Encounter (4)
"What did the committee have to say?"
"Nothing but the same parroted line. Internal appointments, they insist, are outside their authority."
"So they mean to wash their hands of it. Haa…"
Kim Hana.
She was sitting in on the meeting Luna Luvia had called.
…Why am I even here?
Once the situation turned grave, the other senior officials had slipped away on one excuse after another. Kim Hana herself had only been waiting at the Commander's side for her to wake, and had been dragged into this room before she quite understood how.
This looks terribly important…
Kim Hana bowed her head and let out a sigh. Honestly, not a word of what the others were saying was getting through to her. Her expression was bleak, and set against the vivid pink of her hair, the shadow across her face stood out all the sharper. All because of a single person.
Has she woken by now?
The Commander.
Kim Hana swallowed, her throat dry. She had realized everything. The kit that had taken a sample of the Commander's blood and tested her ability—when those results first came back, the words had stuck fast in her throat.
This is… truly… impossible…
The Commander had an ability. And the name of that ability was…
"…Medical Officer."
"Ah—yes."
"Head out first. A little later I'll issue a statement myself and draw the protesters' attention."
Kim Hana nodded before she could think. Leaving on her own, in a situation like this, hardly seemed right. Even so, the others clearly wanted her gone. It felt as though they were about to speak of something important she was not meant to hear.
"Then I'll go on ahead…"
"Yes. Be ready. The moment I give the signal, drive straight out of the garage."
Kim Hana rose from her seat.
"Ah… one moment, Medical Officer."
Luna Luvia.
She stepped in close and lowered her voice to a whisper.
"The Commander. Don't hate her too much—look after her. I'll look into the details myself, later."
"Ah, that's…"
"Go on, now. I'll pass along the follow-up on today's incident afterward."
Kim Hana flinched. Without thinking, she slipped a hand into the white coat she was wearing. The kit with the test results was in her pocket at that very moment—the kit on which the ability's name and power were printed with perfect clarity.
This…
Shouldn't she reveal it here and now? The thought followed her as she left the room.
"Wasn't this the Commander's fault from the start? It's not as if we maliciously tormented the other units."
"Quite right. The one whose responsibility is plain ought to bear the whole of it. Isn't that precisely why she was seated there?"
All of it, the Commander's fault. That was the story they meant to tell.
I have to reveal it…
"What are you doing? You're not leaving?"
"Yes. Excuse me, then."
"Go carefully. And don't pull the car out until I signal."
In the end, after all her hesitation, Kim Hana couldn't bring herself to speak. Because she had understood.
The Commander… she was using an ability, for all of their sakes.
Only then did any of it make sense.
It had always felt wrong. The sight of the Commander carrying on like some unhinged brute in front of other people had been far too unnatural.
I should have noticed long ago…
That all of it had been an act. If she had only watched the Commander with any care, she would have seen it—the way none of those actions held together, the unnaturalness threaded through every one of them.
"…Haa."
Now she understood completely. If the Commander had truly been what the rumors claimed—eaten up by inferiority, tormenting the people around her—
Then she never…
—would have shed tears that sorrowful.
"Commander…"
For her sake, this truth ought to be told to everyone. All of it. Only then could the uproar be quieted. Only then could she somehow turn aside the arrows pouring down on the Commander.
But.
Kim Hana remembered it clearly. The ability test she had suggested, half as a way to change the mood, and exactly how the Commander had reacted. She had refused the examination with everything she had. She did not want her ability known.
…Why? For whom? For what?
Her heart could nearly accept it. Her head could not. Not for parents, or siblings, or relatives. Not even for friends. For units who were nothing more than strangers—enduring every degrading word, ignored by everyone, saddled with a monstrous infamy, letting rumors too foul to speak aloud spread unchecked—hiding her ability through all of that, and playing the villain?
Kim Hana couldn't understand it. She couldn't understand it at all, and before she knew it she had bitten down hard on her lower lip. She was angry. Her chest was so tight she could hardly breathe.
If only all of it had been coincidence.
But what had happened today had forced the truth on her.
Kim Hana stepped into the elevator and faced the mirror.
