The Paper Airplane Promise
“Bayul! Summon that wind spirit—whatever it is—again!”
The moment they returned to the dormitory, Aidan flung his headband aside in a fit of fury.
“I have to see that thing's face today, no matter what. Don't you dare try to stop me. Do you have any idea how much money I blew because of it? Aaagh, my hard-earned cash! With that money, I could've…!”
Simply recalling the amount made him shudder. There was no swallowing the humiliation. He'd prepared for the contest at the expense of his exam studying—and that wind spirit had gone and wrecked the whole thing.
“What about my vacation, huh? Looks like I'll be working part-time the entire break!”
His grand plan—place in the rankings, make his family eat their words, and enjoy the holidays with his head held high—had dissolved into foam. Now it seemed he'd be nothing but a laughingstock instead.
“It's vacation—what part-time job could you possibly mean? Somewhere other than the library, I hope?”
“Have you two ever heard of labor exploitation?”
Deflated, Aidan let out a long, mournful groan and collapsed onto his bed.
“If you don't know, don't ask.”
During the semester, the dormitory had been his shield—but in vacation there was nowhere to hide. He would be caught, marched off, and put to work, no two ways about it.
“I was going to win prize money, buy myself something delicious, travel, have the time of my life—and now it's all shot to hell. Ugh, I can already see that hell looming right in front of me!”
“Wait, so they're going to make you work at home? Don't they have a mountain of employees? Why would they put *you* to work?”
“There's no such thing as a free lunch! That's the Leonett family motto.”
“Whoa. Terrifying. Aidan, have you been raised in abuse like me?”
“Not abuse, exactly. My grandfather's creed is that you learn everything from the very bottom. My dad, my older brother, all my relatives—they all started out as the lowest-ranked employees. I'll probably get dragged around like a dog all summer too.”
It was a rite of passage no child born into House Leonett could escape. The work suited him terribly, but sometimes there were things you had to do whether you liked it or not. This was one of those times.
“I rather admire your grandfather's creed.”
“Hey, Quinn! Are you seriously fanning the flames of a house already on fire?”
His blood pressure's going to burst a vein any second now, and here Quinn was, leisurely complimenting creeds. It was absurd.
“There was never any guarantee you'd place at all.”
“What did you say?”
This time it was Logan. Aidan shot to his feet as if this, of all things, was beyond endurance, and glared at him.
“Logan….”
Bayul shook his head in a silent don't, but Logan did not hesitate.
“Even without the waterspout, none of us could have blocked the seniors' attacks.”
“And how would you know that? Right up until that damn wind started throwing a tantrum, I was doing *amazing*! Worst case, I could've just asked Ingrid for help! What business is it of yours when you don't know anything?”
“Why don't you just come stay at my house?”
“…What's that supposed to mean?”
At this bolt from the blue, Aidan eyed Logan warily and shuffled back a step.
“It means once finals end tomorrow, come with me. If I ask my father, he'd write a letter to Count Leonett, no trouble at all.”
“…So you're saying, spend the vacation at your house, with you?”
“Well, it gets you out of manual labor, doesn't it? Oh, that's actually a great idea!”
Eli, who had been listening, clapped his hands as if this were welcome news indeed.
“Let's all sync our schedules and get together during the break. That sounds so fun!”
“Fun? What's fun about it? Am I out of my mind? Spending that entire summer vacation with *that guy*?”
The finger Aidan pointed at Logan trembled violently, as if the very absurdity of it shook him to the core.
“Ugh, the more I think about it, the angrier I get. It's all because of that wind spirit!”
Just as Logan had said, there was no guarantee Aidan would have placed—but the boy blamed everything, every last thing, on the wind spirit. Perhaps the specter of manual labor truly was that terrifying.
I don't even need the prize money, though….
You want mine, Aidan?
The words climbed all the way to Bayul's throat, but he barely swallowed them back. It would hardly be courteous to a friend who'd worked so hard—and besides, he knew perfectly well Aidan would refuse. So he said nothing at all.
Whaaang!
―Why does everything keep being MY fault?!
Just then, the dormitory door burst open with a bang. A wind strong enough to rattle the furniture sent everyone reeling back, deafened as if by a roar past their ears.
“What now? This brat's back again?”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
This time it was the window. It swung open and slammed shut, again and again—it was a wonder the glass didn't shatter.
And then, there it was. A blue gown billowing, the wind spirit revealed itself once more at the window—no, inside the room.
“Gah!”
“That thing…!”
The difference from the Hill of the Wind was that now, for the first time, the friends could see it too, not just Bayul. The spirit planted both hands on its hips, cheeks puffed out to their fullest, and glowered at the group.
“A baaaby!”
Aidan let out an involuntary gasp of admiration.
“It's—it's adorable!”
For this one moment at least, the spirit's crimes were utterly forgotten. There was only the urge to smoosh his face against those plump cheeks and squish them.
Right. Aidan was catastrophically weak to anything cute, beast or human alike. The reason he braved his family's nagging and went home faithfully every single weekend was, after all, to see his adorable little sister.
“Hey, kiddo, what's your name? Oh, right—you don't have one yet, do you. Bayul has to name you, like Innocent and Shame?”
His vow to make the spirit pay the moment they met had apparently evaporated, because Aidan was now beaming a big, easy smile at the thing.
The funny thing was, the spirit didn't seem to entirely hate it either—it stayed docilely in place instead of raging. Though its sharp little eyes never once softened.
“Bayul, what are you doing? It's waiting.”
