Reunion.
Reunion.
My expression must have reminded Park Ji-hoon of the past, because he flinched in fear.
I relaxed my face, let out a sigh, and said,
"Hah... I'm late, but it's damn good to see you."
Ji-hoon and I got our stories straight, and I told him to speak casually to me like any other friend whenever people were around.
"Y... yeah."
When I returned to our usual spot, Da-yeon was staring intently at a manga written in Japanese.
"Da-yeon."
"!!! Si-yoon! You're here?!"
Da-yeon, who'd been completely absorbed in the book, looked at me, jumped up in surprise, and greeted me. I glanced at Park Ji-hoon standing next to me.
"This is a friend I've known for a long time."
At my words, Da-yeon forced a greeting, like she really didn't want to get friendly with him.
"Ah... hello."
As Da-yeon grew closer to me, she had somehow become shy around everyone else.
"This is Da-yeon, the second child of the Hanseong family."
"Huh?!"
"..."
"You're Lee Gi-seok's... no, wait... don't tell me you're Lee Jin-seok's daughter?"
Da-yeon, who already didn't like Park Ji-hoon, puffed up her cheeks.
"Who do you think you are, just calling my grandpa and my dad by name?!"
"...Ah, sorry."
"Si-yoon... I don't like him..."
It looked like Ji-hoon had gotten on Da-yeon's bad side.
"Yeah, yeah, I don't like him either."
Da-yeon, who'd been scared of losing me to a new friend, brightened up and laughed at my words.
"Damn... it kills me that I went through all that instead of this guy."
"I distinctly told you to run at the time, didn't I?"
Unable to join the conversation between me and Ji-hoon, Da-yeon just stared down at the floor.
"You didn't come with Antonio today?"
The moment the unfortunate Antonio came up, Da-yeon's face lit up.
"Yeah! He's playing with Ga-yeon."
Ga-yeon is Da-yeon's little brother.
"Ga-yeon's got it good, huh? With Antonio watching over him."
"Yeah."
I looked over at Ji-hoon.
"Heh~ so he's that goody-two-shoes type you used to despise, huh?"
His eyes were small, and he had the sort of face that looked like people would push him around wherever he went. Da-yeon grew frightened, thinking I was picking a fight with Ji-hoon, but he only sighed gloomily.
"Hah... this face looks like Park Gi."
"Huh!?"
Once I saw it, Park Gi's features were unmistakable in Ji-hoon's face.
"..."
Park Ji-hoon let out a sigh over his new appearance.
"Then Park Gi's gotta be somewhere out there too, right?"
"No way... you're saying the other guys too..."
"It's not like there's no chance."
Ji-hoon still seemed awkward speaking casually to me. In our previous lives, he had actually been twelve years older than me. Leaving Da-yeon to return to her manga, we began talking in earnest.
"Do you have a purpose in life? Any goals?"
"I was gonna destroy S Company."
"How?"
"What do I know how to do, other than use brute force?"
Something about what Ji-hoon said struck me as odd.
"Do you remember what you ate the day before yesterday?"
At my question, Park Ji-hoon started thinking it over.
"...Hm...? When did we ever remember things like that?"
"..."
A thought struck me. I stared at Ji-hoon and asked,
"423 times 382?"
"...Are you joking?"
"161,586."
"...?"
"Is this... something only I can do?"
Ji-hoon stared at me in shock. Beside us, Da-yeon muttered in a tiny voice.
"I can... do it too... hmph..."
"You could do it, Da-yeon? Sorry, did I give the answer too fast?"
"Yeah... you said it too fast..."
I stroked Da-yeon's hair and said,
"So it's not some other special thing... this body is just... incredibly smart..."
"..."
"And you seem like you've gotten dumber."
"...What?"
I snorted a laugh and started drawing.
"Hm, my goal's pretty similar: the end of S Company."
"..."
"And the end of Taebaek, wherever the hell it's hiding."
Ji-hoon looked at me.
