Episode 52: Daily Life (4)

I opened the door and stepped out, and there stood my sister in a gray box tee and loose pink sweatpants. She and Mom had gone out this morning — had they left just to buy that?

Through Search I could see the layers underneath: a tank top beneath the box tee, and under that a sports bra she didn't even need. Inside the sweatpants, dolphin shorts, and... that was as far as I needed to look.

The outfit had clearly taken yesterday's words at the gym to heart. Good. Not a single curve showed, so she passed. Time for a little flattery.

"Ooh. Whose sister is this? She's seriously pretty."

"Really? Hehe."

It wasn't a lie — she really did wear it well. They say a good hanger makes even rags look pretty, and that might as well have been coined for her. If I wore that getup, it'd be a complete loser fit.

The flattery put her in a good mood. She spun a circle in front of me, hehe-ing, showing off the clothes she had on.

Then Mom came out of the dressing room in something similar and started showing off too.

"Son, how do I look?"

"Whoa! Mom, you're the cutest thing in the world! It suits you like crazy!"

I fired off a double thumbs-up and reacted twice as hard as I had for my sister, declaring her the cutest alive. Mom cupped her cheeks in both hands, delighted, while my sister shot me a prim, sulky glare.

Dad closed his book and turned a pleased smile on Mom.

"A sound decision. You look far better this way."

The two ladies of the house seemed thoroughly cheered by the men's praise. At this rate, they'd dress like that every time they worked out, wouldn't they?

Dad ate the lunch Mom and my sister had put together in high spirits, then went back to his book, and the two of them started coaxing me to go exercise again today.

"I was planning to hear Franc's story this afternoon..."

Her answer came soundless, brushing the inside of my thoughts.

"It is quite all right. Time with your family matters more. Shall we speak of it tonight?"

That would be better. When I agreed, Mom and my sister brightened and went to their rooms to fetch the workout clothes they'd taken off earlier.

In the meantime, I tried Dad.

"Dad, that belly of yours is starting to look dangerous. How about coming to work out with us?"

"...There's an academic conference soon. I need to prepare for it."

I'd tried to tempt him, but he shook his head, saying he was busy. The way he briefly touched his stomach suggested it bothered him, though. Once the conference was over, I'd have to try again.

A glance at the book in his hands showed it was medical. Collecting old books was his hobby, and he loved classical literature, so I'd assumed he was at his leisure — but he was working.

"All right. We'll do it together next time."

"Yes."

Did Franc like books too? The curiosity she showed toward what Dad was reading, and the way she'd browsed the shelves in my room, my sister's room, and Dad's study, made me think so. I'd have to ask later.

Mom came out with the workout clothes packed and looked at me.

"Son. All ready?"

"I can grab mine on the way out."

"Is that so? Dear, we're going to work out and then stop by the store for groceries. Is there anything you need?"

"I should like grilled rice cakes, for the first time in a while. If you would grill some."

"All right. Look after the house, then."

"Dad. We'll be back."

"Mm."

When I left the house with Mom and my sister in their everyday clothes, Franc followed behind.

"You'll be bored if you come along. You can stay and read beside Dad. It's not far, so you won't get pulled back to my side."

"No. I was only looking because I wondered what sort of books Father enjoys."

"Fair enough. Medical texts would be dull. He usually reads classical literature, so that should be fine."

"Classical literature of Korea? That sounds delightful."

We were riding the elevator down, still talking, when my sister — who'd been chatting with Mom about yesterday's drama — jabbed me in the side.

"Seoha. Watch yourself in front of other people."

"Watch myself how?"

I raised an eyebrow at the sudden criticism, and she glanced around me, her tone tinged with worry.

"If you talk to Miss Franc in front of people, it'll look like you're talking to thin air. They'll think there's something wrong with your head."

"What?!"

I bristled for a moment at being cast as a lunatic, but thinking it over, she wasn't wrong. Mom backed her up.

"You're an ability user now, son. Ability users carry great power, so you have to conduct yourself properly, so ordinary people don't feel threatened."

"That's... yeah. I get it."

I'd never once considered my sister's point, or Mom's advice. Secrets leak through little things like this, so I'd have to be careful. I needed to read other people's gazes more closely with Search.

