A Suspiciously Familiar Scent - 2
I cleaned the hallway to the steady whir of the floor polisher.
It was early morning.
"Cleaning? I'll take care of all of it. You can hire someone now, too. It's not just because it's bothersome… I mean, you could contribute to job creation that way, right?"
While I was cleaning the sixth-floor corridor, the voice of Elodie I had once heard sent a chill racing down my spine.
That attitude of I'll handle everything, so just stay comfortable and healthy.
The weight of that extremely careful affection had felt so heavy.
"Then it's not all that different from looking after a child. I'm so sorry."
"Don't apologize. Everything of mine belongs to Leo, and even God has declared it so with light. But… looking after a child? Leo, my baby…?"
Her eyes had flashed as if something had clicked into place.
That damp maternal love as she muttered "baby" over and over and even tried to nurse me.
The Elodie I met again had been so different from before.
I needed to forget it quickly.
I shook my head and forcibly pushed her expression and voice out of my mind, afraid that I might actually start acting like an infant.
Even if my wisdom was nothing special and my knowledge was nothing special, I was still an adult.
Playing the baby struck me as a creepy thing to do.
Or was it? Did I actually like it?
As I mulled over that leisurely silence, a ridiculous thought raised its head.
At the same time, the old saying floated up—that any human is naturally drawn toward whatever is comfortable, and toward whatever is familiar.
I finished putting the cleaning tools away and stepped outside the building.
The tools were kept in a small container-like storage shed behind the place.
Oh. Nice weather.
The sky was clear, and even the distant buildings stood out without any haze.
Naturally, so did the woman standing in front of Valerie's shop nearby.
Interesting.
A figure that made the word "body" spring to mind all by itself.
Her rare white hair and purple eyes caught the light, looking like natural color rather than bleach.
I should go over.
Thinking she might be a foreigner, I approached carefully.
"Are you here to buy wine?"
It was not even six in the morning yet.
When I asked from a polite distance, the woman turned her eyes toward me.
"Wow… wine? You mean wine, right?"
I couldn't understand a word.
Thanks to the fruits of rote education I recognized a few scraps, but it was nowhere near enough for a real conversation.
"Ah, wait. Wait."
So I repeated the word a few times, stalling. Of course it wasn't the "weight" used at the gym.
"Do you… speak any other languages?"
Perhaps because I had already grown used to the peculiar feel of French, even if the languages were different, I managed an English pronunciation that sounded somewhat practiced.
Something like Can. you. speak. other. language.
I had no idea whether the grammar was right, but the meaning should get across.
"Yes. English, Japanese, French."
Fortunately she nodded and spoke slowly, enunciating every word for my sake, clearly aware of how clumsy my English was.
French?
Before the reincarnations I had only known Japanese, but now French felt more natural. I answered with confidence.
"Do you speak French?"
It was the unhesitating French of a fifteenth-century native, and her eyes flew wide open.
"You speak French, I see. Your pronunciation is absolutely perfect… have you ever lived there?"
"I just learned it at a language school."
"That's fortunate. Thanks to that, we can talk comfortably."
She smiled as she pressed a hand to her chest. The soft, elegant manner was unnervingly familiar, as if I had seen it somewhere before.
"What brings you here, if I may ask?"
"Ah, yes. A friend of mine said she lives here, so I came to visit. I was so surprised when she suddenly quit her job and left for Korea."
"Would that friend be Valerie?"
"You know Valerie?"
The moment I spoke the name she grew instantly warmer. So this was the friend Valerie had mentioned.
"I live on the same floor. I met her through Henri."
"Wow…! You know Henri too?"
"He's living with Valerie now."
"What? Doesn't Henri just trail after the Saint all day and never go home?"
She tilted her head and blinked. Knowing even that much of the inside story suggested they were quite close.
"They're living together now. More importantly, you came very early. Everyone's probably still asleep."
I swallowed the rest—Henri might be up, but Valerie certainly wouldn't be—and waited. She straightened her posture.
"Yes. I only just arrived at dawn."
"At dawn? You must be exhausted and busy… you've had a hard time. Have you eaten?"
"I came straight here, so I skipped it."
She answered with an awkward little smile. Tired and hungry—hearing that put me in an awkward position myself.
"Then you should eat first."
"That would be nice, but everyone will still be sleeping. I came far too early."
"True. So I was thinking of taking you to a place nearby… is there anything you can't eat or don't like?"
"Is there a restaurant open at this hour?"
She blinked, looking mildly surprised that I was offering to treat her.
"There is. Though it's a rather cheap place, so I feel a little sorry."
"Not at all. Just the fact that you're treating me is more than enough to be grateful for. What kind of place is it? I don't know much about Korean food."
Curiosity sparkled clearly in her eyes. A flicker of anxiety crossed my mind—would it be all right?—but it was too late to take the invitation back. Like it or not, we were going.
I drew a short breath and put strength into my eyes.
"It's gukbap."
Open twenty-four hours.
The pleasure of seasoning a hot broth to your taste and mixing rice into it.
