The Vampire Wants Kalguksu - 3
Camilla. It was a name I had never heard before, yet somehow it lodged itself in my ear with an oddly sticky insistence.
Her archaic manner of speech only deepened that impression.
But the words that followed left no room to savor the aftertaste.
Vampire. A second-class specter.
The dread those words carried was enough to send a chill down my spine.
"I see."
"I see? You stand before a vampire and your reaction is remarkably bland. How curious."
"I've resigned myself. There isn't much else I can do."
Running was impossible. Reach for my phone, and I could already picture my arm being severed clean off. If she had been several kilometers away, maybe. At this distance, there was simply no answer.
"You are composed. And yet you do not seem to have any hidden card to play."
The vampire Camilla crossed her arms and smiled. If this had been some dating game, I might have heard a little chime of rising affection tickling my ear.
"Because I've given up."
"So you are calm precisely because you have cast everything aside? How very strange—and bold."
"You're being generous."
I let the silence hang for a moment. She closed her mouth as well, smiling with her eyes, as if to say, Go on, then. Speak.
"If you were a vampire, you could have done whatever you wanted to me already. So why bother talking? Looking around… it seems you even waited until I woke up."
Unlike the moment just before I had blacked out, the clock had advanced by about twenty minutes. The room was clean. And the man who had filled me with dread and tension was nowhere to be seen. Everything about it was strange.
Camilla spoke.
"That would be because I have no intention of harming you."
A specter with no desire to hurt a human? I blinked, half-convinced the words could not possibly have come from a specter's mouth. The back of my head felt oddly numb.
"That's… a little hard to process."
"I understand. When humanity's enemy claims it has no wish to harm a human, belief does not come easily."
Camilla gave a soft snort of laughter and rose to her feet. She started toward the wide-open window rather than the front door, which struck me as odd. Of course, from inside the same room she would never truly lose me—but deliberately leaving an escape route open was still strange.
"The fool who booked this room is already dead. He got a little too enthusiastic drinking your blood, and it seems the vessel could not endure it."
"He's dead…?"
So that was why I had not seen him. The news left my eyes wide.
"Yes. Dead. Which is why I cleaned away the blood and the corpse that had soaked this room."
Why clean it up? The idea of a vampire tidying blood and a body sounded utterly bizarre. From a vampire's standpoint, there was no reason to bother. Unless it was to avoid a scene—or some other reason I could not yet imagine.
"You went out of your way?"
"The reek of vibrating blood. A man who died with every orifice drained. Rather an unseemly sight for a calm conversation, would you not agree?"
"That's a fair point, but I'm still puzzled."
"Because one in my position has no need to show humans consideration?"
That was exactly what I meant. When I nodded, a deep curve settled on Camilla's lips.
"Do you wish to know the answer?"
"Honestly… yes. I do. I feel as if I might die soon anyway, so I thought I might as well settle my questions before I go."
"Hmm… yes. One might think that."
"Will you tell me?"
"That much is no great difficulty. Still, I have no desire to give you the answer this very moment."
If not now, then when? After I was dead? I had heard that some people poured their hearts out to corpses. It seemed this vampire named Camilla was that sort as well.
I asked,
"Understood. What do you intend to do from here?"
"Hm? Ordinarily one would ask when I mean to give the answer. Are you deliberately holding that back?"
"I don't have the right to press you. And if I did, there's a good chance it would only irritate you."
Even if it did not irritate her, my odds of survival were still low. I swallowed the rest of that thought and waited. Camilla's lips parted slightly.
"Heh. Fair enough. In that case, let us go kill a little time."
She crooked a finger, and my body lifted into the air. A scrap of a specter report drifted up in my mind—vampires could use telekinesis. It was called a report, but in truth it was more of a public guide; everyone knew it, and it was nothing that needed classifying as secret.
Wherever she takes me, then.
If things flowed, I would go with the current. If they did not, I would not. Drawn along by Camilla's hand, I floated quietly through the sky.
"Wow."
It was wondrous. Even with the tension and fear still coiled in my gut, a sense of mystery and delight began to surface. The feeling of drifting through the dark sky—chilling for the fear of falling, and yet the unfamiliar view stirred something in me.
