Happy Birthday, Runaway
"Teacher! Is that lady dead?"
At Noa's question, which sent a chill soaking down my spine, I denied it on reflex.
"No. Absolutely not."
Then, just to be sure, I brought my hand up to the employee's nose and—
Sh-she was breathing.
I steadied my wobbly legs and, first things first, spoke to Nabi.
"Nabi, put her down for now."
[ Why? Wasn't she bullying you? ]
[ You said we shouldn't bully friends. ]
……Should I be touched right now, at the fact that this creature did all this with me in mind?
I shook my head weakly and said, firmly, "She wasn't bullying me. She was just… putting me in a bit of an awkward spot. If we want to stay here longer with Nabi, she can't get caught."
And then I raised my hand and patted the black forearm—
letting him know I was fine.
[ Really? ]
An unconvinced grumble echoed above my head, but—
"Yeah. Really."
At that confident answer, the hand gripping the employee slowly, gently lowered her… to the ground.
I immediately went over the condition of the woman I'd propped up against the wall at a slant. Then I reached my conclusion.
…She just fainted, right?
"Ha…."
That took ten years off my life.
I'd even pictured it, just for a moment—being hauled off to prison with a murder rap slung around my neck.
Shouting 'No, it was my monster friend who did it!' as they dragged me away, and everyone giving me that same icy stare of disbelief.
Good thing it stayed a fantasy.
I let out a long sigh and pushed myself up off the ground.
……Now then, time to deal with this.
The moment I turned around where I stood, Noa was already right behind me, arm shooting up in the air.
"Hello!"
Someone had clearly taught her to greet people warmly…
I'm the one who taught her that greeting, by the way.
With a soul-drained smile, I sank down onto one knee again to meet Noa's eyes.
"Hello, Noa. So you've been watching everything, huh."
Up close, Noa looked quite different from her usual self.
Instead of her neatly smoothed hair and tidy clothes—
her whole getup had a slightly feral, free-range look to it.
Her hair was a magpie's nest, and her clothes looked like she'd thrown them straight on over her pajamas.
I expertly smoothed down Noa's flyaway strands and straightened her outfit until it sat properly. Only once she was presentable did we face each other again.
Right…… explanations first, I suppose.
"So, um, that lady is an employee here…"
I relayed the situation as simply and concisely as I could, so Noa could follow along.
Did she understand?
"Oh! So the alien friend stopped that lady from attacking you, Teacher?"
Yes, ha…… the alien friend.
With no earthly idea how else to explain Nabi, I'd finally caved and used those exact words.
Do you remember?
The con I pulled on Noa back in my early days here, during art time.
Seeing the UFO and the lumpy green stick-figure alien drawn on Noa's paper, I'd snatched the opportunity for some bonding and told a quick lie.
-This is a secret, but Teacher is actually an alien.
-But you have to keep it just between us, Noa. If anyone else finds out, Teacher will have to go back home to outer space.
I'd done my sincere best to tailor the explanation of the mysterious entity known as 'Nabi' to a child's level, but…
"Hi! Are you really Teacher's friend from his home planet?"
Watching Noa bounce up and down in front of Nabi, eyes sparkling with curiosity…… I couldn't help the complicated ache in my chest.
And with that, my strategy of avoiding a face-to-face meeting between Nabi and the children at all costs had officially failed too.
Swallowing the urge to cry, I looked back and forth between my two charges.
[ Friend. ]
"Wow, you're really big~ Hello! Are you bigger than Teabot?"
[ Hello, friend! ]
"Give me a ride too! Like that lady earlier!"
[ Nice to meet you! Me too! ]
A completely non-functional conversation between the two of them.
If nothing else, I'll count it as a blessing.
Nabi, after all, could only really talk with me.
Watching the two of them quietly talk past each other, a thought suddenly struck me.
Come to think of it, wasn't that a first?
Nabi revealing that form in front of another person, outside the cave.
And yet, unlike back then, no icy fog had poured out, and Noa was perfectly fine.
I thought the employee fainted because Nabi showed himself…
Now that I looked, Noa was still standing there, bright as ever.
Completely unlike how she'd passed out in the cave.
I walked over slowly, scooped Noa up, and asked Nabi, "But why didn't you knock Noa out?"
Yes, I'm aware of how strange that sentence sounds.
[ She's a friend! ]
Ah.
"Then the employee?"
[ Not a friend. And she bullied you. ]
For the record, she did not bully me.
Though I suppose I understand now—you pick and choose who gets the special treatment.
"She'll wake up safe and sound later, right?"
[ Yeah. ]
"Then we're good."
I answered lightly and picked up my bag. Then I held it out toward Nabi, who was staring at me blankly.
"Okay, let's head back in."
