Chapter 29
At Seo-ah's answer, Yu-ri's face on the Device hologram twisted with frustration, and she flailed both arms in the air.
It had been two days since the villains attacked the city. Reconstruction was still underway across the streets, and every regular school except the Academy had shut its doors, so Seo-ah and Yu-ri, both students, had naturally fallen into an indefinite vacation.
When Seo-ah asked carefully, sharing the same feeling herself, Yu-ri drooped her shoulders and nodded with a glum little face.
Seo-ah shut her mouth again at the word mom. She only watched Yu-ri in silence, keeping the same blank expression she always wore, as if nothing had stirred in her at all.
Yu-ri rarely spoke about her parents, but whenever she did, it was always her mother she mentioned. Could even a girl that lively and bright be carrying her own complicated family history?
Seo-ah wanted to ask. She didn't, though, afraid that even a question might wound her, afraid of losing the first friend she'd ever had, so she swallowed it down just like that.
It was hard to say whether a city that had been attacked only two days ago could really count as better, but Yu-ri was simply delighted that her mother got home early.
They kept chatting warmly after that until lunchtime, when Yu-ri suddenly said, “I tried using a compression bandage instead of a sports bra, so then--”
Yu-ri, who had been talking excitedly, suddenly turned her head to the side with a startled look. At Seo-ah's puzzled question, she apologized with a guilty expression and pushed herself up from the bed where she'd been lying on her stomach.
As she said that, a faint baby's cry slipped through the hologram.
Yu-ri vanished from the screen in a hurry, and once the hologram itself disappeared, a heavy silence settled over the room.
Seo-ah set the Device beside her pillow and, from her face-down posture, rolled over onto her back properly. A white ceiling hovered above her unfocused eyes.
Lying alone on the bed in this plain, spotless, oversized room felt strange. This room, this house, were not Seo-ah's home, and she wasn't sure she'd ever really had a place she could call one.
The orphanage came to mind first, but she immediately denied it in her heart. It had only been a place to eat and sleep, somewhere you stayed because circumstances forced you to until you became an adult.
For Seo-ah, a home had to be warm. It had to be a place where you could smile. The way it had been when she lived with her father long ago.
And then--
“Seo-ah!”
The door flew open as if it might break off its hinges, and in came a person as white and beautiful as snow itself. Seo-ah sat up with a jolt, blinking in surprise at Cynthia's noisy entrance.
“Oh, sis?”
Cynthia, dressed in a white short-sleeved T-shirt and black dolphin shorts, wearing the same outfit Seo-ah had on now, threw herself onto the bed like someone diving into water.
“Haa. Seo-ah. Our Seo-ah smell. Hehe. Good. Charging up.”
“Eek, sis. You're tickling me.”
She hugged Seo-ah back without hesitation and rubbed her face against her.
That kind of bold, slightly embarrassing skinship had happened often enough by now that Seo-ah didn't even find it unusual anymore. She still hadn't fully gotten used to Cynthia burying her nose against the back of her neck or the top of her head to sniff her, but if animals could tell how their young were doing by scent, maybe she could accept it in the same spirit.
Seo-ah, her face half-buried in the generous swell beneath Cynthia's white shirt, glanced up sideways. She looked at Cynthia's loosened features, at the pleased smile spilling across her face, then closed her eyes again.
She didn't really understand whether her own scent was that good. Maybe it's my sister who's more...
Under the soft pressure against her face, she savored the faint fragrance she could catch without even trying. It was a little like the smell of a cat's paw she'd once sniffed, and a little like the toasted, milky scent of formula fresh from a baby's bottle.
It was a strangely addictive scent.
“Seo-ah?”
“...Ah, yes, yes?”
What on earth was I just thinking?
Seo-ah opened her eyes in a fluster.
At arm's length from her breath, Cynthia looked back with a concerned expression. Her eyelashes are long. Seo-ah found herself thinking it blankly.
No matter how hard she tried not to notice it in daily life, when they faced each other like this, it was impossible not to see it: this person's beauty. A beauty that almost didn't seem human.
“Are you okay? You're not hurt anywhere, are you?”
“Yes. I'm fine.”
Affection overflowed from their two eyes, each warm in a different shade. As she answered in a small voice, Seo-ah suddenly remembered what had happened at the hamburger place last time and lowered her head to hide the blush creeping over her face.
Her heart was pounding hard. Afraid it would be noticed, she drew her hands together in front of her chest and curled in on herself.
“Hey, isn't your heart beating way too fast?”
“Y-yes?!”
She got caught?!
Just then, in came Gobra, stepping over the half-open door.
“Goreuk. What are you doing, master?”
“You told me to go out to eat, and now you're here tormenting Seo-ah instead.”
“Ah, right. I completely forgot.”
“Hurry up and get ready. Today, Gobra must eat that pineapple? Hawaiian? pizza the master mentioned. Gobra is extremely excited.”