The truth was, in the few days since I'd made it back alive, Search had shown me plenty of scenes that left me embarrassed and burning in the face. A young newlywed couple in another unit, having passionate sex I never meant to watch. The young woman next door, masturbating with her fingers in front of her computer. A young woman who was obviously having an affair, sucking off an old man's cock.

The affair man's dick was so long that even gripped in both hands the tip still poked out a little, and I'd been shocked to see her swallow it all the way down. The head didn't just hit her uvula — it went down to her vocal cords. I'd been horrified...

At the hospital, too, I'd seen plenty of men and women trysting in supply rooms and storage closets where no one came. A woman spreading her legs for her hospitalized boyfriend. A female nurse thrusting her ass out and getting pounded hard by a male doctor. A guy around my age being toyed with by a female doctor. So the porn manga really had been based on true stories after all.

Anyway, the most troublesome thing after coming back was that I unconsciously scanned the people close to me and everything around me. Even while I was in the hospital I'd deliberately narrowed the Search range, or switched the ability off, and ground away at refining it. By now I was skilled at intentionally shrinking or expanding the area... but.

Hmm.

If I let my guard down, like now, the scan would sweep people at random, starting with whoever was closest. That inevitably meant scanning my family, and when it happened I was so embarrassed and sorry toward Mom and my sister I could die. So to fix what my sister had pointed out — and if only to keep from seeing her and Mom naked — I needed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to keep developing Search, and honing it.

Riding in Mom's car toward the hospital, the moment Dad's hospital entered my Search range I checked the gym on the fifth floor with Telescopic Vision. Sure enough, twelve bastards were killing time with something that barely qualified as exercise. Those sons of bitches still hadn't learned. I ground my molars without a sound and checked the animals' faces. Some hadn't been there yesterday. Some had.

Their goal was obviously to ogle my sister with those rotten, dead-fish eyes. How was I supposed to handle beasts like that so word would get around that they'd been dealt with properly?

...Still, from now on my sister and Mom would be wearing ordinary workout clothes, so maybe there was no need to get that heated. But the ones who'd come back even after hearing my warning yesterday needed a lesson one way or another, or they'd look down on me.

Mmm. I didn't like using my ability to scare and threaten ordinary people. I'd already leaned on them a little yesterday, and doing it again today made me uneasy. I fretted over what to do, then decided to meet it head-on. The moment we arrived at the hospital I ran up to the gym and changed quickly in the locker room. Mom and my sister would change in the director's office on the seventh floor, so I had that window to sort this out.

In the gym there were eight... I didn't even want to call them people. Eight animals remained. Four of them had taken a call the instant I arrived at the hospital and fled helter-skelter to the patient wards, and of the ones I'd seen yesterday, only one was left.

I changed into my workout clothes and stepped into the gym, and the last one remaining glared at me with eyes unusually full of hostility. Haha. So when a man gets angry enough, laughter can come out of him.

...There was a limit to playing the victim!

The one glaring at me had dyed his hair red, yellow, and blue, permed it, and swept it back — a total punk. Up top he wore a tight sleeveless shirt, and below that the pants of a patient gown, swaggering around. An inpatient? He stared at me with hostile eyes and started sneering.

"Well, well~ Quite the important person finally decided to grace us~ hmm?"

"..."

"Heh heh heh. Hey, pal. I looked into you, and you're an ability user, ain't that right? Huh?"

I stared blankly at the guy acting like a thug, and he stuffed his hands in his pockets, hunched, and started running his mouth however he pleased.

"I saw eeeverything yesterday. You threatening ordinary people. You think that's allowed? Is it allowed? The hospital director's brat, of all people!"

Before I became an ability user I might have shrunk back in fear, but maybe because I'd nearly been hunted by Aberrants, fought them, and met an Imugi and the Supergiant Turtle — a complete upheaval of the mind — a punk's bullying just disgusted me. Franc, though, was furious. She clenched her fists and glared at him with an angry face.

Seeing Franc angry suddenly made me angry too. I drew a long breath to settle my chest, and the tricolor punk grinned and shrugged like he was trying to look tough. He didn't look tough at all. The feeling of having seized the initiative was written all over his face, and it was pathetic.

"Hey, you little shit. Zipper on that mouth? Why so quiet? Scared? Afraid big bro here's gonna report you to the Ability User Association?"

