Strawberry Milk and a Third-Floor Fire

After that short, intense first meeting with the twins, we finally arrived at proper playtime. Since it was their first day, I figured we'd keep it light.

"Today, we're going to draw something you love, and then share it with your friends!"

Drawing was a lifesaver of an activity — crayons, pens, and a sheet of drawing paper, and two hours would sail right by. It burned little energy, and best of all, the finished pictures let you peek into the thoughts and feelings the kids kept hidden. Nothing opened the door to conversation quite like it, either.

Each child grabbed their colored pencils and crayons and got to work. I watched them closely from the side, pitching in as a faithful assistant, while Kwon Haeseong...

...was scribbling away at his notebook with great intensity. I almost asked what he was doing, but one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠look at that oddly giddy face of his and my mouth shut itself.

Is he... drawing along with the kids?

"……"

He seemed focused, so I'd leave him be. Instead, I decided to give some attention to our newest friend — our little old-fashioned scholar of the group.

"Ooh, what's this? Wow, is that a potato?"

"Yes, it's a potato."

"So Taejae likes potatoes, huh?"

"I do! Potatoes are one of the famine-relief crops, you know. Rice, wheat, corn, and potatoes are called the four great staple crops. They're rich in vitamin C, so they're healthy AND tasty. I saw it on Imagination Info Network, and potatoes also..."

...Our Taejae was a certified potato fanatic. He spoke without so much as pausing for breath — exactly like someone back at my place. Just as he was stealthily segueing into full potato salesmanship, I hastily struck up conversation with Noah to escape.

Scary... I almost walked out of here with ten kilograms of Hongcheon County potatoes.

"Ta-da! Our Noah needs a red colored pencil right about now, doesn't he?"

"Whoa! Yep! That's right! Teacher, how did you know? I was just going 'Red, come out!' in my head! Are you a mental-type Awakener too?"

Mental-type? Hmm, he means a psychic-class Awakener, I suppose. I did vaguely recall hearing that among psychic Awakeners, there were occasional individuals who could read other people's thoughts. Extremely rare, they said.

"Sadly, no — this teacher is not a psychic Awakener~"

"Wow! Then how did you know?"

"Well, it's a secret, but... I'm actually an alien. That's why sometimes I can hear Noah's thoughts in my head."

"...An alien? You're an alien, Teacher?"

"Yep. But this is just between you and me, okay? If anyone else finds out, I'll have to go back to my home planet in space."

"......Whoa."

I made sure to wear the grave expression of a man who had just entrusted someone with an enormous secret. And when I snuck a glance at Noah's drawing paper, I found UFOs big and small soaring across it alongside a crowd of green antennae-sporting aliens.

"Can you keep our secret, just the two of us?"

"Of course! You can count on me!!"

Noah declared it solemnly, pounding his own little chest for emphasis. Really, nothing built trust and kicked off a conversation like a shared interest.

Of course, if the joke goes too far, it becomes a problem.

But this much would be fine. Reading Noah's face as he snuck glances at Taejae, I could already see the near future.

Look at him, practically vibrating with the urge to tell someone.

Soon the secret ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would spread bit by bit, until one day the kids would put it on trial — truth or lie. And on that day, I would be the one getting chewed out by Noah.

If you want to get close to them, you've got to accept that much.

Once Taejae's five-minute potato lecture and my divinely inspired one-man theater for Noah wrapped up, I moved over to the twins to catch my breath. Both of them had their lips pursed in concentration, identical down to the last detail. Utterly, unmistakably twins. Having weathered a crisis together with them and grown reasonably comfortable in a short span of time, I opened my mouth with a fairly light heart.

"Let's see... and what might this be?"

...And that complacent thinking of mine turned deadly serious very, very quickly.

I'm going to need to schedule a parent-teacher conference.

Parent-teacher conferences at kindergartens are typically held on a regular schedule. That said, there are cases where a teacher, based on their own observation of a child, requests one as needed. Usually the subject is friendship troubles, emotional shifts, developmental delays — the usual fare.

In this case, though, the emotional state would be the main agenda.

I wonder if the guardian has any idea.

It hadn't taken me long to arrive at that conclusion. Rewinding the clock a little: it all started when I asked everyone to describe what they felt looking at each other's drawings.

"Let's see, Seoro. What's this spiky thing? It's so scary! It looks like these sharp spikes are flying toward you — did you block them? Seoro, you're so brave."

