Chapter 230

[Special Interview Record (Extract)]

[Sensitivity Bureau, Gyeonggi Branch, Investigation Division]

[Agenda: Sighting of an unconfirmed settlement (hereafter 'the village') and of an entity presumed to be the White Crow, reported during the regular survey of the Fox Den. This interview is limited to the above agenda.]

[Matters concerning the Labyrinth Fox Den itself (anomalous Water Wraith appearances, changes in the Labyrinth's properties, etc.) are covered by the return report.]

[Interviews were conducted individually. The standard Offering-determination procedure was carried out first in every case.]

— Interview 1 —

[Deponent: Gyeonggi Branch, Investigation Division, martial officer, Grade 7, Gwak Seong-eon]

[Interviewer: Investigation Division Chief / Record: 2 civil officers in attendance]

Q: (Standard Offering-determination item 3-2) State one sentence you have never once uttered in this room.

A: I want to go to the sea for my holiday this year.

[Determination note: The deponent lost a colleague in this year's cluster of Water Wraith incidents, and no history of him speaking about holidays has since been confirmed. Novelty of the statement is accepted.]

[Determination result: Negative.]

Q: Give supplementary testimony on the change in the Labyrinth's properties recorded in your return report.

A: It has become easy to find a safe path. The Pathfinder who accompanied us said that was not a good sign.

Q: Did the Pathfinder state a reason?

A: He said the mountain had begun to scheme.

Q: Did you witness a settlement within the survey section?

A: No.

Q: Is it that you do not remember?

A: It is not that I do not remember. There was no such village. There is no hole in my memory either.

[Review opinion: Testimony consistent and lucid in manner.]

— Interview 2 —

[Deponent: Gyeonggi Branch, Investigation Division, martial officer, Grade 9, Tak Jun-seo (special detection hire)]

[Interviewer: Investigation Division Chief / Record: 2 civil officers in attendance]

Q: (Standard Offering-determination item 3-2) State one sentence you have never once uttered in this room.

A: I am not good with spicy food.

[Determination note: The deponent placed first in this year's branch team-building event, the 'spicy food eating contest,' making it improbable that he would have uttered the statement. Novelty of the statement is accepted.]

[Determination result: Negative.]

Q: Did you witness a settlement within the survey section?

A: I saw it. It was a village where only children live. The roof colors were pale, a stream crossed the village, and laundry was hung out.

[Review opinion: Testimony concrete and detailed. Cooperative. Exemplary manner of testimony.]

Q: Can you specify the location?

A: Not on a map. However, I believe I could find it if I went again.

Q: State the grounds for that judgment.

A: (No statement)

Q: Did you witness the entity presumed to be the White Crow, or its hands and feet?

[Testimony on this item transferred to Separate Sheet No. 9 under access-grade restriction.]

Q: Is there anything else you wish to state?

A: I think there may have been something besides the White Crow. I saw a tree branch pressed down under a weight, but I cannot say exactly what it was. If it had a form, it would not have been small.

Q: Did you sense a presence?

A: There was no presence at all.

[Review opinion: No corresponding record in the accompanying measurement equipment logs. Reflection withheld.]

[Cross-review — Comprehensive]

Gwak Seong-eon and Tak Jun-seo accompanied one another for the entire section.

Testimony inconsistent. Offering determination negative for all. Cause of inconsistency unknown.

Testimony of the external cooperating personnel (1 registered Pathfinder, particulars on separate sheet) is at Separate Sheet No. 7.

This record is based on the perception of those deposed and may differ from fact.

***

One man looked at the documents as though he found them hard to understand, and asked,

"What is this."

"The civil officers reviewed it three times over. There are no errors."

"And the conclusion of three reviews is 'may differ from fact'?"

"That's a phrase that gets attached as a matter of course, isn't it."

"It's the first report I've read where the phrase that gets attached as a matter of course reads like this."

