An Unexpected Encounter (1)

With Franc beside me, I soothed the shock still trembling through me, then wandered the Certifier community and gathered what information I could.

It was over and done with anyway. Better to focus on what I had to do next than stay tangled up in the past. And I was satisfied enough just reconfirming that Search and my control over Phase Power were straight-up cheat-tier.

Poking around the Certifier, I learned that most ability users did their talking through it, and only with one another. I would have been the same. Once you got used to a community built on a three-dimensional holographic interface, a flat screen and a keyboard started to look unusable.

In practice, thousands of raid teams were registered on the thing. Hundreds of thousands of parties, anywhere from two members to six, had already been formed, and tens of billions of posts across every category of board packed the community wall to wall. Ability users held all of their conversations inside the Certifier, and most of what the open internet had to say about ability users and the Phase World was either lies from clout chasers or the occasional dribble some eccentric ability user scattered when the mood struck.

"Seoha~!"

Franc and I had been surfing the community for a while when my sister's voice called from the entryway, and I got up. The moment I opened my door, she came into view, dressed to go out—a white cardigan over a black dress, cinched just beneath her chest with a thin, cute string that emphasized one particular area. Not that there was much there to emphasize. Wasn't she cold, though? April or not, the wind was still sharp.

Small handbag in hand, she was stepping into white patent sandals.

"Where are you going? It's five. It'll be dark soon."

"I'm going to see Hwayeon. I'll be back before long, so don't go out. Stay home and rest. Got it?"

Had she set this up while she was on the phone with Hwayeon-noona at the hospital earlier? More importantly—

"Don't wanna. I'm heading out in a bit too."

At that, my sister—halfway bent over, pulling on a white sandal—glared at me with a blank face. Faced with a look that bristled with murder, I swallowed hard and offered an excuse.

"I'm not sneaking off anywhere else. Bookstore and back. For real."

"You can order comics and novels online."

"Th-that's not it, okay? I'm going to buy something I need for studying!"

Franc is right here listening. What is my sister even saying?!

At my protest she pulled a yeah-right face, then seemed to remember me studying while I was stuck in the hospital, and wiped the expression clean. I pouted at the change, but she paid me no mind and threatened me with that same blank face.

"Fine. But call me before you leave, and call me when you get back. Wander off somewhere else and I'm telling Mom and Dad, so you'd better be ready!"

A little cowed, I nodded. She smiled, satisfied, ruffled my hair, and left the house.

Strange. I'm stronger than her now. Why can't I even think of talking back?

I watched the door shut with a sullen face and turned around. Franc had her hands clasped behind her back, swaying at the waist, wearing a cat's smile. Awkward for no good reason, I scratched the back of my head and muttered.

"I'm not a kid, but my sister's like this, and Mom's trying just as hard to overprotect me. It's a real problem."

Franc arranged her face into a clear I didn't say anything, though, and kept smiling at me the way someone smiles at a well-behaved little brother. I fled into my room and pulled on a light spring coat.

For some reason, a book on lip-reading—speechreading, as it was also called—was nowhere to be found in a bookstore. Before leaving the house I had called my sister from the landline, then taken a taxi to the biggest bookstore in Gwanghwamun. No matter how I searched the computers on the floor, a lip-reading title never came up, so I asked a clerk, a guy a few years older than me, whether they had anything that taught it. He launched into all sorts of things I hadn't asked about, insisted sign language was the better path, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and tried to push some ridiculously thick sign-language manual on me, so I simply walked out.

And if someone's hands are injured and they can't sign, then what? Why is it nothing but sign language with you?

"I really didn't think a bookstore like that wouldn't have it…"

I muttered it on my way out of the building, and Franc looked a little disappointed too, as if she also hadn't expected a place that big to be missing even a single book on lip-reading. I didn't want to see that face on her. Without thinking, I shouted the way I used to in the Phase World.

"…It'll be online, right? Let's look when we get home. If not, we'll try a library!"