My rough interpretation of Seoro's drawing went something like this: a massive chunk of ice hurtling toward a tiny human, and the tiny human blocking it. The tiny human was most likely Seoro himself.

"That's right. I'm a hunter here, and this is the blue light the villain shot."

"Ohh, I see. Well, I did say to draw something you love — so what is it you love here, Seoro?"

The blue light? Or hunter-him? Or, heaven forbid, the villain?

...Whatever it was, please let it not be the villain.

"These two, here."

The small hand clutching a colored pencil pointed, completely against my expectations, at two spots.

Hm?

Behind the tiny hunter stood two even tinier humans. One wore a black t-shirt; the other had a ribbon in her hair. The child continued in a quiet voice.

"It's my big brother and Seora. My dream is to become a hunter someday. So I want to work instead of my brother, and have Seora and him stay home where it's safe."

"......!"

Startled, I wanted to say something — anything. But it didn't feel like the right choice, so I kept silent. Children have a way of ambushing adults with words no one sees coming.

Just a few hours ago, an ability he'd unleashed in anger had become an ability to protect his family. He was still young enough to be swept away by his emotions — but this was the kind of thought he carried with him every ordinary day.

"...Why? Why is that your dream?"

I wanted to know the reason. What could possibly be going through this small child's head, to make him cherish such a tender, admirable idea?

"Because my brother comes home hurt every single day."

While I was still processing Seoro's words, Seora — who had been quietly drawing beside us — answered in his place. Through the fingers of her crayon-smudged hands, I could see her drawing, bursting with color.

It showed a huge round table piled high with food, and an enormous person smiling happily beside it. Next to the figure, in wobbly crooked letters, were the words: [MY BELOVED BIG BROTHER].

"I love my brother and food the most. Of course I love Lee Seoro too. But the paper was too small, so I couldn't draw you or me..."

In the end, unable to find a suitable response, I simply gave both children's heads a gentle pat.

It might have been over-reading. But sometimes, the essence of things shows itself in a single fragment.

Most kids drew the obvious — their favorite foods or robots, like Taejae and Noah. Could it be that the twins' maturity beyond their years had a particular reason behind it?

Several plausible scenarios came to me without any trouble at all. But... I'd leave them buried for now. There was plenty of time. I could take things slowly, one careful look at a time.

And that was a separate matter entirely. Hearing that the young man with the still-boyish face I'd met on my commute got hurt every single day left me with a strange, uneasy feeling. A niggling discomfort, you could call it.

He couldn't have looked older than his early twenties. What kind of job gets you injured daily?

...Meddling doesn't suit my personality, and I make a point of avoiding it. But

I'll just confirm it. That's all.

Telling myself my disease had flared up yet again, I opened the memo app on my phone and added a new item to the schedule.

"Did something fun happen today? Why are you so wired up?"

Lee Seohyeok found it odd, the way the twins came bounding through the door. They'd been like this at pickup, too, and their good mood showed no sign of fading.

"Yeah! Big brother! Big brother! I love the new teacher!"

"I like him too."

"...Hm? The new teacher?"

"Uh-huh. He talks all soft and quiet-like, and he played house with me."

"Yeah, and he told me I was brave."

"...Wait. Don't tell me—"

At the completely unexpected answer, Lee Seohyeok found himself picturing a certain young man from that morning's commute. He'd looked less like a kindergarten teacher and more like a college student his own age — and the fact that he wore plain, modest field gear, unlike everyone else around him, had made him stand out all the more. Then a fact he'd forgotten came drifting back to him.

The Dolphin Class homeroom teacher, replaced at the drop of a hat. He knew perfectly well that his younger siblings had played their part in that.

So THAT young man is their new homeroom teacher!

"You mean the teacher who walked us to kindergarten this morning, right?"

"Yep, that's him! Big brother, big brother, can I have a chocolate snack?"

"Didn't you have chocolate at kindergarten today?"

"Lee Seora ate chocolate snacks today. Two whole ones."

"Hey! We made up already!"

As the two puffed themselves up, gearing for round two, Lee Seohyeok headed for the kitchen with practiced ease. Then, without a word, he opened the ceiling hatch, pulled something out, and began preparing it.

Powdered strawberry stick mix. A stick of powder that turned into strawberry milk the moment you stirred it into a glass of milk — magic in beverage form. One of the two drinks the twins went absolutely feral for.

"You two going to keep fighting? Your big brother made you strawberry milk."

Lee Seohyeok held up two fish-patterned cups and grinned.

"We'll fight over who gets to eat it!"

"Eat? You drink it."

