The Stairs He Gave Up On

The ceiling seam groaned twice, then split on the third.

Doyun pulled at the end of his left glove on the tilting grating. It was the hand gesture he made right before lying, but there was no one here to lie to now. The stopwatch at the practical exam supervisor's desk was still running. The scoreboard was still lit. There were two ways off this floor. One was the passage that had just collapsed, and the other was the one Yu Seorin had abandoned three seconds ago.

Doyun knew exactly that she had abandoned it. She had lifted her foot halfway in front of the right staircase, then set it back down, and in that moment a handprint pressed into the dust on the stair rail. A choice folded in earnest leaves a mark. To Doyun, that mark looked like a door handle.

A practical score of forty points. That was the line for keeping his conditional scholarship. If he didn't clear it, next semester's tuition bill would arrive the same month as his sister's care fees. Doyun caught himself counting numbers and counted people instead. Three test takers remained on this floor.

"You just gave that path up."

"Move." Seorin said it looking straight ahead.

"Thirty three seconds is all it takes. I can reopen it for you. Both of us can get out."

Seorin didn't look at him. Instead of tapping the sheath three times, she drew the blade in one motion.

"Don't open it." The blade rose before the words did.

The tip stopped a hand's width from Doyun's chest. Doyun memorized that distance. It wasn't the distance for stabbing someone. It was the distance for locking a door.

"That's mine to have given up. Do you even know why I gave it up?" she asked.

"There's no time to argue that right now-"

"If you don't know why, don't open it." Seorin's sentences kept getting shorter. "You just told me you're going to use my judgment as material."

"I told you I'd use it to save two people."

"That's your math." She didn't lower the blade. "I judged that staircase couldn't hold the weight anymore. So I folded it away. If you open it, I lose the reason I folded it in the first place. Is that the trade you're proposing?"

Doyun had an answer ready. The sentence he'd prepared wasn't one that answered her question, it was one that offered the next step instead. So for now, he started to say, but Seorin was already turning her body.

Before he finished speaking, Seorin struck the left support beam. A resolve lock blade. He'd heard it held a chosen course of action steady without wavering, but if you changed your mind partway through, your body paid the price. Seorin didn't change her mind. The support beam sank at an angle, forming a slope over the collapsed passage, and one test taker slid down it. Seorin grabbed the kid's arm and pulled them out.

Watching that scene, Doyun lost two things at once. One was the forty points. The other was thirty seconds in which he'd done nothing yet.

"One out." Seorin called toward the supervisor's desk. Her voice didn't rise. "Route B, self extraction. Test number forty four."

Doyun opened his mouth to say so, then, and closed it. There was no conclusion to put after so.

That was when the platform to the right snapped.

The sound came first, the person fell later. Doyun's eyes locked onto the kid's feet.

The falling test taker had already let go of the posture for jumping. Arms folded in, knees folded in, the leap folded away. That kid could have made it across just now. They had stopped trying to cross.

Ten steps away. There was no time to shout and ask. Even if he asked, there was no time for an answer to come back. Doyun understood what Seorin had just said. And understanding it, he also knew there was no way to act on it here, now.

Doyun shouted. Not at the falling kid, at the supervisor's desk.

"Using reopening! Test number twelve, Han Doyun, using it now!"

"No authorization." Evaluator Taeho's voice came down through the speaker. "Cease."

Cease was a rule, and the rule was outside this floor. The falling person was inside it.

Doyun opened his left hand.

Under the glove, a single line began to heat up.

The sensation of a folded leap unfolding again was like grabbing a door handle. An already locked door's handle becomes, for a very brief time, able to turn again. Doyun took hold of that handle and counted to eleven.

The falling kid's body found direction in midair. The folded knee straightened, the toes struck the edge of the broken platform, and the body was flung onto the next grating over. That was the motion the kid had originally meant to make. Not a motion Doyun had created.

What came to Doyun instead was what the kid had given up.

The height entered his body. Pure fear of falling, sweeping up from the soles of his feet to his stomach. Since it wasn't his own fear, he couldn't endure it in any familiar way either. Someone else's terror has no handle. Doyun buckled his knees, planted a hand on the grating, and at the count of eleven, let go of the handle.

The single line on his left hand went hot, then cooled.

The noise settled. The kid who'd been saved was on all fours on the next grating over, gasping for breath. Alive.

Doyun crawled over and gripped the kid's shoulder. There was one thing he wanted to confirm.

"Why did you try to jump?"

The kid lifted his head. His eyes were fine, focused.

"...I tried to jump?"