[ ? ]
"We still have sightseeing to finish."
[ ! ]
Before the words had even finished leaving my mouth, the black hand poured itself back into the doll like smoke.
The torn seam along its back knit itself closed, tight and seamless… and before long it was a pristine, spotless plush doll again.
[ Let's go! ]
I'd explained things to Noa, and Nabi was back in the bag…
But I still have to handle the cleanup before we go.
I pulled the whistle out of my pocket, brought it to my lips, and without a moment's hesitation blew a stream of air into it.
-Peeeeeeeeep!!
***
A few minutes after the whistle, staff members dressed as police officers arrived and carried the unconscious woman away.
Throughout the whole process, I had to coolly play the part of 'just a startled visitor.'
-She came chasing after me out of nowhere, so I ran…. Then I heard a thud behind me, and when I turned around she was collapsed. I think she must have tripped on her way over.
-Oh my, that must have given you quite a scare.
-It's nothing. Aren't you the one who should be okay, though?
-Things like this happen from time to time. We'll take her straight to the infirmary, so don't worry. From what I saw earlier, she seemed to be coming around already.
On top of that, the dead-end alley I'd stumbled into by pure chance happened to be a blind spot with no CCTV, so I was able to leave the scene without raising a shred of suspicion.
And I picked this up along the way, apparently.
I looked down at the blue stamp inked on the inside of my wrist.
Not an axe, not a pair of scissors—
but a stamp that read:
[ ARREST COMPLETE: 1 ]
Oh….
Each team only got one stamp, and since Noa and I were teamed up, I'd claimed it on our behalf.
Shall we get moving again, then.
Taking Noa's hand, I stepped back out into the heart of the street.
And I brought up the question I hadn't been able to ask until now, with everything being so chaotic.
"Noa, did you come here with your mom?"
For my part, I was just relieved Nabi hadn't been spotted by anyone's mother…
but quite a lot of time had passed, and if her mom still hadn't shown up, had she gotten lost somewhere?
"Nope!"
"Hmm? Then…?"
Oh no. Don't tell me she lost her child?
Aigoo, if that's the case, this is a genuinely serious situation. What do I do?
But then, Noa's answer came flowing out of her mouth and shattered even my worst imaginings.
"I came by myself!"
"Oh…. You mean, to this theme park?"
"No! I came to the amusement park all by myself!"
I'm sorry, what?
……I must have misheard, right?
Haha, I must have played too hard today, if I'm hearing things now…
Because if not, none of this makes any sense.
Our kindergartner. Our Noa!
Came here ALONE?!
"Alone… to this place?"
"Yup! All by myself!"
Looking down at Noa's beaming face, I fumbled for my back pocket.
I had to call someone, right now…
"Hold on, Noa. Why did you come to the amusement park alone? No—how did you even get here alone?"
"I took the bus!"
"You took the bus?"
"Yeah! It was easy~ It's all written at the bus stop in front of our house! Gasp…. Don't tell me you didn't know that either, Teacher?"
"No, it's not that…"
"Buses exist so people can ride them, you know."
I blinked at this little lecture being delivered to me.
The bus? A preschooler under the age of seven rode a bus to an amusement park alone?
Without a word to her parents?
……My mind was reeling.
***
Running away from home.
Running. Away. From home.
With the soul gone clean out of my face, I looked back and forth between my phone and Noa.
No, and why won't the signal work this time?
Since it was linked to my work phone, finding Noa's mother's contact info had been easy enough.
The problem was that the call simply wouldn't connect.
I tried Kwon Haeseong and my brother at home just in case, but the results were a resounding silence.
After a few more attempts, even an incomprehensible message popped up:
[ OUT OF SERVICE AREA ]
I'm sorry—an age of cutting-edge twenty-first-century technology, and I'm getting "out of service area" at an amusement park near Seoul?
I couldn't understand it—no, could this possibly make any sense at all?
But clutching my phone wasn't going to change anything.
Right. Some indoor structures do block signals now and then.
Having completed my rationalization, I forced myself to stay calm and asked Noa, "Your mom doesn't know you came to the amusement park alone, does she?"
"Nope! I didn't tell Mom. I snuck out."
"……Was there a reason?"
"She promised that on my birthday we'd definitely go to Neverland together…. But yesterday she suddenly said she couldn't. That she had to go to work."
As she talked, the sadness seemed to catch up with her, and Noa scrubbed hard at her eyes with the end of her sleeve.
I watched her for a moment, then stared straight ahead.
Noa's mother works in BOND's production department, if I recall.
So that side's workload is no joke either, huh. Coming in on weekends and everything.
"But how did you even think to take the bus alone? Did you really catch it at the stop in front of your house?"
