Not Alike at All
My life snapped back to ordinary so fast it was as if none of it had ever happened.
Nothing came flying at me during class anymore. All I did was sit through tedious lectures and sleep through the rest. Since the day I'd been attacked, the teacher's face overlapping with Team Leader Ju's had grown a little less frequent. They weren't even the same age. They looked nothing alike. So why had I seen her that way at all?
Maybe it was because I felt trapped. No matter how spacious this place was, at its core it didn't feel all that different from the basement of the research lab. Or maybe it was because I'd come in as an F-class. The people at the top seemed to be getting along just fine, after all.
Ah. Come to think of it, Seojun had come looking for me once — all the way to the classroom door. Of course, it wasn't because my face had crossed his mind, or because he'd abandoned me and gone off to live well on his own. His friend was stubborn enough that coming to apologize would take a little time, or so he'd said.
He'd asked for my name. I didn't answer. I told him not to go asking the teacher, either. I didn't particularly care about an apology. Unless he'd shown up with a bag stuffed full of white powder as a gift, maybe.
If I were being a little playful about it — was I sulking? Or was I just off doing something stupid by myself? I could have just told him I was Yu Harin. Said it proudly. Told him I was jealous, seeing how well he was doing. That would have been the end of it.
What was the point of wanting to see him while I let the misunderstandings, the exhaustion, the rift between us rot away inside me all on my own?
I was the only one who'd been looking forward to it, you know. I was the only one who'd been in agony over not being able to see him. The person I'd saved hadn't given it a second thought. I was the only one who'd cared.
If you were going to teach me that even in a shithole like that, you could still live like a person — think, hold onto a warm heart — then you shouldn't have thrown me back onto the floor. It would have been better if I'd never known. Because the only future I can see in front of me is made of things like that.
Maybe it's because I've been cutting back on the drugs lately, but I keep hearing things. Especially when I look in the mirror. Even though I smashed it a long time ago.
Anyway. I was spending another tedious day after tedious day, watching the crooked moon through the dormitory window, when a vibration came from inside the drawer. I walked over and checked. A call from Sihyun unnie.
Should I just let it ring out? It's not like I've gotten a single piece of decent, usable information. Even though it's been almost a month since I got here.
I picked up anyway, and heard unnie's voice, her pronunciation slightly slurred.
I drank for the first time in a while.
It's not like I have time for this. I just used the anniversary of my little sister's death as an excuse to pour it down. I couldn't bring myself to do drugs — not like that kid I'd met in the lab that day.
I'd even bought her a phone, but she never called, so I found her number in my contacts and dialed. I have a feeling I only called because I was drunk. Hopefully I won't slur my words.
Connected.
"Harin?"
"Yes."
"I at least thought you'd call every now and then."
The girl didn't answer, so I kept talking. Maybe it was the alcohol. Something that had been sitting in me — a little hurt — came spilling out before I could stop it.
"How's school?"
"It's not bad. It's just... nothing's really happened yet, and I haven't even taken a test, so I don't really know."
"Did you meet that friend you wanted to see?"
"...I did meet him."
Her voice sounded somehow dejected. This was a kid who hadn't shown a shred of emotion since coming back from that horrific basement beneath the research lab. Worried something might have happened to her, I reined in my voice as much as I could and asked.
"Anyone giving you a hard time?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Sparring starts soon. If I make them forfeit, it'll be easier for you. No chance of getting hurt in a fight. In the classes where the lower-ranked Awakened are gathered, the teachers tend to look the other way."
At that, Harin's voice suddenly went flat. Had I said something wrong?
"You went here too?"
I remember Harin's voice from the first time I heard it — when I'd gone down into the basement wearing the Rabbit Mask, looking for the thing the researchers had been so precious about. The voice I'd heard after dealing with those bastards, when I was about to shoot the woman who'd been tormenting that child. The particular pitch of it. The way it trembled. The emotion packed inside.
She'd said she was grateful I'd freed her, but this was something she had to do herself. Then she'd blown the gun right out of my hands and exploded that woman's head.
The look on her face came back to me, and I felt the alcohol recede a little.
"I told you to call me unnie."
"You said you didn't know a thing about this place. That you were sending me because you didn't have enough information."
