The Playground Falls Silent

"So, what exactly does Field Team Na do?"

When I'd asked during [Tell Us Your Dream!] time, Kwon Haeseong had offered nothing but a vague answer.

"It's just… one of the field teams at headquarters…. The twins' guardian belongs to it."

He had clearly seemed to have more to say, but after exchanging a look with the others, he'd mumbled something evasive and let it drop.

Right now the kids all seemed too absorbed in playing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with one another to eavesdrop, and we had a quiet moment to ourselves.

"Do they do dangerous work? From what I've heard, it sounds like he comes home injured every single day."

Hunters.

A profession certified by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the state based on whether one's ability manifested at all—and at what rank, selected as randomly as a spin of the jackpot—earning a living by putting those powers to official use. And the most popular branch of that profession was, naturally enough, field work: the jobs where you ran around on your own two legs.

'They get the highest salaries, too.'

Wasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it the number-one dream job for children and teenagers alike these days? The mere fact that you could become a hero with abilities science couldn't explain was more than enough to set the hearts of growing sprouts racing.

Besides, the Gates that had appeared alongside the Awakened thirty years ago had long since been stabilized through countless experiments and safety manuals, and the world was now peaceful enough to be called the Peace Era.

So peaceful that people could sometimes forget horrific, cruel monsters existed in the dungeons beyond those Gates.

I myself had never once in my life laid eyes on a Gate or a monster.

'They say plenty of hunters used to die fighting monsters back in the day.'

But deaths inside dungeons were nearly unheard of now, or so I'd heard.

Haeseong's lips flickered as he mulled over his answer. Then, brow faintly creased, he gave it.

"…It is dangerous. Even among hunters, the field teams are the people who handle every kind of mess…. But even among them, Team Na and a few others get assigned a disproportionate share of the dangerous jobs."

"Dangerous jobs? Is there dangerous work besides going into dungeons?"

"Yes…. Civilians wouldn't know, but beyond dungeon dives we take on all sorts of miscellaneous requests. It's the Peace Era, after all—dungeon clearing alone doesn't pay the bills."

"Ah… I see. Then is there a particular reason Team Na gets assigned the more dangerous work?"

"…There's a reason. Sort of."

……?

Haeseong's face twisted as if he'd bitten into something rotten. He squirmed in place for a while before forcing the words out, haltingly.

"Team Na, along with Field Teams Ga and Ra, happens to have an unusual concentration of high-rank Awakeners."

"I see."

"…Ah, um. The team leaders of those teams all have… quite the personalities. Team Ra's captaincy has been vacant for two years now, but the vice-captain isn't exactly a pushover either."

"Do the team leaders' personalities actually matter?"

Maybe because I'd never survived office life, I couldn't quite grasp how a boss's temperament translated directly into the difficulty of one's workload.

"…Unfortunately, yes. When a job comes in at BOND, it goes first to the Assignment Department, which assesses the difficulty, the manpower, and the scale of the operation, and then the appropriate field team is selected. The problem is the Assignment Department…."

……?

"It's crawling with every species of weirdo."

Huh?

"There are parachute hires who drifted down on board connections…. Then there are the ones with glittering résumés and rotten personalities. Ah, just… just a lot of strange people, okay? Half that department is tied to the directors, so if any one of them takes a personal dislike to someone on a field team… yes."

Haeseong swallowed the rest, but I could piece the picture together well enough.

'People with screws loose in their heads and powerful friends in high places get to adjust the difficulty of our work based on their personal grudges. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Is that it?'

…That's the worst thing I've heard all week.

And since the team leaders of Teams Ga, Na, and Ra were no pushovers themselves, that vicious cycle simply kept on turning.

…This won't do. 'I need to move that career-change consultation up.'

Resolved to reschedule the appointment, I asked the question that had drifted into my head without much thought.

"But how do you know all this, Teacher?"

How could a teacher at the company's attached kindergarten know the internal affairs of headquarters in this much detail?

'Does he have a friend on the staff?'

"……."

At my question, Haeseong turned his head with all the naturalness of a rusted hinge. His eyes, pinned to the maple tree in the distance, trembled faintly.

…If you give it away that obviously, how am I not supposed to notice?

Seriously. I wasn't even trying to figure it out, and I figured it out.

Haeseong had gone rigid as stone, like a man whose colossal secret had just been blown wide open.

"……."

One thing was certain: the information he'd shared had definitely not come through the suspiciously convenient channel of a "friend."

I gave up on extracting an answer from him.