"You were trying to cross. Over there. Why?"

The kid looked at the broken platform. Looked at his own hands. Then looked at Doyun. The same expression all three times.

"I don't know."

Doyun took his hand off the shoulder.

"You don't remember?"

"I remember. I was standing there, and I had to go that way." The kid stopped. Not the face of someone searching for the next word, but the face of someone who'd just realized there was nothing to search for. "The reason I had to go is missing."

"Name."

"Kang Jun. Test number thirty one." The kid stated his number correctly. The number was still there.

A rescue ladder hit the wall. Safety personnel climbed up, Kang Jun was given a blanket, Doyun was not.

Seorin was standing three steps away. Her sword was already sheathed.

"You told them you used it, first thing."

"If I don't say it, it gets worse."

"You think saying it makes it less bad?" she asked back.

Doyun formed three possible answers. All three were excuses for himself, so he used none of them.

"I didn't open your escape route."

"That's not something you did right, that's something I blocked." Seorin turned toward the supervisor's desk. "Two rescues, two separate routes. Don't record them as mixed together."

"Why look out for that." Doyun asked.

"I'm not looking out for anything. My case has to stay mine, and yours has to stay yours." Seorin ran her thumb along the inside of the sheath. "If they get mixed, both are worth less."

Evaluator Taeho climbed up the ladder. He held two record sheets and the stopwatch.

"Test number twelve."

"Han Doyun."

"Twelve." Taeho didn't write the name. "Time used, eleven seconds. Cap, thirty three seconds. No prior authorization. No confirmation of subject consent. Correct?"

"Correct."

"One successful rescue. Also correct?"

"Correct." Doyun answered.

"Do you want only one of the two acknowledged?"

Doyun looked at Taeho's face to check whether the question was a trap. It wasn't a trap. It was a face genuinely asking.

"No. Write down both."

Taeho held the two sheets side by side. One recorded the rescue, the other the violation.

"Both stay on record. One cannot erase the other. Understood?"

"...Yes."

"Left hand, please." Taeho closed the record sheets and took out a locking clasp.

Doyun held out his left hand. Taeho fastened the sealing clasp around the glove's wrist. Click, twice. One click for locking, one for confirming it was locked.

"Saving someone and being permitted to are different things." Taeho wrote something in the margin of the record sheet. "No use is authorized until the reproducibility test."

"How many days is the seal for."

"One day. There's a reproducibility test tomorrow morning. If you show controllability, it comes off conditionally." Taeho checked the clasp once more. "If you don't, it stays locked for the whole semester."

Doyun didn't put his locked hand in his pocket. If he hid it once, he'd probably hide it again next time.

"What about the subject."

Taeho stopped the stopwatch once.

"What do you mean."

"Kang Jun. Test number thirty one." Doyun looked down at his sealed hand. One line was still lukewarm. "He can't say why he was trying to cross. Not since after I used it. Is that not on the record?"

"It's not." Taeho said. "There's no field for it on the form."

"Then make one."

Taeho looked at him for about three seconds. Not eyes reading emotion, eyes measuring time.

"I'll write it in the margin. The margin isn't subject to appeal procedure. In exchange, twelve, no, Doyun, you will sign for responsibility to review that student's follow up records. Signing does not help your pass evaluation. Are you doing this knowingly?"

"I am."

Taeho didn't answer, just turned the record sheet. Then he pulled out a third page.

On the stairs leading down out of the exam hall, Seorin stopped him once.

"Eleven seconds." Seorin blocked the way with her arm braced against the stair rail.

"...What."

"The time you used. The cap is thirty three seconds, and you let go at eleven." Seorin looked at his left hand. Not at the sealing clasp, at what was beneath it. "Why did you let go?"

Doyun could have answered precisely. That he'd let go the moment the kid's foot touched the grating. But a precise answer would only bring the next question, how do you know that so well, and he wasn't ready to answer that one yet.

"I judged it was enough."

"If it wasn't judgment, if you just couldn't hold on any longer." Seorin didn't wait for his silence. "Next time that's going to show, on top of someone's life."

At the bottom of the stairs, Kang Jun, wrapped in a blanket, was asking the safety personnel something. Doyun heard the voice.

"Um, what should I write as my reason for withdrawing?"

The safety personnel asked back. "You're withdrawing?"

"I feel like I should." The kid said. "But I don't really know why I should, either." His voice was flat, unbothered.

Seorin looked at Doyun. She said nothing, and that was the longest sentence he'd heard all day.

Doyun looked at his own hand. The glove was locked, and a locked hand could turn nothing back.