The Mourner at the Grave

It was a night when the bright yellow moon hid behind the clouds.

Summoned without warning by the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, Junhwan climbed to the roof of the university hospital.

"You've been through plenty, I see."

Wine as red and clear as a cut ruby rose to the brim of a paper cup. Yu Hwan worked a dried-squid leg between his teeth and tipped his chin, a wordless order to take it.

"Ah... thank you."

Junhwan accepted the cup with hesitant hands. He knew little about wine, but one look at the label—and at the number 1947—was enough to tell him the bottle was anything but cheap.

"I've been wanting a drink with a fellow Hwan for a while now. A good bottle happened to turn up, so I brought it along. Suit your taste?"

"Yes. The aroma is excellent."

"Right? Hwan understands Hwan after all."

Ha—ha—ha! Yu Hwan threw his head back and laughed, fangs bared, broad and unrestrained. Under the moonlight the two of them emptied one cup after another.

By the time the snacks between them had dwindled to about half, and only after he had confirmed the flush rising in Junhwan's cheeks, Yu Hwan casually shifted the way he sat.

"Heard the kid's doing a lot better."

"Yes. They say he's entered a stable period. It's thanks to Dr. Plant looking after him with everything he has."

"Hic— ah. Pardon me."

Junhwan clapped a hand over his mouth. Yu Hwan laughed low in his throat, tossed back what remained ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in his paper cup, and spoke at an unhurried pace.

"Pixie Powder... no. It was the Princess of Dark Flare, wasn't it?"

Junhwan stopped with the cup halfway to his lips. He went still as stone and only lifted his eyes. The blur of drink left his pupils, and wariness took its place.

Yu Hwan let out a short breath of a laugh.

"Don't make that face. I didn't go digging. Heard it straight from Dr. Plant."

"That matter..."

"I know. And so long as you all keep your mouths shut, I've no intention of being the one to run around talking about it. Do I look that thoughtless to you?"

He shrugged, poured another measure into the empty cup, and went on.

"You're not the only ones with a sense of loyalty. Bulmyeol's the same. We owe that person a debt ourselves."

"A debt...?"

"The Unknown Gate at Jagalchi Market in Busan, a while back."

Yu Hwan swallowed the wine, reached for the snacks, and added, lightly:

"The Princess of Dark Flare saved our guild members that day."

So that had happened. He hadn't known a thing about it. Junhwan listened in silence.

"You're not surprised."

Yu Hwan murmured it. Junhwan raised his head, and the moment their eyes met, the corner of Yu Hwan's mouth hooked into a sharp grin.

"Doesn't seem like you're all that curious how an F-rank hunter managed a thing like that."

"That's..."

"Right. That person isn't some F-rank."

He could say it with certainty. He was the one who had met her fist with his own.

"The Association's summons went out to Legion too, didn't it? GIA, CIA, whichever it was—those people left behind a pretty chilling prophecy, from what I hear."

Word would already have reached Junhwan, Legion's second-in-command. No need to spell out the rest.

Yu Hwan set the paper cup down with a flat tap and came straight to the point.

"I need that person's power."

The one he meant was the Princess of Dark Flare. Junhwan was quiet for a moment, then looked at him as if he genuinely did not understand.

"Why are you telling me?"

Well, well. Look at this. Yu Hwan lifted a brow and laughed without a sound.

That the Princess of Dark Flare had left Wolf was the sort of fact a little digging would turn up at once. Which left only one remaining approach: knocking on Legion's door. She had paid four hundred thousand coins without hesitation to bring back Pixie Powder for Trickster. That, in itself, was proof of the tie between her and Legion.

"You know where that person is, don't you?"

"No—just hand me the contact. I'll talk to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her myself."

At that, Junhwan rose in one smooth motion. The drunken color that had filled both cheeks was gone without a trace. He stood where he was and looked straight down at Yu Hwan.

"The wine was excellent, Great Sage. But I cannot give you any information about that person."

"......Is that so?"

So that was how it would be. Seated cross-legged on the bench, Yu Hwan lifted his gaze. There was not a trace of laughter in it—the sort of look that might have cowed another man—but Junhwan's voice did not waver.

"That person is family to Legion. She is someone to whom we have sworn our loyalty, together with our master. And..."

He glanced at the wine on the table and finished, slowly.

"I'm sorry I couldn't pay what a bottle like this is worth."

Wind sheared across the hospital roof. Red flowers in the rooftop planter blurred across his sight, and through them a small burst of laughter—pik—caught the air and thinned away.

"This is why I like you."