For a while the meeting room held nothing but the sound of turning pages. Among those who read and reread the thick sheaf of documents, someone spoke in a composed tone.

"The Gangwon Director has a point, you know. What reason is there to go out of our way to touch a docile Labyrinth?"

"Isn't it more of a problem precisely because she has a point? Are you saying we should sit and watch that bulk go on growing?"

At that another cut into the conversation with a frown.

"What arrogant nonsense is that."

"Arrogant? Where is the guarantee that this thing is 'docile'? We can't rely on the Gangwon Director's personal opinion alone, so I'm saying we prepare in advance."

"A Labyrinth is not a being we can control. Everyone's had a headache over the Water Wraiths this summer and lost their grip on reality, apparently, but look at the bulk of it. You think you can handle that like some Water Ghost?"

Another joined in, adjusting his glasses.

"But if the Gangwon Province Bureau's report is correct, half of that Labyrinth's master is a 'young native Dokkaebi' well disposed toward humans, isn't it? At this rate I'd say the possibility isn't nil."

"First the Gangwon Director's personal opinion can't be trusted, now it can. I'm at a loss. That's how you call down a calamity."

"It might be an opportunity rather than a calamity. Don't any of you think we in the Sensitivity Bureau have been too passive all this while? How often is the master of a Labyrinth that size an entity that understands human speech?"

"Restrain yourself. When did the Bureau's instincts fall this far. I truly cannot listen to it."

"This is a chance for the Sensitivity Bureau to develop a little further…."

The meeting reached no conclusion, and went on biting its own tail.

"……."

In that uproar, only Section Chief Seo said nothing.

'…Fuck….'

The document he was quietly fiddling with was the page bearing the deponent's particulars. That very boy, the one he had described before the Director-General a few days earlier as 'a friend we raised separately on our side.'

'I only put this one in on the strength of his Detection System traits, in a hurry. There won't be a problem, will there…?'

The guarantee he had given with his own mouth kept circling uneasily inside his mouth. Whether by looking away or by arrogance, one thing was certain — whichever side he stood on now, he would be standing on top of this name.

Section Chief Seo went on for a long while, folding and unfolding the corner of the paper.

***

After the meeting, one of the civil officers tidying the shorthand finished processing two attached documents.

[Entity Ledger, change registration]

[Subject: 'White Crow']

[Item: Primary habitat]

[Before: Unknown. Classified as a mobile entity.]

[After: Gapyeong, Gyeonggi, 'Our Hotel.']

[Reason: Change in most recent sighting point.]

[Follow-up measure registration]

[Subject: Investigation Division martial officer, Grade 9, Tak Jun-seo]

[Content: Re-interview.]

[Reason: Supplementation of the testimony-inconsistency matter. Schedule to be designated later.]

Only after the seal had been stamped twice was the file closed.

***

The sunlight was good.

Lee Yeon-woo lay on the laboratory bench, taking the light that fell through the window. At his ears he heard the humming of the laboratory equipment; at the tip of his nose he caught the smell of instant coffee someone had made.

Talk of an incident that had blown up in another department. Talk of a variety show that had aired last time.

Just, people's talk.

"So what do you do on weekends?"

"I read the papers I've fallen behind on."

"If you're that diligent it squeezes the rest of us, you know."

"I shall take that as praise."

At the appropriate places, laughter of exactly the same size rang through the laboratory. It came half a beat later than the mouths opened, but Lee Yeon-woo laughed along. Because that was familiar.

The wall clock read the same time as when he had looked before.

"Ah, that's right. We have to decide where to hold the staff dinner."

"That would be good too."

The desk grew longer.

As though someone were pulling it, the laboratory bench stretched soundlessly to either side, and when he blinked it had become the long desk of a tiered lecture hall. The place and the people had changed, but there was no one who wondered about it.

So Lee Yeon-woo did not wonder either.

"The menu at the festival last time was really quite good."

"Then isn't it play you want rather than a meal?"

