When I Grow Up, I'll Be a Wise Mother and a Good Wife!
Kotori tore down the corridor. The kimono Amaterasu had dressed her in with such care flapped wildly, like someone shaking out a feather duster.
"Wha— Lady Kotori?"
Tsushima Kana called after her as she bolted in a flurry. Kotori hurled aside the Kana who had stepped into her path and flung open the door of the VIP room hard enough to break it.
"Baby, it's morning! Hurry up and play with me!"
Through the door thrown wide, Pele gave an unimpressed jerk of her chin.
"He's farther in. He isn't up yet."
"Thank you!"
Having thanked, with perfect manners, the person who had helped her, Kotori charged into the next room.
"Baby!"
The baby the girl called for so desperately was fast asleep, the blanket pulled over his head, breathing soft and even. Kotori beamed and flipped the covers.
"Huh?"
The phantom thief was not under the blanket. There had definitely been a curved shape there.
"Kotori. You mustn't wake a sleeping person whenever you please."
A knock landed on her head. Kotori looked up. There stood the phantom thief in an immaculate suit, as if he had never been asleep at all.
"You're awake! You sleepyhead! Making Mommy walk all the way here on her own two feet!"
"I'm an adult. I can get up by myself. I graduated from my mother's arms a long time ago."
"Liar! Yesterday you collapsed, just the two of you, with Mommy's mommy! Our baby is frail, so Mommy has to look after you!"
"I didn't collapse. We simply had a very deep conversation."
"Same thing!"
If the strongest spear and the strongest shield had ever met, it might have looked like this. Kotori thrust. The phantom thief parried. Neither of them yielded an inch.
"Child of Man. That's enough. Pack your things."
Pele dragged a suitcase along and tipped her chin.
"Yes. Give me just a moment."
"Things...?"
Kotori's head tilted. The girl's keen mind spun at full speed. From taking in the objects around her to grasping what the people involved intended, it took less than a second—a turn of thought truly worthy of a successor the gods themselves had acknowledged.
"Baby, where are you going?"
Kotori seized the phantom thief's sleeve and held on tight. An ominous thought brushed past her.
"Kotori."
He stroked her head. The particular warmth of living skin passed into her.
"I have to go home soon."
"Home...? Wasn't baby's home here?"
Kotori's eyes welled. Moisture crept into her voice.
"My home isn't here. It's the Republic of Korea. Yours is here."
A cold fact, without so much as a scrap of tact, drove itself home. Kotori understood that the time to part had come.
"..."
She wanted to stop him. She wanted to tell him not to go. Stay with me. Couldn't you stay just one more day? But she couldn't. If it had been before, perhaps. Now, though, Kotori had a name, and she had defined herself by it. Her thinking had climbed extraordinarily high, as if a dammed flood had burst. She had cast off, in part, the side of her that had been a little child. Her words and her actions had not yet left a child's level behind, but within a week at the soonest—two weeks at the latest—she would pass through every growing pain of the mind a human being undergoes, and become a girl who matched the age of her body.
And so she could not hold the phantom thief back. Her mouth said baby, baby, but in truth he was not a child she had borne, nor any blood of hers. He was simply an acquaintance.
"Okay. Go on. Mommy will always be right here."
Kotori let go. Her arm dropped, strengthless, and brushed her thigh.
"Kotori, this isn't goodbye forever. There are phones, and there are video calls. Don't lose heart like that. We can see each other again whenever we want."
"But it won't be the same as seeing you every day..."
And someday, far from now, she would become someone high above others...
"Then it'll be even harder to meet."
"Have you forgotten who I am?"
Before Kotori's eyes, the phantom thief brought a rose into bloom. A thornless white rose caught on the curve of her ear.
"I am a phantom thief. No time to meet? Too high a station to meet? There is no such thing. A phantom thief is everywhere, and nowhere. If you wish from the bottom of your heart to see me, I will set everything else aside and come running."
"Ah..."
Kotori let out a small breath of wonder. Caught in the lamplight, the phantom thief was far too charming, and the moment struck the unripe girl's heart dead-on.
"The next time we meet, I hope I find a girl a phantom thief would want to steal."
"Hey! Get over here before I stuff you in the suitcase!"
"Eek. I'll be going, then."
He pinched Kotori's cheek once and bolted. Kotori stroked the white rose, and her face went red.
On the evening of the day the phantom thief left, Kotori stood before a groaning Amaterasu and made a bombshell declaration.
"When I grow up, I'm going to be a wise mother and a good wife!"
"...Why?"
"Baby proposed to me!"