Heaving himself up, Yu Hwan came to stand before him. Junhwan was not a short man, but before Yu Hwan, who stood nearly six and a half feet, he looked hardly more than a teenager.

"The wine isn't wasted. I've got a few hundred bottles of this sort of thing in the cellar."

The tone was loose and swaggering, but Junhwan knew it was no empty boast. Yu Hwan walked past him where he stood blankly and strode for the rooftop door.

It opened on a rusty creak. Yu Hwan glanced back.

"Passing along a message ought to be all right, shouldn't it?"

Junhwan said nothing.

When class ended, Eunha did not go straight home. She took a taxi to a quiet hill—the place where her mother rested.

Crickets kept her company as she crossed the carefully tended grass, and she turned over the call she had just had with Junhwan. The Great Sage was looking for Eunha. For the Princess of Dark Flare.

She had answered only that she understood.

After the call ended, Junhwan sent Bulmyeol Headquarters' number by messenger, together with word that he had not handed her contact over to Bulmyeol.

Eunha gazed at the number on the screen for a long moment, then slipped the phone back into her pocket.

Bone-dry leaves rolled along the stone path through the grass. She stepped over them, and before long her mother's grave came into view in the distance.

But—

"......?"

She stopped short and tilted her head. Someone was standing before the grave.

Who?

A stranger. A mourner? The tree hid most of him, but the black suit and the hands folded neatly together made it easy enough to think so.

Watching the man's back, she suddenly remembered the first time she had come here after returning to the present. While she was trapped inside the Unknown Gate, thirty years had passed in the real world. She had been certain the grave would have been left to neglect through all that time, and yet it had been clean to a degree that felt strange. Half-burned ash still lingered around the headstone. A visitor's trace. Someone other than her had come.

Fitting the pieces together one by one, she stopped well back from the mysterious mourner and watched him as if she were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠only observing.

Blond......

Since awakeners had come into the world, people's hair and eyes turned every color regardless of nationality. To decide he was a foreigner simply because he was blond would be hasty.

She was about to take a slow step closer when a phone began to ring. Not hers.

The man, hands still folded, eyes closed, drew a phone from his front pocket.

Eunha stopped dead where she stood. English. The language he was using was unmistakably English. The call cut off with a click. He returned the phone to his front pocket and lifted his head.

The skin around his eyes was faintly flushed, as if washed with a tint of color. At their center, hollow ash-gray irises. Hair a pale beige, thin of pigment.

She stood frozen, unable to move.

......Baek Yijun?

She could not have mistaken him. The man standing before her mother's grave was Yijun.

Why is Baek Yijun here?

A faint confusion stirred in her black eyes. Not long ago, after she had met him at the party, she had been certain he was changed completely—that the Yijun she knew was nowhere left. And yet.

"I'll come again."

Before the chilled headstone he bowed, respectful, and murmured it low. He took two or three steps back, then turned with quiet composure and faded away down the hill path on the side opposite where she was hidden.

A rustle. Eunha, who had kept herself in the shade of the tree, stepped out only after his back had vanished entirely.

A single bouquet sat at the edge of her vision. A scented candle still trailed white smoke on the wind, not yet burned down. The look in her eyes as she regarded them was nothing but complicated.

All this time, the one who had tended the grave was Yijun? No one else? But hadn't he been in America?

She stared at the bouquet, bound with careful hands and a white ribbon, then slowly raised her head. He was already gone beyond the hill path.

Yijun, on that night. And......

Wind poured over the quiet hill, and Eunha's jet-black hair tangled and flew.

"......What are you."

He could not have gone far. As if drawn, she started late toward the way he had vanished, and what began as a slow walk quickened step by step.

She had to ask. Had he really been the one tending her mother's grave? And if he had—why?

At the bottom of the hill she swept the surroundings. Yijun was nowhere in sight. Had he turned into an alley? She was breathing hard and shallow when she slowly closed her eyes.

No good. Too many people moved around her; she could not pick one presence out of the rest. She gave it up at once and opened her eyes, then drew out the pendant hidden beneath her T-shirt.

"Track."

"Activ—"

Her lips had barely parted.

She froze, still gripping the pendant. Someone had called her. Not Lee Yura. Not the Princess of Dark Flare. He had said Cha Eunha. She snapped her head toward the voice.

"......!"

And she locked stiff where she stood. It was not Yijun, gone only a moment ago.

More than thirty years ago. The Training Center Director who had looked after her in her days as a trainee—Gyeon Woncheol—stood there now, his hair pure white.