The Tonkatsu Trap
Aside from the day I returned home, this was my first outing since. My first outing — looking back, I realized I hadn't set foot outside the house alone even once. There was no telling what this uselessly delicate body might pull out there, so I had holed up indoors as much as humanly possible.
It was absolutely not because Bonjwa had sunk so deep into computers and the internet that the thought of going out never once crossed my mind. Absolutely not...! In any case, there were very practical, realistic reasons for it...!
No, think about it. The homeland I returned to — this Earth — had, in a mere ten years, become a world where Gates, monsters, and hunters were simply a fact of life. Still, Se-ah gave an embarrassed smile and launched into a "back in my day" routine about how much public order had recovered over that decade.
...Whatever they had done to the firearms laws, people strolled the streets wearing blades and guns like fashion accessories. My memories of home were fixed ten years in the past, so on my first day back, the sight of a high school girl with a K-2 slung over her shoulder nearly knocked me senseless.
A high school girl kitted out with a K-2, service record and all! Good heavens! How could such a thing exist in this world!
To begin with, this was an era when internet broadcasts showed grotesque footage of monsters being butchered and weapons being swung, raw and unashamed. They edited it to a degree, but watching a hunter blow a monster's skull off a rooftop billboard with a rifle, broadcast in all its glory, was absurd. Had the very first Gate opened above the Korea Communications Commission building or something?
Fine, the world had changed — but why was the modern age, of all things, making someone back from Murim feel at home? At this point, were Murim and the modern world really so different...?
"Gal...! This isn't the modern age!"
Of course, it is an undeniable fact that Murim would be worse. In Murim, you run into Green Forest bandits on the road, get swept into a feud between unorthodox sects at an inn, and somewhere in the middle the innkeeper — a supreme master in seclusion — loses his temper and starts hurling qi blasts. In Murim, that is ordinary daily life.
If anything, it is the sort of scene you would feel a little cheated not to see? Living in Murim, inns get overturned now and then, a bumped shoulder means a pickpocket, and the brother you just swore brotherhood with turns out to be your parents' killer... is not that much just everyday life?
For someone who had lived through that Murim, the anxious possibility simply would not go away. From where I stood — a Murim veteran — I could already see hunters suddenly crossing blades in the middle of a restaurant, and the 1st-Generation Hunter who had been quietly eating through the chaos finally flipping the table...
The disasters painted themselves across my mind in vivid detail, as if I had already watched them happen. And with that, hunter fiction stood on the brink of being proven orthodox wuxia after all. In any case, if this frail body — one that could not even sustain the Demon Step for a measly seven seconds — got caught in a scene like that, I could die from a stray spoon...!
"Oppa, what are you doing? You've been at it for a while."
"It's... nothing..."
The hawk eyes that once rooted out the vile orthodox sects' lackeys skulking in online Go lobbies, lying in wait for a chance at a sneak attack. Swish, swish. I swept those hawk eyes about, scanning our surroundings with everything I had.
Murim even has maxims devoted to vigilance — beware, they say, even the child passing by. Especially back when Blood Heaven Castle, under my command, had hit rock bottom with both the orthodox and unorthodox factions at once. There was a time when a drink of water meant poison, and a bump in passing meant a hidden weapon. The child playing with stone markers in the street was an assassin, the old man playing Go was a death-dealer — utterly exhausting days, every one of them.
For someone who had lived through all that, staying wary of everything was only natural... all right, I did let myself slack off at home, but out here the habit held firm. And it was absolutely not because I had just remembered an important habit I had let rust after so long indoors, and gotten extra jumpy because of it.
"Ah... you really aren't doing so well, are you? You keep muttering to yourself... Should we just head home?"
So as I walked along, vigilantly scanning every direction without pause, Se-ah somehow came up to me wearing a worried face. I shook my head at once — then winced as my uselessly long hair whipped around and smacked me in the face.
"I-I'm f-fine...! We're go-going...!"
"Oppa...? You really don't have to push yourself! Let's not overdo it — let's go home, okay?"
"I'm really fine...!"
I could not tell why I was being fussed over just for doing what any warrior ought to — staying alert — but not wanting to become the sponging older brother who worries his little sister, I said it firmly, and somehow Se-ah's expression only got worse.
Oh well. If I wanted to calm down my easily-flustered Se-ah, I would simply have to try another approach. I pressed my palms together earnestly beneath my chin, tilted my head up to look Se-ah dead in the eye, and opened my mouth.
"'Cause I wanna eat tonkatsu...!"
That measly tonkatsu — truthfully, I could take it or leave it — but I said it brightly, purely and entirely to reassure Se-ah. Yes. That measly tonkatsu.
The tonkatsu cloaked in a thick coat of panko, crackling crisp on the outside, filled with pork that melts away — delicious dipped in salt, delicious dipped in sauce. The old Western-style cutlet arrives drenched in sauce from end to end, that sweet, soggy richness clinging to your tongue. The Japanese-style one, crisp outside and juicy within, melts away in sheer rapture when you pair it with wasabi and salt — until a Howaaaaah escapes your mouth...!
