#52 At Dawn (4)
#52 At Dawn (4)
She lunged so suddenly my body reacted before I could think. When I dodged, Baek So-yul's voice wobbled.
"Why... why did you dodge?"
Without realizing it...? I'd suppressed my magical power and changed my appearance, but apparently she'd recognized me instantly — maybe because of Perry. Judging by the way her fists clenched, as though something precious had just been snatched away, the joy of reunion had already taken a hit. She tried again. Two or three more times, in fact. She refused to give up on hugging me, so in the end I surrendered and let her. One person faints at the mere sight of me, and another insists on latching onto me...
"Haaaaah..."
Baek So-yul let out an extended breath after clinging to me for a good long while. She'd been drawing it in like she was recharging, and now a satisfied smile spread across her face. She'd been suffocating — confined to the clan headquarters — and on top of that, her teacher had been barely functional for the past few days, which hadn't made things any easier. She'd been starting to wonder whether her teacher might be slipping into depression when she met Alpha — and for her, that was the greatest gift she could have asked for.
Maybe it was the rebound. Baek So-yul didn't hold back.
"I started thinking... I might never see you again."
Even with that weight of feeling in her words, the Wolf simply nodded. Baek So-yul kept stroking his coarse black fur and felt the negative emotions she'd been carrying dissolve like snowmelt. If she had it her way, time would just stop right here...
After holding on for a long while, a belated worry crept in — what if he didn't actually like being grabbed like that without permission? But when she saw him tilt his head with that blank look, a laugh slipped out of her. Then Baek So-yul noticed something: the Wolf hadn't said a single word.
"Is it..."
"I can."
The Wolf cut in as if he'd read her mind, and Baek So-yul's eyes went round. Perry was already circling her, tail batting the air.
"Kyu-kyu~!"
As though she'd suddenly developed a grievance. Baek So-yul took it to mean Perry wanted to be held and pulled her into a hug, but Perry shook her head — no, that wasn't it.
"Kyu-kyu! Kyuuuu~!!"
After thrashing around for a while, Perry finally went limp as if to say, fine, done.
"......Kyu~."
Whether or not that was the case. The Wolf ripped open a subspace, extended a tentacle, and pulled something out. As the object came into view, a sharp, tingling fragrance spread through the air.
"...Ah?"
A piercing scent. A cool clarity that cleared her head. A thick, magical aroma that bordered on intoxicating. The moment she saw the large ginseng with its long, trailing rootlets, Baek So-yul knew intuitively — this was a spiritual medicine.
"This..."
"Take it."
Baek So-yul frowned, and the Wolf cocked his head again. He'd expected her to be pleased, but that wasn't the reaction he was getting.
'Wait, had she already eaten ginseng before?'
Spiritual medicines have diminishing returns on raising magical power, but still...
"You mean... you're giving this to me?"
What did she think he'd pulled it out for, to show off? When he nodded, her expression turned complicated.
"Why?"
She asked with her gaze lowered — meeting his eyes — and when he tilted his head, Baek So-yul asked again.
"...Why are you giving it to me?"
"......?"
"It's precious. There are people who could make better use of it. Not me..."
I shook my head. I couldn't speak for everything else, but there was nobody who could utilize a spiritual medicine more fully than her. What if it had been Baek So-yul, not me, who swallowed Chimmuk-haneun Ip's Life Vessel? She might not have reached Hong Yuri's level, but she could well have ended up with magical power rivaling any run-of-the-mill A-class hunter.
Granted, the thing had been edible for me specifically in the first place... but regardless, the point stood: no one had better absorption efficiency with these medicines than she did. When I met her eyes with certainty, Baek So-yul dropped her gaze.
"...I have no way to repay you."
You're my benefactor. If I owe you even more, how am I ever supposed to repay it? She felt the weight settling on her shoulders. Could she really, truly accept this? As she wrestled with it, she flinched at the sound of the Wolf's sigh. Had she been supposed to just take it quietly...? Baek So-yul squeezed her eyes shut — and startled at the sensation brushing her hand.
—Because the spiritual medicine was already pressed into her palm.