We floated for some time before our feet finally touched down in an alley. Yellow streetlamp light and silence filled the space.
Is she going to kill me here?
Did she have a thing for alleys? I was just thinking, without meaning to, that this might be where I closed my eyes for good when Camilla turned her head toward me.
"Follow me. Quietly. And do not think of using that phone of yours, as you did not while we floated through the sky."
"Understood."
In the air I had obeyed for fear of a sudden fall. Now I obeyed for fear of being struck down in an instant. We walked the dark alley, emerged onto the sidewalk, and passed a few people along the way—yet not a single one so much as glanced at her. That face. That figure. Even hair of a rare sky-blue shade, and still no one looked.
"You would not have known, but vampires possess a power to warp impression. Put simply… a talent for making others see us as someone else."
Exactly as she was doing now. I listened to the answer that fell from Camilla's lips and chewed over my tension. The content of it, and the way she seemed to have read my thoughts—she was a difficult type to deal with, one who kept a person constantly on edge. Especially when she volunteered hidden information on top of it.
And yet—
Why did we come here?
A place found not only near the hotel but all over Sokcho. Even at night the warm, familiar shop sign was still lit, and the sight of it left me blank. Kalguksu. It was nothing other than a kalguksu shop.
"Let us go in. I have been wanting to try it, so you shall pay. I have no money at present, you see."
She even had the nerve to say she was broke. On every front, I was left utterly at a loss.
"…Yes. Understood."
I stepped into the shop with Camilla. I could not read her intent, but I could at least hope the owner would come out of this unharmed.
"Welcome."
We took a suitable seat, and a middle-aged woman who looked to be the owner approached. The ordinary, familiar air of any neighborhood eatery.
"You may order. I will have the kalguksu."
"Understood. Two bowls of kalguksu, please."
At the order, the owner nodded and headed for the kitchen. The walls and floor looked a little worn, yet the tableware and the table itself stood out as if newly bought and meticulously clean.
"I find myself thinking it was fortunate I met you when I did."
Thump. The owner set down a cold pitcher of water and left again. Only then did Camilla smile at me.
"If you wanted to come to a restaurant, you could have done that anytime, couldn't you?"
"Because I have never gone out of my way to mingle deeply with humans. And an opportunity to meet a specimen as bold and curious as you has been rarer still."
"Does that… make any sense?"
"Of course it does. Had I lived as an ordinary vampire does, I would already have established more than enough bases and sources of funds."
It was contradictory, yet it held together, and the answer left me more confused than before. A vampire who had never mixed with humans. Even in this modern world overrun with fantasy, that fell well outside common sense.
Glug. Even so, I poured water from the pitcher into the metal cup on the table and held it out to her. She was, after all, the one holding my life in her hand.
"My thanks."
Camilla accepted the cup and drank the cold water slowly. Watching the pale line of her throat move, I could tell just how thirsty she had been.
"…Ahh. A cool throat, and it feels as though my chest has opened as well. All the worse for the few drops of your blood I sampled—my thirst had grown quite severe."
"You… drank my blood?"
I asked while drinking my own water, and Camilla nodded. She kept her voice low enough that no one could overhear the exchange between us. The owner was buried in kitchen noise, and aside from the two of us there was not another customer in the place.
"I tasted it. To grasp the full circumstances, I needed a taste of your blood as well. Only a few drops, however, so it will have done you no lasting harm. The real problem was the one who targeted you."
"I see. So I was drained rather thoroughly."
No wonder I had felt a little dizzy. Only now did I understand it was because that Western-cosplay vampire had greedily sucked my blood dry.
"Here you are—two bowls of kalguksu. Enjoy."
I had been about to say something when the owner arrived at the perfect moment with two bowls. They came in fairly large commercial naengmyeon-style vessels, thick broth steaming with heat, the noodles visible within.
"Eat first. It is not as though I am treating you, but once you have eaten, your strength should return a little, should it not?"
Camilla took out a pair of chopsticks on her own and at once began lifting noodles into her mouth. A vampire handling chopsticks with such practiced ease was strange enough to be uncanny.