"You always did understand me."

"We could change the venue instead."

There were faces along the long desk. Faces that had only the 'places' for eyes and nose and mouth. Those features, blurred like fog, presently grew a shade rounder.

Little by little.

"Somewhere we can eat and also play. How's that."

When Lee Yeon-woo said so, the vague face laughs.

"Shall we go to a PC room, then?"

"I don't play games."

"Bullshit, you said you did."

"Who said that?"

"Cha Do-hyeon did."

"Aha."

And the last one left over — was it, after all, a face that existed in my memory?

"Is that so?"

I don't really know.

The sunlight outside the window was by now falling exactly as it had in the laboratory.

The desks shrank. The long desk broke at its joints into short rectangles, and he noticed that his uniform sleeves were a little long. It was, unmistakably, a classroom in some high school he had seen once.

Those who surrounded him and looked at him were blurred, like an abstract painting.

"If you don't even play games, what do you do with your life?"

"……."

But Lee Yeon-woo knows their names. He thought he knew.

"Actually, I do play games."

"Which ones?"

"A horror hotel management simulator."

"You weren't playing that at this point."

"Wasn't I?"

"You played it after the entrance exams."

"You're right."

When Lee Yeon-woo nodded, the high schoolers nodded back at him. It was so smooth that Lee Yeon-woo tossed out a remark without thinking deeply.

"Actually I hate all of it."

"Oh, really?"

"Actually I love all of it."

"Lee Yeon-woo really is different, isn't he."

"Have you ever asked 'why' about everything surrounding you right now?"

I did.

"Why do you accept everything like that?"

"This bastard really is a genius. You can feel the intellect just from the way he talks."

"I don't remember things from high school well. I was busy taking Eleanor's classes."

He looked at the desk. A book that had not been there before was lying on it, thick beyond reason with sticky notes. The edges of a book read many times and underlined for study were ragged.

"I think I meant to become a doctor."

"You'd earn a hell of a lot of money."

"That's true too."

Every response was the same.

"That's how it is."

They were not answering to suit him — no one had been listening from the very beginning. Lee Yeon-woo realized it belatedly. More than twenty gazes were all turned toward him, and not one had any focus.

When he turned his eyes, he could see a frog sitting on the windowsill.

"……."

It had been under the lecture hall desk earlier too, he thought.

'Before that, it was beside the coffee cup in the laboratory.'

Each time the stage changed, that one thing alone had shifted its place and followed him without a word. Recalling it, Lee Yeon-woo turned his eyes back to the desk.

Where the book had been, a dissection tray of chilly color was lying.

"……."

The question 'why' came a beat late. Later even than the frog.

They were not uniform sleeves. This place, where only the unfocused gazes of the classroom remained, was the laboratory. On the bench lay a frog with its belly opened wide.

"…Hello."

On the bench.

There is a frog.

"We meet again."

Drip, drip-drop.

Blood fell onto it.

With his head bowed low, blood ran off the ends of his hair and the tip of his nose, wetting the frog with an irregular noise. In Lee Yeon-woo's hand was a dissection scalpel. The hand was large, the bones thick.

The frog was not dead, and did not appear to be in pain.

"How docile you are."

Lee Yeon-woo seemed to find it nothing out of the ordinary. Only, he was curious.

"What made you docile?"

Was it the pins that fixed the limbs neatly, or was the cause the drug it had been steeped in? It was too plain a thing to be guilt and too heavy to be admiration. Lee Yeon-woo simply wanted to know.

Because if he knew, it could surely be used somewhere.

"Tell me."

What everyone else knew, Lee Yeon-woo alone did not. That was hard to bear.

"So that I can take responsibility…."

"Hey, Lee Yeon-woo."

"……."

"What are you doing here."

Over the sunlight and the laughter and the smell of coffee, that voice alone had a different grain, and Lee Yeon-woo looked at the one who had opened the laboratory door and come in. A man with a kendo bag slung over his shoulder was leaning against the doorway.

