Is This the House with the Beautiful Child?
My day always began the same way: waking up, preparing breakfast with Dad, taking a light jog around the neighborhood with Mom, then coming home for a shower.
Once I finished showering and changed into light indoor clothes, I stood in front of Seolhwa’s door, tensed my core in preparation for the impact that was about to hit me, and opened it.
Wham!!!
“Oppa!!”
“Seolhwa! If you were already awake, you should’ve just come downstairs…”
“Ehehe~ But Oppa comes to get me like this, so why would I~?”
The moment I opened the door, Seolhwa charged as if she’d been waiting and threw herself into my arms. The first few times I’d nearly toppled over in surprise, but after she did this every single day without fail, I’d gotten used to it.
I always told her she could come down and eat on her own if she was already up, yet she insisted she liked it better when I came to wake her, and so she always waited for me inside her room.
Last year she’d said the same thing, but back then she’d still been mumbling sleep-talk under the covers until I woke her. Now she got up first and waited for me.
Watching her nuzzle her head vigorously against my chest while clinging to me, I chuckled under my breath and, without letting go, carefully walked us both over to the dining table.
Seolhwa had become something of a celebrity in her class—no, the whole school. Word had spread that she was the little sister of Seolhee Noona, the strongest student in the school, and also my little sister, and she complained that school life had gotten a bit exhausting because of it.
I still didn’t understand why the “my little sister” part had spread along with the rest, but being constantly compared to her older brother and sister could easily become a burden for her, so I did my best to indulge her clinginess like this.
Of course, Seolhwa was the sort of kid who enjoyed showing off in front of others to a certain degree, so the attention didn’t seem to weigh on her too heavily yet. She just laughed and said it was tiring but nice, which was something of a relief.
“Seolhwa, Harang still has to go wake Seolhee, so let him go now.”
“Uuu~ Mom, can’t you go wake Unnie instead?”
“No. Mom still has to get ready for work. And Dad’s busy cooking.”
At Mom’s words, Seolhwa buried her face in my chest, took a breath so deep I could hear the sharp sssuup!, then pulled away with a loud puha!
Mom sighed and gave a small shake of her head at the sight, but I just smiled and told her it was fine, patted Seolhwa’s head, and headed for Seolhee Noona’s room.
It was nearly April now. Seolhee Noona no longer avoided me the way she used to, but there was still a little distance between us. So, in contrast to Seolhwa’s door, I relaxed my body and knocked gently.
Knock. Knock.
“Mm…”
At the small voice from inside, I opened the door and stepped in. Seolhee Noona was curled under the blanket with only a sliver of her face peeking out.
I approached slowly, peeled the covers back, and gently took the hand she quietly offered, guiding her out of bed.
Mom had explained that, with Dad and me being the only men close to her, Seolhee had seen drawings of half-naked men on Ryu-yeong’s laptop and was feeling embarrassed about it.
That made all of Seolhee Noona’s recent behavior click into place for me. Back when I lived in the other world, I’d been embarrassed about that sort of thing myself until I turned seventeen.
Even after seventeen I hadn’t completely stopped feeling self-conscious, but it no longer occupied much of my mind. So I carefully avoided anything that might startle her and led Seolhee Noona along slowly and gently.
Mom had said all that right in front of Seolhee Noona, which earned her an irritated shout and a sulky complaint, but Mom’s counter—“So are you two going to stay awkward with each other for the rest of your lives?”—had brought us to the current level of comfort.
Just as I always had, I took both of Seolhee Noona’s hands and guided her toward the dining table. While looking back at her as we came down the stairs, I nearly lost my footing—
Wham!
“Harang! Are you okay?”
“Yeah… I was a little startled, but Noona caught me, so I didn’t get hurt.”
The moment my body tipped backward, Seolhee Noona pulled me into her arms and stopped me from falling.
Looking down at me nestled against her with worried eyes, she asked if I was all right. When I smiled and said I was fine, her face flushed red; she cleared her throat, let go of my hand, and hurried the rest of the way down the stairs with quick little steps.
“Harang might… fall again, so I’ll go the rest of the way myself…”
Worried I might trip once more, Seolhee Noona hurried to the table. Watching her from behind—her earlobes still bright red—I smiled quietly and followed her to the dining table.
Once the meal was finished, Dad and I cleared the table and washed the dishes, then stood at the front door to see off the women of the house as they left for work and school.
It was just another ordinary, peaceful, repeating morning scene.
As May approached and Children’s Month arrived, I was making cookies one morning for Seolhwa to take to school and share with her friends when Mom frowned at a text she’d received from Cheon Sa.
The accident at last autumn’s sports festival had turned out not to be a natural weather phenomenon; people with climate-manipulation abilities had banded together and deliberately ruined the event.
