You Want Me to Play Teacher?

The mask kept coming. He arrived with armfuls of every sort of food, insisting each one was good for a patient: ginseng, wild ginseng, deodeok root, red ginseng; sushi and rice bowls; soybean-paste soup and seaweed soup; pork cutlet, roe rice, bibimbap, fried rice; strawberries, apples, pears, watermelon, Korean melon, sweet potatoes; napa kimchi, young-radish kimchi, mustard-leaf kimchi, and more besides.

Some of it was precious. Some of it I had never heard of in all my years. Some he bought from shops, some he cooked with his own hands, and some he carried up already made by another person's careful labor. I could not ignore that sincerity. I ate every bit of it, and every bit of it was delicious.

Perhaps it was the food, or the rest. My body moved as it ought to, and the pain was gone.

"...I'm healed."

I folded my legs into a lotus seat. From the room outward, past the walls and into the open, I felt nature. Senses that had been shut began to spread. Trees, rock, earth, soil, water, wind, fire, insects, beasts, sunlight—I felt them all. The energy of the world gathered until it made me whole.

I rose. Weightless, I floated into the air of my own accord, and the energy whirled with me at its center. I drew it down into my heart. That heart, broken and split, took nature in and knit itself shut. From there the cracks throughout my body filled, until I stood solid as a fortress wall.

"Hup—!"

Light burst from my eyes and flooded the room white.

"Hoo..."

I hauled my breath back under control, soothed the rampaging energy, and set it beneath my rule. I closed nature in my hand and bent it to follow me. Slowly my body sank. The power that had packed the room sank with it, returning to nature's embrace as if it had never stirred at all.

"...I'll live."

Languor and exhaustion drew me down onto the bedding.

"...Fortunately. My strength has not weakened by much."

I had pared away life itself, so some loss of power could not be avoided. At this degree, though, it was as good as none.

"...Why?"

Cheap, for the price of a life. Once before, I had lost half my power. Set beside that, this was an exception.

"...I cannot make sense of it."

Nothing suggested itself. If anything had differed from that other time...

"It changed because of a single person?"

From nothing more than being nursed, and eating well?

"Ha. The more I learn, the less I understand."

So this was life. Unknowable to the last.

"This, too, must be Heaven's will."

Heaven had given the power. If anyone was cutting and measuring it out on a whim, it would be Heaven.

I drew the blanket up. Its softness weighed on my eyelids.

"...Mm. What will he bring tomorrow?"

Today I had eaten a thing they called jajangmyeon, noodles drowned in black-bean sauce. Tomorrow, I thought, I should like to try the dish they called yangjangpi. I closed my eyes still warm with the expectation, and slept.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

Footsteps. Soft, and coming closer. I opened my eyes.

"Nn...?"

I rubbed at them and pushed myself up. The door rattled aside.

"Are you awake?"

The mask had come again, food in his arms.

"Oh. You're here."

Whatever sleep still clung to me fled the instant I saw it. Now that my body had recovered, the smell reached me hard and clear even from across the room.

"Did you only just wake?"

The masked bastard fetched a low table and sat.

"I did. What of it?"

He unpacked onto the table the dishes he had set at my side. A spicy scent stabbed up into my nose. What was it this time?

"Nothing. Only that you seem much improved."

"Hmph. Well. I have improved."

"I see..."

The mask looked at me with a soft, warm gaze. It was an intensely unpleasant gaze.

Don't mind it. What mattered was not this bastard. It was the food.

I undid the wrapping. A red world rose up to greet me.

"Is this tteokbokki, or is it meat?"

"Today's dish is brisket tteokbokki."

"Brisket tteokbokki? And what need was there to make such a thing?"

Two foods that had no business being together.

"It's quite delicious. There's rice as well."

The masked bastard opened a bowl of steamed rice. The grains shone. I swallowed.

Look at it closely, and it might even be good.

"You eat it mixed, like this."

He stirred the brisket through the tteokbokki. Red broth climbed over the meat, and dressed in that red the brisket looked far more worth eating.

"I'll eat well, then."

I took the meat up with the rice. The grain of the beef and the taste of the tteokbokki fell into harmony, and something caught between them laid down a deeper savor. Meat alone would have been dull, so I ate the shredded scallion packed inside, and the clean taste of the vegetable finished the bite. But this was tteokbokki. Leave out the rice cakes and it was nothing.

I picked one up. Long as a snake, it sprang and flexed and showed off its chew. I put it in my mouth and drew it in. Like a noodle it filled me, and when I worked my teeth through it the cake gave, soft, and went down my throat.

