A Stolen Seat
"Whoaaaa……."
That was the sound the goddess made when I finished explaining what had just passed between Kim Mincheol and me. Her tone carried the flat weariness of someone utterly drained, and to me it was more than a little grating.
"Hey, quit marveling and get your boy under control. He's your son, isn't he?"
"It was dreary, I say."
"So it wasn't running away from home?"
"Eeeh…"
Eeeh, my ass. What kind of nonsense is that.
I genuinely wanted to smack her upside the head. If she weren't a monster, I'd have snapped her other horn too — well, no, if she weren't a monster, there wouldn't have been any horns to begin with.
Anyway.
Fuck. If that bastard hadn't been coward enough to be born human, I'd have finished him off ages ago.
"This one has no idea what you are trying to say any longer."
"Doesn't that bother you?"
"Heeeh…"
Watching the primordial chump of mythology whine away like that, I felt heat climb up my neck despite myself. Fortunately, she seemed to know she was at fault, because unlike her usual self, she shrank down at a single growl.
With the situation thus settled, I finally managed to turn my head toward the boarding house living room.
"So, with all that settled — she'll be living here for the next few days."
But no answer came.
In the end, I had no choice but to narrow my eyes and study the two of them.
"Hayeon? Seoa? What's the matter with you two now?"
"Uh, uh-uhh. Uh-uhh-uhh-uhh."
"What's wrong with her?"
"She's gone clean off her rocker, she has."
Seoa, her mind clearly gone wandering somewhere far away at my words, kept repeating nothing but strange noises. Then, all at once, she snapped back to her senses and shouted at me.
"No, wait!! Who is that person?!"
"Huh? Seoa, come on — coworker or not, you should at least remember the people you work with."
"That's not what I mean!"
"Then what do you mean?"
"Ggggkkkk!!"
I couldn't decide whether to call it the sound of a malfunctioning robot or of teeth grinding. She let out a strange noise that defied description.
Wait, isn't she still in her twenties? A sexist thought, perhaps — but should a girl her age really be carrying on like this?
"O-Okay. Got it. I got it, I said. Uh, what was it again — Ms. Tia?"
"Tia bint Rahman bin Abdullah Muhammad?"
"Right. Ms. Tia bint Rahman bin Abdullah Muhammad is going to be living in our house?"
To be precise, she would be living at the boarding house.
"No — why on earth?"
"I literally just explained all of this……"
Even I was drained by Seoa's reaction. Honestly, I wasn't thrilled about it either. I had simply concluded, after sizing up the situation as objectively as I could, that this was the best option on the table.
Truth be told, none of this ever needed to go this far.
The problem was that the opponent in question happened to be that bastard Kim Mincheol. After all, this was a man who had tried to kill someone for no reason other than holding a job at the same workplace as Tiamat. Not to mention he possessed skill wildly out of proportion with his sanity. If anyone on the teaching staff besides me were pitted against him, I had no confidence they would hold.
That was exactly why Tiamat's residence had been moved. Deliberately relocated somewhere close at hand, to draw Kim Mincheol's gaze — so that he would focus on me, and me alone.
The important thing was Kim Mincheol's hostility toward me. Beyond that, there was no need for me to step forward and take any further action. But what would go through that guy's head when he learned that Tiamat and I now lived under the same boarding-house roof? I could hardly begin to imagine. One thing was certain, though: he would never again be eyeing the other teachers.
Truly, I had gotten myself tangled in a bothersome affair. If Tiamat had been the only party to this problem, I'd have dumped it in her lap and washed my hands of it……. The issue was that the root cause of the whole mess lay with me. Bluntly put, every bit of this had happened because I had recommended her for the teaching post in the first place.
Granted, I had braced myself to some extent. Or rather — expecting nothing to go wrong from the very moment I proposed hiring a goddess was wishful thinking of the highest order.
Originally, the plan was to stomach a little chaos and extend our hand~
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine a lunatic stalker bastard would come lunging out of the woodwork. I'd figured the worst case was some friction with the Association.
Looked at that way, Kim Mincheol really was the problem. What kind of upbringing does it take to produce a cross-species stalker like that? Well, that much was a joke — but that upbringing matters is an undeniable fact.
Then again, as far as I could see, Kim Mincheol was simply rotten by nature. Even for the Mother of Gods, being made to shoulder the blame for failing to correct such a demented child must feel rather unfair.
"Let's see. First of all, Ms. Tia here has been suffering from a stalker lately, you see?"
"So?"
"And it turns out that stalker is actually her stepbrother."
"Huh?"
"That's also exactly why Ms. Tia would prefer he be treated leniently. The problem is, the stalker once proposed to her."
"Huh?"
"You get the picture, right? Say Ms. Tia's home alone someday and that gentleman tries to force his way in — that would be a problem, wouldn't it?"
"U-Umm."
