Beers on the Balcony
After waiting a little while, Hayeon came back first.
When I asked how the talk had gone, she just gave me a vague nod without much of an answer — which meant she'd probably smooth-talked her way through it just fine.
Got it. So, Hayeon, what are you going to do now?
Should I go up first?
Hayeon's eyes slid sideways, ever so briefly.
There, stacked up neatly, sat the cans of beer I'd taken out of the fridge in advance.
Ah. Um. Why are those here? Gosh, and with a student present, no less...
Ashamed, I found myself indignantly blaming a neighbor who wasn't even around, and Hayeon snorted a laugh and gave me a short bow before heading up.
Only after sending Hayeon ahead could I finally step out onto the balcony — carrying, of course, one can of beer in each hand, the very ones I'd just awkwardly hidden away.
Meanwhile, my ever-faithful disciple, Ms. Shin Seoa, was leaning against the railing, gazing up at the heavens, utterly unbothered by her heavenly master's predicament.
Planning on smoking too, I see. Just like that?
Oh, Sabu.
Only then did she seem to notice me, waving her hand. I lightly tossed a can her way.
She caught it with an easy flick of her wrist, looked down at it, and broke into a grin.
What's this?
What does it look like? It's beer.
Oh my. You used to give me grief whenever I smoked, and alcohol's fine now?
You were a minor back then.
It was from when she'd been in the throes of her tempestuous adolescence. She'd been sneaking a cigarette when she happened to get caught by her mother, and the whole boarding house had gone into an uproar.
Losing her father must have taken its toll, and I could understand her acting out — but her mother had been on the verge of actually fainting, so someone had to take the beating as the stand-in culprit. That someone was me.
Thanks to which, my disciple succeeded in quitting smoking — the thing everyone says is so hard — in one go.
You're such a hypocrite. All that "hunters shouldn't do this, hunters shouldn't do that."
Hey, it wasn't wrong, was it? The smell, the light. Easy for a monster to spot you.
And alcohol's fine?
Plenty of potions are pretty much the same thing as booze. You've got to build up a tolerance.
Plenty of things are like cigarettes too, then.
There are some decent ones these days, actually. There's even a potion you spray on like perfume.
Oh, that one? No immediate effect, so it's useless.
Better than vodka or clown mushrooms, isn't it?
Chuckling, I leaned back against the balcony railing as well.
Her profile melted away into the far reaches of the night sky, and all that remained in view was the shabby old boarding house.
Something happen?
I asked as I cracked my can open.
It was tossed off casually, but "I quit" was not the kind of thing you could just laugh away.
After all, the guild she'd belonged to was one of the top three cooperative guilds in all of South Korea.
And a current A+ rank hunter, at that — hardly the kind of personnel you could replace on a whim.
Granted, call it a guild all you like, but the reality was just a faction within the Hunter Association. And the Association itself was, in practice, little more than a labor union for hunters — so a single faction hardly had the power to dictate a hunter's career one way or the other.
Especially not in this country, where any armed force outside the military was viewed with something less than enthusiasm.
But life's never as simple as it looks on paper.
There must have been a whole tangle of issues standing between her and simply walking out with a "I quit, effective today." Handover procedures, for one.
Either way, it was hard to imagine she could just up and quit overnight.
Which meant — if this was a decision she'd agonized over for days and weeks...
So what is it, then? "I'll just close my mother's gate and devote myself to filial piety"?
Wrong direction.
Still, wasn't it a decent place? The contract terms weren't bad.
...I can't really say. She's an adult now, after all.
The problem was that I couldn't fathom for the life of me what had driven Seoa to make this decision.
The guild she'd landed was one of the three great powers among the Association's countless factions — in other words, not a bad vine to cling to at all. There was no way they'd treated her poorly.
Unless, what, some creepy bald guy sexually harassed her?
There was a bald guy, but no harassment.
Damn. Then he's just a poor bastard.
A shadow of sadness flickered across her eyes.
But the way she kept dodging the real reason told me this was no simple joke.
If it had been a drunk-at-a-company-dinner level of "I'm gonna quit soon," I'd have ribbed her about how I was suffering right alongside her.
So? What are you going to do with yourself now?
Ugh, I don't know. I'll rest for a while. I've got money saved up, I can afford to take it easy for a bit.
Your mother won't see it that way.
Why not?
What parent on this earth is happy to watch their daughter shut up in the house all day?
A groan of anguish escaped her.
I snickered at the sight and tilted my own can back. First drink in a long while — it wasn't even strong, but a wave of warmth came rushing up.
Still, she'll be happy, deep down. You haven't been able to take a single day off lately, have you?
Been busy.
She's been lonely. Go spend some time with her. Not too much playing around, mind you.
You're really becoming a proper dad, huh, Dad? Enough with the nagging already!!
At the sight of her flailing her hands around like a kid imitating something she'd seen on TV, I couldn't help but crack a crooked smile.
Well. For all my grumbling, she was my first disciple.
Something was clearly weighing on her — but at least, as long as she could laugh like this, she looked better than she had in the old days.
Teach me how to kill monsters.
...What are you going to use that for?
I'm going to be a hunter.
Sure you are, pipsqueak. Hunter, my ass. You want to watch your mother pass out?
That's exactly why I want to do it. So that never happens.
It's a disaster. We're all doomed. You're not doing it, kiddo.
It's okay if you won't help me, honestly.
Then stop being a pest and get lost.
If you won't help me, I'll kill myself.
...
Please. I don't have the money to learn anywhere else.
My, my. Look how much that reckless little brat has grown.
I chuckled and pressed down on the crown of her head, and she reacted with exaggerated drama, like a cat being petted against its will.
Hey! Cut it out, cut it out! You're ruining my hair!
A little ruined's fine.
