Uninvited Guests
We'd gotten up from the restaurant, but there was nowhere we could talk without putting distance between ourselves and Helena and Nyangnyangbeam. The partitioned private rooms were all reserved, and stepping outside would mean too many watching eyes.
A pretty nun already bound in ropes was bound to draw stares as it was. Add a little girl who looked like she'd stepped straight out of a myth, and we'd be a spectacle. So the bathroom became our meeting place. There simply wasn't anywhere else.
Even once we arrived and stood facing each other, Miso Cheonsa never let the smile leave her face.
Was that smile a pretense? Her default expression, something that never quite faded? Or was she genuinely enjoying herself?
I couldn't say what meaning lived inside that smile. But even a glance was enough to tell she was at ease.
When do you feel at ease? Before anything else, you have to feel safe. You have to believe the situation is unfolding under your control.
I, on the other hand, was anything but calm.
I was already a dead person. I'd simply been given a body, and a body was something I could shrug off whenever I liked. Helena, though — if she died, that was the end of her. And because of Miso Cheonsa's coaxing, Helena was about to set foot in something dangerously close to that.
I had no room for composure, so I was the one who had to speak first.
"Miso Cheonsa. Why are you steering Helena toward somewhere dangerous?"
"Dangerous? Won't you be there to protect her, Yeonmin?"
She answered with shameless certainty, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. I was so incredulous I shot back.
"Of course I would. But then it wouldn't be Helena's life, would it? And if I let my guard down even for a moment and she took a fatal wound... wouldn't it be better if something like that never happened at all?"
"Hmm. Isn't that Helena's choice, though? And it isn't that dangerous a gate. Other worlds are connected through them, but the more powerful the being trying to cross, the larger the gate becomes. We'll identify a place that isn't particularly hazardous beforehand and go there."
So it wasn't that dangerous, and I was making a fuss over nothing — was that it?
Even I, who knew nothing about gates, had already heard as much from Agent Park. Nobody knows whether something hostile will come through from the other side, or a friendly otherworlder.
The human spirit can become as strong as it needs to be. Even while dying, it can blaze with a will brilliant enough to save the family beside them, a comrade, even a complete stranger.
At the same time, the human body is fragile. A bite from an animal far smaller than themselves can leave them laid low with poison or disease. A tiny wound can kill them with tetanus. There had even been humans who went blind and had their brains destroyed when I failed to control my strength — from nothing more than a light flick of my thought-form.
That's how carefully humans have to be handled. To toss them aside with a you chose this future, so you deal with it... that's far too cruel.
"Miso Cheonsa, if you hadn't talked her into it, Helena would have just found some ordinary work."
"I wonder. I think I simply shortened the time she'd have spent wandering. If she'd already resolved to take on risk and make use of her talents, she would have taken an interest in gates eventually, whether I told her or not. Sooner or later."
She wasn't wrong. Helena was a girl who carved out her own fate — and now she was a proper adult. Even if she ended up in some mediocre job, she would keep searching until she found her calling.
"But still..."
Even knowing that, I wanted to argue. I didn't want that calling to be something that put her in danger. I didn't want her picking up a gun again, aiming it at someone, walking into a place where she might get hurt.
"Yeonmin. Humans aren't a species that needs that much overprotection. If you aren't planning to treat them like dolls and meddle in everything, simply cheering them on from the sidelines is enough. Ah — it is good to shield them from unjust deaths, of course. Threats from those crossing over from other worlds, for instance."
Miso Cheonsa was right. That had been my own philosophy, too. Watching had been more than enough to make me happy.
But I'd grown too attached, empathized too deeply. Leaving them alone had become hard. And I already carried a weight on my heart, which made it worse.
Because I'd truly only laid the lightest of hands on things, Helena's parents had died. I could have done something. I'd just loved watching Helena live her own life so much. I'd found it so beautiful, so precious, the way she burned through her days like a candle. I'd let even a passing breeze make that flame flicker.
Only after the wax melted and dripped onto the hand holding the candle did I find myself this helplessly burned.
Coming in now to lecture Helena on what path she should take... wouldn't that just be hypocrisy? If I was going to do that, I should have wiped out the bandits with my own hands from the start and found her a happy family.
I knew that myself. I couldn't say anything more about it. But I didn't want to admit it so readily, so I muttered a sulky complaint at Miso Cheonsa.
"...But you don't even know what I can do. I don't know how to pull things out of thin air. I'm just sitting here tied up."
"Oh my. Weren't you only bound like that to put people at ease? You came out to greet me just fine a moment ago. And you could make an inventory whenever you wanted, if you wished."