"So I decided to take her in. She's my recommendation, after all."
"No, still — a man and a woman sharing a room is a bit much, don't you think! Don't you have any female coworkers or acquaintances?"
"That's you."
"……Oh."
Good. That was one person neatly offloaded.
Who knew the Middle Eastern immigrant lie would prove useful here?
Bluntly speaking, even if it was all for the sake of luring Kim Mincheol in, there was no way in hell I could actually live under the same roof as her. Forget the old rule about men and women not sharing a room past the age of seven — I was confident there'd be a stabbing within a day.
Which meant that, in practice, Seoa's boarding house would be the one taking Tiamat in. My role, setting aside the coworker pretext, amounted to nothing more than brokering an introduction between Seoa and Tiamat, who otherwise had no connection whatsoever. At this level, the worst it could end in was wanting to die of embarrassment.
"What did Mom say?"
"She heard the circumstances and said it was fine."
Fair enough. They were circumstances that left little room for objection. Even sanitized for polite company, the story was nothing but outrageously unconventional — if even I could feel my inner Confucian dragon howling, what must it have been like for the elderly? Thanks to that, Seoa's mother hadn't said much either. She simply settled the monthly rent for two and asked, almost in passing, whether I'd told Seoa yet. When I said I was planning to break the news now, she let out a long, deep sigh.
"Well… fine. If those are the circumstances, I suppose it can't be helped. Ms. Tia? I look forward to having you with us. I'm Shin Seoa — we attend the same school."
"U-Umm."
Having shaken off her confusion in a flash, Seoa said this with the polished expression she used to wear back in her cover-model days. Her manner was somewhat cold. The boarding house lady had been much the same, but perhaps Seoa simply couldn't stand the thought of anyone intruding into her personal space. In fact, even Tiamat, who kept stealing glances at me, wore a distinctly sullen look — though then again, Tiamat had been like that the whole time. She claimed to understand the gist of the plan, but she had opposed staying at this boarding house until the very end. More precisely, I suppose she felt uneasy about having the circumstances laid out in front of Seoa and Hayeon. Sure, what passed between her and Kim Mincheol was strictly her own business — but even so, I had to admit that being made to explain it here was a step too far.
Well, either way.
Watching the two of them exchange a perfectly civil handshake now, it seemed she had somehow made her peace with it.
"Hayeon, you know her, right? It might be a little uncomfortable, but bear with it for a few days. Okay?"
"Yes. It's all right, Oppa."
"Good. Thanks."
"By the way, Oppa?"
"Hm?"
"Is this incident connected to those people as well?"
Let's see. The "those people" Hayeon meant was, nine times out of ten, that organization. Honestly, I couldn't say for sure. But.
"Well — probably not this time."
I did have a vague suspicion, after all. Because the opponent this time was Kim Mincheol. A lunatic terrorist who would try to kill a man for the sole crime of having shared a drink with Tiamat. Could anyone even hope to keep a creature like that on a leash?
"I see."
Even after hearing my answer, Hayeon's expression didn't change in the slightest. She simply stepped closer with that placid face of hers and posed her question in that flat, even voice. And yet.
"……Hayeon?"
"Understood. Get some rest."
Had she not heard my voice? If not, then what was that? The same attitude as always. The same tone as always. And yet, in the sight of Hayeon quietly withdrawing that single step, I sensed something quietly desolate.
Morning.
Stepping out onto streets steeped in pre-dawn light, Ja Hayeon let out a long sigh before she even realized it. Her walk to school was a touch earlier than usual. The crisp dawn breeze brushed against her forehead — and yet, somewhere deep down, her heart felt stifled. The very reason she was heading to school at this hour was much the same.
She might be renting the basement room in Park Woochan's boarding house now, but even so, she knew full well what sort of scandal would bloom if word spread that a student and a teacher lived under one roof. All the more so with a high school girl and a male teacher. To Hayeon herself, it was a comparatively trivial matter — but she had no intention of smearing Oppa's good name. And so, despite living in the same boarding house, the two of them usually made the trip separately, so as not to invite suspicion. When that happened, it was almost always Park Woochan who left first. Whether because Hayeon still hadn't grown used to her new bed, or simply out of consideration for her, he was usually the first of the two to open his eyes — and every time, he would leave her to sleep a little longer and head off to work alone.
But today was different. Call it waking early, or call it passing the whole night without sleep — either way, remaining in that boarding house had felt suffocating to the point of absurdity. Lately, this sort of thing had been piling up fast. The Shin Seoa hunter affair had been one such occasion. Back then, thanks to Park Woochan extending his hand to her first, she had managed to be of some help in her own way……. But before he could even properly explain what had happened that day, he already seemed to be tangled up in yet another incident.
Perhaps there had been circumstances beyond his control. Perhaps it was a matter that truly demanded Park Woochan's help. Even telling herself that, she couldn't help feeling shut out.