Since I didn't answer, the tricolor punk got cocky and even threw in a threat.

"Want me to spread it all over the neighborhood — that the bastard harassing innocent citizens, an ability user of all things, is the hospital director's kid? Huuuh?"

I walked toward him. As I approached with no expression, the punk looked briefly flustered, then put on a childish face that might have worked for scaring little kids. In that moment I circulated a tiny thread of Phase Power up into my throat and opened my mouth.

"I don't care."

"Huh? Huh? What?"

He hadn't expected that answer. He stumbled back, and my voice seemed to have cowed him. There was only one reason a third-rate punk would come at me like this. He meant to make a move on my sister, one way or another. I narrowed my eyes and spoke to the visibly rattled thug.

"I said I don't care. Even if fewer patients come to the hospital, I can earn the money and keep it running myself. And you're going to report me to the Ability User Association? What did I do wrong?"

"Wh-what the fuck, you threatened people yesterday!!"

The end of his sentence pitched up too high. I answered him.

"And your evidence that I threatened anyone?"

"Huh? Y-yesterday, in front of everyone, you tore a bench-press plate doing a demonstration!! If that isn't a threat, what is?!"

Was it my calm that unsettled him, or the sense of crisis as I drew closer? The tricolor punk was losing his composure, shouting like a cornered animal.

"Oh, that? I'd only been an ability user for a few days. I couldn't control my strength."

"What?! Fuck, you call that an excuse...!"

"Why wouldn't it be? There's no CCTV. No voice recording. All you've got left is your hunch, and you're going to submit a hunch as evidence?"

I remembered yesterday and today clearly. Not one of them had filmed anything on the spot. Even now they were nothing but idiots with no thought of securing footage. As I spoke I looked around at the animals gathered inside, and every one of them flinched and avoided my gaze. Just as the punk was about to shout something in a fit, I cut him off with a growl.

"And what are you counting on, running your mouth?"

"Uh, huh?"

"A properly awakened ability user has plenty of legal ways to bury someone without even using their power. What are you counting on? Never heard the stories of guys who picked a fight with an ability user and got their lives slide-to-unlocked? Or do you have some backing?"

I stepped right up to his nose and asked with a cold little smile, and the tricolor punk's face drained to a deathly pallor. Then he yelped.

"Wh-what are you saying, you little brat!! You said you awakened a few days ago, so where would you get power like that...!"

"Pfft. You really think that?"

I switched on the Certifier adhered to my wrist and cast the ability readings from the test two days ago into the empty air.

A faint blue hologram window rose, stitched through with clear lettering: F-Class. The moment the tricolor punk saw it, his face went ashen.

It was widely known among ordinary people that a real ability user started at F-Class. Anything below that was treated as an apprentice. With proof of F-Class sitting plain as day in front of him, the inside of his head had to be pretty complicated right about now.

"Well, even if you think this is fake, I don't care. This is reality, and your thoughts won't affect my decisions at all."

Whether he sensed no lie in my calm, fear hit him late, and his legs started shaking. What even was this bastard? From the look of it he had no backing, and he wasn't mixed up with any squad leader either. Had he really strutted out trusting in nothing but a report? I hid how dumbfounded I was and kept needling him.

"Even if that weren't the case, the hospital director and his wife have rather impressive connections. And among the director's daughter's acquaintances, there's even a raid-team boss."

A doctor was still an upper-tier profession in Korea's social hierarchy. A doctor who owned a building, however small, and had run a general hospital for over ten years would have formed quite a strong network — or so I'd heard from my sister. Add a gift for speaking, good looks, and a capable doctor who'd even been in the spotlight through seminars, and that network would grow absurdly wide. Like Dad and Mom.

I looked the tricolor punk up and down and asked as if I genuinely didn't understand.

"So I'm really curious what you're counting on, running your mouth. Got a relative who's a senior executive at one of the country's top conglomerates? Or a sitting member of the National Assembly?"

"Th-th-that."

"If not that, then an outstanding ability user among your acquaintances?"

"N-no, no. That's..."

I stared coldly at the tricolor punk, who couldn't even speak properly, as if his language center had been smashed. Had he thought an ability user mustn't harm an ordinary person, and that since I was this hospital's director's son, grabbing that as a weakness and threatening me would work? A punk was just a punk.

