Why Didn't I Go to the Daycare?
“What shall we play today?”
The cheerful hum snapped me wide awake. It was offering me a choice, was it? As to what game we'd play?
“Ms. Hwang Juyeon, do you happen to know any games that might tire the children out? Nothing dangerous, ideally...”
I plunged straight into a war council with Hwang Juyeon. The child in my arms, Jeong Jiho, still had his mouth clamped shut, but I didn't want to put any more weight on him than necessary. When it came to this sort of thing, the adults who cared for children probably knew better than the children themselves, anyway.
“I see kids all the time, but I've never actually raised one, so I can't say I'm an expert... It should be something that gets them moving a lot, don't you think?”
“Yes. But nothing like hide-and-seek or tag, please.”
Those games were off the table. Being caught by an it was a perfectly efficient way to die.
“Oh, that sounds good. They'd have to keep moving, and all that heavy breathing would wear them down too...”
Then that son of a bitch, who had been watching our little conspiracy in silence without so much as lifting a feather to stop it, butted in at the last second. The voice, dripping with genuine hurt, made my blood boil.
“Our children don't know how to breathe. Ah—except Jiho.”
Seriously. Give me a break.
What am I supposed to do with that?
Fine, I understood that toys don't need to breathe. But honestly, if we were splitting hairs, the fact that those things moved at all made even less sense, didn't it?
As I grumbled inwardly, Hwang Juyeon carefully offered an opinion beside me.
“Oh, how about something nice and simple, like playing ball? Hmm, it might be a bit cramped for that... Then maybe kicking a shuttlecock made from a balloon?”
Not a bad idea. I rolled my eyes sideways.
The goose with its pitch-black pupils was humming Island Baby through its nose. And what if it shot down whatever we picked this time too, claiming its own children couldn't handle it?
How do I wear out those ‘children’ of theirs?
Do those things even get tired?
What does ‘tired’ even mean for something like that? Collapsing flat on their backs and conking out like a person would...
Hold on.
A lullaby?
“Ms. Hwang Juyeon.”
“Yes?”
“Let's do music and movement.”
“Sorry?”
“You know how they dance along to the lyrics of a song? We do four or five songs, then finish with a lullaby, lay the kids down, and put them to sleep.”
Drain whatever stamina they may or may not have with a handful of songs first, then let the lullaby carry them naturally into sleep. That was my plan. Hwang Juyeon stole a glance at the goose teacher humming its lullaby, then nodded her agreement. I pointed to the electric piano tucked into one corner of the daycare.
“You could handle the accompaniment, Ms. Hwang Juyeon. You do play piano.”
“Ah—yes, alright.”
Right after that, I explained our game to the goose teacher, and thankfully it accepted. Though it didn't look thrilled about it. Jeong Jiho had already been given permission to leave, so instead of joining in, he was allowed to sit near the entrance and rest.
“...Hands up high, hands down low, stretch, stretch...”
“...Hop, hop, hop, I'm a little bunny...”
“...Up we jump, all of us together, up we jump...”
And so the unbearably pitiful clank-and-creak show of toys and a single human drew toward its finale.
Dong....
When Hwang Juyeon slowly lifted her foot from the pedal, the last note of the children's song scattered into a dreary hush. I shot her a look meaning it was time to ease into the lullaby.
“Ms. Hwang Juyeon...?”
Her expression had darkened somehow. And it didn't seem to be merely because the daycare's interior lights were off.
“Mr. Seon Yuhan.”
“Yes.”
Not just me—the toys had all frozen mid-motion too, staring blankly at the piano player.
“Did I... ever tell you that I play the piano?”
What is she on about all of a sudden?
“You did. You said you teach piano as your day job, that you're—”
Ah, damn it.
I could feel the sweat pooling at the back of my neck going cold.
“That can't be right. No, it is right, but I never told you that, Mr. Seon Yuhan. I'm certain of it.”
She was right. I had no memory of ever hearing that. None at all.
“Ms. Hwang Juyeon, that's not the important thing right now. You need to keep playing—”
“—Oh my goodness, well, well. Look who it is. Mr. Seon Yuhan... you're not the magician teacher's companion anymore, are you?”
I know what I did.
Before. In the library.
“Uri Saenal Daycare prohibits entry by outsiders.”
The realization struck like lightning, and in the same instant, a ring of soulless pupils swiveled toward me all at once.
Do not rouse your companions' suspicion at the daycare and be demoted to the status of an outsider.
“If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Mr. Seon Yuhan?”
“Si—”
It felt as if every corner of my body had burst into flames.
“Could you give me... a moment, please?”
“Of course.”
Choi Jaeha, of all people. And Hwang Juyeon, too. Strange information I had no memory of acquiring had wedged itself into my head.
Thoughts like how Choi Jaeha seemed to be the spoiled baby of his family, or how I got the feeling he'd once hurled a fire extinguisher out of a hallway window. Back when those notions first surfaced, I hadn't paid them much mind. They weren't important to begin with.
Worst case, I figured, it was some aftereffect of torture-adjacent trauma. Whether from the regressions, the Golden Scales, whatever. A temporary malfunction I couldn't control or fix on my own. I dismissed it as nothing. It wasn't the first time.
But every other memory was perfectly intact, and the only corruption concerned people I'd met inside the labyrinth—Choi Jaeha, Hwang Juyeon—which suggested it wasn't just PTSD. Timeline-wise, it started after I was forced into that book club with Kim Gilyeong.
