What Do You Think?
Silence fell.
The air, which had been running hot from the argument between the two gods, cooled the moment a single person appeared. He was rubbing at his eyes—the only bare skin the mask left exposed.
"A precious guest, in a precious place."
Phantom looked at the Eclipse God. The Eclipse God smiled with generous ease, and even rose from his winged chair, as though courtesy required it.
"Not at all. If anything, you are the more precious of the two."
"A god needn't go so far."
"I wouldn't. What else is one to call a precious person, if not precious?"
He spoke like a politician. His brows twitched; his tongue licked his lips; his gaze turned smooth and ingratiating. All of it was deliberate, and the inside of it looked black.
The aspect of a great god vanished. What remained was a slick man who left a foul taste.
Pele's brow and Mi Soryeong's drew into matching frowns.
"Have you always been like this? You're oilier than I expected."
"In human society, isn't the one who answers this way the one who lives the longest? They sit high, too. There was something worth copying, so I watched and learned."
"It's true, which only makes it fouler. Ordinary people hate that sort. Don't."
"Grateful for the advice. Then I won't."
The Eclipse God gave a brief, empty laugh and changed back into the majestic shape of a god. Pele, Mi Soryeong, and San-gun felt as if gravity had grown several times heavier.
"Playing every kind of human is all well and good. But if you don't truly understand them, nothing about you will change."
Even under the pressure crushing the room, Phantom brushed past him.
"I'm doing the best I can... Am I wrong?"
A god had asked a human. In every note of the voice he cast there was power enough to press living things into panic and kill them.
Where that pitch spread, the life that had taken root withered. Stone rotted. What had not yet even become sand charred away beneath the god's feathers.
The human who met it head-on twitched his exposed eyes, as if none of it were anything unusual.
"It went wrong the moment you started acting human. Are you human? You're a god. A god can play at being human for a hundred days and still never understand what a human is."
The human denied what the god had done.
The god agreed that the denial was right.
"A righteous piece of plain speech. My children said the same. The manner differed; the point did not. A god, acting the human. Absurd."
All his effort until now had just been refused, and still the god let not a shade of displeasure show.
"Then what do you think? Do you suppose I will never understand humans, not in all my life?"
The god demanded an answer. The answer was difficult, and tangled.
No one would have given it easily.
"What does Mi Soryeong think?"
The human turned the question on another human.
Named out of nowhere, Mi Soryeong was thrown. But she could not outlast the eyes of a god and a man, and after a long moment's thought she gave her answer.
"That you can understand. That's my answer."
"Unexpected. Why?"
Hadn't she been all but growling at him a moment ago? And now she spoke as if she meant to spare him.
"Because there was a time when I didn't merely fail to understand people—I doubted I was a person at all. But time passed. I met someone I love. And I came to like people, and to understand them."
She was full of pride. She had overcome the dark of her past and gone forward.
"So I might, as well?"
"Don't gods, in the myths, change a great deal and suffer a great deal because of the bonds they keep? I think it may be the same."
"Excellent. A satisfying answer."
The god's thanks were sincere.
"If a hard season comes, come find me. I will help you. Without fail."
"I'll decline."
"A shame. A shame."
The god shook his head.
"And Pele?"
"You're actually asking me?"
Pele's face twisted.
"Telling a bastard who eats people that he can understand people. If that isn't bullshit, what is?"
"I hear Hawaiian myth had human sacrifice as well."
"That..."
Pele looked away, like someone whose old disgrace had just been read aloud.
"I didn't do it."
"Aren't the Hawaiian gods a family?"
"You're putting that on me too? And the sacrifices stopped, with time!"
She flared as if a weak point had been pressed.
"So the conclusion is that I cannot understand?"
"Yes! If something like you understood humans, the world would end!"
Hearing the same answer from a god like himself, the god nodded.
"You sound a great deal like our chief enemy. Not that I fail to see why. I've done what I've done."
"If you know, then thrash around in the guilt and kill yourself. Write a will that says you're sorry while you're at it."
