How Awkward
CRACK! Pele's fire club swept through the air, and Phantom spun once before he came down.
"Pele, I don't believe the dream has broken. Kindly swing once more."
"Got it."
CRACK!
The club came around again, and the sound of a skull breaking rang out even louder.
"Hsss. Something's off."
"Right? What's going on? Did you cause another mess?"
Pele chewed her soy-glazed chicken with a grave face. The sharp tang of soy, and the smooth boneless meat, trampled her tongue. Phantom set his cracked head back in order and knocked back a zero cola, and a body-ruining sweetness—sugar and fizz together—flooded his stomach.
"It wasn't me."
"Then why is the world like this? This isn't a dream, is it?"
"I wonder the same. A dream world that can imprison even a god without the slightest sense of wrongness... I can think of only two things capable of it."
"...Why stop so awkwardly at two?"
Pele emptied a whole box of chicken, spat into her palms, and rubbed them together. Thorns bristled along the fire club, and magma beaded soft and swollen at every tip.
BOOM! Phantom went whirling through the air. A gloomy Sword brushed past him, and Phantom planted his head in the wall.
"Because there really are two."
"...Fine. I'll ask. What are they?"
"One is Gwan, the King of the Mind. He can toy with the real world and the world of the mind however he pleases."
"Ah. That one could manage it. And the other?"
Phantom switched on the robot vacuum and set it to clearing the crumbled wall. Whirrr. The little machine nibbled the debris away, bit by bit.
"The Guardian of Records could create a situation like this."
"The Guardian of Records?"
"A monster. Beyond all imagining."
Pele made a troubled sound. In all her memory, there was no one Phantom had rated so highly. He had faced even the first of the fallen as if it were nothing much.
"Which is it?"
"Who can say. Neither feels plausible. I am considering a third option."
He swallowed. His eyes went to Hong Yumin, and he let out a long sigh.
"That something is wrong with Miss Hong Yumin's mind..."
"Hk—!"
Pele swallowed her tears, as if she could not bear to hear another word. Tears poured down Phantom's mask. He drew out a handkerchief and wiped them away.
"...I thought that might be possible too. But that's too horrible...!"
"What else are we to do! Miss Hong Yumin has been unconscious for a long time. So it is entirely possible that—!"
"My heart hurts so much!"
"KRA-HA-HA-HUUUNG!"
Phantom and Pele threw their arms around each other and wailed. Hong Yumin trembled.
"...On your feet."
"Yes."
"Yep!"
At a voice gone damp with fury, shame, and a trace of moisture, the two performers snapped to parade rest.
"...Did you know? All of it?"
Fists clenched, Hong Yumin spoke as if she were chewing the pair of them fine and spitting them out.
"No. I didn't know."
"I didn't know either."
They answered crisp as raw recruits.
"Then why?"
"Because it doesn't make sense."
"Doesn't make sen—"
WHAM! Hong Yumin's kick drove into Phantom's solar plexus. The window blew apart, and dust rose from the yard. Cold sweat broke on Pele. For this single moment, she was grateful to be a god.
"Return."
"Phantom, reporting."
At the icy command, he crawled back to his place like a dog.
"...I."
As if spitting blood, Hong Yumin forced out once more the words that had made every ear in the room doubt itself.
"Was asking to go on a d-d-date really so strange?"
"Is it not strange? You and I are hardly that sort of—"
WHAM! This time it was Pele who sent him flying.
"...Pele?"
"He deserved that one."
"Why...?"
"You don't need to know, idiot."
When Phantom tried to rise, Pele dropped a prison of fire over him.
"Pele?!"
"Stay there a minute."
With his eyes and ears sealed away, she looked at Hong Yumin.
"...Calmed down?"
Hong Yumin would not look at her. She was busy gathering her feelings, and Pele waited, quiet.
"Haa."
Once the heat had drained out of her, Hong Yumin sighed as if she meant to drag the ceiling down with it.
"Going back?"
"Yes... I shall shut myself in my room for a hundred years or so."
Her shoulders sagged. Pele raised a Fire Wall and cut off the escape.
"If you wanted to go out and play, why use the word date?"
"...I believe I have lost my mind."
"You chose the wrong word. You ought to have said what you meant."
A date—for that proud child, an immortal high above the clouds. Was there any word in the world less suited to her?
"Yes. Then I must cultivate my mind."
"You don't have to. You're normal."
"No. I cannot trust myself."
"Quit the nonsense and come here."
