It's Already Decided
Bloop, bloop, bloop…….
While Eunha was inside Bulmyeol headquarters, Ayeon crouched in the shade of a nearby tree, playing a game on her phone.
"Ah."
A short groan, and the character on the screen died.
Ayeon stared at the glaring red letters flooding the display, then pulled her eyes away and looked blankly up at the sky.
It was urgent. We'll see the movie next time.
So the urgent business her sister had spoken of was coming here.
Ayeon turned her head, face gone sullen. Far off she could see the entrance to headquarters, and near it a noisy knot of what looked like Bulmyeol guild members. In their training uniforms they were wiping faces and necks with the towels slung around their shoulders, and she could have sworn the smell of sweat carried all the way to where she sat. Ayeon wrinkled her nose and looked away. And then—
"Huh?"
One of the uniformed crowd had spotted her and was coming over at a heavy tread. It was Heo Jaemin, Bulmyeol's second-in-command, only just back from the training ground nearby. True to the guild, his massive frame blotted out her entire view.
"What are you doing here? Last I heard, you wouldn't set foot in a place that reeked of sweat."
He came up looking glad to see her. Ayeon's face had gone stiff.
"......"
She whipped her head aside without a word. A total snub.
The two of them had grown up in the same orphanage, but a full eleven years lay between them. When Jaemin came of age and left, Ayeon had been a little kid of nine. Nine, though, was not so young that you forgot everything. She still remembered those days with perfect clarity.
"Don't tell me you came because you missed me?"
Jaemin narrowed his eyes and grinned. Ayeon shot to her feet and shouted.
"Are you insane?! Why would I?"
"Agh, you startled me. Lungs on you haven't changed a bit, kid."
Jaemin laughed without a shred of shame and made a show of covering both ears.
Ayeon stared at him.
A scar had appeared on his left cheek since she had last seen him. Her lips stirred around the start of it—"That......"—and then she went silent again. Asking at all would have been a wound to her pride.
Jaemin had been the older boy, taller and stronger than anyone else at the orphanage. When a cockroach showed up, he was the brave one who caught it bare-handed and flung it far away. Nine-year-old Ayeon had liked him very much. There had been a time when her dream was to grow up and marry Jaemin.
Ancient history.
What irritated her more than anything was that he still seemed to be under the delusion she liked him.
Watching her shake her head hard, Jaemin flicked a hand toward the headquarters entrance.
"Quit standing around and come inside."
"I'm good."
"Acting tough. Stay there and the bugs come out. The bugs you hate."
"I said I'm fine. Just go, mister. I'm waiting for someone."
"Waiting?"
Jaemin tilted his head.
"Since when do you know anyone in Bulmyeol besides me?"
"What are you even saying. They're not with Bulmyeol."
Ayeon muttered it curtly, then suddenly jerked her gaze up. Wait. Maybe Jaemin knew.
"......Do you happen to know why my sister came here?"
"Your sister?"
"The Princess of Dark Flare. I mean Yura."
The moment that name left Ayeon's mouth, Jaemin's expression changed.
"......You know that one?"
"Know her? We're not just acquaintances. We're very, very special."
For some reason Ayeon folded her arms and started putting on airs. In front of her, Jaemin sank into thought. A friend, all of a sudden, for the kid who wouldn't even join a guild, let alone make colleagues among hunters, and had insisted on living as one lonely wolf? And not just anyone—that woman in black?
"Since when?"
"No. Answer the question, you old man. Why did my sister come all the way to a place that smells like this?"
"......"
Jaemin looked at her steadily.
Heh. His narrowed eyes bent, mischievous.
"Guess the news never reached you. She was snorting at the Association's summons like it was none of her business."
"The Association's summons?"
Ayeon stopped dead and spun her thoughts in a hurry. The conclusion she reached was this.
"......Don't tell me my sister came here over that gate. The Namhae Coast, or the East Sea, or whatever it was?"
"Who knows. If you want the details, why don't you ask your sister yourself."
"I'm off, then." Jaemin turned sharply on his heel, done explaining. A few steps on he paused and tapped his own left shoulder.
