Episode 10: I'm Doomed.
Han Soyeon was wandering the area, glancing this way and that—whether she was on patrol or simply searching for something, I couldn't tell.
She was dressed almost exactly as she had been yesterday. The only difference was the white T-shirt she had on.
“Where are you looking…”
Noticing that my eyes weren't on her, Alice caught my chin and tried to pin my gaze to her face—
“H-Hero unnie!”
I got the shout out louder, and faster, than she managed to grab me.
“…Tch.”
“…Yuhwa?”
Alice let go of my shoulder and my chin.
“Ah, hello! Um, thank you for yesterday!”
“Don't mention it. You're not hurt anywhere?”
“No, I'm fine!”
I slipped free of Alice's hands and went straight to Soyeon, as if we'd been close for years.
The protagonist and Alice are both terrifying… but Alice is worse!
At least until she learned I was a villain, Soyeon wouldn't lay a hand on me.
“Good. That's a relief. But… who's this?”
At Soyeon's question I turned my head and looked at Alice again.
“Ah, I don't really—”
“Hello, Hero unnie. I'm Alice. I'm Yuhwa's friend.”
Before I could insist I didn't know her, she beat me to it. I'd never told her my name. She must have caught it just now, when Soyeon called me.
“I d—”
“Yuhwa, we agreed to exchange numbers, didn't we?”
“?”
Alice spoke first, as if she already knew exactly what I was about to say.
“Hm? We… said we'd swap contact info, right?”
Those eerie eyes of hers gleamed straight at me. I turned my head just a little toward Soyeon, begging for help, but she only watched the two of us with a blank face.
…Read the room!
When a person looks at you like this, it means save me!
“Here, Yuhwa. Put your number in for me?”
“…O-okay.”
Because the protagonist never caught my SOS, I ended up holding Alice's phone. It was all black, a vampire concept smothered under a bat-covered case. Even the dialer theme was bats and spiderwebs.
I did memorize the number.
…Did I really have to give her mine? If I just punched in anything—
“Ah, you—if you pull that fake-number trick on me again, I'll come find you at home. Got it?”
Damn it. How sharp was she? And she knew where I lived?
And she keeps talking like it's some kids' game, so Soyeon just stands there watching.
Should I just say she was a villain? Ask her to take her down?
No. If I do that, she might kill only me and run. And I don't even have proof she's a villain…
Alice already knew where I lived.
I am so screwed.
In the end I obediently typed in the number I'd only just memorized.
“Hehe. Thanks, Yuhwa. I'll be going, then. You'd better pick up when I call.”
“Y-yes…”
“Good. Well then, Hero unnie, I'll be on my way.”
“Oh? Sure. Take care.”
Alice left with that playful smile still fixed on her face. Even as she went, she glanced back at me, tapped her phone, and gave it a little shake.
…If I don't answer, she's going to kill me?
I nodded fast. If I didn't, I had the distinct feeling she'd show up at my place tonight.
Satisfied with my answer, she waved and vanished into the distance.
…Why did things like this only ever happen to me? I was miserable. I ought to just go inside and eat a triangle kimbap or—
“…Did I interrupt you playing with your friend?”
A voice, from behind.
Right. Han Soyeon was still here…
She was the number-one person I needed to avoid, and yet I kept ending up closer to her.
“No. My friend… she just stopped by to see me for a second. It's fine.”
“Good. That's a relief, then.”
She said it with the faintest smile.
…She's really pretty.
All she'd done was smile a little, coming off that blank expression, and the whole atmosphere changed. A moment ago she'd been the cold beauty of a frozen city. The instant that faint smile appeared, she looked like a merciful saint.
“Are you hurt somewhere after all?”
“Wh-what?”
“You spaced out all of a sudden. It really is about yesterday…”
“No! I just… had something to think about…”
“Think about?”
At that, I froze solid.
If I said I was staring because she's pretty, that would be weird, right?
Of course, a girl who looked my age could get away with Unnie, you're pretty easily enough…
…No. I can't do that.
Just calling her Hero unnie in the first place had already done more damage to my sense of self than I'd expected.
“Um… I wanted to say thank you, properly, for yesterday!”
I pulled a triangle kimbap out of the convenience-store bag. It was a tuna-mayo one, the wrapper stamped with the A-Rank hero Pathfinder.
“It's my favorite. I'll give you one.”
“Uh… o-okay. Thanks.”
“If you only eat that, it'll stick in your throat, so here's a drink too.”
She took what I held out, looking thoroughly flustered.
It was heavy anyway. This works out.
Maybe I'd been greedy. Four drinks and eight triangle kimbap were more than my arms could handle. Even after lightening the load, the bag was still weighty—but more bearable than before.
“Then I'll be going. Thank you again for yesterday!”
Having shoved the kimbap and the drink on her whether she wanted them or not, I ducked my head in a bow.
