The Distance of Three Steps
Both of them missed.
Baek Sion’s sword was buried in the wall, and the dagger Cha Yura had thrown still quivered in the refrigerator door.
Neither of them immediately pressed the next attack.
These were people who never made mistakes. They also knew that the first priority was to confirm why they had missed their targets.
Thanks to that, I got a moment to catch my breath.
“Neither of you move.”
Baek Sion’s hand closed around the hilt.
“I need to retrieve my sword.”
“If you pull it out now, the wall will tear even worse.”
“Is the wall important in this situation?”
“In my house, it is.”
Cha Yura shifted her foot toward the refrigerator.
“You stay right there as well, Miss Cha Yura.”
“That’s my weapon.”
“You used that weapon to cut my throat.”
“It was shallow.”
“I never gave you the authority to decide the depth.”
Blood ran down my neck and soaked into my collar. The wound began to burn belatedly. I wanted to press a hand against it, but I didn’t take my eyes off either of them.
Baek Sion stood near the entrance to the common kitchen. Cha Yura stood in front of the broken window. Between them lay a toppled chair and a shoved-aside table. The sword was stuck in the wall; the dagger was stuck in the fridge.
This was the safest moment. Both of them were empty-handed.
“Let’s talk like this.”
“Impossible.”
Baek Sion refused at once.
“Miss Cha Yura is highly likely to be carrying additional weapons.”
“There could be weapons in that bag over there too.”
Cha Yura jerked her chin toward Baek Sion’s travel bag.
“So both of you suspect the other of hiding weapons.”
I kicked one of the fallen chairs. Its legs scraped across the floor and came to rest between the table and Baek Sion. I sent the second chair toward Cha Yura.
“Do not cross that line.”
“Is a chair a line?”
Cha Yura asked.
“If the two of you intend to keep a promise.”
“And if we don’t?”
“You’ll keep fighting.”
I looked from the broken window to the cracked wall and back again.
“And next time, either I or one of you will die—without even knowing properly where the attacks are going.”
The tension in Baek Sion’s hand eased a fraction. Cha Yura’s gaze settled on the dagger lodged in the refrigerator.
For both of them, what had just happened had been outside their expectations. Baek Sion had read where Cha Yura would dodge and angled her blade accordingly. Cha Yura had moved as if she had seen a future in which the dagger sank into the back of Baek Sion’s hand. The results had been a wall and a refrigerator.
If one person had made a mistake, it could be dismissed as coincidence. If both of them made the same kind of mistake at the same time, something else was at work.
“The distance just now was weird.”
Cha Yura spoke first.
“How so?”
“From the window to the table was four steps. The moment I moved, it stretched to six, then shrank again.”
“Did it actually stretch?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did it look in the future?”
Cha Yura’s eyes turned to me.
“When did you find out about my ability?”
“I watched you fight.”
“What did you see?”
“You dodged before Miss Baek Sion even moved. Not once—continuously.”
I pointed at the dagger in the refrigerator.
“And at the end, you were certain it would hit before you even threw it.”
Cha Yura didn’t deny it. Instead she answered while keeping Baek Sion in her peripheral vision.
“I can check a few seconds ahead.”
“Was the scene you saw different from the actual result?”
“Yeah.”
“Is this the first time?”
The answer came a beat late.
“Being this far off.”
Baek Sion examined the sword buried in the wall.
“My sword path was off as well.”
“Your hand didn’t slip?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
Baek Sion’s gaze dropped, cold and flat.
“From the moment I first took up a sword, I have never failed to know the position of my swing.”
It was a statement closer to career than pride. I didn’t argue.
Even while the two of them explained their abilities, the distances refused to settle properly. The common-kitchen entrance felt close, then far. The wind through the broken window struck my right cheek, then blew straight into my face. Yet the table and chairs had not moved. The glass shards scattered across the floor remained exactly where they had fallen.
“Wait a moment.”
I opened the cabinet under the sink. Baek Sion’s and Cha Yura’s gazes locked onto me at the same time.
“What are you taking out?”
“A measuring tape.”
“Why?”
“To check whether this house actually stretched.”
Inside the cabinet was a toolbox. I pulled out the tape measure and stretched it from the common-kitchen entrance to the corner of the table. The metal strip ran straight across the floor. The distance my eyes perceived kept wavering, but the numbers did not change.
I measured again. Same. A third time. Same.
“The building didn’t move.”
Cha Yura said it low.
“It could be the kind that fools even measuring equipment.”
“There’s that possibility as well.”
I reeled the tape in and looked at the two of them.
“But there is no evidence that the walls or furniture actually shifted. What’s confirmed right now is only that your judgments and attacks went awry.”
“Is this house interfering with abilities?”
Cha Yura scanned the broken window frame.
“That’s not a question I can answer.”
I turned to Baek Sion.
“Did you know about this phenomenon when you came?”
“No.”
“In the future Haewoljang?”
Baek Sion’s lips hardened.
“It is difficult to answer.”