People passing by snickered and stared. My face heating, I slung Franc onto my back and scurried off.

Ugh. Embarrassing.

An hour and a half there and back, forty thousand won in cab fare, and nothing to show for it. I came home clicking my tongue and sat down at the computer at once. On the country's most famous portal I searched for a lip-reading book, and only strange titles popped up as recommendations. The book I actually wanted didn't appear in the results at all.

"What?"

Franc was kneeling beside me, chin propped on the desk in that cute way of hers, watching the monitor. When I still couldn't find anything on lip-reading no matter how I searched, she grew disappointed enough that the color of her spirit form dimmed a little.

"Should I just learn sign language, then?"

Thoroughly let down as she was, her eyes went round and she looked up at me the moment I refused to quit and switched course toward sign language instead.

"You didn't actually think I'd give up, did you?"

She shook her head hard. No, no, no. Then she put on a freshly moved expression… Had I ever actually moved her before? All I could remember was teasing her and messing with her.

This time I was about to start looking through sign-language books, and the English came back to me. Lip reading. Right—Korea not having the book didn't mean the rest of the world didn't. I searched lip reading again, and sure enough, the books were there. Not one or two, either.

A related link dropped me onto the world's largest online bookstore. I searched lip-reading there again, and dozens of titles spilled down the page.

"Found them!"

Franc must have seen it too. She shot to her feet and threw both arms high, like a cheer—and with that, her chest, her chest bounced. Gravity and motion working on each other, Franc's breasts heaving, the nipples at their tips: I caught the warning that strength was about to gather somewhere it shouldn't, bolted upright, and ran into my sister's room.

Th-that was close. My pants were already thin. A full-scale disaster had nearly broken out.

In my sister's room I took deep breaths, trying to settle a man's third leg, but a needlessly sweet scent kept it from going down. Ugh—a sister had no business smelling that good! I hastily set my fly back to rights, grabbed the Visa card my sister used for buying books, and swiped it.

They said shipping would take a whole week, which left me oddly unsatisfied, so I searched around by title and happened across short posts foreigners had put up, along with tips on how lip-reading actually worked.

"Hmm. If they say memorize, I'll memorize. Franc, help me!"

I had an actual Brit sitting right next to me. Memorizing mouth shapes shouldn't be hard!

We sat facing each other. Franc would say a word starting from A, I would translate it into Korean, and one by one we sounded them out—memorizing the mouth shapes, watching the way her lips moved, working through the words. A legitimate excuse to look at Franc's pretty face was… nice. It was nice. But she was staring straight back at mine, and somehow I couldn't sit still.

I forced my attention onto her lips and poured everything I had into the words, and that was when the elevator arrived at our floor and two slender women stepped off. One of them was my sister. The instant I tried to get a look at the other, she flung the front door open with an angry face and charged in, shouting.

"Jung Seoha!"

Huh? Why is she that mad… Oh. I didn't call!

"Y-yeah!"

I answered and dashed out of the room. She hadn't even come in. She stood in the entryway, fuming, glaring at me. The look promised a combo of at least two smacks across the back and a low kick, and I swallowed.

From behind my furious sister came a terrifying mass of Phase Power, enough to stop my breath.

A last-boss reading, out of nowhere. Cold sweat was about to run down my back when my sister kicked her sandals off like she meant to tear them and charged in, smacking my back with a growl.

"You! I told you to call me when you got home, didn't I?!"

"I—I did. I just forgot once I was inside."

Smack!

"Ow! That hurts!"

"It's supposed to hurt! I thought something had happened to you! You didn't even pick up!"

Tears stood in her eyes as she fumed, and I could feel the next hit coming. I braced my thigh. A low kick arrived on razor timing and thudded into the muscle.

"Do you know how worried I was?!"

"Gah!"

It didn't actually hurt, but if I looked fine she'd only hit me again. I grabbed my thigh, put on a show, and fled for the living room, shouting.

"I'm really sorry! I couldn't find the book I was looking for, and I was so disappointed I forgot! But who's behind the door? Did you bring someone?"

