Missing Front Teeth

With a jolt of pain apiece, we successfully got our front teeth pulled.

Cotton pads clamped between our gums, we waited out the minor bloodbath for the bleeding to stop. The sharp alcohol scent of the medical cotton filled my mouth while I tried to calm Siyeon down, tears still pricking at the corners of her eyes.

"Uhhuhh… it huhts."

"It'sh okay. It'sh okay."

Both of us were lisping a little. Siyeon's tooth had come out in one clean yank; mine had taken two tries. The pain that had hit me in rapid succession was still screaming vividly at the back of my brain.

I want to cry more than she does.

Even as I comforted Siyeon, the self-pity wouldn't leave. Of course the intensity had hit me harder. I gently rubbed the area above my closed lips, massaging near the cotton still clamped against my gums.

Checking whether the bleeding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had stopped, I opened my mouth and carefully pulled the cotton free. When I prodded the empty socket with my tongue, that distinctive briny metal taste of blood was nowhere to be found.

All right, it's stopped. I told Siyeon to open up next. Without front teeth, I had to press my tongue against a canine just to force out the sibilants.

"Shhiyeon-ah, ah—"

"Aaaah—"

A white cotton pad, faintly stained with blood, still filled the socket where a front tooth had been only minutes ago. I eased it free and checked carefully for any fresh seepage. Her bleeding had stopped just as early.

I carried both pads toward the medical waste bin waiting nearby. Fortunately, the fee for extracting little kids' baby teeth hadn't climbed into the tens of thousands of won. Pulling them at home with string and a dab of alcohol cotton would have done the same job—charging tens of thousands for that would have been pure greed. This wasn't some nightmare wisdom-tooth extraction in the afterlife, either.

Ha… wisdom teeth…

Thinking about teeth at all started me worrying about the distant future. They wouldn't grow in sideways like last life and drag me through hell again… right? Still fretting over a milestone that felt ages away, I rubbed the skin over my jaw where the canines sat.

Please. This life, do not let me end up immortalized as a legend in the wisdom-tooth gallery.

The day was winding down without further incident. We came home, and I kicked off my shoes in the entryway.

"Welcome back, ma'am."

The two mascots had nothing better to do than lie around the house. They were freeloaders polishing off leftover delivery food, sure—but having someone waiting to greet us when we walked through the door still erased a little of the loneliness of two kids living alone.

"Yeah, I'm home."

"Huh? Why's your voice like that?"

"Got my teef pulled."

I stripped off my socks, tossed them straight into the laundry basket, answered Teddy's question in my empty-sibilant lisp, and headed for the second-floor bed. With the front teeth gone, I was going to have to choose food carefully for a while. Anything chewy that needed biting through—noodles, for one—was off the list, never mind tough meat.

"Humans must find that inconvenient."

"Wanna die? Looking for a beatshing?"

Teddy must have been bored out of his skull again, because he'd climbed all the way up to the second-floor bed just to mock me about how inconvenient humans were. I narrowed my eyes at him, answering in the tone of some superior life-form from a comic or a game sneering at lowly humans.

He looked genuinely startled, as if he'd never meant it that way, and hurried to explain his thinking.

"No—why do you always interpret everything like that?! I mean, it is incredibly inefficient, isn't it?"

"So you're shome hyper-efficient life-form, and that'sh why you're shtuck doing mashcot work?"

"Augh… okay, that one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stung. Still, though…"

Even after that sharp jab, Teddy couldn't stand leaving it at one retort; he kept trying to tack a few more words on the end.

"I do think only growing teeth twice in a lifetime is inefficient…"

"This little—"

"Waaagh!"

The moment I started to get up, Teddy yelped as if he'd already been hit and fled the loft bed. He was leveling up at getting under people's skin—he even knew exactly when to hit and run now. Those little add-on remarks of his always felt like someone had just set a fire in my gut.

If I ever died before my time, most of the cause of death would probably be that bastard.

"Trensh—"

Oh, for the love of—

Would transformation even fix this?

I tried the transformation phrase, and of course it wouldn't take—the sibilant was broken. In the end I had to press my tongue to a canine and peel it free just to force the word out.

"Trenshform."

The moment the command left my mouth, the hollow emptiness inside vanished like a lie. I clicked my teeth together, hunting for the gap that had been there seconds earlier, and only when my fingers reached my front teeth did I realize the void had been filled.

"Whoa. That's wild."

I murmured in admiration, personally confirming the mystery between a magical girl and the human body. Apparently the transformed form worked like a game avatar. Adult women turned into little kids when they transformed, so covering for a missing tooth or two was hardly a stretch.

But if it could do this, why couldn't it erase the stink of blood that clung after a fight?

Hmm…

I set a finger against my chin and pondered the question, but no satisfying answer appeared. Contradictory, inexplicable—just another half-assed quirk of this damned world. The transformation itself was already unexplained high technology: body age resetting, hair and eye color swapping in a single second. Expecting it to handle deodorizing on top of that was probably asking too much.

"Release."

The hollow front teeth returned the instant I dismissed the form. I flicked my tongue around the inside of my mouth and tapped the permanent teeth already poking through.

Wonder when those will grow in…

I had barely thought it when a sudden rush of water—rain—poured down outside the window. Today's weather had never been anywhere near bright and sunny to begin with. I climbed down from the loft bed and pulled back the curtain. A sky without a single ray of sun was dumping countless sheets of rain.

Monsoon season already?

I wasn't the type who lived by the weather forecast, so I picked up my phone to check recent conditions. A search for this year's date plus the keyword "monsoon." On a smartphone—easier than TV for catching the news—I pulled up a video from an hour ago.

Just as I thought—nationwide rain was expected starting today. The screen cut to footage of rain already falling over Jeju Island. During monsoon season, coming home soaked after monster duty was always miserable, but the thought that I wouldn't have to deal with that this year was a small comfort.

Just one inconvenience.

Laundry… indoor drying for a while, then.

I mashed the back button, closing tabs one after another. When I finally stopped, assuming everything was shut, a fresh set of headlines filled the screen.

Polite, my ass.

I could let most of it slide, but that last headline stopped my scroll cold.

"Tsk."

I clicked my tongue at the hack journalists spinning every story to favor their own side. No wonder nothing ever improved. "Who asked"? Look at them inventing lines I never even said.

I left the rotting news cycle of daily lies and propaganda and headed for a gallery where ordinary people actually said what they thought. Calling them "ordinary" was a stretch, sure—but at least some of them were on my side.

People taking my side was whatever. I didn't stop there—I headed over to the monster gallery, which I fully expected to be losing its mind.

Where Magical Girl Gallery was busy cackling and roasting the reporters, Monster Gallery had gone full unhinged in the opposite direction.

A concept post from a Monster Gallery flipped completely upside down by what I'd said at the press conference. No matter how you looked at it, none of them were entirely sane.

"Aigoo… they are pissed…"