It's Only Natural to Be Punished for Dereliction of Duty (3)

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When Mom and Sis woke that morning, they were, thankfully, none the worse for it. I'd been afraid they might turn hypersensitive, but they only poured their love over me the way they always did, threading a little worry through the gaps, and that was enough to let me breathe easy.

Some of the shock must have lingered all the same. The moment Mom got up she gathered tears in her eyes and pulled me into a tight embrace, and the warmth of it brought a peace to body and mind I couldn't begin to put into words.

The feeling of every worry simply vanishing, maybe.

Hwayeon came out with Sis after changing, still red in the face, glaring at me. I was going to have to apologize a little early. Miss the timing, and I had a feeling my life would be in danger.

Mom and the sisters changed into ordinary clothes in the dressing room and set ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠about breakfast together, and Dad came out to the living room, saw Mom happily cooking in the kitchen with them, and nodded.

"Dad, sleep okay?"

"Yeah."

"Just asking, but you and Mom and Sis are healthy, right?"

"We get a regular checkup twice a year."

So that meant they were healthy? If something were wrong, they'd catch it at the checkup? Dad had a way of skipping two or three steps of a conversation and dropping the compressed meaning on you. Anyway, when I'd looked them over with Spatial Perception last night there hadn't been anything wrong, so healthy it was.

"Once I pick up a recovery-type ability in a bit, if you or Mom or Sis get hurt or sick, I'll fix you."

"......Hah. I'm grateful for that."

Ah. Dad smiled! He laughs at something I say once or twice a year, if that!

Just then Hwayeon, carrying food out, turned a displeased look on me. A face that all but asked, And why am I not included?

"Huh? You're a raid team boss. Even if it isn't me, somebody would treat— ah, of course I'll fix you too, obviously!"

The more I talked, somehow, the higher the corners of her eyes climbed. I hastily changed course midway, but it was too late. They had risen, just a fraction.

"Right. I'm a raid team boss, so there are plenty of people who'd treat me. Hmph."

Mom shot me a look and sighed. Sis giggled and fell into this and that with Hwayeon.

Honestly, Hwayeon was B-Class. Outside the Phase World she wasn't going to catch a disease or get hurt. On top of that she had an immunity enhancement derived from physical reinforcement, so ordinary illness might as well have been immune to her, and she'd said she had regeneration too. Where would I even get the chance to treat her?

I dodged her gaze, put on an air of looking elsewhere, and pretended to watch the TV news. She shot me a glare and went back into the kitchen.

"Yeon. Would you knead this for me?"

"How should I do it?"

"We're making kalguksu, knife-cut noodles, so sprinkle lukewarm water over it like this, work it into a warm-water dough, and then..."

Hwayeon started kneading the flour the way Mom told her. But the look on our Sis, watching from the side, was anything but ordinary.

A glint with the mischief switched on?

Sis looked back and forth between me and Hwayeon, and opened her mouth.

"Anyway, that kid seems sharp one second and completely oblivious the next. Right?"

"......Why are you asking me?"

"Heehee~? Now why would I be asking~?"

"........."

At Sis's sly little reaction, Hwayeon ducked her reddened face and went back to working the dough—

CRACK!

—and shattered the kneading table Mom cherished. Panic had thrown her strength control off, by the look of it.

The table had split from the center outward like a bolt of lightning, and Mom, smiling, began to radiate a menacing air.

"I-I'm sorry. I'll buy you the same one."

"This is a handmade masterpiece, the last piece a master craftsman ever made for a furniture company that went under ten years ago. Money can't buy another, you know?"

Mom drew her face in close, smiling as she scolded, and Hwayeon didn't know what to do with herself. Then Mom, as if she'd caught a handle, narrowed her eyes and stared her down.

I didn't know what handle she'd grabbed, but Hwayeon was in trouble. Once Mom and Sis set their minds on something, you didn't get out of it easily. I was inwardly praying for the repose of poor Hwayeon's soul when Mom, having already cowed her with nothing but a look, began to move.