Her clubmates were no different. In truth, long before Park Woochan ever told them anything, the girls had been pooling what they knew among themselves. Setting aside private matters and the things placed under gag orders, they had nearly seventy percent of the picture. Thanks to that, they could roughly gauge how relentlessly Park Woochan had been running himself ragged since the school first opened its doors. At the same time, they had even succeeded in piecing his movements together into a coherent whole. He had saved Ja Hayeon. He had in fact known Lee Yeeun since long ago. He had helped keep Hwang Yoonha's household afloat. He had even untangled the troubles in Ryu Jihee's family. And that wasn't the end of it — having only just wrapped up the business with the hunter Shin Seoa, he had already hauled in some new piece of work and was busy wearing himself ragged over it.
Was helping people his hobby or something? Another plausible story, at that. After all, the man was currently looking after the life of some girl he had never laid eyes on before in his life.
Look here. For all your raging and thrashing, there were still people he saved. In the end, you never took a single thing from me.
In Ja Hayeon's eyes, Park Woochan was a man who lived to say exactly that.
……The Butcher.
According to a certain article, that was what people had once called the hunter Park Woochan. A man who cut monsters down with a cruelty surpassing anyone's. An unlicensed hunter of whom it was said he would spare no one who stood in the way of his hunts — the Association included. Only after reading that article could Hayeon finally resolve the questions she had carried about him. Why, though she had never once heard his name in her life, he had known Hunter Lee Joongoo. Why he had accompanied her to the Association on the day her own nature as a hunter came to light. And at the same time, her shoulders sagged.
So I really don't know the first thing about Oppa.
It had already been months since Park Woochan began helping her. And yet she knew no more about the man called Park Woochan than a single tabloid article could tell her.
……Truthfully, she knew she shouldn't be feeling this way. She already owed Park Woochan her life — and the life that came after it, too. Someone like that had no business demanding anything further from him now. Shameless. Duplicitous. Even shamelessness had its limits. And yet.
Then how was she supposed to untangle this suffocation? She wanted to be of use to Park Woochan somehow. To repay even the smallest fragment of the debt buried in her heart. She had known from the very beginning that it was a presumptuous wish — but she hadn't expected it to press down on her like this. Before she knew it, Ja Hayeon let out yet another sigh. The girl's sigh dissolved into the dawn air and was gone.
"Carrying some worries, miss?"
And then.
Beneath the pale violet sky into which it had scattered, that man was standing there.
In an instant, Ja Hayeon's body dropped into a combat stance. It wasn't that she had sensed something. No — there was no way she could have. In fact, Park Woochan had this time imposed a strict gag order on Tiamat as well. An ordinary student might have been kept in the dark, but Hayeon was a hunter — and with power as modest as hers, all the more so, there was nothing to gain from clumsily entangling herself in this affair. Her opponent was a genuine terrorist. For someone at student level to join the fight would only get in the way. Besides, this incident had nothing to do with that organization. It was the product of cold judgment and consideration working in tandem. That was why the man stood here — because Park Woochan would never have been so careless as to broadcast his own identity.
Rags little better than sackcloth draped his entire body; in one hand he carried a staff of ornate, flamboyant design. Ironically, it was precisely because Park Woochan had shielded Hayeon so thoroughly that she could not identify the man who now stood before her. And yet.
Even so, her body had reacted first. A sense of wrongness. A strangeness, as though he failed to blend in with his surroundings — with the scenery itself, never mind the people. Because the man before her radiated a foreignness, as if he had been pasted on top of the background.
"Hm? My, my. Not a bad reaction."
"Who… are you?"
Keeping her distance, Hayeon asked — and at the same time, startled herself. The voice she had barely forced out was trembling in a way that shamed her. But instead of answering her question, the robed man only slowly tilted his head.
"It isn't that I have any business with you, miss. I did carry on like some suspicious prophet-uncle a moment ago, but I'm afraid I don't actually know that sort of trick."
"I-Is that so?"
"Mm, that's right. It isn't as though I came looking for you in the first place. Sorry about this, miss?"
"Pardon?"
"No, it's just — thinking it over~ something's been pissing me off, you see?"
"What… would that be?"
"Has that ever happened to you, miss? You step out of the theater for a quick trip to the restroom, and when you come back, some bastards have gone and planted themselves in your seat. Wouldn't you call that utterly unpleasant?"
It wasn't an unfair comparison — setting aside the question of whether the man before her was even the sort of creature who could watch a movie in someone else's company.
"So I decided on this."
"What on earth have you been saying……"
"I'm going to steal a seat of my own."
"You see, I'm a petty man."
With those words, the man smiled, soft and easy. A smile utterly unfitting for this moment — the smile of a boy.
And then.
The next instant, Ja Hayeon's consciousness cut to black.