One Life, One Story
"Hmm……."
The suspect in the librarian murder case wore a grave expression.
"Then what about slipping out the exact moment someone else opens the door to come in?"
"It won't work."
The rules of a labyrinth are absolute. Cheap tricks like that don't fly. If a loophole seemed to exist, it was only because there was a separate rule that merely looked like one.
"Still, couldn't we at least try?"
"You'd only end up pulled back inside. And frankly, that's the optimistic guess. Any body part that pokes past the doorway might simply vanish."
The woman in the three-piece suit widened her eyes.
"Seriously?"
"It's a possibility. With a labyrinth, you must always assume the worst."
The fox-like line of the woman's eyes thinned.
"Are you, by any chance, a Red Weaver?"
"No, I'm just a job applicant here at Yuwi for an interview today. My name is Seon Yuhan."
The woman gave a brief look that might have been disappointment.
"My name is Hwang Juyeon, and, um……. I perform magic shows now and then. My actual job is teaching piano at an academy. Today I was here for a magic performance at the daycare."
A daycare?
Then wouldn't that mean this Hwang Juyeon could also enter Uri Saenal Daycare? She wasn't on staff like the librarian, but unlike me, she wasn't a complete outsider either.
It still bothered me that she was the suspect in the librarian's murder.
I cast a sidelong glance toward Kim Gilyeong.
"Ah, I, I'm Kim Gilyeong. I'm the librarian here."
The librarian held out her blood-free employee badge at arm's length.
"Nice to meet you. I'm……."
Choi Jaeha, CPA of Howol Accounting Firm on the sixteenth floor of the Jaerae Building, produced his business card once again and completed the round of introductions.
All the while, I was thinking about a murder that had never actually happened.
"Were there only the two of you here to begin with? I mean, even before this became a labyrinth."
"Sorry? Y-yes……."
Kim Gilyeong nodded.
"There are almost no visitors at this hour. All the company people are busy working too. But then the power suddenly went out, and there were all these sounds of things collapsing outside, so……. I tried to leave, but the door was locked and wouldn't open. I tried calling the management office, but the phones were dead too, and……."
None of the rest of it mattered.
Which meant that if no one else entered this library, the person who had killed Kim Gilyeong last time was that piano instructor and freelance magician, Hwang Juyeon.
"It is time for the reading club."
"What the— who said that?"
No. I was certain of it.
"No additional participants will be accepted until the reading club concludes."
"What is this? Where is it coming from?"
"It's not just me hearing this, right?"
"What the hell is it?!"
"The labyrinth appears to be starting something. Please stay calm for now."
3:50 PM.
Under the labyrinth's supreme rule, Chaekbang-Ollae had become a perfect sealed room — a place no one could enter, and no one could leave.
The one who killed Kim Gilyeong was Hwang Juyeon.
"Reading club participants will gather and sit comfortably in the reading area."
That present-tense sentence was a command wearing the disguise of a plain statement.
"I believe we should do as it says."
"And if we follow it and die?"
Hwang Juyeon asked, her eyes narrowed to slits.
"You might die if you don't follow it. Frankly, it would be a mercy if you died alone. If you're that certain it'll kill you, I won't stand in your way."
"Whoa, now I'm too scared to say another word."
The freelance magician arched her eyebrows and made a show of backing off.
"Sorry for picking at you first, by the way. I don't know when I got so edgy."
"No, I understand."
Truly, that was a remarkably adult reaction. Graciously admitting her own state and even apologizing for it is a difficult thing to do under ordinary circumstances, let alone these.
How had someone like this killed Kim Gilyeong?
"Given the situation, I suppose. I'm sorry for snapping back at you, too."
"Reading club participants will gather and sit comfortably in the reading area."
"Okay, okay! We're sitting. Let's all sit down for now, everyone. No idea what it wants from us, but at least while we're doing as we're told, we won't die. Probably."
We each picked a sofa and settled into an awkward circle. It was that same circular space where a single book had been lying on the floor last time. Kim Gilyeong sat on one side of me and Choi Jaeha on the other.
I made an effort not to let my gaze linger on the piano instructor across from us.
Hwang Juyeon's motive was unknowable. Given the peculiarities of a space like this, her mind could simply have deteriorated at terrifying speed. Labyrinths are places that drive people irrational.
I only hoped it wasn't because she believed killing everyone would let her walk out of here. That is not something a sane person could do. Of course, the reasoning isn't entirely wrong — since a labyrinth only resolves once everyone inside is dead, she would have to die in the end anyway. And for that matter, killing everyone here wouldn't exactly be easy.
But setting motive aside, one thing troubled me.
Time.
Last time, when I'd been spacing out in the interview room and ended up in this library, it had been around four o'clock.
"The reading club has begun."
Maybe this so-called reading club was…….
An event designed to get someone killed within ten minutes.
"One life is one story. This is the theme of this reading club."
As the voice drilled down into our skulls, a book dropped into the hands of each reading club participant.
I turned the pristine white hardcover in my hands over and over, examining it. The cover was blank. No title, no author, no publisher.
"Reading club participants will each read their book."
When the labyrinth commands, you obey. I opened the book obediently.
[Choi Jaeha was born the youngest of three siblings.]
What is this.
[His much older eldest brother, kept distant by that subtle gap in age and the awkwardness it bred, had been like an indifferent father. Even when Jaeha caused trouble, all he would say was, "He's at that age. Don't be too hard on him. He won't do it again."]
What on earth was I reading?