He was looking this way with a face that said the world was boring.

"How long are you going to just work?"

"Who were you again."

"Cha Do-hyeon."

He said it, coming a step closer at a time.

"And someone you don't know."

"What else don't I know."

"Are you going to forget?"

It laughs.

"Like 'us'?"

Lee Yeon-woo opened his mouth to answer, and

"…Ah…."

That face was the face of a forty-five-year-old.

It had been from the start.

"……."

"Ah, that's right."

With that formless voice behind his back, Lee Yeon-woo woke from the dream.

"We have to decide where to hold the staff dinner."

***

"……."

"Hello?"

"…Hello."

"Good morning!"

"I wonder."

Waking in the bed, Lee Yeon-woo blinked his stiff eyes.

"Has the weather in this hotel ever once been good?"

Lee Yeon-woo raised a hand and looked at it.

'Not a single wrinkle.'

In the dream he had been forty-five. He knew it only after waking. As with any dream, inside it Lee Yeon-woo had been unable to feel anything out of place.

No — perhaps he had felt it, and had been too afraid to face it.

"……."

Lee Yeon-woo was not, by constitution, one who dreamed much.

The stages had changed, there had been an order, and at the end there had been one who spoke to him. He had called himself 'Cha Do-hyeon,' but Lee Yeon-woo did not feel it to be so.

'A dream dreamed naturally has no editor.'

If it was made, there would be one who sent it.

"Coco! Greeting!"

"Yes, quite so. Good morning."

"Hello?"

"Hello indeed."

The pitch-black cat, sitting curled in a ball on the blanket, asked,

"Nightmare?"

"No."

Lee Yeon-woo went on slowly.

"It was merely a dream in which nothing at all happened."

As though for someone beyond the hotel wall to hear, Lee Yeon-woo said it. Coco, watching him steadily, made a show of blinking.

"Lie."

"Dear me. Caught out."

"Hehe."

"It is a secret from the hotel."

"Coco confirms."

And then a translucent window rises in the air.

▶ [New Product Announcement!]

"Admirable Coco."

"You always were."

"Responsibility! Shop! Purchase!"

"Haha…."

Lee Yeon-woo gathered Coco into his arms.

"Let us get ready for the morning."

"Iiing?"

"There is a great deal to do."

"Sorry? Yes."

"Yes."

He did not go out of his way to open the Guide Window.

Not now.

***

Our Hotel Guest Information

― Guest Safety Guidelines ―

For the comfortable and safe rest of our guests, we provide the following guidance for your reference.

________________

1. Our hotel is large in scale, and cases are occasionally reported of guests going to another guest's room by mistake. If the number written on a door differs from the number you remember, it is not your room. Please do not enter, and inquire at the front desk; we will guide you to the correct location.

2. Our hotel does not operate floors or rooms containing the number 4. If you have seen that number on a sign or indicator light, it is a device error or a temporary display arising from facility inspection, and there is no need to go to that space.

3. Should the elevator stop at a floor you did not select, please do not disembark and remain aboard. It is a simple operating error; if you wait a moment, a staff member will come to assist you. We ask your cooperation in preventing safety accidents.

5. All staff are trained to make no noise while walking, for the peaceful rest of our guests. If you have heard footsteps in a corridor, it is not our staff but someone else; please bear this in mind.

6. As a matter of policy, our hotel does not answer inquiries concerning staff names or other personal details. This is a policy for the protection of our staff and for a comfortable environment; we ask for your broad understanding.

7. Our hotel does not operate a guest room visiting service during late-night hours. If the doorbell has rung at dawn, it is not our staff and you need not respond. When a member of your party visits, the principle is that contact is made first through the front desk; and as cases have been reported of the lens fitted in the door distorting vision at night, we do not recommend its use.