"Mm... Delicious."

The praise left me on its own. Join what ought to be eaten apart, and another flavor was born. Truly, the food of this modern age had no end.

"Mm... I ate well."

"I'm glad it suited you."

The mask cleared the table, smiling.

"Please wipe up with this."

"Hmph..."

I wiped my mouth and my hands with the thing he had handed me, the thing he called a wet wipe. Where the red stain soaked into ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it, my skin burned.

"Um..."

"What."

He asked it carefully.

"Would you come to the city with me?"

"...What?"

What nonsense was ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this bastard talking now? I stared at the mask, blank before words that made no sense.

"Is it not allowed?"

I looked away from him. At some point my long pipe had found its way into my hand.

"Hoo."

I breathed the tightness out.

"Outside..."

If one insisted on the facts, I could leave. And yet—

Would it be all right?

I worried the seal might suffer some flaw while I was gone. That was not ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all of it. Whether some accident might occur. Whether someone might be hurt. Every sort of thing snagged on me, and bad memories rose with the rest.

"...What scheme are you trying to pull?"

"...If it were a scheme, I would have moved already."

A meaningless question. He was right.

"...Not far. And not for long."

"...Not even Seoul?"

Seoul. He said Seoul.

"That much is fine."

I would not be leaving this land.

"Good. Is this very moment all right?"

"This moment...?"

It threw me. Had he been waiting for exactly this?

"I will escort you with all proper courtesy."

"...Wait a moment."

"Yes."

I drove the mask out of the room.

"...It will be all right this time, won't it?"

In the old days I had gone out on a few excursions. Every time, incident and accident had burst up together, and the headache of it had been no small thing.

"Of course not. In an age like this, nothing of the sort could possibly happen!"

Lay the wards down hard, and nothing will happen at all!

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

"You've come."

At the foot of the mountain the mask was waiting, a car beside him.

"Hah. The rascal already had everything prepared."

"In the modern world, preparation is essential."

Cheerful as you please, he opened the door.

"Please, get in."

"Very well."

I climbed inside and found a green-haired man with his hands on the wheel.

"Hm? And you are?"

"How do you do, Teacher. My name is Dan Miryu."

He turned in his seat and bowed. A groan escaped me before I could stop it. This one—don't tell me. He had called me teacher.

"...Teacher?"

"Ahem. A pleasure. I am Hong Yumin."

I took his hand and returned the greeting.

"Well then. Shall we?"

The mask climbed into the front.

"Departing."

The engine growled, and we rolled forward. I settled back into a seat that looked expensive.

"...Mask."

"I am Phantom."

He insisted on it. I ignored him.

"You knew of the Dan clan?"

"Yes."

Hah. Stranger and stranger.

"You know the Dan clan?"

The one who called himself Dan Miryu lit up.

"I do. They are the people who built my house."

Through the rearview mirror, I watched him go still.

"Long ago, we did one another a kindness."

"There is nothing of it in the records..."

"I asked the head of that generation to erase it."

Dan Miryu drew in a breath.

"...Truly?"

"And why would that be ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠impossible?"

He had known nothing at all. That little one must have wiped the record clean.

"So you are the head of this generation."

"Yes. I am the current head."

From Dan Miryu's throat I felt it: the glint of an infinite Life. Wondrous, no matter how many times one looked upon it.

"It is an honor to meet you."

"The honor is more mine."

A tie of the mortal world, still holding. And the future of the Dan clan had looked so bleak.

As expected. Divination is not to be trusted.

"But, Mask."

"I am Phantom."

Phantom, my foot. Peel off that human hide and then talk. Even now he was a thing warping from one moment to the next.

"Did you know all of it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I am asking whether you knew a secret that even he did not."

"Yes."

He said it without a flinch, and Dan Miryu's eyes blinked.

"How?"

"Because I am a phantom thief."

Bullshit.

I barely swallowed the curse.

"If you don't want to say it, then don't. Rotten bastard."

"Thank you."

I wanted to crack that sleek, shining head from behind.

"Where are we going now?"

I watched the scenery of a changed society go by. The years had not been long. Even so, a great deal had changed.

"To our house."

"Your house, you mean?"

Dan Miryu nodded.

"Yes. Mr. Phantom said there was someone he absolutely had to bring..."

"That's all right, isn't it?"

Argh. That—

An old bond stood in front of me, and I could not even tell him off for it. Vexing bastard.

"Fine. If I eat something and then go, will that do?"