Like you said, ants like us should mind our own business."

While the two men muttered, the talk around them flowed in much the same vein.

To put an end to worries of that sort, the three people in charge of Grand Blue appeared.

The General Affairs Director, the Boss of Time River, and the Boss of Hwarang climbed onto the stage of the hall and looked down at the ability users murmuring, their anxiety showing. In a situation like this, speaking plainly would be better than coaxing them gently. Thinking so, Lee Hyeryeong sounded the two Bosses out and took the microphone first.

"I understand how unsettled you must all be by an unprecedented event. Even so, it's only a first-cycle forced summon. If you're this flustered over that much, wouldn't Solid Snake—who so graciously offered its Phase Stone up to the Master—be the one we ought to pity?"

Opening with a humorous line, Lee Hyeryeong heard a small ripple of laughter and confirmed that the mood was not as bad as she had feared. Relieved inwardly, she recalled the conversation Yoo Hwayeon and Franc had shared only moments ago.

Judging that there was no need, in the present situation, to announce the recovery ability, Lee Hyeryeong stroked once the waist the Master had healed for her and opened her mouth again.

"The truth is, the serious matter is on our side, not the Master's. What's the matter, you ask? The large-scale raid next month! Those of you in Team Two may not know, but over the weekend the Master grew stronger yet again through a short bout of training—a single casual elemental shot of his set off an explosion fierce enough to trigger an air-raid alert. Do you see what I mean?"

At this rate, they might truly end up as nothing but extras trailing after the Master.

The news that he had grown stronger again must have been absurd to the other ability users as well. Talk of disbelief burst out here and there. Now and then a word like "monster," or "absolute fucking cheat," drifted through the hall.

"A raid team outdone by a single person—I'm not joking. So what you all ought to be worrying about isn't the Master. It's your own abilities."

At Lee Hyeryeong's playful voice, the ability users whined at her not to scare them so badly, or shouted that they understood. Thanks to that, the tense air of the grand banquet hall gradually came loose.

"There's a saying that tomorrow's worries can wait until tomorrow. We've prepared a modest banquet to ease the fatigue built up over five days, so have a light bite—and anyone who wants a drink, please move to the small banquet hall downstairs. Drinks and food are ready there. Those of you who want to catch your breath, enjoy the refreshments here."

Watching Lee Hyeryeong seize the mood with a practiced hand and carry things forward, Yoo Hwayeon thought how truly fortunate it was that she was here. If it had been her, she would have stiffened the atmosphere, not lifted it bright like that.

Leaving behind the sight of ability users scattering in twos and threes, Yoo Hwayeon eased the tension from her face and spoke to Lee Hyeryeong, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who was walking toward where she stood.

"I'm glad you're here, Unni. If it had been me, I would have fed the tension, not let it loose like this."

"How is that thanks to me? It's because our outstanding Master laid that trust down first."

As she said it, she turned her gaze to the spirit lady standing at Yoo Hwayeon's side, and saw that her complexion was still a little dark. So this was the spirit who followed the Master with such wholehearted devotion. Being left behind alone must have been a heavy blow. That aside.

"Then I'll head back first. I need to close out Team Two's accounts for this round. There's so much to do that I'm looking at overtime if I linger."

"Yes. Thank you for the work."

Yoo Hwayeon sent Lee Hyeryeong off with that brief reply, then turned to Franc and spoke.

"Now we have to tell Father and Mother. Come with me."

"Yes."

Yoo Hwayeon and Flandre took Miho, the desert fox Seoha was said to have tamed, and went up to the thirty-ninth floor of the residential wing, where Jung Seoha's parents—home from work by now—would be.

They had expected it. Even so, at the news that the siblings Jung Siha and Jung Seoha had been summoned together into the Phase World, the siblings' mother, Shin Soyeon, pressed a hand to her forehead, collapsed in a heap, and fainted.

Jung Soohun, having carried the unconscious Shin Soyeon to the master bedroom, opened his mouth with a deeply weary face.

"That rascal Seoha. You said he threw himself in at the moment Siha was summoned?"

"Yes, Father."

Yoo Hwayeon thought the mental strength of her father-in-law-to-be—keeping his composure even in a situation like this—was remarkable. Of course, he had been no ordinary man from the first time they met.

"That's a relief. If it's that boy, he'll keep his sister safe. It's the two of you I worry about. You don't look well."

"We're ability users. This much is fine."

"I'm all right too, Father."

Jung Soohun looked at his two daughters-in-law-to-be and nodded.

"Good. They'll be back in fifteen days, so let us agree to give him a proper scolding for acting with no awareness of his place as a public man."

"Yes, Father."

"Yes."

