Three and a Half Years of Peace

It had been a one-sided negotiation where our side took all the gains, but somehow both parties walked away satisfied.

I opened the calculator on my smartphone and divided 1320 by 365—roughly, not precisely—and got about three years and seven months.

Run the numbers, and that meant monsters wouldn't show up again until we were around fifth grade, well into upper elementary.

Anyway, it's a good thing.

In the end, the workload dropped while the pay stayed the same.

Being able to hold a productive conversation with a monster—sometimes I even felt like they communicated better than people.

From that day on, unlike humans who only ever spoke in lies and deception, the monster appearances cut off clean and honest.

When several days passed without a single monster showing up, those ghostlike media outlets all poured out articles stuffed full of wild speculation.

Yap all you want.

From the side that actually knew why the monsters weren't appearing, every single article was pure comedy.

But the real problem started a few days after that.

It began with a single internet post.

Somehow, through some unknown channel, a photo had been taken of the monster holding up that metal plate like a banner, scrawled with the clumsy phrasing: "i want to talk please."

Monster photos circulating online usually weren't a big deal.

With no ordinary people around—everyone having fled—at most you got shots of some road or building damage, or the occasional face-off with a magical girl.

To the general public, monsters were just savage beasts that appeared out of nowhere.

That was why a monster figuring out human language and attempting conversation hit people as a massive shock.

Media interest had been cooling off, then blazed back to life the moment that photo surfaced.

Even filtering out the news tabs and outlets that lived for clickbait, every community on the internet was losing its mind this time.

Galleries, cafés, messenger apps—everywhere was noisy.

And the place that lit up hardest was the Monster Gallery.

Where ordinary people reacted with "Monsters can talk?", the gallery crowd was mostly going ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠"Knew it."

The communities were pure war zones.

If I kept reading, my sanity was going to erode, so I hit the home button and fled back to the main screen.

"Give it here. Me."

I pressed the side button and blacked out the screen, and right on cue the little bear came crawling over on all fours from the corner of the bed.

I already knew it had nothing better to do, but the sheer shamelessness of demanding my phone outright left me speechless.

Not that I was going to refuse—but I still tossed a few barbed words its way.

"This little bastard's completely addicted."

"Aww, come on, what's the big deal…"

Classic addict denial. I listened to it while climbing down from the second-floor bunk.

The world could be losing its mind all it wanted—my stomach was still empty.

The usual delivery food wasn't going to cut it today.

What I kept thinking about, weirdly enough, was that instant spaghetti we'd eaten at the villa in Sokcho.

Order pasta for delivery and you get a cup-ramen portion for twenty thousand won.

Even for Siyeon and me, who lived on delivery, that kind of waste was just wrong.

Ten thousand won fills a whole frying pan with noodles and sauce—and you want me to pay for delivery instead?

My thriftiness, buried deep down, was still very much on the job.

I pulled on some clothes piece by piece.

"I'm heading out—"

I told Siyeon in advance, just in case she went looking for me later.

Instead of a simple okay, she popped her head straight up from the bed.

"Where're you going?"

"The mart. Wanna come?"

I answered with the place and casually offered to take her along.

"Yeah!"

"Then get dressed."

She must have had something in mind, because she beamed and bounced right up.

I yanked summer clothes out of the drawer and tossed them onto the floor; Siyeon immediately started picking them up one by one and putting them on.

Seeing her this eager to tag along, she was definitely after snacks, no question.

Thanks to monsters who were more human than actual humans, we could leave the mascots home without a care and head to the mart.

Past the convenience store and into the market we used most often, the cool air inside dried the sweat that had built up outside.

"You can get whatever you want—as long as you can carry it."

"Okay!"

I left Siyeon thundering off through the aisles, grabbed one of the plastic baskets the mart provided, and headed for the noodle shelves.

Past somen, ramen, glass noodles—there they were, the long pale-yellow pasta strands.

Five hundred grams of noodles alone was enough that the two of us would have to eat three meals straight just to finish them.

But the neighborhood mart didn't stock anything smaller, so I dropped the package into the basket with a shrug.

Time to pick a sauce.

Bacon bolognese, meat tomato, rosé…

Too many options. I just grabbed the cheapest red tomato-based sauce.

Bacon, bacon…

Noodles and sauce alone would feel sparse, so I started thinking about add-ins.

Not the pricier belly-cut bacon—slightly cheaper, a little thicker front-leg bacon.

I was an indiscriminate eater anyway; as long as it was meat, it didn't matter. I tossed it into the basket without ceremony.

With everything roughly gathered, I made it near the registers.

"Huh?"

Siyeon had taken my words completely literally—only as much as she could carry.

Both hands were stuffed full of snack bags, and she'd even wedged more between them, stacking the whole thing into a tower.

Siyeon's little schemes were growing by the day.

Getting smarter with age wasn't entirely a good thing, apparently.

We'd headed to the mart without a worry, and we headed home the same way.

Just the single fact that monsters wouldn't be showing up for a while—how much peace of mind that brought, you couldn't understand unless you'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lived it.

The moment we got home I pulled the noodles, sauce, and bacon out of the plastic bags, about to head for the kitchen—

"Mari-nim?"

The little bear came drifting over, phone clutched tight, looking like it had been waiting for exactly this moment.

Figuring it definitely wasn't about monsters, I didn't even look its way and answered with a short grunt.

"What?"

"There's been a restricted-number call coming in nonstop…"

"That's probably Minister Auntie. What does she want?"

I took the phone from the bear as it floated close. The call log showed seven missed calls from a restricted number.

Apparently they hadn't considered that I might actually be unable to answer, because the second I got the phone back, another call came in.

Restricted number, of course.

I slid the green button and answered with a casual, formal greeting.

No need to explain the voice on the other end.

I was calm; she sounded a little frantic.

I couldn't think of any reason a phone call needed to be urgent, so I bounced it right back with a short question.

"Why?"

"What do you mean why! After that octopus monster, nothing else has shown up, right? Everyone's losing their minds over it!"

Something that should have been pure good news, and the people over there still needed a reason for every sudden change—so of course they were in chaos.

They could treat it the same way they treated their half-baked policies, but for some reason they got ridiculously strict about this stuff.

"Isn't it good if they don't show up?"

"Easy for you to say…! Do you know anything?"

"They just said they won't come this way for a while. About three and a half years?"

I laid out the plain truth. Silence stretched for a beat on the other end of the line.

Then the Minister's voice came back, hollow with disbelief.

"…What? You actually talked to it?"

"Yes. We did."

I answered evenly. A short sigh, and her voice started to pull away.

"Ha, I'm going insane… Fine. Hang up for now."

"Ah, wait a second."

"What?"

There was at least one everyday inconvenience I ought to mention while I had her. Since I couldn't call her myself, I decided to bring it up now.

These under-fourteen policies were driving me up the wall; waiting until we aged out of them was simply not workable.

"Do we not have legal guardians or anything? Every time we try to do something, the age restriction hits and it's driving me crazy."

"Huh? Wait, you two never heard?"

"Excuse me?"

My question bounced straight back as another question—a bizarre little loop.

You could practically hear the question marks in both our voices.

Each of us asking the other what the problem was. The tone on the other end settled a little.

"Uh… hang on a second."

She must have smelled something off; ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her words trailed off and she told me to wait.

I focused on the distant conversation leaking through the phone.

From the scraps of conversation I could make out, the picture was clear.

A joke taken at face value. Pure administrative omission.

What a goddamn country.