"At moments like this, I can't tell which of us is the more human."
The god ignored the abuse. An answer swallowed by feeling was not worth weighing.
"And yours? Yours, especially, I want."
Every eye in the room gathered on the human's mouth.
"If I had to put a conclusion to it... I don't think you need to understand."
A question mark rose over the god's head.
"Why?"
"There's a saying."
Satan howled.
Why did God bring us forth,
and why did He bring forth humankind?
"Heh heh heh! Human imagination is a formidable thing. Satan. Satan, of all names."
The human went on.
"There is no particular need to understand. What that mustached reject from art school did is practically genteel, set beside the havoc Ilshikgyo raised."
"Ah. That much is certain."
"And the human sacrifices in South America? They fall short of what you've been fed across a lifetime."
"That, too. The snake over there ate a very great deal."
"And then..."
"Ha ha..."
God and human went down the list of humanity's evils as a species. Those who listened felt their spines go cold.
"Child of Man. Are you defending that bastard?"
Pele turned a disbelieving look on the human. It was a look that felt betrayal.
"It isn't a defense. If I have to name it, I'm telling him the worry is useless."
"And how is that not a defense!"
Fire burst from Pele's mouth.
"What if that bastard hears you, has a change of heart, and does something even crueler? If he runs wild, are you going to answer for it?"
Ilshikgyo was a cult with the world for its parish, large enough to start a war in Europe. It was a faith with a real god in it, so it could not be broken from within, and it spread at a mad pace. A cancer on the world—if it ran wilder still, the damage would outgrow anyone's grip. A few words would not turn a god's mind. But if, by some chance, they did, who would answer for the lives that went out?
Daughter of the earth-mother goddess, mother of Hawaii, she laid the charge on the human. Could he answer for them?
"Yes. I will."
The human took it squarely.
"How."
The mother of Hawaii decided that, depending on the answer, she would kill the being in front of her. Benefactor or not, it made no difference. From the moment he laid a hand on the root of what a god was, he was asking to be killed. Before whom did he think he was running his mouth? She set aside, for the moment, whatever storm would follow his death. She was a body left alone anyway, with no family left to her. If Hawaii's safety were assured, she would die without a second thought.
"If Ilshikgyo runs wild..."
A dry crackle. The mouth of the mask split and fell away. Pale pink lips parted.
"I will erase Ilshikgyo from the world."
Everyone bound to it. Dead.
"The god as well."
And when it is done, I will see to it that no one even knows such a thing existed.
"Then I will take the responsibility, and die."
"Does that satisfy you?"
........
Silence. The human's declaration was quiet. And it was lethal.
"Pele. That's enough."
Even after hearing himself sentenced to death, the god rebuked the god beside him.
"You're too heated. What do you mean by turning an ally into an enemy? Say only what you can bear."
"...I'm sorry. I got heated."
Pele bowed her head.
"No. I overstepped as well. I'm sorry."
Apology passed between god and human.
"Today I've had every rare experience there is. And come away with several new things to worry over."
The Eclipse God turned to go. Last of all, he looked at the Child of Man.
"I should leave. Before our child's mind breaks past mending."
"Go safely. It was good to meet you."
"And good to meet you."
The god held his tongue a moment. He seemed to be weighing whether the thing ought to be said at all.
"Is there something you want to say?"
"...May I ask just one thing?"
"Yes. You may."
The god drew breath after breath. As if even remembering it were ill-omened, the words circled in his throat. Only after a long while did he manage, barely, to force them out.
...Chaos?
Another god thought it, inwardly. What kind of nonsense was that? What was it supposed to be?
"......Hmm."
The human took off the mask. The face that had shown only mouth and eyes was laid bare in full.
An ordinary young man with black hair smiled, faintly.
"What do you think?"
The Eclipse God was relieved.
"Thank you. I'll be going."
"And don't touch the two above."
"I don't stoop to anything so small."
The two farewells crossed.
"We'll meet again."
"I'll be waiting, too."