Why? Because you figure there's still something underneath worth salvaging?
You can carve lines into a pumpkin all you want, it's never going to turn into a watermelon.
Seriously, what am I going to do with that mouth of yours?
Grrr. Her halfhearted growl sounded exactly like a bulldog.
Before I knew it, I was laughing all over again. It had been a while since I'd seen her face, but somehow, talking with her like this always left me at ease.
Though Seoa herself seemed to find the sight of me utterly distasteful, heaving a small, exasperated sigh.
Ha. How on earth did I end up unemployed while my master became the working stiff?
Ever heard the saying "a treasure in the making"?
What's that supposed to mean? Even a pathetic person has some use somewhere.
I'm disappointed in your vocabulary just now. Go hit the books, kid.
It's been years since I sat at a desk, so sure, fine.
That was less than five years ago, actually.
Knowledge is like a magazine in a gun — one round goes in, one round pops out. That's just the natural order.
You're insane.
More pointless banter bounced back and forth.
But this time, her reaction was oddly muted.
Instead of pressing for an answer, I tilted my head back and slowly started counting the stars scattered across the night sky.
Before long came a long, whistling exhale — the breath carried a lingering haze of alcohol strong enough to reach me from where I stood.
Sabu, is it fun?
What is?
Work.
Have you lost your mind?
No, you just... look like you're having fun.
Fun, my ass. I want to write my resignation letter every single day.
Aw, you're lying.
Is it funny, doubting your heavenly master?
Your eyes were literally dripping honey just now. Be honest, you like it. All those high school girls fawning over you?
Listen, child. However much it may feel like a story from the ancient past, you, too, were once a high school girl.
Thinking about it now, maybe the reason I could hold a classroom of hormonal teenagers in line was precisely because I'd had practice dealing with this one.
No, saying that out loud would just make her insufferably smug, so I kept it to myself.
What? Do I look like I'm having fun?
Yeah. Back when I was job hunting, you looked like death warmed over.
That was just because I couldn't catch any monsters.
I wanted to say that — but if I did, she'd almost certainly look at me like I was some kind of freak, so this time I quietly kept my mouth shut.
I could've gotten you in, you know.
A green rookie like you? Gotten me in where? Worry about keeping your own rice bowl full first.
What? I'm A+ rank now.
Damn. So the Hunter Association's finally scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Ugh, seriously!!
Would you believe it of anyone? You couldn't even pass my practice exams, right up to the end.
That's because you're the one who's broken? Go check with my guild, okay? Nobody performs like me.
Which is exactly why they're scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Ugh, for real. Look at the stubbornness on this old man.
I shrugged as I watched her grumble.
It was true there'd been a time like that. Back when I was deep in the throes of my monster withdrawal? She'd taken one look at my wretched, washed-out face and offered to have me work alongside her.
I turned her down, of course.
No — to be honest, I was tempted. But with the Second Incursion long since ended, the role of guild-affiliated hunters had shrunk to little more than managing the gates tucked inside corporate facilities.
Which meant — I'd have been able to kill monsters.
The problem was that in my active days, I'd been on irreconcilable terms with the Association.
I'd managed to smooth things over eventually, but even that was more than half thanks to the weight of Lee Joongoo's name.
And back then, for this girl — barely more than a rookie — to have recommended me to her guild?
I'd have been the one blocking my freshly-ascended disciple's road ahead.
Honestly, there was my pride involved too.
What?! Me, Park Woochan, join a company riding my disciple's coattails with two good legs?! Not a chance!
I wish you had, though.
But apparently, that memory didn't sit well with her at all.
Or maybe — just maybe — she'd simply grown exhausted by the factional infighting of office life.
That monster-slaying advertisement plastered across the front page of the Hunter Association website — it's bad.
Saying it that plainly was a little too embarrassing even for me, and a groan escaped me instead.
Seoa. If you're drunk, should we head in?
I'm not druuunk.
You are. Let's go in.
Waaaah.
I steadied the shoulder of Seoa as she staggered, moaning like she was at death's door. Fine, whatever, that I'd be a lightweight — but why couldn't this girl hold her liquor to save her life? Did nobody do company dinners these days?
As the suspicion crossed my mind that she might have been a genuine social pariah at work, her mumbling voice tickled my ear.
Eeeeng, Sabu.
Yeah, yeah.
Why didn't you come when I called you?
Didn't feel like working.
But you've got a job nooow.
Hey, I did teach you something, didn't I? Turns out teaching was my calling all along.
I was the one saying it, but what a ridiculous thing to say. I contemplate writing my resignation letter dozens of times a day.
Back when she was my only student, it had been closer to a hobby — small, casual, quietly amusing. Now that it was my profession, and I dreaded even tomorrow morning's commute, well. That told me everything.
Sabuuu.
Hey, shut your mouth. You reek of alcohol.
Excuse me!! You'd tell a lady!! In the flower of her youth!! That she smells?!
Is it real? Every single word out of her mouth smells like a lonely old widower? She's my disciple, but she's honestly a living legend...
Waaaah!!
So? What is it you want, exactly?
I mean... can't I also work where you do, Sabu?
It sounded like asking whether she could at least go on one blind date. Which is to say — pure petulance. A whine leaking out through the cracks in a weakened heart. And at the same time, maybe a quiet grievance aimed at me, for not being there beside her when things got hard.
Either way, she couldn't have meant it seriously.
And yet.
The moment I heard Seoa's words, a plan sparked to life in my head.
Granted, we were talking about connections when even my own position wasn't secure yet...
Actually, that's not half bad.
Even accounting for all of it, it was a bad plan.
And so —
Yeah, yeah. We'll talk about it properly some other time.
Weee?
Even as I hauled the girl making that bizarre noise up the stairs, my mental abacus was clicking away at full speed.