See You on Saturday
"Noona, hold on. What I'm about to show you is an absolute masterpiece."
The meal was over.
Minju, not the least bit tired, was still introducing his masterworks. This was precisely the eighty-ninth masterpiece.
"That's incredible."
"Right? I knew you'd get it, Noona. There's more. Just a second."
And off he went again, ransacking every corner for the ninetieth.
Past Minju, who was darting around the workshop like a squirrel, Eunha turned her eyes to the clock on the wall.
It's already this late.
By now Jehwi was probably worried sick, nerves dried to a crisp. She ought to be heading back. Even as the thought occurred to her—
"Hmm. Where did I put that?"
Minju, digging through the workshop, looked so terribly excited that the words about leaving would not come.
"Oh, Yura."
Suhyun, a guild member passing just then, abruptly held a can out to Eunha.
"Thirsty? This is called Tastestar. Try it. It's pretty decent."
"Oh. This is nice."
"You're working hard, putting up with our master. Least I can do is look after you a little."
Suhyun winked and dropped her voice until only Eunha could hear.
"Swiped it while Gyeongho wasn't looking. Seok Gyeongho—he's logistics. Stingy as he looks."
"......Thanks."
Eunha gazed at the can for a moment, then set it on the table beside her.
The tabletop was already crowded with drinks and snacks. Every one of them had been pressed on her by passing members of the Legion family.
She was regarding the pile with a faintly troubled look when Junhwan came over, grinning without a shred of shame.
"Haha. If there's any left, feel free to take the lot home with you."
"I think I'll have to."
Eunha answered calmly and lifted her head.
"Where did Minju go?"
Only a moment ago he had been bustling about, eager to show off the next piece of the collection.
"Ah. He got an urgent call and went up to the upper floors. He'll be right back."
Junhwan said it easily, and sat down beside her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
So the two of them sat side by side in the middle of the workshop—littered with parts, figures, and every sort of unidentifiable device—and tore open a packet of hardtack.
It tasted exactly as Eunha remembered. Dry enough to catch in the throat, and yet, if you kept chewing, a nutty sweetness rose before you knew it.
A rustle came from beside her.
Junhwan had opened a packet of his own after hers, but he wasn't eating the biscuits. He was picking the star candies out, one by one.
"I hear hardtack these days comes with the star candies packed separately. Maybe we ought to change suppliers."
Still grumbling, he began dropping the candies into a small glass bottle he had ready. What was he doing? She was staring straight at him when—
"Ah."
Catching her gaze, Junhwan smiled, a little sheepish.
"Our master likes these star candies better than the hardtack."
"Ah...... I see."
"I think that's nearly all of them."
He peered into the packet once more and fished out even the last star candy.
Eunha watched him from the side, a faint wonder in her eyes.
"Do you set them aside like that every time?"
"Well, yeah. It's not exactly hard."
Junhwan rubbed the bridge of his nose as if embarrassed, and turned the conversation with awkward smoothness.
"Anyway, it really has been a long time. Having anyone but the seven of us visit headquarters, I mean."
"Has it?"
Eunha went along with the change of subject, pretending she hadn't noticed.
"Three years...... no, more than four, I think. That was about when I first met the master, too. He was only eleven."
Eleven. Eunha lifted her gaze to the ceiling. Eleven—fourth grade? An age impossibly far away.
When she looked back, Junhwan was staring into the bottle of star candies with a strangely sunken face.
"I felt sorry for him, at first. A boy who ought to have been walking to school with cartoon characters on his backpack, judged S-rank, carrying a weight those small shoulders were never meant to hold."
"......"
"I asked if his family hadn't objected. When I first said I wanted to become a hunter, I was already grown, and my mother still refused to eat and fought me to the bitter end."
"She still does," he added, laughing low.
"But the master just answered, short."
Junhwan raised his head.
"That there was no one like that."
His mouth was smiling. His eyes were not. Eunha said nothing, and only looked at the line of his face.
"So I decided I would become that. A new family for this boy. Nothing grand about it. Eat together every day, share the sad things and the happy ones, and somewhere in the middle of all that, you become family."
All at once the corners of his eyes curved, round and warm.
"That's why we call one another family."
She didn't know what she was supposed to say.
