She washed—an awkward act without an attendant—then stood shivering in the cold water and said her prayers.
Finally she stepped out and wrapped herself in a towel, then stood in front of the mirror to brush her hair. Here she missed her attendants even more. Chaeyung was expert at getting out snarls without it hurting, and Hwanji would hum while they worked, which was so comforting. They weren’t her friends, as she wasn’t allowed friends. Indeed, if she grew too familiar with them, they would be changed. Regardless, she missed spending time with them.
Strange, she thought, how they barely touch Painter’s hair when they get him ready. They see him as me, but instead of doing a hundred strokes, they run the brush through his hair a few times and are done.
Curious. Design hadn’t been surprised that Yumi could make this body look like hers. Yumi had rewritten Painter’s shape somehow—and the method apparently had to do with her calling as a yoki-hijo. Perhaps if Painter were more skilled, he’d be able to make her body look like his? That would be a disaster of incredible magnitude, but perhaps it was what the spirits wanted?
She didn’t know. But she would find out.
She finished her brushing, so frigid she felt like she’d never be warm again. This was her duty. She stepped toward the door, then paused. She was wearing only a single towel. But…well, it was just Painter. She pushed out into the main room, which was even colder than the bathroom. Her skin immediately puckered with goosebumps. She still half believed this place was the land of the dead and frozen spirits.
Painter stood near his heaps of clothing, and had changed. He wore stiff trousers, a simple shirt, and then a second shirt over that with long sleeves, untucked and unbuttoned. It looked…sloppy, but in a managed way? A little like him, actually.
“You were right,” he said, holding his hands to the sides. “I couldn’t touch them at first, but then I…I don’t know, I cleared my mind, then thought only about a specific article of clothing. When I reached for it that way, I could grab it. A copy of it, at least.”
“Its soul,” she said. “You meditated!”
“No!” he said defensively. “I was thinking about something. What I wanted to wear.”
“You cleared your mind first,” she said, pointing. “You learned something!”
He shrugged indifferently, then noticed her picking through the clothing Akane had bought her, so he turned his back toward her to allow her to dress with some privacy.
“Today,” she said as she strapped on the bra, “you will teach me how to paint.”
“I’m not certain I want to,” he said, arms folded, facing away. “What I do is dangerous, Yumi. Especially if a stable nightmare is involved.”
“We already decided this,” she said, trying to dress as quickly as she could, to get covered in something that would hopefully keep her warm. “The spirits might have sent me to stop the stable nightmare.”
“We didn’t decide that,” he replied. “We discussed the possibility. You can’t face a stable nightmare, Yumi. They require the expertise of extremely talented painters—far beyond my skill level, let alone that of a neophyte.”
“But we can’t let it roam. You’re the one who said that it will be out there hurting people.”
“It might be,” Painter said. “Or it might not. It appeared close to becoming fully stable, but what do I know? I’ve never seen one like that before. It could take weeks to complete the process, particularly if it’s clever and careful. If that’s true, someone else is bound to discover it eventually. Then the experts will get called.”
“And if it kills someone first?” she asked.
He didn’t respond.
“I’m r-ready,” she said.
“Fine,” he said, turning around. “I’ll teach you, but only so you can defend yourself against…” He frowned, looking at her standing there in one of her dresses and tops, arms wrapped around herself. “Are your teeth chattering?”
“Is th-that what you c-call it?” she asked, her jaw trembling from the cold. “I’ve never been this c-cold before.”
“Never?” he asked, seeming surprised.
“No,” she said, shivering. “If you get c-cold, you just l-lie down. D-depending on how h-hot the floor is.”
Perhaps showering in that cold water hadn’t been the smartest idea. Her body was not dealing with it well.
“Here,” he said, walking to the wall. “See this dial? Turn it up to increase the heat in the room.”
“From the floor?” she asked, hopeful.
“Uh, no,” he said, pointing at the top of the wall. “Vents from a small hion heater.”
Pity. But she shook her head, and would have done so even if it had heated the floor. “No.”
“No?” he said. “I can see you shivering, Yumi.”
“I g-got used to this place after a l-little while before,” she said. “Besides, it is d-dangerous for me to get t-too comfortable in your w-world. I will instead accept w-what the spirits have g-given me.”
Painter gaped at her as if she’d sprouted leaves and started flying like a tree. “You,” he said, “are so （lowly） strange.” He inspected the dial on the wall, then stuck his finger at it, fiddling. Soon after, a hum came from the vent.
“Ha!” he said. “I made the viewer turn on last time, so I thought I might be able to do this too. I can feel the hion lines. I couldn’t move the dial, but I can tweak them somehow, make them activate…”
A knock on the door interrupted further conversation. Timid, Yumi answered—worried she’d have to lie again. Fortunately, this time all she found was a large envelope taped to the door.
She returned to the room and opened the envelope at Painter’s insistence. Inside was a single sheet full of words. She’d rarely read anything other than prayers, but oddly this felt as if it had some of the same tone or formality to it.
“This is bad, isn’t it?” she asked after reading it to herself. “I don’t understand all the words, but…”
“It’s a letter of suspension,” Painter said softly, staring at the page with an uncharacteristic solemnity. “From the foreman. Relieving me of duty for a month without pay, as punishment for lying about my work.”
“It says he went to the address provided but found nothing? Just an unoccupied home?”
Painter turned away, waving a hand flippantly in the air. “I’ll bet he barely gave it a cursory inspection; might have even sent someone else. He’s been waiting for a chance to reprimand me. Thinks I’ve been turning in fake paintings for some time now. Idiot.”
“So he really doesn’t believe you about the stable nightmare,” Yumi said. “You were right about that.”
“He’s never liked me. Feels I shouldn’t have been able to enter the job lottery out of school in the first place; hates that I drew his sector.” He put a hand to his forehead, eyes closed. “At least I won’t have to come up with some excuse for missing my rounds this next month.”
“What…happens next?”