Still fuming, she seemed to remember only then that she'd left her guest outside, and called through the half-open door for them to come in. I'd given her the cause, sure. Even so—leaving a guest standing there while she beat her little brother. Real classy.

My sister hardly brought a friend over once a year, if that. Curious who she'd dragged home, I dropped down in the living room and watched the person come in.

The woman coming in with my sister was so beautiful a gasp wouldn't even come. Birds of a feather, was that it? If Franc was a sun—bright, radiant—this woman was the opposite, cool and composed as the moon, a beauty in another sense entirely. Even measured purely by looks, she didn't fall short of Franc.

The Phase Power inside her was a whirlwind, the same shape as Mr. Kang Woohyuk's, or blonde Choi Soohan's. A Physical Reinforcement user? But the reading…

That wasn't a whirlwind. It was a hurricane. And right alongside the number came a question. How did my sister know a B-Class?

"Honestly, I really can't live with that kid. I mean it."

"You can say that all you want. If Seoha were actually gone, you're the one who couldn't live."

That cold, beautiful, almost self-luminous blank face drew a faint smile at my sister's words. The voice was a touch lower and cooler than my sister's… I felt as if I'd heard it before. And someone my sister talked to this comfortably? Could it be Hwayeon-noona?

I stared, startled, as the woman I suspected was Hwayeon-noona walked slowly toward me. Whoa. Take the voice away and I wouldn't have known her. Honestly, even the voice—I was hearing it for the first time in nearly six years, so I wasn't sure of that either.

My sister saw my startled face and frowned a little… then her expression smoothed, as if it wasn't the look she'd expected. Had she thought I'd take one look at Hwayeon-noona's face and figure and go completely stupid? Honestly, I almost did. Once upon a time I would have been drooling, but thanks to Franc I'd built up a little resistance to beautiful women.

My sister's friend had come close, and she spoke to me with a blank face. It felt like a beauty in the wild had just addressed me.

"It's been a while."

"Yeah. Been a while."

"Hmm? You're saying that because you know who I am, aren't you?"

I raised a hand in answer to the greeting, and Hwayeon-noona's eyes changed completely. She looked down at me with a chilly gaze.

"You're Hwayeon-noona, aren't you?"

At that, my sister put on a how-does-he-know face. So it really was Hwayeon-noona. She looked a little surprised herself and turned to my sister.

"Was Seoha always that quick on the uptake?"

"As if. The way you've changed isn't something a sharp eye can explain."

"That's true, but."

"I did tell him I was going to see you before I left. Maybe he put it together from that. He's been fast at reading a situation since way back—fast enough you'd call him sly."

The very person who had forced me to get good at reading situations was the one saying it, and it made me angry.

While the two of them made me their topic, I looked Hwayeon-noona over. Hmm. A matte leather jacket and leather pants, a distressed denim shirt under the jacket. Girl-crush, through and through, and even so her figure was outrageous enough that her femininity came off her in waves. More than anything, standing beside my sister, they looked like a white lily and a black rose set side by side. My eyes were eating well.

"You remember too, right? When he was in third grade."

"When he confessed to his homeroom teacher? There's no forgetting th—"

"That's enough! Your voice! Your voice barely changed! It's almost the same as six years ago!"

The instant my dark history was about to spill out of both their mouths, I saw Franc coming out of my room with sparkling eyes. I panicked, waved my arms wildly, and shouted. Franc finding out about that humiliating old story was absolutely not allowed.

I hurried over, caught my sister's wrist and Hwayeon-noona's, and pulled. Whatever they found so funny, they let me drag them into the living room, snickering. Damn it. The two of them laughing together, and Franc smiling softly behind them—the whole house felt like it was lighting up.

"Sit down first!"

I pushed them onto the sofa, ran to the kitchen, and came back with a tray: three glasses, and the plum drink I'd left chilling in the fridge.

"Here, drink!"

