Convenience Store
"This is a damn mess."
At Jane’s voice beside me, I could only nod in agreement.
What lay spread out before me was a scene of brutal slaughter.
In the empty lot that looked as though it had once been a junk dealer’s yard, piled high with scrap metal, more than a hundred people, by rough estimate, lay sprawled on the ground.
Corpses stacked like a mountain in front of the entrance, soaked in blood.
There were signs of desperate struggle, of people clawing for their lives, but no trace of any physical resistance.
It was obvious the rebels had butchered civilians who weren’t friendly to them.
"Check if there are any survivors."
"Yes, sir."
At my order, Jane nodded and led the other troops toward the pile of bodies.
I took a breath and looked around the area.
A child caught my eye, face down on the ground.
A child whose face had been split clean open from forehead to crown, white skull fragments and yellowish bits of brain smeared across the dirt.
Flies swarmed in from somewhere, crawling in and out of the child’s head, which had been split wide open on both sides.
I turned away only after I saw a plump maggot wriggling out of the child’s left ear.
"...We have to kill them all."
I muttered blankly.
"The bastards who did this kind of shit..."
"...We have to kill them all."
Blocking my face with an arm as the streetlamp light leaked in through the window, I murmured again, low and flat.
"Hoo..."
I forced myself to breathe slowly and steadily.
The child’s image, which had been flickering before my eyes, gradually receded.
I’m okay.
I’m okay.
I’m okay.
With that self-hypnosis, I calmed my tense body.
The child disappeared completely from my sight, and my blurred vision began to clear.
I turned my head and looked at the clock hanging on the wall.
11:20 p.m.
Feeling the sticky discomfort of sweat soaking the back of my shirt, I looked around.
Plain gray wallpaper with nothing special about it.
A worn-out fluorescent light fixed to the ceiling.
Boxes scattered wherever they’d been dropped.
The damp, musty smell unique to a semi-basement.
This was my home.
More precisely, my new home, after moving in yesterday.
.
.
.
.
"I’m leaving work first. Thanks for handling the rest."
"Yes, take care on your way home."
Jingle—
As the owner stepped outside, the part-timer left alone in the convenience store, Lee Ji-yul, let out a sigh.
From here on out, she had to stand guard over the shop, dealing with all sorts of obnoxious customers until her shift ended.
What kind of convenience-store villains would show up today, she wondered.
Just thinking about it made her chest tighten.
Ji-yul pouted and looked out the window.
One lonely streetlamp was shining over the darkened street.
I want to meet a handsome male customer, too.
The reason she kept having thoughts like that was largely because of her friends.
Every time they met at school, the other convenience-store part-timers she knew would brag endlessly about it.
About the man they saw at work yesterday, about how handsome he was, about how they’d gotten his number...
Just yesterday, she’d even heard that one of her friends had actually started dating a man she met while working a night shift.
For Ji-yul, who had gone through middle school and high school without ever once dating, it was like something out of a dream.
It wasn’t as though she lacked looks compared to other people.
If anything, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say she was better-looking than most.
Clear, spotless skin without so much as a blemish, and a not-insignificant height of 178 centimeters.
A face that gave off an overall cute impression, and a full, voluptuous chest.
Even a body that could pull off just about any outfit she wore.
The reason she hadn’t dated anyone came down purely to a lack of confidence.
So Ji-yul spent yet another day guarding the convenience store and soothing her endless loneliness.
She rang up the belongings of customers who wandered in from time to time, then drifted back into a daze behind the counter, repeating the same cycle over and over.
If a drunken customer showed up, she would somehow soothe them and send them stumbling back outside. If a middle-aged woman barked at her in casual speech from the start, Ji-yul’s spirit would grow even more worn down.
Jingle—
"Welcome."
At the sound of the doorbell again, Ji-yul called out mechanically.
What kind of customer would it be this time?
Please, not another troublemaker.
Praying that silently, Ji-yul lifted her head—and met the eyes of a man.
"...Huh?"
What he wore was anything but ordinary.
A black cap with no decoration and a face hidden behind a mask.
