Not Telling You
"You're our hope, Sister."
"No. I don't want this. Let's not do this. If we put our strength together, we can get through it."
"Talk sense. Even Father and Mother could do nothing but stall for time. Two Creator Gods couldn't beat it, and you think we win just by pooling a little strength?"
"There have to be gods still left out there. It isn't over. If we stand and fight to the very end..."
"Get a grip! We can't win. It's over. It's over, I said. Why won't you understand a single word?! Do you need your limbs torn off and your body shoved back into a volcano before you come to your senses?!"
"Take that back. Right now. How could you say something like—"
"Then what?! We're all about to die, and you just keep making pretty speeches—do you have any idea what that does to me?! Cooperation?! Teamwork?! The four snow goddesses you hate are all dead, and our brothers and sisters—aside from you and me, I don't even know who's alive and who's gone. And you want us to join forces and do what?!"
"If we look for them, they'll all still be alive..."
"There's no way they're alive!"
"......"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Sister. I don't have the will to go on anymore."
"Hi'iaka..."
"Lohiau died right in front of me. He died horribly. I couldn't even find a shard of bone to bury. So how—how am I supposed to still be alive? I can't bring him back the way I did in the old days..."
"......"
"There's no sun out there. Every fire Maui ever fished up is gone. The children who loved us are gone too. All that's left is a dying land and this damned darkness."
"...We can find them again."
"You might. But I won't be there."
A sharp crack.
"Stop talking like you're already beaten. Where's the girl who clawed and screamed to take Lohiau away from me? Where's the girl who grabbed me by the collar and shook me, demanding I bring him back?! I didn't bless your love just to watch you turn into this!"
"......"
"...I'm sorry. I got too worked up."
"...It's all right. I was the same."
"You can't... hold on any longer...?"
"No..."
"I see..."
"......"
"......"
"...All right. I'll do it."
"Who else is there but you, Sister..."
"I know. I'm kind of amazing, aren't I?"
"Ugh. You're the worst."
KRA-KOOM!!!
"...So you've come this far. I thought you wouldn't bother with small fry."
"Call it caution. That thing's a complete monster."
"Monsters are usually stupid, though..."
"So it's a smart monster. What of it."
Heavy footsteps. One, then another.
"I'll buy us time. Sister, finish what you have to do."
"...All right. You be careful too."
"Don't worry. I can't even die until I've avenged my dead husband."
"......"
"......"
"...Aloha, Hi'iaka."
"...Aloha, Pele."
WHAM!!!
"Hhk—?!"
What was this?
It hurt. Her head throbbed as if dozens of needles were stirring through it.
"That memory just now..."
It was a memory she didn't know. Had anything like that ever happened in her life?
No. It had. She had only forgotten.
"What happened?"
Hi'iaka. Her beloved little sister.
What happened before I was sealed? Are you alive?
A faint tremor, and the water answered with a soft splash.
She lifted her hand slowly. The sensation of parting water, and then a hand beaded with droplets. She turned it this way and that, clenched a fist, opened it again. Nothing wrong.
"Nnngh..."
She hauled her heavy body upright, fought the water's pull, and at last managed to stand on her own two feet. It was hard. She felt as if she had spent every last bit of strength.
Her arms and legs shook. Her hands jerked wildly, and when she caught one with the other, that hand jerked too. It wasn't muscle failing her. She was shaking because she was afraid—because of a memory faint and vivid at once, dreadful and longed-for, a memory that kept recalling itself and being recalled.
"Hi'iaka..."
She called for a sister who existed only in memory.
In the water that held her body, it was not her own face that looked back, but her sister's. Skin like the stone her blood hardened into. Full, heavy-lidded eyes, plump lips, cheeks soft with charm, and a flower crown that only made that beauty brighter. Beside it, her own face rose—the face she had worn in the old days, when she was a goddess. The features were much like her sister's, but a stubborn, fierce impression clung to them.
Without thinking, she reached out. The longed-for face wavered and vanished.
"...Hah."
Damn it. What was she doing? This was no time for this. She had been in the middle of breaking the seal. Linger here, and everyone might die.
She knew that, and still her feet would not move.
Hi'iaka, you're alive, aren't you? Tell me you're safe.
What in the world happened? What became of Mother and Father?
The brothers and sisters who were left are all right, aren't they? We weren't weak.
And what was the darkness? What was death?
"...Me from the past. What did you choose?"
A corner of her heart tore open, and a drop of water fell through. The droplet was truth—a truth that could only be lived. One drop of truth added to ignorance was like rain on a desert, a blessing that quenched a hundred days of thirst. Curiosity, love, and a worry she could not see were a poison that ate the heart.
Because she did not know, she hoped. Because she was clumsy at it, she despaired. She imagined as she pleased, and gave up as she pleased. Even if she rallied herself again, what came back at the end was a longing with nowhere to settle. It repeated like the cycle of nature, a wheel turning forever, and if she could not get off it she would lock shut and suffocate.
Even if she was a god.
It climbed.
Regret. Hope. Despair. Loss. Resignation. Fear.
It gnawed. The self ate away at the self.
