A Crescent Moon
Na Wangrang drew the blanket up over the youngest, who had finally dropped off. The clock had swept well past midnight and now pointed to two.
"Kids won't sleep just because tomorrow's the weekend. I barely got them down. I'll have to start taking their phones."
Fatigue dragged at the soft flesh of Na Wangrang's cheeks. Afternoons spent working as a helper, evenings spent as the children's playmate—enough to put rust even on steel.
"Wangrang, you've worked so hard. Hurry and sleep. You have to leave early again tomorrow."
His mother, Yoo Kangseul, said it with a worn face.
"I can leave a little later. If I take the bus, it's a quick ride."
"Even so..."
"There's nothing to worry about. You know my stamina's good."
Yoo Kangseul let out a soft laugh at the muscle standing proud on his slender arm.
"Your mother is always in your debt, Wangrang. You won't be the kind of man who makes a woman cry."
Her child's grown-up manner was sweet to her, and pitiful, and she was sorry for it.
"Don't push the shop too hard either, Mom. This part-time job pays well enough that we could order delivery every month and still be fine."
"...All right. Don't overdo it either, Wangrang. Mother can handle things."
"Have you ever seen me struggle?"
"Enough of the bravado. Brush your teeth and go to sleep."
"Yes, Mom."
Na Wangrang spread his own blanket. In a corner of the room already packed with his three younger siblings, a place had been made for him to sleep.
Before she turned out the light, Yoo Kangseul offered him a warm smile.
"Sleep well, my puppy. Sweet dreams."
"You too, Mom. Good night."
The light went out, and the room drowned in black. For an instant his eyes could not adjust to a field of view gone suddenly dark. A few seconds later, Na Wangrang's sight returned to normal. His pupils, clear as if he stood beneath the light of a full moon, turned toward Yoo Kangseul as she closed the door.
"Mom."
"Mm?"
Through the crack of the door, Yoo Kangseul tilted her head. Na Wangrang asked in a flat voice.
"They came to you too, didn't they? Those people."
"......"
Yoo Kangseul's shoulders trembled, just slightly.
"What did they say when they showed up? Did they tell you to come over to their side again?"
"There was nothing for you to worry about, Wangrang. They only ate and left. And the money..."
"They left a hundred times what the meal cost, didn't they?"
"Wangrang..."
Na Wangrang pressed a hand to his forehead.
"Go in and rest. I kept you too long."
"...Sleep soon."
The door shut with a click. He felt her presence cross the living room and settle all the way into the inner bedroom. Only when the breathing around him had evened out, and the insects had gone quiet, could Na Wangrang let the feeling show.
"...Krrk."
It was the moan of a wolf in a collar, a muzzle clenched between his teeth. Na Wangrang clamped a hand over his swelling snout and dragged in a rough breath.
Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!!!
Rage with nowhere to go turned on himself. Sharp nails peeled his skin as he cursed his own helplessness, raking and raking. Blood beaded, and the wounds closed. His nails drove into the scabs and tasted blood again.
"Hah. Hah."
The brief storm passed. Na Wangrang's chest heaved, and the anger settled, if only a little.
"...I'll have to throw the clothes out."
He stripped off the garments stained with blood. The slender chest he had been slashing apart only moments ago did not bear a single wound. The recovery was staggering.
Na Wangrang slipped carefully out of the room. He stuffed the clothes into a glossy black trash bag and shoved it somewhere out of sight. If he dumped it at the garbage point on his way out in the morning, no one would ever know.
"On the way back I'll buy a few more clothes. I still haven't spent the money from the hospital, so..."
At the kitchen sink, Na Wangrang scrubbed his face dry. His thoughts snarled around the balance in his account and the plan for tomorrow.
"Breakfast for the kids is easy. Reheat the soybean-paste stew, fry some ham, done. Dinner, I'll cook the tteokgalbi—the grilled short-rib patties—from the shop's leftover stock and set it out. For Chuyeon's side, I'll warm the side dishes his mother made and put together something for soup."
Tomorrow's work, the day after, and everything beyond that, one step at a time. The way he always had.
Money would not be a problem for a while. He would die before he spent what those people had given them, but he had received plenty from Chuyeon's household, so this month they could eat well. Perhaps even next month would be fine.
The sink shrieked under his grip, a long splintering creak.
"I will never dance to your tune. You think my family's going to be your sacrifice?"
The sink reflected Na Wangrang's face. A wolf's baleful gleam shone there, faint and far away.
A break room in a container at some construction site.
Unlike the dreary steel plate outside, the place was done up wall to wall in luxurious furniture, and three people occupied it: a wild man who had thrown his chest wide open with no regard for weather turning toward winter; an intellectual man dressed to the nines in a jacket and padded cotton pants; and, last, a woman in the flower of her years, her makeup laid on thick to emphasize a generous bust.
The wild man, Yamaga, pinched a piece of gimbap from the table between thumb and forefinger and chewed it to pieces.
Tsuhp. Tsuhp.
"Ahh, this is the taste. As expected, His Majesty's mother's touch hasn't died."
"You aren't full? How many is that already?"
"Twelfth roll. Eight still left."
Yamaga chugged his cola. Grains of rice stuck in his throat rode the flood down in one cool rush.
"Krahh. I could taste it a hundred times and never get tired of it. Worth lying on the floor and pitching a fit!"
Yamaga wiped at his tears and pulled out the next piece of gimbap.
Sniff. Sniff.
The nose of the woman in her prime—Sharl, whom Na Wangrang called Aunt—twitched.
"This smell is pork belly?! What's pork belly doing in gimbap?!"