That measly tonkatsu means nothing to me! So what if it is crunchy and delicious when you lay it over a bowl of sweet white rice and eat it with a little salad! But more than that measly tonkatsu — the one that suits kimchi, pickled radish, and kkakdugi alike, delicious with any side dish you could name —!
For my little sister Se-ah's sake, as her older brother, I can put on a childish little act as much as needed...!
Churuuup.
That measly tonkatsu! That measly tonkatsu, whose chew only deepens the thicker the cut!!!
"O-oppa... tonkatsu... You really wanted it that badly, huh..."
The worry had drained out of her face, but for some reason Se-ah fidgeted, sneaking her gaze away. In any case, my performance of aching for tonkatsu had, apparently, worked splendidly.
But watching Se-ah squirm like that stirred up old memories. She carries herself with confidence now, but back then Se-ah used to toddle along at my heels, and I would often take her hand so she would not trip. My adorable little sister, whose fingers would wriggle and tangle with mine whenever I held her hand gently, her face split in a wide grin. The memories of leading Se-ah by the hand into a little snack shop, ordering a single tonkatsu, and splitting it three ways among us siblings.
The smile that rose to my lips before I knew it was surely one brimming with longing.
"Se-ah. Here."
I held out my hand to Se-ah, and she jolted, blinking at me.
"Can I... really hold it...?"
"Your oppa can at least manage holding his little sister's hand. Right?"
"Huh? Ah, y-yeah. Th-that's right...?"
"What... what is it?"
"N-nothing! It's just been so long, I'm happy, that's all. Here!"
With some odd reaction, Se-ah carefully took my hand. At the warmth passing between our palms, a soft, warm smile crept onto Se-ah's lips. Watching her, I smiled back. Just like old times.
Seeing her that delighted, I thought crossing "the Gate" — gambling everything on it — to come home had been the right choice after all. This girl — however much she had grown, at her core she had not changed one bit from the little sister who doted on her oppa — or so I mused, basking in it.
How long did we walk like that? At some point, I understood what Se-ah's oddly lukewarm reactions meant.
"Oh my..."
"Fufu."
Somehow, every time a stranger brushed past, I kept catching fond gazes and knowing smiles. And Se-ah kept dodging my eyes every time ours met. By then, I could not possibly miss how I looked to other people. That smile from the aunties passing by was exactly the smile I used to wear, watching little Se-ah toddle along behind me.
"Tch......!"
"Ah, aw..."
When I yanked my hand free, Se-ah gave an awkward, rueful smile. I shot her one dark look and quickened my pace. Though the fact that I need two steps to match one of Se-ah's is, as ever, infuriating...! This goddamn body!
Grumbling, I walked a little farther until a large commercial building came into view. Se-ah, who had been walking beside me stealing needless glances at me, pointed at the building.
"There, that's the place. Come on, let's go in."
"O-oh, ohh..."
A quick look around: on the third floor, Japanese characters... hiragana, was it? A Japanese restaurant with a sign annotated in that script caught my eye. So that was the place! Today, it seemed, we were having pork cutlet — that is, tonkatsu!
Giddy, imagining thick-cut tonkatsu, I followed Se-ah into the building and stepped into the elevator. And then.
"Se-ah...? Isn't it the third floor?"
"Hm?"
"Why are we going down...?"
"Mm, ah, right."
Why on earth had they dug this building's basement so deep? The floor numbers kept sinking. For some reason, Se-ah had not met my eyes since earlier; staring only at the elevator doors, she went on.
"Oppa, do you remember when I was in elementary school?"
"I... I do. But Se-ah, it's not the basement, it's, uh, the third floor... It was definitely the third floor..."
"I think I was in fourth grade? You said you'd buy me tonkatsu and took me out, remember?"
"Se-ah, Se-ah...? Third floor, it's the third floor, not the basement... Se-ah...? Right...? Right...?"
Se-ah smiled.
"I got all excited and went with you — and where we ended up was the dentist. Wasn't it?"
Ding. With the elevator's signature chime, the doors slid open.
"S-Se-ah...?"
"What are you doing? Get in."
"S-Se-Se-Se, Se-ah...?"
"Unnie, we're here for the checkup, just like I told you yesterday!"
As if she had been waiting, a young woman came out across a corridor that was white from end to end. Western features, blue eyes, blonde hair braided on one side. Red-framed glasses, a long white coat — the mature-looking woman clicked over and held out her hand.
"Hello. You're the cute older brother I've heard so much about, I see. I'm Rachel Lee. A friend of Se-ah's there, and a doctor and researcher. This is my private lab."
She explained in a calm, even tone. But only one word made it through to my ears.
"D-doctor...?"
"Yes, that's right."
Rachel Lee smiled faintly.
"Does this place look like a tonkatsu restaurant to you, Cheon Yujin? You've been kidnapped."
...Hah. Bonjwa is Cheon Yujin, the Blood Demon, foremost under heaven. However ridiculous this exterior may be, I am obviously no child. I am a fully grown adult. Lured by tonkatsu into a hospital for tests, hauled around by my little sister like a bundle of laundry — I would never lose my composure over such things. That's right. Bonjwa would never...!
"Well then — shall we start with a shot, so we can get that blood drawn?"
I fainted.