"Oh. By the way. There's a bug on you. Right here."
Kyaaaaa—!
At the tearing scream, the birds perched in the tree burst into the air.
Meanwhile, inside Bulmyeol headquarters......
"Oh. So my little brother's here."
Guild master Yu Hwan came out himself to welcome the Princess of Dark Flare on her second visit. Eunha moved to sit in the parlor chair, then faltered.
"......Little brother?"
"There's a saying, isn't there. Share a cup and you're all brothers. It's our guild's slogan, too. What are you doing? Sit."
A far friendlier manner than before. Eunha supposed it was because she had accepted his offer, though perhaps he was simply, purely glad to have finally found a proper drinking companion.
"Did you get back all right that day?"
At Yu Hwan's question, Eunha nodded.
"Thanks to you. They say good liquor leaves less of a hangover. Seems it's true."
"Haha. Well, that's how it goes sometimes."
Yu Hwan laughed, big and open, and nodded, but inside he was startled.
She was fine after pouring it down like that?
Even Yu Hwan, famous for holding his liquor, had suffered a hangover so fierce the next day that he couldn't get out of bed. For a moment he wondered if she was bluffing, then set the thought aside. Right up to the memory just before the film snapped, the Eunha he had seen was astonishingly steady. According to Seongyun, she had walked back on her own two feet, perfectly fine.
Thinking that far, Yu Hwan's face grew grave. He stared at her with no laugh left in his eyes. This one......
......She's something else.
It wasn't that his pride was wounded. He was purely surprised.
It stirred his competitive blood. He was already looking forward to the day they went at it again with their fists—no, matched each other drink for drink.
Unfortunately, what waited on the parlor table today was not liquor but a special drink laced with protein. Yu Hwan regarded it with lukewarm eyes and stuck his lip out.
"Shame, but I couldn't get any liquor ready today. That Do Seongyun raised such a racket about it."
Arms folded, he grumbled in a way that didn't suit him. Alcohol was the enemy, and on and on.
In all the world, only two people could nag Yu Hwan like that. Geum Rose and Do Seongyun.
Well, in any case......
"I apologize for making you come all the way out here a second time."
He planted both hands on his knees and gave a short bow. F-rank hunter or Concept Hunter, she was a guest who had been formally invited to Bulmyeol.
As Seongyun had said, sending her off drunk before they had even started the important conversation was his own failure.
"It doesn't matter. The day before yesterday I was treated to good liquor."
Terribly expensive liquor, the kind she thought she would never taste in her life, and she had drunk it almost like water. At that plain answer Yu Hwan grinned.
"Good of you to say so. Then shall we get straight to the point."
He gave a low laugh, resettled himself, and his eyes changed.
"First...... yes. I suppose I should start with the news that on the eighth, a carrier pigeon from GIA arrived at the Korean Association."
"If it's that, I heard the gist."
She had already learned from Junhwan about the prophecy that a giant gate might appear near the Namhae Coast, and that the Association was searching for hunters of the dark and fire attributes.
"Yeah? Good. The talk moves fast."
Yu Hwan laughed with his fangs showing, leaned back in the chair, and tapped the armrest.
"Even now the Association is scraping up every dark-attribute and fire-attribute hunter it can find, and every hunter worth using, from every corner of the country. But you're Korean. You more or less know. In this little country, the few S-ranks we've got mostly do as they please."
The finger on the armrest stopped.
"......No need to tell someone who was in Wolf about White Night's condition, and Trickster's laid up in a hospital too. Nobody knows where the other two are or what they're doing, and as for Maestro, I can't trust him at all."
Brow drawn tight, he added in a heavy voice.
"In a word, we're hopelessly short on high-level people. Which is why."
His upper body tipped toward Eunha. Red eyes without a shade of a joke took her in straight.
"Brother. If you're willing, Dr. Plant and I mean to use the authority we have and recommend you to the Association as combat personnel."
Just as she had guessed.
But there was a point she had to make certain.
"You're saying that knowing I was judged F-rank, I assume?"
