038 – Oinoi and the Little Stationery Shop # 2
"How are you feeling?"
Morning. Lee Jina asked her older sister, Lee Seona, who was busy putting on a show—pressing a hand to her chest, huffing and puffing deep breaths—before her face suddenly lit up and her mouth fell open in a round O.
"Oh— it doesn't hurt at all! The chest pain is completely gone! How is that even possible? Not a single twinge! And I don't know if it's just my imagination, but even my skin looks better, doesn't it?"
The Golden Apple had truly worked. The Mana Sickness that had tormented Lee Seona for years had been wiped clean away. Granted, according to Dr. Yu Ari, they'd need to keep monitoring her for a while longer, but as of right now, Lee Seona's condition had improved dramatically.
"Goodness, my body doesn't hurt!"
Seona herself was overjoyed. It had been over ten years. The illness that had taken root after that horrific experience—now that it had been washed away, it felt like a weight she'd carried forever had finally lifted.
"It tasted absolutely revolting, but it worked! Jina, that came from a rift, right? Huh? You're still sneaking off to rifts behind Dad's back, aren't you."
"No."
"I know full well you go to rifts behind Dad's back, so what's with the 'no'?"
"It didn't come from a rift—I picked it from a tree in the countryside. And besides, if I ever tell Dad about the rifts, I'm actually dead. You hear me?"
"'You'? Since when do you call your older sister 'you'? And what, do you think I'm crazy? You think I'd actually tell Dad you're going to rifts? Rifts make both me and Dad sick to our stomachs. You're the only weird one in this family!"
Weird one. At that word, Lee Jina scowled. Then again, maybe she was a bit of an oddity.
While she was mulling that over, Seona took a big whooshing breath and added, "Even now, just thinking about that day makes me shudder. I almost died, you know. One second I was there, and then suddenly I was getting sucked in—wooosh—like falling into an open manhole."
That sensation of being pulled in. Ten years had passed, but the feeling was still vivid for Lee Jina too. That biting, bone-deep cold.
It was the first rift Lee Jina had ever entered in her life. And it was where she lost her mother.
They never even found Mom's body.
It had been a disaster that swept in without any warning at all.
The fact that Seona and I survived was honestly a miracle.
Thinking that, Lee Jina glanced at her phone. Today was the day she had dinner plans with Ha Ildo. And the day she'd promised to tell him the truth about a great many things. Telling the truth meant dredging up the past.
# # #
"That's right, a rift opened right in front of my stationery shop back then. People got caught up in it and vanished, one after another. Total chaos. Ildo, you remember, don't you? You were there too."
At the stationery shop owner's words, I dredged up a very old memory. It was the first time in my life I'd ever learned that rifts even existed.
It was a disaster like a sinkhole suddenly swallowing the ground. People vanished toward the rift hanging in the air as if being sucked into a black hole, and the scene that unfolded was pure pandemonium—I was just as rattled as everyone else.
I reached out to grab someone being dragged toward the rift. But the rift's pulling force was overwhelmingly strong, and in the end, I—who had caught hold of another person's hand—was pulled in as well.
What came after was...
"Horrific, in just about every way possible."
An unfamiliar environment I'd been plunged into without warning. A forest in the depths of a merciless winter. The people were panicked and suffering, because to ordinary civilians, the mana-saturated environment inside a rift was essentially poison.
Fortunately, I had the makings of an Awakened. I could move around that freezing rift with relative freedom, and I went about finding people, gathering them up, and leading them to the exit. I saved a truly enormous number of people that day. Looking back now, maybe that's where it all started—the seed of my desire to become a hero who saves people.
"The moving company owner's wife was there too. You really didn't see her? Ildo, you led all those people out, didn't you? You didn't see her then?"
I didn't remember. It was all far too long ago—and after that, the government agencies came calling for the hunter who'd made a name for himself in that rift, and they kept throwing me into one rift after another.
That was how the first generation gathered. Every single day was so hectic that I never once had a moment to look back on that first rift.
As I was thinking this, the stationery shop owner added, "Anyway, when you see President Lee, do a good job of talking him down. That man still says his wife is alive inside the rift every time he drinks."
So that's how it was.
I decided to head back to my parents' house first. When I walked in, Mom and Dad greeted me.
"Ha Ildo, you're back again? And Oinoi's here too!"
