Read Only Your Own Book
"Why... why won't it let me leave?"
The three of us had been thrown into confusion. Hwang Juyeon and I could slip in and out without any trouble, but Kim Gilyeong alone couldn't set foot outside. Even when we grabbed her hand and pulled, our grip broke apart the instant it crossed the plane of the door. She'd come out just fine when she was dead, too.
"What on earth is the problem..."
Then my eyes drifted to the employee ID badge on her chest.
"Librarian."
"Y-yes? Waaah... yes?"
"No—I was thinking it might be because you're the librarian."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Librarians might have rules of their own. Different from ordinary visitors like us."
Just as the students trapped inside the labyrinthified Seonghwa High School had to see their graduation ceremony through before they could escape, and just as the masked monsters in charge of each grade never entered the staff room, an invasive labyrinth sometimes wove a person's personal information—or the traits of the space it replaced—into its rules.
"So there's a separate condition for you to leave, Ms. Gilyeong? Then how are we supposed to find out what it is..."
As Hwang Juyeon let out a troubled sigh, Kim Gilyeong burst into full, desolate sobs.
"I'm sorry, *hic*, I'm sorry. I know it's a really selfish thing to say, *sob*, but please don't leave me behind and go, please don't just leave me here-heee...! I'm, I'm real trash, huueeeh..."
My breath caught in my throat. I knew that fear all too well. The helplessness of the one left behind. The powerlessness of the one being weighed on a scale.
"I—"
While I was still chewing on my lip, Hwang Juyeon hurriedly pulled the librarian close and soothed her.
"I'll stay here with you. Don't worry. I'm not abandoning you. Okay? Stop crying now. Mr. Seon Yuhan."
"Yes?"
The freelance magician and piano tutor waved her free hand briskly.
"Go on ahead. What was his name again—Jihu? Jiho? Whatever—you said you know a kid there."
And just like that, Hwang Juyeon sent me off. Told me to get to the child a moment sooner, without once weighing me down with a "come back safe."
"Understood. Then I'll definitely—"
Her consideration made shame and something sour surge up in me before anything else; I mumbled half a sentence, ducked my head, and fled outside. She had probably been that kind of person even before she read my story—before she knew a single thing about me.
Forcing the stray thoughts down, I ran for Uri Saenal Daycare. The short stretch between Chaekbang-Ollae and the daycare felt agonizingly, horribly long.
Shff.
At last, I pushed open the daycare's door and stepped inside.
"Oh my!"
The teacher—that vicious-tempered creature whose malice was in exact proportion to how pathetic it looked—lifted its sooty-black pupils toward me.
"Hello! What brings you here today?"
Damn it. It didn't seem to know me. Don't tell me I'd actually skipped the daycare this loop. No way. There was no way that could be.
"Might you be here about an enrollment consultation?"
"No, I'm—"
"Or could you be one of our children's guardians?"
Guardian.
At that word, the machinery of my head—stalled for a beat—began whirring rapidly again.
"Yes. Is a child named Jeong Jiho here?"
That's right. I had no doubt that in this loop, too, I'd stopped by the daycare with Hwang Juyeon before going to the library. I would have earned temporary guardian status for Jeong Jiho and put on a clownish exercise show to drain the toys' stamina. Without carelessly drawing Hwang Juyeon's suspicion this time, of course.
"I'm certain I'm his temporary guardian."
At that, the goose teacher went perfectly still for several seconds, saying nothing. Like an artificial intelligence handed an incomprehensible user request, its loading screen dragging on and on.
"Hmmm. It appears there's been some sort of misunderstanding?"
The goose doll finally spoke, tilting its white neck. "There is no child named Jiho enrolled at Uri Saenal Daycare."
A chill clenched around my solar plexus, and I swallowed without meaning to.
Fine—suppose that, for a reason not even I could remember, I really had gone to the library first. But then it claimed not to know a child who had clearly attended this daycare? A child whose name was stamped right there on his locker? And the labyrinth's own monster, no less—the one whose rule was tormenting him—was the one saying it?
"Could you perhaps be an employee of Yuwi Guild?"
