If a Returnee Falls to Haneul
"Haa… you nearly gave me a heart attack…."
Lee Haneul pressed a hand to her chest as she stared at the closed front door. The invader's cold, piercing gaze still clung to her like a needle driven into her heart, refusing to fade.
She was terrifying….
Objectively speaking, the woman had a rather fierce look about her. Her face was mostly expressionless, but the gap between that blank mask and the intensity of her eyes was enormous — so much so that for a split second Haneul had seriously considered dropping to her knees and begging for forgiveness.
But she understood, and she left. Maybe she was actually a decent person…?
Haneul briefly replayed the invader's appearance in her mind.
Long, wavy blue hair cascading like water, paired with unwavering golden eyes. A gray hoodie and baggy black pants that completely hid her figure — ordinary clothes, nothing special. But that impossible hair color and those impossible eyes reminded Haneul of one simple fact.
A hunter. Ever since the World Scar tore open and people began awakening to mana left and right, one of the most common signs of that awakening was a change in hair and eye color. The degree varied from person to person, but the stronger the mana, the more dramatic the shift — and by that measure, the returnee she'd just met was something special.
Her coloring had the same vivid saturation as the people you saw on TV.
…Ugh, comparing myself to other people like this is a bad habit.
Haneul shook her head hard, flinging the thought away. She had more than enough of her own work to do; wasting energy ranking herself against strangers was just ridiculous.
Instead she stepped into the soundproof booth set up in her room, sat down, and adjusted the angle of the iPhone mounted on her desk. Once she'd fine-tuned it so her face filled the frame properly, she pulled the mic closer. Restarted tracking, switched on the mic, cleared her throat once, mic check.
"Ahem! Aaah, aaah…."
Everything was perfect. In the corner of the left monitor, a 2D Live model swayed and gestured along with her movements, and the chat lit up in response to the voice coming through the mic.
"Yattoho-☆ Your hearts are mine — the Phantom Thief Elf has returned!"
That's right. Lee Haneul was a VTuber. And not just any VTuber — one whose whole concept was an elven thief bard who'd crossed over from another world.
"Sorry I'm late. You guys didn't wait too long, did you?"
Whew, thank god, Haneul thought, letting out a quiet sigh of relief. Even after ducking out for a bit, the chat didn't seem too upset.
"Ah! ManOfHisWord — thank you so much for the thousand-won superchat! And what happened, you ask? Hmm…."
How was she supposed to explain this? She thought for a second, then opened her mouth.
"Heheh, try not to freak out when you hear this. Get this — there was someone else from another world, just like me, right here in my house."
"No, no, not like that… A blue crack opened up inside the house, and — what do they call them again? Right! Over here they call them 'returnees'? I met one of those!"
In an instant the chat flooded with question marks. Fair enough — the odds of running into a returnee inside your own home were vanishingly small, even in a city this size.
"Ah, ZeroZeroMe! Thank you for the thousand-won superchat~ Okay, so basically what happened was…."
Haneul rewound the encounter in her head and slowly walked them through it. It didn't take long to tell — the whole meeting had only lasted a moment.
All that remained on her retinas was the afterimage of that beautiful face and those searing eyes. So she leaned into that impression, embellishing just enough to make it vivid, and the chat exploded with reactions of every kind.
For instance:
That kind of joke sat right alongside the worried ones:
As Elise the VTuber, Lee Haneul listened carefully to every single one of them and answered in kind. Somewhere along the way the song stream had turned into pure chatting, but every one of those hearts mattered to her.
And yet, out of all those reactions, one superchat burned itself into her mind so clearly she couldn't shake it.
"Haaaa…."
In the end, Haneul cut the stream short. She told her viewers she was a little tired and heading out early, promising she'd come on sooner tomorrow.
The real reason was obvious. That blue-haired returnee wouldn't leave her alone.
Objectively, none of this was Haneul's fault. She'd simply been looking for an empty place nearby, found one that was a little run-down but cheap, and taken it. Unluckily, it happened to be a returnee's home. Even if she hadn't moved in, some other tenant almost certainly would have.