My sister kept giggling at whatever she found funny. Hwayeon-noona lifted her right leg and crossed it, watching me pour with a strange look in her eyes. I set the filled glass in front of her. She picked it up without a word and took a sip, and even then she didn't take her eyes off me.

Then I noticed the Phase Power inside her accelerate, just slightly. What was that. Was she using an ability? I took the opening, quietly spun my own Phase Power, and tried to sweep the whole of her with Search in one quick pass—and the instant I did, my oblivious sister pouted.

"You're not pouring mine?"

"Don't you have han— ah. Fine. I'll pour it."

I ducked my head under that terrifying look, poured again, and set the glass in front of her. Then, pouring my own share, I openly examined Hwayeon-noona—who still had not taken her eyes off me—with Search.

…She really had changed. The last time I'd seen her, six years ago, she'd been generously built, and her eyes had been gentle. Now the whole of her was cold and composed. Had her gaze turned like that when she became an ability user?

Her long hair, close to my sister's in length and in the way it fell, looked untreated, and still I couldn't find a single damaged strand. The portion tied once near her neck and left to spill forward went without saying. Her jet-black eyes glittered so brightly I could have believed starlight was set in them, and they harmonized with her brows to an absurd degree. The bridge of her nose dropped knife-straight from between her brows and rose clean, and those dainty nostrils looked so perfect a grandmaster sculptor couldn't have cut them that way. Her lips, a good healthy color, were so small I wondered how she even ate.

My sister, sitting beside her—set against Hwayeon-noona, the two of them seemed to strike a synergy of wholly different airs and wholly different beauties. Hmm. Honestly, the outward beauty was on a level with Franc's, only a different kind. If Franc stood at the front of Western beauty, Hwayeon-noona was the sort of face that would step out of a classical Eastern beauty portrait, rebuilt for a modern eye.

Her chest was a little… smaller than Franc's? It looked to be about a 34E, but she had on a tight sports bra that compressed her whole upper body, so through her clothes it read smaller. A waist as narrow as my sister's or Franc's, hips as well-developed as Franc's, and legs as taut and long as a leopard's—just as she was, you could photograph her and hang it, and it would pass for art.

While Search lingered on her legs, a man's instinct drove its focus straight between her thighs.

Whoa. H-hairless?!

Not a single hair. Pale, plump folds pressed tight shut, as if they would never part to show the petals inside—I nearly spilled my drink. If I kept staring at that secret place, the world in front of me was going to tilt, so I hurriedly followed the cleft between her thighs and slipped around behind her. A dainty pink anus. Buttocks so springy they looked like pudding. A clean groove carved along her spine, muscle developed enough that a leopard came to mind on its own. A female black panther. Or was the word puma?

M-more than that—Hwayeon-noona was a virgin too. That beautiful, and she didn't have a boyfriend? Ugh. She was my childhood friend, yes, but she was also my sister's, and looking her over like this, the guilty thrill was no joke. I felt like I was about to lose it.

And Hwayeon-noona didn't seem to notice I was using Search, either. Even a B-Class couldn't see through it? If she had, there's no way she would sit still while I examined even her secret places in that kind of detail. Now that I thought about it, this was an incredibly dangerous situation. If she had noticed… I swallowed.

My heart was pounding in two senses when her small, pretty lips parted, and a voice that was a little cool, yet pleasant to hear, came out.

"You've grown quite a bit, haven't you? I can't even call you a little kid anymore."

Huh? A little kid? What was that about? At least it wasn't an angry voice. I was relieved. I let out a quiet sigh inside and dropped onto the plush wool carpet covering the living room floor. I didn't think I could bring myself to sit on the sofa where the two of them were.

"Right? After he came back from the Phase World he got taller, and somehow more solid."

Hwayeon-noona looked at my sister—who said it with a proud face—with complicated eyes, several feelings mixed together. Then she set her glass down, turned her gaze to me, and spoke.

"I came because I have something to say to you. Come sit here."

"Ah, I'm fine. I'll stay here. More than that, something to say?"

