The Stopwatch in His Hand

The stopwatch of the retrial room was not hanging on the wall. Taeho held it in his hand. A clock on the wall was something everyone could see, but a stopwatch held in someone's hand answered only to when that person decided to stop it.

Doyun had slept two hours that night. What time was left, he spent counting through yesterday's eleven seconds again, in order. With his left hand sealed, counting was the only thing he could do.

"Applicant number twelve."

"Han Doyun."

"Twelve." Taeho was still writing the number down. "I will read three conditions. One, the target is an object, not a person. Two, usage time is within ten seconds. Three, a witness states exactly what the target gave up. If any one is broken, this stops and the seal is confirmed."

"Who is the witness?" Doyun asked.

"Someone who was at the scene yesterday, and who stopped the student's use."

Stopped. Doyun caught the order of that word. Taeho hadn't put someone who would help Doyun on the stand. He'd put someone who would oppose him.

The door opened and Seorin came in. Same uniform as yesterday, but no sword. She walked like someone who already knew weapons weren't allowed in the examination room.

"You stopped me yesterday for a reason. Did you come to help me today for the same one?"

"I didn't come to help." Seorin stood in front of the wall. "I came to testify. If someone else does it, they'll get it wrong."

"What happens if it's wrong?"

"Your range widens when you open it." She looked toward the stopwatch. "If the range widens, the target loses more. Like yesterday."

Like yesterday hit the wall and came back.

The test subject was a single foothold torn out of the practical field. The broken cross section was still there, exactly as it had been left, the same spot where someone had stopped stepping yesterday.

"Testimony begins." Taeho lifted the stopwatch.

Seorin stood in front of the foothold and clasped her hands behind her back.

"Yesterday, ten forty two in the morning. This foothold was connected to the left lattice, and applicant number thirty one stepped on it twice, then pulled his foot back on the third try." She didn't count seconds, but her sequence was exact. "He gave up crossing here. The reason was that the right joint made a sound. I heard the same sound, and I abandoned that route too."

"Your testimony has your own judgment mixed in," Taeho pointed out.

"Not mixed in. I'm saying we heard the same thing. Put that in my record of responsibility too."

"A witness bears the outcome jointly. Do you understand that?"

"I do. That's why I said it exactly."

Taeho wrote a line in the margin. Doyun saw that the margin was narrower than yesterday's.

"Twelve. Use it."

The seal's lock released. His wrist went light, then cold.

Doyun spread his left hand over the foothold. It was different from yesterday. Yesterday he'd groped around for the doorknob. Today, Seorin had already told him exactly where it was. The spot of the giving up was narrow and clear. One joint, one toe, one third moment.

When someone states it exactly, the ten spots shrink. When they shrink, what the other person loses shrinks too. Doyun hadn't known that until yesterday, and without knowing it, he'd saved someone.

He opened it.

The broken cross section didn't rejoin. Instead the foothold returned to a state where it could be stepped on. Doyun kept his hand on it and counted to three. Four. Five.

And then it came. The sensation of no ground underfoot. Not the fear Gangjun had abandoned yesterday, but something like the residue of that fear, climbing up his wrist. Because he'd expected it, he wasn't startled, and because he wasn't startled, he held on longer than he should have.

"End." Seorin's voice.

Doyun counted six. Seven.

"I said end." Seorin's voice went shorter.

He pulled his hand away at eight. The foothold returned to its original broken state, and one line on his left hand went hot.

"Seven second signal, eight second end. One second over." Taeho pressed the stopwatch. "Physical reproduction succeeded. End response was delayed."

"Do I need to record the reason for the delay?"

"If the student states it, I record it." Taeho held his pen and waited.

Doyun sorted through the reasons he could say and the reasons he didn't want to say. When someone else's fear enters your body, your own body's signals arrive a beat late. If he said that, the next question would be how he already knew that, and the one after would be about his sister.

"The feeling came late. Next time I'll act on the witness's signal before my body's."

Seorin looked at him. Her face showed she'd caught that the first half was a lie, but she didn't point it out.

"Conditional release." Taeho half closed the lock. "Human targets require prior authorization and the subject's own consent."

"And objects?"

"Within ten seconds, with a witness present. A post report is mandatory." Taeho looked at Seorin. "Yu Seorin, sign the testimony responsibility form."

Seorin signed without hesitating. Doyun watched that signature go into the column beneath his own name. The name of the person who'd pointed a blade at him yesterday now sat beside his own line of responsibility.

Doyun opened and closed his hand. The half filled lock was better than yesterday, but exactly as heavy for how much better it was.