Harin ignored what I'd said and kept going.
"...It's been a few years."
"Do you think that's an excuse that actually makes sense?"
"What's your problem? You were the one who wanted to go in the first place."
"I don't have a problem. I just... I don't understand why. Why you'd send me here with an excuse that ridiculous."
Well, because I — no, because we picked you up. At first I thought you were some treasured object the lab was hoarding, but the further I walked down into the basement, the more I realized you were just a kid. It's not like I could just dump you at an orphanage, either. Because you're not normal. If I just let you go, you might go around killing innocent people.
"The Chairman said so, didn't he. Go make friends with the promising students."
That's why I'd hoped she'd at least make a friend. She wouldn't be able to befriend ordinary kids anyway. Even with us, she never showed any sign of opening up. Outside of mealtimes and the occasional request for drugs, I could count the conversations we'd had on one hand. Or maybe she overlapped with someone else in her mind?
"Even if you can't be happy, I at least want you to be okay. Even if you didn't have any abilities, if you'd said you wanted to stay, we would have let you."
For a long time, nothing came through the line. It wasn't awkward, exactly. I actually liked this kind of silence. Because it felt like this child, who'd never hesitated before doing anything or saying anything, had finally developed a little hesitation. Had meeting that friend at school helped? Or had she opened up to me a little, too?
"...I'll leave it at that for now. Like you said, I'm not in a position to complain."
Through the phone, I could hear rustling and breathing that carried just a hint of hesitation, and then Harin's voice came through.
"Because you're still young. And an incredibly strong Awakened."
"Did I look pitiful, the way you saw me in the basement?"
She had. Pitiful enough that she could kill a human being who'd done those things without a moment's hesitation.
They don't look alike at all...
...and yet she looks so much like her.
"Did you feel sorry for me? The girl who wouldn't even talk to the people who saved her, who only ever said what she wanted to say?"
Terribly. Even a puppy I picked up, soaked in rain and freezing to death, wouldn't have looked that pitiful.
"Other than your age, you don't have a single thing in common, so don't say creepy shit like that."
They really don't look alike at all. Except for the age.
"I'm hanging up. Call me when you come out. I'll give you a ride or something."
"Well, thank you. Thank you for calling."
Thank you. I think that's the first time I've heard those words from her. It sounded a little perfunctory, but still.
I stared at the call-ended screen for a long time, then went to put the phone in my pocket, but instead opened the photo app and looked at a picture of a child hugging me, smiling brightly. Red eyes, just like a certain someone. Though the hair is brown.
I stroked the screen for a long time, then tossed it onto the bed and went back to draining the bottle.
Come to think of it, there's only one person who actually cares about me. My only friend, who hasn't changed at all, doesn't even recognize me. And my family has been dead for a long time.
Lee Sihyun. In my head, she's still Rabbit Mask. A person I know nothing about beyond her name and her face — except that she lost a little sister to someone, by her own admission. She was the one who dragged me around the city when I'd been sitting in the corner of the bed with my mouth shut. The one who brought me drugs when I was shaking from withdrawal.
Calling her unnie still feels wrong, though.
I don't know a single thing about what she likes, what she thinks about, what kind of life she lives. Not really. But she's incredibly good to me. So much that I don't understand it.
And I think I know pretty precisely what Seojun likes, what he thinks about, and what kind of life he's living now. But that kid doesn't even recognize me, and he's not particularly kind to me. He said he'd apologize because that's just the kind of kid he is. The kind with a sense of justice that doesn't belong in someone who grew up in the slums, and a head full of dreams. The kind who'd go find a stranger and save them. The kind who'd tell even a girl he was extremely close with that something wasn't right, if it wasn't.
They did look close, after all. I don't know what kind of relationship it is, going out at night just the two of them to hunt villains, but they must be extremely close.
Knock, knock.
A knock at the door. It was night. There was no one who would come looking for me.
For some reason I felt uneasy, so I nicked my wrist with a shard of broken glass, quickly wrapped it in a white cloth, then gently opened the door and checked the gap.
"...Hel-lo."
"Heh."
It was so absurd I let out a laugh before I could stop myself. Behind the door stood a blue-haired girl, a small paper bag in her right hand.