Pele beckoned. Hong Yumin edged closer, hesitant, and with a soft tok a box of yangnyeom chicken—glossy with spicy-sweet glaze—laid its tender meat bare before her.
"Eat. You haven't had a thing."
Her stomach growled.
"...Yes."
Hong Yumin did not ignore the signal. She took up a disposable fork and stabbed the chicken. Crunch—the crust collapsed, and the juices hidden inside burst free. She munched. The sauce on her tongue burned. Artificial sweetness, a ruinous flavor that wrecked the very balance of flesh. Delicious. Her throat opened wide, and she swallowed after barely a chew. It caught. Cola cleared the way.
"There. You look a little better."
"Yes. A little."
Hong Yumin's air settled by another degree. The strange atmosphere, as if it had been forced into being, fluttered off, and she returned to herself—grave, and heavy with presence.
CRUNCH! The fork speared two pieces at once. Sauce ran all the way down the handle, and her hands were filthy. But the hands belonged to Hong Yumin, and every motion was noble.
"Eat slowly. There's plenty."
"Thank you, Pele."
The box was empty in under ten minutes. Two liter-and-a-half bottles of cola vanished with it. Crunch, crunch. Eating french fries for dessert, Hong Yumin's eyes flashed with cold reason.
"Who blew that notion into you?"
"Lord San-gun. But the choice was mine. Pay it no mind."
A flinch. San-gun, who had crept down at some point to covet the chicken, arranged his face into the cutest expression he could manage. Pele flicked the air with a finger. He toppled backward, and his forehead dented in.
"That will do as punishment for meddling in another's feelings. Child of Heaven, what do you want to do?"
Hong Yumin shrugged.
"I must. The date."
"You're going through with it?"
"Yes."
"Is that love?"
Pfft. Hack. Sipsado, who had been stealing little bites of chicken, pounded her chest, and San-gun rubbed her back.
"It is not love. It is a repayment, after my own fashion."
"Well, if it means getting to wander around with you, that's the greatest reward there is."
Objectively, Hong Yumin was a beauty. Subjectively, she was a beauty. By the measure of the whole world, she was a beauty: an ultimate forged by the years, with nowhere a flaw could hide. A date with her—there would be no shortage of people willing to pay a fortune for the chance.
"But you know that much isn't enough."
"Yes."
She agreed at once.
"The grace you received cannot be turned into a price."
"I know."
"You will have to choose carefully, and decide for yourself."
"I understand."
"Then that's enough."
Silence slid through the room.
"And what of you, Pele?"
"What of me?"
"You have been shown no less grace than I. How do you mean to settle it?"
"Bet I'll do better than you."
Silence. San-gun froze with his nose still buried in the box. Sipsado covered her mouth with both hands. Sword found himself thinking of a Korean drama.
"...Hm."
Hong Yumin let out a thin hum and rose from her seat.
"Do you have feelings for him?"
Glance. Glance. The three onlookers checked one another's eyes, then crept back toward the wall, careful not to enter anyone's view.
"It's not that I don't. He might fall short of a god's mate out of the myths, but he's a decent enough man to keep beside you, don't you think?"
"...Is that so."
"It is."
Pele grinned. The air in the room went cold, as if they had all been sunk in ice water. Hong Yumin said nothing and turned toward the prison of fire.
Phantom was kneeling there, perfectly well behaved.
"Ah, you have come, stranger. And have you business in this place, after so long?"
He was still talking nonsense.
"Come out."
"Yes."
Phantom smashed the prison and burst free.
"You heard, I trust."
"Well, yes. I didn't know you thought of me that way. Someone to whom a debt was owed. I didn't save you for that."
"Whatever it was. Between one person and another, you have shown me a great grace. To ignore it would serve neither of us."
"You don't have to repay me. It feels like settling accounts in coin."
"I am the one who is uncomfortable. Be silent, and accept it."
"...If that satisfies you, then very well."
Phantom removed his mask. A tall, finely made young man with black hair smiled.
"Let's do it. A date."
"Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow is difficult."
He gestured around the house.
"Once we've cleared what's been broken, and finished the aftermath of the Heavenly Punishment. You ought to rest, too."
"How long do you think it will take?"
"About... a week?"
"All right. I understand."
She crossed the room in long strides and dropped onto the sofa, chewing chicken as if it were combat. He came in as well, sat on the floor, and ate.
"How awkward."
Pele gave a bitter smile, and spoke for every heart in the room.
And so, on that day, a date was set between a man and a woman who were neither one thing nor the other.