Chapter 231

It was just as he had come down from the Operator's Quarters and reached the first-floor front desk.

"Trilly-trill."

"You have come."

Lee Yeon-woo stopped adjusting his tie and put out a hand. A small white bird slid down as naturally as gliding and alighted on his finger.

"A white sparrow today, Greta."

"You seem to find the shape of a small bird a little more endearing."

"There is something to that, I admit."

"Cheep."

"Dear me."

Lee Yeon-woo kissed it lightly.

"Does that suffice as an answer?"

"Trilly."

"There is a limit, I see."

The white sparrow was the most intact of the forms the 'Lover of Dawn' held as her hands and feet. It was very small and frail. Its structure not being suited to imitating 'human speech,' a single sentence appeared to be the limit.

"Well done."

At that the connection cut off. The small bird gave a few more clear cries and flew off somewhere. As Lee Yeon-woo felt it, it was probably returning to the 'Lover of Dawn' up in the Rooftop Garden.

"……."

"Hello?"

"Yes, it says all is well."

The village was safe.

"They ate, and there are sprouts in the fields. Grown a knuckle's length, was it."

With those few words, Lee Yeon-woo had confirmed the village's situation.

The staff of this hotel each conveyed speech in their own way. In the 'Lover of Dawn's' case, the trilling cries were only a marker that she was 'speaking now,' and corresponded neither to the length nor the tone of the content.

'The village is well too, so first the documents for approval….'

"Excuse me, but."

"Does no one here intend to make their presence heard?"

"Regrettably, it has been a long time since I ceased to be a person, so it would be difficult."

"I believe I told you not to talk that way."

Turning over another approval document, Lee Yeon-woo looked at the Executive Chef, who had come down to the lobby at some point. 'The Guest Without Taste' wore an Eastern face resembling Lee Yeon-woo's own.

He laid a list of foodstuffs on the desk.

"Here. I have put a list together."

"At last it begins to look like a hotel. Well done."

"And another thing."

The old vampire tilted his head.

"The mountain has been busy of late."

"You mean the 'Fox Den,' I take it?"

"Yes. I have had word from my disciples. People come and go often."

"People?"

Running his eye down the list of foodstuffs, Lee Yeon-woo asked,

"I take it I cannot simply ask straight away where, what sort, and how many?"

"If you wish it, I can hand down instructions to a few of the disciples who woke at the noise."

"I would ask a favor of you, then."

"At such times, say 'command.'"

He laughed thinly.

"Does a command not sometimes become a dependable ally? I know well enough in what spirit you used the word 'favor,' but there are children who grow confused when they are not held wholly in the hand of the one who governs them."

The vampire tapped the empty signature line with a fingertip.

"Then this, too — I would ask for your approval."

"Sometimes I get the feeling you want to make me into something."

"Dear me. Might that not be your imagination?"

"I should like it to be."

Lee Yeon-woo signed the list of foodstuffs.

"That part we shall discuss separately another time."

"Oh, if you would do that, there could be no greater honor for this one."

"If you find people, do not make contact. Contact me first."

"Not a difficult thing. Yes, I shall do so."

"The people who came by yesterday…."

Lee Yeon-woo let the words trail.

"……."

What they had been wearing was unmistakably Sensitivity Bureau uniform.

'The feel of them was that too.'

The Sensitivity Bureau people who had come yesterday had already been seen off gently. As Lee Yeon-woo felt it, the 'Fox Den' had flattened itself before him, and that meant the mountain's safety rating had gone up.

So people coming and going now was, well.

'Perhaps one ought to call it a good thing.'

Lee Yeon-woo wanted to be satisfied with the mere fact that they had not been Offered.

"The ingredients are approved."

"Oh, thank you."

"Only, since the buffet and the storeroom are linked, adjusting that code will take a little time."

"It is not urgent, so it makes no difference."

"From next time it would be well to tell me verbally in advance which ingredients you intend to use."

