A Gift for the Trickster
The next day. 11:00 a.m.
"Let's head out, then."
Jehwi waited until Eunha had climbed into the car and drawn her seat belt across her lap, then eased his foot down on the accelerator.
"Did you finish the bracelet?"
"Yes, well... I managed to finish it. Somehow."
Eunha slipped a hand into her coat and drew something out. It was a Wish Bracelet, woven from orange thread.
All of it had happened only the evening before.
"So you're going to Legion Headquarters? By yourself, Hunter?"
"A promise ought to be kept."
"Mmm..."
Jehwi very clearly wanted to talk her out of visiting the Legion alone.
Of course he did. Wolf had no shortage of rivals, and the Legion was one of them.
But he had neither the strength nor the authority to stop her. He had watched her for months, and by his measure she was someone who, once she had decided a thing, never took it back. It was not so much that she was stubborn. The better image was the horn of a rhinoceros: point set, and no turning aside.
In the end he chose to respect her will. With Siwoo gone, he simply could not think of a way to hold her.
"All right. Then tomorrow morning I'll prepare something, at least."
"Prepare something?"
"Isn't it good manners to bring a gift when you visit someone else's home? Fruit or a drink is what people usually recommend... but the man on the other end is the Trickster, so I'm a little stuck."
If one meant to give a gift, it ought to be a splendid one. Better to send something the Trickster would actually be pleased to receive. While Jehwi sank into the problem, Eunha spoke.
"Manager, since it's something I'll be giving, I'll prepare it myself. I do have a favor to ask."
"Have you already thought of something?"
"Yes."
She held out the Wish Bracelet on her wrist — the new one Jehwi and Siwoo had made for her.
"I think this would be good."
"What? But why this, of all things..."
"Because I was happy."
Eunha's fingers rested on the bracelet, and a faint smile touched her mouth.
"When I received it, I was truly happy."
After that, Jehwi brought her the materials, and she was able to finish a bracelet quickly. She had not made one since elementary school, a very long time ago, and she fumbled a little — but the result looked quite respectable.
I hope it makes him happy.
Once it was done, it occurred to her too late that some other gift might have been wiser. Should she stop by a market even now and buy something else?
Jehwi, stopped at a light with his chin propped on the wheel, glanced toward the passenger seat.
"It'll be fine, Hunter. A gift carries the heart of the person who gives it. You worked hard on that one. The Trickster will see it."
"You think so?"
"I do. You saw it yourself, didn't you?"
He smiled.
"......Yes. I suppose you're right."
Only then did Eunha's face ease. Looking a little more at peace, she tucked the Wish Bracelet carefully away, and the car drew steadily nearer to Legion Headquarters.
Songpa-gu, Seoul.
The first basement level of Legion Headquarters — commonly called the Workshop.
"Master, you seem to be in a good mood."
Junhwan set a large box down and stole a look at Minju.
Click, click.
The small hands working over the rifle were surprisingly deft. As a rule, Minju shut idle talk out completely while he was making something. For once, an answer came back.
"Yeah. Noona's coming soon."
Minju pulled off his work goggles and grinned.
"So I've got to make as much as I can before then. There's a mountain of stuff I want to show her. This, and that, and the other thing."
Heheh. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, laughing, and beside him the "pieces" he had finished the night before already stood in a domino row: a Bowie knife etched with lettering, incendiary grenades shaped like rabbits, even smoke grenades the color of a rainbow. Junhwan looked them over, then opened his mouth as if the question had only just occurred to him.
"But, Master — is it true that person closed the Jagalchi Market Unknown Gate in Busan? And that they fought a duel with the Great Sage Equal to Heaven? The internet is in an uproar."
"Who knows?"
Minju did not even glance his way. Junhwan had expected a scoff — that's nonsense — or a scolding not to talk rubbish. Neither came.
Does he know something?
Junhwan was curious, but he did not ask again. He shut his mouth. Even if he asked, he doubted he would get an answer.
Thump.
Minju set the rifle on the table and began to knead it, squish and press, as if it were clay.
Rabbit's Rice-Cake Mallet
Happy things ought to be happy! Your imagination is molded into form.