A black jacket and pants fitted with knee pads.
A thick, unfamiliar-looking vest visible through the slightly open jacket.
Fingerless leather gloves on his hands.
The man looked like someone who’d stepped straight out of a game or a movie.
But what drew her attention most of all was his hair and eyes.
Do white-haired, red-eyed people actually exist?
White hair spilling out from beneath his cap.
Red eyes glowing faintly.
All kinds of thoughts began tumbling chaotically through Ji-yul’s head.
Is the hair dyed? Are the eyes color contacts? But he looks too natural. Could he be albino? Wait, even with that mask on, you can still tell he’s handsome. And his build is amazing...
He was about the same height as her, and she was fairly tall herself.
Broad shoulders, as if he trained regularly.
Even with the mask on, for some reason, Ji-yul felt as though she could see the man’s bare face.
Then she realized she’d been staring at him for quite a while.
When her gaze met the man’s red eyes looking back at her, her face flushed hot.
She hurriedly lowered her eyes to the counter and cautiously watched his reaction.
If he was offended by her staring, that would be a serious problem.
Fortunately, however, the man said nothing. He merely gave Ji-yul a small nod of greeting before disappearing beyond the shelves.
Ji-yul stared blankly at the place where he’d vanished for a long time.
Was that a green light?
Lee Ji-yul’s happiness circuit slowly began to kick in.
.
.
.
.
I came to the convenience store to buy beer, but the part-timer is staring at my face way too intently.
Had I been exposed to the Korean press at some point?
No way.
In the three years I spent in Solomon, the only reporter I ever met was May.
She covered the progress of the war, the rebels’ utter depravity, and Gibro’s war crimes, but she never once reported on an individual soldier.
Is it because my outfit looks weird?
Korea may be a country where gun use is prohibited, but walking around outside unprotected still feels dangerous, so I came out with only the bare minimum.
I wore the night-duty pants issued in Solomon, along with knee pads, and on my body a stab-resistant vest I’d bought before entering Korea.
Unless the other guy came at me with a knife in a full-force swinging attack, it would protect me.
On my hands I wore sap gloves with heavy steel pellets inside.
If I smash someone in the face with these, they’ll be heading straight to Valhalla.
In truth, I had brought a kitchen knife as well.
I’d hidden it in the inner pocket of the jacket I wore over the stab vest.
This was the final weapon, to be used only in the worst possible moment.
In Solomon, no matter how many people I killed, it had never been a problem. Here in Korea, things were different.
I carefully lifted my head and checked the security mirror mounted in the corner of the ceiling.
The part-timer came into view, hurriedly fixing her makeup with tense little motions.
What on earth is she doing?
Is my outfit really that strange?
I decided that thinking any more about it would only give me a headache, so I gave up trying to understand her behavior.
Let’s just grab some beer and get out fast.
I quickly scanned the brands on the cans lined up in the refrigerator.
Three years really had been a long time.
Everything I could see was a brand I didn’t know.
The beer Frieda used to bring back to us at the front was the real stuff.
Come to think of it, the reason I even started drinking beer was entirely because of Frieda.
I got curious about what it tasted like, took one sip, and was hooked.
German beer really is the best.
The British beer May gave me was decent enough too, but for some reason it turned my brain to mush after I drank it, so I never touched it again.
Sadly, it didn’t look like this convenience store had any of the German beer I’d gotten from Frieda.
Guess I’ll just pick anything.
"Yup."
I grabbed the first yellow can I saw and headed to the counter.
The part-timer was still holding up a mirror and studying her own face carefully.
I’d never seen someone so focused on making themselves look nice on the battlefield, so it was a rather fresh sight.
Thud—!
"Eek."
As I set the beer can on the counter, the part-timer made some dazed little sound and hurriedly put the mirror aside.
I hadn’t realized it from the entrance, but seeing her up close, she was quite the beauty.
Brown hair tied back in a ponytail.
A relaxed, generally cute face.
More than anything, what really drew the eye was the innocent purity of her gaze.
Anyone who had spent more than a year in a war zone had seen those eyes at least once.
