Episode 2: Guardianship

Seong opened his eyes at 11:47 a.m.

His head was heavy. Last night, something

— something enormous — seemed to have happened,

but with a head barely awake, he couldn't tell whether it had been a dream.

At 3 a.m. he'd reached to `rm -rf` the freelance code —

right, that much had definitely happened.

What had happened after that?

Seong looked up at the ceiling.

Beside the ceiling, a person was floating.

— No, not floating.

It was just that a man tall enough for his head to nearly touch the ceiling was standing beside the desk.

In armor. Wrapped in a cloak. A sword at his side.

“…You're awake.”

“…Yes.”

“Why is your sleeping place so small?”

“…Because it's a one-room.”

“One.”

“Room.”

“One, room.”

“Yes.”

Lee Eon nodded once. His nod was exactly the one Seong had seen at dawn. Small, one at a time. The nod of a man from a thousand years ago.

It wasn't a dream.

Seong got up from the bed. His knees gave a little as he rose, so he sat on the edge of the bed for a moment. He cupped his head in both hands, then let go. He cupped it once more, then let go again.

“…Ah.”

“What is the matter?”

“…So it isn't a dream.”

“It is not a dream.”

“…Right.”

Seong stood and went to the bathroom. He stood in front of the mirror. In the mirror there was only his own face. The face of someone who hadn't slept the night before. The dark circles were so deep he looked like a man who hadn't slept in a week.

Lee Eon stood at the bathroom doorway, watching.

In the mirror, Lee Eon still wasn't there.

“…General.”

“Yes.”

“…You really are here.”

“I am really here.”

“…Right.”

Seong washed his face. Twice with cold water. Three times. Four. On the fifth, he looked in the mirror again. His own face was still there, and Lee Eon still wasn't. If five washes didn't make it disappear, then it was settled.

Settled.

Seong came out of the bathroom. As he did, he let out one long sigh.

“…I need coffee first.”

“Cof. Fee.”

“Yes.”

“What is that?”

“…Later.”

He ground the beans.

A hand mill. To be precise, the hand mill a friend had bought him for his birthday last year. The friend had said, “You work till dawn, so at least drink decent coffee,” and Seong had replied, “Man, I just drink instant,” but since he'd been given it, he did grind beans now and then. About once a week.

Today was the first time in a week.

Crrk, crrk, crrk.

While Seong turned the hand mill, Lee Eon watched for a long while. Up close. Too close. With an armored man leaning in right beside his face to peer at it, Seong felt a little uncomfortable.

“…What are you staring at?”

“What are you doing?”

“…Coffee. I'm grinding beans.”

“Beans.”

“Yes.”

“And having ground the beans, what do you do?”

“…I drink it.”

Lee Eon's brow furrowed.

He seemed unable to grasp the act of grinding beans and drinking something.

How had people eaten beans a thousand years ago?

Seong felt a brief urge to look it up, but his hands were tied to the mill.

“Are beans not steamed and eaten?”

“…These days we eat them ground, too.”

“Hm.”

Lee Eon took a step back.

Having stepped back, this time he surveyed the whole kitchen.

It was a single-burner induction plate and a small sink — too embarrassing to even call a kitchen.

On top of it sat a capsule coffee machine — oh, right, there was a capsule coffee machine.

The friend had bought it together with the hand mill.

He'd never once used it.

Lee Eon stopped suddenly.

“…You.”

“Yes?”

“What is that?”

What Lee Eon pointed at wasn't the capsule coffee machine. It was the thing beside it. Beside it was — a vacuum cleaner. A cordless vacuum. A budget model he'd bought last year. It stood leaning against the wall, plugged into its charger.

“…A vacuum cleaner.”

“Vac. Uum. Cleaner.”

“Yes.”

“What sort of thing is it?”

“…It sucks up dust.”

Lee Eon slowly approached the vacuum. He went up to it and studied it for a long while. From above. From the side. At the handle. At the nozzle. It was the posture of a man appraising a sword. Anyone could see it was the posture of appraising a sword.

Watching him, the corner of Seong's mouth lifted a little. He tried to pull it back down, but it wouldn't go.

Lee Eon brought his face close to the vacuum's nozzle. Then — with a grave expression — he turned to Seong.

“This beast.”

“…It's not a beast.”

“What does this beast eat?”

“…Dust.”

“Dust.”

“Yes.”

“How much does it eat in a day?”

“…Not much. About once a week?”

Lee Eon nodded solemnly.

“…A beast that does not overeat.”

In the end, Seong laughed. With a face he'd washed five times since dawn, a man who had nearly torched two months' worth of freelance work the night before laughed in the middle of explaining to a thousand-year-old general that a vacuum cleaner was not a beast.

Laughing, he felt a little more alive.

The hand mill's handle went light. The beans were all ground.

He brewed the coffee and set the mug down on the table — there was no separate table, so on a corner of the desk — and sat. He opened the laptop. The commit he'd pushed yesterday was right where he'd left it. Alive and well.

Lee Eon stood beside the desk. Upright. At attention.

“Have a seat.”

“A soldier does not sit lightly.”

“…It's just that there's only one chair in the living room.”

“A soldier stands even without a chair.”

“…Right.”

Seong didn't press it. A 32nd-generation descendant in an eight-pyeong studio — not even twenty-two pyeong — was in no position to say anything to a thousand-year-old general who insisted on standing at attention.

He took a sip of coffee. With something warm inside him, he felt a little more alive.

“What are you going to do today?”

“What I do depends on what you do.”

“…What?”

“I have come to dwell in you. Where you go, I go.”

“…Oh.”