"I shall do that."

When the conversation ended, 'the Guest Without Taste' smiled and departed.

"Do take care of yourself."

"……."

With that ominous, prophecy-like remark, the lobby fell quiet again.

"Hooeng."

"Aha."

It had not fallen quiet.

"Ms. Seome."

"Hoo-hoo-hoot."

"Yes, the village is well, they say."

"Hoo."

It was Seome, who had already come down to the lobby.

"I believe I asked you to look after Prosecutor Lee Yeon-ho."

"Hooeng."

Following the owl's sidelong glance, Lee Yeon-woo found a guest sunk into a lobby sofa. He was buried deep in it with his eyes closed.

He looked as though he might be asleep, and as though he might not.

"……."

It suddenly brought to mind the Lee Yeon-ho of his underage days, who, whenever Lee Yeon-woo made to turn off the television for a man sprawled on the sofa, would murmur low, 'I'm not asleep yet.'

'High probability he isn't asleep now either.'

He had deliberately shut off his senses where Lee Yeon-ho was concerned, so he had not known the man was here. Still, of what had just been discussed, there was nothing Lee Yeon-ho could not be allowed to hear.

Lee Yeon-woo said with a smile,

"Do not wake him."

"Hoo."

"Is a guest's rest not also part of the business?"

"Hoo-hoot."

Seome indicated her understanding by refolding her wings. Then she settled herself outright at the end of the desk. It was a spot from which the sofa and the desk were both in view.

'A truly diligent person.'

It was as Lee Yeon-woo's gaze returned to the approval documents and he turned two or three pages.

"……."

His stomach turned.

'Ah.'

Dear me.

'That man, really.'

If he had known it would come to this, a word of warning, or even a hint, might have been in order. Recalling 'the Guest Without Taste,' who had merely smiled and left, Lee Yeon-woo narrowed his brow.

"…Ahem."

"Hooeng?"

"Hk— ugh."

The first was a throat-clearing; the second ran longer than the first.

"Ugh…."

At the third, Lee Yeon-woo set down his pen and covered his mouth with the back of his hand. His brow creased, physiologically and past helping. It was the usual penalty and glitch, but it still turned his stomach in a purely physical way.

'I did rest not long ago, admittedly.'

Penalties and glitches came independently of the body's existing condition, so there was no help for it.

'I really must set aside a day sometime and work out some way to reduce the penalties….'

"Hoo?!"

"Kh, hkk…! Kaah!"

"Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoot!"

'Come to think of it, has this person hardly ever seen me like this.'

Seome sprang into the air.

"Ahem. I am… I am all right."

"Hooeng…!"

"I am all r— kh!!"

"Hoo-hoo-hoot!!"

By the time the bout of penalty was over, a palmful of bloody water had pooled in his hand. It was the moment the white gloves he had worn down from the Operator's Quarters received their death sentence.

'Well — I can always absorb it back.'

The concentration of the blood was far lower than before the body-improvement work, but a wet hand was unpleasant in itself. Peeling off the sodden glove, Lee Yeon-woo said,

"My apologies."

"Hooeng."

"I know it carries no credibility, but I truly am all right. It is not as though my heart burst, as you saw directly last time; it is simply the usual…."

"……."

"……."

Seome fixed him with a steady stare.

"Hm."

Having said it aloud, he had to admit it was in fact worth worrying about.

"Hooeng."

"So we did."

The promise that she would tell him when something was strange — Seome was keeping it with her whole body at this moment. It was not a request he had made with this sort of situation in mind.

'That penalties and glitches reduce the internal organs to pulp which then comes out as bloody water is, in a certain sense, far more grotesque than a burst heart. This person's objection is valid.'

Let us reflect on it.

There had been a great many things keeping him distracted of late, so his objectivity had slipped. Lee Yeon-woo tried to say something further, but the second bout came before that.

"Ah…."

