Comrades
I'm not a washing machine.
I'm not a heroine.
Around eleven in the morning.
Sunwoo and the others—Nature included—had come to the hospital just to see her, they said. But when they reached the room she was already buried under the blankets, sleeping so soundly that no one had the heart to wake her. So they decided to wait until she stirred on her own… and that was the exact moment she opened her eyes.
"Is it good?"
"Yes… strawberries…"
I sat there chewing strawberries like an idiot. Ayoung blankly swept her gaze around the room until something caught her eye.
"Apples…?"
"We brought them, so I peeled a few, but you're not going to eat them, right?"
"…I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I already knew you wouldn't, so I brought these instead."
Strawberries. Strawberries instead of apples. Even in tiny, almost invisible ways, he kept thinking of her.
…Sunwoo-nim.
He was kind. So unbearably kind. Warm enough that she wanted to lean on him without even realizing it. And because of that…
"…………"
Something sticky and uncomfortable lingered between her legs. She didn't need to look under the blankets to know. The sheets would be damp—not just from sweat, but thick and clinging.
What kind of dream did I even have…
The content was so ridiculous she felt embarrassed just recalling it. Yet it had also been sweet enough that waking up felt like a loss. Caught in the lingering afterglow of that honeyed fantasy, her eyelids trembled.
"Whoa… you must've been through a lot. Look at all that sweat."
"Huh? Ah—yes. I'm fine. Yes, I'm perfectly fine."
"That face doesn't look like someone who's fine…"
"…Ah."
A hand reached toward her. A gentle touch. A soft smile.
Surely not.
For a heartbeat the dream from moments ago overlapped with reality. The Sunwoo from their cadet days layered itself over the man standing before her.
He's going to wipe my sweat…
She found herself hoping for it without meaning to. A sweet, tender little daydream—
—beep
"Eh…"
"If you're struggling, don't tough it out. Hit the nurse call. That's why we put you in a private room."
Right, Hyewon?
Sunwoo-nim casually turned his eyes elsewhere. Ayoung stared blankly down at the nurse-call button beside the bed and let out a long breath.
"Yes… of course."
This was reality. Sweet delusions like that only ever happened in dreams. And reality?
"Sorry I couldn't keep the promise. At least Nature's debut went off without a hitch."
"Promise? What promise?"
"Uh… the one about staying by her side while she was being wheeled in?"
"…Instructor. Don't tell me you promised to catch the baby and then just ghosted?"
"Hey! I'm your producer! Work has priorities!"
They bantered without a shred of formality—yet every glance, every laugh, was shared with someone who wasn't her.
"This is pure trash!"
"That's why I asked Hyewon—the boss—to assign staff and everything!"
"This is why pity-virgin bastards are—!"
"Says the triple-digit slut!"
"Bullshit. I'm still factory-sealed, okay?!"
"Okay, okay! Yeonhwa-unnie, Instructor, please stop!"
"Did both of you forget this is a hospital room?"
The noise filled the space. Everyone smiling, everyone happy. The sight was so much like the old cadet days, like the old party days, that it almost made her smile…
"…..Hah."
…until she remembered she wasn't part of it, and the smile faded.
In the end, what had she even wanted?
Don't be ridiculous.
She knew exactly what she had wanted. She had wanted to go back. Back to that day, that time. But she couldn't. It had been impossible from the start—because she was the one who had severed every last thread.
No one would force them into pairs the way the Academy once had. Sunwoo-nim would never come looking for her first the way he used to in the party days. And the relationship he had already accepted after she left… maybe it was simply too late to reverse now.
…It hurts.
Same hospital room. Same scenery. Yet the single bed of distance between them felt searingly sharp. Herself and them. A transparent, enormous wall that had risen between them—one her own hands could never break. Her head kept drooping under its weight…
[Pii?]
"…Hm?"
Something small and warm climbed onto her lap. By appearance it was an otter… but the feeling said spirit.
"Aaaah! Dasu! You can't do that!"
[Piiiiii!!]
"Oh my?"
Nam Sujin. That had been the name, she was certain. With a chest nearly the size of her own head, the name had stuck firmly in memory.
"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! Dasu, you apologize right now too!"
[Piiii…]
Otter and girl both bowed their heads. When Ayoung waved it off as fine, the otter padded closer of its own accord.
[Piii…?]
"Hm?"
Pat.
A little paw settled on her belly.
"Dasu…"
"It's all right. He's actually cute, you know?"
Sujin's face looked ready to die, but Ayoung simply gazed down at the otter in a daze. A strangely familiar feeling. Sometime—yes, on some distant day…
I used to do this with Seiren.
She slowly reached out a hand. Would he refuse? Bite?
[Pii?]
"Ah…"
Even while she worried, the otter didn't pull away. He simply stayed put and looked up at her. Quietly. Just quietly. When she stroked his head in return, the otter narrowed his eyes and leaned into the touch.
"Instructor…! Please do something about Dasu…!"
"It's because he's a water spirit."
"…Pardon?"
"…Sunwoo-nim?"