The eyes with pupils shrunk tight and red veins standing out against the whites.
Fear of death and guilt over killing.
The noise of the battlefield and the silence of the slaughter site.
When all of that bears down on you, presses on you, tightens around your throat...
our eyes stare into emptiness.
Into nothing, where nothing happens.
Into a black abyss.
Those eyes are called the thousand-yard stare.
The eyes of the woman in front of me, blushing as she scanned the barcode on the beer can, were clean.
Proof that she lived in a world different from mine.
While some people, in hell where life and death are decided in an instant, are carrying out the worst things a human being can do, someone on the other side of the earth can think about what to eat for dinner tonight, or what they’ll do tomorrow.
I wondered whether this woman knew how blessed that was.
"That’ll be 3,900 won!"
At the part-timer’s words, I took my wallet from the pocket of my night-duty pants and pulled out cash.
Three blue bills, one 500-won coin, and four 100-won coins.
It had been a while since I’d handled Korean won, so I wasn’t used to it.
"Here..."
After checking again to make sure I’d pulled out the right amount, I looked back at the part-timer standing at the register.
...Her hand was reaching down below the counter.
Thump—
"Ugh?! "
Before the woman could reach under the counter, I grabbed her and stopped her.
What had she hidden under there?
A pistol?
A shotgun?
Or maybe an axe?
"C-customer...? Why are you suddenly doing this...?"
The unidentified threat in front of me opened her mouth in a trembling voice.
A reddish blush had spread across her cheeks.
That too is all an act.
She could just scan the barcode, take my money, and be done with it, but instead she reached under the counter, where I couldn’t see what was there.
That meant she was hiding something.
With my arm raised to chest height, ready to smash my fist into her face at once, I asked her a question.
"Would it be all right if I checked under the counter for a moment?"
"Huh?"
"I asked whether it would be all right if I checked under the counter."
"W-what are you talking about all of a sudden...?"
Bang—!
"...!"
Exasperated by the woman’s attitude, which kept making me repeat myself, I roughly shoved the beer can aside.
Even though she flinched at the loud sound, I paid no mind to her reaction.
I didn’t hesitate as I grabbed the door to the counter entrance, and the woman cried out in a panic.
"W-wait! If you go in here...!"
Clunk—
I shoved the door open and looked inside.
A plastic bag, a storage rack full of cigarettes, a blue plastic chair, a smartphone, a trash can.
"..."
That’s it?
Why?
Why was there no gun, no knife, nothing at all?
"H-hey... please let go of my arm now. Customer, you’re not supposed to come inside the counter."
At the voice from beside me, I turned my head with difficulty.
At some point, the woman had a phone in her hand and was looking at me with a troubled smile.
Plop—
I immediately let go of the arm I’d been gripping so tightly.
So I really had gone insane.
This is Korea.
This is Korea, damn it.
This isn’t a battlefield.
A friendly civilian isn’t suddenly going to turn on me, pull out a knife, and rush me.
She could just be taking her phone out from under the counter.
Right.
And yet...
I can’t help it.
What am I supposed to do when my body reacts first?
"...I’m sorry. I think I misunderstood something."
"Pardon?"
Since I’d caused trouble, I had to clean it up.
I trudged back out from behind the counter, picked up the money I’d dropped on the floor, and put it on top of the register.
The woman was looking at me with a dazed expression.
"I’m really sorry."
Bow—
"Huh? Huh?"
I apologized to her with a deep bow.
A customer had suddenly grabbed someone’s arm and barged behind the counter. It was a miracle she wasn’t treating me like a lunatic.
The woman seemed truly flustered, muttering over and over, what do I do, what do I do.
Should I give her a tip or something?
Do people even tip in Korea?
While I was mulling it over, the woman suddenly cleared her throat and spoke to me.
"Ahem... um, then, as compensation for barging into the counter without permission..."
"Yes?"
She took a deep breath, then held out her smartphone toward me.
"Could I have your number?"
"My number?"
"Your phone number."
So she could sue me later?
I’m screwed.