"I'll handle S Company. You and Park Gi—wherever he is—take care of Taebaek."
"..."
And so we carried on our secret conversation... while drawing a rabbit with colored pencils. At Hanbit Kindergarten, once I turned seven, they made us do all sorts of things. It was different from when I was five and could just go home whenever my parents came to pick me up. Now, leaving wasn't allowed until five o'clock. Also, to more reliably identify the children's talents, they ran even more specialized and diverse programs.
"Si-yoon, how about we play a math game instead of drawing?"
"Hm..."
Seeing the young teacher treat me like an ordinary little kid, Ji-hoon snickered beside me.
"Hey, that dumb kid over there looks like he really needs some number games—why don't you take him?"
"Si-yoon! You can't say things like that to a friend!"
I stared at Ji-hoon for a moment. Ji-hoon was smirking at me.
'Why the hell has this bastard gotten so obnoxious.'
The young teacher sighed and walked over to another child in her care. As time passed, I realized something: Ji-hoon and I had been able to move at will since infancy, so our muscles were unusually well developed. The way we ran made it obvious. On the playground, Da-yeon sat kicking her legs as she read a manga written in Japanese. I took my sketchbook and sat beside her. Watching her grow up well made me feel like her godfather. Then I suddenly felt like teasing her.
"Want me to draw Kamino for you?"
"Uh... yeah."
Da-yeon's reaction was unsatisfactory.
"..."
"D... draw him for me!"
"...No."
"Si-yoon!!!"
Da-yeon shut the book, handed it to me, and started clinging to me.
"Please draw him!"
"Hm... if you want it that badly, maybe I will?"
"Yeah!"
But Da-yeon's eyes wavered at the thought of her Kamino being subjected to my clumsy hands. I twirled the pen and began drawing without even looking at the manga. Da-yeon spoke cautiously.
"Wouldn't... wouldn't it be better to draw while you look at it...?"
I remembered the manga protagonist's face without the slightest error. But there was a huge difference between drawing from a reference and drawing from memory. With the reference, I could reproduce it almost perfectly by now. Without it, I tried to express too much, and the result became hard to recognize.
"Don't trust me?"
"No..."
"Just read your book."
"...Okay."
Deflated, Da-yeon took her manga back. She had grown noticeably prettier since turning seven, but to Ji-hoon and me she was still just a cute little kid. As my pen flew across the page without hesitation, her eyes began to tremble and she lost focus on the manga. She kept stealing glances at me from the corner of her eye.
"Read your manga."
"Okay..."
"Out loud."
Da-yeon read aloud in Japanese without a hint of embarrassment, but the manga dialogue was... something else. I had told her to read it, yet I was already regretting listening.
"ダメ。カミノ、お前ならできる！ (No. Kamino, you can do it!)"
"..."
Ji-hoon, who didn't know Japanese, had wandered over and was staring at Da-yeon in amazement.
"君の体が疲れたら、心で走ればいいんだよ。 (If your body gets tired, run with your heart.)"
Before long, Da-yeon fell silent as she became absorbed in the manga. Ji-hoon whispered beside me.
"Wow... she's amazingly smart."
"Piss off."
"Wow, Boss, you've really become a woman."
For a moment, I considered jamming the pen into Ji-hoon's temple, but in this day and age that would be a serious incident. Sensing the danger in my gaze, Ji-hoon slowly backed away.
"...Want me to cut it off?"
Understanding exactly what I meant, Ji-hoon clutched himself and flinched.
"..."
"I've... got nothing left to lose."
Ji-hoon called out to me in a trembling voice.
"...Boss?"
"Jae-hyeong."
"Yes..."
"We both know, don't we?"
"..."
"A bastard with nothing to lose doesn't hold back."
Ji-hoon started staring at the ground.
"...I'm sorry."
"Do that again and I'll make sure you can never use it."
"Gulp..."
"Answer."
"Yes."
I finished the drawing and showed it to Da-yeon.
"Wow!"
