Becoming Jeong-gu

Still.

One week.

Maybe the last of my short life.

I was twelve now. Hee-ju had lived only to this same age. We had reached the same number, and still I could not understand her. Understanding Jeong-gu — who would have to live five more years out here before our ages matched — was harder still.

Why did he do it?

I thought of my brother the whole time I whittled the branch. That Core should have been mine. Why had he suddenly insisted we change the order? He could have used a green Core, at the very least. The last green one remaining had been his share. And yet he had insisted on the red Core that was meant for me. Had he been that sure of himself?

The red Core.

The moment I learned that ill-omened thing was mine, I understood what I was worth in Father's eyes.

I whittled the branch into a gravestone, and night came down on me. The first time we made gravestones, it had not taken nearly so long. Five of us had made them together then. One thing was the same now as it had been then: nobody ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spoke.

A quiet night. I set the stone in the earth. Five gravestones stood gathered, and a thought came over me — that every stone which could gather here had gathered. That this was the end.

I did not mean I would not die. I meant that if I died, Father would not whittle a branch for me.

Father...

The only reason I was still breathing was him. If he had not taken me in, I would have died on the road, no question. No matter how I trained, my body stayed hopelessly weaker than my brothers' and sisters'. That this lump of flesh had lasted so long was a miracle. So if I died next week, I had no right to feel wronged.

No. That was not quite true. If I did die, there was one thing I would resent: that there would be no gravestone carved with my name.

The answer came to me then. It was simple.

I can just make it myself.

"Have you still not finished?"

Morning came, and Father was already making ready to leave. He had stacked up every point he needed. Where was he going now?

"I'm making it alone, so it takes a while."

"Hm."

He looked around him a moment and caught on at once.

"...The gravestones that were meant to be made — you have already made them."

"Yes."

I had to explain before he misunderstood.

"This one, I—"

"I shall return next week."

He left me with nothing but those words.

This is only in case I happen to die. It isn't that I truly believe I will. That was what I had wanted to say.

Sometimes I had imagined it: my brother, after I was gone, having to make my gravestone. What he would think as he carved my name. Just as Father said, this was a world where you truly could not see an inch ahead.

I let out a breath and laid my gravestone down beside the place where the five stood together. If I died, all Father would have to do was set it upright. He would do that much, surely. There was nothing buried beneath the stones anyway. Father had always taken the bodies of our dead brothers and sisters with him, to cremate them. He said he left them in secret at the facility that cremated dead hunters, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that the people at headquarters then gave them a funeral with all proper courtesy. I had wondered what meaning there was in strangers who did not know us paying respects to the wrong souls, but Father had called it love of humankind. It meant, he said, that people cared for people.

Hee-ju had asked what use that love of humankind was supposed to be. Jeong-gu had said it was like a spaceship.

I had no answer. With the gravestone finished, there was nothing left to do.

I set the toy subway on the ground and drew it backward. The tick of the spring winding inside was a pleasure. Let go, and the subway shot forward. That must have been how it was meant to be played with. But there was another way: grip it tight and lift it off the ground. Then the wheels of the subway in my hand spun in empty air, and the shiver of their turning traveled up through my fingers. That was a pleasure too.

Playing with it, a sadness came over me. The thing turned its wheels because it wanted to run, and I had it bound in my hand. Just like us.

I hauled the subway back as hard as I could, and this time I let it go. I had not thought far enough.

"Ah—!"

I should have looked ahead before I released it. The little thing tore off in a clean, bright line and slipped straight into a crack in the rock. I went close and peered inside. Nothing but thick dark. I needed equipment.

I went into the cabin and took out the flashlight. Using it had always required Jeong-gu's permission.

"Can I use it?"

I said it for no reason, and regretted it at once. I stood before the crack with the flashlight in my hand. My brother would never have allowed it — burning battery just to find a toy. I had been scolded badly for that once. After sunset we had all played hide-and-seek. There was a prize for whoever found the most people before time ran out, and the prize was a toy. I had been blind for toys then, too. Hee-ju found everyone except Jeong-gu. My turn came, and I could not find him either. That was when the flashlight occurred to me. In the end I used it, and I found Jeong-gu.

The first time I ever used the flashlight, and the last.

I clicked it on. Light seeped into the crack, and there was the toy — the subway, jammed deep and stuck fast. No way to get it out. I was supposed to give it back to Hee-ju.

I had no way to move the rock, and no way to break it. Father could have. He would not have. And so I lost the subway.

