Mirror
When I left the cabin, I made myself a promise: don't come to terms with reality too quickly. Reality would turn out to be exactly what I'd been taught. I knew that. Even so, I wasn't going to set everything down all at once. I could always do that later.
"This goes beyond sparing them. You don't look like you mean to draw blood at all. Is there a reason?"
I know how naive that is.
However long I'd spent shut up in the cabin, did I really not understand how the outside world worked? I'd learned things from books. I'd heard things from the Old Man. And there had been Heeju's advice, offered in complete sincerity.
"Once you're out there, you kill everyone first and sort it out after!"
"That doesn't mean you have to kill every last person you lay eyes on."
Jeonggu had said as much, but my sister refused to yield.
"No. Killing them all is easier on the mind. You leave somebody alive and who knows what happens next? By the time you regret it, it's already too late!"
In my experience, listening to her had never cost me. Even so, my heart always leaned toward my brother.
"That's exactly why you can't do it!"
Was that why I was weak?
I'd come as far as the search party had told me, out to the edge of the settlement. The only thing I had worth trading was ammunition.
Do I even need a gun?
I knew I had to have one. And yet I'd had less cause to use it than I'd expected. Heeju had spelled it out for me once, plain as day.
"Everybody hoards their ammo. Why would they fire a gun? In the end you use one to stay alive, and staying alive takes money. Pull the trigger and a fortune walks out the barrel."
Of course there were times you spent a little to make a lot. Investment, they called it. Raiders, though, rarely seemed inclined to invest in me.
Because I'm a kid. Because I look like I've got nothing.
So all they ever drew were knives. Some of them must have been carrying guns, but they'd never felt I was worth wasting a bullet on. If I'd drawn mine, the story would have changed. It would have told them I had ammunition — that, against all appearances, there was something worth taking. A runt who yanks out nothing but a knife, though, looks like a runt with no rounds to his name. I'd drawn only the knife so they'd think exactly that.
I'll trade once the sun's up.
Tonight I'd sleep in an abandoned building, then try to get into the settlement. Better to hold back two rounds and trade the rest for food and whatever else I needed.
Sleep wouldn't come.
"Kid. Don't empathize."
My head was a tangle. Once I'd traded the ammunition for food, what was I supposed to do after that?
"You're a lost cause as a settler."
I knew. Lasting a month out here would already count as holding out a long time. I had to compromise. I had to learn how to draw blood.
Born weak. In the body, and in the mind.
That I'd survived this long was a miracle in itself. My brother and sister were gone now. I had to manage it alone.
How?
I needed a code to live by.
"You understand other people's pain, so you keep having nightmares. Your sister's the one who's suffering. Why are you the one dreaming?"
If I stabbed them without meeting their eyes, would that be enough?
…What if I went after raiders?
The only reason I'd never hesitated in a fight was that the other side had always started it. And once I'd fought and won, it hadn't felt like anything at all. They were people who lived by inflicting pain. If the ones I robbed were people like that, maybe striking first wouldn't leave me with nightmares.
Hit a raider who's doing well, and I could make a lot of money in a single go…
I'd already confirmed that raiders traveled alone. It might even be easier than facing zombies or monsters. That was how I'd get used to blood — a kind of training. Training to adapt to reality.
I couldn't live weak forever. I'd come out into the world, so I had to adapt. I had to grow dull to pain. I had to make friends with the nightmares. Once I was used to all of it, I'd ask them to let me become a settler.
Yeouido?
Hah. The road the Old Man had walked. They could beg me and I still wouldn't go. No thanks.
Good. I know what I have to do.
Trade first. Then I'd get ready to fight for real.
Sentries on top of the wall.
"Halt! Hands on your head!"
Never in my life had so many people pointed guns at me at once. I knew they wouldn't shoot, but I still flinched. Not enough experience yet.
"Put them away. Why scare him like that? He's just a kid."
"Hello?"
"How'd you get here? Did you lose your family?"
I explained how I'd been sent their way.
"Oh… so you're the kid from the rumors? Honestly, you're a delicate-looking pretty boy. I had you pegged for a little gorilla."
"A gorilla…?"
"Old-world zoos used to keep them. Hairy monsters."
I knew what one was. That was why I'd asked.
"We already heard the story. Come on in. Trade's approved."
"Sergeant? This easily? You sure that's all right?"
"He's safe. Word is he can't even stick a knife in a raider."
The main gate opened. They'd judged me harmless, but they searched me all the same.
"Huh? Sergeant! Come take a look at this."
"What."
"This, sir."
Was it the pistol? The sergeant didn't come over. He only glanced from a distance.
"I thought it was something serious. He's still safe. You think a kid traveling alone out there wouldn't have one of those? We already heard he was carrying a pistol. It's fine."
"No, that's not it… I've never seen this model before."
"You fret over the strangest things. Tell him to put it away. What, are we banning modifications now?"
"I don't think it's a modified gun, sir."
"What are you even saying. Pain in the ass."
It was something the Old Man had gone out of his way to procure. Of all the gear brought to the cabin, it was the finest. He'd said you couldn't get one in Yeouido, nor even on the famous black markets. It wasn't some incredible piece of over-technology, either — just an old-world pistol with a reputation for being reliable.
