“I worked so hard before I went rogue,” he said. “That’s how I got so good at running scenarios. I thought if I got promoted, I could find out more about her, maybe even bring her back. Then, a few months ago, she called me.” Yejun swallowed, tracing the lines of his tattoo with his left hand. “It turned out that my dad lied. She wasn’t erased and she never wrote me a note. She just left because she didn’t want me.”
He looked up, his dull gaze meeting mine. “She wants to talk to me now, but it’s too late. So I’m sorry that I lied to you, Mina, but it was because I liked that story better than the truth.”
As he slumped back down against the booth, I tried to conjure anger but could only think of the sadness I’d tasted through hismagic, the soft ache of grief. I thought of my own mother walking out on me, the gaping hole it would leave in my life and my heart. At least I could direct my grief over Hana toward the people who had taken her from me, but Yejun’s mother had chosen to leave him.
My fingers felt warm, and I glanced down at purple ribbons of magic blooming to life in my palm, starting to reach toward Yejun. I clenched my fist and they disappeared.
Even if I wasn’t angry, I wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily. “No one gets to rewrite their life story,” I said quietly.
There was no anger behind my words, but Yejun winced and looked away as if I’d scolded him. “You don’t get it,” he whispered. “Your parents want you.”
Less than they want their jobs, I thought. But I knew what he meant, and didn’t want to be pedantic about it. “But your mom wants to be part of your life again, right?”
Yejun shook his head. “She wants money. I gave her some, which I know I shouldn’t have. But it wasn’t enough, and now she’s upset. I’m worthless to her if I’m not an ATM.”
I didn’t know how to respond. There were no words in any language that could fix this.
“Maybe she’s right,” Yejun said, stabbing a piece of sushi with a chopstick but making no move to eat it. “I worked so hard but have nothing to show for it but dung beetles.”
“She’s wrong,” I said, frowning. “You’re not worthless.”
Yejun looked up, this time looking at me rather than through me, like he’d just remembered I was there.
“You’re trying to save the world and are doing a good enough job at it to not destroy the timeline,” I said. “That’s worth something. It’s worth a lot, actually.”
Yejun set his chopsticks down, blinking at me like I’d just spoken a foreign language. I realized—too late—that I had actually sounded…nice.
Heat rushed to my face. I pressed back against the booth, crossing my arms and looking away. “I just mean that if you were totally incompetent, then that would makemeincompetent for working with you. And I know I’m not great at calculus but I wouldn’t hand my life over to someone who didn’t seem halfway intelligent, and—”
“Thank you,” Yejun said quietly, halting my deluge of words. I dared to glance back at him just in time to see him putting more sushi on my plate. “Here, eat more before you start sounding too nice and your soul climbs out of your body.”
I picked up my chopsticks but hesitated before taking any more food.
“Kim Yejun,” I said. “Don’t ever lie to me again.”
Yejun went still, as if pinned in place by my gaze. Then his shoulders slumped and he set down his chopsticks, bowing slightly. “Of course,” he said. “I’m sorry, Mina. I only—”
“I understand why you did it,” I said. “And you’re right, I don’t know what it’s like to not have parents. So I’ll forgive you, just this once. But this is the last time.”
He nodded, bowing again. “Understood.”
Satisfied, I finally grabbed another piece of sushi. Yejun looked up hesitantly, as if afraid I would jump across the table and bite him. When he saw me eating, his shoulders relaxed and he checked his watch.
“It’s almost time,” he said.
He wrapped a piece of sushi in his napkin, then slipped outside. I watched through the window as he held the fish up to a pigeon, who snatched it out of his hand, nearly biting his fingers off. I stifled a laugh as he jogged back into the restaurant.
“And that pigeon is going to single-handedly save theSewolferry?” I said.
“Not quite,” Yejun said. “This is actually the biggest adjustment yet, and the causes are complex, so it will take a few more adjustments.”
That wasn’t surprising. TheSewolferry sank in 2014 in the sea between Incheon and Jeju, killing hundreds of high school students. People had blamed a lot of different things—the crew, the coast guard, the president… it wasn’t clear exactly what the main cause was, so it made sense that there were multiple factors that had to be changed.
“The pigeon will be too full after the sushi and will sleep in a tree, where a cat will kill it and bring it to its owner,” Yejun went on. “The owner will scream in terror and pass out, smack his head on the table and get a concussion. That will knock a few points off his college entrance exam, and he won’t get into his top school, so he’ll decide to do his military service in the navy right away. He’ll join the crew for a few different merchant ships, and eventually he’ll get a job on the MVSewolinstead of one of the crew members who abandoned ship.”
As he finished talking, Yejun gave a melodramatic bow, as if he’d just won an Olympic medal. “It’s brilliant, I know.”
“It’s… elaborate,” I said—the closest I wanted to get to actually complimenting him again. “And none of that will cause unwanted ripple effects?”