Instead of answering, Eunha gazed quietly at the heap of snacks piled high on the table.
From today, this noona is our family too.
Slowly, she brought the drink in her hand to her lips.
Beside her, Junhwan tucked the glass bottle—full of star candies—carefully into his pocket.
Minju, who had gone upstairs on that urgent call, came back about thirty minutes later.
"Ugh. So annoying."
Grumbling his way into the underground workshop, he looked thoroughly out of sorts.
"What's the matter, Master?"
Junhwan approached, reading his mood.
"Dunno. Told me to go to Pohang."
"Pohang?"
Junhwan tilted his head. The other guild members Minju had suddenly summoned wore the same puzzled looks.
"Right this moment?"
"Yeah."
Cheeks puffed out, Minju nodded without any pleasure at all.
He still hadn't finished showing Eunha his toys. They hadn't even started the figure assembly he'd promised. If it hadn't been a request from Rose—the one who usually sent him the latest military gear—he would have refused already.
"......I'll just make it quick."
Minju took out the German miniature Rose had sent not long ago, looked at it, and let out a heavy sigh.
"One of you stays here. The other five, with me."
"What?"
Junhwan's eyes went wide. Five of them? What business in Pohang could possibly need that many?
But Minju skipped any real explanation and spun toward Eunha, bright all over again.
"Noona, I'll be right back, so will you come play again in a few days? Hmm—Saturday! Saturday would be perfect!"
Eunha looked quietly at Minju, who clung to her with sparkling eyes. The other guild members drifted over and gathered at her side.
"Oh, wonderful! I'll have coffee muffins ready. I can show you how to eat the frosted hardtack then, too."
"Ooh. Not bad."
"Now I'm actually looking forward to Saturday!"
Standing blank in the middle of them, Eunha blinked, awkward.
"......Yeah. Saturday."
She gave a small nod, then slowly stepped closer to Minju. From the cuff of her dress she drew out a slender bracelet.
"And this."
A gift she had never quite found the moment for, until now.
"It's a present. A Wish Bracelet."
"Here. Give me your wrist a second."
Eunha fastened it around his left wrist herself.
"......It isn't expensive. But they say that if you have this, your wish comes true."
Whether he had heard her or not, Minju stared at the orange Wish Bracelet as if it were something marvelous.
For an instant, several feelings seemed to gather in those round, acorn-like eyes. Come to think of it, he had never received anything like this from his parents, either.
He looked at it for a long while. Then a smile bloomed, soft and helpless, across his face.
"This is the same as yours. Right?"
He laughed, bright and pleased, and brushed the orange Wish Bracelet gently with his right hand.
"Thank you, Noona. I'm never going to lose it."
Only after saying, over and over, that they absolutely had to see each other again on Saturday did Minju leave headquarters.
Pohang, North Gyeongsang.
When Minju reached a reservoir near Mount Bihak, his eyes went round at the sight before him.
"Whoa. What is this?"
A vast, roaring rush—and a great whirlpool was turning on the water. Not one. Dozens of them, spread across the whole reservoir, spun round and round, breathing out something ominous.
"Damn it. I've got a phobia of circles."
Gyeongho, who had come along behind, grumbled. Junhwan, the vice guild master and the last to arrive, stopped as well and stared at the heaving reservoir.
"Looks like Dr. Plant was telling the truth."
They had cleared more gates than they could count, and they could feel it on their skin.
A precursor.
A gate was about to open here.
The five hunters, Minju among them, each drew their gear.
"This is going to be a big fight," said Junhwan, the Zip-Zap Knife Minju had made for him belted at his hip, his voice gone heavy.
"Should we request backup, even now? The Fate Guild's headquarters is in Daegu, isn't it? Call them now and they'd be here fast."
"What for? We've already got an army of fifty thousand right here."
Tap, tap, tap. Minju's short fingers struck busily at the screen of his phone.
Minju stared at the screen. Then, slowly, his fingers moved again.
With a metallic clack, Minju settled an orange bazooka lightly on his shoulder and shoved the phone into his back pocket.
"Everyone ready? Let's wrap this up. I have to be back in Seoul by Saturday."
A sharp crackle—and black sparks began to spit from the whirlpools.
The five Legion guild members, Minju among them, slowly set their feet toward the reservoir.