You're Telling Me to Look After a Kid?
I set this down in the hope that someone will find the diary: the last of my conscience.
Everything written here is true. It is the hidden truth that never rose to the surface.
I am a retainer of a certain house. Perhaps of the oldest house in the world. Even so, there is nothing special in being a retainer. My place was that of scribe—the one who kept the records.
My grandfather's grandfather served this house, and so did the grandfather of that grandfather, generation upon generation. I, too, was educated from birth on the premise that I would become a member of it as a matter of course. There was no choice. There could not have been.
This country, only lately freed from the merciless plunder of the nation beside it, was a place where a single day of eating like a human being counted as a blessing. To take a proper meal there, and to receive a lawful education—how great a blessing that was went without saying.
With the world outside in such a state, who would ever leave this comfortable room to win glory for himself? If it were my own child, I would break their legs. So I will set that aside. I understood these things while I was still comparatively young, and I learned my place at once. Let me be nothing but a part, so long as I lived where my back was warm and my stomach was not empty. I accepted my fate quickly.
I would follow my father and learn a scribe's work, find a suitable match, marry, have a child, and teach that child the family trade. When age made my own body hard to manage, I would retire, and live out what remained of my life with my wife. That was the fate. It had been my father's. I thought it would be mine.
………….
I will say it again. I am writing the last of my conscience here. Please. I hope someone will know it for what it is. I pray this truth is placed in the hands of a good person.
This house is mad. In a human body it wields the authority of a god. It means to make itself a god.
The head of the house must be killed.
Dan Hocheol!
That detestable name must vanish from the world forever…….
I end the outpouring of my heart here. From the next page on, let it be known: what is written will no longer be the writing of a human being.
Rrriiing.
Click.
"Miryu? What's the matter?"
"Sir. Do you have a moment?"
"Yeongsik, how's the schedule? Packed solid, is it? No time to spare? All right. You hear that? I've got time."
"Chairman!"
"Quiet, you brat. I'm not going anywhere."
"If you aren't here, the rest of us are dead! There's no one outside, and the corpses are stacked in rows! Are you actually trying to make more?!"
"Yeongsik, drink a Bacchus and pull yourself together. Miryu's looking for me because something urgent came up, isn't he? And even if it hadn't, I'd still have to see him. You know how much I owe the man."
"Even so...!"
"Shut up, damn it! And while you're at it, tell the boys to get some rest! How many days do you mean to run them into the ground? Are the police just decoration?"
"Yes, sir..."
The sound of a thoroughly crestfallen Yeongsik taking his leave drifted through the line.
"Bit of a commotion just now."
"Are you very busy?"
"Honestly, yes. The trouble here at home hasn't let up. But not so busy I can't see you. Yeongsik was making a fuss."
"You don't have to push yourself."
"A hero who doesn't push himself belongs to a world that doesn't need heroes. Where's the comfort in saving other people?"
"You're quite right. I learn from you every time."
"Then how about you give the police and the prosecutors a kick? These bastards won't do their jobs..."
"Chop off a few heads, and they'll get to work on their own, won't they?"
"Ha! Now that's refreshing. I'll have to see those bastards cry."
Dan Miryu could picture, clear as anything, the sly smile spreading over Hwang Seokgu's face.
"When should we meet?"
"Tomorrow at ten in the morning. I'll come to the Association."
"Good. See you then."
"Thank you. Take care on your—"
"One thing."
Hwang Seokgu's voice dropped a tone.
"That matter you're bringing tomorrow. I've a feeling it's quite serious."
"..."
Dan Miryu's mouth went bone-dry. Cold sweat ran down his back.
"It's something you and I are tangled up in deep, isn't it?"
"...Something like that."
"More precisely, it's the thing sitting in the appendix to the agenda."
"That is also correct."
Dan Miryu glanced around the inside of the car. It wasn't that he doubted Hwang Seokgu. The old man had simply landed so close to the truth that his body moved on reflex.
"How did you get all of it? That instinct of yours?"
"Well. The thing's so willful I could never swear by it, but it seems to have hit today. And usually, when it goes like this..."
It meant something serious. And—
"......"
"......"
Dan Miryu was glad they were speaking by phone. Face to face, he could not have lifted his head.
"Miryu."
"Please. Go on."
Worry and uncertainty seeped through Hwang Seokgu's voice.
"Is that story really something I'm allowed to hear?"
"You have to hear it."
Because—
"It has to do with why this country persecuted heroes and made them disappear."
And this—
"It won't be unrelated to you, sir."
"...All right."
"See you tomorrow."
Click.
"Honey..."
"Don't worry. The elder is a strong man. He'll understand..."