“Do you not know, or are you choosing not to say?”
“I cannot be certain.”
It was the first ambiguous answer she had given. Even someone who remembered the future did not know everything.
“And you, Miss Cha Yura?”
“I’ve never set foot in this house before today.”
“Then how did you know the address?”
Cha Yura drew a black terminal from inside her coat. I raised a hand.
“Slowly.”
“It’s not a weapon.”
The screen showed the Gate Disaster Management Agency emblem and a map of the Seowol-dong area. A single red dot blinked at Haewoljang’s location.
“This evening a Time Anomaly Signal was picked up near here.”
“Is the exact location this house?”
“At first the radius was wide. It narrowed the closer I got to Haewoljang.”
Cha Yura flipped through the screen. Fragments of the signal log remained—occurrence time, location, risk assessment, all displayed in brief. I couldn’t parse the technical details, but it looked like internal agency records.
“Why didn’t you come through the front door?”
“Because if I had, I would have clashed with that woman.”
Baek Sion’s eyes sharpened.
“Meaning you saw the future?”
“Up to the moment you drew your sword.”
“So you broke the window and took Mr. Seo Doyun hostage?”
“It’s securing a person of interest.”
“Where in the world is putting a blade to someone’s throat considered securing a person of interest?”
“Because the opponent was you.”
“That’s not something the person who smashed through a window should be saying.”
The atmosphere edged sharp again. I set the tape measure on the table.
“You two.”
When I cut in, both of them looked at me at once.
“What’s important right now is not deciding who is more dangerous.”
“It is.”
Cha Yura cut him off.
“If that woman sticks to your side, the investigation itself becomes impossible.”
“If Miss Cha Yura stays next to me, it will be difficult for me to survive.”
Baek Sion did not yield either.
“It seems your goals are not so different.”
“What?”
“Miss Baek Sion said she would keep me alive.”
Baek Sion nodded.
“Miss Cha Yura wants to investigate and monitor me, correct?”
“Isolation if necessary.”
“For that, I need to be alive.”
Cha Yura closed her mouth.
“Neither of you wants me dead.”
I pointed at the cracked wall.
“But if you keep fighting, the person most likely to die first is me—because neither of us knows where your attacks will go astray.”
Baek Sion took her hand off the wall. Cha Yura relaxed the posture she had taken to retrieve the dagger. Neither of them looked convinced. Both wore the expression of people who had simply finished calculating that continued fighting no longer served their purposes.
That was enough.
“I’ll rearrange the positions for now.”
I shoved the table lengthwise. The place where my back had been struck still ached, but I didn’t show it. Once the long table stood dividing the common kitchen in two, it became difficult for either of them to close the distance directly.
“Miss Baek Sion, stay against the hallway-side wall. Miss Cha Yura, do not move from beside the window.”
“Why am I on the hallway side?”
“Your bag is by the entrance, Miss Baek Sion. Even if you step back, you can still check your belongings.”
Cha Yura asked, “What about me?”
“You came in through the window, so the exit is that way as well.”
“You think I’m going to run?”
“It’s not to keep you from running.”
I tapped the table that split the space between them.
“If each of you has a path of retreat, the reason to attack decreases.”
Baek Sion did not move at once. First she checked the hallway, me, and Cha Yura’s position.
“Where will you be, Mr. Seo Doyun?”
“Beside the sink.”
“That’s close to the window.”
“It’s also close to the kitchen doorway. If either side moves, I can slip out immediately.”
“It’s a position I cannot protect.”
“Right now, getting out from between the two of you is safer than being protected.”
Baek Sion’s lips pressed into a thin line. Still, she did not object further.
The two of them moved one step each. Under normal circumstances the distance would have taken only a few seconds. This time they retreated slowly, checking the floor and walls as they went.
Cha Yura stopped on the second step.
“It stretched again.”
“Did you use your ability?”
“No.”
Even as she answered, her pupils glowed faintly. Those were not eyes looking at what was immediately in front of her.
“You just used it.”
“I have to check.”
Cha Yura looked toward the hallway, then pressed her brow.
“Weird.”
“What do you see?”
“The scene of you dodging to the right of the table and the scene of you dodging to the left are showing at the same time.”
“Can’t both happen?”
“Not in the same moment.”
“Stop using it.”
“Don’t order me.”
“Just now the result was wrong as well. There’s no guarantee that keeping checking will make it accurate.”
Cha Yura started to answer, then stopped. The light in her eyes vanished. Even so, she did not open her mouth for a long moment.
“Miss Cha Yura?”
“How far did I just get?”
I couldn’t answer right away.
“You said the right side and the left side of the table were showing simultaneously.”
Cha Yura checked the terminal screen. The way her fingers searched the records was practiced. This was clearly not the first time she had experienced it.
“Do you lose memories when you use your ability?”
“Sometimes short sections get wiped.”
“Like just now?”
“Yeah.”
“Did it happen during the fight as well?”
Cha Yura looked at Baek Sion.
“A few places.”
Baek Sion’s expression shifted.
