Today, Se-gwang Special City had wonderfully good weather.
"Whoo."
Outside Hanbit Department Store, he drew in a deep breath and let it out.
There was no yellow dust, and it wasn’t as hot as he’d expected—everything felt completely comfortable.
Even the expressions on the people moving around nearby seemed bright, too. He smiled as he walked along the sidewalk, dodging a broadcast station vehicle roaming beside him.
Why does he feel this good today?
His mind felt calm, like when he finished a long trip and came home to rest properly.
Maybe it was because he’d just come out of the department store.
Or maybe it was because there was less fine dust here than in Seoul....
Hmm. It could also be because it’s the day before Children’s Day.
He opened his smartphone to check the date.
May 4, Monday
It was Monday after the weekend, but there was the joy of knowing that once tomorrow came, he could rest again. Was that why he felt even better?
...Even though he still had to go to work from here.
Lunch entertaining....
No, thinking about it again, it did seem better than evening entertaining. Ugh.
But if it was going to be like this, why did he use a vacation day? It wasn’t even a schedule where he’d be resting straight through from the weekend—using a day off and visiting a department store like this was, no matter how he thought about it, irrational....
.......
It didn’t seem... important!
The client meeting must have been scheduled suddenly after he’d planned to use his vacation day.
Yeah. What mattered was what he had to do from here.
Let’s go do some entertaining....
Holding back a sigh, he moved his feet.
He still had some time, and the weather was nice, so instead of taking the subway, he planned to walk.
To the lunch appointment.
"Kim Soleum, I always say this... but you seem like a really solid person."
"Haha, no—Section Chief Park is a good person, so aren’t you just looking kindly on me?"
The client entertaining itself wasn’t that difficult.
In the first place, since it wasn’t evening entertaining, there was no drinking session, so the burden was lighter, and it was also someone he already knew.
No matter where you went, the platform side was the stronger party, but if the company’s weight class didn’t fall that far behind, the mood was one of keeping appropriate courtesy on both sides.
In moments like this, he really did feel it was a relief he’d succeeded in getting hired by a major corporation....
That didn’t mean the other side wasn’t the stronger party, though.
"Huh? So even if you study hard and get into a good place, you still have to do unproductive work like this, is that what you’re saying? Just how much this Republic of Korea is...."
"Hahaha...."
Earning money wasn’t easy....
This person probably liked talking with a polite young person, so they’d deliberately sent him—someone still low in seniority—as the one to entertain....
Just don’t step on any landmines... whoo.
With desperate survival movement, he pulled the conversation as smoothly as possible into softer, more personal topics.
Thankfully, the moment they finished eating and came outside, he also found another subject to talk about.
"My kid goes here."
"Ah, is your child’s school right there?"
He smiled faintly while looking at the high school building the client pointed to.
Se-gwang Technical High School.
At the city level, it seemed like the kind of high school that received a lot of support for linking technical education—something close to a meister high school.
And then the finger of the person beside him pointed to a huge glass building beyond the high school.
"See that? It’s a library, and I feel really good because it seems to have a positive effect on the academic atmosphere, too."
"Absolutely—the atmosphere for studying is important. You sent them somewhere good."
When a superior or an important person bragged about their child, the rule was to nod along enthusiastically.
Looking at the enormous library building beyond the high school, he reacted sincerely, at an appropriate level.
Usually, when he was sweating like this, a reaction would come to him too....
—Oh my, that’s excellent hosting, friend!
......?
Was there someone who’d said... something like that?
It was a pleasant voice; it felt like he’d remember it. So, he must have heard it often somewhere....
...It feels like something he heard on TV.
"......."
"Kim Soleum?"
"...Yes! Section Chief."
Crap, entertaining!
He cut off the thought that was about to deepen and smiled at the client. He could look it up later.
"Then your child must be in class right now."
"Right! The whole school is so quiet you could hear a pin drop—doesn’t it feel like the atmosphere is the real deal?"
"Hahaha."
That was when he saw someone run out through the front gate of the high school.