Everyone has their circumstances, after all.

Besides, I wasn't that curious about the private business of a fully grown man.

An afternoon with a crisp breeze in it. Children were running wild across the kindergarten's outdoor playground.

Savoring a silence that cost nothing, I watched them play.

My class and the Seal Class kids were getting along splendidly, each absorbed in their own flavor of fun.

…How peaceful.

"I, I have… something I'm curious about, too."

Haeseong still hadn't moved his eyes off the maple tree.

'So this fellow has questions for me as well, huh.'

"Go ahead. Ask away."

"Well… during learning time, the children asked you as well, remember? What your dream was. I was wondering… whether you'd always meant to be a kindergarten teacher."

Ah.

Was he talking about the question Taejae had asked?

"I didn't get to hear the answer because the director called for you…. Ah, if you'd rather not say… you really don't have to."

? What, it's nothing.

There was no grand reason why I'd become a kindergarten teacher. It was only that explaining it meant digging all the way back to the days when I was still green behind the ears, and that was a chore.

"It wasn't my original dream, but back in my second year of middle school—"

Still, mindful of the sincerity of the person asking, just as I was doing my best to haul up those old memories to tell the story—

…?

An AI voice came over the speakers, and with it a siren shrieked across the grounds like tearing metal.

Even at the sudden noise, Haeseong didn't so much as twitch. The children, too, seemed used to it; they faltered for a heartbeat, then went back to playing.

"They've installed large speakers all over the company grounds, inside and out…. Some people don't check their phones or watches even in an emergency."

"The kindergarten building is soundproofed, so you can't hear any of it from inside. Outside, well… there's not much to be done."

I nodded along blankly at Haeseong's added explanation.

Judging by the mood, this happened often.

In that case, there was no need to let it bother me.

……!

Field Team Na.

The field team the twins' guardian belonged to.

I shot to my feet before my brain had caught up with my body, and stared straight ahead.

…I caught it. I could be certain of it.

Because the twins' movements… had stopped dead.

"We're screwed."

"…Pardon?"

My mind was running faster than it had in years.

Let me get this straight: the team Lee Seohyeok belonged to had returned mid-mission with injuries—urgent enough that they needed treatment from A-rank healing Awakeners. Was that it?

'This is serious.'

I held my breath and fixed my eyes on the twins a little distance away. And before long, I noticed one thing.

It was silent.

Chillingly so.

Haeseong leaned into my field of view, trying to read my face.

My gaze didn't waver an inch.

The swing that had been whipping back and forth like a Viking ship ride froze mid-arc. The toy shovels that had been busily hauling sand stopped mid-scoop.

It was as still as the eye of a typhoon.

Only me and the twins.

I barely gathered my wits and managed to think.

First, I should go over and calm them down—

"Huh? Seora, are you crying?"

Too late.

Taejae hunched down at the waist, peering at Seora's deeply bowed face.

She was about to cry.

"Huh? Lee Seora, are you crying? Teacher!! Lee Seora's crying~!"

"That's weird. Seoro's not crying, though? Seora, are you sick? Should we go to the hospital together?"

"Lee Seoro's not crying? Teacher! Lee Seoro's not crying~! Hey, Seoro, come dig sand over here!"

See? Didn't I say so.

The twins stood with their fists clenched tight, holding their silence like a last line of defense.

A moment later, a sob broke through, and their breathing turned ragged.

One, two, three…!

"Oppa, oppa, he—!"

……!

I closed the distance at nearly a sprint and caught Seora as she bolted, lost to all sense of direction.

Her breathing was erratic, hitching and gulping—she was tipping into a full-blown panic.

Worse, her ability was starting to leak out of her.

Calmly, I took Seora by the shoulders and turned her toward me.

For all my intention to speak as gently as I could, what came out was, against my will, a resolutely firm voice.

"Seora, no. You mustn't use your ability."

"…Hic!"

"Eyes on me. You can't use your ability right now."

It went without saying that the younger the child, the clumsier their grip on their own emotions.

Children this age in particular couldn't hold their feelings in, and those feelings spilled out through their bodies instead—fevers, hyperventilation, symptoms like that. And young Awakened children like Seora, I'd heard, sometimes lashed out with unchecked bursts of their abilities.

"It's okay. Your oppa is going to be okay. So let's calm down first, all right?"

Hoping to anchor her gaze in place, I deliberately held her eyes, stubborn and unblinking.

Thankfully… before long, her breathing began to settle. The flickering afterimages of flame that had been dancing around her vanished like a ghost.

