Like That Would Work?
The front door banged open.
"...You're home?"
Mi Soryeong was there to meet Dan Chuyeon as he came in through the entryway.
"It must have been hard. I made a snack, so..."
"I'm fine..."
He brushed past her without so much as a glance.
"Chuyeon..."
At his mother's pitiful voice, his steps stopped. He bit down on his lip, shoved the tangle of feeling to one side, and forced the corner of his mouth up.
"I'm really fine. I'm tired. I'm going to go rest."
"...Sleep well. And wash up."
"Yes."
Mi Soryeong lowered the hand she had reached toward her son's back.
"...Soryeong."
"Honey."
She folded into Dan Miryu's arms.
"...What if Chuyeon comes to hate us?"
"He's a strong child. He'll get through it."
"...Yeah. Chuyeon isn't weak."
Dan Miryu felt his chest growing damp. He stroked her black hair.
"...Did the talk go all right?"
"Somehow. I told him what mattered. There's still plenty I couldn't say. We'll untangle that little by little."
"You did well."
Mi Soryeong sniffled.
"Are you hungry? I made a snack. Eat a little."
"What kind?"
"Chocolate cookies. I made them myself."
"Oh, really?"
Dan Miryu swallowed the bitterness rising in him and smiled brightly.
"There's orange juice, too."
"Sounds good."
Dan Miryu and Mi Soryeong sat down in the living room. Beautifully plated chocolate cookies caught his eye, with orange juice set beside them. Mi Soryeong leaned against his shoulder, and he shifted so she would be comfortable as he turned on the television.
The moment the screen lit, it showed the wreckage of an incident committed by a relative they had never known. The news spoke of memorials for the victims and the schedule of funerals, and it denounced the incompetence of the Hero Association and the government.
"...Should we change it?"
"No. Let's keep watching."
Dan Miryu chewed a cookie and went on watching in silence.
"...How's the Association President?"
He tipped back the orange juice.
"Not well. He collapsed from overwork, and he's still working."
"...He hasn't rested a single day, all this time?"
"They say he hasn't rested once since Heavenly Punishment ended."
"Even if the President is superhuman, that's..."
Dan Miryu gave a bitter smile.
"The country's in chaos. He must feel the weight of the responsibility."
"...But it isn't his fault."
"This has already gone past the realm of theory."
Many people had died during Heavenly Punishment. This latest incident had killed still more. They had not even finished cleaning up after Heavenly Punishment before one disaster broke over another. There was no private room left in which to mourn the dead and offer comfort. Day after day went on, each one too much just to stay alive. Before the public's rage, cold reality and theory were useless. Those standing on the front line had to hold until the heat cooled and the noise died down.
"...Right. We endure."
He asked himself. You made that child into someone like the people on the television. You harmed others while rationalizing yourself with grief and promises. It simply never came to light. That child cannot have been the only one who was hurt. Countless debts of kindness and grievance you don't even know may already be scattered everywhere. How are you going to bear this?
Even if that time comes again, my choice will not change.
It was time that could not be rewound. A sea of blood sunk beneath his feet.
Even if I regret it and suffer for the rest of my life, nothing changes.
The dead were dead. The living went on into whatever came next.
Come, if you're coming. When you do, I'll put an end to every debt.
Dan Chuyeon lay on his side across the bed, fiddling with his smartphone. White light reflected in his pupils.
"...Nothing to watch."
He turned the phone off and buried his head in the pillow.
"Aaah! Seriously! What do you want me to do!"
He kicked his legs in frustration. His head was so tangled it felt ready to burst. The dark underside of the clan. His parents' faults. Not one of them was easy to decide.
"...Forgetting would be the easiest way."
But he couldn't do that. Playing dumb all the way through was irresponsible, and Dan Chuyeon was not that shameless. Someday he, too, would be the next head of the clan. If he ignored this and buried it every time it rose, who was he supposed to hold to account for the sin later? Saying it was the previous generation's affair, that those who came after had nothing to do with it, did not end the matter. Even if it was not him, the sin would pass on to the next generation.
"How am I supposed to look Master in the face?"
Did his master know?
"...I don't think he's completely in the dark."
Should he at least ask him for advice? Dan Chuyeon stared blankly up at the ceiling.
"Damn it. Now that I think about it, what day is it?"
He lifted the phone and checked the time. Autumn was on its way out.
"Winter's already coming. It hasn't even been that long."
Had he been living that busily?
"It's ridiculous that only a few months have passed, after everything that's happened..."
He sat bolt upright and raked at his hair.
"Ah, I'm gonna lose it."
