Chương 17: S.04 Memory of the Clock 04(02)

Scene 04_01. I-seon took the call, astonishment, anger, and a puzzled skepticism all showing at once. I-seon: What the fuck is this, 귀신 씻나락 까먹는 소리 (some ghost-spirits-cracking-rice-grain) bullshit you're talking? I-seon, whose gaze had been resting vacantly on a distant ridge, drew it back and fired the question at her — something closer to rebuke than a question. Scene 04_02. Hee-jin, drawing the collar of her thick coat closed, continued the call standing before a mirror in a quiet restroom.

At I-seon's booming voice coming back like a scold, she pulled the phone briefly from her ear. With another small sigh, Hee-jin spoke again. Hee-jin: Don't worry. We'll retake it. At once. I-seon: Ah no, so — explain it properly. I cannot even tell what the fuck you're saying right now, no, ya. Are you even Song Hee-jin? Who are you? Hee-jin: Seon-ah. Calm down. Hee-jin's figure was not properly visible. Faint outside sounds bled in, but not enough to carry through the call.

Only after hearing the old shorthand I-seon had used for years did I-seon pause to catch her breath. Hee-jin: Just play along. Every drifter will be trying to get in. They will only try to squeeze in where there is a gap. I-seon: Then what, am I supposed to sit there sucking my thumb? Hee-jin: Ah, seriously. You are going to ruin everything at this rate. Listen properly. Scene 04_03. I-seon drew in a deep breath. Not from bitter feeling — more like a deliberate steadying.

She exhaled the breath heavily, then asked briefly. I-seon: So. When do I go. Scene 04_04. Hee-jin: Once everyone has been told. Immediately. Scene 05. Si-yeon sat across from Seong-hyeon. Alcohol had not been brought near the mouth; only empty bowls and empty side-dish plates sat on the table. Not a trace of food was left in the earthen pot on the table either. Having felt full satisfaction and contentment both, Si-yeon wiped her sweating forehead with a tissue.

She drained a glass of cold water and tossed in a reflux pill she had brought along in advance. Seong-hyeon: Aren't you supposed to take that before you eat? Si-yeon: It'll all mix up inside anyway. Si-yeon answered casually, but an odd sense of déjà vu rose in her, and she narrowed her eyes at Seong-hyeon. Si-yeon: Ya. We've had this talk before, haven't we? At Si-yeon's pressing, Seong-hyeon pursed her lips and shook her head.

Si-yeon, not quite able to shake the suspicion, tilted her head and drank the rest of the water. When she rose from her seat, Si-yeon checked the time. Si-yeon: Ah, SSibal, that bitch is going to throw a Jiral again. Seong-hyeon: Ei, even so, the Jiral the boss sis throws at us is mild. Si-yeon: How about she just doesn't throw Jiral at all? Once Si-yeon had finished paying the bill, she stepped outside with a trudging gait. The street was already lit up like a sleepless night.

Si-yeon began walking through the bitter cold beside Seong-hyeon. Seong-hyeon, in sneakers, came around to stand squarely in front of Si-yeon and looked her right in the face. Si-yeon: What. Seong-hyeon: Sis. I'm sorry. Si-yeon: For what. Seong-hyeon: Dinner was good. Next time, I'll buy. For sure. Si-yeon: The hell. Did you drink behind my back? At Si-yeon's jab, Seong-hyeon shook her head. With a smile rising on her lips, Seong-hyeon hooked her arm through Si-yeon's and pulled her along as if urging the road on.

They walked the single road. They followed a road beginning to hang its red lanterns one by one, but no one was leading the two of them. Two figures walking through the cold. The familiar lobby stood ahead, glittering no differently from any other day. Seong-hyeon glanced briefly at the café in the lobby, then unlooped her arm from Si-yeon's and spoke to her in a bright voice. Seong-hyeon: Sis, go on up. I'll be up in a bit — I've got something to talk about. Si-yeon: Suit yourself.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Seong-hyeon, watching Si-yeon's back as she sent her on ahead. Quietly enough that no one could see, Seong-hyeon bit her lip, then walked into the café set at one side of the lobby. In the café, as Seong-hyeon had expected, a single person sat waiting for her. Ye-eun: Oh?

How did you come to — Though their eyes had not yet met, Seong-hyeon stepped toward Ye-eun, drinking her coffee, as though she recognized her already. Before taking the empty seat, Seong-hyeon first bowed deeply at the waist to Ye-eun. Seong-hyeon: Strategist. I introduce myself anew. A demoted one. Baek Seong-hyeon. Hearing Seong-hyeon's greeting, Hee-jin laughed softly and held out her hand, gesturing to the empty seat across the table. Hee-jin: Please, sit. Seong-hyeon. Scene 06.