Actually, I was now in a state where I couldn't even trust the memory of being alone in that book club with Kim Gilyeong in the first place.
There might be more deaths I don't remember.
...And if some crucial clue about the conditions for reaching the 1st floor had been hidden in Chaekbang-Ollae, and I'd lost that memory—
“Excuse me, ma'am.”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“This building. It's become a labyrinth.”
“I'm sorry?”
“Pardon me. Please stand up.”
The words poured out of me now, unimpeded, like an insurance agent reciting policy clauses. When this happens, do this; when that happens, do that...
Press.
Midway through my string of warnings to the interviewer, the moment a fire alarm pull station came into view, I yanked it.
RIIIIINNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
I turned my eyes away from the interviewer, who flinched at the sudden shriek of the alarm. I hadn't needed to pull it. But if someone had to, then it should be me.
“Hold the handrail tight on your way down.”
This time, too, Choi Jaeha would have gotten off the elevator early at the sound of the alarm, so I took the emergency stairs with the interviewer instead. Only briefly, but still.
“Thank you. Having you with me, Mr. Seon Yuhan, puts my mind a little more at ease.”
I wanted to force a smile at that. To say, same here.
WHAM, WHUMM, KRA-KOOM!
KA-BOOM!
GWAGWANG, THUD!
Thunderous booms like the sky collapsing echoed through the emergency stairwell.
Click.
I pushed open the 2nd-floor emergency exit alone and stared blankly at the empty corridor. That person. Is she alive somewhere, too? I hoped she didn't panic and miss her footing. Though I suppose the only idiot who'd die that way is me.
Click.
Before long, Hwang Juyeon emerged not from the exit I'd used, but from another one nearby.
“Wait, why is this the 2nd floor... Oh.”
When she spotted me, her eyes wavered.
“Um, sorry to pry, but the stairs are acting weird, aren't they?”
I opened with a suitably awkward expression, and the wariness drained from Hwang Juyeon's eyes, replaced by relief.
“Right? The alarm went off out of nowhere, so I bolted down exactly one floor, and honestly, I thought I was still half asleep. The door I opened just now led to the basement.”
“Same here—I kept ending up back on this floor, so I stopped for a moment to think it through. It's a bit of an ominous thought, but.”
“Ah... don't tell me. That thought. No, wait, hold on. Don't say it. Ugh, aaagh.”
Hwang Juyeon clenched her fists and gritted her teeth, then spent a while reduced to wordless shivering, making nothing but a low nnngh sound, all human language gone. At last, she lifted her head.
“So what I'm saying is, this place has gone m—, m—mad. Gah—no, sorry. That wasn't aimed at you.”
“Yes. I know...”
One way or another, we reached an agreement: this place had become a raving mad labyrinth.
“By the way, um—oh, right, what should I call you? I'm Hwang Juyeon.”
“I'm Seon Yuhan.”
After that brisk exchange of names, Hwang Juyeon and I pushed open the door to Chaekbang-Ollae. Sure enough, Kim Gilyeong was there, having failed to escape, and before long the book club was underway.
“Wait, this content...”
Hwang Juyeon and Kim Gilyeong looked up from their open books with bewildered faces. Each of us had been assigned to read the life story of the person seated to our left. Kim Gilyeong got Hwang Juyeon's story; Hwang Juyeon got mine.
And I got Kim Gilyeong's.
[Kim Gilyeong was born at 7:32 in the evening on September the 16th.]
[Kim Gilyeong's father would carry his young daughter on his back as he crouched on the floor, reading newspapers or books. Reading was the most natural part of everyday life for Kim Gilyeong.]
I made a point of not skipping over the early sections I'd already read last time. I had no desire to be branded a heretic and killed again.
[“You went to Sangrim Elementary, right?”
The middle school entrance ceremony had ended, and Kim Gilyeong, too introverted to easily wedge into the noisy crowd of new classmates, sat quietly until someone approached with a burst of sunshine. Hong Donghee. Kim Gilyeong stole a glance at the name tag.
“Looks like you and me are the only ones from our old schools in this class. Let's eat lunch together later, okay!”
Deeply tanned skin, a mouth that opened wide enough to show the uvula whenever she laughed, footsteps that always seemed to be mid-bounce. Hong Donghee became Kim Gilyeong's most beloved friend.]
The elementary school section ended and the story moved on to middle school—and that was when the parts I hadn't read last time began to appear.
Ah.
But something...
“Book club participants shall each read their own book.”
The instant my concentration lapsed, the nagging came down on me like a ghost.
[“Gilyeong, dear, any interest in writing? There's a district essay contest coming up. Do give it a try if you'd like.”
Kim Gilyeong was closer to the school librarian—who also served as the book club's faculty advisor—than to her homeroom teacher. It was around this time that Kim Gilyeong began writing ‘librarian’ in the future-aspirations column.]
I read on, absorbed for a long stretch, until that strange feeling crept over me again and I raised my head. Something... something was wrong.
Some nameless thing felt like it was stirring, coiling itself up and laying eggs somewhere in the depths of my skull.
Kim Gilyeong, beside me, must have felt my gaze, because she widened her eyes in a silent what. Hwang Juyeon looked over too.
Hold on.
When the question finally smashed through its shell and emerged whole, a shiver ran through my entire body as if I'd caught a chill. My fingertips went cold.
Why.
Why didn't I go to the daycare?