A Time for Many Words
Time had slipped by once more, and Friday—the day she would meet Charlotte—had arrived.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Baek Eun-hwa had worn herself ragged through each passing day, and yet an A-Class hero's body was not so easily brought down. She had managed to fulfill every last one of her scheduled obligations, and it was precisely because of that that the week had been all the harder.
At any rate, evening came, and Baek Eun-hwa arrived home a little earlier than usual. The moment she stepped through the door, she started cleaning.
She had spent the weekdays alone with no time whatsoever to tidy up, so the place had naturally fallen into disarray. She couldn't very well let Charlotte see it like that, which left her no choice but to clean with everything she had.
The last time Charlotte had visited, Eun-hwa had already shown her more than a few things she'd rather have kept hidden. That didn't mean she was about to do it again.
The instant she got home she started cleaning. She showered, scrubbed herself clean, and waited for her assigned counselor. Even though the day's exhaustion had left her thoroughly drained, she didn't rest. She prepared as if she had been waiting for this all along. And then—
"Ah, Miss Eun-hwa. Have you been waiting long?"
"...Not particularly."
As always, she found herself greeting a girl wearing a bright smile.
The door opened. Their eyes met through the gap, and Charlotte welcomed her with a fresh, radiant smile. Eun-hwa had grown used to that look by now, and yet she still couldn't bring herself to give an honest answer.
Even so, she let Charlotte into the house as if it were nothing. Charlotte was a guest she had grown a little more accustomed to, and the guest, for her part, treated Eun-hwa's home as if it were the most natural place in the world. If anything, it was the guest who seemed incomparably more at ease.
"Wow, it's clean today. Did you have a bit more time than usual this week?"
"I just tidied up a little whenever I had a moment."
"Hmm, is that so? This house is so big, even a little cleaning must have been a hassle. I'm impressed."
"...Impressed? Please."
"Hehe."
Charlotte tossed out bright remarks that sounded like praise as if they were nothing at all. Eun-hwa could only offer a sheepish, careful reply.
The two of them sat together at the large table, sipping cool sparkling water, and began to talk as they always did. Eun-hwa's daily life hadn't changed much since last time. She spoke honestly to Charlotte about the overwork, about the grueling schedule she had pushed through all week, and Charlotte simply nodded and listened.
"...On Thursday I was busy because of villains that keep popping up around the industrial district. Dispatch requests kept coming in from that area, so after I responded once, I had to keep going back out for hours."
"Hmm... so that happened too. I did look into some information on my own, but I suppose I can't find out everything."
As Eun-hwa told her counselor about her daily life, about her week, she couldn't help feeling a little guilty that she still wasn't following Charlotte's advice properly.
It was true that the conversation at the izakaya had started by accident—truly by accident. But that was a separate matter. The reality was that Eun-hwa still couldn't put Charlotte's advice and all those conversations into practice, and she was well aware of it.
Yes. She was aware.
And yet actually following through remained difficult. She would think about it, but once she was running around all day, the thought of following Charlotte's advice never even crossed her mind. Her head would fill with nothing but I'm tired, this is hard, I want to rest—and her body would carry out the schedule as it always did. Then the day would end, and another would begin.
"Miss Eun-hwa?"
"...What is it?"
"You just don't seem very focused. Were you thinking about something?"
She had gotten so lost in those thoughts that she hadn't properly heard what her counselor was saying.
Ordinarily, it wouldn't have been a big deal. Just a little regret, a little guilt. But Eun-hwa couldn't bring herself to tell even that to her counselor.
"...It's nothing, really."
A counselor who kept offering her so many words, and herself, who couldn't apply a single piece of that advice. The guilt of it kept welling up, and Eun-hwa simply looked at her counselor with both eyes and said nothing more.
"Hmm... you seem especially tired this week. Last week was tiring too, of course, but this week you look a little more... yes, exhausted."
"I don't think it's that different from usual."
"There's a reason we have words like 'objective' and 'subjective,' you know. It may feel that way from your perspective, Miss Eun-hwa, but from my objective viewpoint, it isn't."
"......"
If you really thought about it, Charlotte's viewpoint was plenty subjective too. But Eun-hwa couldn't come up with a solid rebuttal to that sophistry. She just gave a small nod, a quiet little sign of agreement.
