Aftermath (3)
Calling Hyeonseok oppa still sat wrong with me. In my head, I was still a man, and the word carried a quiet resistance I couldn't quite shake.
Of course, in speech and manner and nearly every outward thing, the man I had been was already gone. But my heart… my mind… still insisted I was male.
Yeah… I'm… a guy… It's just my body that turned into a girl's…
So calling him oppa wasn't only uncomfortable — it felt like the final line. Cross it, and I would be surrendering the last of the man I used to be. If that happened, no one would remember who I had been. Only a girl named Charlotte would remain.
Ugh… I didn't think it'd make me this gloomy, though…
If the day ever came when I truly became a woman… maybe then it would be okay to say it?
I figured I might as well try it once, just for practice.
"O… opp… uh… I mean… o… ppa…?"
"Ha! Our little fox~ You said you hated it, so what's this? Practicing? Hmm?"
Yeonseo appeared from behind and wrapped her arms around me. I flinched from head to toe and slowly turned my head. My shoulders had hiked up toward my ears. Knowing she had overheard me practicing the word oppa sent heat flooding into my face, and her breath tickled the back of my neck.
"Y-you heard that…?"
"Hmm~ Whatever could you mean? Hmm?"
With the sly look of a cat that had just caught something delicious, Yeonseo locked her arms around my shoulders from behind and began steering me gently toward the bed.
"Th-that's not—! It's not! You know that, right? Okay? It was just… I mean… so…"
I kept blurting denials in a panic.
"Calm down. Anyone watching would think I was about to eat you. Was it really that embarrassing?"
She sat on the bed with me still in her arms and stroked my hair. Bit by bit, the trembling in my body eased. Her warmth pulled me in until I found myself leaning into her instead.
"Ugh… I'm fine now, so stop…"
"Yeah? Good. So you were practicing in secret?"
"Nngh, I told you it wasn't… It's just that he looked so down, and I wondered what it would feel like if I ever had to call him that… so I just tried it once…"
I hung my head, mortified. Her soft, ice-cool fingertips poked my cheek — soft as a marshmallow — and a moment later she burst out laughing, a bright little puh. The sound of it pulled a shallow breath of laughter out of me too.
How long had it been since I'd laughed with someone like this? In that other world I had worn a scowl almost constantly; I barely remembered smiling at all. The rare times I had, it was never a real laugh shared with anyone — just a hollow little huff that slipped out over a drink.
Wherever you went there, you heard only blood and screaming and the raw sound of grief. Laughter had been unthinkable. But this moment, right now — being able to laugh like this — felt so good.
"Whew… I really haven't laughed like this in a long time. Thank you."
I turned my head and smiled at her. Her eyes went wide for a second, then settled back into that half-lidded look she usually wore.
"Yeah? Come to think of it, you said you were a returnee too, Charlotte. What kind of world was it?"
"Well… just a world that felt like something out of a fantasy novel. Only it wasn't a place full of dreams and hope. It was full of nothing but sorrow and despair."
I slipped free of her arms, scooted farther onto the bed, hugged a pillow to my chest, drew my legs up, and leaned back against the wall as I started talking about that world again.
How I'd first realized I was in another world and thought only good things were waiting. How I'd been chased by monsters all the way into a cave and gained the power I have now. How, as an apostle of the goddess, I'd traveled from place to place, the people I'd met, the things that had happened. Before I knew it, Yeonseo was lying on her stomach on the bed, chin propped in both hands, listening. Scattered beside her were a Polaroid camera and a whole spread of photos of me — I had no idea when she'd taken them.
"Anyway, one thing led to another, I took down the one they called the Evil God, saved the world, and somehow ended up back here. Was it interesting?"
"Yeah. It was. And I can tell how hard it was for you, Charlotte. You really pushed through, didn't you?"
Yeonseo sat up, crawled over, and pulled me into her arms. She stroked my hair and told me I'd done well, that I'd been strong, offering the kind of comfort I hadn't known I needed.
Ordinarily I would have stayed blank-faced through something like this. But ever since becoming a girl, holding my feelings in had gotten so much harder.
What I mean is…
"Y… yeah… I… I pushed through… hic… because I wanted to come back… so even when it hurt I held on… even when I was sad… I held on… and I made it… I made it back, but… hhk…"
"There, there. You did so well, Charlotte. It's okay now."
Held against her, I finally let everything I'd been bottling up pour out like water down a riverbed.
"All done crying?"
"Yeah… thank you…"
"Don't be. I got some great photos out of it, so I should be thanking you!"
I pulled back from her arms and looked — and somehow there were even more pictures of me than before.
"Hey…! Did you seriously have to do that while I was having a moment?"
"Well, photos are all that last, right? I know! Later I'll put together an album — Charlotte's Female Expressions Collection! Just like earlier!"
"Wh—what?! I don't need anything like that!! And what do you mean, f-female expressions…? When did I ever make a face like that…?"
Before I could finish, her hands moved faster than my eyes and shoved one of the photos right in front of me.
The me in that picture was… wearing an expression that was genuinely sultry. Genuinely lewd.
"Th-this is… wh-what…?! I… I looked like that…?! Th-there's no way…! I mean… I… so…"
"Why are you so shocked? It happens when you're in front of someone you like!"