The pleasure of cooling a burning mouth with side dishes of kimchi and cubed radish kimchi.
That was what a gukbap house generally offered, and these days even the buildings themselves were neat.
Not bad.
I had only marked it with my eyes before; this was my first real visit. The broth wasn't bland at all, and the kimchi passed inspection too.
Scooping rice into the soup, fishing out a piece of meat, crowning it with a cube of radish kimchi and tipping the whole thing into my mouth at once—that was an experience you could only properly enjoy at a place like this.
The crisp crunch of the radish kimchi, the mingled flavors of broth and meat, the seasoned soup soaking the rice… it was solidly satisfying.
"It's delicious. And it feels so filling."
Fortunately the woman across from me was eating her gukbap at a leisurely, unhurried pace—soup separate, rice separate.
An office-lady figure sitting with perfect posture in a twenty-four-hour gukbap house at this hour. It was a strange yet picturesque sight.
"I'm glad it suits you. It's a menu that quietly divides people."
"After you've eaten sardine pie or jellied eels… you end up grateful for almost every other food."
She sighed and shook her head. Sardine pie. Jellied eels. Even among the British dishes famous for being terrible, those two stood out.
"Are you from Britain, by any chance?"
"Hmm? Ah, yes. I was born and raised in England. Did I… forget to introduce myself?"
"Things were hectic, so we started with the meal first."
The woman looked thoroughly flustered and bowed her head as if she had committed some grave offense.
"I'm terribly late with the greeting. My name is Marie Reinhardt."
"Seo Ji-hyuk."
I bowed as well and gave my name with proper formality.
Marie.
A fairly common name, yet it stirred something strangely familiar in me. The atmosphere surrounding her was similar to that other Marie as well.
The way she sat while eating.
That uniquely soft way of speaking.
Even though her face was different, so many things overlapped.
"It's late, but I'm glad to meet you. And thank you so much."
"You're not a complete stranger, after all. If you've finished, shall we go?"
"Yes."
We rose and stepped outside. I paid the bill and drew two cups of mix coffee from the machine.
"Is this coffee?"
She asked when I held out the paper cup.
"Yes. Mix coffee… the taste itself isn't bad when you try it. I wouldn't call it high-quality, though."
"Thank you. I'll enjoy it."
Marie accepted the cup with both hands and carefully brought it to her lips, tasting it with deliberate care.
"It's really good. Sweet, and you can still taste and smell the coffee."
While I was still blowing on mine, Marie—who had tasted it first—had already brightened her eyes. The flavor was mild and smooth enough that I had expected no strong likes or dislikes, but she seemed to like it even more than I thought.
Time to head back.
I had already texted Elodie before coming for the gukbap, and enough time had passed while we ate. We walked straight to Henri's place.
"The building feels rather empty, doesn't it?"
Before we boarded the elevator, Marie asked. Even without seeing inside, the hollow atmosphere must have been obvious.
"Yes. We're still gathering tenants, so most of the floors are vacant."
"Are you the building owner, by any chance?"
"For the time being, yes."
It had been a gift from Elodie, so I couldn't claim it with full confidence, but the title was in my name, so I added "for the time being."
"Wow, really?"
Surprise colored both her expression and her voice. Hearing that someone my age owned a building must have seemed remarkable. At a glance I hardly looked like a high-earning, high-ranking awakened either.
"It's nothing I obtained with my own ability, so it's a bit embarrassing."
"Then…?"
"My wife bought it for me."
More precisely, the wife with whom I hadn't even filed the marriage papers yet.
"Your wife must be… something extraordinary?"
"She is. And there she is now."
Right after the elevator doors slid open with a soft ding, Elodie, who had been waiting, bowed her head in welcome. The hair she had once dyed black was gradually returning to its beautiful blonde.
"Welcome. Is that person the guest?"
"That's right."
Elodie immediately switched to French. I had messaged her that the visitor spoke it, so she used French.
"Hello."
Elodie's gaze settled on Marie. The faint, gentle curve of her lips looked perfectly designed to win people's goodwill.
"Huh…?"
A dazed sound slipped from Marie's lips. Her pupils trembled as if she doubted reality itself, her expression that of someone who had just been struck hard on the back of the head.
"Could it be… the Saint?"
Marie remained silent for a long while before she finally managed to open her mouth. Surprise and suspicion were mixed in equal measure.
"It's embarrassing, but I'm called that. I'm Elodie."
Elodie introduced herself first and offered her hand, cheeks faintly flushed with shyness.
"I'm Marie. It's truly an honor to meet the Saint in person."
Marie quickly clasped the offered hand and put strength into her eyes, looking thoroughly moved.
"I'm glad to meet you too. You said you're Valerie's friend, and you're a very beautiful person."
"You're far too kind."
They stood there holding hands for quite a while, radiating such mutual delight that anyone watching might have mistaken them for the oldest of friends.
"Ah, I'm sorry. You must be exhausted. Please come into our home first. I'll contact Valerie myself."
"What? No, I……."
Elodie was already walking before Marie could finish the sentence, half-dragging the still-flustered woman along with her.