Doubting my own eyes, I looked up. Choi Jaeha was staring at Hwang Juyeon with the exact same expression I wore. Hwang Juyeon, with the same expression, was looking at Kim Gilyeong. And Kim Gilyeong, predictably, was looking at me.
"Wait, could it be……."
"Yours too?"
"Yours as well?"
"One life is one story. This is the theme of this reading club."
We had been made to read one another's lives.
"Um, by the way……."
I leaned toward Kim Gilyeong.
"Is there, by any chance, a rule against making noise in this library?"
Nothing had happened even after the others had spoken up, but just in case, I carefully lowered my voice as I asked.
The librarian shook her head.
"No, not really……. A library is a place for reading books, not a place for a vow of silence. The staff here even hold reading clubs of their own now and then."
Kim Gilyeong spoke at a volume neither too loud nor too soft.
"You just shouldn't be too loud……. But honestly, that goes for anywhere, not just libraries."
"Fair enough. Then, Ms. Kim — are you reading my story? I got the one with Mr. Choi as the protagonist."
"What, seriously?"
Choi Jaeha winced.
"I've got Ms. Hwang's here."
"Hmm, mine's Ms. Kim's."
"It seems everyone received the book of the person to their left."
I was to read Choi Jaeha's story, Choi Jaeha was to read Hwang Juyeon's, Hwang Juyeon was to read Kim Gilyeong's, and Kim Gilyeong was to read mine.
"But what are we supposed to do after reading……."
"Reading club participants will each read their book."
"Uh, let's just read for now? It's nagging us again because we're not reading."
At Hwang Juyeon's words, I turned my eyes back to the book.
[His sister, five years his senior, had been — unlike the brother who was like an indifferent father — like a strict mother. When Jaeha caused trouble, she scolded him sharply so that bad habits wouldn't take root. The moment she had a spare minute, she would chase him down, nagging: this is what you mustn't do, and that is what you mustn't do.]
I didn't particularly want to read the life and times of Choi Jaeha.
But a reading club is, in the end, an activity where you read a book and share your impressions of it, isn't it? Which meant I had to read. Whether I liked it or not.
If that was the rule.
[Jaeha cried many tears because of his sister, and for long years he resented her. But that, precisely, is what family is. Who else on this earth could have made a person of Choi Jaeha? His parents, already burnt out and worn thin from raising the two of them? His eldest brother, who had little affection for a little brother barely more than a nephew and simply spoiled him instead?]
The book described Choi Jaeha's life in considerable, trivial detail. The memory of sitting in a huddle with cousins his own age, eating ice cream in his grandfather's funeral hall. Winning prizes in math competitions for all six years of elementary school. Picking up a foul mouth in middle school and having it beaten — figuratively — out of him by his sister.
Literally a book containing Choi Jaeha's life, most of it made up of everyday stories that seemed to matter not at all.
Then again, a life is only interesting and important to the person living it; to everyone else, it's nothing but a boring, pointless collection of anecdotes.
[Jaeha, who had been face-down in his blanket bawling his eyes out, suddenly sprang up and began writing a letter, in crooked handwriting no one would ever be able to read.]
Why should I have to know this middle school boy's love story — one that only ever reads as heartbreaking to Choi Jaeha and pathetically cringe to me?
Still, seeing as it crossed the line into cringe without ever reaching the realm of the truly pathetic, that sister of his must have raised him well after all.
["Hey. Where do you think you're going, at this hour?"
The letter, stuffed to the brim with everything in his heart, having accomplished nothing, Jaeha had finally dressed to go to her house in person — and a frosty voice struck him square in the back. His sister.
Caught red-handed, Jaeha stammered out an explanation in a voice swollen with grievance. He could not lie in front of his sister.
Having heard the whole story from beginning to end, his sister didn't raise her voice at him. She simply heaved a long, long sigh.
"Hey, friends, lovers — it's all the same. When one side holds on, the one holding hurts their hand from holding so hard, and the one being held goes numb wherever they're held."
So saying, she seized both cheeks of her five-years-younger baby brother and stretched them out as though pinching dough.
"Ah— aaah! Ow, ow, it hurts!"
"Hurts, does it? It hurts me too, you little brat."
"What do you mean, hurts! I hurt more! Let go, come on!"
His sister released the plump cheeks with a clean snap.
"See? The one being held hurts more, doesn't he? So — you're telling me you can't accept getting dumped, and you're going crawling after her in this sorry state? Then from now on, you're the one hurting her. Is that how I raised you?"]
The childish streak in Choi Jaeha, and his disarming honesty, were also proof that he had grown up in a good environment.
Precisely speaking — an environment with people who loved him.
[Thanks to his sister's teachings and one whole comforting fried chicken, Choi Jaeha finally accepted the breakup. To be sure, for several days afterward he still played breakup songs alone in his room and cried, for which his sister rewarded him with a swat on the backside.
And before long, he found a new love.]
I leaned back against the sofa and stared blankly up at the ceiling.
The unsolicited supply of someone's private life was severe. It was hard to believe I hadn't even made it halfway through.
My idle eyeballs rolled, quite naturally, toward the librarian seated on my right. She had her face buried in her book, seemingly unaware of my gaze.
Watching her, I thought about why the librarian had to die.
Could it be that Hwang Juyeon killed Kim Gilyeong because her own life had been pried open, letter by letter, in printed type?
I stole a glance at the accountant, who was reading the life story of a piano instructor turned freelance magician.
And so, even as I kept reading the book about Choi Jaeha, I stayed on guard — ready to yank Choi Jaeha backward at a moment's notice.
"Kyaaaaaah!"
Hwang Juyeon stabbed Kim Gilyeong.