So-hui let the black flames die down. She could not look out to the point of coughing up blood. She had to prepare for what was soon to come. Having ended the call, Si-yeon stepped out of the room and came up to So-hui, who was sitting on the living-room floor. Deep in the night. Not a strand of light left on in the living room, only a single streetlamp spilling in from outside traced the dim outline of things. When Si-yeon sat right in front of So-hui, So-hui let out a breath and asked.

So-hui: Have all the calls been made? Si-yeon: Yeah. So-hui: Thank you. Si-yeon: Be careful. So-hui: You be careful too. Si-yeon: This parasite will take care of itself, but you — you're different. So-hui: Scary, isn't it. That way. Si-yeon extended her cold hand, fumbling, and sought out So-hui's warm one. When the fumbling hand found So-hui's warm hand and held it, So-hui let out another deep breath and clasped Si-yeon's hand tightly. So-hui: The sisters must have been so scared, too. Si-yeon: I'm sure they were.

So-hui: You. Aren't you scared? Si-yeon: Ji-young sis said something to me once. So-hui: What was it. Si-yeon: Of course it's scary — but there's only one reason you can hold on. She said — as for her — So-hui: Mm. Si-yeon: She hopes. That after the hurt passes, something a little better comes. Listening to Si-yeon's half-remembered fragment, So-hui let a bright smile rise. So-hui: That sounds like Kang Ji-young. And like Lee Si-yeon.

Si-yeon: Ah, this empty skull, seriously — my memory is such shit, it's a problem. So-hui: I'm going to tell Ji-young sis. That you called yourself an idiot again. Si-yeon: Fine. Go ahead and tell her. It's better to have someone to tell. I'm holding on because I'm looking forward to that. So-hui straightened her back, something unburdened showing on her face. So-hui: That's a little better. Thank you. Si-yeon: Did I do that. Those are Ji-young sis's words.

So-hui: Then I'll have to thank her in person soon, for real. Scene 07. Hee-jin, who had been sitting as Ye-eun, no longer wore Ye-eun's form. The hem of a neatly arranged 한복(Hanbok_Korean Traditional Dress) was unfamiliar, yet in another sense it was familiar. When Seong-hyeon had been driven out of the Headquarters, she could no longer remember. It was an attire she had seen often enough to know.

She had thought she had let it pass from memory, and so had made herself believe it was unfamiliar, but in truth it was an attire she had already been able to glimpse when she had last faced Jeong-hyeon. That day had been revolting; today was frightening. A brief instruction passed between them. When Hee-jin calmly lifted the coffee cup set before her, Seong-hyeon asked Hee-jin cautiously. Seong-hyeon: So then. Now. As for Si-yeon sis — Hee-jin: She will have been met, by now. Seong-hyeon: Yes.

Hee-jin: I will not ask. The story between the two of you. But I shall trust that the misunderstandings between you have been sufficiently laid to rest. Seong-hyeon: I had nothing to misunderstand. And that Si-yeon sis should hate me — I do not hold that to be a misunderstanding either. Hee-jin: She will not hate you. She, too, is a truly good person. Seong-hyeon nodded. Hee-jin rose from her seat. From the lobby, a not-insignificant commotion began to drift in. Still standing, she spoke low to Seong-hyeon.

Hee-jin: Then. I leave the matter in your hands. At Hee-jin's calm request, Seong-hyeon, her face set with resolve, slowly rose from her seat. She nodded lightly to Hee-jin, who was making to leave. Hee-jin adjusted the folds of her Hanbok, gave Seong-hyeon only a light bow, and stepped away with composed ease. Just after Hee-jin left her seat, a throng of people carrying the disorder of the commotion with them, faces full of anger, confronted Seong-hyeon.

Seong-hyeon glared with a tense expression at the people barring her path. Slipping through the press of people, one woman stepped forward, halting her limping gait right in front of Seong-hyeon, and put on a sneering smile. Song-hyeon: Trying to slip away? After eating my money? Scene 08. She had not yet gone so far as to change her clothes. Si-yeon sat in the hotel room where she worked and looked over what she would face today.

But on today's schedule, there was not just one suspicious thing — there were several. Catching the odd sign of it, Si-yeon shot to her feet. She walked the corridor, slid her elevator key into the slot, and called the halted elevator. Seeing the elevator stuck on the first floor, she felt a stifling impatience. She simply started down the stairs, and soon enough threw open the firmly closed door to Yeon-jin's office and stepped inside without knocking.