"You don't have to repay it."
Baek So-yul bit her lip. She turned those words over in her mind again and again, and in the end, she accepted the medicine.
"...If you put it like that, how can I not take it."
The ginseng in her hands, she spoke as if steeling herself.
"I will pay you back. No matter what."
"...So, can I come see you from time to time?"
***
—As Baek So-yul's figure receded into the distance, I nodded. I'd handed it over; she'd take it on her own. Even if all it did was raise her magical power, that would be one less thing to worry about.
'She needs to be able to handle the tails and the small fry, at least.'
For now she was inside Dawn, so even Prodigal Sons wouldn't be brazen enough to try kidnapping her — unless their guts had spilled out of their stomachs — but she couldn't stay cooped up in Dawn forever. Baek So-yul genuinely needed to raise her own level.
'Or better yet...'
A thought flickered through my mind, and I glanced at Perry. For some reason, the little creature wore an expression of complaint.
"Kyu~"
She'd been so delighted earlier... now she was tugging at the tip of my ear like she wanted to go back. Just as I was about to head up, I turned my head at the sound of someone charging toward us.
"......?"
And just like that, I came face-to-face with the person who had run up, breathing hard.
"......!"
—She went rigid, and then she started trembling.
I half-expected her to faint again, but Hong Yuri gritted her teeth and held on. She yanked her beanie down over her eyes and started climbing the stairs through sheer grit and spite, gripping the handrail along the wall. It was painfully slow, but watching her, I felt a flicker of admiration.
Fear. An imprinted terror — that sort of thing isn't something you shake off easily.
I knew from experience exactly how hard it is to take even a single step forward. And yet, here was Hong Yuri, trying to confront it head-on and overcome it.
'...I won't need to find a separate mage.'
Seeing her climb — slowly, but unmistakably — I decided to quietly step aside. No need to torment someone who was already struggling.
—That was my intention, at least.
Kang Tae-ho, approaching from the opposite end of the hallway, spotted Hong Yuri laboring up the stairs and pulled his lips into a smirk. As his mouth slowly opened, I couldn't suppress the "no way" brewing in my mind. And the "no way" became reality.
"Woof!"
Kang Tae-ho, having mimicked a dog's bark, doubled over clutching his stomach and rolling. I shook my head with a sigh.
'Did this guy seriously flush his age down the toilet?'
Did he think that was funny? I was about to head up to the next floor when I heard the inevitable — the sound of someone collapsing. I squeezed my eyes shut.
—At least this time, the cleanup didn't take too long.
***
"You look tired."
Kang Tae-jun, who had been organizing paperwork, murmured it like he wasn't sure whether he was talking to himself or to me.
"Lee Eun-ha will be back tomorrow, so we can confirm then. I already consider any doubt unnecessary, but..."
Lee Eun-ha is coming — a vaguely odd feeling passed through me. Still, once the facts were verified, it would make building trust that much easier. I didn't know how long it would take, but I intended to stay at Dawn until the work I'd asked Kang Tae-jun to handle was finished.
'I don't know how the Phantom Butterfly situation will play out.'
Killing Agail was bound to have changed something. Whether that change would flow in a good direction or a bad one, though, I couldn't predict.
'If they've already joined Prodigal Sons...'
—No compromise. If Square Master was going to turn his coat anyway, the right move would be to kill him on the spot. And if it came to that, nine times out of ten...
"Kyu-kyu~!"
...So for now, let's savor the present. No one knows what comes next.
***
In the small hours before dawn. At the sound of tossing and turning, Baek So-yul pushed back the blanket and sat up, exhaling heavily. She'd worried her teacher might be crying alone again, but the moment she caught the sharp, stinging scent pricking her nose, she tilted her head.
'Alcohol?'
The trickling sound of a drink being poured. Then it was knocked back in one go. Her teacher looked young, but Baek So-yul was reminded all over again that she was an adult. Then she spotted six already-empty bottles of soju and frowned.
