The Mirror
By the time I folded away the blueprints for the Central Branch building spread across the table, the wall clock's hour hand was already well past nine at night.
Roughly twelve hours remained until nine-thirty tomorrow morning. Having pulled an all-nighter, exchanged gunfire, and put out a fire, my head felt numb and heavy. If I pushed myself any further, I was bound to doze off at a critical moment tomorrow.
Before heading out to request the warrant, Havel had posted a city guardsman each at the front entrance and the back alley. He said patrols would also circle the block every fifteen minutes. At least for tonight, I wouldn't have to keep watch with a gun clutched to my chest.
There was no night watch duty with my name on it.
“Yaaawn...”
As I stretched and bent down to pick up a pencil dropped on the floor, a sharp, pungent odor drifted from the hair cascading past my shoulders. Running my fingers through it left black coal ash and soot clinging to my fingertips.
Hardly surprising, considering I had only given my face a perfunctory wipe with a damp rag after extinguishing the flames at dawn. I had changed into fresh clothes, but the stench of kerosene smoke and cinders remained stubbornly soaked into the tangled strands of platinum-blonde hair.
From across the table, Irina, who had been filing away copies of the headquarters directives and contracts, glanced quietly at my soot-stained fingertips before speaking.
“You really should wash up. Tomorrow is an important operation; we can't have you reeking of gunpowder.”
“The local bathhouses are probably being watched by those Central Branch bastards.”
“No need to step outside.”
Boss Orban, who had been rummaging through the wardrobe for a spare shirt to wear tomorrow, poked his head out to chime in.
“There's a private washroom for the workers tucked behind the laundromat downstairs. The owner heated up plenty of boiler water before banking the furnace fires, so if you're going to use it, head down now. It's on the house—his way of thanking us for stopping that fire at dawn.”
“Free of charge? Say no more.”
The golden rule of any part-timer is to squeeze every last drop out of company funds and free perks.
I slipped into my room to gather a loose change of shirt and trousers, along with a dry towel. I also took the Sermaize Revolver, holster and all. Hopefully, I wouldn't need to fire a gun mid-bath, but given the current situation surrounding the office, keeping a weapon within arm's reach even while using the latrine was just common sense.
Stepping into the hallway, I found Irina waiting with her own fresh clothes and a towel clutched to her chest. She had shed her ink-black longcoat, but the massive two-handed greatsword wrapped in gray cloth remained slung diagonally across her back.
“Section Chief, you're washing up too?”
“I haven't slept properly since yesterday either, and I'm caked in dust.”
Soot smudged the cuffs of Irina's shirt as well. Catching my gaze, she looked down and rolled up her sleeves.
The washroom behind the first-floor laundromat was separated from the large hot-water workspace used for boiling out stains by a single partition of thick wooden planks.
Flat, broad slabs of dark slate paved the floor, edged by drainage channels carved along the walls. Two massive oak tubs spacious enough for two adults to comfortably soak, a tin ladle for scooping water, and a cracked, weathered mirror mounted on the wall were all that furnished the room.
Twisting the copper pipe faucet released a loud hissing rush as a plume of hot steam billowed out, followed by a torrent of clear, scalding water. I mixed in cold water and tested the temperature against the inside of my wrist; before long, cozy steam filled the room—a world away from the freezing three-second rinse at the facility's troughs.
I slid the heavy iron bolt into place across the inside of the door and set my revolver on the shelf alongside her greatsword.
Stripping out of my clothes, I grabbed a dry towel and wound it around my waist out of ingrained habit. Then, without much thought, I glanced up at the mirror on the wall.
“...”
In the mirror, a pretty platinum-blonde girl stood staring straight back at me, dazed, with a single towel wrapped only around her hips.
Through the glass, my eyes locked with Irina's. Without a word, she lowered her gaze. Feeling self-conscious for no good reason, I looked down too.
Ah, fuck... Right. I'm a woman now.
Whoosh.
I could feel the blood rushing straight to my face in real time. The somatic memory of living twenty-nine years as a grown man had instinctively surfaced, and I had casually draped the towel around my pelvis just like I was walking into the men's section of a neighborhood bathhouse.
Swallowing a ragged cough, I snatched an extra towel off the shelf and wound it tightly up around my chest.