For an instant the thought flickered past that I didn't seem like myself. So what.

I slowly circled him — cold sweat, legs trembling, ready to collapse if I so much as tapped him — appraising him like merchandise as I spoke.

"I suppose you heard a rumor that the director's daughter was pretty and came looking to try something..."

When I set a hand on his shoulder he flinched and shrank. I looked at the man whose will to resist had completely vanished, smiled coldly, and whispered by his ear.

"I'll teach you myself, this time, that if you mouth off at an ability user, you're fucked."

"Ugh... ugh..."

"I'll teach you for free that I don't even need to use my power — money and authority alone are enough to bury trash like you. So please, don't refuse. Hmm?"

Every time I patted his shoulder gently, the punk's knees buckled as if they'd give out, and he collapsed to his knees and started begging forgiveness.

"I-I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I was wrong! J-just once, please forgive me just once!!"

Watching him rub his hands together and beg stirred a low, vulgar thrill. Looking down at the punk bowing his head, I almost felt like someone important. In reality I was only F-Class — still nothing but a worthless F-Class scrub.

Well, thinking about how things worked, even this stupid punk's intentions weren't all that strange. If I'd attacked him directly I could have been arrested as a special criminal and locked up in Alcatraz, and word that the director had raised his son wrong could have dropped the hospital's reputation into the gutter until the doors had to close. But I wasn't a complete idiot, and there was no way I'd let things play out like that. I had a top-grade ability called Search. Would I be stupid enough to leave evidence?

Search caught Mom and my sister, finished changing. They'd be coming down to the gym soon. I couldn't restrain him physically, and I wasn't in a position to crush him with authority or money, so I'd better wrap this up with a threat. Smashing a guy like this by reaching out to the people around me felt like it would cheapen my own worth anyway.

I looked down with cold eyes at the punk still pressing his forehead to the floor and begging forgiveness.

"Still, you're not entirely without sense. Truth is, I have no intention of burying someone's life over a trivial matter like this."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."

"So threatening me and my family... I'll be as generous as I can, and forgive you."

"Th-thank you!"

"On one condition."

Color had been returning to his face at the thought that he'd survived. At the words I added on the end, fear started flooding it again. I put my mouth by his ear and whispered.

"Use every means you've got and spread the rumor quietly. Anyone who comes near here nursing dirty desires might end up dead, socially."

"Yes, yes yes yes! I'll spread it wide so maggot bastards can't even show their faces near this hospital!"

"I trust you won't appear in front of my sister or me ever again. Show up again, and I think I'll really want to bury you so quietly not even a mouse would know. Understand?"

"Yes, yessir!"

"Go."

The moment the word left my mouth, the tricolor punk crawled, then stood and fled the gym like a shot. I turned my gaze to the seven animals with stiff faces... no. To the seven people who seemed to actually be here to exercise. The moment I met the eyes of the men in their thirties and forties, the marks of muscle built by working out plain on them, they hurriedly looked away and went on with what they were doing.

I'd missed it earlier, caught up in the heat, but these people really did seem to have come to the gym to work out. No need to touch them, then. Still, they had nerve. Had they wanted that badly to watch a worthless punk get his dick stomped by an ability user?

And what was this. Where the punk had been, a yellowish liquid was trailing across the floor. It was piss. I frowned at the drops of fear-piss dotted over the marble tile.

"Ugh."

Nothing for it. I'd have to wipe it myself.

I found a rag with Search and started mopping, and the seven stopped their workouts to glance at me, reading the room. Feeling those gazes, I drew my Phase Power back and spoke in an ordinary tone.

"If you didn't come here with ulterior motives, you're fine. Carry on with your workouts."

The seven let out breaths of relief, more or less, and turned their attention back to what they'd been doing. Right on cue, Mom and my sister came into the gym in the workout clothes they'd worn at home.

The seven scattered around the room went round-eyed at Mom and my sister's looks, then seemed to remember my warning. They hurriedly turned their gazes away and focused on their exercises. Yes. That was the sight I wanted. You come to a gym, you work out!

The tricolor punk from earlier, and these people too, would spread today's story. Even if I didn't come, an environment where my sister could exercise safely would take shape, wouldn't it?

