Delivered with Compassion

My phone buzzed. Again.

I told you I'm not picking up. Please, just stop already.

Declined.

Hold on. What?

Declined it anyway.

What doesn't exist cannot be deleted.

Decline.

This is getting more unpleasant by the second.

Decline.

...Declined.

……

……

……

"Seon Yuhan."

"Huh? Yes?"

Startled by the sudden call of my name, I nearly dropped my phone. When I turned my head, Choi Jaeha was wearing an extraordinarily hard-to-read expression — the face of a man who had no idea ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what expression he should be making and had failed entirely at managing it.

"No, I'm really not trying to, like, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠insult you or anything."

Jaeha, glancing around despite the fact that no one was there to overhear, stammered the words out as if whispering a secret.

"Seon Yuhan, are you maybe... um, not doing so great, mentally?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Look, watching you grin to yourself all alone in a situation like this — honestly, it's starting to genuinely scare me?"

Had I been smiling?

Unconsciously, I touched the corner of my mouth, then lowered my hand and switched off the screen.

I need to be more careful.

"If something's wrong with you, tell me in advance. Seriously. Please. So I can at least brace myself."

"Hmm. I'll try?"

"Nooo, you don't try, you just— agh, fine. Fine, f-ine, ugh...!"

Choi Jaeha, who had been walking ahead with confident strides, suddenly clapped a hand over his mouth, jumped, spun a full circle in place, and came scrambling back to huddle behind me. He pressed in so close I could feel his heart hammering against me.

"A-are you okay? What the..."

"Th-there..."

The hulking accountant reached out a trembling hand.

"I-in that black car...! Can't you see it...? There's something in the back seat...!"

I shifted my gaze in the direction Jaeha was pointing.

Very, very slowly.

My mouth clamped shut in case I screamed, I narrowed my eyes and looked. At the tip of Jaeha's finger sat a single black sedan — and inside it...

"There's nothing in it."

"Wh-what? No way. That can't be right. You must've looked at a different car? I-it... huh?"

Choi Jaeha, who had been cringing as far back as his body would allow, wormed his way out and made the face of a complete fool.

"Huh. It really is gone. No, seriously, there was something genuinely nightmare-inducing in there just now. I swear. Like a shadow, and it had these teeth, and — ugh. It was really there."

"Yes, I know. I believe you. I'm sure you're not lying."

The labyrinth must have wanted to give him a scare.

"You handled it well."

"Ohhhh, god..."

Jaeha gripped his knees like a man spent from some brutal workout and heaved out a long sigh.

"Good thing I shut my mouth halfway through — I almost really..."

"...Mr. Choi Jaeha?"

Jaeha froze mid-sentence.

Then he rose slowly to his feet and stared at something. With the expression of a man who had just witnessed something far more terrible than any monster.

That unsettled me more than anything. The sight of him not even screaming.

"Minha...?"

"Yes?"

"Choi Minha? Minha!"

"Mr. Choi Jaeha, wait—"

Jaeha shoved me off and broke into a mad sprint.

That coward of a man. Without a single light to guide him. Straight into the darkness.

"Choi Minha, where — where are you? Why are you, why, here... Minha. Call for your uncle again... I can't hear you! Where are you?"

Clunk. Clunk.

Choi Jaeha, whom I barely managed to catch up with, was yanking at the door handles of the parked cars one by one and pounding on their trunks.

"In here? Choi Minha, where are you! Are you in here? Why? Why? Why? That can't be, it can't... Minha, you, you can't be here... You can't be here, Choi Minha..."

A man trapped in a labyrinth, his face drenched in tears, searched desperately for his niece like a madman.

Listening to the voice of a niece who was not here.

"Mr. Choi Jaeha, calm down. Your niece isn't here."

I grabbed the accountant as he pounded frenziedly on the car bodies.

"Let go of me! It's really her voice...!"

His resistance was surprisingly strong.

So it wasn't only what my eyes saw that I needed to guard against.

What my ears heard had to be guarded against as well.

"I thought so too at first, honestly, but she said her club nearby ended early today and she came to see me. It's really her voice. She says she can't — she can't breathe. She says she's trapped. We have to, have to open it right now! If you won't help me, then let go!"

"I don't hear a single voice. It's only audible to you, Mr. Choi."

"Do-don't lie! You just don't want to save her!"

"I'm not lying, Mr. Choi Jaeha. Your niece isn't here. So please don't wor—"

—Clatter.

The instant that heavy metallic sound reached me, every bone in my body stiffened, rigid, as though it were being reassembled.

It is coming.

"Mr. Choi Jaeha, please stop. Stop, and hide. Now."

I choked Jaeha from behind — only hard enough to shock him — and we both went down to the floor together. He crumpled into a half-crouch in front of me, murmuring his niece's name over and over.

"That thing heard your voice," I said. "I'm sorry."

It might already be too late.

Squelch. Splash.

The compassionate World-Honored One had heard Choi Jaeha's scream, and so He would lead him out of this life of nothing but suffering.

Krik, kirrrrik. The sound of small gears turning reached my ears.

I bit down on my tongue and pressed both hands over my ears, suppressing the urge to vomit out a scream.