The culprits had been caught during the investigation and the case closed, but Mom still seemed sour that fully grown adults had nearly seriously injured Seolhee Noona and Ryu-yeong just to mess with kids having fun.
“Haa… What the hell is wrong with those bit—ah, sorry, Harang. Mom got a little worked up.”
“It’s fine. I don’t understand adults who’d sabotage a kids’ event over something that petty either. And neither Seolhee Noona nor Ryu-yeong got badly hurt, right?”
“That’s true… If anything, the sensation from that day seems to have given them a new direction… Still doesn’t make me feel any better, though… Haa. Mom’s heading to work. Honey~ I’m off~”
Of course I could only say that because no one had been seriously hurt, but looking back, both Seolhee Noona and Ryu-yeong had grown tremendously since that day.
Seolhee Noona’s azure lightning was cleaner and more refined than her previous yellow lightning. According to her, it used to feel heavy, as if something was clogging it from the inside; now it felt light.
If it had simply become lighter and weaker, more research would have been needed, but while the weight had lessened, the reduced mass made the lightning far easier to compress—so its power had actually increased.
The speed at which she formed lightning spears had also risen with the lighter charge; now a casual flick of her palm could produce a continuous stream of them.
That was why her current training focused on generating azure lightning spears in midair, with the eventual goal of controlling those free-floating spears the way she used to manipulate her wire-made lightning-thread square.
The downside was that every single spear that flew out and exploded produced a massive thunderclap, so both Seolhee Noona and Ryu-yeong—who usually sparred with her—had to wear earplugs during practice.
Outdoors it was somewhat bearable, but inside the training hall the roar was so loud that without earplugs it was impossible to endure. It was a reminder that getting stronger wasn’t always purely a good thing.
In Ryu-yeong’s case, once she decided to use tools, I tried to help her make full use of them—but in the end the purpose of the tools flipped completely.
After she confessed that the reason she used tools was to protect me, I advised her there was no rush; we should grow stronger slowly and solidly. Something seemed to click for her after that, and she began using the tools for a different purpose entirely.
Previously the tools had sprayed water over her whole body to assist her movements; now she wore them as restraints instead.
According to her, she’d asked for them to be modified so that the faster she moved, the more resistance they generated, slowing her down. To someone like me with zero knowledge of such devices, the explanation was far too technical.
What I could understand, though, was that while Seolhee Noona had grown even faster, Ryu-yeong was deliberately focusing on making herself slower.
It reminded me of something a Lizardman martial-artist comrade from the other world had once told me: there are realms that speed can never reach—only slowness can arrive there.
I clumsily imitated the forms that Lizardman comrade had proudly shown me and helped with Ryu-yeong’s training. As a result, her fists reached a bizarre realm where the slower they became, the stronger they grew.
I still vividly remembered the way Ryu-yeong wept with joy when a fist that had taken nearly ten full minutes to extend finally shattered a wooden board marked “20.”
Those wooden boards and the various other tools—artifacts, as Ryu-yeong called them—never stopped amazing me every time I saw them. That board, thinner than my fist, was apparently famous enough that even Mom knew of it.
Ryu-yeong had also developed a small eccentricity: she started carrying the opal necklace I’d once given her in her mouth.
She claimed it wrapped her whole body in an inexplicable sense of stability better than wearing it around her neck or on her arm, but watching her fight with a gem the size of an adult’s thumbnail clenched between her teeth looked a little ridiculous.
I couldn’t let anyone see her looking so serious and still think she looked foolish, so we decided she would cover her lower face again with the mask she’d used before.
“Harang, I’m off.”
“Oppa! Dad! We’re heading out!”
I stood at the front door and waved as Seolhee Noona and Seolhwa left for school. Next month would be June—the start of summer vacation.
And my house arrest would end in only half a year. The year and a half had already become a single year, and the end was finally in sight.
“Seolhee…? What about Dad?”
“Ah, right. I’m off, Dad.”
Creeeak— Bang.
Beside me, Dad stood looking utterly crushed that he’d been pushed down the priority list; he clung to me in sorrow.
“Harang… Ah, right. Yeah, right. Sob. Since Harang does all the cooking and looking after everyone, Seolhee must’ve forgotten about Dad…”
“Then should I only look after Seolhwa from now on?”
“What? No way. Do you know how nice it is spending quiet mornings with your mom?”
Dad shook his head at my reply, chuckling as he pulled me into a hug and headed for the kitchen—where the cookies I’d forgotten to hand Seolhwa still sat.
“Ah! Harang! Dad’ll go give her these! Watch the house!”
“Yes~”
Creeeak— Bang!
With Dad gone as well, I stood alone in the house for the first time in a while. A small emptiness settled over me as I looked at the front door with a wry smile. The moment I turned to start exercising—
Ding-dong~
“Excuse me~ Is this the house with the beautiful child?”
A stranger’s voice called out as someone pressed our doorbell, looking for someone.