Dan Miryu swallowed the rest.
Understanding was not his to give. It belonged, plainly, to the one the matter actually concerned.
"Let's get home. We'll catch our breath, then start again from the beginning."
"Before we go, I should pack some side dishes for Chuyeon. Looking after Dan Miryong must be wearing him out..."
"We'll have to call someone in. And I don't like leaving a child on their own. I'll ask him, too."
"You don't mean..."
Mi Soryeong thought of the man who had shut himself away, all but in seclusion.
"Will he accept? The state he was in was beyond words."
"If he were the sort to break over something like that, he would have shattered the moment he clashed with Mr. Phantom. I fought him. I know. He isn't a man who gives up easily."
Only—
"He needs time to pull himself together. That's all."
"All right."
Mi Soryeong drew a steadying breath and tapped her phone.
Trrrrring...
The ring tone spread quietly through the car.
Vrrrrrr!
Vrrrrrr!
In a room with the lights out, a smartphone writhed. Left sprawled any which way on the bed, charger still plugged in, it called for its owner.
Vrrr... click.
The bell died, and the room sank into darkness.
"......"
Scrape. Scrape.
Alexei, who had been staring at the phone for a long while, went back to the work he had set aside. A block of wood fell away beneath a master's hands, shedding the bark that had wrapped it, reaching after an inner meaning and an outer beauty.
Scrape. Scrape.
Alexei's hands moved without rest. Each brush of his fingers drew the block a little nearer to a human shape, until what had been little more than a cylinder had become, before he quite noticed, a plausible sculpture.
"..."
He gazed at it steadily. Whether it was a man or a woman, he could not tell. Whether it wore clothes or wore nothing was unclear. Walking, standing, sitting—even that refused to resolve. It existed only as a form. There was the fact that it was there, and no fact at all of what it looked like.
Alexei set the finished piece down at his feet.
Tok.
It struck another sculpture and toppled. The fallen one struck a third, and the chain ran on like dominoes. In an instant the floor was a wreck.
Amid the clutter, Alexei found the single sculpture still standing upright. A leisurely presence with a sword in its hand. A judge wrapped in darkness, looking down upon the world.
Alexei's breathing went rough.
"Is it really all right for you to stay here like this?"
The statue opened its mouth. Darkness rippled.
"Alexei. You've got to save your daughter, don't you? Think it's fine to shut yourself in this room like a wreck?"
The nape of his neck went cold. The darkness was close. Alexei groped for his sword.
"Won't drink. Won't eat. You're finished. It was fun when you came charging like an angry colt. Now there wouldn't even be any feel left in it."
"Shut up..."
"Answering, are you? Some illusion spun out of trauma? You've fallen as far as a man can fall."
The darkness patted his shoulder.
"A word of advice, from the illusion that I am..."
"Why don't you answer the phone?"
"Aaaah!!!"
He swung his arm at the sculpture. A true cut, the kind that ought to have split the ceiling and brought the house down, ended with nothing but the sculpture cloven through.
Fssss.
The sculpture with the sword crumbled into dust.
"Hah... hah..."
Clutching hands that shook as if with a palsy, he turned his eyes to the smartphone.
Vrrrrrr.
The call he had thought was dead was coming through. Alexei barely managed to press the button.
"Hello."
"...Why'd you call?"
Alexei said it while feigning calm as best he could.
"Mr. Sword, are you all right?"
The voice on the other end seemed to have heard something else entirely.
"If you've got no business, I'm hanging up."
"Wait. I do have business."
"What."
"It's..."
Alexei listened to the account of Dan Miryu's situation.
"You're telling me to look after a kid?"
"I know it's an unreasonable request. But please. There isn't an adult who compares to you."
"You joking? Anyone listening would think I'm a decent person."
Alexei was dumbfounded. What was this man looking at, to come asking him? Did he not know who he was talking to?
"I'm sorry. But the child is alone. An adult has to be there."
"That's your problem. I'm out."
"I'll see that you're paid properly. Please."
"Which is why I don't nee—"
Alexei's voice caught, and kept catching, until it locked in his throat. Words drove themselves into his mind.
A child. Alone.
Alone.
At home?
"Dad? Do I have to be alone again?"
"Damn it..."
Alexei clutched his face until it twisted. His nails bit into skin, and blood welled up.
"...I only have to be there beside them, right? Not do anything?"
"Yes! I'll be home before long. I'll have a room and everything else ready. Please just bring yourself."
"Fine..."
"Thank you. Truly, thank you."
Alexei ended the call without listening to another word.
"Looking after a kid. Never written in my stars..."
He pushed through the clutter on the floor and opened the door. The face that met the light was brighter than it had been in the room.