Well, Whatever
"Yes! We're finally home!"
Dan Chuyeon threw both arms up and roared in front of the house he had missed so badly.
"Chuyeon. You're really going to make Mom haul all the luggage by herself?"
"Krrng!"
Mi Soryeong was dragging a suitcase in each hand, and San-gun had a bag clamped in his mouth as well. Beside the two of them, Dan Chuyeon was carrying nothing but his own.
"……I'll get them!"
He stole a glance at his empty hands, sprinted for the car, and scooped up everything that was left. Then he showed off, lifting the bags on nothing but air. One by one they rose as if haunted, and the TERA operative behind the wheel stared.
"……Talent like that, at his age. That's no ordinary gift."
"Hehe. My boy is a little something."
Mi Soryeong offered the driver a small thanks for seeing them all this way.
"Thank you. It must have been a tiring drive. Why don't you come in for a glass of water?"
What he saw through the window tempted him. She had leaned in close, and when she swept her hair aside the line of her collarbone showed, and beneath it the heavy, magnificent swell of her chest. Something caught fire in the operative's own.
"Krrrr."
He flinched at the murderous sound. San-gun had appeared at Mi Soryeong's side as if he had always been there, tiger eyes flashing. Clear white light mingled with yellow in those uncanny eyes, and they seemed to see straight through a man.
Fear outran wanting. The operative grabbed the wheel at once.
"No. With the Heavenly Punishment incident, TERA is in an emergency. Thank you for the offer, but this is as far as I go."
A refusal cut clean and cold. It was a mercy his voice didn't shake.
Mi Soryeong took his meaning and let him off.
"All right. Drive safely."
"Yes. I'll be going, then."
The car crept forward on a low mutter of exhaust, careful not to scrape the nerves of the one still watching from behind.
"A thoughtful man, wasn't he?"
"Krrng."
She stroked San-gun as they went into the house. The springy fur met her palm, and that addictive softness melted the weariness of the trip right out of her.
"Mom, what are you doing? Come in already. I'll put all the bags away."
Dan Chuyeon had the front door flung wide and was waiting. His sulky face was so cute she could hardly stand it.
"Just clean your own room. Last time I looked, it was a pigsty."
"I do clean, you know. It is not a pigsty."
"You didn't touch the hair, the snack wrappers, or the trash can. How old are you, that Mom still has to do all of it?"
"You're exaggerating……."
"I am not. You've shed more hair than San-gun."
"Krrng. Krrng."
San-gun shook his head as if to say she had it right, and Mi Soryeong scratched gently under his chin.
"See? Even San-gun agrees."
"No! San-gun isn't a normal tiger! He just eats, and he doesn't even poop!"
"Child, honestly. Poop? What kind of talk is that?"
"Krrrrrr!!!"
How dare he speak so filthily of dung. San-gun's stomach turned, and he gave Dan Chuyeon's arm a light, offended bite.
"Aaaah! The tiger's mauling somebody!"
"San-gun. I'll leave Chuyeon to you."
"Krrng."
San-gun dragged him inside. Dan Chuyeon pounded the tiger's neck and yelled that he tapped, but the tiger had never heard of such a thing.
Mi Soryeong switched on the dark hall light, and only then did it truly sink in that she was home.
"Now we just need the ones who are still out to come back."
She turned her phone over in her hands. No news was good news, people said. Even so, she prayed under her breath that nothing had happened.
They would be fine. She knew exactly what kind of people they were.
With that she set to work, cleaning the house and sorting the luggage piece by piece. She started the robot vacuum, aired the rooms, and took out the Hawaii souvenirs and the clothes one careful item at a time.
"Hm? Why is this here?"
From between the souvenirs she lifted two shirts. Both were gaudy with color. One had HAW printed across it, and the other AII.
They were the matching set she had dragged Hong Yumin along to buy.
But the shirt marked HAW was torn wide open. The letter H had been ruined past any hope of recognizing it.
Mi Soryeong's mouth went dry. It was far too deliberate to be an accident.
She ransacked the rest of the luggage. Everything else, ironically, was perfect. Even the fragile cookies had not lost a single piece.
That strange neatness made her shake. It was as if—
"Krrrng."
San-gun appeared from nowhere and licked her cheek. The saliva of the tiger who held heaven in him soothed the ominous boil rising in her chest.
"It'll be all right…… won't it?"
She pulled him into her arms. A face the size of an exercise ball tucked neatly against her.
"Krrng. Krrng."
It's all right. That child is strong.
"She is, isn't she?"
Don't worry. No one is going to be hurt.
Mi Soryeong closed her eyes on the warmth echoing back at her. The cry, thick with some hidden mystery, ate up what anxiety she had left.
"Wait. San-gun, you can talk?"