“When you stray far, I grow faint.”

Seong set the mug down.

“…How far?”

“What was that?”

“How far do I have to go before you grow faint?”

Lee Eon thought for a moment.

“…I do not know. I have not yet tested it.”

“…Oh.”

“There will be occasion to test it.”

Lee Eon said this and returned to standing at attention. Seong looked at the laptop screen. There were 17 emails. There were 4 mentions in Slack. There were 2 Instagram DMs — one of them was surely an ad. There were 24 KakaoTalk notifications, 22 of which were from a real-estate group chat.

Seong sighed.

“…I should get to work.”

“What will you do?”

“…With that demon sword from yesterday.”

“A demon sword.”

“Yes.”

“You will not cut with it?”

“No. I won't cut with it. I'll build with it.”

“…Build.”

“Yes.”

Lee Eon nodded once more. In that nod — though perhaps it was Seong's imagination — there was a trace of curiosity.

Seong worked.

For Seong, working —

to be precise — meant sitting in front of the laptop, turning on the demon sword (Claude), and going back over the part he'd botched yesterday.

The part he'd come within a hair of `rm -rf`-ing at dawn.

The part where the client's fifth change request had come in.

It was a CRM system. A sales-management system for some small company in Gyeonggi Province. At first it was simple. Store customer information, show the sales stage, display the revenue total. About that much.

But the client kept asking to bolt on more.

First, an SMS-sending feature. Then KakaoTalk alert messages. Then a revenue dashboard. Then separate permissions for staff. And then — yesterday — “Please make it so our partner companies can use it together with us, too.”

Seong banged his head against the desk once. Not really banging it — as if about to.

“…General.”

“Yes.”

“…I can't tell what the client wants.”

Lee Eon, who had been standing at attention beside the desk, lowered his head slightly at the words. He looked at the laptop screen. An open Slack chat log was up. The client's five rounds of change requests were all there.

Lee Eon read the Korean. How a man from a thousand years ago could read modern Korean, Seong had no idea, but read it he did. He read for a long while. From top to bottom. Slowly.

When he had finished, Lee Eon asked:

“…Who is this man?”

“…The client.”

“What does this man command of you?”

“It's not a command, it's a commission. He pays money. He hires me to do work.”

“…Money.”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“…Four.”

“Four.”

“…million won.”

Lee Eon paused for a moment.

“…I see. Four million won, then.”

“Yes.”

Lee Eon looked at the screen again. More slowly this time. Once more, from top to bottom.

Then he raised his head slightly.

“…This man does not know what he himself wants.”

Seong raised his head.

“…What?”

“This man does not know what he wants. That he changed it five times is the proof.”

“…No, that's usually—”

“In the days when I lived.”

Lee Eon went on slowly. Not looking at Seong, but at the screen.

“When an enemy changes his formation five times, it is not because the enemy's mind has changed five times. It is because the enemy does not know what he is aiming for. An enemy who does not know what he is aiming for — keeps changing his formation. And as he keeps changing it, he forgets, even to himself, what he was truly after.”

Seong set the mug down.

“…So what am I supposed to do?”

“The thing the enemy has forgotten — you must uncover it before he does.”

“…And what is that?”

“That you must ask the man himself — how would I know?”

“…But I've already asked five times.”

“If you have asked five times and still do not know, then you have asked wrongly.”

Seong looked at the screen. The five messages he'd sent the client were there.

> What features would you like?

> What screens do you need?

> What data would you like to see?

> Which users will use it?

> How are you planning to share it with the partner companies?

Every one of them — all of them — was asking only about the “what.”

Lee Eon, standing at attention beside him, spoke.

“When I met an enemy who kept changing his formations — I did not ask that enemy. I asked his second-in-command. While he changed his formation five times, I would ask: on account of what did he change it?”

“…His second-in-command.”

“This man, too, must have someone above him. Someone who sets this man his tasks.”

Seong paused for a moment.

…There was one. This client was — the sales team leader at a small company. Above him was the CEO. The CEO had never once spoken with Seong directly.

Seong placed his hands on the laptop keyboard.

His hands weren't trembling the way they had yesterday.

```
[To the client]

Excuse me, but might I have a short call directly with the CEO, just once?

If I could hear the real reason behind change request number five just once,

then from there I think we could see it through to the end without any more changes.
```

Enter.

Sent.

Seong leaned back in the chair. He looked up at the ceiling. The fluorescent light — this time — was on.

“…I sent it.”

“Hm.”

“I don't know if a reply will come.”

“It will come.”

“Why?”

“This man is frustrated himself. A frustrated man — when a path opens to lay the blame on those above him, takes that path.”

Seong let out a small laugh. A thousand-year-old art of war was being applied to a message he'd sent a freelance client at 4 a.m. on no sleep. And it applied. To an almost frightening degree.

The reply came 27 minutes later.

> Honestly, I've been frustrated too.

> The CEO keeps bringing up this partner-company business, but I haven't heard exactly what he wants either.

> Could we get on a call together in 30 minutes?

Seong looked at the message for a long while.

Beside him, Lee Eon spoke.

“…See.”

“Yes.”

“An enemy's mind — flows down from above.”

Seong lifted his head.

It was 1:14 p.m. The hand-ground coffee had gone completely cold. The two months of freelance work — was still alive. There was a call in 30 minutes.

Seong picked up the mug once more and took a sip of the cold coffee.

The cold coffee, somehow, was less bitter than yesterday's.

All the while, the vacuum cleaner stood quietly in a corner of the kitchen, plugged into its charger. The beast that did not overeat — right there in its spot — waited patiently for its turn.