I'll Come Again
I sat on the edge of the bed and turned it over for a while.
Where would be best? Did it have to be somewhere I had actually been, or would a place I had only ever seen in a photograph do? And before any of that—could I even go somewhere that wasn't home?
There was far too much I still needed to confirm.
"Ha... where would be good."
Somewhere I knew for certain. Somewhere I could call the interior up in my head, layout and all. Somewhere I could appear out of nowhere without causing too much trouble.
One place came to mind.
The convenience store storeroom. Three years of night shifts, and I had been in and out of it more times than I could count. I closed my eyes, and the picture rose without any effort at all: the narrow aisle, shelves crowding an entire wall, cases of bottled water stacked in their boxes, the backup stock of ramen and snacks, even the purple work vest hanging beside the door.
No way this works.
If it didn't, I would just end up home, same as always. I held the storeroom in my mind as sharply as I could.
And then—
"Return."
Return
Light swallowed my vision. A moment later, solid floor met the soles of my feet. I opened my eyes.
"......"
The first thing I saw was a box. A bundle of six water bottles was stacked right beside me, and above it sat a familiar carton of snacks. Across the narrow aisle, the ramen stock was packed in tight. Even the storeroom's particular damp smell was exactly as I remembered it.
Slowly, I turned my head.
Beside the door, the familiar purple vest was hanging where it always had.
"......What."
My heart dropped. This wasn't home. I stared blankly around the storeroom.
"It actually worked?"
It was the convenience store storeroom.
W-wait. Hold on.
Getting this far was one thing. What came after?
A faint sound drifted through from beyond the storeroom door.
I checked the clock. Eleven at night. Someone was definitely on shift.
Restless, I shifted this way and that—and knocked over a stack of drink boxes. They came down in a crash.
"Shit."
Eleven at night, at the convenience store.
After Minsu vanished overnight, the empty place he left had been filled by the store manager, Park Jongsik.
"Ha. Is that kid even still alive."
Every day, a short burst of news arrived from the Tower, and every day it carried the same kinds of things—word that someone had died, or that someone was still alive and sending their regards home to family. Ever since Minsu disappeared, Park Jongsik had been digging through every scrap of Tower-related news he could find.
"Ha. Little punk better be alive and well."
Even so, just in case, he had deposited the wages in full. The goods Minsu had taken right before he vanished—Jongsik had paid for every last one of those, too.
That was when it happened.
A crash rang out of the storeroom.
"What?"
Figuring some stacked box had finally toppled, Jongsik headed for the storeroom in irritation. The latch clicked. But the moment he opened the door and stepped inside, he had no choice but to freeze where he stood.
"...Minsu?"
"Ha, haha... Manager."
"You— you little bastard...!"
A blessing in disguise, if you could call it that. The person on duty was the manager.
"You— you went to the Tower, didn't you?"
Jongsik's eyes raked me up and down. I was in the ordinary clothes I had brought from home, but the bag on my back and the sword at my hip drew his eye. Slightly. In theory.
"That's..."
I had worn the sword to test how much I could bring with me. I was already regretting it.
"You, you...!"
The manager stared at the sword on my hip and clapped a hand over his mouth, too stunned to finish.
Not a single excuse came to mind.
"It's true that I went to the Tower."
"Th-then? Then you escaped? How? Nobody who goes in there ever comes back out, they can't come out...!"
He was going to pass out at this rate.
"First, please calm down."
I patted the manager on the back and stepped outside with him. The door chime sang its thin note.
"A customer's here."
"Ah, uh, uh."
A customer, of all moments. I was grateful for it. It bought him a little time to pull himself together.
While the manager saw to the customer, I made a slow circuit of the store.
Oh. I should bring that next time, too.
Maybe because I had settled into life in the Tower a little, the things I actually needed stood out at a glance.
"Hey!"
"Ah, yes."
The moment the customer left, the manager called me over like a man on fire. He came out from behind the counter, looked me up and down for a long moment, then suddenly reached out.
His palm cracked across my back.
"Ah!"
Heat stung between my shoulders.
"Why did you hit me!"
"You little brat! Tell me everything, start to finish. Do you have any idea how worried I was?!"
Ha. How was I even supposed to explain this?
The manager I knew was a decent man. But if he found out I could step out of the Tower once a day?
"Um... to start with, I haven't completely left the Tower. I didn't escape, either."
"Then what! You're standing right here, you punk! And how did you come out of the storeroom? When I straightened it up a little while ago, you definitely weren't in there...!"
His eyes looked ready to pop clean out of his head.
"I can come and go for a little while. I can't stay out for good."
"A little while?"
"Yes. It's hard to explain in any detail, but I ended up with an ability that lets me."
Jongsik scratched hard at his head, as if the whole thing refused to settle.
"Even so. Even so, kid..."
The rims of his eyes flushed red.
"Uh, uh...!"
He's crying. The manager is crying.
"Wh-why are you crying?"
"I... I, you little..."
He sniffled hard enough to swallow it, dragging the back of his hand across his eyes again and again.
"How am I supposed to not cry, you punk? Every single day the Tower Newsletter is nothing but people dying...! Me— I thought you, I thought you might be dead...!"
"Aigoo."
I had worried him far more than I ever meant to, and the weight of it sat heavy. If I had known, I should have sent even a single text the moment I stepped out.
"Still. You're in one piece, so it's all right... you punk..."
Seeing the tears on him only made my chest heavier.
"You eat yet, kid?"
"Mm. I haven't, actually..."