Every gaze gathered. Sunwoo-nim stepped toward her—toward the otter.
"Water spirits are sensitive to life. Until a moment ago there was a life right here, but now he can't sense it, so of course he's confused."
"Sensitive to life…?"
"Amniotic fluid is water, after all. And if you think about a heartbeat, that's just water circulating too."
Later on you can even use it like detection magic, he added lightly. He scooped the spirit from under her knees and handed him back to Sujin.
"Anyway, no matter how curious you are, you don't do that to a patient. Got it?"
[Piiii…]
The otter bobbed its head in apology. And then—Sunwoo-nim spoke.
"…Sorry."
"Yes?"
"Yesterday. For breaking the promise."
"Ah… n-no, it's fine! It was debut day, after all."
"If you're okay with it, then good."
"Yes. You must have been busy…"
The conversation simply stopped.
…In the dream it had gone a little differently. Maybe dreams and reality really were that far apart. She was still tasting that faint bitterness when—
"Ayoung-unnie. Did that damn instructor do anything else to you?"
"Pardon?"
"Just say the word. I'll turn him into paste."
"Eh… ehhh?!"
Hong Yeonhwa stepped up beside her. And then—
"Instructor… even so, ending things like that is a little disappointing."
"Ehhhhh?!"
Jeon Harin joined in, closing ranks.
"Auugh… well… I prefer the side with more people…"
"Sujin too…?"
Nam Sujin.
"Honestly, Oppa was in the wrong this time, right?"
"…Uh… uhhh…?"
Even Hyewon.
Why…?
She couldn't understand it. Couldn't accept it. A situation so bewildering she could barely react—caught between confusion, panic, and pure absurdity.
"Wh…y…"
Yun Ayoung finally spoke the word aloud.
"Why… would you go this far…"
A tiny voice. Tiny beyond tiny. Yet they caught it perfectly.
"We're colleagues who eat from the same pot."
One after another.
"Ayoung-unnie's given us so much!"
And another.
"I… well… eep—anyway, I'll help!"
Eyes meeting hers without flinching. And then—
"Ayoung is currently an employee under my company."
"Hyewon…"
Something felt strange. Her heart was pounding. A queer, fluttering beat—something warm rising, soft and fluffy and glowing a gentle yellow.
"Well… that's about it."
And at the end of it all, everything turned toward one person.
"After you get discharged, how about I treat everyone to meat?"
"….Pfft!"
Ah. Aha… Ahahaha!
What is this…
Somehow everything had turned completely stupid. So stupid she forgot why she had ever made such a fuss. Every last one of them was an idiot, and that made it all the more ridiculous, and more than anything—
"Hic… nngh…!"
"…Hey?"
"Hnnngh… h-hwaaaaah…!!"
"Uh… uhhhhh?!"
What had she wanted to do? Tears came. They kept spilling. She didn't know why. She had thought they had long since dried up and withered, yet now they poured without end.
"Instructor…"
"…No."
It overlapped.
"I respect you, but humanly speaking, this is a little much."
"I said no."
They held her.
"I-I understand, Instructor! …Hiiiek?! Actually I don't understand at all! Instructor is the worst!"
"Sujin, Sujin…!"
They pulled her into their arms. Warm chests. Colleagues she could lean on. Sunwoo-nim no longer held her the way he once had, but—
"Unnie gets it. The instructor's just being a pure virgin, that's why."
"Ayoung-unnie, do you use SNS?"
"Switch… DS… PSP… which one do you liiiike!!"
—it was different from before, yet the atmosphere, the air, the warm and cozy place felt exactly the same. Her heart loosened inside it, even as a question rose in her mind and her chest.
"Ayoung."
"!… Hyewon…?"
As if she had overheard the thought itself, Hyewon answered.
"We're friends, right?"
"…………"
Friends. A word she had never expected. A word she had never even let herself think.
"And we were colleagues too."
"…So that's why?"
Because they were friends. Because they were colleagues. An answer so idealistic she could barely accept it.
"Oppa told me."
Hyewon continued.
"A Spirit Contractor must never lie."
Not to anyone else. Not even to themselves. And so Hyewon said—
"Everything Oppa ever said to you, Ayoung, was the truth."
"……Ah."
The words Sunwoo-nim had spoken once upon a time.
He had truly thought of her as a comrade.
"Aaa…"
He had never thought of her as filthy.
"Aaaa…!"
And so he had treated her as a comrade all along.
"Aaaaaaah!"
She turned her head. In the doorway of the hospital room, Sunwoo-nim simply stood there watching her.
"Ayoung."
"Sunwoo…-nim…"
Even now. Even to this very day.
"We're comrades, right?"
"…Yes!"
Sunwoo had always been right there.
"Then let's settle the meat with an all-you-can-eat buffet."
"Pardon?"
"Okay. Buffet it is! You already said 'yes,' right?"
"…………"
He was still exactly the same as back then.
As a side note—
"By the way, where's the baby?"
"…Pardon?"
"I want to see Ayoung-unnie's baby!"
"…Ah."
About the child. Yun Ayoung had completely forgotten.