This one was worse than the last.

'I do not think No. 14 will be able to hold this one back.'

At some point the staff resident in the lobby had begun to approach, carrying things with which to clean up.

His fingertips, gripping the edge of the desk, went white. He was a little dizzy, so he kept his mouth firmly covered and looked only at the desk. There was another 'guest' in the lobby, and he did not want to make a scene.

But.

"……."

Lee Yeon-ho's closed eyes opened.

"……."

"Haa…."

He rose from the sofa.

Not running, at a pace neither quick nor slow, Lee Yeon-ho came around behind the desk. He waved off the staff crowding toward it and approached Lee Yeon-woo.

"You're, unexpectedly…."

"……."

"Rather high maintenance."

Good heavens.

'You, of all people, saying that to me?'

Nothing could have been more unjust.

He could not bring himself to take his hand from his mouth, since the moment he did the bloody water would pour out. And unable to rebut Lee Yeon-ho either, Lee Yeon-woo, with a rare grimace, looked away.

'I ought to have removed myself.'

About then it occurred to him that there might well have been time enough to remove himself, but—

"Lee Yeon-woo."

—with the hand that reached for his back, even that judgment soon blurred like fog.

"Just spit it out."

"……."

"If spitting it out isn't going to cause some disaster this instant, spit it out. I don't know whether you're the sort to stand on your pride like this normally, but once you're that far gone even you know it isn't a thing that swallowing will fix…."

And then he patted his back.

It was not a hand that stroked downward. From above to below, at even intervals, that hand was one that made you bring up what was left to bring up. A hand that knew the order.

'That decisive.'

Because it was not worry. It was only following a procedure.

'Would it be right to push him away.'

Quite apart from being glad the man had stayed, he had wanted Lee Yeon-ho not to put down deep roots in this hotel. And yet even while he thought so, Lee Yeon-woo went on quietly receiving that businesslike patting.

The feeling of his breath catching came over him.

"……."

His stomach heaved hard, and in the end he brought the bloody water up.

***

"Cough, ahem."

The coughing subsided.

"Haa…."

Only then did it feel as though he could breathe a little.

A damp towel came over, and Lee Yeon-woo took it and wiped his mouth. Before the towel stained with his blood had even left his hand, a staff member had moved into the space Lee Yeon-ho stepped back from and collected it soundlessly.

Beginning with that one, the staff Lee Yeon-ho had pushed aside returned.

"Quite a lot of them."

"Do not be sarcastic."

Surrounding Lee Yeon-woo without a presence, the staff carefully straightened his disordered collar. They wiped what stains they could from his sleeve and dressed him in a fresh outer coat. New gloves went on as well.

At the hands smoothing his disordered hair back, Lee Yeon-woo hesitated and then said,

"That is enough. You may stop…."

The staff did not listen with so much as the backs of their ears.

"……."

Lee Yeon-woo simply chose the road of taking it quickly and having done.

'…And with that man watching, of all times.'

Ordinarily he would simply have received it gratefully, but just now it made him uneasy.

Lee Yeon-woo's feelings toward Lee Yeon-ho did not sort themselves out cleanly. That had been so in the past as well, not only now. Lee Yeon-woo had become as much an adult as Lee Yeon-ho, and still there was much about him he did not understand.

Even so, because that was the father who had chosen him, there were times Lee Yeon-woo grew small before him.

"Looking away again."

"I do not know what you mean."

"The one who does nothing but smile at every other bastard doesn't smile especially when he looks at me."

"You are not the sort to provide occasion for smiling, Mr. Lee Yeon-ho."

"You know well enough there's no need to read my face."

Only after every last strand of Lee Yeon-woo's hair had been set in order did the staff withdraw as soundlessly as they had come. Having watched it through to the end, Lee Yeon-ho asked,

"Am I uncomfortable for you?"

"……."

"Because I chose you for a grave?"