That control-freak of a library, slapping penalties on anyone who disobeyed its instructions. And its penalty hadn't merely erased a memory—it seemed to erase a person's very existence, then doctor every related memory and circumstance to match.
"Judging by your silence, I take it you're not."
So a child named Jiho had simply vanished, whole? As if he had never existed here at all? Then what would happen to him if the labyrinth were cleared in this state? What about his parents?
"So an unknown man who isn't even a Yuwi Guild employee has set foot inside our daycare? Babbling about being the guardian of a child who doesn't exist?"
It was only thanks to the loops that I still carried the memories of previous cycles. I shuddered to imagine what would have happened if I'd tried to walk out of this labyrinth with his existence wiped clean from my mind.
"Outsiders are prohibited from entering Uri Saenal Daycare."
"If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Mr. Seon Yuhan?"
I ran through the current situation and the precautions for the interviewer with practiced ease, set off the fire alarm, went down to the second floor, and found Hwang Juyeon.
Everything after that played out like the loop where I'd been disqualified as a colleague over my "since you can play the piano" remark—similar, but smoother this time. I found Jeong Jiho enduring "discipline" at the daycare that was corporal punishment in disguise, got the goose doll's permission to take him home, and clowned jerkily through the exercises to play with the "children" until they dropped.
And from here on, everything was new. At least as far as I could remember, this had never happened before.
...a child left all alone...
I even succeeded in getting the "children" to drift off, arm-pillowed and breathing soft, right on cue with the lullaby.
"Oh my, would you look at that—the children are all tuckered out. Sounds like they really did have fun."
For the first time, the pathetically appointed goose-doll monster murmured, its voice lowered. It bent its white neck slowly, staring straight at me with those two black-bean eyes.
"Thank you for playing so nicely with our children. Goodbye now, guardians. You take care too, Jiho."
"Mm."
With the exhausted, sleeping Jiho in my arms, I fudged a non-answer and let it slide.
Shff.
The daycare's entrance slid open, smooth as if it had never once been locked.
"Oof... aghh, my hands are tingling. That was scarier than a recital, honestly."
The moment the door shut, Hwang Juyeon slumped back against the wall, flapping and kneading both hands.
"You should sit down and rest a minute, Mr. Seon Yuhan. Are you all right? You look completely drained."
"No. Let's hurry downstairs."
I gently patted the back of the child sleeping against my shoulder like a pillow.
"Because saving Jiho might have been the condition for getting down to the first floor."
"Ah, could be. Let's get going, then."
Long story short: I hoisted the child onto my back and tried the staircase—whether it led to heaven or to hell, I couldn't say—but nothing changed. My limbs just wobbled that much more. Nor could I very well wake the kid, snoring softly away, partway down the climb. With these accursed stairs, stopping midway meant falling. How on earth do parents lug their children around all day? I would never understand it.
"Oh, right! Come to think of it, there was the librarian—don't tell me she's still trapped in the library...?"
"U-um, Ms. Hwang Juyeon, then I'll—"
Ah, damn it.
I'd been about to say I'd check the library alone when I realized my mistake. I should have confirmed first whether finishing the book club was even the condition for descending to the first floor. My impatience had made me bolt for the daycare without thinking. And I couldn't just tell Hwang Juyeon to wait outside with Jiho, either—only participants who finished the book club might be allowed down.
"N-no, then let's go in together. There might be a clue about the condition for going down in there—we can check that while we're at it."
The time was 3:54 in the afternoon.
The three of us opened the door of Chaekbang-Ollae.
"It is time for the book club."
Sure enough, that voice came again—whether the library's revelation or its narration, I couldn't tell. It was exactly four o'clock now. Sometimes it had started at 3:50; today, right on the hour.
"No additional participants will be accepted until the book club ends."
Did it poll for participants in ten-minute intervals, and start the meeting when it found enough?
Once the explanation of the book club ended, a snow-white book dropped into each of our four hands.
"Book club participants are to read their own books."
"W-we just... read them?"
"Yes. Let's read. Ah."
A thought occurred to me, and I looked at the child seated to my right. Exactly how old was he, anyway? Could he even manage a book this thick?
