Chương 22: S.04 Memory of the Clock 05(01)

Scene 01_01. MEMORY She had meant to walk. The footsteps of a woman lightly clad in work-attire, a business suit, felt heavier than usual on the way home today. An evening placed at the threshold of entering into summer was casting a fairly lengthened sunlight. The faltering stride laid bare the day wearied to the bone. Children playing came into view.

After letting the sight of their giddy little figures pass by like a brush, she spilled onto the ground a smile that had risen at the corner of her mouth without her knowing. With that same walking stride, she took an incoming call. Ji-young: Yeah. Mom. Have you eaten? Ji-young: I ditched the work dinner, I'm heading home now. Going to eat when I get in. How about you, Mom? Your mom, well, it's Friday evening, I'm on my way up. Ji-young: You'll get here before long, then? Right. How about So-hui?

Did she go to school? Ji-young: She's in her graduating year, she's probably busy, isn't she? Getting ready for her graduation exhibition. Should we stop by together later? Sure. I'll give her a call, and if she says she hasn't eaten, let's go to So-hui and eat together. Ji-young: Okay. Come up safely. I'll call So-hui first. Mom'll do it. Go and get some rest. Ji-young: I'm not tired today. What's so hard about making a phone call. You just come up safely.

Ji-young, as though speaking to herself, hung up the long, drawn-out call. A bleak feeling came over her. It felt as though she had, for a moment, forgotten what she ought to be recalling. Without even putting the phone into her pocket, she halted right where she stood, and turned to look behind her. Scene 01_02. MEMORY The road she had walked was dyed black. The road she had walked, dropping a black curtain, was turning into the floor of a high-end hotel.

With a dazed expression, not even startled, she watched in a vague way as the road changed before her. On the phone held in her hand, a call came in. Si-yeon: What. Heavy makeup. Beyond the phone through which Si-yeon had tossed back a blunt reply, a flood of curses came across. Si-yeon: Ah, SSibal. Already with the killing-the-mood bullshit from the start. Where are you!! Si-yeon: I'm here. I'm in front of your office. What, SSibal, what are you gonna do about it. Going underwater yesterday without a word!!

Are you fucking kidding me!? Si-yeon: If you're that pissed off, take it out of my pay. Take it and give me the rest. What, you said nobody even showed up yesterday — how much are you gonna shave off, with you leading off with the cursing? Crazy bitch. Is that any way to speak to your boss!! Am I your friend?! Si-yeon: You're my enemy. The SSibal bitch who made me like this. I wanted to be happy too, and I could have been happy, and you — you bitch — took it all away. You SSibal bitch!! I was happy!!

The ahjusshi made me happy!! The ahjusshi was the first one to treat me like a human!! You took all of that away!! You killed him!! Just to fucking have me!! Do you even know what kind of person he was to me!?! You SSibal bitch!!! Behind Si-yeon's wailing shriek, the phone delivered a stillness. Powerlessly, she lowered the phone that had never rung. Si-yeon sank to her knees, limp. She thought there was nothing she could do. She looked down slowly at her own body.

At the cold wetness felt at her stomach, she brought her empty hand up, and carefully stroked the surface of her clothing. A damp wetness came away on her hand. Not blood, but black water was flowing out from Si-yeon's stomach. Balling her fist, she let her body sink the rest of the way down as though toppling it. Si-yeon, barely supporting the collapsed body with her arms, bowed her head and muttered as though sobbing.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Si-yeon: Ji-young sis. Please. Snap out of it. Scene 01_03. MEMORY With effort she rearranged the body she had sunk down into. Curling her body into a ball, she was straining to soothe the sorry-looking self left alone. As the light shut off all at once around that wretched posture, Ji-young, left alone, curled her body deeper still.

All Ji-young could do was the self-vow and the self-conditioning of telling herself it was fine. Water poured endlessly from the shower in the bathroom where she crouched. From outside the bathroom door, a familiar voice came through. A voice carrying a different longing. The small back of a child who had shielded her and watched over her could be felt beyond the firmly closed door. Ji-young, are you all right? Ji-young: Yeah, I'm, I'm all right. Mm.... I was worried. If, if you're all right, can you come out?

Ji-young: Just a bit — can I stay in just a bit longer? I. The truth is. I don't think I am all right. Let me settle down just a bit, and I'll come out. The voice that had come up to the door sounded a little closer. At the nearing presence, Ji-young delivered a slightly hurried voice. Ji-young: Just don't open it. Please. Just go, just go out first and face me out there. Right now. I can't hold it. It keeps coming up. Mm. I'll wait. I can wait. You believed in me, after all. I believe in you too.

Tears would not stop from Ji-young's eyes. With a sniffling hush about her, she was feeling the soft voice that came from the other side. How much Mom cherishes us — you, better than anyone, would know that best. That is why you must be having the hardest time. I could not have held up. Not being able to show it in front of anyone, that would be the hardest thing. Having to carry it alone, that would be the hardest thing. The voice changed. It was the voice that had come through the phone. My daughter.

