Nanzhong [1]
My eyelids lifted, slowly, and the world came clear.
“...!”
Seol-a was the first thing I saw, staring at me with the wide, startled eyes of a rabbit. The forest behind her registered only afterward.
We seemed to be inside a tent of branches and leaves. She must have built it herself. How admirable. Our disciple has grown up properly.
Eyes half-lidded, I let out a cracked little laugh.
“Are you all right...?!”
She came scurrying over in a rush, the question tumbling out of her, and she was cute enough to make me forget the burning ache throbbing through my whole body. Just looking at her felt as if the pain were easing and the wounds knitting shut on their own.
“Yeah. Jaw's back together, and the hole in my side has filled in...”
I was smiling as I said it, and then I stopped halfway. No. Something was wrong.
“...? Why am I already healed?”
I blinked and ran my hands over myself. Perfectly sound. Aside from a lingering burn where the wounds had been, there was nothing wrong with me at all.
“Seol-a, how long was I lying here... huh.”
I never got to finish.
“Hic... sniff...”
Seol-a had started to cry in front of me.
My mind went white-hot, as if a flashbang had burst inside my skull.
“H-hey, why are you crying? Does something hurt? I've got some experience as a physician, you know. I can treat you. Let me take a look.”
I babbled, feeling my heart drop. What if she was badly hurt? What if it was something I couldn't fix? Then what else—I'd find a way, whatever it took. I don't much care if I get hurt. Seol-a must not. Better that I be the one in pain. Our disciple doesn't get to be.
“Hic! Sniff... It's not that... hic!”
Not because she was hurt. Thank goodness. I let out a silent breath of relief and listened to what followed.
“You just collapsed... and for a whole shichen—two hours... sniff... you wouldn't wake up... waaah...”
Ah. She was crying because she was worried about me?
I forced down the smile trying to climb my mouth and pulled her into my arms.
“Hey. I'm fine. What about you?”
“I—sniff—I'm... I'm okay... hic!”
How lovely, that our disciple thinks of her master this much. Holding her like this, something in my chest went warm. Back when death kept repeating itself, all I had wanted was to die. Now I wanted to live.
I can't just die and leave a disciple like this behind.
The thought even crossed my mind that once I'd cured her severed meridians, I ought to adopt her as my daughter. Ah. Wait.
“...A whole shichen?”
“Yes... sniff.”
Do a person's bones normally knit inside of two hours? Does a hole through the gut close in two hours? At this rate I was practically a demonic beast.
Were my parents not human after all?
...No. Impossible. I didn't even know what I was thinking. I must not have been fully awake.
“Waaah...”
Seol-a had her face buried in my chest, sobbing hard. I drew her in a little tighter and patted her back.
“Thank you for worrying about me.”
“Sniff, what... hic! What are you even saying...”
“What do you mean, what. Exactly what I said.”
“Of course... sniff, I'd worry. Why would you... sniff... thank me for something like that...”
She said it as the crying, at last, began to ebb. The tip of my nose stung. Worrying was only natural, was it? I was far too grateful.
I really did take on one fine disciple.
A helpless little laugh escaped me as I stroked the Seol-a gathered in my arms.
“Our Seol-a, were you sad because Master collapsed?”
“...Ugh... what's with that way of talking? All of a sudden... nngh... why'd you get so frivolous...”
“I don't know. Being with you warms me up. Must be that.”
“...”
The tips of Seol-a's ears went faintly red. Now that the tears were done, it had hit her—what was it called. Right. The crash. Reality, crashing back in.
“Y-you should let go now...”
She said it in a voice that shrank in on itself, pushing at my chest with both hands.
“Weren't you falling asleep in my arms every single day until not long ago?”
I said it, a little hurt. ...Put that way, it did sound a bit strange. Still. On the road, and at night when we slept, she had been holding onto me before I even noticed. That much was true.
“...A-anyway.”
Seol-a seemed to have nothing to say to that. She cleared her throat.
“Well, all right. If you don't want to.”
I let her go without bothering to hide how reluctant I was. Soft, sweet-smelling, warm, and just the right size to hold. Well. If she didn't want it, there was nothing to be done. I ought to respect that.
“Ah...”
The small sigh that slipped from her parted lips, and the look of regret on her face... that had to be my imagination. Right?
“Shall we head out again? I still need to deal with those kids in the back alleys...”
“No!”