"Hey! Don't you drink it!"

"Why not? Our big brother made it for us."

The twins gulped down their milk in a frenzy, white mustaches blooming on their upper lips — all while the murderous eye contact between them continued uninterrupted. Lee Seohyeok was watching the scene with a fond smile when, quite suddenly, something struck him as off.

Something's... different? From this morning...

"Did you have outdoor activities today? Why did you change clothes?"

Their outfits were different from the ones he'd sent them off in that morning. Kids usually changed into spares when their clothes got dirty, so that alone wasn't strange. But then the morning clothes should have been sitting in their bags.

What the...? Their bag had no clothes in it...

The reason the changed-out-of clothes were missing was that, in the immediate aftermath of the fire-and-water debacle, the children's care had been handed over entirely to the medical team. They'd been changed into hospital gowns for a quick trauma check, and their original clothes had vanished somewhere in the shuffle of dozens of busy hands. Where ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would an already-overwhelmed medical staff find the spare attention to babysit two kids' laundry? After the examination, the twins returned to kindergarten in their hospital gowns, and Na Hwiyeon had changed them into the kindergarten's spare clothes. That was the full story.

Naturally, Lee Seohyeok had been out on a field ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠op at that exact moment, so he had no way of knowing any of it.

Instead, glancing absently at the twins' faces, he stumbled upon the correct answer by pure chance.

Rumble. There go their eyeballs, rolling around.

I know this face far, far too well.

"Talk. Now."

Lee Seohyeok spoke, ignoring the goosebumps crawling up his spine.

"...Lee Seora. This is when you play dumb."

Look at these two? Now they've learned to shift the blame.

But no chance. Not a snowball's.

"Well, well. Not talking, are we?"

What had they wrecked this time? He couldn't even begin to guess. Every time they pulled a big one, their clothes ended up in shreds — the spare outfits alone must have numbered in the dozens by now.

I got complacent because the calls had tapered off lately.

Lee Seohyeok slowly crossed his arms and fixed the two children with a long, level stare. Under that patient, unblinking gaze, the twins clutched their already-empty glasses and mimed drinking.

"If you tell me now, you won't be punished. But if you lie, or play dumb — then you'll be punished."

...In the end, it was Seora who cracked under the ferocity of the warning.

"We... we got into a fight..."

"Mm."

"I got angry and used my ability..."

"...Only Seora?"

This much I expected. One of the two pulls this stunt every so often.

If only it ended there.

"No. I used mine too. I was angry."

Lee Seohyeok grabbed his own head with both hands.

Both. Not one — BOTH of them caused an incident??

It looked like his first day at work, of all days!

What if he's so shocked he quits?!

Of course it had to be today, when meetings and report-writing had stacked up even after his field mission ended, keeping him late. In his rush, he'd asked Howon to collect the kids for him...

Even if the teacher wanted to tell me what happened today, it never would've reached me.

...Knowing Howon's personality, he'd have scooped up the twins and vanished before the teacher got a single word out.

Gulp.

He felt it every time — he was scared to ask.

His eyes squeezed shut. The dozens of calls and texts he'd received mid-mission flickered past, one after another.

"Can you tell me exactly how you fought?"

He needed a rough sense of the damage to know exactly how deep he'd have to bow.

Ninety degrees? A hundred and twenty? Or do I just drive my head straight into the floor?

He was holding his breath, waiting for the twins' answer, when—

With the notification chime, a familiar name lit up his screen. Odd — this woman never contacted anyone after clocking out.

"One second."

It might be mission photos, so he hurriedly turned away to check.

"Oh, come on..."

The photos showed the kindergarten building's third floor engulfed in flames, and the yard strewn with a chaotic jumble of half-burnt furniture. Behind it all, one man — drenched in sweat, face smeared with soot — was visible too.

...This wasn't "magnificent stunt" territory. This was a war zone.

Lee Seohyeok found his expression slipping badly out of his control. What was he feeling right now — anger? The urge to cry? Or the urge to crawl into some mouse hole and hide?

Scraping together every last scrap of composure left at the bottom of his soul, he looked at the twins again. They seemed to know they'd done wrong, slumped and deflated — and seeing that... drained all the fight out of him.

There, there. It's not like they did it on purpose.

A proper apology and we can smooth this over somehow.

"You did apologize to your teacher, didn't you?"

"……"

Something's wrong. Why do they look... startled?

"...Huh? Don't tell me — you didn't?"

Lee Seohyeok's face drained past pale, all the way to a deathly white.