Magician City Chapter 6

Chapter 6. Blue Thread (1)

It was hard to tell when it started.

Yu-ye realized that his eyes were capable of seeing what it shouldn't be able to see. He wasn't sure if he was the only one, but he probably was.

The existence of the blue thread had never been spoken of by any type of media or person. Therefore, it must be something that others are not able to see.

Or was it something so obvious and unalarming to others that they never bothered to speak about it?

"There is no way…"

Yu-ye s.n.a.t.c.hed the blue thread in front of his eyes.

The thread seemed to dance in his hands for a moment, but soon disappeared like a burnt-out match. It looked bearable because it looked like nothing more than a piece of blue string, but if it had eyes or legs, it would be gross.

"What do I do with this?"

There were a million ways to find out what one didn't know.

One, the person could hypothesize on one's own, trying to put the puzzle pieces together, often with the help of a few books. But the most effective way to learn was to ask another person. Nothing too hard. Just find a person who could be speculated to know the answer.

Yu-ye thought of the method, but felt incapable of using such tactics.

He had no one to ask. The only people he knew was his stubborn grandmother and next door Yunyoung. However, if one of them knew, he thought it would be his grandmother, who had lived and experienced the world for much longer. But he felt reluctant.

Yu-ye couldn't guess if his grandmother liked him or hated him.

From when he was a little baby, she was his only family. If that was the case, he felt that she would have cared for him or would have been extremely affectionate towards him, unless she had an ongoing grudge on some past bitterness. But, the line was hard to distinguish.

Some days she treated him as if he was truly the apple to her eye, and another, she treated him as if he was a stranger. The latter happened much more, but one was for certain.

If he were to ask 'Do you see the blue thread?' to his grandmother, she would treat him like a stranger, judging him.

So, grandmother was out of the question.

The only one who was left was Yunyoung, but that was even harder. Although she tried to hide it, she was troubled and worried sick for months when he told her of the woman's voice that woke him up. If he were to add that now he could see things float too, she might faint. Either that or cry all day holding him in her arms.

It would have been easy if Handcart Grandpa was still around…

"Should I go to the library?"

Yu-ye thought of the moments he had when he went with Yunyoung after he got used to their study routine. It was too far to walk, but he sc.r.a.ped together the coins he had been lucky enough to find on the streets around his house. He dug his hands into the drawer where he kept it all. It amounted to a dollar and a few coins. Enough to ride the bus.

The next morning, as soon as his grandmother headed out, he walked towards the lower part of the town to wait for a bus. The bus that was scheduled to come every 20 minutes came an hour later than planned. Maybe it got into an accident.

"Mister, how much would it be to ride the bus once?"

The bus driver turned his head to look at Yu-ye. No matter how closely he looked, he didn't have a parent or a guardian with him.

"Didn't mommy come with you?"

"Um…… I don't have a mommy."

Yu-ye fidgeted as if the question gave him a hard time.

Noticing his mistake, the bus driver asked again.

"What I meant to say is, did you come with an adult?"

"No, I wanted to go to the library alone."

"Uh……. Are you sure you could find the way?"

"I've been there a couple times now"

"Aw alright then. Hop on. Children are free."

Yu-ye brightened up as he quickly climbed on the bus. In the bus was only Yu-ye, the driver, and two high schoolers who were late to their morning cla.s.ses.

After Yu-ye realized that the bus fare was free, he started going to the library every day as if it was his work. After school, all he could do while waiting for Yunyoung was to watch TV at home. It was a bore. Almost everything was a re-run too!

It was the first time Yu-ye had touched a computer, but with the help of a few friendly librarians, he soon got the hang of it. It still boggled his mind every time he looked at it, but at least he could conduct a simple search for the books he wanted to find.

However, that wasn't the end to his problems.

In what kind of book does anything about a 'blue thread' come out?

At first, he entered 'blue thread' into the search bar, but it was a bust. All the books that came out were storybooks, knitting guides, or some foreign literature he couldn't read.

After searching and thinking for a couple more days, he finally decided to receive the help of a librarian. Right now, when he couldn't trust his grandmother or Yunyoung, the best person to ask was the trusty librarian.

"…Hey Sis…"

Whether if it was instinct or consciousness, Yu-ye had a good start. The mid-30 woman turned to look at Yu-ye, pleased to hear that she was called 'sis' even in midst of a busy day. Oh sure, little kids didn't know much about anything, but it still felt nice to be called something younger than she was. While petting Yu-ye's hair, she asked sweetly,

"Hm? What can sis do for you?"