Knowing that didn't make the knot in her chest go away. Because at the end of the day, that woman had lost her home and been left with nowhere to go but the street.
"Uuuugh…."
Why did the image of that retreating back — trudging out the door again and again — keep flickering behind her eyes? Was she just sticking her nose where it didn't belong, fretting over someone whose situation she barely understood? Haneul groaned through the fretting, then suddenly sat bolt upright on the bed.
"I need a change of scenery…!"
Now that the woman was gone, finding her again with zero leads was basically impossible. What she needed was something to shake this feeling off and reset her mood.
Haneul decided on a night walk. Stop by a convenience store for a drink, sit on a park bench nearby, catch some air and look at the stars.
She changed clothes in a hurry and threw on a coat. Then came the sunglasses, the mask, and a cap pulled low over her face before she stepped out, carefully checking the hallway for anyone nearby as she walked.
It was only March, but the air had a real bite to it. She adjusted her coat as she headed down the stairs, and just as she was about to step out through the building entrance—
"Wha—?!"
Haneul jumped back a full step in shock.
The blue-haired returnee was sitting on the low curb that separated the flower bed from the sidewalk, hunched over. There was something oddly pitiful about her, like an abandoned puppy. She was silently poking a stick into the cracks between the paving stones — until Haneul's voice made her turn her head just slightly and look up.
"…What is it?"
"Ah, well…. I. Um…."
Faced with a reunion she never expected, Haneul floundered for a second, then at least managed to pull off her sunglasses and tug down her mask.
"So, um… we met earlier. In the same apartment…."
"Ah."
The returnee looked her up and down once, then spoke.
"It's you?"
"Ah, yes… so. Um…. I'm Lee Haneul. And you are…?"
She clearly hadn't expected that question. The returnee studied Haneul for a long moment, then slowly opened her mouth.
"…Yu Sia."
"Okay, then, Yu Sia. Earlier I was so flustered I just panicked and tried to kick you out without thinking — I'm sorry. If it's not too much trouble, could I ask you a few things?"
She'd given up on ever finding her again, and yet here they were. She could have just walked past and pretended not to notice — they were hardly on good terms — but Haneul chose a different path. Since it turned out this way, I'll help however I can. Even if it's just self-serving hypocrisy to make myself feel better.
"What."
"I heard from my view— I mean, from people, that returnees usually come back to the exact spot they got flung into another world from. So that apartment earlier. Was that really your place?"
Yu Sia frowned for a moment, then gave a flat nod.
"Okay. Then second question… even knowing that, why didn't you get angry at me? You'd have every right to feel wronged. Anyone would."
"Because…."
A brief silence. Then Yu Sia continued.
"What happened, happened. My feelings… my thoughts… they don't mean anything against a real disaster."
A heavy, stagnant atmosphere settled between them. Unlike the sharp gaze from before, the eyes that met Haneul's in the air now held only resignation.
"…I just got unlucky. Getting angry, crying — none of it changes anything. That's all it is."
With that, she went back to poking the stick into the cracks between the paving stones, as if there was nothing left worth saying.
"……."
The sight of her stuck with Haneul. That calm acceptance of her own misfortune looked too much like someone who'd given up expecting anything from the world — and somehow that made Haneul's chest ache. Her meddling slowly took on a clear shape. I want to help this person.
"Then one last thing. Yu Sia. Would you come with me?"
"…What?"
"Ah — I'm not taking you to my place, of course. To the police station nearby. And no, not the 'get out of this neighborhood right now' kind of police thing. This is…."
Haneul tapped rapidly on her phone, then held the screen out toward Yu Sia.
"There's something called a Returnee Adaptation Program. The police and the Hunter Association run it together. I'll personally testify that I saw you come back, so… won't you take the help they're offering?"
For Yu Sia, it was a lifeline that had quite literally dropped out of the sky.