Show the two of them a certain part of me, swollen to more than three times its usual size with the blood rushed into it, and that would be a live update to my dark history. When I declined, Hwayeon-noona patting the cushion beside her, Franc—who had been lingering at the edge of the living room—quietly came over and clung to my back as if climbing on.

"…Is that so?"

She lowered her gaze, looking somehow disappointed. Why disappointed? More than that, she couldn't see Franc either. If even an ability user past ten million in Phase Power couldn't notice Franc, then maybe only someone with a special ability, or a special technique, could see ghosts.

I turned that over while I drank, wondering what she had come to say, and at her next words I nearly sprayed the drink.

"So. How did it feel, looking at my body?"

C-caught! She caught all of it—everything I saw with Search! She caught that I'd gone over her precious parts in detail… I'm dead. In more ways than one!

"Pfft! Wh-what are you suddenly saying!"

My sister sprayed her drink across the table in my place. She yanked tissues, wiped her mouth, wiped the table, and pressed Hwayeon-noona with a thoroughly flushed face.

"Seoha's eyes were sweeping my body. I thought he was looking me over with a sensing ability. Was I wrong?"

Hwayeon-noona leaned back against the sofa, arms crossed, chest propped on them. She looked less angry than simply dismissing the whole thing as a trivial nothing. So she hadn't caught Search. I let out a long breath of relief inside. Come to think of it, at some point a film of Phase Power about a centimeter thick had settled over her entire body. Was that an ability? Did it block things like Clairvoyance or Analysis? Was that why she looked so calm—because she trusted the technique, and thought my Detection had only skimmed her over her clothes?

I glanced at her and saw my sister beside her, somehow annoyed, side-eyeing her. The tension eased, and a laugh almost slipped out—ugh. Whether the amusement showed, Hwayeon-noona knit her brow, just slightly. That settled it. Unless I forcibly swept a part sensitive to Phase Power—the brain, say—no one could notice Search.

I hid a lie inside the truth and opened my mouth.

"I wasn't looking with a sensing ability. I just looked because I wasn't sure you were the noona I last saw six years ago. Anyway, if it felt bad, I'm sorry."

Hwayeon-noona, my sister, and I had known one another a long time. Since I was six, so about twelve years. The three of us met at the same kindergarten, and under my sister's lead we were always stuck together. We got along like that for six years, and then, the year I turned twelve, we suddenly started seeing each other less. Hwayeon-noona back then had weighed even more than I had before I entered the Phase World. Put nicely, she'd been chubby. Put badly, she'd been a real fat pig. Her personality had been timid and closed off, too, and at some point my sister and Hwayeon-noona had started playing just the two of them and leaving me out.

I was about to start sixth grade, and no matter that they were older, playing with girls was embarrassing, so I'd accepted drifting from Hwayeon-noona as if it were only natural. After that I only occasionally heard through my sister that she was doing all right. So when had she become an ability user?

At my words, Hwayeon-noona looked at me with a strange expression. My sister looked back and forth between us with uneasy eyes. She must have caught the slightly strange current ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠running between Hwayeon-noona and me.

More than that, it seemed Hwayeon-noona had been sounding me out on a hunch. Did ordinary ability users have no way to gauge Phase Power? Earlier, when she picked up her cup and I saw her spin hers, I'd thought she was measuring my ability to some extent. Maybe that hadn't been it. Either way, I couldn't tell what she intended, showing up the moment I became an ability user… Rather than not being able to tell, I hoped it wasn't the reason I'd guessed. I scraped together whatever thoughts came to mind, roughly shaped them into words, and let them out.

"So when did you become an ability user, Hwayeon-noona? Looking at how ridiculously much Phase Power you've got in you, it doesn't seem like a day or two. Was it from back then, six years ago, when you stopped meeting me?"

At that, Hwayeon-noona narrowed her eyes and fixed them on me.

Scary. It isn't the Phase Power. What's scary is that I can't feel any emotion in those chilly eyes!