"Of course I know. I also know you're the hunter who took my fist in her bare hands."
He answered without hesitation and looked straight at her with those red eyes.
"I want to hear it from your own mouth. Are you an F-rank hunter?"
"The machine said so. But."
Eunha did not look away from his eyes either.
Eyes so black one could not even tell where pupil ended and iris began turned on him.
"That day, I didn't think I was going to lose to you."
"What......?"
Yu Hwan blinked vacantly, then suddenly clutched his stomach and burst out laughing.
Fun. She really is fun.
Was there another hunter in Korea who meant to beat the Great Sage Equal to Heaven in a fistfight? For Yu Hwan, at least, this was the first time he had met a hunter with that kind of nerve.
He laughed until he tipped back and ran out of breath, then dragged a thick palm across his forehead.
"Well, I didn't figure I was going to lose either. But one thing is certain. Rose and I are sure of your skill."
The Association was different. Adding that, he set an arm on the chair, propped his chin on his hand, and tilted his head.
"The Association puts blind faith in the rank it can see. The public's the same."
If they recommended the Princess of Dark Flare to the Association, Daeyun would open with suspicion. That fusty, conservative old man would certainly question the very idea of putting an F-rank Concept Hunter into a matter this grave.
"The Association is bound to be a real nuisance. Even now, when every single fighter is desperately needed, they're the sort to nitpick conditions and rank. Of course Rose and I will persuade them as far as we can, but I can't promise it'll be as easy as saying so."
Those damned principles. The Association's favorite word. Yu Hwan frowned and clicked his tongue.
In truth, it couldn't be helped. On the surface, the Princess of Dark Flare was F-rank.
This was an age when the difficulty of the gate you were sent into differed according to rank. Under hunter law, an F-rank hunter could not enter even an A-rank gate, let alone an Unknown Gate.
However much Yu Hwan's and Rose's personal guarantee might come attached, the Association would try, in some form or other, to confirm her skill.
"Even taking all that into account, won't you help us? Princess of Dark Flare."
Eunha, silent all the while, slowly stirred her lips.
"......That prophecy."
There was something she had to confirm first.
"Is it certain an Unknown Gate will appear in the Namhae Coast gate?"
"I don't believe in GIA prophecies and the like. The only thing I trust is Dr. Plant's research. She suspects Unknown Gates will soon break out all across Korea at the same time."
Yu Hwan spread his right hand wide.
"Five, at most."
A small crack ran through the face that had stayed blank.
A short silence. Yu Hwan turned his head sharply to the left. A map of the Korean peninsula hung on the wall. Staring at the red thumbtack stuck near the Namhae Coast, he spoke.
"If the giant gate on the Namhae Coast that GIA is talking about and the five Unknown Gates Rose predicted are the same thing......"
He turned his eyes back to Eunha and added, heavy:
A single phrase, and the scene rose vivid before her eyes.
Someone's scream, far away.
A stench of blood thick enough to dizzy the mind.
Shards of broken glass. A car crushed in on itself. A shop sign tumbling down the road.
Torn clothes no one could claim, snagged on the street trees like fallen leaves.
Eunha ran past all of it, toward home.
"......"
Out of habit, her hand went to her left wrist. The feel of the bracelet under her fingertips.
The afterimage of a shattered piano rose before her eyes. Her mother's left arm, pinned beneath it. A university acceptance letter blowing away on the wind.
"But if anything is different from then, it's that this time we've been given time to prepare."
Yu Hwan rose. From where he stood he quietly looked down at Eunha, who seemed lost in thought.
"The muster is in one week. You have the right to decide. What will you do?"
The hand worrying the bracelet stopped. Eunha lifted her head. The moment their eyes met, Yu Hwan's brow gave a small twitch.
Centered on those pitch-black pupils, Eunha's black irises were slowly staining gold.
In those unwavering eyes, Yu Hwan found something wavering. He thought he knew what it was. Faintly, he could already tell.
Most likely, it was conviction.
The corner of his mouth curled, and Yu Hwan held out his hand to her.