"Jiho, can you read hangul?"
The child nodded, his face tight with anxiety. What a relief. So he could read, at least somewhat. There would be words he didn't know yet, so understanding every last line would be difficult—but then, adults don't necessarily understand everything they read either.
"Then read slowly, and if there's anything you don't know, ask me or the teachers here."
Seeing his lips pressed tightly together, I added:
"You don't have to say it out loud, okay?"
Only then did the child dip his head once more.
[Kim Gilyeong was born at 7:32 in the evening on September 16.]
The moment the books opened, everyone but me was staring around at the others, bewildered.
"Wait—this book..."
Kim Gilyeong had received Hwang Juyeon's book. Hwang Juyeon, Jeong Jiho's. Jiho, mine. And I, Kim Gilyeong's.
["A young scholar of Munrim Elementary, here to write a new chapter of history—!"
The days of standing in the assembly lineup, singing the school anthem through the principal's dreary moralizing.]
Even though I'd read this book cover to cover last time, I made sure not to cut corners and skim.
["You went to Sangrim Elementary, right?"
After the middle school entrance ceremony, while Kim Gilyeong sat quietly—too withdrawn to push into the bustle of her new classmates—someone breezily struck up a conversation. Hong Donghee, Kim Gilyeong saw at a glance from the name tag.
"Looks like you and I are the only ones from Uri Elementary in our class. Let's eat lunch together later!"
Sun-bronzed skin, a mouth that opened wide enough to show the uvula whenever it laughed, a walk that always seemed one bounce from taking flight. Hong Donghee became Kim Gilyeong's favorite friend.]
Hm? Something about that...
"Book club participants are to read their own books."
I looked at the silent child on my right. Sure enough, his expression said a book crammed with unbroken text and not a single picture was hard to focus on. His pupils were aimed at the page, but he was clearly spacing out. The pieces seemed to be clicking into place...
"Jiho, I know it's hard, but you have to keep reading. Slow is fine."
I said it while forcing down a thought that came worming through my skull like an insect. God, I was a wretched adult.
"Hm? Is there something you don't know?"
As if he'd been waiting for the chance, the child pointed to a passage in my book.
"Oh—this part?"
"Book club participants are to read their own books."
The voice rang out the instant I looked at the book with me as its protagonist—as if to warn me off.
So I absolutely have to read only the book I was given...
I worked to keep my expression under control.
"Anyway, this is something like a guardian—um, like a mom or dad, see? When a kid doesn't have a mom or dad, a close relative or another grown-up has to fill that role. That's what this word calls a person like that."
I had no feel for what level of explanation was right for a preschooler. Not that this seemed like a story a child his age should be reading in the first place.
"If there's a word you don't know, keep asking. Um, it seems to turn a blind eye to peeking at other people's books, as long as it's just a glance."
The child's nodding face darkened a shade further. He turned his eyes back to the book.
[Kim Gilyeong won a prize in the school book-report contest.
"After reading this book, I came to think that dreams aren't something we have only at night.
(...)
So after reading this book, every night I would open the closet door just a crack."
Alice in Wonderland became Kim Gilyeong's favorite book.]
This was one of the spoilers from the last book club. It struck me as odd even rereading it, but I kept going.
[Kim Gilyeong stared blankly out the window. Snow-white flakes drifted down like flower petals. As if to wish her a happy birthday.]
...Hold on.
Flip, flip.
Carefully, I turned a page forward. Then back again.
["The name of your closest friend in elementary school?"
Kim Gilyeong summoned a memory as vivid as yesterday. A friend with charming dimples that appeared whenever the rare smile crossed that face—pale as milk, like a child who had never once seen sunlight. Hong Donghee. Kim Gilyeong wrote down the correct answer without the slightest difficulty.]
Flip.
Forward. Forward. Then back again. Forward. Back once more.
"..."
My sweat-slick forehead prickled, and the fingertips gripping the pages twitched and trembled. Feigning a scratch on the back of my hand, I smothered the shaking and rolled my eyes. My palms were damp with sweat; my mouth was drying out by the second. I couldn't let them catch on. ...That I had caught on.