A genuinely heartfelt exclamation. I'd kept Kamino's sharp look alive but also altered him to be cute, in Da-yeon's style.
"What do you think?"
"Wow... it's so cute!"
"Do you want to color it, Da-yeon?"
"Yeah!!!"
Da-yeon carefully handled the drawing I'd given her and started coloring it. My phone no longer had a time limit, and Ji-hoon looked at it and said,
"Wow, my parents say I'm too young so I can't have one—I'm jealous."
Da-yeon answered with a nod, looking even prouder of me than I was of myself.
"It's because Si-yoon is amazing!"
"...?"
We were at the zoo. There were plenty of teachers assigned to the children, but even more bodyguards were hidden in the distance.
"What do your parents do?"
Ji-hoon answered my question.
"Mom's a professor, Dad's an athlete."
"What sport?"
"Baseball."
"So he plays ball, huh."
"...? Was that a jab at my dad?"
"?"
Seeing Ji-hoon genuinely take offense, I realized he'd grown attached to his family too. Then again, we'd only ever had each other and had never once been loved by anyone else... Now that we knew what it meant to have a family that asked for nothing in return, it was impossible not to become attached.
"That was out of line, sorry."
"So then what do your parents do?"
"My dad? He's a composer."
"Some showbiz hack?"
"Are you out of your fucking mind?"
Startled by my cursing, Da-yeon wedged herself between me and Ji-hoon.
"Don't get mad, Si-yoon, let's just play together."
I swallowed the anger that had flared up, took Da-yeon, and walked away, but Ji-hoon followed us.
"Don't follow us."
At Da-yeon's words, he scratched his head.
"But I don't have any friends?"
In that instant, Da-yeon's face grew complicated, caught between pity for him and the realization that she'd spoken too harshly.
"...Then follow us, but stay a little bit back..."
Then she whispered in my ear, apparently trying to stop me from using such rough language.
"Mommy says if you say bad words, you get ugly."
I snorted a laugh at Da-yeon's words.
"I'm ridiculously pretty, so it's okay if I get a little ugly."
Da-yeon studied me for a moment, then began nodding as if she'd reached some conclusion. I sat in a corner and opened my lunchbox; Dad had packed it with all kinds of food. Ji-hoon was eating pizza beside me.
"Is it good?"
"It's piss-your-pants good."
Da-yeon looked at Ji-hoon, then spoke to the teacher.
"Teacher! Ji-hoon said he wet his pants!"
""...?""
The teacher who'd been keeping an eye on us rushed over and asked Ji-hoon,
"Want to go to the bathroom with me?"
Ji-hoon looked at the young teacher and said,
"I didn't wet myself."
But the young teacher thought Ji-hoon was embarrassed and lying.
"Then how about we go look at the lions together for a little while?"
"I said I didn't."
"...Are you sure? Da-yeon isn't the type of child to tell lies..."
"I said the pizza was so good I could piss myself, and she thought I actually did."
"...Where did you learn that kind of talk?"
"From TV."
The young teacher suddenly began lecturing Ji-hoon. I ignored him and shared his pizza with Da-yeon.
"Wow... it's a lion..."
Da-yeon was watching the lion. I sat next to her and started drawing the lion.
"Si-yoon, that's amazing... it looks exactly like it..."
My drawing skills had already surpassed those of most middle schoolers considered good at art. I'd started enjoying deliberately drawing badly, so I only dashed things off when I was giving them to someone. When we went to see the polar bear, Ji-hoon spoke beside me.
"Wow... this brings back memories—you trying to throw down with a bear."
"Don't make stuff up!"
"It's not a lie. Si-yoon—the one right next to you—was the one who suggested it."
A deeply embarrassing memory surfaced and I couldn't get a word out.
"..."
Da-yeon stared at me with big, sparkling eyes.
"Is it true?"
"He's lying~"
"What? That's ridiculous. Because of you, Park Gi almost died."
I ignored Ji-hoon, stroked Da-yeon's hair, and continued drawing the polar bear.