8. Should you sustain an injury, please use the first-aid kit provided in each room. Corridors and common areas are hygiene-managed zones, so we ask that first aid, including the stopping of bleeding, be performed inside your room.

9. Owing to the building's structure, the sound of tableware or the scent of coffee from another floor is sometimes conveyed through the ventilation ducts. Even should the sound and scent seem to draw gradually nearer, this is a phenomenon arising from the nature of the equipment, and we ask your understanding.

10. Our hotel's dining service proceeds by advance reservation only. If you have received a dinner invitation you did not reserve, it is an error on our part, and we ask that you decline it politely. Should the same error occur more than twice, please inform the front desk.

11. In some areas the plumbing is old and water may pool. Water pooled on the floor is slippery, so please do not step in it; submit a complaint to the front desk and we will attend to it at once. Near pooled water, plumbing noise is occasionally heard as something like speech, but it is a sound you need not mind.

12. Our hotel sits at a high elevation, and some guests experience temporary emotional changes owing to the air pressure. Should you become angry, or sad, or anxious without reason, please rest in your room. Guest rooms are fully equipped with air-conditioning systems.

13. Cases have recently been reported of persons impersonating staff to collect guests' personal information. Even should someone politely ask your name, please do not tell them, and report it to the front desk. Our staff do not ask a guest's name first.

15. At check-out, a brief satisfaction survey is conducted. There is one item, and though the wording may be somewhat unusual, it is a long-standing tradition; we ask your understanding. Charges are settled according to your answer. Furthermore, as the return of lost property is difficult after check-out, please confirm in advance that you are leaving nothing behind.

16. A black cat is resident in the lobby. It is somewhat shy, so depending on the guest you may not encounter it. It is a clever child and understands human speech, so if it greets you, you may answer.

17. Any other inconvenience may be submitted verbally, regardless of location. No voice recognition devices are installed anywhere in the hotel, guest rooms included, but the matter will be conveyed to the General Manager in real time through the nearest staff member or through each floor's security equipment.

________________

All of the above guidance is for our guests' enjoyable stay. Our hotel is open for business as usual, year-round, and we wish you a comfortable rest.

***

Lee Yeon-ho stared at it with narrowed eyes, like a man whose sight had gone long.

"……."

"Hoo."

Hearing the owl's cry, Lee Yeon-ho turned to her and pointed wordlessly at the 'safety guidelines.' The owl quietly rolled her eyes aside and avoided his gaze. The shape of it seemed to protest, 'that's the best there was.'

"Hoo-hoo-hoot."

"If you're going to imitate an owl, can't you do it properly, ghost-story owl?"

"Hooeng."

"More to the point, is this really the best?"

Lee Yeon-ho looked down at the guidelines once more and narrowed his eyes.

"Whose best?"

Whose best could possibly be this chilling.

"No — I can work this one out without being told. It'll be something the General Manager of this hotel prepared. Whether it was 'Lee Yeon-woo' or the 'General Manager,' each would have decided this thing was necessary, for different reasons."

"Hoo-eng."

"Only, was there no one beside him to advise that 'this seems a bit off'?"

"Hoo."

"Right. Of course there wasn't."

Lee Yeon-ho pressed the bridge of his nose and swallowed his weariness.

"He is young, all right…."

From what the tarot bastard had said, his traits from his human days were reflected in him. Judging by his conduct, the memories of that time were either vague or plainly forgotten.

'Otherwise nobody would put rules this obviously frightening in every guest room and call them safety guidelines. His understanding of humans is still lacking, it seems.'

Or else he had chosen this road knowing full well.

Lee Yeon-woo would sincerely have wished that no human guest who wandered in here be hurt. And the General Manager would have wished that the human guests who came here enjoy his Labyrinth.

'Either way, consideration is consideration. But the framing gives me the creeps.'

"Hooeng?"

"May I keep this?"

"Hoo."

"Thanks."

The printing was clean and there were no typos.

'But there's no number 4 here either.'