The truth was, she was simply embarrassed—embarrassed to keep receiving worry when she wasn't even properly listening to the advice. And the platinum-blonde girl only ever smiled, kind and bright, which made honesty all the harder.
"Hmm.... In that case, rather than just talking today, maybe we should try a different approach."
"...What are you planning this time?"
"Hehe. Don't look so scared."
Baek Eun-hwa's face was far more worn with fatigue than usual, and there was no way Charlotte would miss that. She naturally picked up on the fact that Eun-hwa was considerably more exhausted than usual, and decided that this wasn't the time for gaslighting, reverse-gaslighting, counseling, or any of that.
Every time she dealt with Eun-hwa, she felt the poor state of things far more keenly than she had with Batori or Saran. She kept wanting to use her usual methods, then hesitating, over and over—frustrated and at a loss. But what mattered was her client's condition.
"Miss Eun-hwa, come up on the bed."
"...What?"
Basically, about Baek Eun-hwa.
She was... quite unstable, you could say?
She had an incredibly sturdy body to begin with, and she had adapted to hardship, so in all sorts of ways she was enduring her exhausted state—somehow, really just barely scraping by.
Even if you expected her to insist she was fine, that she wasn't, that everything was ordinary—the fact remained that Baek Eun-hwa was pushing herself far too hard. No matter what answer she gave, that fact wouldn't change.
Even I, who only knew her schedule in the lightest terms, could feel it. If you looked at it truly objectively... wouldn't it be even worse?
In Eun-hwa's case, she worked Monday through Friday, and on weekends too... as far as I knew, it wasn't a schedule where she got to rest unconditionally, just lie around all day.
"Come on up. Quickly."
And so, in the process of changing her thoughts, her behavior... a little healing, you could call it. Rather than using the methods I typically employed for heroes—counseling, problem-solving—I thought it would be better to combine them with something a little different.
"...Why do I have to get on the bed?"
"Hehe. For now, don't just be suspicious. Make yourself comfortable. Here, lie down next to me, nice and easy?"
"......"
I climbed onto Eun-hwa's bed first and patted the mattress gently as I said that. Eun-hwa still looked at me with doubtful eyes. Even so, she didn't refuse. She quietly lay down on the bed, next to where I was sitting.
Her ears, her tail—she hadn't hidden a single one of them. She lay there quietly beside me and simply looked at me.
"Aren't you going to do it? I don't know what you're planning, but."
"Hehe. Just wait a little. I'll show you soon enough."
Baek Eun-hwa—the word precarious really suited her. For her sake, I wanted to use a stopgap, even just for a little while, to make her condition even a little bit better. It wasn't as if a few sessions were going to change her completely anyway.
This was an extension of the time I'd stroked her hair before, the time I'd comforted her a little—just a bit more intense.
"You worked hard this week too."
"......"
"It must have been a busy schedule. An unreasonable one. And you handled it splendidly again this week, didn't you?"
"...What is this?"
"Comfort. Praise. A time to say all the words Miss Eun-hwa needs to hear."
"......"
What are you doing this time? I said that to Eun-hwa, who was looking at me with thoroughly suspicious eyes.
I gently stroked the nine-tailed fox's hair as she lay back on the bed, passing along words of praise and comfort, slowly cheering her on so she could endure another week. At least for Eun-hwa in her current state, it felt like it would help considerably.
I kept pointing out her behavior, comparing her to other heroes—but if, in moments like this, I told her it was okay to rest easy, that she'd done well, if I kept saying good things... wouldn't that be nice?
That was all I was thinking.
"You did well."
"...Nnh."
"You've done so, so well until now. You've worked so hard. I'm truly proud of you."
"...This is weird."
"Heh. Don't be so embarrassed. I'm just being honest."
Even if Eun-hwa still wouldn't say it out loud, I could tell from her ears and her behavior that she didn't dislike it. I kept stroking her hair, affirming her.
Of course, I planned to go back to pointing out her behavior after this. A sort of carrot-and-stick approach. Except the stick hadn't been very effective so far, so I'd let the carrot ripen, get her used to it... and then swing the stick hard.
She'd change, little by little. Surely. I didn't really know how she'd change. But she would change, at least.
"You did well."
"......"
For now, I would simply keep trying to find a more certain way to help Baek Eun-hwa.