“Wai—”
“See you next time!”
And before she could grab me, I got out of there as fast as I could.
The basement of Hero Association headquarters.
“Where've you been?”
The man with the heavy dark circles—S-Rank hero Sky Walker—asked Soyeon, who had just come in.
“I stepped outside for a bit.”
“Outside? Haaahm… There wasn't a separate villain report today, was there?”
He yawned wide and swept back his sky-blue hair.
“I went back to the place I reported to the Association President yesterday.”
“Huh? Ah—right. I was wondering what would get you, of all people, to go outside.”
Creeeak—
He took his feet off the desk and sat up properly.
“I thought something had happened. The kid who's always glued to the training hall wasn't there.”
“I'm not always there.”
“Sure. Except when you're off killing villains.”
He stood and stretched long.
“Urrgh… So. Find anything?”
“I did not.”
“Yeah, figures. The traces were all wiped, and the culprit had already fled by the time you got there. No way you'd learn anything going back today.”
Click—
He pressed the button on the coffee pot, and the light came on.
“That old man needs to learn to take it easy. Oh—did you finish your written apology?”
“Yes. I already submitted it.”
“You wrote the whole thing in a day? The President didn't go easy on you just because you're his niece, did he?”
“He did not.”
“Yeah, right. When I no-showed one broadcast, I was writing apologies day and night for three days.”
Glug—
He poured water into a paper cup first, then pulled out a stick of instant coffee mix.
“That was because you said you wouldn't do it and just slept the whole time.”
“No, I didn't. I wrote it bit by bit when you weren't looking.”
“The President came by several times to check while you were asleep, sunbae.”
“…He did?”
“He did.”
Tch—
Scratching the back of his head, he picked up a teaspoon and slowly stirred the sugar and coffee granules until they dissolved.
“…Well. Enough of that. So, how's it going these days?”
“My internal ether capacity seems to have risen to A-Rank level.”
“A-Rank… Looking at you now, that'd put you around the lower end.”
A-Rank… Now that was something.
For most people, the total amount of ether was fixed the moment an ability manifested. Training could raise it to a point, of course, but even that had a limit.
Han Soyeon's original rank had been F. The same ether reading as an ordinary person with no ability at all.
So there's no ceiling—not on the ability she holds, and not on her ether, either?
Raising one's total ether from F-Rank all the way to A-Rank was unprecedented.
“Have you tried using my ability?”
“Yes. Forming footholds out of layers of air, and compressing it to fire—those succeeded. Shaping it into a weapon failed. The moment it met an enemy's weapon, it scattered.”
“Of course it did. It took me five years just to make a weapon. No way a kid using it for the first time pulls that off.”
Slurp—
He took a small mouthful of the hot coffee.
“Haa… Coffee on an empty stomach burns.”
Exhaustion written all over his face, he gnawed at the rim of the paper cup.
“Soyeon, don't you ever become a face hero…. This isn't a job for human beings.”
“Were you banned from restaurants again?”
“Yeah. Manager says I need managing. For a while I'm only allowed to eat whatever diet she sets. Like I'm some idol.”
Slurp—
Irritated, he bit down harder on the cup.
“I'm already pissed I can't even eat a proper meal, and the paparazzi won't stop tailing me. Why do you think I came down here to sleep?”
“…….”
This was the floor reserved for the special unit, buried beneath Hero Association headquarters. Its existence was top secret—known only to the Association's senior ranks and former members of the unit.
“Tch. Starlight's a face hero too. Why's it only me?”
“Isn't that because of Starlight-sunbae's Risk?”
“That's true, but…. …What's that sticking out of your pocket?”
“What… oh.”
She drew a triangle kimbap from the pocket of her zip-up hoodie.
The little girl Soyeon had saved. The triangle kimbap Yuhwa had given her in thanks.
“Maybe that, for your poor sunbae—”
“No.”
“Huh?”
The flat refusal caught him off guard.
“Didn't you hate triangle kimbap? Last time I gave you one, you looked disgusted and wouldn't touch it…”
Sky Walker had offered her one back when he was still training her.
…I don't like them. If it's nutrition, an energy jelly is enough.
Soyeon hated triangle kimbap even more than the energy jelly infamous for tasting awful. More precisely, she hated anything in the kimbap family. It didn't seem to be simply a matter of taste. It sat closer to trauma. So he never ate kimbap in front of her.
“I do dislike them… but this one, no.”
As if to say she would never hand it over, Soyeon tucked the kimbap back into her pocket and eyed him warily.
“…Fine. I won't steal it.”
“Then I'll head to the training hall.”
Triangle kimbap safely pocketed, Han Soyeon made for the training hall at once.
“Haa… Not a single person on my side.”
Sky Walker. Cha Dohyeon. The S-Rank hero tossed back the rest of his coffee in one go.
“Why is instant coffee this bitter…”
His stomach had never burned quite like this.