A stir. Another stir. Little by little, beginning from the hands that touched, so that a single step forward might become the foothold that seized the world. No urging. No rushing. This was work—the work of emotion mining the heart. There could not be a single mistake. There could not be a single delay. They simply went forward, until the heart had crumbled completely.
"What are you doing? Come out already."
Someone outside knocked on the door.
Who? Who would come to a place like this? Did it have anything to do with her? And if it did, why come at all? She was comfortable just like this. She didn't want to know anything. She didn't want anything to surface. Just like this...
"Don't stay in there. Come out. At this rate, everyone's going to die."
Ah.
Something caught her and drew her on. She wanted to shake it off, and could not. It was gentle. It was kind. How could it be like this? What was it?
From outside the cracks in her feelings, she looked at it. A bright light—too dazzling to see properly, and still she wanted to keep looking. She flew toward the sun. Only when her body was on the verge of sinking into that light could she feel it whole.
She had no words for it, and yet... truly... it was truly warm. It was jeong—that deep, abiding affection for which no other name would do.
"Hah—!"
Her breath caught hard in her throat. Hers was a body with no need to breathe, and still instinct reached for the grace of nature. Sweat slid from the point of her chin and fell. One drop. Two. Her hands were soaked.
"You awake?"
At the unfamiliar voice she jerked her head around. A young man with black hair stood there, in faded blue jeans and a white short-sleeved shirt, a wireless earbud in one ear and a smartphone in one hand. He pocketed the phone, put the earbud away, and came toward her. Eyes clear as the sky and wide as the sea turned on her.
"You... who are you?"
She had never seen anyone like him. She ransacked her memory and came up with nothing.
"You've seen me once and forgotten? That stings."
"What? I've never seen anyone like—"
Had she really not? Could she be sure of that? She couldn't. There were memories she had forgotten. His face might have been among them.
"Maybe I have?"
"You saw me recently, and you still don't know me."
"What did you say?"
"Never mind. It's not important. There'll come a day you figure it out."
He beckoned her over.
"How long are you going to sit there? Can't you hear that?"
Rrrumble!
"Hold! Just a little longer, and Lady Pele will pull it off!"
"Nngh—!!! I'm at my limit!"
"Chuyeon! Hold yourself together! You're coming apart!"
"Damn!"
She shot to her feet. This was bad. Right—she had been undoing the seal.
"Figured it out now? Quick on the uptake, aren't you."
"Be quiet."
She gnawed at her nails. Damn it, everything else was fine, but where was this? Why wasn't it reality?
The young man snorted.
"Can't you tell by looking? You're inside the seal."
"In... side?"
"It's a seal binding a god. You think they wouldn't have prepared anything?"
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
"Look. There's one great big wall right over there."
"That's...?"
She looked where he pointed. The wall he meant was nowhere to be seen. She swept her eyes up, down, left, and right, and still nothing. She wanted to demand whether he was making fun of her, but the exasperated look on his face shut her mouth.
Where is it supposed to be?
Afraid she had missed something, she looked again.
Wait.
She turned to what lay behind her. Empty. Left and right were the same. Ahead was different. Ahead was not empty. With a sinking feeling she traced the horizon from one end to the other. Even the sky was stopped up solid.
"Caught on now?"
"That's a wall?"
It hadn't been invisible. It was so vast it blocked out the sky itself, and she had taken it for background.
"The wall you have to break. Don't be scared. It's already crumbled as far as a wall can crumble."
He turned his back.
"Come on. If you're going to break it, you have to break it from right up close."
She hurried after him. Walking toward the distant wall, she put the doubt she had been holding into words.
"Who are you, exactly?"
He shrugged.
"Meaningless question. You already know me. You just can't remember."
Something from the memories she had forgotten?
"Why did you help me?"
"Because you helped me."
She still couldn't remember.
"Is that so? Huh. I must be blessed."
"Blessed, my foot. You're just lucky."
He sighed.
"Feeling leisurely, are you? Out there, people are dying because of you alone."
"......"
"Don't make that face. I was just saying it. There's still time."
"Y-you, I swear—"
"Well. We're here."
Since when?! There had still been a long way to go! What?!
"Don't look at me. Look at the wall."
"Hmm."
She looked. From far away she hadn't been able to tell, but this wall was not right. It was faint, precarious. She felt as if she could break into a run and pass straight through it.
"That's enough sightseeing. Break it properly. I'm off."
"Wait."
"What."
Annoyed, he glanced back.
"At least tell me your name. I can't go forgetting someone who helped me."
"A name... A name, huh..."
He thought it over, then opened his mouth.
"Call me Do. The Do in doduk—thief. Just Do."
"Do? That's an unusual name."
"It's not a given name. It's a surname."
"What kind of answer is that? Why won't you tell me the rest?"
"Not telling."
"Hey!"
"Anyway. I'm really going. Break the seal properly."
He gave a lazy wave and vanished just like that, as if he had been nothing but a dream at high noon.
"What... Does he think he's Lohiau?"
That one used to show up in dreams and disappear, too. This one was exactly the same.
"Then maybe he'll turn up in reality the same way..."
Not that she particularly cared. He had helped her, so she only meant to thank him. A god's dream was a special thing. It wouldn't do to ignore it.
"All right, then. Time to break it!"