Without thinking, I clicked the flashlight off, then clicked it on again. There was no one left to scold me. What did a little waste matter? I played with the light until I learned something.

"Oh..."

Shine this beam at the night sky and it did not brighten the dark by so much as a speck. The light climbed and died on the way up.

That was the moment I understood the utter darkness of the universe my brother had spoken of. He had said the subway ran through dark tunnels, too. Was it the same? A darkness that would not brighten no matter how badly you wanted to light it? Then it would be just as I had thought. Riding the subway would feel like riding a spaceship. If it was a dark where you could see nothing either way, then space and the inside of a tunnel would be the same.

Turning on the flashlight really was a waste of battery.

I had thought a week would be a short time. Five days still remained. Alone, time would not move.

I clicked the switch. The flashlight would not turn on. I had no memory of shutting it off before I slept. I clicked it again, and again, and then I stood once more before the crack in the rock with the dead light in my hand, and pushed it in. The crack narrowed the deeper it went. The flashlight seated hard.

Now, even if someone shone a light into that gap, all they would see was a flashlight already jammed there. A person who already owned a flashlight would not break a rock just to have another.

No one knows.

That a subway was hiding in this crack had become a secret only I knew. Because of me, the subway was trapped in a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠darkness stopped up at both ends — but it was a subway, so it would be used to that. If I survived, and if I ever gained the strength to break the rock, we would meet again someday.

Was it two days left, or was it tomorrow already? When sleep would not come I stayed up through the night, and when drowsiness took me I slept through the day as well, until my sense of things went strange. I would wake and it would be night, or it would be day, and I no longer knew how many days had passed.

At last I thought of something to do.

Try being Hee-ju.

I had realized that the only way to understand my sister was to think the way she thought. And our ages matched now. I could do it. Jeong-gu had always called Hee-ju a realist. I did not know the exact meaning, but I supposed it meant taking every matter for the worse.

And she trusted no one but me and Jeong-gu.

Not even Father. She had no dream, either. She had called a dream a luxury. I did not know the exact meaning of that word either, but I took it for something like wasting battery.

First, become a realist.

I would fail at using the Core. My arms and legs would come off, and the blood would pour.

And then...

It was not easy. Maybe because it was not a thought I had practiced. Oh — there was more. Father did not believe I would succeed.

Hm.

It struck less hard than I had expected. Only now did I understand, a little, how my sister had been able to go on thinking those things. The thought that it would not work was more bearable than it looked. It felt like taking the beating in advance.

What else was there? Oh. There was this.

Even if I die, Father won't raise a gravestone...

Hm.

I could do it.

Won't...

...raise one.

"Child. It is time."

Father had returned. So it was today. My head ached — from thinking like my sister right up to the moment I fell asleep, most likely. I understood why her headaches had come so often.

The hinge groaned as I stepped out of the cabin. Father stood dressed with immaculate care in clothes I had never seen. Was today the day he left for the Geofront? A green Core lay on the stump.

"If you are prepared, use it."

Was I prepared? How was a person supposed to know?

"Hm."

Father kept his place in silence, arms folded. When it had been Hee-ju's turn, he had looked full of expectation. I could not remember Jeong-gu's turn.

"You are not prepared?"

Only after he said it did I understand. I was not.

"I'm not."

There was a reason.

It was today...

I had not kept track of the days. I had thought tomorrow was the day Father returned. A difference of one day. That had become a problem.

Today was supposed to be the day I tried being Jeong-gu.

The day I had spent as Hee-ju had meant something. Not perfectly — but I had come to understand her a little.

Why she hadn't run.

My sister, the realist. She must have been certain that using a Core would fail.

She had said that running would come to the same thing. An easy reason to understand. I had thought she was right the moment I heard it. But after living as her for a whole day, my thinking had shifted. The true reason, I suspected, had been something else. It had not been because she was a realist, and it had not been because she had no dream.

Because she hadn't wanted to leave our side.

Because of the faith she had in me, and in Jeong-gu.

"Not prepared, you say? Did I not give you a week entire? No. That is not even it. What is a week? I gave you years."

He was right. Every one of us would use a Core. No one could know how many would succeed, but we would become hunters. That had been Father's wish. The three brothers and sisters who had gone ahead of us; Hee-ju, who had believed in us; and Jeong-gu, whom I still could not understand. All of them had used a Core.

All right. Then I would have to be ready.

"Ready—"

If the only time left to me was now, then now was also the only time I could do the last thing that remained.

I would try being Jeong-gu.