That was when a knock came from the observation corridor. Not safety personnel. A student. No blanket this time, and the same face he'd seen yesterday.

Gangjun stood in front of the railing. The second floor corridor's railing was waist high, and below it was the empty space of the practical field, three stories down.

Gangjun had his arms on the railing, leaning his upper body over it. Not the posture of someone about to jump. The posture of someone tilting forward to look down. The posture of a person who wasn't calculating that it was dangerous.

Doyun ran.

"Get down."

"Oh." Gangjun only turned his head. "You're the one from yesterday."

"Get off the railing. Now."

Gangjun came down obediently. That was worse. There was nothing to grab, nothing to talk him out of.

"Why were you leaning over?"

"Wanted to see what was down there." Gangjun brushed off his palms. "Is it dangerous?"

"It's dangerous."

"Ah, then I won't." The answer came too fast.

Doyun couldn't stand the speed of that answer. Yesterday this kid had heard a joint creak and pulled his foot back. A kid who'd calculated the value of his own life off a single sound. That calculator was gone now.

Reopen it. If he reopened what had blurred yesterday. His left hand was already halfway up.

"Student Han Doyun." Taeho's voice came from behind him. "Human target, prior authorization, the subject's own consent."

Doyun lowered his hand. Lowering it took longer than yesterday's eleven seconds.

"Gangjun. Yesterday I reopened your jump. Without asking permission."

"I heard." Gangjun didn't get angry. Even the reason to be angry seemed to have blurred.

"You're not angry?"

"Should I be?" The kid asked it for real. "I'm alive."

I'm alive. The same sentence Doyun had used to excuse himself yesterday. Hearing it from the victim's mouth was a first.

"The reason you can't judge risk well right now might be because of that. I could reopen it and reverse it, but you might lose something else instead. It's your call what to do, so..."

"No." Gangjun said it. A fast answer for once. "Not a second time. I can't explain why, but no."

Doyun didn't nod. Nodding would have felt like pretending to understand.

"Got it. I won't."

After he said it, Doyun realized his own voice sounded strange. Someone for whom saying he won't do something takes this much effort hasn't actually decided not to do it yet.

Instead he called the safety officer over. He stationed someone in front of the railing, asked about Gangjun's next schedule, and confirmed that Gangjun was holding a withdrawal form.

The reason field on the withdrawal form was blank.

"Why'd you leave it blank?"

"Nothing to write." Gangjun held out the form. "You write something when there's something to write, right?"

"Yesterday there was. You heard the joint creak and pulled your foot back. That was your own judgment."

"Did I?" Gangjun's face was genuinely curious. "Good call, then."

Good call, then. A voice describing his own judgment like someone else's report card.

Taeho took the form. Then he pulled out yesterday's two record sheets and laid them side by side.

"One rescue, one violation, and now this one today." Taeho wrote in the third column. "Subject student's risk judgment declined, withdrawal followed. Reopening usage noted alongside as a cause."

"You're not filing this as accident statistics?"

"Statistics only leave behind numbers." Taeho tapped the column with a finger. "Here it's recorded as this one student's loss. That's accurate."

"Does that go into my record too?"

"It does. And a signature accepting the responsibility to review it goes in too." Taeho held out the pen. "If you sign, you can see this student's follow up record, and you'll be obligated to. It won't help your admission review."

Seorin had been watching from the doorway. She hadn't come in, and she hadn't left either.

"Student Yu Seorin, any objection?"

"Yes." Seorin said. "Yesterday that person saved someone's life. That has to stay on record."

"It's on record," Taeho confirmed.

"And he didn't get permission. That has to stay on record too." She said it without looking at Doyun. "Put the two together, and next time he still won't ask."

Doyun tried to decide whether that sentence was defending him or condemning him. It was both.

Doyun signed. Before he'd finished writing his name, Taeho spoke.

"Twelve, no. Student Han Doyun."

"Yes."

"Yesterday I wrote that this student would only try to claim credit for himself." Taeho didn't cross that line out. He added beside it instead. "I'll note the counterexample."

The scholarship selection list went up that afternoon. Han Doyun, passed. Next to it was one more stamp.

Conditional.

The conditions were three lines. The third line read: confirm and report on the follow up choice of applicant number thirty one.

Doyun read that line twice. Confirm didn't mean fix.

At the bottom of the list was a separate column for top rank. Yu Seorin. Beside it was a notice that one practical event remained. Direction change maze, tomorrow morning.

Doyun's name was on that event's roster too. Stamped conditional.