At once the rifle's hard surface began to squelch and yield, like dough for hand-pulled noodles.
Junhwan stood beside him and stared, rapt as a spectator at a conjuring trick. No matter how many times he saw it, the sight was uncanny.
"Done!"
Satisfied, Minju lifted the rifle high. Ta-da. Finished.
"Hmm, let's see. Next..."
He rolled his sleeves up again and threw himself back into the work, face alight. Squish, press, squish. Now and then a snatch of humming drifted out. A faint smile settled at the corner of Junhwan's mouth where he kept watch.
Is he really that glad?
Beep. An alert chimed from Junhwan's wristwatch. The visitor had arrived.
Careful not to break Minju's concentration, he slipped quietly out.
"I've been waiting."
Eunha had only just reached the entrance and was folding her parasol when Junhwan came out to meet her — how he had known, she couldn't say. She took a light look around. There had to be a camera somewhere.
"If you'd told us ahead of time, I would have come to fetch you. Ah — I'll keep the parasol for you."
He held out a hand. Eunha looked at the hand offered to her and blinked, slow.
Caution first. Caution second. I'm counting on you, Hunter. You do understand?
Jehwi had pressed the warning on her right up to the moment she stepped out of the car. She kept the parasol in her grip.
"It's all right. I'm more comfortable holding it."
She did not regard Minju as an enemy. To her eyes he was only a young boy who admired soldiers. Still, accidents had a way of happening where no one expected them. There was no need to ignore Jehwi's advice.
"Ah. Is that so."
Junhwan drew his hand back, a little awkward. The dress, the parasol — both of them had to be uncomfortable, so just how serious was she about the concept?
Well. The Master sleeps hugging a bazooka.
For a man who attended a devotee of Minju's caliber, this much was still within the range of things he could understand.
"Then let's go right in."
The headquarters Junhwan led her into might, at a glance, have been a guesthouse: an ordinary interior, and in size only a little larger than Siwoo's Mansion.
One of the four great guilds of Korea, she had been told, and yet the guildhouse seemed plainer than she had expected. Or perhaps it was simply that Siwoo's Mansion had been the extraordinary one.
"The Master is downstairs. I'll take you straight to him. He's been waiting since six this morning, craning his neck half off."
They passed the kitchen, and when a heavy iron door opened, a stairway descended underground.
She followed him down, and what opened before her eyes was a scene beyond anything she had imagined.
...A bunker?
The basement of Legion Headquarters called to mind the secret base of some militarist state. Thick iron doors lined the inner walls, each fitted with a mechanical password dial, and the floor was iron as well. Every step rang out cold — tang, tang — a chill metallic sound.
Walking the passage, Eunha studied the military weapons set along both sides, and then she noticed something strange.
"There's no one here."
Even at Siwoo's Mansion, step outside a door and she would often run into cleaners or attendants. This place was different. They had come down from the ground floor and walked for quite a while, and in all that time she had not seen so much as an ant.
For one of Korea's four great guilds, a headquarters this quiet was odd.
"Right now it's only the Master and me. Of the other five, two are away on a job at an A-rank Gate in Gwangju, and two more went to support the Pine Needle Guild. We usually move in pairs, sometimes threes."
Junhwan folded his fingers down one by one, then added,
"My partner is Suhyun, but they had an errand at the Association, so they're out."
"I see."
"Everyone knows we invited a guest today, so they should all be back before evening. Unless something serious comes up, the seven of us try to eat dinner together."
"Seven?"
"Yes. The Legion is made up of exactly seven people."
......Had she heard that correctly? At his answer, Eunha blinked, slow.
"When people say legion, don't they mean a military body of thousands — tens of thousands?"
Junhwan smiled.
"Every one of us measures up to that."
"Noona!"
A small boy came pattering up at a run. Coal dust was smeared thick across his face. Minju.
"Why'd you take so long?"
"My apologies, Master. Showing her around the basement took a little time."
"Yeah? Oh — Noona. I heard you were in the hospital. You okay? I wanted to come see you, but I was afraid I'd just stir up a fuss if I showed."
One of the four great guild masters of Korea, for all he looked like this. Word that Eunha had been hospitalized was an easy thing to come by.