He had heard there was none on the floors or in the rooms; it was missing from the table of contents as well. In that case he would have to confirm whether there truly was no space connected to 4, or whether there was one that had been hidden because it was dangerous.

'Though in that case there may also be guidelines 4 and 14.'

Labyrinth-like as it was, it was at least consistent.

"Two errors, two mistakes, one training, three requests for understanding."

"……."

"And the word 'danger' never once appeared."

There was no sentence acknowledging anything, either.

"A model deposition, this."

Had it been a suspect's statement, he would have overturned it in five minutes. Everything was the fault of a device, of equipment, of policy. Who set that policy never appears, right to the end.

Only.

[…will be conveyed to the General Manager in real time.]

"……."

Lee Yeon-ho stared at it.

Promises existed in the other items too. Inquire and we will guide you. Wait and we will come to you. Submit a complaint and we will attend to it.

But all of them were conditional promises that held only if the guest moved first.

'The one sentence that holds without a condition is this one.'

The sentence: we are already listening.

***

Lee Yeon-ho came out into the corridor.

'Quiet.'

Walking a place like this made his own heartbeat and footsteps unusually distinct. That was so even with thick carpet laid along the corridor.

As he headed for the elevator, a 'staff member' came into view from the opposite direction. It passed by pulling a tray, and no sound came at all.

"……."

[5. If you have heard footsteps in a corridor, it is not our staff but someone else….]

"…In this case, that would be me."

Lee Yeon-ho called the staff member to a halt.

"You there."

"?"

The staff member stopped without a sound.

It had been pulling a heavy tray laden with food, yet the motion carried no inertia. Even the angle at which it turned toward him was the same as every other 'staff member's.'

Black suit, white gloves. Neatly swept-back hair. A smiling face. He held up the 'guidelines' in front of it.

"I hear the one who wrote this himself is the General Manager."

The staff member bowed its head as though to say that was correct.

"Your name."

"……."

"Your name, I said."

The staff member merely smiled.

"……."

Lee Yeon-ho looked quietly into that face for a moment.

'No particular reaction.'

He had flatly broken an instruction laid out in the 'guidelines,' and the Labyrinth had not turned aggressive. Rules with no force behind them. In that case this thing was separate from the 'hotel' itself.

Without a word he folded the guidelines into the inside pocket of his suit.

"Sorry to have kept you so long."

"?"

"No, there's nothing else I need to ask. It looks as though another guest ordered room service, so you may go on your way."

At that the staff member bowed once more and smiled.

'Number 6. This is a policy for the protection of our staff and for a comfortable environment….'

Chewing it over inwardly, Lee Yeon-ho continued toward the wall where the elevator was. The staff member seemed to be receding without a sound; its presence was scarcely to be felt.

That thing has no neok.

'What is it protecting.'

Lee Yeon-ho tried the emergency exit door beside the elevator. It did not seem to be locked, and opened obligingly, and inside it was unexpectedly bright. The floor numbers were posted large, and the handrail was at an appropriate height.

"……."

Do Labyrinths observe fire regulations these days?

'A very strange place.'

He laid a hand on the handrail.

It was a clean handrail. In a Labyrinth most things are illusion, so it is hard to make it grounds for a judgment easily, but it could also mean the place had not often been used.

Lee Yeon-ho came out of the emergency stairwell, shut the door, and stood before the elevator.

"Hooeng."

"You've come."

The white owl, back from tidying the guest room, flew over and pressed the elevator button in his stead. Before long the elevator opened its doors like a beast opening its maw.

The buttons ran in two vertical columns.

'Sure enough, no 4 this time either.'

Then the car stopped at the eighth floor. With a ding, the doors opened.

"……."

"Hooeng."

"I'm not getting off."

Number 3. Please do not disembark and remain aboard.

'Dark.'

The corridor was pitch-black throughout, as though the lighting had gone out.