"Yeah! I looked at the route map at the bus stop in front of our house, and on the number 4 bus route it said 'amusement park'! So I took the number 4 bus! I'm really good at numbers."
……You read numbers too well, and that's how we got here.
As for money, she'd apparently grabbed her mom's card off the table on her way out and solved that problem herself.
"Cards are the BEST! I just showed them this, and they gave me a churro, and a headband too!"
No, sweetie. They didn't give it to you—you bought it.
So that's where the frog-eyeball headband perched on her head had come from…
A product of her mother's credit card.
By now, her mother had probably checked the card statement and learned the news of her daughter's great escape.
Having grasped the rough shape of the situation, I made a quick decision.
Sorry, Nabi—but we need to get out of here as fast as possible.
And I'd have to try Noa's mother again…
Ah, wait. Before that.
I unfolded the crumpled parchment note in my hand.
The sixth and final hint slip. I'd fished it out of a gap in the door of a nearby shop building on my way out of the alley.
I opened it, and sure enough, the expected word appeared.
[ 2 PEOPLE ]
Hmm…… well, we're heading out anyway, and it'd be a waste—maybe we'll make a quick stop by.
"Teacher, what are we gonna play next?"
To this innocent child's question, I answered with a breezy smile.
"We go find another culprit, that's what."
For a runaway child, the right thing to do was to find her guardian as quickly as possible…
but today happens to be that runaway child's birthday.
A little detour like this should be fine.
She's got her guardian right here, after all.
"There's another culprit?"
"Yep. One more culprit, hiding somewhere."
Two weapons and two professional clues, plus the gap in timing.
And decisively, a final hint naming two people.
We set off toward the last location marked on the map.
If the collapsed woman had been the murderer who sold newspapers and killed someone three days ago with an axe, then this one would be…
a serial killer who worked at a barbershop and wielded scissors as his weapon.
The whole point of the original film was the serial killer's identity, after all.
Not the perpetrator of the murder three days ago—
but two strangers who, by pure coincidence, committed the same crime against the same target at different times.
And one of them being the serial killer who had painted the streets of London red with fear—that was the original film's ending.
Chatting away with Noa as we walked, we arrived at our destination before I knew it.
[ JOHN BARBER ]
This time, however, I didn't open the door and walk in.
I simply grabbed a passing officer, pointed a finger through the doorway, and said this:
"That man is the culprit."
Taking the chase from earlier as a hard-learned lesson, I'd banned myself from ever approaching a culprit directly again.
But at the same time, this was the only way to get the culprit caught.
I just call the police first and point, that's all.
The officer's pupils wobbled without mercy.
"Uh, um…."
Apparently no one had ever just baldly accused someone like this before?
But it didn't matter.
The officer's reaction a moment ago had all but told me the answer anyway.
"I'm certain of it. That man is the culprit."
"……This is a first for me. I'd need to check the manual…"
"Can't you just look it up and call for backup?"
"Well, yes, but…"
"Then we're all set."
I thrust out my forearm, where the stamp already sat stamped, with total confidence.
And then—the officer, wearing a what can you do expression, pressed a stamp down onto my arm!
[ ARREST COMPLETE: 2 ]
Looking at the two prettily inked stamps, Noa and I met each other's eyes and grinned.
[ Wow! We caught them all! ]
Nabi was satisfied too.
We headed straight for the theme park's exit.
The employee who'd been sitting there with a bored face sprang to his feet at the sight of us, greeted us politely, and asked:
"May I see your stamps, please?"
The moment I showed him the two stamps on my wrist, his eyes grew wider and wider, and he spoke with a voice full of cheer.
"Whoa! You got BOTH stamps?"
"Yep."
"Congratulations! Most people only get one and head home empty-handed. You're only the second one today! Here, your prize."
With that, he ducked into the storeroom behind the exit and pulled out a giant green onion plush doll, nearly as big as Noa herself.
I tucked Noa under one arm and the green onion plush under the other, then walked out through the exit the employee showed us.
Waving both hands in farewell, the employee called out to us:
"Thank you for your hard work. Welcome to Candy Fiore."
I'd heard that the exit of That Fog, That Man connected to the outdoor theme park on the northern grounds of Neverland.
I lifted my head to take in the clear sky that was about to open up before us—
and stopped dead in my tracks.
What… is this.
"Whoa! It's a candy world!"
[ Whoa! It's a candy world! ]
Because a landscape completely, utterly different from the photos I'd found online was greeting us.
I spun around and looked back at the exit I'd just come through.
The smiling employee waved, and the open door began to close.
"Candy Fiore protects the child in everyone!"
And then—whoosh—
it vanished.
The employee who'd waved us off with a smile, and the exit that led back to 'Candy Fiore'—both of them, gone.