About twenty minutes left.
"I have to go back in about twenty minutes."
"Twenty minutes? Twenty minutes?!"
"...Yes."
Dropped into a sudden race against the clock, the manager flailed.
"S-a bowl of gukbap's out of the question, and the kimbap counter's already closed..."
"Could I just have a lunch box? I'll come again."
"Even so, come on, kid..."
"Really, it's fine."
Today, the least I could do was settle his heart a little before I left.
"Eat all you want. Everything in the store—eat it, you punk. Hey! Don't touch the stuff set aside to be thrown out! Eat the good ones."
"Haha. Yes. Understood."
Under that fierce hospitality, I hardly knew what to do with myself.
The microwave let out a ding. I set the heated lunch box down and took a seat, and the manager brought a drink over with his own hands.
"Drink this, too."
The coffee machine whirred. He drew a cold cup and set that down as well.
"Have some coffee."
"Aigoo. Thank you."
I was shoveling the food down when he looked at me, pity plain on his face.
"Is it rough over there?"
"Mm. Well. People live there, too."
He must have had a hundred questions, and still he barely asked any of them. He only asked after me.
"I deposited your pay. You see it?"
"Ah, really?"
"Yeah. And everything you took—I paid for all of it, so don't worry."
"Oh, right. That won't do. I can't let you take the loss..."
"Tsk. Enough. Kid."
His voice left no room to argue.
"I might be able to come by sometimes."
"You can come again?"
"Yes. Probably."
Relief broke across his face at that.
"That's a relief... Something you want to eat, you come. Something you need, you come."
"Yes. Thank you."
"Anything you need, you take it."
"Haha. No, really."
The whole time I ate, he fussed over me without pause.
"Aigoo. You have any idea how hard it was on me after you just up and vanished?"
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not saying it so you'll apologize, kid... You couldn't help it. What were you supposed to do. Days I'm at my mother's hospital, nights I'm in here working. I'm about dead myself."
"Your mother's in the hospital?"
The manager nodded, his face gone bitter.
"Cancer, they say. They found it a little late."
The moment the words were out, he waved a hand as if he had said something he shouldn't have.
"Look at me, dumping this on a kid who's already got enough weighing on him. Hurry up and eat."
"...Yes."
I didn't know what comfort would even help, so I ate in silence.
"Thank you for the meal."
Five minutes left, give or take.
"Yeah, yeah. You've got to go soon, don't you?"
"Yes. About five minutes."
"Hold on."
He pulled out a large bag and started filling it.
"What are you doing?"
"Use them over there. Hm? I checked the cameras. You vanished right along with a basket."
"Ah, no. You don't have to give me anything."
Until I moved out of my current lodging, I had no intention of hauling in any more goods.
"No, kid. I'm the one giving it, so just take it. If I send you off with at least this much, I'll feel easier. And your severance'll hit the account soon, too."
"...Thank you."
It had been part-time work, but they had enrolled me in the full set of social insurances—pension, health, employment, and workers' compensation. A proper job, in its way.
"Here. Take this for now. Anything else you need?"
"No. I'm really all right."
Bag packed to bursting in hand, I headed back toward the storeroom.
"I think it's better if no one sees me."
"Yeah, yeah..."
His eyes reddened all over again. Had this man always been so soft-hearted?
"I'll come again. And thank you for all of this."
Most of what he had packed was food. Lunch boxes and hot bars, chocolate bars and protein bars, things of that sort.
"Yeah... You take care of yourself. All right?"
"Yes. And..."
I asked Jongsik to keep it a secret—that I could travel back and forth to Earth.
"Yeah. Don't worry. Who would I even go and tell."
"Yes. Then..."
Three, two, one.
The goodbye and the return came in the same breath. I was back in the Tower.
I looked down at the bag in my hand and let the thought sit a moment.
"...This has to be hard on him."
Days at his mother's hospital. Nights at the convenience store. I had done a stint of caregiving myself, once, so I knew what that kind of hardship was.
Anyway. What am I supposed to do with all this food.
I would share some of it tomorrow.
The next day I put a few of the convenience-store foods that had to be eaten soon into my leather backpack and headed for the plaza.
It would be nice if I could give some to Logan, too.
But a single towel had already bought me needless suspicion. Food that had not even been opened was absolutely out of the question. Taeyong and Jane would have to do.
"Jane."
"Yes. Minsu. What is it."
Sure enough, Jane was in the plaza.
"I'd like to see Taeyong."
"Yes. Follow me."
I went with her to the Nyx Merchant Guild Headquarters.
"Minsu, coming to find me first. This is a welcome surprise."
Taeyong met me with a bright smile.
"I brought something for you."
"Oh? And what would that..."
From the leather backpack I drew out lunch boxes, triangular kimbap, hot bars, and the like.
"Whoa."
"I didn't really have a choice about taking them... I thought it would be nice if we shared."
"I'm not sure I ought to accept something this generous."
"They'll spoil if we just leave them. Better we eat them together."
Jane's eyes had gone perfectly round. Earth goods really were that good.
"Haha. Then I'll take them, gratefully."
Taeyong beckoned Jane closer, as if to say they should eat together.
"Thank you. I'll enjoy it."
"Yes."
Their bright faces lifted my own with them.
"There's one thing I'd like to ask."
"Yes. Go ahead."
"The potions they say you can get here. Do those cure illness, too?"
At that, Taeyong's eyes went sharp.
"Logan?"
"...Pardon?"
What was he talking about?
Thank you.