Unnie... I Said I'm Scared
Seol-hwa and Father had come to a place called the Erosion Control Center to confirm the superpower she had awakened.
I probably would have been better off waiting at home—but Father had insisted I come along, saying Seol-hwa clung to me so much that having me there would help. And he was right. The moment we arrived at the unfamiliar building, Seol-hwa refused to leave the circle of my arms.
"Unnie… I wanna go home…"
"It's okay, Seol-hwa. We'll leave soon. Don't worry."
I soothed her, patting her back as she burrowed into my chest. A short while later, a voice called Seol-hwa's name. Father scooped her up, took my hand, and led us into the examination room with the ease of someone who had done this before.
From what I'd heard on the drive over, Seol-hee unnie had been tested here as well. Until the age of ten, children came in periodically so the staff could check for abnormalities or changes in their bodies. Even those little horn-like nubs I'd first noticed on Seol-hee unnie's head had been discovered here when she was seven, and carefully monitored ever since to make sure they never grew into anything dangerous.
Of course, the horns didn't do anything special. Physical changes in people who awakened superpowers were apparently common—horns, or hair that shifted color the way Se-ah's had turned that pale watery blue. All of it was the influence of an Ineung.
"Mr. Park Min-hyeong. And beside you is… your son—or rather, your daughter? And the one here for testing today is the little one in your arms, correct?"
"Yes. She's our youngest, and it's her first time, so she's quite frightened. Would it be all right if we took things slowly?"
The examiner—a woman with a rather cold impression, identified by the badge around her neck—nodded at Father's request. She said they had plenty of time, then stepped a little farther back from Seol-hwa.
I approached the retreating examiner and asked carefully,
"Um… does the test hurt a lot…?"
She looked at me, then glanced over at Father. When he smiled and nodded, she gently stroked my hair.
"Not at all. We simply confirm your little sister's Ineung and identify its designation."
"Ineung…?"
"Yes. Some people call them superpowers. Here, we call them Ineung."
The examiner smiled softly at me, then stretched out her palm and swept it from right to left as if pushing something aside. Translucent rectangular panels unfolded in the air before her. When she turned her hand, the panels flipped over so I could read them.
Listed there were the names of countless superpowers, along with descriptions, years of discovery, and the number of known users.
"The Erosion Control Center discovers, manages, and records superpowers from all over the world. If your sister's Ineung is already on record here, we'll assign her the corresponding designation."
"And if it isn't?"
"If it shares a certain degree of similarity with an existing type, we group it under a broader category. Once five or more people share the same ability, it receives its own independent classification. And if it bears no resemblance to any known Ineung at all, we classify it as a unique ability called an Origin."
I listened with shining eyes. This was the kind of information you could never get out of a teacher.
And Origin—the English name was so close to the term used in the other world. There, too, every mage possessed a unique magic of their own: Origin Magic. Mages who reached the Fifth Circle carried one almost like a credential, a personal signature. I had one of my own.
A little excited, I asked the examiner,
"What kinds of Origin abilities are there? Can you tell me?"
What I got in return was a wry smile and another warm stroke of my hair.
"I'm sorry. For any Ineung with fewer than a hundred users, I can't discuss the details without the consent of the user or a related party. However…"
She looked at Father again. I turned too, sending him a pleading look that said please just say yes, whatever it is. Father laughed brightly and nodded, and the examiner's mouth opened once more.
"With the consent of Park Min-hyeong, husband of Han Jeong-ah, I can tell you about Han Jeong-ah's Ineung—though it isn't an Origin ability. Han Jeong-ah's Ineung is called Sisa—Thread Manifestation."
Mother's ability!
I had never seen Mother use her power, never even heard her describe it. Every time I asked, she only ever said she never had any reason to use it, and left it at that.
My heart pounded. I shifted from foot to foot, hanging on the examiner's next words. I was more excited, more breathless, than I had ever been listening to the Tower Masters of the other world describe their Origin Magic.
The examiner let out a small fufu of laughter at the sight of me—her cold face cracking for just an instant—then composed herself and explained.
"Sisa is the ability to draw invisible threads into the user's field of vision, laying lines wherever they look. As with every Ineung, how it's used depends entirely on the individual."
"Invisible threads…"
I tried to dig up any memory that might have been Mother using her power, but nothing came. And the condition—within the field of vision—I still wasn't sure what that meant in practice.
Perhaps reading my expression, the examiner checked with Father once more before continuing.
"With Sisa, sight is everything. For example—if I cover a cup on the desk with a book so that it can no longer be seen, any thread I previously placed in front of that cup with Sisa would vanish."
"Umm… doesn't that sound like a drawback?"
"Heh. Not at all. Being invisible cuts both ways—it also means being undetectable. No sensory-type Ineung in existence can perceive a Sisa thread."
Absolutely undetectable threads, placeable anywhere within your line of sight.
Come to think of it, Mother worked at a security company. And the work she mostly handled, she'd said, was monitoring CCTV feeds.
"Does it work through something like a CCTV screen, too?"
