Cooperation (2)
The pistol in his hand was still wreathed in curling smoke.
Sapi had climbed up onto the rooftop just like that. He looked down once at the girl's body sprawled across the ground, then spoke with an expression that couldn't have cared less.
"So who's this one?"
Tucking the pistol into his waistband, he added,
"You told me to shoot, so I shot. That's all."
His tone was as matter-of-fact as a man brushing a pebble off his path mid-stroll. There was no guilt in having taken a life, no tension at all. Lebetri stared at the body for a moment, then answered shortly.
"Someone who came to kill me."
"Hm... well, okay then."
At that answer, Sapi asked nothing further. Instead he began walking slowly toward the corpse — and Lebetri's brow creased.
"What are you doing?"
"You said she came here to kill you. I'd like to know what kind of person that is — wouldn't you?"
Sapi knelt and started rifling through the body's clothes. His hands moved with astonishing deftness.
Pockets. Waistband. Inside the shoes. Even concealed compartments — he checked them all without missing a single spot.
Before long, a single sheet of aged paper snagged on his fingertips.
"It's a relic. A contract-related one, at that."
"Hm... is that so?"
Unfolding the paper, Sapi went on.
"And this one wasn't cheap, believe me."
Lebetri had no idea what a "relic" actually was, but she decided to nod along as though she did. Whether he noticed or not, Sapi began to read what was written there.
Should the target — Lebetri — be eliminated, the safety of the contractor's family shall be guaranteed.
Should this contract be breached, the contractor's family shall become our property.
Lebetri had nothing to say to that. Sapi folded the contract away with a hollow laugh.
"Not even a kill order — ownership? Now that's a filthy contract."
Lebetri murmured, still looking down at the body.
"So this one had a family too, in the end..."
Sapi tilted his head slightly and answered easily.
"Probably."
A short silence. And then —
"Still. She came here to kill you, in the end, didn't she?"
"Well... yeah."
Sapi looked down at the body once more.
"Someone held her family's lives as collateral and ordered her to kill a person."
His gaze came back up to Lebetri.
"But here's the thing."
"?"
"Just what on earth did you do?"
His voice was calm — and at the same time so keen it gave the illusion it could open her throat where she stood.
"Why would anyone burn a contract relic just to have you dead?"
Lebetri looked away.
She said nothing. Her lips trembled, barely — the answer wouldn't come.
Perhaps he knew; Sapi didn't push. He simply waited, quiet.
Like a teabag slowly steeping its flavor into hot water — that much time slipped by.
Only then did Lebetri open her mouth.
"It's because of that bastard."
"That bastard?"
"The one who killed my family."
Sapi said nothing.
"And..."
Lebetri's fist slowly clenched.
"The one who took me."
He didn't say a word, so she kept going.
"I barely escaped that place."
Tension gathered in her throat.
"I barely got out... and he still wouldn't let it go. He keeps sending people after me — to kill me."
Sapi fell into thought for a moment.
"Then."
Quietly, he asked,
"Is your goal to hide somewhere safe?"
Lebetri shook her head.
"No."
For the first time, her eyes settled on him without a flicker of doubt. And she spat out a single sentence.
"I'm going to kill that bastard."
Sapi watched her for a beat, then smiled faintly — the smile of a man who had just found the key to bind this loose, makeshift companionship tightly in place.
"If I help you kill that bastard... then you can help me with my goal, can't you?"
"Of course."
It was a cold winter. Every breath leaked out as white mist, and cold droplets beaded on the damp concrete walls. And there we were — huddled in the dark of a bunker, hiding from the monsters.
I was cold. But strangely, I wasn't afraid.
Father was right beside me, and Mother had my little sister Berry wrapped in her arms.
Honestly, to a child my age, monsters were nothing more than creatures of the imagination. I had never seen one. Never heard one. Never even smelled one.
But the mere word monster was enough to make my parents' faces go rigid, and the smallest sound from outside made them hold their breath. So I understood, in some dim, unspoken way, that monsters were something to be feared.
And then it came — my parents began to talk in voices barely above a breath.
"Honey... we're nearly out of Sky Light Stone."
"...It'll be all right."
Father answered as evenly as he could manage.
"Just a little longer... let's hold on just a little longer."
"But without the Sky Light Stone, the monsters will—"
Mother couldn't finish the sentence. Father quietly took her hand.
"It's okay."
"..."