At Kotori's declaration Amaterasu fainted dead away, Susanoo broke into a sword dance, and Tsukuyomi rushed to stop him—minor commotion, all of it. But that was another story.
"I hardly know what to say. Truly, there is nothing I can do but thank you."
Tokyo International Airport. Shrine Priest Tsukumi, with two kunoichi at his side, was bidding the phantom thief farewell.
"If you ever have cause to come to Japan again, please be sure to call on me. I'll treat you to the full course of the Japan trip we never got to take."
"A trip through Japan is tempting, I'll admit. I came all this way and would have liked to see a little of the country myself, but affairs in Korea are pressing, so I'm heading back."
"If trouble finds you, call me. I want to give you the help I failed to give during the Heavenly Punishment."
"Is that so? Then I expect I'll be calling before long!"
"Hahaha. Please call soon. I only have three years left."
"Three years? There's a way, in the country next door, to stretch that to a hundred, and still you lose heart so quickly."
"I'll save that for amusement when the time comes."
"How optimistic of you."
Hahaha!
"Enough chatter. Come. It is time."
Hong Yumin caught the phantom thief by the nape.
"Go safely."
"Have a good return to Korea."
The Shrine Priest bowed to them with due courtesy, and they parted.
"Shall we head back?"
"No. Let's wait until they've boarded the private jet."
The Shrine Priest's eyes lit as they found a fast-food counter off to one side of the airport. A hamburger from the world-famous M brand was tempting him.
"Our chefs make fine hamburgers too."
"But eating one in a place like this is a different pleasure, isn't it? When will I ever come here again?"
Mina smiled bitterly. Honestly. Such a child.
"Then I'll go ahead and..."
"Mina."
The Shrine Priest's face set with resolve.
"I shall try placing the order myself."
"...Do you know how?"
"If I simply copy what everyone else does, more or less, won't that suffice?"
Before those sparkling eyes, Mina took a step back.
"...Then please order for the two of us as well."
"Hah. Of course."
Bearing a steadfast resolve, the Shrine Priest strode proudly into the restaurant. And then he realized, to the very bone, that he did not have a single coin on him. In the end, Mina paid.
At that hour, while the Shrine Priest picked at his fries in shame, the phantom thief was meeting alone with a man he had called to the airport before boarding.
"So why did you call me out here?"
A sickly, handsome man with his hood pulled up. Between the mask and the sunglasses, anyone could see at a glance that he had no wish to show himself to the public.
"I called you because I wanted to see your face before I left."
"For a reason that small?"
"How many reasons does a person need, just to see someone?"
The phantom thief shrugged.
"You... you're a remarkably strange one. The strangest I've ever met."
"I doubt other people see you so very differently."
"Ha. You're probably the only one who could say that to me."
"I'm honored."
The handsome man's brows drew tight.
"Enough jokes. You must have a reason for calling me. Looks like you've got people with you—you really fine loafing around here with me?"
"Three minutes will do."
The phantom thief ignored the stare boring into the back of his head and spoke.
"Mr. Setsuna. Japan is going to be cleaned up before long."
"...What?"
"Save the questions for later."
"...Go on."
"There is an organization called the Shrine. A secret organization with Japan in the palm of its hand. They will deal with most of those who have been eating the country from the inside. Heroes will be no exception."
"A warning? You're saying I'm in danger?"
"The opposite. Please become the center of Japan's heroes."
None of it made sense. Irritation surged in Setsuna at this phantom thief who spoke only his own piece, but he held it down. There were far too many eyes in a place like this.
"I know the explanation falls short. Even so, among Japan's heroes, you are the only one fit for it."
"Something wrong with your eyes? How much of me have you even seen, to judge like that?"
Setsuna laughed at himself.
"Do you even know how many people I've killed? I get to be a hero because this is Japan. In the United States or Europe, I'd just be a villain."
"And yet you are a hero."
Setsuna clicked his tongue.
"Enough. Nothing but bullshit out of you since the start. Damn it. Waste of my time."
He growled.
"Watch yourself. Next time you cross my sight, you're dead."
"Mr. Setsuna. Then I'll talk to myself for a moment."
The phantom thief turned his back and spoke as if to no one.
"Over there you'll find a boy eating a hamburger with two sexy women flanking him. He is the head of the Shrine I mentioned. Relay to him, word for word, what I said to you, and he may be able to help with the matter that binds you."
"How do you know that...!"
"That concludes the talking to myself."
Before Setsuna could seize him, the phantom thief vanished into thin air. Setsuna scratched hard at his head, choked with frustration.
"...Damn it."
Beyond the glass, he saw the boy nibbling a hamburger bit by bit. He bit down on his lip and moved his heavy feet. Not long after, the news broke.