As they stepped out of the brokerage office, the air was distinctly different.
They had only crossed a single door,
yet the noise piled up inside seemed to fall away behind them, as if being sorted into order.
Outside the building, it was still crowded,
but Bido could breathe a little deeper.
Miryeong moved first.
Her pace was neither fast nor slow.
Without checking behind her,
she walked as if the route were familiar.
Bido followed half a step behind her.
After they had walked like that for a few steps,
she realized there was an oddly heavy silence between them.
They were walking together,
but neither of them yet knew how much they were allowed to say.
“...Um.”
In the end, Bido spoke first.
Miryeong did not answer right away.
Without stopping, she tilted her head ever so slightly.
“Yeah?”
It was a short reply.
Bido looked down at the paper in her hand.
It was the request form she had received from Aseullo.
“This...”
Even after beginning to speak, she hesitated for no reason.
Only then did Miryeong stop walking.
She did not turn around completely,
only cast her gaze to the side.
“...Will you read it?”
Her tone was calm, but a little cautious.
Bido nodded briefly.
“Yes.”
She unfolded the paper again.
She had already skimmed it once,
but this time she read it aloud.
“Name: Hajin.”
“Race: Haraya.”
Miryeong listened without a word.
“Requester: Yeonrin.”
“Residence: thatched house on the outskirts of Seuchia.”
Bido paused for a moment, then continued reading.
“He has not returned home for several days,”
“and was last seen near an outer worksite.”
A sentence written near the bottom of the page caught her eye.
“...Further details to be confirmed with the requester in person.”
She folded the paper.
“So all we have to do is confirm it.”
Miryeong let out a short breath.
“Yeah.”
She nodded.
“We find out where he is, and see whether he’s alive.”
Bido repeated those words once more in her mind.
Confirm.
It was a simple word,
but strangely, it did not feel light.
Bido rolled the word “confirm” around in her mind again and again.
Find him, and see whether he was alive.
In words, it was simple,
but simple words were often the cruelest.
If he was alive,
then what he had been enduring and where would come with it.
If he was dead,
then all that remained was who would accept that fact, and how.
Bido toyed with the request form again.
The edge of the paper caught against her fingertip and lightly scratched her skin.
That small irritation seemed to be telling her, Don’t run away.
Miryeong walked while looking straight ahead.
But Bido knew.
The reason she did not look back was not because she felt at ease.
Miryeong’s ears moved ever so faintly.
The voices of passersby,
the sound of cart wheels being pulled along,
even the sighs mixed in between.
Even as all of it passed by, her steps did not waver.
Half a step behind her, Bido matched that rhythm.
At times, unfamiliar gazes brushed past them in the street.
A Haraya child sitting by the roadside
looked at Bido with wide eyes, then immediately turned away.
For some reason, that reaction lingered even more deeply.
Bido stroked the nape of her neck and steadied her breathing.
In Areuku, she could walk “like a human,”
but here, the thought that what she was might be noticed first
made her steps grow a little more careful.
At the end of this road lay the outskirts of the city.
A place where the things the city had cast aside gathered.
People, and rumors alike.
Suddenly,
Bido recalled what Aseullo always used to say.
Confirm it yourself. With your own eyes.
It had always sounded like advice, but now it felt like a belated command.
And Bido knew.
From the moment she confirmed it, a “story she could not turn back from” would begin.
Miryeong’s steps remained steady.
“If it’s on the outskirts, we should be able to get there before sunset.”
Bido nodded and followed after her.
They still did not know much about each other.
So for now,
she felt that this much distance was, if anything, just right.
The closer they came to the outskirts of Seuchia,
the more the face of the road changed.
The stone-paved ground had become a dirt road before they knew it,
the buildings had grown lower,
and the colors painted on the walls had faded.
Along with that, people’s clothing also changed little by little.
Bido noticed that first.
More and more Haraya had begun to appear on the streets.
Faces rarely seen in the inner city became more noticeable the farther they went toward the outskirts.
Some were carrying loads,
some were resting against walls,
and some were walking slowly while holding a child’s hand.
But even without looking closely, she could tell.
They were clearly more poorly dressed than the people she had seen in the city center.
Bido turned her gaze away for a moment,
then looked back at them.
“...There were Haraya in Areuku too.”
Bido spoke as they walked.
Miryeong kept her eyes forward and maintained her pace.
“But there are quite a lot here.”
For a moment, Miryeong said nothing.