"It's all right. Don't you worry about it. You panicked and put too much strength into it because of that Siha over there. Isn't that right?"

That was bait. Bite, and it was over.

"Y-yes. I panicked, and strength went into my arm for a second."

And she, poor thing, had stepped not on some ankle mine but on a nuclear landmine.

"I see~ Were you flustered because you have a boyfriend?"

"......What?"

"When I saw Yeon again a few days ago, she'd gotten so pretty I was truly shocked. Pretty enough that even another woman would fall for her, so of course she'd have a boyfriend. That's why you were flustered."

As if she'd never been hit with a question this blatant, Hwayeon began to flounder so pitifully it hurt to watch.

"I-I, uh, I don't!"

"Oh my? This pretty, with a figure like that, and you're saying you've never dated even once?"

She was wearing a gray high-waisted flare skirt, borrowed from our Sis by the look of it, falling to the knee, and a loose sky-blue sleeveless blouse — with a chest like hers, something roomy was the only option. Mom's hand slid without a shred of hesitation up under the skirt and stroked her backside in a slow, simmering pass.

"Eek?!"

"Right, right? With a body like this she goes and bewitches men, and the moment they actually come close she crushes every one of them with a face and a voice like a sheet of ice. The kids have even started calling Yeon the Ice Queen~."

And as she said it, our Sis sneakily slipped a hand under the skirt as well and kneaded the other cheek. Those firm, moon-round curves rolled under their hands, the black slinky lace panties disappearing into the cleft, the valley standing out so sharply my face went hot.

Whoa. That's obscene! Wait — more to the point, isn't that sexual harassment?

The poor little bird, seized by the queen and the witch of our house, had fallen into a trap for sins of her own making and could only flounder, face red, unable to fight back. Then the nearly translucent flesh of her sex bit down on panties that already covered precious little, and even Hwayeon couldn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠endure it. She twisted her hips in a small, hopeless rebellion.

"S-stop it, Auntie! Siha, you stop touching me like that too!"

She was so flustered by their teasing that tears had even gathered in her eyes, but that wasn't going to work on those two...

As expected, Mom and Sis squealed their way through a morning soap, and Dad cleared his throat and got up.

"Ahem. Call me when breakfast is ready."

Ah. Dad's making a run for it.

"Is there a man you've got your heart set on? The way you're flustering, it seems like there is."

"Th— Auntie, your hand, the hand!"

"Hm? No man you're interested in?"

"Mom. This girl doesn't see people as men and women. She lumps them all together and sorts them by whether they're inside the job or outside it. If a girl like that shows interest in a man..."

"Oh my..."

"Ugh!"

Hwayeon, taking their assault without a single defense, made a face on the verge of tears and shot a glance at me. Of all things, Mom and Sis caught that too, and it only wound them up further.

"Oh my, oh my! Is that how it is?!"

"Kyaa, I knew it was something like that?!"

What's that? I'm just sending up a flare so someone will stop the two of you, excited as you are.

"Aigoo! This auntie is happy, you know? Won't you try calling me Mom?"

"Then Hwayeon becomes my sister-in-law?!"

"N-no! It's not like that! Hah— please, the hands!"

Looking closer, Mom and Sis were only teasing because Hwayeon's reactions were entertaining. She puts on far too much of a show if you so much as tap her... even I have to admit it's fun.

I think I see why Mom picks on her.

Even as Hwayeon denied it desperately, they pretended not to hear, squealing, and kept wickedly fiddling with her backside.

At this rate she really is going to cry.

I wanted to pull her out of the pinch, but step into that and the arrows were obviously coming for me. Sorry I can't help, Sis.

Then again, if it got to be too much she could just run for the bathroom or her room. What a stubborn, honest sister.

By the time breakfast was over, Hwayeon looked as if she'd been burned white and nothing was left but ash.

"Sis. You okay?"

"Yeah..."