He wanted to go somewhere and vent until his chest eased. As if taking his temper out on the thing, he tore into his phone, desperate to free his snarled head any way he could.
"...Huh?"
That was when he saw a name saved in his contacts.
"Why is this person in here?"
Phantom.
A strange man who had, before anyone quite noticed, stepped into the family's ordinary days.
Come to think of it, everyday life started changing from the moment I met him.
"...Hmmmm."
Dan Chuyeon pushed his lips out in a pout.
"No. Better to talk to Master. Or to Pele."
The boy did not want to walk a dangerous road. Far better to speak with someone he could actually trust than to meet a man he had been reluctant even to approach.
"...Hmmmmm."
But once the name had caught his eye, it would not leave him.
"Should I poke the persimmon I can't eat?"
He coaxed himself, gently. Maybe something good would come of it.
"...A call's too scary, so a message, at least."
Dan Chuyeon sent the phantom thief a few short lines.
"Hss. Should I not have sent that?"
He regretted it at once. Looking back, he had handed his judgment over to a pull that made no sense at all.
"Luckily it doesn't look like he's seen it. I can just delete it."
"You ask to meet, and then you delete it?"
"AAAAAAAH!!!"
Dan Chuyeon nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice whispering behind him.
"Ph-Ph-Ph-Phantom?!"
"The very same. Mr. Dan Chuyeon."
Dan Chuyeon dragged a hand down his chest, which had clenched tight.
"H-how did you get in?"
"Through the window."
A cold wind stirred.
"I had it shut."
"I opened it."
"There's a security system on it and everything."
"It proved, I found, no match for a god."
"Ah..."
Dan Chuyeon conceded before he could help it. Right. They said this man made a name for himself during Heavenly Punishment. He had never heard the details, but the man had been nearly one of the leads. I can't judge him by common sense.
"So then, Mr. Dan Chuyeon. For what reason did you wish to meet me?"
Phantom lay sprawled in empty air. Dan Chuyeon stared into the Smiling Mask.
"How much do you know?"
"About what?"
"About our clan."
"The Dan Clan... I do not know it well myself."
The mask sketched a question mark.
"I see..."
Dan Chuyeon swallowed his disappointment. Special as this man might be, expecting him to know the family's affairs had been reaching too far.
"And yet, to ask such a question, you must have heard something from Mr. Dan Miryu."
He flinched. At that sharp question, Dan Chuyeon's eyes wavered.
"A secret of the clan? Or Mr. Dan Miryu's shame?"
One guess landed, and the other drove in after it. Dan Chuyeon fought to hold his expression, but he could not hide the cold sweat sliding down his brow.
"Both, then. Which means you asked to meet me because you wished to unburden a complicated heart."
He swallowed hard.
A chill crawled over him. Does he already know all of it, and he's only sounding me out? Or was the man a mind reader? I think I picked the wrong person.
"Hmm. A youth at odds with a problem of the household. Common, and yet not common. And a matter an outsider finds difficult to touch."
Phantom spun round and round in the air. The question-mark mask changed into one lost in thought.
"Advise carelessly, and it becomes a lecture. Toss it off without taking responsibility, and it becomes a greater problem still. This is troublesome."
"...If you have nothing to say, you may leave."
"I could not possibly! To ignore a child who asks for help is a crime. As an adult, I cannot overlook it!"
Please, just go!
Dan Chuyeon prayed it silently.
"Mr. Dan Chuyeon. When a problem arises, look to the cause of that problem."
"...What?"
The Smiling Mask filled his vision edge to edge.
"Ugh...!"
"Remove the cause, and the problem does not occur. A simple principle."
"Like that would be easy!"
"Why would it not be? You need only remove a single lizard."
"......!"
"Mr. Dan Chuyeon."
"You may worry over this alone for a hundred days, and you still will not arrive at the right answer."
"Can you swear that nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the Dan Clan?"
"Whether they looked away, bore it, or buried it, they lived through day after day all the same."
"Do you imagine you can bring that long span of years to an end?"
"This is a problem to be settled with the people involved."
"If a problem is tangled up with people, you bring those people in and settle it."
"Reach a conclusion while they are not even here, and what is that but rationalizing?"
"..."
"I have rambled. Please forget it."
Phantom set a foot on the windowsill.
"I shall take my leave. May you have a pleasant night."
Like a single stream of wind, Phantom was gone.
Dan Chuyeon stared out the window. The pitch-black night sky greeted him.
"...Haa. Damn it. What am I supposed to do?"
He shut the window and lay down on the bed. Blanket pulled up over his head, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
Look to the cause of the problem.
You need only remove a single lizard.
"...Like that would work."
Dan Chuyeon muttered it as if in resentment.