The Hero (1)
"Imo."
"What is it, Tia?"
Even while touching up her makeup, Irina kept breaking into little snorts of laughter at the ticklish sensation brushing against her ear.
In the mirror she could see Tia perched up on her shoulder, both little legs hooked around it, playing with her ear.
"Why are Imo's ears so big?"
"So I can hear your voice better."
"Hmm······."
It was not a satisfying answer.
On impulse, Tia vigorously rubbed the soft fur inside Irina's ear.
"Hyaaaaaaa······!"
With a tremendous cry, Irina's whole body shuddered and trembled.
Her ear was so stuffed with the rustling, whispering sound that she couldn't hear anything else at all.
Tia watched the twitching, quivering ear with evident fascination and showed no sign of stopping, only reaching to torment it further—
"Okay, that's enough······."
—until Irina, tears brimming in her eyes, turned back and grabbed her arm to stop her.
She couldn't take any more of this.
Tia sulked, clutching a fistful of Irina's hair and resting her chin on top of her head.
Irina's ear, still riding the aftershocks from moments ago, kept trembling faintly on its own.
"Ack!"
"······?"
A pair of urgent footsteps came rushing closer, and all at once a set of spikes sprouted from the waiting room door.
A brief groan of pain drifted through from the other side, and then the spikes slid neatly back out.
When the door creaked open, there stood Sasha, her face crumpled into a tearful grimace as she prodded her horn.
The instant she saw Sasha's face, Tia lit up with a delighted smile.
"Shasha!"
"Got your horn stuck in the door again?"
"Yes······. But what was that sound just now? I thought I heard a scream."
"Ah. Ahh. That, um."
Irina averted her gaze from Sasha.
Explaining that the noise had come from Tia playing with her ear felt, even to herself, far too unconvincing.
"I think I stubbed my toe and let it slip. You could hear that from outside? Ahaha."
"Hear it from outside? Everyone's out there asking who's doing second-stage service in the waiting room right now."
"······."
Irina's face flared scarlet.
She was so mortified she couldn't even lift her head.
"Shasha Unnie!"
"Mm. Tia. Want to come to me?"
"Mmm! Unnie, hold me, pease!"
Tia spread both arms wide and wobbled backward as if about to topple over, forcing Irina to clamp down hard on her legs.
Sasha soon scooped her up with practiced ease.
Watching Tia nuzzle her head into Sasha's chest with a happy little "mhehehe" giggle, Irina felt her heart soften—
"Unnie······?"
—until a strange sense of wrongness struck her, and she froze.
Unnie. It was a word Irina had never once heard from Tia's mouth.
"T-Tia."
"Mmm?"
"What did you just call Sasha?"
"Shasha!"
"And after that?"
"Unnie!"
"Then what am I?"
"Irina Imo!"
"······."
It was a shock that felt like her spine crumbling to pieces.
Irina's legs gave out beneath her, and she slumped right where she stood.
I'm the imo, and Sasha's the unnie······?
She couldn't bring herself to get angry at Tia, who was beaming up at her so innocently.
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.
It stung far worse than the day a drunk customer had slurred, "You're getting on in years, so you've lost your grip"—far worse, and it made the passing years feel crueler than ever.
'Heh.'
Sasha had to desperately turn her head away to hide the expression of smug superiority creeping across her face.
So this is how precious youth really is, she thought, feeling it anew.
"Shasha. Where's Mama?"
"Yulia's working right now, I think?"
"She's alwaysh working."
"Yulia's a bit busy. Want to come up to the second floor with me?"
"No. Wanna go outs hide."
"Unnie can't come with you this time—I've got work to do too, you know?"
"What about Imo?"
"Imo is sulking. Imo hates Tia."
"Mmmuh······."
Tia's cheeks puffed up in an instant.
She couldn't even go outside unless someone was holding her hand.
But then again, she didn't want to stay in this rowdy tavern that made her ears hurt, either.
The thought of being cooped up in the motel room all day yet again had worn her patience down to nothing.
"Come on, then. Shall we head up to the second floor, Tia?"
"······."
Sasha scooped up the pouting Tia and carried her off toward the motel upstairs.
With Tia letting her arms and legs go limp and refusing to be held, she had no choice but to drape the girl over her shoulder.
Soon enough, Tia was shut up alone in the room. Barefoot, she padded across the wooden floor and flung herself onto the bed.
Before long, as she lay there in silence, the creak of a bed and a chorus of moans came bleeding through the wall.
Obnoxious sounds.
Irritation flared through Tia at once, and she kicked the wall—thud, thud.
The noise did die down, but only for a moment, before the vigorous sounds swelled up again.
This time, kicking the wall did no good.
Tia crawled off the bed and padded over to the window frame, resting her chin on it.
Left all on her own, the only amusement Tia had was staring blankly at the world outside.
"Mmm······."
People bustled busily along the street below.
She studied them one by one, carefully.
Scattered among them were a few children walking hand in hand with their mothers, faces bright and carefree.
How many times had I gone out with Mama—besides trips to the market?