Slumped over the sofa from the living room floor, soul gone, she did not look okay. The two ordinary women who had mentally knocked out a sturdy B-Class physical reinforcement ability user were smiling bright and lovely, companionably clearing the dishes, as if they'd shaken off every last bit of yesterday's shock.

Terrifying women.

"Uh... and, about this morning. I'm sorry. Hang in there, Sis."

"......Yeah."

She covered her face in despair, let out a small sigh, then raised her right hand and lightly pressed the upper part of her left chest. It was only the second time I'd seen it, but no matter when I looked, a hologram seemed to burst out of her chest.

......Huh? The number of windows is a little different from mine. Let's see — a friend list, a few of them chat rooms, the main one the Certifier's home screen... an interest board? So you can customize it like that. I'll have to look into it later.

Smoothing her expression, she soon touched one of the hologram windows and brought up a call screen. So a call had come in.

"Yes. This is Yoo Hwayeon. What is this about."

The Alliance Special Task Force! I hear those bastards are like medieval inquisitors!

I quietly sat down beside her as she answered in that cold voice. Hwayeon glanced at me once, then turned her attention back to the man on the hologram.

I studied him myself.

Long hair, neatly kept, a strong face. From the chest up he wore a suit that looked identical to Deputy Director Kang Woohyuk's, or Choi Soohan's.

"A ruling that it is illegal has not been handed down. Is referring to it as illegal the Alliance's position?"

A voice like a sheet of ice, truly. At her reply, cutting him off, the man faltered, then opened his mouth again.

"The guest member is currently a minor. He never even received the relevant knowledge from his case officer, and entered the Phase World through an unforeseen accident. Are you claiming that is one hundred percent the victim's fault? Would you be comfortable with me treating your present statement as foundational evidence?"

Whether her icy voice had caught their attention, Mom and Sis drew a little away and started listening in.

Faced with her continuously sharp responses, Team Leader Kim Jihun took a step back. He must have decided a conversation like this was no good for either of them.

"There are a few choices of wording that warrant correction, but I will let them pass for now. This conversation is being recorded in its entirety on the Certifier, so I ask that you take care with the words you use."

"When is the review being held?"

"That is far too soon. Jung Seoha has not even been back a full day."

"...Understood."

The call ended, the hologram window vanished, and Sis, who'd been listening beside us, couldn't hide her worry.

"The Alliance decided it's illegal?"

"No. That man rendered the judgment on his own. Otherwise he would never have apologized for the discourtesy."

"Is he a proxy for some outside channel?"

Mom asked it with unease on her face, and Hwayeon nodded.

"Yes. Someone I run into from time to time. He's rigid, and he's a past master at picking nits in a conversation and dragging it whatever way benefits the Alliance. That's why I had no choice but to meet him sharply."

"I see..."

"Seoha, get ready. We're going to the Time River Building. If we stop there and then head to the Alliance, we'll be cutting it close."

"Okay."

I looked once at Hwayeon's slightly stiffened face, then at the wall clock. Nearly eight. They'd said by ten, and counting the time out to the Time River Building in Yeouido and back again, we had to leave now.

Would have been nice if they'd given me a little more room... Worried I'll run, maybe?

Treating me like a criminal, right to my face.

...If they brand me a criminal, am I supposed to go to ground in that underground world that's supposed to exist somewhere?

A review committee, though. My only crime was thinking about the Phase World, and still I'm a little tense.

"Don't worry. We've been laying countermeasures since the day you disappeared. Auntie, please don't be anxious either. The government office concerned and our raid team's spokesperson will see to all of it. Siha, you stay home and rest today too. You barely slept those two days Seoha was in the Phase World."

Hwayeon forcibly sat Sis back down — she'd started to rise as if to come along. So Mom had waited without sleeping, too. And I'd gone and pulled out how many shocking stories, and made them pass out.

I really am something...

"But."

"I'll call the moment it's over. Auntie, you don't need to come out either."

"All right. Look after my boy. And you listen well to Yeon, understood?"

"I'll listen."

"Yes. Don't worry."