Clatter, clank. In the sealed darkness, His true words and His footsteps resounded like some majestic epic.

Did I dare defy Him?

The World-Honored One's word stands above any rule.

In that single body, human flesh and machine bone coexisted in perfect harmony. Its plain dharma robe was inscribed, seam to seam, with hanja no one could read. Clinging to its half-exposed ribs was a residue that had never finished rotting. Here and there the metal was corroded a dark, dried red, as if it had endured ages beyond counting — no. That was not rust.... Of its half-destroyed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠head, the only parts left whole were a pair of smiling lips and two oversized ears.

Truly a wondrous, and perfect, form.

The moment I lowered my hands, the voice that had been reaching me as if through water finally grew clear.

The World-Honored One's hand drew near.

Toward me.

No.

Toward the one lying before me. Toward the one who was not me.

Compassion was not my share.

Squelch. Crunch.

I closed my eyes again.

"Ngh... ughhh..."

I shut my ears.

Thud. Splash.

I sealed my mouth.

Clunk. Clatter...

At last, peace came.

"...Yuhan."

The World-Honored One had departed from me. No — it was never my World-Honored One to begin with.

No statue of the Tathagata to lay offerings before. No Buddha deserving of worship.

"Seon Yuhan...!"

"Yes?"

A hand tapped my shoulder, and the sensation of my vision swaying startled me into turning my head. There, crouching in front of me, was the face of Director Yu Hyeonjae.

That living body was shielding the dead one from view.

"It sounded like there was quite a commotion, so I came back, worried. By the time we returned, that monstrous statue was already nearly upon you. I'm sorry we couldn't do anything to help."

"Seon Yuhan..."

Hwang Juyeon was holding Jeong Jiho in her arms, covering the boy's eyes with her hand.

She, too, was standing at an angle where Choi Jaeha's corpse could not properly be seen.

"By the way, that box..."

"Ah. This."

Once I seemed to have calmed down somewhat, Yu Hyeonjae and Hwang Juyeon both nodded toward the crumpled delivery box clutched in my hands.

"It appeared on top of a car fitted with the same tires as those skid marks."

Peeling the box away — it felt as if it had fused to my palm — I explained in short bursts, exhaling like a long sigh.

Zzzk. Zzziii...

When I opened the box, what came out was an ornament: a wooden cross on a cord just a little too short to be called a necklace.

"Oh, I know that one."

Hwang Juyeon recognized it immediately.

"One of those decorations people hang from their rearview mirrors. So this time, do we just need to find a car with a cross ornament hanging in it?"

"That may well be. In that case, Seon Yuhan, please sit here and rest for a while, together with Jiho—"

I looked up, quite naturally, at Hwang Juyeon and Yu Hyeonjae as they moved to leave me behind.

"But I'm fine, so I'll just—"

"—Seon Yuhan. My eyes were wrong."

A voice so steady it bordered on toneless.

"You were never Red Weaver material. Not at all."

Yu Hyeonjae pressed me back down into a seat as he spoke.

"Because you don't even know where you are right now."

"...What is it I don't know, exactly?"

"Which labyrinth you are in. And what state you yourself are in. You don't know either of those things, do you."

What would you know? What could the likes of you possibly know? Sure, maybe things were rough for you once upon a time, but now you sit at the top of some gleaming tower, watching labyrinths from across the river like it's a spectator sport — what would you know? What do you know about me? About labyrinths? About being in a state where dying doesn't kill you, so you just have to keep on living?

Inside me, unrefined words writhed like insects.

"The way I see it, this floor is exactly the kind of place where you're most likely to die the harder you drive yourself. Am I wrong? Take a moment, and breathe. You are Jiho's guardian, after all."

Those words brought me back to myself.

I lowered my gaze, and the child's round, silent eyes were looking up at me.

I've made him anxious.

"Jiho was due for a rest anyway. That's why I'm leaving him in your care. You can do that much, can't you?"

"...Yes."

I let my head slump forward in something like a nod.

Once the misdirected anger had slowly drained away, shame came creeping up in its place.

"Then we'll be off. Get some rest."

"We'll be right back, Seon Yuhan. You rest well too, Jiho."

The child's tiny, fern-leaf hands saw them off.

I leaned against a pillar, pulled the boy into my arms, and held him so that he would see as close to nothing as possible.

...Hold on.

I had been staring blankly at the miserably crumpled, empty delivery box when a sudden, ominous premonition swept through me, and my whole body shuddered.

'Samadhi Delivery... does a place like that even exist? The address says Seoul... and that's this building here, so, huh? "Go-1020"? What kind of address is that? What kind of lunatic sends a package to his own car?'

Why a delivery?

Why had the cross been inside a delivery box in the first place?

If that cross really was the clue, then there had been no need for it to be in a box at all.

The ornament alone, lying there on the car, would have been more than enough.

Ah. Don't tell me.

Zzzing.

I stared anxiously at my phone screen as it lit up and vibrated in my hand.

Clatter....

Somewhere in the distance, faintly, came the sound of grinding metal.

From the place where my companions — chasing the wrong clue — would be.