Back in the facility, there had been no distinction between male and female. To the researchers, experimental subjects weren't human beings—they were just biological components stamped with identification numbers.
Yet ever since awakening the sense of self from my past life, I had always washed alone in the dead of dawn when no one was around, or sponged myself down with a basin in my cramped room. Sharing such an enclosed space skin-to-skin with someone was a first since my reincarnation.
I couldn't very well ask her to step outside either. This was a shared washroom, both of us were here to clean up, and above all, biologically, we were both women. There was nothing abnormal about it.
It was just the soul of a twenty-nine-year-old unemployed Korean dude creaking awkwardly inside my head.
Irina filled the tub on the opposite side. Pulling my eyes from the mirror, I twisted the tap. Even the slosh of the ladle, something I never paid attention to when bathing alone, rang out with startling clarity.
With the palm of my hand, I wiped away the fog clinging to the mirror.
My reflection stared back. Platinum-blonde hair reaching past my shoulders. A distinct bridge of the nose and sharp jawline set against pale skin, and irises an enigmatic blend of blue and gray. Having put on some decent weight over the past year, my cheeks were softer now, and the harsh edge to my cheekbones had smoothed out considerably.
Yet lowering my gaze past the neck revealed a grotesque array of scars. The pitted puncture marks from repeated needle injections at the facility, the through-and-through puncture wound on my left arm from an officer of the Security Division during my escape, the diagonal slash across my flank from a dagger, and the dark purple subcutaneous bruises on my knees from tumbling across the pier with Irina.
My cheeks had only filled out after arriving here. The face in the mirror looked quite different from my days in the facility.
Twenty-nine years as Kim Yujin, fifteen as Sonya.
In the past, I used to be torn over where my true identity belonged. With the memories of a vigorous twenty-nine-year-old South Korean man etched into my brain, I had been terrified of accepting this fragile-looking girl's body as entirely my own.
A year of living in Belok had shifted my perspective. I had worked with this body, and I had paid off debts with it. The memories of living as a man were mine, and the scars carved into this flesh were mine as well.
I had once lived as a man, and now I was a woman. At least when stepping into a shared bath, that degree of acceptance was enough.
“Why are you staring so intently at the mirror?”
Irina's quiet voice drifted through the veil of steam. Tapping the reflection's cheek with my fingertip, I replied.
“My face just felt unfamiliar today.”
“I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.”
“I don't really know either.”
Gathering her black hair atop her head, Irina tilted hers slightly. The pointed tip of an ear revealed between her strands gave a slight twitch. As my gaze lingered there, she chuckled softly.
“Are elf ears really that fascinating?”
“A little. In my past li—er, in the backwater village where I grew up, you never saw an elf.”
“They're common enough if you head north of the Cardun Mountains or into Rodern.”
“Is that so?”
Pulling my eyes away, I dipped a foot into the tub.
The piping-hot water engulfed my stiffened calves and thighs. A low groan slipped past my lips on its own. The dull muscle ache I had suppressed with Cheonghoecho melted away under the heat, unspooling into a languid warmth.
Propping my right leg on the rim of the tub to knead it, the knotted muscle along the inner thigh screamed in protest. Seeing this from the opposite tub, Irina reached out a hand.
“May I see your leg for a moment?”
“Huh?”
Before I could hesitate, Irina's slender fingers gently cradled my ankle. Then her thumbs pressed firmly into the taut quadriceps above my knee.
With a sharp gasp, my leg twitched. Irina eased the pressure at once, using the full breadth of her palms to carefully work through the knots along the grain of the muscle.
Whenever she struck a tender spot, my toes curled reflexively, and Irina paused her hands each time.
It felt refreshing as the tension loosened, but there was an odd ticklish embarrassment to it that left me not knowing where to look. Staring blankly at her delicate, elongated fingers made my heart beat faster for no good reason.
“...I think that's enough.”
As I subtly eased my leg back, Irina let go without resistance.
“The muscle hasn't fully relaxed yet.”
“It's loads better than before.”
Tucking my legs deep into the tub, I snatched a bar of yellowish lye soap from the shelf. Just as I was about to scrub it vigorously into my hair, Irina gasped and caught my wrist.
“That's tallow soap for laundry!”
“Soap is soap, isn't it? As long as the dirt washes out.”
“That is harsh soap meant for scouring grime. I brought something proper for washing hair.”