Mom has always been sorry, as though I shoved a burden onto you. When you smiled and took my hand, saying you were all right, you can't imagine how sorry Mom was. When you weren't all right at all. When you found out that you had been saddled with that heavy burden, when you found out that you had to bear a parting and a weight drawing nearer with every tick of the clock, my eldest, my Ji-young, always smiled first and comforted Mom — Mom knows that well.

Saying: the one who dies is the one wronged, what could the one left living have to be wronged about. The presence, now shifted to the first voice. To Ji-young, seated in the bathroom, it delivered a calm encouragement. Right now I am facing you from within the Chronostump. You have to help me. You, you can help me. I want to protect you. Give me the chance to protect. I hope you will no longer be in pain, so I hope we can do this together. I hope we can share. The pain, the happiness, the sorrow.

The joy, the anger. Scene 01_04. MEMORY At the voice that followed, Si-yeon lifted her head, if only a little. The voice changed again. It was a familiar voice, one straining to lift away the lump that had settled deep inside Si-yeon. Are you going to let me die like this? I really might die soon. I'm sorry for throwing a fit and begging for help, but I want to be with you. To end it like this, unable to say a word to you, it's too wrong. I — I have so much left that I want to do for you.

They said that a person meeting another person — that isn't a light thing. Of course there are cases that just brush by. There are surely people you see only once and never again, but that's not what this is — you know that well. You, and I. So I'm coming in. I — I'll help you. The closed bathroom door slowly opened. No sound could be heard any more.

The sound of water being drawn into the tub, the sound of her own tears sniffling through, the agitated throb that had pushed up from the anger buried deep in her chest, the fading heartbeat that had been giving way — none of it was felt, nor heard. From the opened door, a deep darkness and a deep death swelled. And from within that water, deep enough that not an inch ahead could be seen, a hand identical in shape to her own rose slowly, rising against the current.

When she took the hand that had crossed over, the white, long hand she had taken for her own had, without her knowing, changed into the soft hand of a child. Si-a: Sis. Let's go. Scene 02. Si-yeon and Ji-young were being cut to ribbons by the death that had risen from below. Ji-young, who had lost consciousness, could not even close her eyes, and was only flinching at the endless carving. Si-yeon opened the eyes she had closed first. Along her eyeballs a Black Water path settled.

Si-yeon swung the hands that had been bound by 금줄(Geumjul_Ritual Taboo Rope to suppress power) as if tearing them free. The sound of flesh being ripped was heard, but under the arm she had lifted without warning, hands in perfectly whole form sat there. She gripped with one hand the neck of the black shadow that had been stabbing her, and lightly lifted it. Si-yeon offered a sneering smile, then twisted her hand and shattered the trace of the shadow to pieces.

Before the shattering shadow lost form, Si-yeon hurled with all her might the shadow gripped in her hand, and pushed away in a single stroke all the shadows set before her along with the shadow that had been cutting Ji-young to ribbons. Another shadow, risen from the Black Water filling the floor, tried to climb up Ji-young's leg. She caught the rising other shadow, flung it down to the floor, and then stomped on it with all her strength.

Black-eyed Si-yeon, having stripped every Ritual Taboo Rope and restraint from Ji-young, laid down the Ji-young who would not come back to consciousness onto the floor. After confirming that the torrent of blood from Ji-young soon stopped and that every wound had vanished, only then was she able to lay Ji-young down fully onto the floor. The Envoy slowly rose from her spot. Scene 03. Ju-hee: Now. So where is she. Kang Ji-young. Jeong-hyeon: She walked right up on her own.

Opening the front door and stepping inside, Jeong-hyeon, in an indifferent voice, delivered the answer in So-hui's stead to Ju-hee's question. Ju-hee tossed down the handful of So-hui's hair, straightened up belatedly, and then glared at the Jeong-hyeon who had come in. Ju-hee hurled a sneer edged with madness at Jeong-hyeon. Ju-hee: Became a bitch who died before a day was out, didn't you? Jeong-hyeon: Listen to her. What an idiot bitch. Jeong-hyeon faced Ju-hee with an expression that treated it as nothing.

Jeong-hyeon, as if she had no interest at all even in Ju-hee's jabbing, glanced down at So-hui, who had been trembling as she endured the pain. Ju-hee: Anyway, so then, we don't have to look any further, right? Kang Ji-young. Thank goodness. Now that she's come to stay in one place. All we have to do is wipe them all out, and it's done?

Jeong-hyeon, who had been watching So-hui in silence with an unsettled feeling, took hold of a handful of So-hui's hair — So-hui's head still bowed, refusing to meet her eyes — and lifted it. Jeong-hyeon: I'll ask you something. So-hui had her back teeth clenched together with such force that blood was bursting from her mouth. Jeong-hyeon, gripping the handful of So-hui's hair — So-hui holding such strength her body had gone stiff — pressed So-hui again. Jeong-hyeon: Why did you, make Kang Ji-young, come here?

Hearing Jeong-hyeon's question, Ju-hee belatedly drew a startled look over her eyes. So-hui, with a field of vision where nothing could be seen, unable even to fix her focus, moved her lower jaw just barely. So-hui began to laugh. So-hui: When you ask, where, she is. Anytime. The front door, which had not been locked, shattered to pieces. Into the living room, a length of 삼베(Sambae_Hemp cloth) came flying like a shot arrow.