Eli rested a hand on Bayul's shoulder. Until that moment, Bayul had simply been staring blankly at the wind spirit.
“…Oh. Um, hello?”
Swish!
The moment Bayul managed to eke out a greeting, the spirit's head whipped away with an embarrassment-inducing snap. He'd hoped he was wrong, but no—it clearly disliked him.
What on earth did I ever do wrong?
Bayul was baffled, and honestly a little hurt.
“Oh dear. It's thoroughly upset, isn't it? What could have made it this angry?”
The one who stepped in for the floundering Bayul was, of course, Aidan. He coaxed and wheedled, trying to draw the spirit out.
“Tell us everything. I'll listen to all of it, top to bottom, today!”
Perhaps his efforts bore fruit.
“Because I don't like YOU!”
The wind spirit shot Bayul a resentful glare.
Dislike…? Dislike of what?
Out of nowhere, Bayul couldn't make head or tail of it.
“……!”
And then, like a tidal surge, an old memory came flooding into his mind.
“Bayul, want to fold paper airplanes and fly them with me?”
“Paper airplanes?”
“Yeah! I learned it in Ga Kingdom class today—they say if you fold a paper airplane and fly it, your wish comes true!”
“A wish?”
“Mm-hm. Sounds fun, right? Don't you want to try?”
For Bayul, bedridden with illness, Bayil laboriously dragged a table over all by himself.
“Here, copy me. You fold it like this—like this.”
Bayil folded the paper slowly, step by careful step, so his brother could watch.
“Here—your turn.”
Handing over a fresh sheet he'd prepared in advance, Bayil's face was etched with worry. His little brother had been bedridden for days now, unable even to rise. How he wished Bayul would get up soon and they could go for a walk together.
Unable to pretend he didn't see that wish in his brother's eyes, Bayul strained to pull himself upright. Even that much left sweat pouring down him like rain, but he fought not to show it.
“Show me again. Which way does it go?”
Bayil folded; Bayul followed, mirroring each crease. After several rounds, two long paper airplanes were born.
“What's your wish?”
Bayil asked before they launched them at the window.
“Yours first.”
“Mine?”
“Yeah—what's your wish, hyung?”
“My wish is… for you to get healthy, Bayul. So we can run around outside together. You can do that much for me, right?”
“Yeah! I'll get better fast!”
Bayil smiled brightly and ruffled the hair of his little brother, who answered so bravely. Born a mere few minutes apart, he was nonetheless a steadfast big brother who looked after his sickly sibling as if it were his own body aching.
“Alright then—shall we fly them? Bayul, throw it with everything you've got!”
A gentle breeze was blowing in. Bayil swung his arm first in a powerful arc. Bayul followed, pouring every last ounce of strength into hurling his paper airplane into the sky.
Swooosh!
That was when the sudden gust struck. The instant Bayul's airplane left his hand, a fierce wind howled up out of nowhere. Pushed backward before it could fly forward, the plane slammed into the wall and dropped to the floor.
“Waaah, what was that! Why only MINE!”
“B-Bayul! It's okay. The wind just blew really hard, that's….”
“I hate the wind! Waaah!”
Looking back now, it had been nothing at all—but back then, he'd cried his heart out. In his defense, he'd been a child of barely eight, worn thin in body and spirit by a long, lingering illness.
“Hmph! You remember now, don't you?”
“Bayul, what? What's going on?”
Emerging from the old memory, Bayul gave his friends a brief account of the past.
“Whoa. So memories get shared over too, huh?”
Bayul understood now as well. If the wound from that day had been deep enough for the spirit to carry all of it, he felt both apologetic and, somehow, amazed.
Had that day really become a trauma for the little thing?
Without the wind spirit, Bayul never would have remembered it at all. The spirit, like the others, seemed to hold only fragmented shards of memory—except this one.
“The more I look, the cuter it gets. So *that's* why you were sulking, huh? Because Bayul said he hated the wind?”
“…I-I was trying to HELP him!”
“You were trying to help?”
“Yes! I thought if I carried it far, far away, he'd be happy…!”
If there was a problem, it was that the little thing had failed to control its power.
“Aww, is that right? Our precious little spirit did all that. You must have been so upset!”
Aidan, soothing the spirit the way he might coax his little sister Clara, laid on an exaggerated air of sympathy—then shot Bayul a pointed look.
Huh? Why are you…?
As Bayul scrambled, baffled, the spirit mouthed something at him, grinning wide.
Say you're sorry already. Tell him you were wrong.
You want me to apologize NOW? Isn't it a bit late for making up?
Face to face with that sulky pout, Bayul's confidence plummeted. Still, he gathered his courage and offered his belated apology.
“I'm sorry… I was really young back then…. I mean it. I'm truly sorry.”
“…Are you really sorry?”
The wind spirit, which Bayul had fully expected to shriek don't make me laugh, instead asked cautiously, its eyes noticeably gentler. Both its cheeks had flushed a faint pink.
“Mm. I never once hated you.”
As Bayul nodded and said the words, the corners of the spirit's mouth slowly lifted. It was the first smile it had shown since the day they'd met.
“It's even cuter when it smiles!”
Aidan looked fit to burst with hearts.
Perhaps because he'd seen the spirit in two wildly different moods mere hours apart, Bayul couldn't tell which side was the real one.
And suddenly, he thought he understood why Innocent disliked it. A vision of a future that would be anything but smooth flickered, unbidden, into Bayul's mind.