００１ Kia [ENG]
“Hey, Uncle.” A kid poked Jina’s cheek. “Are you alive?”
The man lying on the ground was tall. His long hair flowed across the stained oak floor of a dilapidated shrine. He was breathlessly still, his eyes glued to the clouds soaring above as they had been since time immemorial.
“I’ve been looking at you for very long. You haven’t moved an inch!” The kid complained after having been there for ten minutes. Whereas he had been there long enough to have vines wrap around his legs.
The light illuminated through the tree that had grown inside the shrine. The kid squatted down and shielded Jina’s eyes from the shining sun. There was not a speck in his eye. “Oh wow, he might actually be dead.” She spread his eyelids and examined closely.
“Grey and cloudy. I believe the victim is in his eighties Even though he looks to be in his twenties.” She pushed his jaw wide. “Teeth in pristine condition. Although there seems to be something stuck… Oh it’s just an ant.” She wiped it off. “Victim might be an insect eater.” She jumped to the other side and examined his nose.
“Stop.” He said in a clear voice just as her fingers were about to dig in. The girl immediately fell back.
“You shouldn’t scare my little heart like that!”
“I thought I told you to stop bothering me yesterday.” The neutral expression on his face was slightly tinged by annoyance.
“Don’t you use that tone with me, uncle. If not me then who would check up on you, uncle.”
“No one… And that’s oka-”
“Did we not have an agreement that I would cure you?” She shut him up.
“We did not. Cure me of what anyway?”
“You know… being uncle.”
The brat was rude. Jina never made such a remark. But this was just a fact of the matter.
‘She’s just a child. She’s just a child.’ He sighed.
“Let’s start the diagnosis. How long have you been laying here?”
“As long as I’ve lived.” ‘Let’s just quickly get this over with.’
“Don’t you think it’s boring?” She laid down next to him. Her skin was pure as snow. With not a blush of blood in it. “The sky isn’t any different from yesterday. Is this what boring old people do?”
‘Alright, that’s it.’
“Say, how come you are here?” He turned to her.
“?”
“There’s no one here.” With the exception of bugs and a few squirrels that occasionally climbed him, he had not seen a single sentient thing in forever.
“I live in a little shack on the top of that mountain. I moved recently you see…”
“I never knew there was a shack up the-“
“That cloud looks like a Panda.” She erratically pointed up drawing his attention away from her face.
“Really? It just looks like a cloud to me.”
‘Ah. I got caught in her pace.’
“Uncle?” She got up and stared down at him. Her eyes were obstructed by a blindfold though. Her gray hair gave an atmosphere of otherworldliness. “You’re boring.”
“I’m sorry?”
“As an adult don’t you know to play along with a child’s whims? No. That attitude will push everyone away from you. You’ll be a lonely man with no one by his side for the rest of eternity.” Despite her little tantrum, she stayed. “That’s my first diagnosis. The disease called being uncle has the symptom of being very boring.”
“You don’t have to go so far.”
“Alright! I’ve decided, so that the sad little uncle doesn’t die alone, I will make you an interesting person.”
“You don’t have to. Really.”
“It’s not like I have friends up in the mountain anyway.” She mumbled. Her real motives escaped her mouth. “Let’s continue the diagnosis.” Bumped her fist into her palm like a hammer to a gavel.
“Uncle, don’t you ever move? How do you eat? Drink? Wait, don’t tell me you also pee and poo laying down like that.”
“I don’t eat or defecate.”
“Huh? How are you alive then? Are you secretly a tree? Is that why you have vines all over your feet? Do you photosynthesize? Don’t tell me you have roots under you!”
“I’m not a tree.”
“Uncle, why are your clothes so pretty? Is this like one of those ceremonies where the villagers dress up the sacred tree?” She lifted Jina’s pearl white garb. It was soaked with blood around his neck but aside from that, held up in pristine condition.
“I’m not a tree.”
“Uncle, why were you in this shrine? Oh I got it! You are a sacred tree so you need a shrine and you’re a tree so you need sunlight, that’s why you chose a shrine with no roof!”
“I’m not a tre- Also, I don’t think the shrine was built without a roof. It decayed over time.”
“Tut tut tut. Your lies won’t work against the Grand Physician. After all uncle is stupid.”
“”
“Do you even know what my name is?”
“” No response.
“It’s Kia. How do you not even know that?”
“You never told m-“
“Tut tut tut tut! You again with the excuses. You should be grateful that I’m treating you for free in the first place. Now who do you have to be grateful to?”
A vein popped in his head.
“Kia.”
“The title please.”
“Kia, the Great Physician.”
“Alright I’ll go get you your cure.” She got up and ran out. Jina felt at peace.
‘Wait what cure?’ He immediately got worried.
“I got you some water, uncle. You never have any energy and that makes you boring. Water will fix that!” Before he could say no, she shoved the bottle into his mouth with a satisfied grin on her face.
His life flashed before his eyes. It was just a bunch of images of the sky.
‘Oh I was looking at just the sky. What a life I have lived. Too bad it’s going to end now at the hands of a little girl.’
Unable to breath, Jina shot up. The thin vines around his chest tore off.
All his life he felt as if he was incapable of movement. No matter how hard he tried his torso would refuse to get off the blanks beneath him. It was as if he was glued there. Paralyzed. That changed.
Kia was like a force of nature.
This was the first time he had moved in forever.
‘I got up?’
He coughed the water out. Even though he did, he wanted more. Living his sedentary lifestyle he had given up what it meant to be human but in one gulp, he regained thirst.
Sensing she had done something wrong Kia cowered a little.
He grabbed the bottle from her and drank some and cleaned his face with the rest.
‘Her first treatment was successful.’
“See? I knew a tree couldn’t live without its water!” Kia shot up with the childlike grin that perfectly complemented her face.
So the unlikely relationship between the two was formed.