The heart I'd barely calmed started pounding again, and my throat went dry. I lifted the cup in my hand and downed what was left.

"…So you really can see Phase Power. …Ah. Wait. I'm not about to get angry or scold him, so don't. Siha. Just a moment. Don't—don't grab me. Wait."

My sister, finding the reaction strange, stretched both arms out and hugged her, signaling me with her eyes to get into my room, and fast. I had a feeling I shouldn't.

Damn this hunch!

Hwayeon-noona… was she weak to my sister? A little strength and she could have undone those arms easily, yet she couldn't budge, and I could see plain as day that she was fretting my sister might get hurt. She liked my sister very much. But the sight of two beauties hugging and fussing at each other was so dazzling my eyes felt like they'd be purified clean through and then burn up. To my lewd eyes, it was far too much.

I could roughly guess how they'd ended up like that. My sister only played the witch with me. With everyone else she was a saint, and that would have been true for Hwayeon-noona too, back when people teased her for being an ugly fat pig. Thanks to that, even after becoming an ability user and growing superior, Hwayeon-noona probably still took my sister for a friend she could open her heart to. And my sister wasn't the type to feel jealousy or envy, so they'd stayed best friends the whole way.

"Noona, it's fine, so don't do that. Yeah. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠can see not just Hwayeon-noona's Phase Power, but almost everyone's. So?"

When I spoke, my sister obediently let go and pulled away, though she still looked worried. Honestly, I was scared too. If Hwayeon-noona swung a hand once with Phase Power over ten million, I'd go flying. Still, she was my sister's best friend. She wouldn't go so far as to kill her best friend's little brother.

"…I forgot."

"Huh?"

"What?"

Hwayeon-noona fanned her slightly flushed face with one palm. My sister hugging her out of nowhere must have thrown her. My sister and I stared at her, dumbfounded, and Hwayeon-noona took our gazes with a blank face, hesitated a moment, and opened her mouth again.

"A joke. Want to try guessing why I came?"

…Well. That mood-killing, corny joke hadn't changed. So, looking at what my sister had done during the day…

"Do you have a group… a raid team, too?"

At that, Hwayeon-noona made a small oh. Her reactions were so faint that without Search I would have missed it entirely.

"Go on."

"Go on, what… You're telling me to join your team, aren't you?"

"Why do you think that?"

"Looking at my sister's reaction, it seems like it. And seeing how ridiculously much Phase Power you've got, you don't seem like an ordinary ability user, either. You've been smart since you were little, Hwayeon-noona. You wouldn't have come over without a thought in your head."

I set the glass in my hand down and finished.

"Dr. Woo told me as much. He said my ability was pretty rare, and that it had a lot of room to grow. It just followed that you'd have a raid team, or a group, at least big enough to handle me. …Am I wrong?"

Hwayeon-noona nodded, just slightly, with a satisfied face.

"Half right."

"Half?"

"To be plain, I covet your ability. I want to recruit you. But I won't."

"Why? I still don't know the Phase World well, but I know my ability isn't ordinary."

"Because Siha made a request she almost never makes. I came to help you."

At that, I looked at my sister. Honestly. Had she been that worried about me? Meeting my eyes, she drooped the corners of hers and spoke with a sorry face.

"Seoha. I told Hwayeon about your ability. I'm sorry."

"Mm."

"I did it because Hwayeon seemed like the right person to head off what you're worried about."

I looked back and forth between my apologetic sister and Hwayeon-noona. Hwayeon-noona uncrossed her arms, drew herself up straight, and spoke in a voice that cut clean.

"My raid team—I'm the boss, mid-tier B-Class—has two top-tier C-Class vice-captains and ten mid-tier C-Class team leaders. Under them are ten teams, a hundred members ranging from the lowest C-Class to the highest D-Class. Add the clerks, the mission support, and the combat support, and all together it's a raid team of over a thousand."

A thousand?!

"The team's name is Time River. A team like ours has more than enough to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠protect you, Seoha, your parents, and Siha."

"…"