She cried out, startled by my words, and my eyes went strange. What? Why was she like this?
“You were laid up until just now, and you're already talking about going somewhere? Absolutely not.”
Ah. She'd been worried about me. I couldn't help it. I pulled her back in.
“As expected, there's no one but our Seol-a. All right. I won't go there.”
“...You mean it?”
She asked it while glaring at me, openly suspicious, and she was cute, as always. I stroked her hair along the fall of it.
“Yeah. I won't go for a while.”
“You're not planning to sneak out while I'm asleep, are you?”
...How did she know? I managed my expression with desperate care and went on.
“Ahem. Of course not. Let's just go out and play instead. Do whatever we feel like. Rest.”
“Really...?!”
Seol-a asked again, blue eyes sparkling. Why was our disciple this cute? Kind, grown-up, pretty, talented, adorable. Our disciple had it all. Every last bit of it.
“Of course.”
I smiled, thoroughly pleased, and hugged her tighter still.
Of course I was still going to the back alleys in secret. A fight lives or dies on real combat sense. If I meant to learn how battle worked in this world, I had no choice.
“Mmm~.”
Seol-a, having polished off her third skewer of tanghulu, cupped her cheeks in both hands and grinned, loose and happy.
“Is it really that good? Looks too sweet to me.”
When I said it, scratching my head, she held out one of the candied hawthorn skewers toward my mouth.
“Here. Say ah~.”
I chuckled and bit a single hawthorn berry off the stick.
“Mm...”
“Good, right?”
“Not as sweet as I thought. Pretty tasty.”
“See? I told you.”
Seol-a wore the happiest smile in the world and finished a fourth skewer besides.
I wish she'd eat in moderation...
But seeing her enjoy it that much made me too glad. Right—at that age, you're supposed to play around a little and—
Ah. She's twenty-six.
Anyway. If our Seol-a was happy, so was I. Instead of scolding her, I stroked her head. Right. I wasn't even her parent. What harm was there in letting her loose a little? The severed meridians—one of the biggest reasons I'd thought I ought to get her eating under some kind of control—well, I'd have to research it myself, or seek out the cultivators and find a way.
“People keep staring at us, though. I can feel it.”
“Isn't that because you're cute?”
“...Why do you say things like that as if they're obvious?”
“Because they are.”
A faint red rose in Seol-a's face, and she said nothing more, inhaling tanghulu instead. In the blink of an eye she was already on her eighth.
“Tell me to name a hundred reasons you're cute, and I could.”
“I—I could name a hundred reasons oppa is cool, too... ugh, I can't. How do you even do this...”
She'd started it in play, then gone red to the ears. Why was she like that? Cute, though. No—more than that.
“What do you mean, oppa? Since when?”
Even if I was twenty in this life, even if I had never once lived past thirty in any of them, my mind was fifty-one years old. Wouldn't mister be closer to the truth?
“Calling you ‘you’ is too cold.”
“Then you could just call me Master, couldn't you?”
“That feels distant too. Stiff. Do you hate it?”
“...It's not... that I hate it.”
“Heh. Then we'll just say that's how it is.”
“...Well. All right.”
Somehow, before I knew it, I had acquired a little sister. There had been a hint of that feeling before, but anyway.
If it's a sister like this, she's welcome.
I watched Seol-a, who had by then finished all twenty skewers of tanghulu and was drinking peach juice—I had no idea what they called it in this world—and a contented smile rose to my face. At least in this life, I ought to keep Seol-a with me until the end. I had more than enough strength to protect a single person. If, by some chance, she came back to me hurt, or dead, then I...
...Just imagining it was unbearable.
So I folded the thought away, smiled, and stroked her hair. She tilted her head for a moment, then turned it to the angle that was nicest to pet. What, had she been a puppy in some past life? Cute, regardless.
“Pfft.”
Looking at her, I burst out laughing. I was happy. Even before I turned fifteen—though I don't remember it well—I don't think I was ever happy like this. Just being with Seol-a was joy enough. Nothing left to want.
Life...
Sometimes it is painful. And sometimes it is too full of happiness to bear. Like a sky in which night and day exist together. If a person's life could be divided into night and day, then this, I think, would be noon. Happy enough that I had to wonder whether I was allowed to be this happy.
...Whether I was allowed to be this happy?
....
Of course I wasn't.
That when day passes and night comes, the sun goes down—foolish, and foolish again, I learned it far too late.