"For Lebetri and Berry. We hold on for them."
For a moment, neither of them said anything at all.
I didn't know what a Sky Light Stone actually was. I didn't know why that blue stone mattered so much. I didn't understand what my parents feared — not at all. But one thing, I could understand: they were enduring all of this to protect us.
That one sentence alone was enough to make the freezing bunker feel, somehow, a little warmer. So yes, that winter was undeniably cold — but that day, of all days, remains strangely, stubbornly warm in my memory.
— Grrrrk.
Suddenly, a fine dust of stone sifted down from the ceiling. Father's face hardened.
"Honey..."
Mother called to him, her voice trembling. Father only raised a finger to his lips — the signal to stay silent. Quietly, he lifted his shotgun and trained it on the one place that was both exit and entrance.
And everyone held their breath. No one moved.
Silence.
But before long, a sound drifted in from beyond the bunker walls — something dragging itself along the concrete outside.
— Screeeech.
A long, razor-thin sound. And it didn't stop after just once.
— Screeeech.
— Screeeech.
It scraped and scraped, again and again — as though it knew there were people hiding inside. I grabbed hold of my mother's clothes.
"Mommy...."
"It's okay."
Mother pulled me into her arms as she said it. But even the hands wrapped around me were trembling. Father turned to check the Sky Light Stone sitting in the corner of the bunker.
From the palm-sized stone, only the faintest thread of light still leaked out.
And then, at last, that light went out.
The instant Father saw it die, he fired his shotgun at the entrance. In the same breath, the iron door there shattered inward and a monster came charging straight for us — and that, if anything, was why the blast managed to catch it square in the forehead.
But the monster was so very, very hard.
"Urk—!"
Father scrambled backward — but the monster was faster still, and it seemed there would be no escape.
And then —
— SPLAT!!
The monster burst apart and died, as if something had crushed it flat. It had all happened within a single blink, and every one of us stood frozen, bewildered.
— Click. Clack. Click. Clack.
The sound of heels filled the bunker. And there, framed in the entrance, stood a woman with white hair cut in a short bob.
"Was it you... who killed that monster?"
At Father's question, the woman simply nodded. She swept her gaze around the bunker once — then abruptly, she extended a hand.
Father took it for an offered handshake and was just reaching out when—
her hand turned, pointing downward.
— CRUNCH!!
Just like the monster moments before, Father was crushed flat by something unseen.
Mother's mind went white in that instant — but her body moved first. She seized me and Berry and ran for the exit.
— CRUNCH!!
And Mother was gone — burst apart without a trace, leaving behind nothing for us but the two hands that had held us.
"Jim's orders were for the two of you, you see. Will you come along with me?"
"N-no... no, I won't!!"
That was me, screaming at her. The woman's face warped at the sound.
"See, I'm not very good at holding my strength back. Subduing a brat without killing her is a bit beyond me."
The woman who had been glaring down at me so terribly vanished from my sight — and with a tremendous impact against my stomach, my world cut to black.
"What are you thinking about?"
At Sapi's question, Lebetri answered with her eyes closed.
"Just... a thought that's cold and warm at the same time...."
"Ha. What is this, poetry? Anyway — where are we headed now?"
"North."
"North?"
"Yeah. The lab should be up north."
"'Should be'?"
Her answer came in a trembling voice.
"That's where I was taken. And my little sister is still there...."
"Hm... okay, no more questions. So — north it is."
Lebetri studied Sapi's face in silence for a moment.
Was this man a possibility — someone who would let me do more, reach further?
Or someone who would only drag on my ankle?
I didn't know yet. But we had agreed to travel together — and so, the question rose in me of its own accord.
"Sapi — what about you?"
"Hm?"
Sapi looked genuinely puzzled.
"Why are you helping me, Sapi? And what is your goal in all this?"
At that, Sapi tipped his head back toward the sky. He drew out a cigarette and lit it.
A long, slow exhale.
The smoke was thick enough to see with the naked eye. Yet as the moments passed and it thinned into nothing, it felt as though something in Sapi was scattering away with it.
"There's someone who keeps getting in the way of my goal."
He paused, then went on.
"I've tried persuading them. Coaxing them. Threatening them. Every attempt failed — so the only method left now is to kill them."
"You remember I come first, right?"
"I do. We see your goal done first — then you help me see mine through."
At those words, each of them gave a hollow little laugh — and together, they took their first steps north.