"Krrrr?"
Bright eyes blinked at her. He looked a little stupid. The tilt of his whiskers called up every smaller cousin of the tiger.
"Aigoo. You're nothing but a cat."
"Krrng. Krrng."
She must have misheard. Mi Soryeong let it pass without another thought.
"Let's see, the time is……?"
One look at the hour hand on the wall clock made her jump.
"Look at me! I still have to feed Chuyeon!"
She had lost track of the hour, and suppertime was already gone.
"Chuyeon! You up?"
"Yes! I'm up!"
Youth was beating the late hour. He sounded wide awake.
"Let's eat! What do you want?"
"Chicken!"
"Is anywhere even open at this hour?"
"Then jokbal!"
"Chuyeon, you order it!"
"Oh, yes!"
A glad clatter of feet came running.
Dan Chuyeon eyed the coupon stuck to the fridge and called the jokbal place for an order of braised pigs' trotters.
"San-gun. Large is fine, right?"
"Krrrng!"
"Chuyeon, the large!"
"Yes!"
She straightened her back. She had been sitting so long her muscles had gone stiff, and a simple stretch worked them loose again.
"San-gun, what's wrong?"
He was staring toward the front door, tail stiff and high, fixed on something the way he fixed on prey.
"The jokbal won't be here for a while."
San-gun said nothing. And then—
"Krrrrrrr!!!"
He bared his fangs.
"Huh?"
The ferocity of it nearly took her legs out from under her, and it wasn't even aimed at her.
"Mom. Just a second……."
Something in the tiger's behavior told Dan Chuyeon enough. His face hardened, and he put his body in front of hers.
He blew out a breath.
The small wind that left him became his eyes and his ears. He followed it as it slipped through the crack of the door, and his eyes flew wide.
"Get down!"
Boom!
Dust erupted with the blast.
Crash!
That was not the end. Glass shattered, and a dull impact thudded through the house again and again.
Smoke crawled across the floor. Dan Chuyeon clamped a hand over his mother's nose and his own.
"KEOHEOHEONG!!!"
San-gun roared, and the smoke tore apart in an instant. In the cleared light of the ruined room, Mi Soryeong let out a thin sound.
"What……."
The front door had been blown to pieces, its wreckage strewn down the hall, and every window facing the yard was shattered.
That was not all. Little canisters rolled at her feet, and Mi Soryeong's face went hard.
"Sleeping gas……."
A military agent. Get unlucky with it, and the poisoning killed you. Without San-gun they would have been helpless.
"KEOHEOHEONG!!!"
He roared again. His fur stood on end. Beyond the blown-open doorway, people in black were waiting.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!!!
Bullets stormed in.
Ting-ting-ting!
Not one of them pierced San-gun's barrier. A rippling aura, white and clear, did more than stop the rounds. It shoved them back.
Boom!
The entrance exploded a second time.
"Krrrrr."
San-gun did not chase them. There were people behind him he had to keep. Driving the enemy off was something he could do alone, but if they struck from the rear while he was gone, it would be dangerous.
From the way he held his ground, Mi Soryeong understood her own place in this. Stay where they were, and they would not even manage the things they were capable of.
"Chuyeon. We're falling back to the basement."
"And leave San-gun by himself?"
She answered without room for argument.
"Our job is to hold. If it's San-gun, he can finish every one of them alone."
"……All right."
Dan Chuyeon gave in at once. After everything he had been through, he knew the measure of himself.
"Krrrr!"
San-gun seemed to catch her meaning and urged them to move.
"Let's go."
"Yes."
She pulled Dan Chuyeon into the master bedroom, opened the lock hidden in the bed, and entered the code.
Kiiing.
The bed rose, and a hidden stair showed itself. Mother and son threw themselves down it.
They felt their way along the black wall of the basement until a small bunker received them. Emergency rations and daily necessities were stocked there, and even a bathroom; the shelter was surprisingly snug. A monitor could show them what was happening above.
"……It was loud up there. Did someone attack?"
Awkward Korean came from deeper inside the bunker.
"…Who?"
Dan Chuyeon shook. An old movie rose in his mind, and the gooseflesh came on its own.
Mi Soryeong fixed her eyes on one corner of the room. Iron bars that had no business in a family bunker. Inside them, someone who had been lying down pushed himself upright.
"This isn't something you need to worry about."
"The Dan Clan of all people gets hit, and it's nothing to worry about? In a way, I'm the senior here."
"It's different from then. We can handle it ourselves."
"……That so?"
He set his chin on his hand.
Alexei Ivanovich Yan flicked the finger braced beneath his chin.
A small motion. Up, and down.
There was no threat in it at all, and still it turned the blood cold.
As if.
A sword were waiting in front of them.