Hanging off her, Minju leaned in and asked it small, almost a whisper at her ear.
"That fight-crazy guy with the beard — he's nothing, right?"
"......How did you know."
Her eyes flicked toward him. Minju grinned, a fang showing, and let go of her.
"I saw it online. And there are plenty of other holes to hear things through. You've been pretty hot lately, Noona."
"......"
Eunha gave him neither word nor answer. Minju did not seem to have wanted one. He spun around and started digging through a toy box.
"Anyway, Noona, look at this. Pretty sick, right?"
On and on he chattered.
Minju, lit up with excitement, and Eunha beside him, quietly listening. A few steps off, Junhwan watched the two of them without a word.
The duel with the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. The hidden hand behind the Unknown Gate.
Rumors of every sort were circling the Princess of Dark Flare these days, and Junhwan did not care about a single one of them. What could matter more than this?
"Noona, look at this one too!"
The boy's laugh rang out, bright and tumbling.
For some reason Junhwan's eyes stung. He could not even remember how long it had been since he had seen the Master this innocent.
Hoping the two of them would have a good time, he slipped away.
From then on, time passed very quickly — for Minju, at least.
He hauled a box bigger than his own body up in front of Eunha, heave by heave. When he pulled away the white cloth covering it, an enormous model tank was revealed.
"This is a figure too?"
"Nope. I didn't buy this one. I made it myself. Look close and there's even a person riding inside."
Want to see? Minju pointed into the tank's window with one finger.
"There really is."
"Right? Right?"
Just as he said, a tiny human figure, about three centimeters tall, showed through the glass.
"And this time..."
With a grave face, Minju opened a drawer. What he lifted out, precious, in both small hands—
"Ta-da! A golden dog tag!"
"......"
A Golden Dog Tag, dangling before her eyes. For an instant, the light in Eunha's gaze wavered.
"Quiz."
Minju stuck up an index finger.
"Is that dog tag real, or fake?"
A quiz, sprung on her without warning. Eunha blinked, slow. The answer did not take her long.
"......It's a counterfeit."
"Why?"
"If this were real, it wouldn't be marked 'MADE IN KOREA.' And the issue date, too."
She rubbed a thumb across the face of the tag.
February 1998.
"Back then they issued dog tags once every three months. There are tags issued in January of 1998. There can't be one from February."
"......"
Minju, who had been staring straight through her, broke into a bright smile.
"Correct. I figured if it was you, Noona, you'd spot a fake — but you know even more than I expected."
Swish. He took the dog tag back, turned, and started rummaging in the box.
Eunha gazed at that small back.
Just now, that was...
Was it her imagination? For a moment, Minju's eyes had changed—
The door burst open.
"Master, the meal's ready!"
Junhwan stood in the doorway with an oil-stained spatula, waving them over.
"Oh, coming."
Minju hopped up from his seat. "Noona, you come too!" he said, grinning.
Before Eunha could get a word out, he pushed her along by the back and sat her down at the table. In the blink of an eye a little crowd came tumbling in around her.
"You're here! Hello — I'm Han Suhyeon. I work under the epithet Bluebird."
"Sorry the greeting's late. I'm Seok Gyeongho. Epithet's Striker. I've heard a lot about you from the Master."
"Ah... yes."
Eunha glanced at Minju. He was tearing open a bag of bread with the same innocent boy's face as always.
So it had been her imagination after all. She was watching him with a strange look when—
"Noona, aren't you going to eat?"
Feeling her gaze, Minju whipped his head toward her. Those acorn-round eyes were nothing but pure.
"Earlier—"
The moment her lips parted,
"Master, this is their first time eating the way we do. The explanation comes first!"
Someone pushed in between Minju and Eunha. One of the Legion — Suhyun.
The way they ate? Only then did Eunha glance at the food on the table, and her eyes turned odd.
Where dishes should have been, there were steel mess trays.
On the trays: bread still in its wrapper, two patties a little smaller than a palm, cabbage salad tossed in sauce, strawberry jam, and a carton of milk. That was all.
"Ever heard of it? The Military Burger!"
Someone shouted it, bursting with pride.