"Hm?"
The person rushing out of the school wore neat casual clothes rather than a uniform.
"Good-looking. A student teacher?"
"Ah, that could be it."
But from across the crosswalk, he’d caught a fleeting glimpse of a cute-designed name tag on the runner’s chest that said “Counseling Teacher.”
A student must have made it.
He’d heard that high schools these days also had teachers who specialized in counseling—so it seemed like that kind of counseling teacher.
"They’re going to the subway. No car?"
"Hahaha...."
They really liked other people’s business....
"Ah. That taxi—I called it. Well then, I’ll head in for today, Soleum."
"Yes! Please take care on your way!"
He saw the client off as they rode away in the taxi.
And as he did, by chance, he looked in the same direction again—toward the subway station—at that counseling teacher running far off.
...Somehow, it felt familiar.
He had the feeling he’d seen that back somewhere....
A stinging pain snapped into his hand.
"...!"
Startled, he yanked his hand out of his pocket.
Static?
But it hurt strangely enough to feel like it burned.
Even so, he pulled out the only metal object that had been in his pocket.
A silver coin.
The thing that had been in his possession from some point onward had, before he knew it, become black with grime.
What is this?
He rubbed at it with his hand, but it didn’t help much.
...Could it be something in the material is bad?
It was the moment he was considering just throwing it away. The silver face of the coin glittered in the sunlight.
It was dazzling.
Reflexively lifting his head, he saw a glass window reflecting the sunlight.
A window of Se-gwang Technical High School.
"......."
With a strange feeling, he walked closer to the high school building.
When he drew near to the school’s wall as if possessed by something—
"Excuse me!"
He raised his head.
At the outer edge of the school building, at the end window on the third floor, someone was calling to him.
A student with dyed hair and piercings, wearing their uniform loosely and sloppily, waved and shouted down at him.
What were they saying?
"Down there!"
He lowered his head again.
Now that he looked, a note had fallen near the wall.
It looked like that student had accidentally dropped the note down from the window.
"Could you pick it up? Just crumple it and throw it up."
"Ah, sure."
Was it a note they’d been passing with a friend during class? He picked it up, and before throwing it back up, he absentmindedly read it.
Just stay here
"......."
He folded the note very small so it wouldn’t fly away, then tossed it up past the window.
"Thank you."
Contrary to their appearance, the dyed-hair student greeted him with unexpected politeness, snatched the note in a single motion, and vanished beyond the window.
Until he finished the Americano in his hand, ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) he stood blankly for a while in front of the school wall for some reason....
It left him with a strange feeling.
He returned home.
"Whoo!"
His studio was a two-room place, a clean layout split neatly into a living room and a bedroom.
Even after taking the bus home, he still had some time left.
Let’s enjoy the vacation day.
He ordered chicken first, and enjoying the comfort of a familiar place, he sat in front of the living-room window with it cracked open slightly.
"Hah."
A breeze blew in, cool.
Living alone isn’t so bad.
His parents lived in Bundang, and his younger sibling ran a dessert shop nearby that was famous locally for being a neighborhood favorite.
He was alone in Seoul....
......No, he’d been assigned to “Se-gwang Special City,” and he lived here.
Well, he goes down every weekend.
Sometimes, when his younger sibling said they were busy because of some trendy dessert, he got hired as weekend labor and dragged in....
—Wow, Kim Soleum, you’re really good at working. Just quit your company job and come work here.
And when he smacked them, they’d shout, “Canceled!! Canceled! Boss!” like it was yesterday. Hm. Heartwarming.
Come to think of it, it wasn’t like yesterday—it was literally yesterday. He definitely would’ve gone down over the weekend.
It’s spacious, so you can breathe.
And thinking about it, his place. Since Se-gwang Special City didn’t have housing prices as insane as Seoul, he could’ve gotten a wider place. Why did he insist on leasing this one?
...Well, it seemed like it was to save money.
Shrugging, he set down his suit jacket and was about to start getting ready to shower.