"Yeah, doesn't look modified. Never seen the model, though. Where'd you get it?"
"I lived in the mountains a long time. I don't really know about things like that."
I did know, actually. Everything I knew about old-world firearms, I'd learned from the books in the cabin.
"Hm. An antique, then. Takes 9mm?"
"Yeah."
"Good. There's plenty of homemade ammo inside."
"I came to sell ammunition anyway."
"What is this — military rounds? Look at the condition on these. And you said you'd only been up in the mountains?"
"There was an old man who used to bring me supplies."
"Strange kid, this one… Anyway, go on in."
I'd thought I'd studied the outside world well enough back in the cabin. To other people, did I not look ordinary at all? Then again, this was a world where raiders drew knives on a kid traveling alone. Nothing to be done about it.
I nearly let a flustered look cross my face.
Act like it's nothing.
Houses packed tight together. So many people. It felt strange — a faint memory from when I was very small. I thought I might have stayed in a settlement once. When had I ended up in the street, and how? I hadn't become a raider. I'd fallen in with beggar kids my own age, and then I'd met the Old Man.
In any case, I had no idea which way to go.
"Hm? Kid, what are you looking for?"
"I came to trade."
"First time here, huh?"
"Does it show?"
"It's written all over your face."
Caught. I could fight well enough. What I seemed to need right now was the ability to act.
"I don't know the way."
Since I'd been found out, I told them everything straight. The answer that came back was kind.
"So you're that kid."
There wasn't a person who didn't know.
"Kid, I'm only saying this because I worry. Don't trust people too easily."
"All of a sudden?"
"This place is better off than most, being as close to Yeouido as it is. But you've seen it, haven't you? Step a little ways outside and even this area is crawling with raiders. Other places—"
A heavy impact rolled in from far away.
Thoom…
For a moment the distant sky washed purple, then faded back to itself. The conversation, briefly broken, picked up again as if it had never stopped.
"Other places are worse."
"Mm…"
"Anyway, the only place that deals with outsiders is that shop over there. As for the time… you'll want to finish the trade fast and get out. Every outsider has to be gone before the sun sets."
"Got it."
"Oh — and only buy what you actually need."
"Well, obviously."
I learned later that they'd been kind because I was the kid from the rumors. A child who could fight a little. That didn't mean anyone was afraid of me. I was still just a kid — an interesting one, at most. It was something, though. That people could be kind, for whatever reason.
"I heard about you. Figured you'd show up to trade."
The inside of the shop was filthy.
"Let me say this up front. I don't go easy on a deal just because the other party happens to be a kid."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I never do business at a loss."
Not taking a loss didn't begin to cover it. In the end, all I managed to pick out was the bare minimum of food and a few spare daggers that fit my hand.
"What, you're not choosing anything else?"
"Highway robbery."
"Hey now."
However poorly I knew the going rates, I could feel it. This was a staggering loss.
"Did you think a deal with an outsider was going to be fair?"
Was this still what passed for kindness — telling you everything, then stabbing you in the back?
"9mm military ammo, you said? Two rounds, all in."
On top of the spares I'd set aside, I had to pull rounds out of the magazine itself.
"I have to take the gun out. I'm not going to shoot."
"Somebody raised you right."
Hand over two and I'd have a single round left. Nothing else for it.
"Wait a second. Your gun—"
The merchant craned his head in.
"A P210? That's a fine piece. Where'd you get it?"
"What's it to you."
"Why not sell that instead? Good gun, terrible value. Plenty of collectors out hunting for one. I'll pay you well — sell it and switch to something cheap."
Hah.
"And I'm supposed to trust you?"
I pulled the ammunition out in a hurry.
"Here."
"Then mind if I just look at it for a moment?"
"No."
"Oh, come on."
All of a sudden he had no interest in taking the rounds.
"…Cheap, for a grown man."
"I'm not going to swallow a kid's property. I'm a merchant, not a swindler."
"Looking only."
"I promise!"
"Ten seconds."
"That's tight. Thirty."
The swindler — no, the merchant — went over the gun in a frenzy.
"Genuine. Not a trace of modification. This'll fetch a serious price."
"Ten seconds left."
"Ah… shame about this part, though. Someone carved a name into it? Son Jeonggu. That you?"
"Yeah. Time's up."
"Tsk. If it weren't for that, the condition would put the price—"
"Give it back."
I snatched it out of his hands.
"Whenever you're hard up for cash, you come sell that thing. Understood?"
I was never selling it.
"Sun's going down. Get out."
"I'm going."
I would have left without being hurried. In that moment, though, something caught my eye.
"This… are you throwing it away?"
"Hm? That's a trash can—"
Inside it lay a little hand mirror, cracked through.
"Ah, that. Didn't have room to display it, so I stuck it in there for the time—"
"You threw it away."
I lifted the mirror out of the trash.
"I'm taking this."
"Hey, that! I just didn't have a spot to put it out—"
"Call it payment for letting you look at a luxury gun."
"Hey! Kid!"
I had to learn how to hide my face. I had to get better at acting. Starting today, I'd practice in front of a mirror.
So what if it was a little cracked. Mirrors all break, eventually.