"What are you talking about?! L-like—? It's not like that at all, and besides! Even if you were with someone you liked, there's no way you'd make a face like… like this!"
"Hmm, so that's how you're playing it? Fine. Look forward to it! I'll definitely put that collection together for you!"
"I d-don't need it…!"
We went back and forth like that until a photo on one of the shelves caught my eye.
"What's this…? Is that Uncle?"
"Oh, yeah. Bandit Uncle."
"How long are you going to keep calling him Bandit Uncle?"
"More importantly, the girl next to him…"
At Yeonseo's words I looked closer. It was Uncle Dusik — his beard shorter than it was now, his hair combed straight back, looking every bit the handsome middle-aged man. Beside him stood a girl with a short bob, the ends lightly permed, in a warm brown shade. She didn't particularly resemble him in the face, but she had a cute, puppyish look about her. Judging by the clothes, it must have been a photo from her high school entrance ceremony.
"That's his daughter. Her name is Ho Ryeong."
"That uncle had a daughter like this?"
"Yeah. He said on the way to the settlement, Han Jin-o attacked them. He lost his daughter along with the people traveling with them."
"That's a really sad story."
"It is. Looking at this, though… this camper must have been where he and his daughter lived."
"Hmm. So that's why the partitions and curtains are so well set up. Tch. Maybe I shouldn't have asked for it. I didn't mean to take a place like this."
"It's okay. When I looked at him, it felt like he wanted us to use it. After everything that happened today, I think he wanted to let go of whatever was left. That's why he handed it over to us."
"Yeah? Well, good then~"
Yeonseo lost interest almost at once, flopped onto the bed in a full sprawl, fiddled with her device, glanced at me, and patted the mattress with a couple of firm thwaps.
"Want to talk a little more? I listened to yours, so if there's anything you want to hear, I'll tell you."
"Really?! Then about those summons of yours~"
I sat down beside her and listened as she told me how she had gained her ability, and about her summons.
"I awakened my ability right around… yeah, right when awakeners first started appearing. Pretty early on. The trigger wasn't anything special. It was just so hot that day I thought, I wish I had some ice on my forehead — and then it just formed in my hand. Back then I had no idea the world was going to fall apart this badly, though~"
"I see. There weren't any laws protecting awakeners yet, right? No ranking system or anything either?"
"Right? But like you know, there were plenty of people showing off with their powers, so the laws came together pretty fast. Me, I mostly just hid mine. Other people's eyes were a pain."
"You must have had it pretty rough too. I was stuck in another world, but you watched this whole place change from the start."
"True, but you already know me pretty well by now, don't you? I'm the type who doesn't care what happens unless it interests me. As long as I can stay with my sister, that's enough. That's why I'm out here now, helping her."
"You have a sister? What does she do? Does she clear towers like you?"
Yeonseo tapped her chin with a fingertip a couple of times and opened her mouth.
"Hmm. My sister's an awakener like me, but she prefers building up a settlement over clearing towers. She hates fighting, and she's a bit of a coward."
"Ah, so she works at a settlement?"
"Exactly! And now she's taken over as the settlement's leader, so she's working even harder. Oh! Her ability accelerates plant growth. So at our Garam settlement, we grow our own crops and trade them for resources with other settlements."
"That's an incredible ability. Isn't that essential in times like these? Being able to grow food yourselves…!"
But Yeonseo turned her head toward the window without a word, and something bitter sat in her expression.
"Yeah. Which means we get attacked a lot. Plenty of people have gone after my sister. Some people even ended up resenting her because of it. But she's important to the settlement, so some of them went after me instead. Well… these days I can protect my own body, so they can't even manage that anymore."
Hearing that, I remembered something similar from the other world. Helping people was supposed to be a good thing — but when that help put them in danger instead, others turned on the helpers, shut them out, envied them. I'd nearly been on the receiving end of that myself. I'd cut those problems off at the root before they could grow, or I'd shouted back and asked them what exactly I'd done wrong.
"Yeonseo… that must have been hard for you too. You held on well."
I reached out and stroked her blue-and-white hair as I offered the words. Her pale, porcelain skin flushed the color of a ripe tomato, her ears went red, and she pushed my hand away.
"Aah, enough already~"
Even so — the way she got cute and flustered when someone praised her proved she wasn't only cold. It made her even more endearing, so I kept petting her hair. She turned to look at me, put a hand on my body, and—
"Ah! Seriously~ This is—!"
Her soft hand settled on my chest. A moment later I felt her fingers gather a little of the flesh there, and I jerked, both hands flying up to cover myself on pure reflex.
"W-wait, what are you doing?!"
Yeonseo yanked her hand back as if burned, then kept flexing her fingers in the empty air, muttering to herself.
"Wh… what? It's… different from when I sneaked a feel before…? Wait. Did you grow that much already…?"
"What on earth are you even— hyaaah!"
Her hand closed on my chest again and started kneading. The bright, sparkling eyes she'd had while we were talking were gone. They had gone pitch-black, as if sunk into an abyss, with something like a whirlpool spinning in their depths — a terrifying look.
"You… betrayed me…?!"
What in the world was she even talking about…?!