Only after they had walked a few more steps did she open her mouth.
“Haraya.”
Her words broke off briefly.
“Humans don’t exactly welcome us.”
Bido felt that the words sounded less like a judgment and more like a fact Miryeong already knew.
“And that’s especially true here.”
Miryeong added.
“There’s a lot of work, and not enough people.”
Bido nodded.
There was no need to explain what sort of work the Haraya took on.
Hard, dangerous work,
and work that, in return, did not stand out much.
“And yet everyone still comes here, right?”
Bido asked carefully.
Miryeong tilted her head briefly.
“Well, there aren’t many choices.”
After saying that, she let a moment pass before continuing.
“Muryeong and I are from the south, beyond the Black Forest.”
Hearing that, Bido blinked for a moment.
The Black Forest.
Just its name alone made it difficult to imagine what lay beyond it.
“Even so,”
Miryeong said calmly,
“this place was better.”
Those words did not mean it was good, or easy to live in.
Bido sensed the difference and did not ask any further.
Miryeong’s steps slowed ever so slightly.
“What was it like for you, living in Areuku?”
Her question was short, leaving only its meaning behind.
Bido thought for a moment, then spoke without raising her head.
“I think I just... lived like a human.”
She chose her words, then added a little more.
“No one thought of me as Haraya.”
“And I lived that way too.”
Miryeong did not ask anything more.
Instead, she quickened her pace again.
Only the sound of their footsteps continued at a steady rhythm.
Bido felt that the silence was not uncomfortable.
Rather,
the fact that she did not have to say more was somewhat comforting.
The edge of the outskirts was drawing closer.
As the number of people dwindled, the road became just as simple.
The traces left in the dirt made no attempt to hide where the path led.
Miryeong changed direction up ahead.
There was no explanation, but there seemed to be no need to ask.
After they walked a little farther,
their view soon opened up.
In the middle of a space with few fields and few houses stood a single thatched house.
There were no other buildings around it.
There was no fence and no marker, but there did not seem to be any reason to lose their way.
Bido slowed for a moment when she saw the house.
“Is this it?”
Miryeong nodded.
One house.
Around it, only as much space as was necessary had been left.
As Bido looked at the thatched house, she recalled the request form.
Yeonrin, Hajin.
The names she had seen only as a few lines of text were now overlapping with the place before her eyes.
Miryeong stopped one step ahead.
“From here, I’ll take a look first.”
She said.
Bido merely nodded.
The thatched house was quiet.
The door was closed, and there was no sign of anyone nearby.
And yet,
for some strange reason, Bido did not feel that the house was empty.
Bido took a breath and waited behind Miryeong.
Now,
it was time to confirm.
Miryeong stood before the door.
She surveyed the surroundings once,
then quietly knocked.
The sound was neither light nor forceful.
The door of the thatched house rang briefly, then fell silent again.
Soon, there was movement from inside.
The footsteps were not loud,
and they stopped for a moment near the door before cautiously moving again.
The door opened slowly.
The face visible through the crack was calmer than Bido had expected.
It was a Haraya woman.
Her ears were folded low,
and her hair bore traces of having been tied in haste.
Her clothes were plain, and she held nothing in her hands.
Seeing the two people standing before the door, she could not speak for a moment.
“...Who are you?”
Miryeong opened her mouth first.
“We’re from the brokerage office.”
At that single sentence, the woman’s eyes trembled ever so slightly.
“Yeonrin. Right?”
Miryeong called her by name.
Only then did Yeonrin look properly at the two of them.
“...Are you here about my husband?”
Bido nodded.
“Yes. About Hajin.”
When that name was spoken, Yeonrin lowered her gaze for a moment.
A short breath escaped her lips.
“Please come in.”
She opened the door wider and stepped aside.
The inside of the thatched house was more orderly than expected.
There was not much furniture,
and only the necessary things occupied the space.
As Bido crossed the threshold, her steps naturally slowed.
Yeonrin entered first and indicated a place for them.
“You can sit here.”
Her tone was calm,
but her voice carried the trace of something she had been holding back for a long time.
Miryeong did not sit down, instead surveying the inside of the house once.
Bido stood beside her.
After hesitating for a moment, Yeonrin looked at the two of them.
“How much have you heard?”
The question was closer to confirmation than expectation.
Bido did not answer and looked at Miryeong.
Miryeong nodded.
“What we hear from now on matters more.”
Hearing that, Yeonrin steadied her breath for a moment,
then slowly began to speak.