11. But I Don't Have a Home!
I pushed myself up off the sofa and made a beeline for the bathroom.
The face staring back at me in the mirror was puffy and swollen, with a red handprint blooming across my right cheek.
…I remember falling asleep while working overtime, so why is my cheek red?
I seemed to have exchanged a few words with Sirin at some point, but for the life of me I couldn't recall what we'd talked about. There was a dull ache in my lower abdomen and around my chest, like the residue of a workout.
I ran the water, washed my face, and patted it dry with some tissues. The cotton ball tucked behind my right ear was still perfectly in place.
The headache that had plagued me since my discharge from the hospital had also eased compared to yesterday.
Physically, I was in great shape. Great shape, but…
Had my sleeping habits turned violent?
My body was still recovering, and I'd crashed on the sofa in some bizarre contorted position after overtime — muscle soreness was only to be expected.
"Team Leader! You're awake?"
"…Yeah. I'm using the bathroom, so give me a minute."
"Okay!"
When I opened the door, Sirin was standing right in front of it.
A crisp white blouse and a short black skirt — the same outfit as yesterday.
"Wait… you didn't clock out either?"
"Nope! I got some work done while you were sleeping. I wrote it in the memo, remember?"
"Ugh."
Sirin smiled and looked at my cheek. She reached her fingers forward, and I instinctively twisted my head away to dodge them.
"…Senior. What's wrong with your cheek?"
"No idea."
"Hmm, did you talk in your sleep or something?"
"I told you I don't know. Let's just go get breakfast."
"That sudden?"
I scowled. I hadn't wanted Sirin to think of me as a senior who talks in his sleep, so I'd rushed to change the subject… and apparently my intentions had shown through completely.
Grrrrowl.
The sound came from Sirin's stomach.
"…Pfft."
"A-anyway, let's go eat breakfast! Hurry, let's go!"
Sirin scrambled out of the room in a fluster, desperate to bury the growl her stomach had just produced.
.
.
.
The facility cafeteria was serving stir-fried eggplant and fried eggplant for breakfast. I filled my tray with only about half a serving of rice; Sirin, greedy as ever, heaped hers to the brim.
"Hey… how does rice go with that side dish?"
"What? I like eggplant."
"……"
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Maybe I really should test whether this creature is actually an anomaly or not. How can any human being eat eggplant and call it delicious?
Sirin picked up a piece of fried eggplant with her chopsticks and placed it on my tray. Cling! I tried to give it back, but she blocked my chopsticks.
"Hey."
"Senior. Picky eating is bad for you."
"Picky eating applies to food you're refusing to eat."
"…What?"
"Eggplant isn't food."
Sirin stared at me blankly, wearing an expression of pure, unadulterated incredulity. The one who should have been incredulous here was me!
A brief standoff ensued.
Only after the rice had gone somewhat cold did I finally manage to get a spoonful down. And the moment the rice hit my mouth, Sirin broke into a satisfied… strange smile.
Why is she smiling all of a sudden?
Also, her gaze today is… weirdly clingy again.
"Sirin."
"Yes, Senior?"
"Do you use the facility dorms?"
"…Why do you ask all of a sudden?"
"Just curious, all of a sudden?"
"You've finally become curious about me, Senior! Fufu!"
Sirin leaned her whole upper body forward across the table, like a dachshund stretching its neck. Golden hair spilled over the tabletop, and those star-shaped pupils drew close enough to my face that I could count the points.
"…Is it really worth reacting like that?"
"Yes! This is the first time you've ever asked me a personal question!"
"Was it?"
"You don't even know my favorite food. You don't know my hobbies either. And you've never once shown interest in what I do on my days off, have you?!"
Come to think of it, that was true.
Well… I'm just not the type to pry into other people's private lives. The kind of boss people describe as "good," in other words.
Though the rule, from the start, had been to burn every photo and name of the victims an anomaly claimed.
There was a time when I used to grab drinks with my coworkers after work, catch a movie or hit a restaurant together on the weekends. We'd gather at each other's places and grill meat sometimes, too.
Every time someone died, the gatherings shrank a little.
And at the end, only I was left.
After that, I stopped getting attached to people. Grieving on behalf of the dead is always an exhausting business.
"Senior? Headache again?"
"Just some old memories for a second."
"Hmm… I'm curious! Tell me stories about your past, Senior."
"They're not pleasant stories."
Sirin's eyes narrowed. With the smile gone from her face, she looked… remarkably cold.
She rose from her seat and came around to my side. Bending at the waist, she cupped my face in both hands and peered deep into my eyes.
