Uh…?
At my words, my older sister’s expression instantly became serious.
I didn’t say something I shouldn’t have… right? Probably.
But I couldn’t be sure.
Five years is a long time if it is long, and short if it is short.
The military service period is shorter than the five years I spent in Irellexia, but people who have been in the military say they sometimes dream about it for the rest of their lives.
If a period shorter than five years can leave that much of an impact on people, then I, who spent five whole years on the battlefield, might have been affected in ways I’m not even aware of.
…No, saying in ways I’m not even aware of isn’t entirely accurate. I know I’ve changed.
The fact that I became a woman isn’t the issue—what’s more concerning is how I wake up every night in terror, as if struck by random seizures of fear.
Or how, even at this very moment, I have a pocket knife in my bag, and without it, I’d feel unbearably anxious.
Still, there might be other ways I’ve changed that I haven’t realized.
Thinking it’s natural to live with others…
That’s not that strange, right? Even among women, it’s common to share a place together.
I’ve heard that girl groups do it often. And the same goes for the opposite gender.
So let’s put that aside.
Then, could the problem be that I told her about how my friends and I worked together to punish a bad person?
…Oh.
Yeah, that’s a problem.
I had tried to phrase it vaguely, since I couldn’t exactly say that they were my comrades who fought the Demon King with me.
But even phrasing it vaguely like that was a huge deal in this country.
Even though it wasn’t hot, I suddenly felt a trickle of sweat run down my back.
No matter how bad a person my sister thought I had dealt with, she wouldn’t assume it was some war criminal or a terrorist trying to overthrow the government.
The worst she could imagine would be just an ordinary person living in modern society.
And…
Good and bad can be entirely subjective concepts.
From her perspective, she might think I had attacked an innocent person with my friends.
After all, if they were truly bad, I could have just reported them to the police.
Not to mention, right now, I have a pocket knife in my bag.
She doesn’t know that, but still.
“……”
H-how should I deny it?
Should I just come clean?
No, if I did that, she’d think I was insane.
I worked so hard to get to this point—I couldn’t let that distance come between us again.
In the end, unable to do anything, I remained silent in front of her, beads of sweat forming on my forehead.
I could only hope that somehow, the conversation would shift to another topic.
*
After I asked, “Really?”.
Shihyun answered, and then slowly, his face began to turn pale.
Seeing that, I couldn’t help but be taken aback.
Just a moment ago, he had been smiling, as if he was genuinely enjoying the conversation.
Sure, he had made a startled expression at my sudden question, but even then, he had still been smiling, looking like he was having fun talking with me.
But as soon as the topic of that “bad person” came up, Shihyun’s face started to drain of color.
He had still been smiling when he first mentioned catching a bad person.
…Huh.
Yeah, if he says they were bad, then they must have been truly bad.
Shihyun isn’t the type to falsely accuse an ordinary person of being a bad person.
Then why…..did he choose to punish them himself?
With someone as level-headed as Shihyun, wouldn’t the natural choice have been to report them to the police?
“……”
Suddenly, I recalled the first day I met Shihyun.
The way he had hesitated before stepping into the shop, looking around uncertainly, as if unsure of what to do.
How he had hesitated in front of the bread and coffee, as if unfamiliar with accepting kindness from others…
And most of all, how he had come all the way here, far from his home.
Wasn’t it about a 40-minute subway ride?
The bakery where I work is somewhat well-known in the area.
But if you asked whether it was famous enough that people would come from far away, I wouldn’t say so.
I have confidence in the bread I bake and the coffee I brew, but I don’t think my skills are on a national level.
So it must have been a coincidence that Shihyun found this place.
…If it takes 40 minutes by subway, how long would it take on foot? Two hours? Three?
It’s a long, tiring distance, but not impossible to walk.
I, too, have memories of walking aimlessly for hours in a daze.
Back when I had just started working at the bakery, on my days off, I used to wander the neighborhood to calm the emptiness in my chest.
One day, I stumbled upon a church, and the pastor, smiling, asked if I’d like to join their volunteer activities.
That was how I started, and I’ve been volunteering ever since.
At the very least, while I was volunteering, I could forget the hollowness inside me.
Like I told Shihyun, in those moments, I felt like I was becoming a slightly better person.
…Could it be that Shihyun had just kept walking like that?
Now that I thought about it, for him to get here from where he lived, he would have had to cross the Han River.
That long bridge why did Shihyun try to cross it?
“No!”
Before I realized it, I had shouted.
Shihyun, who had been holding a french fry, flinched in surprise and dropped it.
“A-ah, s-sorry…”
I had let my thoughts spiral out of control and ended up scaring him.
“N-no, it’s okay.”
Looking into his innocent eyes, a bad feeling started creeping up inside me again.
If a bad person had deceived Shihyun……
If they had done something bad to him…..
If, because of a lack of evidence or the passage of time, that person couldn’t be reported or punished……
Then maybe, just maybe, I could understand why Shihyun had seemed the way he did when we first met.
Of course, this was all just my imagination.
I had no way of knowing what Shihyun had actually gone through or what kind of person that “bad” person really was.
But for some reason… I couldn’t help but think this way.
*
“……”
“……”
Hmm.
This was the first time we were sitting face-to-face, drinking together, yet after exchanging just a few words, we ran out of things to say.
Right now, both my sister and I were women, but still… how should I put this?
The masculinity still lingering inside me was desperately telling me to “take the lead.”
But how?
When I asked myself that, my masculinity fell silent.
That’s right. I had no idea what to say when sitting across from a woman and drinking.
And I’d spent five whole years with four other women!
Of course, the reason nothing romantic ever developed between me and those four was because I couldn’t forget my sister. More than that, the situation itself simply didn’t allow it.
Except for the rare moments we had to rest, we were always rolling around in the dirt on the battlefield, wading through puddles. Sometimes, we were even covered in blood.
So, putting aside any romantic feelings, I never even had the chance to learn how to talk to a woman in a normal setting.
We just fought together, grew familiar with each other, and before I knew it, conversation came naturally.
At some point, we had even dropped formal speech and started talking casually.
B-but still.
Even so, in a situation like this, I had to say something!
I couldn’t let the conversation end in awkward silence.
So, I decided to just say whatever came to mind—something that could keep the conversation going.
“Do you like amusement parks?”
“Amusement parks?”
At my words, my sister looked at me with curiosity.
“Yes, amusement parks.”
“Hmm…”
She paused for a moment to think before answering.
“If I had to choose between liking or disliking them, I’d say I like them. But I haven’t been to one very often…”
“Oh, then do you like riding amusement park rides?”
“Mm, I think I used to find them a little scary when I was younger.”
“Ah, I used to think they were scary too when I was a kid, but when I rode them again recently, they were surprisingly fun. I couldn’t even understand why I used to be so scared—”
“Recently?”
My sister cut me off mid-sentence.
When I looked at her, she was staring at me with wide eyes.
“Ah, um, well… on my last day off, I went to an amusement park with my friends…”
“You mean the friends you live with?”
Her voice was soft.
But strangely, that softness didn’t just feel soft.
How should I describe it?
It reminded me of how I felt when talking to Kalia’s family.
A gentle sharpness.
Like a question laced with an underlying intention, wrapped in a soft tone—
Almost like a blade hidden beneath a blanket.
…No, I must be imagining things.
Why would my sister have any reason to speak to me in that kind of tone?
“Ah, yeah, with the people I live with…”
“Hmm…”
She responded with a small hum through her nose and then murmured,
“I see.”
Uh…
Maybe I wasn’t imagining it?