From Lee Yeon-ho's position there had evidently been no other reason.

'No.'

From Lee Yeon-woo's position it was not for that reason alone. Simply — from the very beginning, the price this man would pay for staying here had all been made by Lee Yeon-woo.

That was uncomfortable past bearing….

"Those 'staff' just now. That wasn't a face that worries about you."

"They cannot change their faces at will."

"Not a face worried that its master is unwell. It was compulsion. That it has to be fixed."

"Then why ask my opinion at all."

"To those smiling faces, your 'coughing' just now was not pain but a stain. That's how it looked to me — and you couldn't easily shake them off either."

Lee Yeon-ho murmured in a flat tone.

"Is it because they're bound, or because they want to be like that."

"I do not know either."

"Not a thing for a perfect General Manager to say."

"I do not know everything."

Before this man, a smile does not form easily.

"I have merely been entrusted with this hotel's operating rights."

"……."

The gaze that had been rolling as though taking a measure stops in midair.

"Is it often like this?"

"Sometimes. Not often."

"I heard you starting to tell that owl it was 'the usual.'"

Having apparently finished his arithmetic, Lee Yeon-ho looked back at Lee Yeon-woo.

"Does this count as one, too?"

It was a voice weighing nothing but responsibility and position.

"……."

With the hand that had been patting his back a moment ago, this man was now discussing Lee Yeon-woo's death.

The transition had not so much as a seam. Of course — to this man both had been the same work from the start. Examining what is dangerous, and cutting what is dangerous.

'It is hardly news.'

So it hurt as though it were news.

"…This is awkward."

And, strangely, it was so dependable.

'It makes me want to hide everything for the rest of my life.'

—this man was, even now, increasing his debt without knowing it.

With his own hand he pats the back of the one he made his son, and discusses that one's death. On the day he arrives at the truth, this debt will all become Lee Yeon-ho's.

"Awkward?"

"No, nothing."

The walls of this hotel listen. What hears how much, and carries it where, not even Lee Yeon-woo entirely knows. So the word 'Father' must never become sound inside this building.

'I should have sent him out from the start.'

And he had not.

'My greed, and my sin.'

The self-reproach that he simply liked having him stay where he could be seen, and the relief that keeping him near meant he could at least protect him with his own hands, always sat in the same place.

"It was only that Prosecutor Lee Yeon-ho's remark struck me as funny."

"It hasn't been many minutes since I said I'm not the sort to provide occasion for smiling."

"That thought stands, but this one was rather witty."

The nagging voice telling him not to regard himself as too dangerous a substance seemed to be sounding from somewhere, but Lee Yeon-woo pushed that voice off to one side.

"Is there not consideration and exclusion both inside the same sentence?"

"That was our agreement. When you reach your limit, I cut your head off. I agreed to be the executioner."

"It would be odd to call something that happens commonly enough a limit."

"I don't know why you'd put it that way, but when a blood mage is coughing up blood, I take it for a limit."

Looking at what he wished to understand, Lee Yeon-ho asked on,

"If the head comes off, restoring that body would at least be easier. Is the stubbornness because the 'General Manager' is a dangerous being? One that isn't properly controlled?"

"That, too,"

Lee Yeon-woo looked at Lee Yeon-ho.

"That is me as well."

"Is it."

"……."

Adjusting his glasses, Lee Yeon-woo went on.

"To put it in conclusion, striking off the head does not apply in a case such as this one."

"We'll need a sitting to make the conditions clear. Specifically when, how, and whose head is to be cut."

"If a sitting is required, then one must be arranged."

"That would be easier for us both, wouldn't it."

Lee Yeon-ho tidied the matter away as he pleased.

"Whether I strike only when it's become dangerous, or whether it's to be done only when it's the 'General Manager'…."

He was not, to begin with, a personage with energy to spare for driving others. He had simply wanted to make clear where his own role began and ended.

Which made it laughable one more time.

"……."