Behind the door she had flung open without so much as a knock sat Yeon-jin, surrounded by a dense cloud of cigarette smoke, arranging her ledger. Si-yeon strode in, marched to Yeon-jin's desk, and tossed the schedule from her hand onto the desk as if throwing it down. Pointing at every name on the schedule, Si-yeon asked Yeon-jin. Si-yeon: What's going on. Yeon-jin did not answer. Looking at Si-yeon's schedule covering the ledger she had been arranging, Yeon-jin let out a small sigh and fired a question back.

Yeon-jin: What. Si-yeon: My name. Ye-eun sis's name. Seong-hyeon's name, either — none of them are there. Where did they all go? Yeon-jin left the ledger where it lay, leaned back deep into her chair, and spoke something Si-yeon had not expected. Yeon-jin drew out another cigarette, lit it, and let out a long plume of smoke upward. Yeon-jin: You. Take a month off and come back. Yeon-jin, holding the cigarette in her hand, had struck the match and cut off whatever Si-yeon was about to say.

Si-yeon studied Yeon-jin's face for a moment. Hearing words drenched in déjà vu, Si-yeon tried to remember when she had heard them before. She wanted to press back about the memory that refused to surface, but at Yeon-jin's perfectly ordinary listless manner, Si-yeon gave up on asking again. Si-yeon asked Yeon-jin. Si-yeon was quick on the uptake. She did not argue the point. She only needed at least to know the reason for the time off. She could not walk out without hearing a single answer. Si-yeon: Why.

Yeon-jin: Because you've gotten tangled in something shitty. Go out and come back. Far. Si-yeon: What thing. Yeon-jin: Don't ask. Just go. There's no time. Get ready and go. The serious voice hidden inside the listlessness — that much Si-yeon could easily tell. As though something was not right, Yeon-jin's flat voice carried the warning, and Si-yeon kept watching her in silence. Si-yeon stood still, gaze fixed on Yeon-jin. Yeon-jin closed the ledger and spoke to Si-yeon. Yeon-jin: Run. If something happens.

Don't stand against it. It was a familiar admonition. A warning she had heard once before, somewhere. That strange déjà vu came over her again. But this déjà vu felt somehow different from the memory she knew. What was familiar was only Yeon-jin's voice, sounding as though she were speaking to someone she would never see again. Si-yeon, unable in the end to sort out that unsettling déjà vu, shut the office door hard and stepped out. She walked off the moment she left Yeon-jin's office.

Si-yeon, having taken nothing with her, came out of Yeon-jin's office and headed toward the nearest elevator. The corridor, no different in its bustle from any other day, felt eerie today. The mood was strange. Suspicious. Dismissing it as nothing much, Si-yeon took a step forward. With the key from her pocket she activated the elevator, then waited, still in a watchful mood. The doors opened. Behind the opened elevator doors stood a crowd of familiar faces.

The din that ought to fit only the small hours of the morning froze in Si-yeon's head like a strip of film cut short. Stillness and silence. Through the open door, held by the hands of people who looked as though they had been waiting for her, there appeared Seong-hyeon, kneeling on the floor. At Si-yeon, whose face had taken on the look of something having gone wrong, the woman standing foremost among those surrounding Seong-hyeon gave an unpleasant-looking jerk of her hand. Song-hyeon: Get in. You bitch.

It was not the first time Si-yeon had seen her. But the air she carried held a hatred Si-yeon was seeing for the first time. Si-yeon stepped forward cautiously and got into the elevator. Song-hyeon slowly lifted Seong-hyeon's cloth-gagged face by the long blade in her hand, as though tilting her chin up. Song-hyeon: Pathetic. Trying to run. The two of you, both of you. At Song-hyeon's question, Seong-hyeon shot a frantic look at Si-yeon and shouted something, but the sounds did not come out as proper words.

Just as a tense expression set on Si-yeon's face, the elevator had already stopped at the directly-connected underground parking lot. The people beside Seong-hyeon seized her by both arms and hauled her up from the floor. Spotting an opening and looking to flee together with Seong-hyeon, Si-yeon herself was shoved lightly out of the elevator as well. They descended the stairs toward the dim underground parking lot.

Seong-hyeon, unable to walk properly because of her bindings, and Si-yeon casting careful glances at her, stepped out tensely onto the underground parking driveway. A van that had been waiting in the parking lot pulled up quickly, loaded Seong-hyeon and Si-yeon into it, and vanished from the spot. Song-hyeon and Hong-sin stayed behind, watching the vehicle. After the van had disappeared, Song-hyeon and Hong-sin slowly looked up at the ceiling and stood still.

In the empty underground parking lot, where not a sign nor a soul had been, the stillness of the two did not last. The two, who had been looking up at the ceiling, collapsed limply on the spot.