My sister wasn't working out. She tilted her head at the sight of me mopping the floor with a dust mop and asked.

"Why are you mopping the floor?"

"There was some yellowish liquid on it. Didn't want someone stepping in it and slipping."

Just then a man doing dumbbell presses glanced at me with a baffled look, so I met his eyes and gave him a small smile. He hurriedly looked away and focused on the press.

"Oh? And here I thought you'd threatened someone into pissing themselves."

Her instincts were no joke. At her words Franc smiled wryly and clung onto my back. What I'd done to the tricolor punk was pulling rank, if it was anything, and I worried a little that Franc might see me badly for it.

"Son, Mom will do it. Hand me the mop."

"No. I'm done, so you start your workout."

Mom reached for the rag, so I blocked her hand, finished the cleanup, and walked toward the treadmill in a satisfied mood.

I ran for an hour without stopping at the treadmill's top speed, and the adults who'd come earlier to work out stared blankly, then clicked their tongues.

I stopped the machine, wiped my sweat, and looked to see what Mom was doing. Under my sister's coaching, she was working hard at lunges in front of the full-length mirror.

Lunch felt reasonably digested, so I thought about trying something else and looked around the gym. Hmm. Should I try lifting a barbell?

I took a little water and loaded ninety-kilogram iron plates on each side of an empty bench-press bar. The bar weighed five kilograms, so one hundred and eighty-five in all.

I lay on the bench, set my form with Search, and gripped the bar tight. And I lifted... I lifted...!

Heavy!

Was pure bodily strength not enough?! I quietly sensed the inside of the gym and found that not only the people working out, but Mom and my sister too, had stopped to watch me. Even Franc was sitting on my stomach, cheering me on, and a man's stubborn pride rose up that I couldn't back down like this.

I quickly circulated Phase Power and spread it evenly through the muscles I was straining. The bar bent slightly, and the barbell rose smooth.

"Huh."

"Whoa."

"One eighty-five, just like that..."

"Isn't the Paralympic lightweight world record one eighty?"

"But he's an ability user. Of course that much is easy."

I couldn't tell why my sister was the one looking smug at the gasps around us.

I lifted the bar a few more times and set it down, and my pecs felt like they were being forcibly swollen... it was worse than I'd expected. I had a feeling I wasn't going to get along with exercise.

"You're a Special-type, so why are you that strong?"

At my sister's words as she came close, the people around murmured in greater surprise. The satisfied look on her face at their reaction was somehow funny.

"Huff... I'm not... that strong. It's a little heavy for me too. Heh."

"If it's only a little, does that mean you can do heavier?"

"If I use Phase Power...!"

Then I happened to drop my gaze, and saw a shocking sight. Franc was sitting on my dick, both arms braced on my stomach!

I snapped my eyes to the ceiling and locked them there. If I looked down again, the visual stimulus would be so terrifying I'd go fully hard. I sang the national anthem in my head and lifted and lowered the bar even harder, but the dick that had already started was beginning to announce its presence despite my desperate efforts.

No, no, no, no... ugh, it's standing up!

In the end my sister caught me, and I took a smack to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the stomach that cracked like a whip. At the sight of her palm passing through her own body to hit me, Franc — who had been counting to thirty-seven — startled and floated up into the air. Because of that her porcelain thighs spread defenselessly, and between them a firmly shut, ruler-straight slit was laid bare.

The instant I looked there by male instinct, I felt a killing intent like needles pricking my skin.

D-dangerous.

I quickly racked the bar and tried to flee, and in that moment my sister swung her palm with a reddened face.

Smack!

"Gack! Why'd you hit me?!"

"You little pervert!"

Face red as a tomato, she laid into my back, smack after smack, and it stung like hell.

"That hurts! Stop!"

I couldn't bring myself to push her, so I darted behind Mom, who was laughing as she watched us. My sister chased a beat late, right hand raised, growling.

"You gonna get over here or not?"

"Sis, have you suddenly lost it?! Why are you hitting me!"

"You did something wrong, so you get hit! Get over here already!"

"Oh, come on. What did I even do to deserve this!"

At my cry of injustice she suddenly flushed and started swinging her hands wildly, trying to get at me around Mom.

"I-if you don't know, you get hit extra for not knowing!"

"That's too much!!"