This man's blade would never actually be used.

'There is no eternal secret in this world.'

If you hide a secret that will wound once it is known, it only hurts the more for the hiding.

Striking off a head, once done, stays inside the person. It was what he had said with his own mouth, and he thought the same now. He had never had any intention of leaving such a thing inside this man.

'Because you would certainly try to take responsibility for all of it.'

Lee Yeon-woo hated that. Even if the 'responsibility' had already been settled from the day Lee Yeon-ho cut off his head, simply….

"I do not know what to say to you."

"There's no need to answer."

"Why is that?"

"Because I can tell you don't like it."

Lee Yeon-woo did not bother to ask 'what.' Lee Yeon-ho himself probably did not know exactly what he had put his finger on. Only, he was a man who saw such things well.

Vague, and yet central.

'Anything beyond that is too heavy to see or hear.'

Toward the receding back Lee Yeon-woo opened his mouth without meaning to.

"……."

And closed it again.

His gaze returned to the approval documents. Lee Yeon-woo turned two or three pages and then noticed that his fingertips were tapping the desk. He closed his hand lightly into a fist.

"Ha…."

And a little later, Lee Yeon-woo left his place.

***

Lee Yeon-ho buried himself in the sofa again.

The white owl flew after him, settled on the sofa's back, and looked between the desk and this side. When Lee Yeon-ho rolled his eyes over, the young Dokkaebi was no longer in that spot.

'A bird with a lot of worries.'

Still, Lee Yeon-ho could understand 'Lee Yeon-woo's' role in this Labyrinth.

'A brake, or a sealing device….'

The 'bastards who go mad and turn criminal' that Lee Yeon-ho had come to know were mostly idle much of the time. If a man were busy enough to have no leisure to go mad, he wouldn't — and with that, he closed off the thought.

If a dangerous thing was tired, that was not bad news.

"……."

Lee Yeon-ho closed his eyes again.

***

Somewhere in the dim belly of the Fox Den.

"……."

Three young men were resting, leaning against trees or rocks, facing one another.

'At night, don't show a light. Show one and you're invited….'

Chewing over a phrase wrung out of the Pathfinders' ribs at some point, a head of hair from which the bleach was nearly gone folded his arms and looked at the center of them. That it was exactly the spot for a campfire was a pity.

Talismans were pasted on the nearby rocks and trees.

"Those things work better than you'd think. Right?"

"They wear out the more you talk. Shut it."

"Yep…."

They were genuine talismans, stolen from the landowner's storehouse.

'Objects that erase the sound of speech so the fox can't overhear it, was it.'

Thanks to them they could talk, provided they kept their breathing down.

Beside those, three or four copies traced out in ballpoint as closely as they could manage were pasted up as well. Few of the genuine articles remained now, so it was a choice they had to make, uneasy as it was.

The bleached head was sitting nearest the entrance.

"Boss, it really would be better if you moved to the inside…."

"I said shut it."

"Yep…."

Passing over the sulking one, another took the second-to-last chocolate bar out of the backpack.

"A bite each."

"Fuck, this'll be gone soon too."

One bite each, fairly divided among the three. That was all that remained of what they had brought from the district. They should have found a hole to get out through before it ran dry, and they had failed.

What that meant, all three knew far too well.

"…Ha…."

In the darkness there was the savory smell of cooked rice.

The landowner's talismans erase the sound of speech. They did not erase smell, and so they did not block this side from smelling it either. There was a torment that came of that.

Through a gap in the rocks, in a clearing, a table was laid.

"……."

Three steaming bowls, four sets of spoons and chopsticks.

'Damned Fox Den.'

The 'thing standing beside the table,' which appeared to be the owner of the one remaining set, bowed deeply toward them. Wearing a soft, kindly smile, as though bidding them come.

It was a wraith whose face and the back of whose head were bent the wrong way around.

'…The lower it bows….'

The smile faced this way.