"I want to know more about something but I don't know what to look for."

"What do you want to know?"

Yu-ye became silent for a moment.

If he was to ask her to find a book related to the 'blue thread', he was sure she would not succeed. But he couldn't blatantly tell her that he sees floating blue strings, therefore he had to beat around the bush. It was a difficult job for young Yu-ye.

After thinking for a while, he finally opened his mouth.

"Um… Well, I saw some dirt floating in front of my eyes… so…"

"Dirt?"

The librarian struggled to understand Yu-ye's mumbling, then soon went "Aha!", nodding her head along. When she looked around she saw little dust particles shining under the sunlight, floating inside the library.

At Yu-ye's age, all children were curious of the world around them. He probably wanted to know how the dust are formed and how they disappear.

"If you were looking for information on something like that, look for it under common knowledge books. Do you want me to find them for you?"

"Oh, No that's okay. I think I understand now. I'll look on my own."

Yu-ye stopped mumbling and told her firmly.

"Okay, good luck!"

The librarian walked away after placing a piece of candy in his hand.

Now, Yu-ye knew which word to search with. 'Knowledge' was all he needed to search to get more than 10 pages of the website, filled with all sorts of books on details about common knowledge. Yu-ye used the information he gathered during the past few days. He organized the books by the year they were published, then memorized the code of the book that popped up as the first one.

A Thousand Common Knowledges for Parents.

Yu-ye sat on an empty desk, and opened the book.

To start with the result, he couldn't find what he wanted.

In case any other books contained the slightest information about the strings, he had read all the common knowledge books in the library in the last month. But still, nothing about a blue string.

However, in one of the last books he came across, 'Ale's Arbitrary Knowledge a.n.a.lysis', he received a spark of inspiration.

The author, who claimed himself as a mystery book writer, explained if one was to write a detective story, they must be able to a.n.a.lyze even the slightest of details. He wrote as if he wanted to boast how many difficult words he could shove into one long sentence, making it even harder for a young boy like Yu-ye to understand. But. Yu-ye did not give up. He showed enough persistence to search almost every word in the dictionary, 'decoding' the sentence. Thus, he was finally able to understand what the author wanted to say.

It was simple. When one wanted to know more on a subject, the author advised to stay close, be focused, and keep looking with patience.

If Yu-ye was a little older, he would have sworn.

It didn't make sense to write such obvious common sense in such a long, and complicated sentence.

But Yu-ye was still innocent, as he instantly did as the book told.

Yu-ye temporarily stopped his everyday trips to the library as he sat in front of the TV, staring intensely. The subject wasn't the TV, but the blue strings floating around it. The first one he saw was long. There was long ones and short ones, all different in their sizes. However, even the longest one never pa.s.sed 3 centimeters. The shortest was 1 centimeter. The thickness of it almost didn't exist as it was extremely thin, with a light turquoise color.

4 days had pa.s.sed since his observations.

Yu-ye was absorbed in the blue strings, enough to unconsciously ignore the girl next door. Doing nothing but watching the blue thread and eating his meals was no easy task. Yu-ye's persistence was incredible.

If others knew what he was up to, they would make fun of him as a foolish bear. (a Korean metaphor for people who don't know when to give up)

He did have some progress though.

On the last day of his observations, Yu-ye wondered,

'Why are the blue strings only at my house?'

That was the one ultimate problem he couldn't figure out. He didn't know what the blue strings were to begin with. However, when Yu-ye realized the ultimate question, the world around him began to change.

Starting the next day, Yu-ye could see the blue thread outside of his home. In the tree in front of his house, the gra.s.s, a dog, people, even the rocks and soil seemed to have blue strings next to them. Some seemed to float in the air freely, but the amount of them were significantly less. Usually, the blue strings liked to stay next to anything with life. At night, it gleamed like a group of beautiful fireflies.

As time went by, the amount of blue strings Yu-ye could see increased in number. For an odd reason, the strings, even when the subject was the same, increased as the subject moved closer to the mountains and decreased as they got closer to a man-made road.

Yu-ye thought of 'Ale's Arbitrary Knowledge a.n.a.lysis' on the chapter 'Perception.' As the chapter states, the author explains there are four meanings to perception.

They were: to use others to one's advantage, to escape from the unknown, to store one's own experience, and finally, to be the first step of a changing world.

'Did my world change too because I changed my perceptions?'

It seemed to make enough sense.

Then, when was the first time Yu-ye perceived of the blue thread?

When he traced back his memories, it was obvious.

The woman's voice. It started the first day he heard the voice.