“Shut--! You noisy idiot. Pizza at lunch?”
“The master told Gobra to work for her and promised that he could eat whatever he wanted. Keep your promise, master.”
“Who said I wasn't going to buy it? We'll eat it for dinner, idiot. Lunch is for going to eat something Seo-ah likes.”
“And then you'll make Seo-ah eat something nutritious for dinner, won't you? Gobra is not fooled anymore.”
“You little--”
Seeing a fight about to break out, Seo-ah stepped in.
“Let's go eat pizza. I want pizza.”
Gobra and Cynthia both turned to look at Seo-ah at once.
Her bright smile and his disgruntled scowl crossed over each other, and Seo-ah let out a tiny laugh, a quick pfft she hadn't meant to show.
She didn't notice that the sharp pounding in her chest had softened into something calm and steady.
“Goreuk. Gobra was deceived. Pineapple Hawaiian pizza is not tasty. The other pizzas were better.”
“I guess it didn't suit your tastes, Mister Gobra. I liked it just fine.”
“Seo-ah. Why must you resemble the master in things like this? Don't do that.”
Watching the familiar and Seo-ah walk side by side ahead of her, Cynthia felt a little relieved. She had worried because it seemed like the villain attack had left Seo-ah badly shaken, but she was recovering faster than expected.
That was a real relief.
“Ah, sis.”
“Mm?”
Seo-ah, who had been following along with a satisfied smile, turned back.
“Could we stop by the orphanage for a moment?”
“The orphanage? Why?”
“There's something I want to bring.”
Cynthia tilted her head. She bought clothes and daily necessities as needed, so what could Seo-ah possibly be bringing from there?
Curious, but not enough to press her, she simply nodded.
The afternoon sun was hot. All around them, magic and heavy machinery roared as they repaired the ruined streets.
They crossed through it all and reached the orphanage after a few minutes.
“I'll be back soon.”
“Okay.”
Seo-ah went into the orphanage.
Cynthia and her familiar decided to wait by the wall fence for a while. Even though it was a relatively narrow stretch, people still passed through, and their gazes kept drifting over from all sides.
To think that the familiar's presence could push through anti-perception magic so strongly that she got dragged into it too.
“Excuse me, but could I trouble you for a moment?”
She had been debating whether to stomp off in annoyance when someone approached and spoke to her.
Usually people only stared at the familiar because of his vicious appearance, but they didn't go so far as to strike up a conversation.
When Cynthia looked over, wondering what was going on, a middle-aged woman with a lined face was standing there with a kindly smile.
Who was this?
As Cynthia tilted her head, a question mark practically floating above her, the familiar beside her provided the answer.
“Goreuk. That's the one in charge of Seo-ah's orphanage.”
“Ah, yes. My name is Kim Ha-ryeong. I modestly serve as director of this orphanage.”
Ah. Now that she heard it, she remembered.
But what did she want?
“Seo-ah went inside the orphanage a little while ago.”
“Yes, I know. Still, I wanted to speak with you.”
“With me?”
At the unexpected request, Cynthia asked again, and Kim Ha-ryeong nodded.
“Because you're the one planning to adopt Seo-ah.”
“Oh.”
“I've had something important I wanted to tell you for some time now. Could you spare a moment, even a short one?”
It was a heartfelt request. In those old eyes, worn by years, Cynthia could see regret and guilt.
Whatever it was, it was about Seo-ah. Then there was no reason not to hear her out.
So Cynthia accepted Kim Ha-ryeong's invitation.
Seo-ah trusted Gobra's words without a shred of doubt, and although she felt a little sorry she couldn't return with Cynthia, she didn't show it.
“By the way, what did you bring?”
“A photograph.”
“Goreuk?”
If she meant a photograph, then she must be talking about that precious image the former owner had once held close to her chest when she went berserk. Gobra's gaze drifted to the photo Seo-ah was carrying with both hands against her heart.
A neatly dressed human man and a newborn baby. And a human woman with her face blacked out.
Family.
A memory so old it had worn thin and broken into fragments. He couldn't even remember their names anymore.
But there was no regret left. He'd had his revenge, and the debt in his heart had been settled.
Even if sadness remained, it was enough simply to keep the fact that such feelings had once existed.
Besides, didn't Gobra have someone he could call family now?
Even if that someone was insane, willful, and frighteningly unstable.
She was still the benefactor who had made Gobra who he was now, the treasured presence who had given him so much.
They had spent many years together.
They had crossed even more battlefields than that.
It had been fate, foreordained since the moment he received that blue, cold heart, and it was a bond he had accepted.
Then maybe it was all right to call it family now.
Sometimes he had such silly thoughts. Like now.
Of course, he didn't know whether the master felt the same way.
With a faint snort of a laugh, Gobra looked away from the photograph and turned around.
“Goreuk. Let's go back now.”
“Ah, yes!”