"Then I must tend to the children's mother, so I won't see you out."

Jung Soohun went into the kitchen, took up a towel and a bowl of water, and entered the large room. Yoo Hwayeon and Flandre quietly left the apartment and went up to the fortieth floor.

The vast living room was hollow and bare. From somewhere a chill seemed to drift in and fold itself around them.

"...Only one person is missing, and yet it feels so terribly wide."

"It really does."

Ill at ease in a home that felt cold more than spacious, they made their way to the sofa and sat. Yu Youngeun had not yet come home from work, but when she did, there would surely be chaos all over again.

Franc suddenly worried whether Miho could endure fifteen days without Seoha, and looked over that small body—only to see that her Phase Power had climbed to 30, whenever he had managed to feed her so much.

"Did Seoha foresee something like this?"

She crouched in front of Miho and tapped the small nose with a finger. The fox shook her head with a flutter, as if to say stop that, and Franc smiled a little. Then she propped her chin on her hand and quietly looked down at Miho. Her eyes were on the fox, but her thoughts turned upon herself.

She had not known she depended on Seoha enough to fall into a panic, even for a moment. Like this, could she be of any help to him when things turned urgent and desperate?

No. She couldn't.

This habit—I have to correct it from now on. If I'm to have an ability worthy of Seoha.

Two hours later, Yu Youngeun came home from work, startled once that the house was dark in its mood, and startled again when she heard the whole story from Franc.

"Aaaah~! So I don't get to see Seoha for another fifteen days?! I was going to take in heaps of Seoha's love tonight, and now I have to keep a lonely bed for fifteen days again!"

She let out a heavy sigh and flopped face-down on the sofa as if collapsing, and Franc and Yoo Hwayeon stared at Yeongeun with faces of pure disbelief.

"If I'd known it would turn out like this, I should have left work yesterday no matter what and rolled around with Seohaaaa~!"

Watching Yu Youngeun thrash like a child throwing a tantrum, Franc ended up bursting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into laughter. Seeing her like that—as if she had blind faith he would return—made Franc wonder what all her own fretting had even been.

Right. We're only apart for fifteen days. Only fifteen days.

Yu Youngeun had been watching Yoo Hwayeon—who was berating her, demanding what this was, she wasn't a child—with the face of someone regarding a rotten brat. Then, as if a fine idea had struck her, she smiled with wicked delight and threw herself on Yoo Hwayeon.

"Wh-what are you doing!"

"They do say, if you've got no teeth, you make do with your gums! So you'll have to be my body pillow in his place! Be good and stay still!"

"What kind of nonsense is this!!"

"That lewd body of yours is fitted to Seoha, isn't it?! So—!"

The brainless bullshit logic that sleeping while clutching a body fitted to Seoha was no different from sleeping with Seoha himself.

Under those rough hands the short-sleeved coat tore with a violent rip, and through the rent appeared lush breasts, a narrow waist, and full hips sheathed in tights-armor. Yoo Hwayeon recoiled in distaste and thrashed her arms and legs.

But Yu Youngeun had built a fair skill of her own while sparring with Yoo Hwayeon. She had also struck first and seized the advantage, so Yoo Hwayeon was in the worse position. When Yu Youngeun's indecent hands fondled her large breasts, Yoo Hwayeon flushed and began to hold off the invasion by force.

For five days she had abstained even from masturbation, waiting for tonight—Seoha's burning night—and so her body kindled easily even under Yu Youngeun's hands, which were not Jung Seoha's. Yoo Hwayeon cursed her own flesh.

Yu Youngeun wore a look that said resistance was what made it fun, and she kept bearing down on Yoo Hwayeon without letting up. From every angle it was nothing but Yu Youngeun's game, yet whether urgency kept Yoo Hwayeon from seeing that, she began to resist as if her life depended on it. Desperate resistance, though, has a way of only fanning the hunger.

"Kh— stop this! I'll truly be angry!"

"Ufufu. Come on, show me you mean it. If you don't, I'll rape you for real, you know?"

Against Yoo Hwayeon's resistance, Yu Youngeun felt the heart that had begun as play turning, little by little, sincere. Yoo Hwayeon's body, wrapped in tights, tangled with Yu Youngeun in her suit skirt, and as intimate places and deep valleys came bare, the scene that unfolded ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was obscene past all decency.

Because she was mounted atop Yoo Hwayeon, Yu Youngeun's legs had spread, and between them her black silk panties showed. Looking at them, Franc thought that she ought to take after the strong faith—the will—that Yu Youngeun was showing.

"Ah. If I film this, Seoha might like it."

With that thought, Franc thrust her phone toward the two beauties, identical as twins, tumbling over one another, and switched on the camera.