Mom only smiled kindly, which was no help at all in dodging, and at this rate my back wouldn't survive. I had no choice but to flee the gym.

Franc followed, a little brighter, shyly covering herself with both hands, and seeing her I had a feeling the road ahead of me wasn't going to be very smooth.

After the grocery run we came home and ate dinner. Dad took the warm white rice cakes and the grilled rice-cake sticks Mom had bought and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠went into the study with a satisfied look, and Mom followed him in, apparently meaning to read with him.

I was scratching my back and heading to my room with Franc when my sister called me to a stop.

"Don't go to your room. Wait a second."

"W-why?"

Thinking she might hit me again over the gym, I flinched, and she glared at me to stay put, fetched the medicine box, and sat behind me.

"Let me see your back. ...Ah."

Seeing my back a mess of red, mottled palm prints, she paused, then furrowed her brows. After she'd made it this way herself.

She went to the kitchen, brought two towels and hot water and cold, had me lie face-down, and started massaging the bruised parts.

"Ah, it stings."

"Stay still!"

I squirmed at the sting across my back, and she gave me a light knuckle-rap on the head. Scratching my scalp, I looked back and found her expression tearful — she hadn't expected it to get this bad when she hit me. She kept muttering and grumbling, and when I listened I caught little words like kid, pervert, beast, so she'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠noticed I'd gotten worked up seeing Franc's body at the gym. Well, I'd figured. Otherwise there was no reason she'd hit me like that.

Franc seemed to have realized this had happened because of her, and looked at me with a sorry face.

For twenty minutes my sister alternated a towel soaked in hot water and one soaked in cold, massaging me, then wiped the moisture from my back, carefully sprayed on pain-relief spray, and fled into her room as if escaping.

If she was going to feel sorry, she shouldn't have hit me... sigh. That's why I couldn't even hate her.

I was about to take the rice cakes Mom had set aside for me and go back to my room when I remembered the dictionary and went to Dad's study. He was eating rice cake and reading a medical text full of words I didn't know, and when I came in he looked at me with a what-is-it expression. I glanced at Mom, sitting in the armchair with a novel, then asked him.

"Dad. Do you have a dictionary with a lot of English words?"

"Was the four-thousand-word dictionary you used at the hospital not enough?"

"Yeah. I memorized all of it, and I learned lip-reading too, but it feels a little lacking."

"For conversational vocabulary that much would be plenty. But you're an ability user now, so you'll need to learn the technical terms."

Dad nodded, calling it a good idea.

"Right? To get to perfect, shouldn't I be looking at a hundred-thousand-word dictionary?"

"Hah. A mere hundred thousand words, and you call that perfection."

"Huh?"

Dad chuckled as if I were cute, stood, and set down three thick volumes like dictionaries made of printer paper, tapping them as he spoke.

"The Oxford English Dictionary currently contains over four hundred thousand 'official' English words. Every year, words are created and derived all over the world, and if you count the ones that never get registered as standard, it easily blows past four million."

"Four million... but created words?"

"Proper nouns from the science-fiction films you like, for instance."

"Ah..."

Sure enough, even searching internet dictionaries, there was no Iron Man, or Captain America, or Black Panther, or Ant-Man. Dad put the dictionaries back where they'd come from as he went on.

"Konglish, used only here in Korea, is surging, and so are words fused with local languages — China's Chinglish, India's Hinglish, Japan's Japlish. Add the words that appear and vanish with whatever's in fashion, and you could cling to it your whole life and never reach that 'perfection' you spoke of."

"Nn."

Realizing I'd said something stupid, I answered sheepishly, and Dad took a thick book like an encyclopedia from another shelf — no, a dictionary — and handed it to me.

"An eighty-thousand-word dictionary should be sufficient. It was published last year, so it includes recent Phase terminology. It ought to be of help to you as well."

"Ooh, thanks, Dad!"

"When you're done, put it back where it belongs."

"Okay!"

I took the dictionary he'd given me and spoke to Franc on the way out of the study.

"I didn't know there were that many English words."

"Nor did I... To think I didn't know, when English is my mother tongue. How shameful."

"Well, we're not linguists. No need to know all that. Anyway, we don't need to memorize that many, right? Let's just memorize this one, and pick up the rest as we need them."

"Yes!"