Counting on her fingers, Tia searched her memory hard and long, but in the end she couldn't fold down all the fingers on one hand.
Mama was always either busy or tired. One or the other, always.
"Muuh. Bored~~~······. Huh?"
Tia, who had been swinging her feet idly, suddenly went wide-eyed.
Something had just whooshed past over the roof of a building in the distance.
It was a fleeting instant, but Tia didn't miss it.
A slender figure, clad head to toe in black.
Her eyes darted busily, tracking the silhouette sprinting along at superhuman speed.
Soon the figure came to a stop atop a chimney, pulled down the deep hood, and revealed a face.
A gasp burst from Tia's lips.
"Ahh······!"
It wasn't because of the face—a short bob of green hair, pretty and handsome all at once, impossible to tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman.
It was the pair of enormous horns rising from the head.
They looked unmistakably three or four times larger than Tia's own.
Raising a hand to her head and stroking her little horns, Tia was certain of it.
That person. That person could answer every single one of my questions.
"Wh-what was that?"
"What?"
"Didn't something just fly up there?"
"Probably a bird or something."
In that very moment, Tia's body shot forward.
Stepping up onto the window frame and leaping, she sailed clear across the street and landed with a thump on the roof of the building opposite.
"Muuuuuh!"
She nearly slid straight down the slope and had to claw desperately for her balance.
Soon growing used to walking on rooftops, Tia toddled off on her short little legs toward the chimney she'd spotted earlier.
And in that instant, the black-clad figure's head snapped around, and their eyes met Tia's.
It was a good two blocks away, but the two of them had unmistakably noticed each other and were now facing one another.
The figure clicked their tongue, pulled the hood back up, kicked off the chimney, and broke into a run.
"Muaaa! Stoppp!"
Tia was not one to give up.
Shouting at the top of her lungs, she gave chase with everything she had.
Whenever she seemed about to catch up, the figure drew away; whenever it seemed lost, it drew near again.
Then, at the very moment she had closed the gap to arm's reach, his footsteps suddenly vanished—gone.
He had dropped down beneath the buildings.
"Mu······!"
Sprawled flat on the rooftop and peering down, Tia's face crumpled on the verge of tears.
Below was a crowd so dense that just looking at it made her head spin.
She hurriedly examined each and every person, but there was simply no one dressed head to toe in black to be found.
She'd lost him.
Letting out one burst of frustration at the suffocating unfairness of it all, Tia had no choice but to give up and turn back.
'What the hell is that kid?!'
Meanwhile, the black-clad assassin was crouched down hiding behind a garbage bin, breathing hard.
He was stunned.
What on earth was that little brat, that she could leap across rooftops and still move that fast?
Fast enough to keep pace with him—him, who prided himself on never being outrun by anyone in sheer speed.
He was so shaken he even caught himself wondering whether the child might be some illusion wearing a different form.
Only after the face peering about up on the rooftop finally ducked out of sight could he breathe a sigh of relief.
There was no way such an adorable little face should have been that terrifying.
'An assassin hired to take me down? Then who the hell hired them······.'
He replayed his recent movements carefully in his mind.
But no matter how he turned it over, he couldn't recall doing anything worth someone's grudge—aside from issuing a small warning to a certain foolish priest.
Even if that priest found him rather displeasing, surely he would never strike at the master who had granted him such favor.
And even if he did, the man would come himself. He wasn't the type to hire proxies.
In the end, all that remained was the conclusion that he had absolutely nothing to go on.
'Unbelievable. Who the hell is trying to come after me?'
Someone was hunting him.
And at the thought that perhaps, after all this time, someone had discovered what lay beneath the mask he had worn for so long, he ground his teeth.
"Muuuh······."
Tia, who had retraced her path exactly, lay sprawled on a rooftop and groaned for a while.
Across the way, she could see the window of the motel room, still flung wide open just as she'd left it.
But no matter how she thought about it, jumping from here and fitting through that little window in a single bound didn't seem possible.
If she misjudged the landing, she'd smash her head straight into the wall and fall.
She had leapt out on pure impulse without a single thought, but the thought of how to get back in hadn't occurred to her at all.
Suppressing the urge to just jump anyway, Tia made her way down through a sparsely trafficked alley, climbing down a drainpipe off the roof.
'If I get caught, Mama's gonna yell at me again······.'
She would have no choice but to sneak in through the back door of the tavern.
All she could do was pray, with every step of the way, that Yulia wouldn't spot her.
If Irina or Sasha caught her, she could probably talk her way out of it with some aegyo, so that was fine.
Toddling across the street, Tia eased the creaking back door open as slowly as she possibly could.
"Mmuh······."
Would Mama be looking from inside?
Tense, she poked her head in—and her whole body went rigid.
"Why's the booze here all taste like crap, every last drop of it! Get me something else!"
A handsome customer was shouting, flinging his cup about recklessly.
And beside him sat Yulia, her face full of helpless embarrassment.
The instant the man wrapped his arm around Yulia's waist and pulled her close, Tia felt the greatest fury she had ever known in her life.