He wondered whether it was the same carpet he had trodden upstairs, but the pattern was different. It ran straight into the darkness, and the elevator's small light did not reach its end.

'Dokkaebi mischief.'

Before long the doors closed.

Then presently a staff member boarded at the seventh floor, bowed soundlessly, and stood beside him. And then did nothing at all until they reached the first floor.

"……."

If you wait a moment, a staff member will come to assist you.

'It came, all right….'

What it meant to assist him with was not written in the guidelines either, so Lee Yeon-ho simply looked straight ahead. At some point the owl, which had been flapping in the air, had settled on his shoulder.

"You there."

"Hooeng."

"Is a staff member allowed to be like this?"

"Hoo."

"You do make good use of that shoddy little cry."

A truly resourceful owl, deploying it exactly where it fit.

'This one, at least, has a presence.'

Before they reached the first floor he recalled several more things.

There had been fire extinguishers in the corridors. He had passed them without much thought until now, but he remembered they were set at reasonable intervals on every floor, red-bodied, with inspection tags attached.

'That was a bit funny, the inspection tag.'

There had been evacuation maps as well. The current position was marked with a red dot and the arrows pointed neatly to where one should flee. Somewhere there had been a defibrillator.

Why it was there he did not really know. Lee Yeon-ho rolled his eyes to the side.

"……."

"Hoo-hoot."

"No, nothing."

He turned his gaze back to the front.

'Can an owl be saved with a defibrillator?'

It was a laughable thing. How many things in this enormous Labyrinth had a beating heart.

'But all of it was brand new.'

The bastard who wrote on the paper and the bastard who hung them on the wall are the same. This was not a matter of handwriting. There is a manner of hand that furnishes something diligently and never in the end learns what the thing is used for.

That was the hand.

"……."

"Thank you for the assistance."

Getting off the elevator, the lobby that met his eyes was wide and high.

A chandelier hung down from the ceiling. Its light reflected off the marble floor and wavered like water. The front desk was long and glossy, and on the key rack on the wall behind it keys hung in tiers.

Lee Yeon-ho sat down carelessly on a lobby sofa. He started to take the folded paper out again, and stopped.

"Hooeng."

"Hello?"

Something pitch-black was sitting on the armrest.

'There was no presence.'

He could not tell why nobody in this hotel was ever an easy mark.

Whether it had been there from the start and he hadn't known, or had appeared at some point and he hadn't caught it, there was no telling. It was too black and too soft in form to be a cat.

"Hello."

The hair rose along Lee Yeon-ho's spine.

'A criminal stands out.'

Lee Yeon-ho had that sort of eye. Look at a person's face and what had piled up inside them showed through, however faintly. What had to be cut and what could be left alone — Lee Yeon-ho had always lived looking at them.

That eye was screaming, now, in front of that small thing.

'Black without bottom or end.'

And yet when he took its measure, it came up empty.

'Nothing much catches.'

It was not black because it had sin. It was simply black to begin with. He had never seen such an article before.

"Hello."

"Yes. Good day to you."

"Yes."

"Yes."

The intonation was familiar from somewhere.

'I can guess well enough who it learned that from.'

"Hehe."

Having received its answer, the black thing flowed down off the armrest and vanished into the shadow. The question 'then what on earth did you come for' circled in his throat a moment, but he did not bother to set it down.

Lee Yeon-ho leaned deep into the sofa in familiar fatigue. He closed his eyes.

"……."

"Hooeng?"

"I'm just resting."

To sum up, it was this.

'Immaculate, splendid, and furnished with everything it ought to have.'

And the whole of it had been arranged by things that were not people, imitating people. The guidelines — no, the 'notice' — was one part of that too, in the end.

'I can see it was written to protect the guests.'

Only, the manner of protection was shaped like this, and why that manner had come out this shape was none of Lee Yeon-ho's concern.

Because he did not want to grow any heavier than this.

"…Haa…."

He merely sank down inside the silence.