Right. Let's eat.
It was my money, after all. I drew chopsticks and a spoon from the square utensil holder and took them in hand. Slurp. I carefully ate the hot noodles, and a fairly rich flavor wound itself around my tongue. The characteristic chewy texture of kalguksu noodles teased at my palate. An ordinary taste—and because it was ordinary, a warm, settling one. The broth seemed built from seafood, with starch lending it body, and that, too, was good.
Camilla seemed to feel the same; she said nothing and simply kept eating noodles. Her back was straight, only slightly inclined. The way she handled her utensils and the look on her face overflowed with a cultivated grace I could not quite place.
"The taste is not bad. So this is what common kalguksu is like."
When the bowl was about half empty, Camilla briefly set her posture right and caught her breath. Eating hot kalguksu in silence had clearly left her insides burning.
"That's usually how it is. Is this your first time?"
"Kalguksu itself is not new to me. But… this sort of kalguksu, sold as it is here, is a first. The broth tastes different as well."
She claimed she had never mixed with humans, yet she had eaten it before? The answer reeked of contradiction and falsehood. And yet, strangely, I felt not the slightest intuition that she was lying. That alone left me deeply unsettled.
"Finish your meal."
Camilla lifted her utensils again, and the quiet meal continued. The brief pause had let the broth cool a little, so I could eat far more comfortably. Wiping the sweat from my brow, I cleaned my bowl of kalguksu, side dishes and all. Camilla did the same. She picked up kimchi or kkakdugi now and then with a familiarity that looked thoroughly practiced—like a middle-aged man who had eaten plenty of kalguksu in his time.
"That was good."
After finishing, Camilla pulled a tissue and wiped the corner of her mouth. She had spooned up the broth as well, so the bowl was left completely clean—just like mine.
"It was a familiar taste, and yet different, which made it enjoyable. All the more so for how vividly it called up old memories."
"Is that so?"
"Mm. Still, I find I prefer the kalguksu you used to make. Broth boiled from meat and vegetables, the noodles cooked separately so the soup would not grow thick…"
"I made it…?"
Wasn't today the first time we had ever met? Could she… be suffering from some delusional disorder? Fear. A different breed of fear from before set my hands and feet trembling.
But then—
"Come now, Pal. Have you still not caught on? Or shall I call you István? Or perhaps Leo—would that jog your memory?"
At the names of my past lives, I felt the blood drain cold from my veins. Vampires were said to be able to read memories through blood. That ability must have laid every scrap of my information bare.
She's high-class.
To read memories required a considerable amount of blood drunk. Judging by that, this vampire named Camilla ranked high even among vampires. If her own words were true, she had read every memory from a single drop.
"You read my memories."
"I did. But it seems that has led you into unnecessary suspicion. How troublesome. I shall have to clear up the misunderstanding if we are to proceed smoothly."
"What misunderstanding do you mean?"
"That reading memories does not mean one can read everything—and least of all every fine detail."
Listen carefully. Camilla poured herself a glass of cold water, drank, and steadied her breath. Only then did she slowly part her lips.
"You must think me a rather high-ranking vampire. And so you must also think I extracted a great deal of information from a single drop of blood."
"Yes, that's right."
"And so I am. Even so, there is a limit to the memories one can read that way. And in truth, that is how it was."
Leo. István. Pal. And Seo Ji-hyuk. Camilla revealed that she had been able to read only fragments of those four lives. In other words, she had not seen the memory of me slipping while shaking my hips with lotion flying everywhere and planting my face in the floor. If she had, she would absolutely have said something.
"That is surprising, yes—but none of it is what matters most. What matters most to me is one thing alone: that you once lived as a man named Pal."
The way she singled out that one point—Pal. Her tone, her air. A familiar sensation I could not place made me tilt my head.
"Why does that matter so much?"
"Because the life of the man connected to me is what matters most. The other lives are mere records. Like some biography left moldering in a library."
Could it be—? One hypothesis flared fiercely in my mind, and then—
Camilla's lips curved into a deep, rich smile.