"I'll explain the rest later, if we have time after your sister's examination."
"Huh? Oh—Seol-hwa, when did you get here?"
I turned to follow the examiner's gaze and found Seol-hwa standing there, fists knotted in my pant leg, her face full of pure grievance.
"Unnie… I said I'm scared."
She was clearly upset that I'd gotten absorbed in someone else's conversation and stopped paying attention to her. I started to apologize and reach for a hug—but Seol-hwa went hmph!, spun on her heel, and marched after the examiner into the testing room.
At some point Father had come up behind me. He patted my back.
"Seol-hwa's going to be in a mood for a while."
"…Yeah. This time it really was my fault."
According to the results, Seol-hwa's superpower was called Water Droplet.
An ability to create water droplets, they said—still broad in scope, so the designation might change depending on how she learned to use it.
And from that day on, Seol-hwa refused to speak a single word to me for three full days.
Summer vacation ended.
Fortunately, Seol-hwa forgave me after those three days. On the last day of break she clung to me and cried, begging me not to go to school. Seol-hee unnie, for her part, had crammed through the entire backlog of summer homework in the final week.
In the end, her free-topic project—originally a Cute Little Sister Observation Log—was revised into a paper on the manifestation of her younger sisters' superpowers. I'd asked whether I could be left out, since I didn't have one, but unnie had threatened that if she didn't include me she wouldn't write about Seol-hwa either—a threat that only hurt herself, frankly—and I'd had no choice but to agree.
"Ha~rang-ah~!!!"
Se-ah's voice called for me from outside, and I started dressing Seol-hee unnie a little faster.
"W-wait!! Unnie! Argh, come on!!"
I had gotten used to it by now—wrestling a half-asleep unnie into her school uniform, stuffing one of Father's rice balls into her mouth, and setting out for school.
Outside, a breeze slightly cooler than before summer break slipped between the thin layers of our uniforms.
"Sorry, Se-ah—did you wait long? And it's gotten cold, too."
"Nuh-uh! You know I'm tough!"
Se-ah conjured a tiny wave beneath her feet and spun in place, showing off just how healthy she was.
Even after the camping trip, Se-ah's parents still came by our house regularly, fretting over whether any new scars had appeared on my body. And Se-ah herself had been training ever since at a pool the Erosion Control Center provided for water-type ability users. She could raise a wave under her soles even on bare ground now, just like this.
Apparently her mother spotted her spinning atop that homemade wave from the window, because a shout rang out from Se-ah's house:
"Kang Se-ah!!!"
"Whoa—! Okay, okay…"
It still wasn't stable, which was why her parents had told her not to use it—but in front of me, she always showed off like this.
"Hello, ma'am."
"Hello, Harang. You're feeling all right? If anything hurts, just ask Se-ah to carry you home."
"Yep! Ask me anytime!"
Still half-asleep, unnie had somehow already finished off a rice ball bigger than my fist. I led her along as Se-ah and I walked to school together.
I had expected summer vacation to be duller and more boring than usual—stuck in the house the whole time. Against every prediction, it had been fuller and more fun than I'd imagined.
Ding-dong~
October arrived on the heels of summer break.
We were at home making cheering placards with Father for the sports festival in November when the doorbell rang.
It was Se-ah's parents.
Se-ah had been going to the pool to train after school lately, so they clearly hadn't come looking for her. I thought they might be here to check on me again—but the expressions on their faces as they stepped inside were more complicated than that. A little sad.
Father took one look at them, guided them to the living room, offered tea, and settled in to listen. I sat quietly beside him and listened too.
"So… it looks like our family will be moving."
"I see…"
As I understood it, Se-ah's mother possessed some kind of detection or sensing ability. She lived in a government-designated area and monitored the surroundings for anything unusual. The original plan had been to stay here for about ten years—but recently another region had developed a pressing need for people, and Se-ah's family was being reassigned.
"Um. Ma'am—then Se-ah…"
"Se-ah… doesn't know yet. If we told her, I'm afraid she'd run away from home… so we haven't been able to say anything."
I wanted to say something, but the words wouldn't come.
Dozens of ways to keep from being separated from Se-ah spun through my mind. Every one of them was a child's stubborn fantasy.
In less than a year, Se-ah had become a friend so natural, so precious, that I couldn't imagine being without her.
I spoke as calmly as I could manage.
"Se-ah… for Se-ah… would it be all right if… if I were the one who told her…?"
There was no reason I should deliver the news of the move in her parents' place. If anything, hearing it from me might make her dig her heels in even harder.
But for some reason, I didn't want to hear the words I have to leave come from Se-ah's own mouth.
Not again.
I didn't want to hear another comrade—
another friend—
say goodbye to me.
Drip. Drip.
"Ah—no, this is—"
I hurriedly wiped the tears falling from my eyes.
If I cried here, Se-ah's parents wouldn't be able to refuse me. But the tears overflowed faster the more I tried to scrub them away, completely beyond my control.
In two months—come December, the same December I had first met her—Se-ah would be gone.