"Good. Look at me. It's okay. It's okay."

I scooped up the tear-streaked child and made to head straight inside the kindergarten to find out what had happened.

'I did. I made to.'

"Seoro…?"

If only Seoro hadn't chosen that exact moment to go pattering full-tilt for the front gate, right beside me.

"Catch Seoro!" I shouted urgently at Haeseong, who stood rooted in place, watching us.

Haeseong faltered for a beat, then—with a few economical movements—scooped up the small body bolting for the gate, clean as anything.

Dangling. Short legs floating in midair, the boy began to writhe and strain in Haeseong's arms.

"Put me down, please! Let go!!"

"…I did catch him, though."

The child's thrashing didn't seem to land so much as a scratch on him. Haeseong looked at me, utterly helpless.

"I said let go of me!!"

Unlike Seora, Seoro had forgotten his ability entirely; he just stamped the air with his feet, kicking and kicking.

However knotted my thoughts, I was careful not to let the slightest hint of it show.

And like that, I quietly watched.

Until Seoro wore himself out in Haeseong's arms.

…I feigned blindness to the pleading glances Haeseong kept sending my way.

'Just hang in there a little longer, buddy.'

A while passed like that.

Only after both his arms and legs had gone limp did I take Seoro back from him.

"Thank you. I'll take it from here."

The moment that warm, snug little body heat wrapped around my neck, a sigh slipped out of me of its own accord.

I stroked down Seoro's back, and between the hiccuping sobs I felt my shoulder growing damp, little by little.

"…Teacher Haeseong, please look after my class for me. Snack time is soon—just make sure the kids get their snacks."

Glancing my way once in a while as he went, Haeseong led the remaining children inside.

Once I'd confirmed the playground was empty, I set Seoro down on the ground.

'Both of their eyes are an absolute mess.'

"Worried about your hyung?"

I quietly took a hand of each child and waited. At last, choking down sobs, they spoke.

"Hyung… he, he got hurt last time, too…."

"And the time before that, too. He keeps getting hurt."

"He said he was fine…. I don't believe oppa anymore! Mom and Dad said they were fine, too…. And they died."

…Ah.

So that was it. It began to fall into place, piece by piece.

The unusual maturity I'd sensed from the two of them during art time, and the depth of their devotion to Lee Seohyeok.

I'd had my own suspicions about a number of things, even as part of me hoped I was wrong.

One of those things was, precisely, the absence of their parents.

A parent's absence doesn't necessarily curdle into love and fixation on whoever steps in as guardian. But children come to know it instinctively, all the same—who it is that's still left beside them.

And if even that one person left beside them came home battered every single day….

One of the truths adults never realize is just how much children actually know.

No matter how carefully hyung—how carefully oppa—tried to hide it, there was no way they couldn't tell that he did work where his life was on the line.

"You want to go see your hyung, don't you? And Seora wants to see her oppa too."

Which is why a slightly different thought occurred to me. Purely rationally speaking, it was the wrong call, but….

"…Yes!"

"…Can we really see him?"

But then, no one can be rational all the time, can they.

"Of course. So no more crying—up you get, both of you. Be strong."

I hauled the two of them upright—they kept crumpling toward the ground—and tidied their clothes. I brushed the sand from their cheeks and smoothed their wrecked hair until it was neat, and then….

I clamped a twin under each arm and ran!

I didn't want to imagine the worst. But the moment I remembered the dangerous requests Haeseong had let slip, not imagining it was the harder thing to do.

'As long as they come back with all four limbs attached… they take jobs brutal enough that they come home smiling.'

…All I could do was pray that Lee Seohyeok still had all four of his.

Chin held high, twins clutched to my chest, I ran until my feet caught fire.

Thanks to which, I was standing in the headquarters lobby in no time at all.

Scrambling to beep the access pass hanging at my neck as I ran, I noticed my cheeks… stinging.

Somehow, the spectacle of a man in an apron bounding between people in suits and work uniforms, a child in each arm, had unfolded in full view of the lobby—and frankly, the situation was pretty funny.

'I must look like a lunatic.'

But even as passersby gave me odd looks, I didn't care in the slightest.

"Emergency center, emergency center. No—where on earth is the emergency center?"

Did anyone think a full sprint with two kids in your arms was easy?

I'd run until my breath was caught at the base of my throat, and my head was a blur.

That's why I didn't see it.

The Status Window, spouting this kind of lunatic nonsense, either.