"The parents of this house's master...! How joyful a thing this is...! This Oinoi has set aside a few pieces of a snack called Apollo—so everyone must try a piece each...!"
A rather noisy reunion, all things considered. Watching Mom peel fruit for Oinoi, I asked Dad, "President Lee's wife from the moving company went missing in that rift, right?"
"What, you didn't know? I just assumed you did. She was out shopping at the market with her daughters when they got caught up in it. You don't remember saving those two girls?"
I didn't. But then, I'd saved twenty people in that rift alone. It wasn't exactly possible to recall each and every one of them.
"Huh. So Lee Jina was there."
Which meant that was probably around when my senior Lee Seona came down with Mana Sickness too. Now that I thought about it, the puzzle pieces clicked neatly into place. I really was quite clever.
Time flowed on like that, and evening came. I received an invitation to Lee Jina's house. If there was one thing that gave me slight pause, it was bringing Oinoi along.
"This Oinoi absolutely must see where prospective Kore Jina's house is...! And this Oinoi also wishes to see the second person who ate the Golden Apple...!"
Oinoi hadn't exactly been invited as a guest, mind you. But well, what could I do? She was the one who'd grown the apple in the first place. They'd surely treat her well.
And so I entered Lee Jina's house. It was a family home with a yard, laid out so that you had to climb a flight of stairs to reach the door.
Ding-dong—
When I pressed the bell, the yellow-haired Lee Jina opened the front door.
"Come in."
As terse as ever, that girl. Then again, no wonder she'd never brought up things like the first rift or her missing mother.
I was taking a long look around the living room when—
Thump—
A bedroom door swung open and someone stepped out.
"So you're Jina's boyfriend?"
"......!"
It was the woman who'd extorted my culture gift certificates! I'd known perfectly well I'd be meeting her, but now that it was actually happening, I stiffened up like a hamster face-to-face with a snake.
"I'm Seona! I'm the older sister, so you can speak casually with me. It's not like this is our first time meeting, right? Right?"
"Well, technically, no. You did take my culture gift certificates."
"What culture gift certificates? I'm talking about the rift. Although—culture gift certificates. Culture gift certificates... Oh wait, come to think of it, you're that kid from back then! Wahaha! Goodness, small world doesn't even begin to cover it!"
Seona burst out laughing, sounding for all the world like something was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. Then she turned to Lee Jina.
"I told you ages ago, that was the first time I ever shook down a culture gift certificate. Jina, remember how you bought the 'Invisible Hat' in Autumn Story with those gift certificates? Huh? Those very ones...!"
Lee Jina had bought a cash item called the 'Invisible Hat' in the game Autumn Story—with MY culture gift certificates? This was news to me. Unbelievable. Lee Jina and Lee Seona had been in cahoots all along!
As I trembled with a sense of betrayal and loss, Seona went on, "Back then, I said I'd give you a ten-thousand-won gift certificate if you let me kiss you ten thousand won' worth. Why'd you run away, huh? You were so tiny back then, and look how big you've gotten."
Right. First year of middle school. Back when I was small enough to always sit in the very front row of my class.
The girls who'd snatched my gift certificates in that alley had crowded around me and teased me mercilessly. They'd even said they'd give me kisses to match the ten thousand won they took from me—but I knew perfectly well it was just teasing, and all I felt was flustered and terrified. So when an adult shouted, "Hey, what do you kids think you're doing!" and created an opening, I bolted for my life. And after that, I never went anywhere near that alley again.
"Seona, you didn't invite me over just to talk about that."
"Aigoo, always picking fights with your older sister. Anyway, I suppose I should be calling you 'Mr. Ildo' now. The apple you sent was delicious! It tasted absolutely vile, but it worked wonders, so I couldn't be happier...!"
I was just glad it had worked. Then Oinoi crossed her arms and went mwehehe—
"It is an apple that this Oinoi raised...! This Oinoi studied diligently under her Master in the ways of growing apples...! Growing a Golden Apple is something this Oinoi is confident in...!"
So she claimed. Seona, however, frowned at her.
"And who might you be?"
"Oinoi is Oinoi...!"
"Did you hear that? She says her name's Oinoi! Oi-oi! Oinoi! Kyahaha!"
Good grief, she was deafening.
Just then, the front door opened and a rather elderly man walked into the house. The chattering older sister fell silent at once, and Lee Jina stopped mid-motion as she set the table.