“My hair was already a broom anyway.”
Irina let out a long sigh and produced a flat, gray bar of soap from her basket. A refined herbal fragrance, reminiscent of brewed cypress bark steeped with pine needles, wafted outward.
“Use this.”
“Looks expensive.”
“It's what I use every day.”
“What passes for daily essentials for an ARC headquarters section chief counts as luxury goods to a backwater temp worker, you know?”
“Just take it.”
Taking the bar and rubbing it against my crown produced a rich, velvety lather. But my fingers caught in the soot-matted ends of my platinum hair, snapping strands with a dull tug. When I tried to rip through the tangles by force, Irina gently took the soap from my grasp.
“Let me do it.”
“I can do it myself.”
“Pulling like that will tear your hair out by the roots.”
Settling behind me, Irina scooped warm water over my head with the ladle and began teasing out the tangles from the ends up with gentle fingers. Her touch was delicate, working patiently along the grain without forcing a single knot.
Irina worked the lather into my scalp. Hot water streamed down the nape of my neck. I tried to keep my eyes open, but it was a losing battle. Having someone else wash your hair really was remarkably comfortable.
When was the last time anyone had washed my hair with such care? Sonya had no such memory. But in Kim Yujin's memories of his past life... there lingered a faint, distant warmth from childhood, when my mother used to wash my hair at the public bathhouse.
Resting my chin on my knees, I let my eyes drift shut.
“Does it sting anywhere?”
“...No, nowhere.”
“Did soap get in your eyes?”
“No.”
Irina poured water slowly until every trace of lather was rinsed away.
Offering words of thanks felt embarrassingly awkward. Instead, I drew water for Irina to wash with. Testing the heat with my hand, I handed the basin over.
“Use this water, Section Chief. It shouldn't be too hot.”
Irina dipped her wrist to test it, and a faint smile touched her lips.
“Thank you, Sonya.”
When we finished and stepped out of the water, Irina used a dry towel to press the moisture from my hair. As she combed through it with a wooden comb, the platinum tresses in the mirror gleamed with a brilliant luster, like freshly spun silk.
“Shall I tie it back so it won't get in your way tomorrow?”
“Sure. Just don't pull too hard.”
Untying the black silk band from her wrist, Irina gathered my hair into a low ponytail at the nape of my neck. With the stray strands swept aside, my features emerged clearly in the mirror.
Gazing down at my reflection, Irina let out a soft exclamation of admiration.
“You're quite pretty.”
It felt oddly ticklish, but by no means unpleasant. Tilting my chin up, I gave a cheeky retort.
“Right? Even I surprised myself when I looked in the mirror earlier.”
Irina pressed her lips together to stifle her laughter, but soon let out a helpless snicker.
Her threshold for laughter is pretty low.
Once dressed, my body felt leaden. The hot soak had completely unraveled me. The effects of the Cheonghoecho had worn off as well. Having barely slept for two days straight and pushed my physical limits, all I wanted now was to lie down, whether on a bed or the bare floor.
Irina sat on a chair beside me, toweling dry her wet black hair that reached down to her waist.
I had to get up. Go upstairs, crawl under an office desk, and sleep like the dead.
Just as I thought that and attempted to stand, the strength snapped right out of my knees. My center of gravity faltered, and my upper body tipped sideways. Thud.
My forehead came to rest gently against Irina's left shoulder.
Irina's hands froze in midair.
“...Sonya?”
“Just a moment... give me ten seconds...”
I needed to lift my head, but my eyelids felt glued shut. A delicate hint of pine and soothing warmth radiated from her shoulder. When Irina didn't push me away, I let all the tension drain out of me, keeping my forehead buried against her shoulder.
“You should go upstairs and sleep.”
“Director Beltz is... lying in my bed...”
“I'll find another spot for you in the office.”
“Okaaay...”
The reply left my lips, but my body refused to budge an inch. Irina let out a faint, exasperated sigh.
A moment later, a soft, cool arm wrapped around my back and shoulders, supporting me so I wouldn't slide to the floor. Then her other hand settled gently atop my head.
Pat, stroke.
The hand atop my hair stroked in slow, tender rhythms. I decided to stay like this just a little longer.
“Good grief... what a troublesome girl.”
I tried to answer, but slipped straight into sleep instead.