She'd never drunk alcohol herself, but she could at least tell that this wasn't normal. Or maybe — hunters simply had a hard time getting drunk. The thought vanished cleanly the moment a tripping tongue started wailing, "I'm going to fucking kill Kang Tae-ho, I swear to god—!" between sobs. Realizing she needed to step in, Baek So-yul called out.
"Teacher."
"......."
Had she not heard? The way her shoulders jerked said otherwise. Baek So-yul settled herself quietly beside Hong Yuri and placed a hand on her back.
"You have work tomorrow, remember?"
Hong Yuri only nodded instead of answering. Thinking it would pass quietly after all, Baek So-yul was caught off guard when Hong Yuri started retching. She hauled her up fast, and just barely managed not to be too late.
"Ugh..."
Patting the back of Hong Yuri, who had emptied her stomach completely, Baek So-yul sighed.
"What on earth happened? Don't tell me it was again..."
At the question — had she met Alpha? — Hong Yuri nodded. So that did set this off... Just as Baek So-yul was putting it together, Hong Yuri chewed her lip raw.
"Fucking bastard... said he didn't know... said no one would know..."
Her pronunciation was sloppy and thick. Muttering like she'd been wronged, Hong Yuri suddenly whipped her head around to face Baek So-yul.
"I didn't piss myself! I held it in. I held it in!"
"......."
"But. But...!"
Kang Tae-ho, that crazy son of a bitch, had barked at her. As if pouring out a grievance, Hong Yuri buried her face in Baek So-yul's chest, and Baek So-yul gently patted her back.
"I didn't, I didn't...!"
Throwing up seemed to have made the intoxication worse. With tears welling up at the corners of her eyes, Hong Yuri couldn't contain her frustration and began to sob openly.
"...Do you know how hard I tried!"
The things she'd heard in the conference room, the emotions that had piled up inside her over time. Hong Yuri cried and wailed and let it all spill out.
Gu Jin-ha was lying in a hospital bed. He still couldn't even get up. If she'd taken part in Neverland, would things have turned out differently?
Even so, she couldn't say anything to Alpha about it. Yes, it had started because they'd clashed from different positions, but in the end, the one who'd been in the wrong was her.
What the Clan Leader had said in the conference room — every single word of it was right, but it had still been devastating to hear. And the stunt Kang Tae-ho had pulled had driven her up the wall. She knew Alpha wouldn't actually do her any harm, but she couldn't help being terrified, couldn't stop herself from reacting.
And yet Alpha had helped her. Had thrown water on her every single time, trying to cover for her. Trying to protect her pride like that was more humiliating than anything. If he'd just cursed at her or shown contempt... she already felt wretched enough simply because he hadn't killed her, and on top of that, she'd accepted a spiritual medicine from him.
Just thinking about it made her shake all over... This couldn't go on. She knew she had to resolve it somehow, but she couldn't find the courage. What if she apologized and he hated her for it? What if he wouldn't accept it? No — could she even speak in the first place?
Alpha wasn't even in his true form. He was just a small dog. And yet, simply staying on her feet in front of him was a struggle...
Even if she granted herself a hundred concessions and assumed she could do it, what would she even say? The more she thought, the more her head tangled into a snarled mess. Because stubborn, bull-headed as she was, she had no idea how to apologize honestly.
That was why — that was why she felt like she was losing her mind.
Having poured out every hidden thought she'd kept from everyone until now, Hong Yuri sobbed and clung to Baek So-yul. Then her eyes widened as she felt arms wrapping around her in return, and she looked up.
"It's okay... Teacher, you've been trying, right?"
Hong Yuri nodded despondently. After comforting her for a long while, Baek So-yul stroked her hair.
"If it's hard, I'll go with you."
"......Really?"
Somehow they'd migrated to the bed. Baek So-yul nodded as though it was a promise, and Hong Yuri, finally at ease, drifted off to sleep under that steady, patting hand.......
"......."
Baek So-yul watched her for a long time, then lay down beside Hong Yuri and closed her eyes. Deep in the night, at the latest hours, the two of them pulled the same blanket over themselves, lying side by side, and slept.
"......!"
—When morning came, Hong Yuri woke up, and the blanket ended up shredded into tatters.