“While your own memories are incomplete, you decided Mr. Seo Doyun is the culprit?”
“The blanks only happen in the present when I use the ability. The Seoul I saw from the future is still there.”
“You said that future record is blank as well.”
Cha Yura’s hand stopped over the notebook inside her coat.
“How do you know that?”
“You said it yourself.”
“When?”
“A little while ago.”
Cha Yura looked at me without a word. That reaction looked more dangerous than her coldly set face. She had lost the conversation that had just taken place. If she had continued fighting in that state, she might have lost track of where her own judgment had even begun.
“That’s why we have to stop.”
I turned my head toward Baek Sion.
“You’re no different, Miss Baek Sion.”
“I have not lost my memories.”
“But you read where Miss Cha Yura would dodge and still missed.”
Baek Sion could not refute it.
“Neither of you can trust your abilities right now. Subduing the other is a later problem.”
“Then what do you intend to do?”
“Confirm first.”
“Confirm what?”
“How much of the facts the two of you actually know. Why you came to this house. Whether the phenomenon just now only occurs when the two of you fight.”
I looked at the cracked wall and the broken window.
“But there will be no more experiments. Only things we can confirm without swinging blades.”
Cha Yura crossed her arms.
“Why should I cooperate?”
“You said the center of the Time Anomaly Signal is this house.”
“So?”
“I’m the landlord, and Miss Baek Sion is carrying the key to this house from the future.”
The brass key that had fallen to the floor gleamed faintly under the chair. It must have rolled off the table during the fight. Baek Sion’s gaze turned toward it.
“There are things neither of you can confirm alone.”
I did not touch the key.
“If you refuse to cooperate, Miss Cha Yura can request support from the agency. Miss Baek Sion can contact the guild.”
“No.”
Both of them said it at the same time. This time they did not glare at each other. The answers had simply burst out of each of their own circumstances. Cha Yura did not want the agency swarming in. Baek Sion did not want the guild intervening in this house. I still did not know the reasons. But options had appeared.
“Then let’s make a temporary agreement.”
“What kind of agreement?”
“Do not attack each other. Announce before using abilities. Do not touch the other’s belongings.”
I folded my fingers one by one.
“And do not wander around inside this house without my permission.”
Cha Yura’s eyebrows twitched.
“You’re saying you’ll control us?”
“No.”
I pointed at the glass shards under the broken window.
“It’s so no one gets hurt or breaks anything else.”
“For how long?”
“Until we sort out the current situation.”
“Too vague.”
A point worthy of an investigator.
“Then until the three of us each finish explaining. If one person breaks the promise, the conversation ends and we call external agencies.”
Baek Sion nodded first.
“I agree.”
Cha Yura did not answer at once. She checked my face, Baek Sion, and the red dot on the terminal in turn.
“Fine.”
It was a short answer, but enough.
“Then first, we handle the weapons.”
I took out my phone and photographed the wall and the refrigerator. The window, the glass on the floor, the cut contract—I recorded all of it without missing anything.
Cha Yura asked, “Why take pictures?”
“I have to send them to the insurance company and the repair service.”
“You’re worrying about that now?”
“It’s important to someone who decided to sell the house tomorrow.”
Baek Sion’s gaze lingered on the sales contract that had been sliced cleanly in half. Cha Yura, for the first time, properly surveyed the floor. One window. One section of wall. The refrigerator door. Two broken cups. Blood and barley tea mixed and spreading across the floorboards.
After I finished photographing, I had Baek Sion retrieve the sword first. I instructed her to pull it out at the exact angle it had been driven in so the wall would not crack further. Baek Sion followed without complaint. Where the blade came free, a gouge deep enough for two fingers remained.
Cha Yura pulled the dagger out straight. Cold air leaked from the refrigerator door.
“I should unplug it first.”
“It won’t explode.”
“The electricity bill is leaking.”
For the first time, Cha Yura had nothing to say.
The two of them organized their weapons. Baek Sion sheathed the sword and set it on the hallway floor. Cha Yura folded the dagger and laid it on the table. It was not complete trust. But the fighting had stopped.
Only then did I take out the first-aid kit. Looking in the mirror while I cleaned the wound on my neck, blood seeped out again. It was not deep, yet my fingertips kept trembling while I applied the bandage.
Baek Sion started to come closer, then stopped in front of the chair. She did not cross the line she had promised. Cha Yura watched in silence.
After finishing the treatment, I picked up the contract that had fallen to the floor. The buyer confirmation box had been cut clean through. I could reprint it by tomorrow morning. The problem was not only the contract.
I looked at the cracked wall. I looked at the broken window. I checked the hole in the refrigerator as well. The massacres and endings of the future were still unknown. But the damage that had occurred in the present was perfectly clear.
I set the cut contract down in front of the two of them.
“All right.”
Baek Sion and Cha Yura looked at me at the same time.
“Let’s put the future talk aside for a moment.”
I opened the calculator on my phone.
“You two—now let’s talk about the repair costs.”