Whether she'd forgotten the sexual harassment entirely, Hwayeon was all firmness and strength as she set Mom and Sis at ease.

I asked her what I ought to wear, and she advised the school uniform. Euihan High School's reputation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was well known even inside the Alliance, she said, and a good number of their staff came out of the Euihan Foundation.

As she'd advised, I put on the new uniform that had arrived the day before yesterday and followed her out of the apartment with Franc. A limousine white as snow was waiting.

"That's sharp. Your car, Sis?"

"It's for outside business."

Climbing into the limousine and heading for the Time River Building, maybe from the tension, sweat kept gathering in my palms.

I was wiping them with a handkerchief when my eyes, all at once, went to the legs of Hwayeon sitting across from me. Hwayeon in a skirt is truly beautiful.

Someone tall in a skirt usually looks a little awkward somehow, but her proportions are so unfair that even in a skirt, all I could think was that she was beautiful.

If Franc wore clothes like that, I feel like she'd give off a different kind of charm...

Hwayeon had tied her hair up in a ponytail, and she'd come out in Sis's clothes, Sis's strap shoes on her feet. Slender legs in that outfit, plus jet-black over-the-knee stockings, were stirring enough that a hollow laugh wouldn't even come.

Show those to someone with a leg and stocking fetish and they'd lose their mind.

High-waisted skirts emphasize the chest, every one of them, which is why our Sis — who had no chest to speak of — had been so fond of this one. Put it on Hwayeon, whose chest was large to begin with, and it was nothing short of chest-missile class...

The line of her chest was insanely blatant, and the sleeveless blouse left the white line of her shoulders bare. I actually gulped.

"What are you staring at?"

"...Uh. You've got pretty legs that suit a skirt, so I was wondering why you always wear pants."

This morning she'd been about to put on the black shirt and black cotton pants from yesterday, and our Sis had freaked and forcibly changed her into this. Come to think of it, she'd changed the underwear too.

Franc looked at me and smiled, bright. A you're-doing-well face — no, not the sarcastic kind, a real one! That was the face she was making, and I genuinely could not read her heart.

The man who likes her keeps praising some other woman, and she doesn't get jealous? Or maybe she doesn't like me enough to be jealous... But letting someone you don't even like go all the way to your throat is strange, isn't it?

Franc was tangling up my head. And then Hwayeon flushed, yanked her skirt down to forcibly hide her legs, and blew up.

"Y-you — you were like this this morning too, so why are you doing this!"

"H-huh? Doing what?"

Startled by her suddenly going red and angry, I asked back, and she spilled the words out fast, as if her temper had fully caught.

"You don't pay me any attention, then you toss it out like it's nothing — oh, you're pretty, whatever! Then you ignore me again, and suddenly I'm p-pretty! Is it fun, teasing me?!"

Huh?

"What do you mean I don't pay attention? I pay so much attention to you! You're the one who treats me cold! When the Energy Eater showed up, do you know how much that hurt?!"

I've got plenty to say myself, thanks!

Hearing me fire back, Hwayeon didn't hide how wronged she felt. She kept flushing, and she kept being angry at me.

"What?! No — that wasn't me treating you cold! It's just my face and my voice that are like that! You're the one who said, a minute ago, that you'd heal your family, and only I — and you've made those mean little faces, teasing me, more than once! Normally you've got a face where no one can tell what you're thinking! And this morning too, because of you...!"

She was calling me expressionless? Me, of all people, with how much my face changes?! And more than that — she'd been paying attention to that...?

"Ah. Sorry about that. Of course if you got badly hurt I'd help you too, all right? And me, expressionless! That's the first I've heard of it!"

"......Aaaaah. Am I an idiot..."

She turned away with a face drowned in self-loathing and buried it in the seat back. The aftermath of shouting in a fit of temper must have caught up with her late.

But if I thought about what she'd just said — hmm. So Hwayeon still... likes me?

I'm not imagining this, right?

Ever since I'd reunited with her, if I plugged that meaning into the moments she'd shown me now and then, suspicion hardened into certainty.