Ah. Right. Miso Cheonsa already knew these restraints meant nothing to me. Well, physically I was tied, so I couldn't use my hands — but I could just extend my thought-form and that would be that.
Still, I didn't want to go along with her so easily. Telling Helena to feed her, pushing things along on her own — it all rankled. So I kept sulking.
Yes. Sulking. The schedule wasn't going to change anyway, so this was just a please-notice-that-I'm-in-a-bad-mood kind of thing.
"People call me a goddess and put me on a pedestal, but I'm nothing that grand. All I know how to do is pick the pretty wishes from among humanity's and grant those. Beyond that, I just help out in little ways."
"And Yeonmin — can't you grant your own wishes as well? It's a very simple thing."
"I don't want to. This is all of your world. If Helena just adapts well here and lives happily, that's enough for me."
"And after Helena dies?"
But Miso Cheonsa didn't soothe me. On the contrary, everything up to now had been a gentle probing. Now she jabbed straight into the thing I'd been looking away from.
...It wasn't as if I didn't know.
A human life is very short. Like the candle I'd mentioned, humans blaze brilliantly through that brief span and then gutter out. And that brightly shining will passes on, catching in the generations that follow. The children I'd saved until now had lived out their lives that way and died, surely.
Lifespans vary, of course. But humans who have transcended death are vanishingly rare. I'd simply looked away, telling myself they must have lived happily.
Helena would be the same. Someday she would grow old, advancing toward death with every moment. Or, knowing her temperament, she might not wait for that slow approach — she might throw herself into the fire of her own accord.
And after that?
I don't know. I don't want to think about that.
"...Fine. What then. I know it's a fate I'll have to face someday, but I don't want to think about it. I just want Helena to be happy now. Is that not enough?"
"Then let Helena live her own life. For us, watching is enough. Yeonmin, I think it would be perfectly fine for a goddess as tender as you to stay by her side and watch over her."
Was this comfort? A guideline? Permission that this much, at least, was all right?
It felt like she was treating me like a child, and that needled me, so I sulked again.
"...If I stay beside her and she gets into danger, I might just go on a rampage however I please."
"Well, then that's what you'll do. Yeonmin, we are never above humans. We are simply beings living through this moment together with them. We just live a little longer, and can do a little more. It's no different from the relationship between a hamster and a human."
Ah.
So that was allowed.
Yes — from the universe's point of view, whether I did something or not wouldn't make much difference. That was quite a comfort, and also a little embarrassing.
I'd thought Miso Cheonsa was testing me, probing me. But listening to her, it seemed she'd wrestled with the same questions many times already. She'd already found her own answer, and she'd been trying to offer that advice.
"...Thank you. I thought you were just using Helena to mess with me. I didn't expect to be comforted like this."
"That's exactly right. I did give Helena career counseling, but that was part of the purpose as well. You turned out to be a far purer and kinder goddess than I'd imagined, though. So I want you to be happy too, Yeonmin. You're one of my students, after all."
"I'm not particularly pure or kind..."
So my hunch hadn't been entirely wrong. By this point, though, the original purpose hardly mattered.
I let out a small laugh.
And in that moment, from behind us — a splashing trickle.
"Uh...! I-I'm so sorry! I couldn't hold it... P-please spare me... I won't tell anyone what happened here...!"
The sound of liquid hitting water, and beyond the closed stall door, a woman's voice thick with embarrassment.
Only then did I register where we were. Bathrooms are where humans relieve themselves. We were the uninvited guests.
I was wondering what I should even say to the woman in the stall when—
"Hehe. You can tell anyone you like. We weren't saying anything bad, and the Association already knows all of this. We'll be heading out now, so please, take your time."
"Y-yes...! Thank you!"
Miso Cheonsa handled it so naturally there was no need for me to say anything. At this point I was starting to feel like I was looking at a senior in life.
No — given everything we'd just talked about, she wasn't human, so...
Hmm. A ghost?
I was still gazing up at her with a flicker of respect when—
"Fucking nyang, she stuck me with the bill again, nyang! I thought you'd run off so I already paid, nyang!"
"Hehe. So Nyangnyangbeam treated us as a senior, then?"
"Don't you dare think I'll just go along if you put it that way, nyang! Next time you pay me back with two meals, nyang!"
"Ahh, but I don't have any money. Whatever shall I do."
Hearing her answer Nyangnyangbeam's furious outburst so slyly, whatever respect had been about to take root just... evaporated.
...I don't know.
I should just go sit next to Helena.