But from the very first motion, something soft touched his hand, and he ended up grabbing it.
"......."
He put his hand into his pants pocket and took out what was inside.
A pink rabbit doll.
A silver coin was one thing, but he truly didn’t know where this had come from.
If he thought only in terms of possibility, it seemed likely he’d bought it at the department store, but still.
In the first place, why did he even take a vacation day and go to a department store today?
He really couldn’t understand it. Was it impulsiveness?
Now that he looked, the doll seemed extremely high-end. Soft and plush... so detailed it was almost scary, and yet it felt oddly affectionate.
He turned the doll over and examined its shape.
On the tag on its torso, intricate golden letters were written, but he couldn’t read them—it didn’t seem to be Korean.
He pressed the rabbit doll’s belly.
There was no sound.
"...Ah, seriously."
He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. It had been ages since the trend of dolls that made sounds when you pressed their bellies ended—what had he been thinking?
"Sorry. I acted stupid."
He pressed the rabbit doll’s nose. A smooth texture met his finger.
And after hesitating, he washed his hands thoroughly once more, then used a cushion and a blanket he had at home to make a small spot on the nightstand, and placed the rabbit doll there.
Under the soft lamp light, the rabbit doll’s black nose gleamed.
"...Are you comfortable?"
Of course, there was no answer.
But feeling a strange awkwardness, he fled as if escaping—to go shower.
After washing up, he received the chicken and sat down in front of the TV.
Really, it was less a TV and more an OTT output service.
"Alright."
It was a mystery-thriller drama.
If he just skipped the slightly brutal scenes, it wasn’t hard to watch. Well, it wasn’t like ghosts were going to jump out.
But strangely, it made him more uncomfortable to watch than before.
Why?
Especially whenever he saw people’s arms and legs getting cut off... or people dying in someone else’s place, his mood turned rapidly worse.
The cut surfaces weren’t even shown outright... so why was he like this?
He thought he felt good today.
The entertaining must have drained him, and the weather’s boost had worn off. Holding back a sigh, he turned off the OTT.
And a little early, before the day ended, he lay down in bed and turned on his smartphone.
"......."
Somehow... it felt like there was something he always watched at times like this, but he couldn’t remember. What was it?
Short-form videos?
But it didn’t feel that familiar.
He kept browsing the internet, but without getting any real comfort or dopamine, he turned off his smartphone.
And when he turned his head, he recoiled in shock.
A huge black human shadow was on the wall!
"Aaah!"
...But looking again, it was the shadow of the rabbit doll he’d placed on the nightstand.
"Hah."
It’s so embarrassing to do that when nobody’s here....
It’s not like he saw a child and got scared, then got scared again at a pot lid.
After calming his pounding heart, he looked again at the rabbit doll’s shadow.
With the streetlight glow and car headlight beams washing in from outside the window, the shadow wavered, making it look like it was moving, but....
That was all.
The doll didn’t move.
Of course.
"......."
He should just sleep.
He shrugged, buried his head into the pillow, and lowered his gaze, chewing over the lingering feeling as if it were oddly regrettable.
And he fell asleep....
May 4 ended.
***
"......."
I woke up in the first-floor lobby of Hanbit Department Store.
Hm?
It seemed I’d dozed off while waiting for something. What was I... waiting for?
No idea.
But it didn’t seem that important.
For now, let’s just go home.
"Whoo."
I slipped my smartphone into my pocket and stood up. As I did, something thumped down from my front pocket.
...A doll?
There was a rabbit doll. Had I bought this?
When I rummaged through my pocket, aside from my smartphone, a silver, button-like coin caked with grime came out as well.
...Merchandise?
Had I bought something like this too? But if so, it looked way too worn.
I don’t really know.
Shrugging, I put the coin back. Well, I must have gotten it from somewhere.
I tucked the doll back into my arms as well, then headed toward the lobby doors of the department store.
Out into Se-gwang Special City, beyond Hanbit Department Store.
It repeated like that 612 times.
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