I glanced at Franc. She was watching me and Sis argue from the side, wearing a mother's smile. That look reminded me of the time she'd gently turned down my confession, and for an instant it seemed like she wanted me to end up with Hwayeon, and I got angry.

...I turned my eyes to Hwayeon, bent forward, and past the hair that had spilled down I could see the snow-white nape of her neck.

I asked on impulse.

Hwayeon's shoulders flinched, visibly.

An easy woman to read... Truth was, I'd been unsure the whole time, watching her reactions. Those prickly, tsundere little flashes she'd hit me with out of nowhere. The night last Wednesday, when she told me about her past. This morning, too.

Until now I'd deliberately filed it under an inflated ego. The way she'd just acted made me certain for real. Hwayeon still liked me.

Before I could even be glad, I was thrown. Objectively, on looks alone, my face is not one that belongs next to Hwayeon's.

I kept looking at her where she still had her head down, then complained to Franc like a sulk.

I resented her for not understanding my heart. Fine. I'd just go rotten.

Before I went rotten, I used Thought Acceleration and took a moment to think it through.

Among the common rumors drifting around the world, one of them goes like this: a person meets a golden opportunity three times in a life.

Opinions on this golden chance — or perfect timing, depending who you ask — are all over the place. You get popular with the opposite sex, or your luck turns absurdly good, or everything you touch goes right. Ask older folks, though, and four out of five will tell you they've lived through a season like that.

Of course, you could call it the Barnum effect. A golden opportunity has no objective measure, and everyone has some peak they can call to mind — of popularity, of luck, of everything going exactly as they wished.

The reason I'm thinking about it is that I'm certain. Right now is the golden opportunity of my life.

Awakening as an ability user, among ability users racing toward a worldwide population of ten million, I obtained two unique abilities that could, without question, be counted on one hand. Spatial Perception, and Mana Sieve.

After gaining two rare abilities, I looked into what else, among other ability users' powers, ranked high in rarity.

Physical reinforcement types divide into strength-type, stamina-type, and agility-type, and the balance type that gathers all three was extremely rare. Among elemental types, beyond the basic attributes of fire, water, wind, and earth, lightning, light, and darkness were counted as rare.

Special types, as if to prove how various people are, make up less than three percent of the ability-user population, and most of them are trivial little abilities, impractical and useless. Measured by strength, balance-type physical reinforcement and the three attributes of lightning, light, and darkness sat in the top tier.

Until I obtained Mana Sieve and Spatial Perception.

On top of abilities like that, Franc loves only me. And then there's Hwayeon — boss of the nation's number-two raid team, daughter of the sitting president, a B-Class physical reinforcement ability user whose status, looks, and wealth all rank inside a single hand's count in Korea. My childhood friend. Twenty-one, in the full bloom of her years.

My pure, innocent sister, innocent enough not to have forgotten a marriage promise from when we were children, seems to like me too.

I admit it.

I live about a billion light-years away from pure, devoted love.

If Franc said please look only at me, I could do that. A young lady far too lovely for the likes of me looks only at me, and accepts everything I am.

She has no body, but so what? This is an age when the number of people who lick and suck the virtual characters inside their own heads is exploding, and she's a beauty a thousand out of a thousand people on the street would turn to stare at — one I can actually talk to. And the more Phase Power piles up, I've learned I can canoodle with Franc and do every last thing I should and shouldn't. Where's the problem in that?

And that same woman is telling me to go date other women besides her. She says she's satisfied just being allowed to stay at my side.

A pumpkin rolling in the door... no. A watermelon. Where is the man who would kick away a watermelon that rolled into his lap? If such a man exists, I'll acknowledge him even if they seat him among the world's three great sages.

And didn't one of those three great sages, back when he was young, run around womanizing like a madman anyway?

While Franc — still flustered at being called an idiot — hesitated, I finished it.

In that single second I finished the self-rationalization desire had been hauling me toward, and I opened my mouth.