…The Commander was sacrificing herself for everyone.
The face that had realized it far too late—a face so full of guilt there was no room left for an excuse—looked back at her from the glass.
Lee Sera. She was the heart of it. Yesterday, today, every uproar up to this moment: Lee Sera had been bound up in all of it. And Lee Sera, once she had begun to hate the Commander, had unmistakably… grown stronger.
"Ah…"
She understood. At last she saw, with perfect clarity, what the Commander intended and what she was thinking. And because of that, Kim Hana couldn't hold her anger down. She kicked the elevator door with all her strength, as if she meant to break it.
A dull thud.
She was an ordinary grown woman. The door, of course, did not break. Choked even worse than before, she drove her fist into the buttons—bang!—and only managed to light up several at once. Kim Hana stared at her faintly swollen hand and slowly let her head fall.
"Why… didn't you tell anyone…?"
If only she had unburdened herself to someone. It didn't have to be Kim Hana. If there had been even one person the Commander could trust and lean on… why was she trying to carry a weight this heavy all alone?
That was when it chimed.
The elevator doors opened.
…This isn't the first floor.
She must have struck it when she was pounding the panel in her rage. She moved to close the doors again.
"Huh?"
Kim Hana saw something that stopped her cold. A fine spray of crimson lay across the floor. She followed the drops, fallen a few at a time, and her gaze traveled on.
"Commander…?"
The Commander was there. Eyes squeezed shut, trembling where she sat, she came into view—and then she looked at Kim Hana too. Her face wanted to speak. More than that, though, just barely, there was fear in it.
How had it come to this? With what kind of heart was she enduring even this? …Who had done it?
"Ah, Doctor. Hello."
The white-haired girl greeted Kim Hana with perfect courtesy. Kwon Ari.
"…Ari. What is this?"
"You can see for yourself, can't you?"
"Why would you do this to a person…"
Something subtle shifted in Kwon Ari's eyes.
"It's not as if I hold any personal grudge against the Commander."
"Then why did you do this?"
"Because the Commander did something wrong. Something terribly wrong. She even tried to touch my body."
No.
The Commander truly hadn't done anything wrong. Kim Hana turned her gaze on her. A flinch, and another—the Commander, denying it with everything she had, came into view. The outer corners of her eyes shone pitifully. The tears gathered there were catching the light.
"Ari."
"Yes, Doctor."
"…What if the Commander never did anything wrong?"
As Kim Hana saw it, Kwon Ari was exactly the sort to dig in and insist that the Commander had definitely done wrong. She had been certain of that. The certainty missed its mark.
"Then I'm the one who did wrong."
"What?"
"I hurt the Commander, didn't I? A Commander who wasn't guilty of anything. I think that would make my heart ache a little."
Kwon Ari said it with an unexpected seriousness.
"Come on. Get up, Commander."
"…"
She held out her hand as if nothing at all had happened. The Commander hesitated, then gripped the hand Kwon Ari offered. And she whispered—no. She said it so Kim Hana could hear.
"I'll stop here for today. Just for today."
No more.
Kim Hana couldn't endure it any longer.
For the first time in her life, she raised her voice at a unit—at the girls she had cherished like younger sisters. Overflowing with a fury she had no words for, she screamed with everything in her.
"D-Doctor?"
Kwon Ari was just as thrown. Kim Hana had never once scolded her. She had never once seen Kim Hana angry like this.
"What's the matter?"
"What kind of attitude is that!! The Commander is actually—"
In that instant, something seized her from behind. The body against her back was shaking violently. Kim Hana turned her head.
The Commander.
She was clinging to her, pitiful and desperate.
"Ah—ngh… uu…"
She was trying, desperately, to say something. It wouldn't come through. She couldn't make it come through.
"Why… what's wrong, Doctor?"
Kwon Ari, catching the strange current in the air, asked it softly. The truth about the Commander—
—and the explanation of that ability surged all the way to the top of Kim Hana's throat.
"Doctor??"
The Commander held on tighter. Tighter still. Her face was desperate. A face begging her, please, don't say it.
But.
All of this was for the Commander.
Kim Hana opened her mouth toward Kwon Ari.