"I brought the pork belly over myself and begged and begged Mother until she finally made me this special."
With a papery rush, the seal came off the special pork-belly gimbap in its paper box. Lamp-light glanced off the seaweed brushed with savory soy until it dazzled the eye, and inside the plump rice the pork belly lay tucked in two whole layers. Pickled radish, carrot, spinach, and cucumber adorned the meat with elegance, while a slice of lotus root lifted its chin in pure arrogance.
"Hehh......"
Sharl's eyes went hazy. Saliva darkened the line of her jaw.
"J-just one! Really, just one!"
"No. Then I won't have anything left. You eat the rest of the gimbap over there."
"Don't make me laugh! How am I supposed to hold back after seeing that!"
Sharl shot to her feet. Instinct seized her pupils. The charming, sociable alpha girl was gone, and in her place stood a five-year veteran of unemployment who did nothing at home but scratch her belly.
"If it bothers you, you should have gone to Mother yourself. Blame yourself for going to His Majesty."
"Hey! This isn't right!"
Yamaga plucked out pork-belly gimbap with his fingers and ate. Sharl watched it vanish into his mouth and despaired.
"Eaten by that filthy bastard. There will never be another tragedy like this!"
"Heard the loser's nonsense loud and clear. You can watch me eat."
The corner of Yamaga's mouth rose as if bound for heaven. The greasy flavor lingering on his tongue was pure bliss.
"Yamaga."
"Hm?"
The intellectual man who had been quietly fiddling with his smartphone—Peril—opened his mouth.
"What, want me to spare you one?"
"I think that is enough small talk. This is hardly the time for us to carry on like this."
Peril's sharp eyes ran Yamaga and Sharl through.
"This is a meeting concerning His Majesty. Our kin are suffering every moment. Have some sense of urgency, and conduct yourselves with more gravity."
Yamaga and Sharl looked at each other. A moment later they huffed out a laugh.
"Hurry up and give him some gimbap. Leave him any longer and he'll spin a thousand stories."
"He takes the world's longest way around just to say he wants one. If you want to eat, eat. All that pretending to be serious..."
Shuk.
Munch. Munch.
"...The brat took the biggest one. Sly bastard."
"And this is our captain..."
"Enough idle talk."
Gulp.
"We have no time. We must make His Majesty recognize his own responsibility. If we fail, every effort we have made comes to nothing."
"Wipe your mouth and then talk. I'll give you more. Sharl, you eat too. Truth is, there's more pork-belly gimbap."
"Yes!"
Shk-shk-shk-shuk.
"You little shit! That doesn't mean eat all of it!"
"Spit it out, you son of a bitch! No—choke on it and die!"
Crash and clatter! The narrow container became a wreck in a three-person chase. Through all of it, the gimbap was set aside as something sacred.
Peril clung to a corner of the ceiling like a spider. His mouth worked without rest, taking the gimbap apart.
"Hoo. Yamaga, you would do better to calm yourself. A quarrel among ourselves has no efficiency whatsoever."
"You think we'll let it go if you start talking pretty now?! Just try coming down! I'll beat you to a pulp and eat you as dog meat!"
"Give me my pork belly!!!"
"...Hah."
A faraway look came into Peril's eyes.
"Your Majesty, forgive these foolish wolves for failing to light the road before you. But I, at least, will surely bring radiance to your path..."
A hand clamped shut.
"Got him! Sharl, wreck him!"
"Keuheoheong!!!"
Wolf-roars echoed through the container.
Peril, Sharl, and Yamaga.
They were the first werewolves to discover their king.
As young members of the clan who had rendered a great service, they ought to have reported the king's existence to their kin at once. At Peril's suggestion, that report was postponed. The king, he argued, had not yet flowered into his calling as king. Report it straight, and greedy old relics might put the king through hell.
Unable to expose the king to such irreverent people, the three laid a single plan.
And so, for the sake of the plan's success, they falsified their reports. They even deceived the eyes of their other kin in Korea, and dragged the time out. Up to the present they had shown early results, but they still lacked one sure finishing blow.
In the wrecked room, Peril drew a photograph from inside his coat and set it on the table.
"If we mean to provoke His Majesty, I believe this is the only way after all."
In the photograph was a green-haired young man: Dan Chuyeon.
"A hero's awakening, by its nature, requires danger. That is what we aim for."
"......"
"......"
Yamaga and Sharl, who had moved to hit Peril only to be thrashed themselves, sighed at the same time.
"You sure you can handle it? Slip up, and this ends as nothing at all."
"He's right. Our plan could be exposed. We've managed well until now."
"It has to succeed. No other outcome."
Peril's air turned cutting.
"The elders have caught the scent. We truly have no time. We must finish before those old fossils arrive."
"...Fine. But give us time. That friend of his is no ordinary person. We'll need to prepare on our side too."
Yamaga scratched his head, looking troubled.
"I cannot give you much. I will do everything I can, but I cannot say how much time I will manage to buy."
Sharl quietly raised a hand.
"Then I just keep watching His Majesty?"
"Yes. And do not forget to appear, ever so casually, and offer a meaningful warning."
"Got it. Ah, but His Majesty is scary when he's angry..."
Peril let the two of them complain in one ear and out the other, and looked up at the moon beyond the window.
"A crescent moon."
I'll have to buy three weeks at the very least.
Peril closed his eyes and prayed.
"Wait a minute, the pork-belly gimbap is all gone?! Did you cram every last bite down in the middle of that mess, you fucker?!"
"Let trifles pass."
"Today one of us dies—you or me!"
The container bucked as if an earthquake had struck.
Wolf-howls rolled on and on across the nightscape of Seoul.