"So you're Professor Ha's son, Ildo. You're tall. About 180 centimeters?"
Despite his age, he was a sturdy, well-built man. But his face was deeply lined, and his hair was almost entirely white. Stress, no doubt.
We soon took our seats and began the meal, trading small talk as we ate. Mostly, I was the one fielding questions.
"I hear you go into rifts for a living."
"Yes, that's right."
"Any thought to quitting and working under me? The pay might be modest at first, but I can raise it as we go. It'd be more than enough money to have kids and raise a family."
I'd expected as much. I politely turned the offer down.
"I appreciate the offer, but there's something I want to do."
"I see."
And that was the end of that conversation. The talk in this house had a habit of cutting off abruptly like that, and every time the silence settled in, I was so awkward I could barely stand it.
Slide—
Then Lee Jina, finished with her meal, set her spoon down on the table and spoke up. "Ha Ildo. There's something I want to say to you."
"What is it?"
"We've met before. A long time ago."
So that was it. That was what she'd wanted to talk about today. If I hadn't dredged up the memory at the stationery shop, this would have knocked me flat in more ways than one.
"I know. I saw you in that frozen rift, didn't I? You were in there."
"Wait—you already knew?"
"It came back to me today too."
"I wanted to thank you. For saving my sister and me back then. I've never been able to say it until now."
Lee Jina's expression was uncharacteristically serious as she said it. Meanwhile, her older sister Seona—who had been piling cucumber slices onto Oinoi's rice as a prank—scrambled to read the room, eyes wide.
"Hey! You don't talk about rifts at the dinner table!"
Clack—
Then President Lee of the moving company set down his spoon. His deeply lined face filled with a complicated tangle of emotions, and after letting out a long sigh, he turned to me.
"Ildo, thank you for saving my daughters. If you hadn't been there that day, I would have had to live the rest of my life without them. Even now, just thinking about it makes my heart lurch."
"I only did what I had to do. And dwelling on things that didn't happen isn't good for your health, sir."
"I know, I know. But I still feel like I'm stuck in the past. My wife calls for me every night. In my dreams, I mean. Ildo—have you ever seen my wife inside a rift? She looks like this."
Slide—
The president was showing me a photo of a woman who resembled Lee Jina. Unfortunately, even I had never seen his wife in any rift. I had nothing to offer him on that front. And yet... something did stir in the back of my mind.
"You said you dream about her every night?"
"I do. She appears every night and calls for me. I can't see her face clearly, but the voice is unmistakably my wife's. There's strange singing too..."
The same dream, night after night, was it.
As I watched the trembling middle-aged man, Lee Jina spoke up. "Dad, did you take your medication?"
"I'm not crazy! Your mother is alive...!"
Lee Jina's eyes narrowed into slits. Someone who'd vanished into a rift over ten years ago—of course her daughter would assume there was no way she could still be alive.
But my thinking was different.
"There is a real chance your wife is alive, sir. You said she keeps appearing in your dreams? I happen to know quite a bit about situations very much like that."
The Well House. The people who stayed at the Well House had, by all accounts, dreamed. Dreams of the rift inside the well, and of the presence dwelling within it.
The president's dreams looked strikingly similar to those Well House dreams. Though I'd need to hear the details before drawing any conclusions.
"Hey, don't go running your mouth! Sometimes hope hurts a person more than despair ever could—don't you know that?"
Lee Jina shot up from her seat, and a moment later she was snarling at me like she was about to grab me by the collar. "Don't spout nonsense!"
"It's not nonsense. Sir, you said it's the same dream every night? Is there anything about the dream's contents you remember? If so, please tell me."
"Well—it's not exactly the same every night, but it's mostly similar. There's this singing. The lyrics are... let's see, I wrote them down the moment I woke up, I'm sure I did..."
The president rummaged through his pockets, then pulled out a worn old notebook and showed me a page. This is what was written there:
"'Ditch ditch-water, little ditch-water.' Is that what it says?"
Doesn't that song sound familiar somehow—?
Just as that thought crossed my mind, Oinoi thrust her hand high into the air.
"Ahh...! That is without a doubt the Song of the Ditch Water...! The song every nymph learns from the moment she first gains the power of speech...! Which means it is unmistakably certain that another sister nymph exists somewhere out there...!"