"Senior. Are you okay?"
"…Take your hands off my face."
"Oh — sorry."
Sirin let go. But instead of returning to her seat across the table, she sat down right beside me and pressed her shoulder against mine.
"So… Lee Sirin."
"Yes!"
"Do you live in the facility dorms? Or do you have your own place?"
"Hmm…"
"I'd like to see where you live. Just once."
Jolt.
Sirin's shoulders shuddered hard. Her face turned slowly toward me, and the star-shaped pupils had grown far larger than usual.
"You want to see… my home…?"
"Yeah."
"Really?"
"I invited you to mine before, after all. You should return the favor."
"Is that… really okay?"
"…What's that supposed to mean? You're not keeping anything weird at your place, are you?"
"Of course not!"
Sirin shook her head frantically and clamped both hands around my arm. Her voice had gotten so loud that the surrounding researchers and staff all turned to look.
"…Keep it down."
"You're the one who said something so strange out of nowhere…!"
"What's strange about saying I want to visit someone's house?"
"It's hugely strange! You're the type who never gets attached to people!"
"That's fair. Most of the people I got close to here ended up dead."
The grip on my arm slowly went slack.
"Senior…"
"When you first joined, too… honestly, I figured you'd be dead within the month. An rookie who hadn't even finished her training — how long was she going to last? I expected you to run away or get yourself killed."
"That's so mean."
"Turns out I was wrong, though?"
Blink.
Sirin's eyes fluttered wide open. She was clearly doing it on purpose.
"What do you mean, 'wrong'…? What are you talking about, Senior?"
"I don't think you're going to die."
"What?"
"You cause accidents, you break the rules, you can't read a room, you're dumb, and—"
"Senior. That's not a compliment, is it?"
"It is a compliment. Listen to the end of the sentence in Korean. I'm saying you're going to survive."
The cafeteria hummed with noise. The clatter of dishes and the murmur of overlapping conversations washed over us, drowning out Sirin's ability to think.
That's right.
Sirin accepted Seolrin's words as a kind of confession.
"……"
"I've been thinking it might be okay to get a little closer to you. Ha, listen to me, going on about all sorts of things."
Sirin pressed her lips tightly shut.
Her reality-warping power, without question, contained nothing but clauses that lowered her own guard around Sirin. That calling her name warranted no suspicion, that stroking her head was a perfectly natural act… things like that.
In other words, everything Seolrin had just said was one hundred percent pure, unfiltered sincerity.
Sirin tried to smile, but her lips refused to move properly.
It had simply been far too long since she'd smiled for real.
For an exceedingly long stretch of time, she had lived by warping human hearts and thoughts, dwelling always among fabricated emotions. Faced now with a sincerity that no one had manufactured, she had gone stiff as stone.
And in the end, the words she forced past her frozen lips were…
"Senior…"
"W-wait! Why are you crying! It's going to look like I made you cry!"
"I'm not crying. Sniff."
Sniff.
Sirin went out of her way to announce, out loud, that she was sniffing.
Lee Sirin bowed her head and pressed her forehead against my shoulder. Golden hair cascaded down over my arm like a curtain. She was hugging my arm so tightly that the flesh compressed a little — the feeling of bone being squeezed, if that makes sense.
"You…"
"I'm not going to die! I'll stay right beside you until you're sick of me, Senior!"
"Uh, that part's actually kind of terrifying."
"I'll invite you to my house! Senior!"
"Wait, now…?"
"Yes!"
"Hmm, then would it be okay if we headed straight there after work today? I don't feel like cleaning today. I'll just sleep over at your place."
Sirin froze solid.
Her lips hung slightly parted, and she didn't move. Like a statue.
—Only then did Sirin remember a single item she had overlooked when she'd fabricated her identity.
Family, school, and work history — she had forged them all. But a place of residence could not be forged.
Her power, after all, was limited to warping common sense and manipulating minds. Pulling out her true body granted her physical capability and regeneration, technically — but the strain was crushing. It was an imperfect descent, the shape of a higher-dimensional existence forcibly dragged down one full level of reality.
If Seolrin hadn't hesitated, if she had truly meant to kill her right then and there — she might have died on the spot!
The corners of Sirin's mouth were trembling, twitching.
She'd tried to think around the problem from other angles, but the core always came back the same: Sirin's power had very real limits, and it held no ability to rewrite reality itself.
In other words, she could not conjure a house that didn't exist… nor could she make money suddenly appear in a bank account!
'…But I don't have a home!'
Sirin darted her eyes sideways.
'What do I do?!'