Hathor was sitting at my table first thing in the morning. More precisely, this had become a regular occurrence every weekend.
I didn't know when she had started naturally taking over our sofa and dining table. At first, I thought she was only staying for a little while, but by now, waking up on a weekend morning and not seeing Hathor felt stranger than seeing her there.
I poured myself a glass of water and looked at Hathor.
“Let’s try to make some money today. You remember what I said last week, right? That you need money to live in human society.”
Hathor propped her chin on her hand.
“You said I needed to work. It’s the same everywhere, then.”
“Yeah, so today I’m going to seriously look for something. Somewhere you could work.”
I took a quick shower and got ready to go out. I didn’t have anywhere specific in mind today. I still wasn’t sure what kind of work Hathor could do, and it wasn’t like I could suddenly get her hired at a company.
For now, I decided we’d walk around the neighborhood and think about it.
As soon as we left the apartment building, the hot late-summer air touched my face. The sunlight was strong even in the morning, but the occasional breeze blowing through the alleys was cooler than I expected. Hathor and I walked side by side.
“So, Hae-na, do you go to work every day?”
“……Yeah.”
Thinking about myself commuting to the office suddenly made me feel strange.
“I see.”
Hathor didn’t ask anything else.
We passed a small shopping street near my apartment and turned into an alley. The utility poles, bulletin boards, and flyers stuck to the walls—things I usually walked right past—caught my eye today.
Then I stopped walking.
“Huh?”
A huge flyer was plastered on one side of an old wall.
Neighborhood Weekend Flea Market!
It listed the date and location, and a small notice at the bottom said they were looking for people to help prepare for the event.
I leaned in to read the flyer.
“This could work. A flea market!”
“What is that?”
“An event where people bring things they don’t use anymore from home and sell them.”
Hathor read the flyer.
“And?”
“They’re looking for people to help prepare for the event.”
“That is simple enough. I’ll do it.”
“Wait. We don’t even know what kind of work you can do yet.”
“If it requires physical strength, there is no problem.”
“That’s true, but……”
I looked at the flyer again. The event wasn’t far from home, and there weren’t any special requirements, so I figured this should be fine.
“Okay. Let’s give it a try.”
The day of the flea market.
The event was being held at a fairly large park in the neighborhood.
It was still morning, before the crowds had really started coming in, but preparations were already underway everywhere. I checked in at the registration desk, got some instructions, and started setting up with Hathor.
“We’re supposed to move the tables over here.”
“Understood.”
Hathor looked at the folding tables on the ground.
Then she picked up all ten at once.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Hathor.”
“What?”
“Pick them up one at a time.”
“I can carry three, and more besides.”
“You have to carry them one at a time. If possible, only two at a time.”
With an expression that said she couldn’t understand, Hathor set eight of the tables back down.
“Humans are strange.”
“If you want to look human, you have to act human.”
I glanced around. Fortunately, no one seemed to have noticed anything strange. I explained that ordinary human women weren’t very strong, so if she showed everyone she could carry ten tables at once, she might draw a lot of attention. Reluctantly, Hathor picked up a single table.
But this time… she used so little strength that the table slipped from her hands.
“Ah!”
I hurriedly caught it.
“Hathor… you can’t control your strength, can you?”
“……It is somewhat difficult.”
“You’re a dragon. What are we supposed to do if you can’t even move one table?”
Apparently, that comment hit a nerve. Hathor picked up the table again. This time, she moved it properly. After that, things went fairly smoothly.
We put up the tents, lined up the chairs, moved the boxes, and prepared the trash bags. With all her strength, Hathor was astonishingly fast at simple physical labor.
“Do I move these too?”
“Yeah. There should still be more left……”
When I turned around a moment later, all the boxes that had been piled up like a mountain were gone.
“……Did you move all of those by yourself?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t do it so fast.”
“Why?”
“Everyone else is still working.”
Hathor looked around.
The other people really were still moving things slowly.
“Humans are weak and slow.”
“Don’t say things like that… out loud.”
Once the flea market began, the atmosphere of the open space changed completely. Until just a little while ago, it had been empty. Now it was packed with people. There were clothes hanging all over racks, tables piled with old books, toys children had played with, handmade accessories and little pieces of pottery, and even the so-called antiques.
Even while she was working, Hathor kept turning her gaze toward the merchandise.
“Were all those things used before?”
“Most of them, probably.”
“And they are selling them again?”
“Yeah.”
Hathor examined an old toy.
“It has not become useless.”
“What?”
“Only its owner is changing.”
I looked at Hathor for a moment.
“I guess you could look at it that way.”
That was when it happened.
A child began to cry somewhere in the distance.
“Waaah……!”
Hathor turned her head. A little boy was searching the ground for something.
“What is wrong?”
“He lost a toy.”
Without saying a word, Hathor looked around. Then she spotted a small toy car that had rolled underneath a table. Her better-than-human eyesight came in handy at times like this.
“There it is.”
Hathor crouched down and pulled out the toy. As soon as she handed it to the boy, he stopped crying.
“Thank you!”
Hathor looked at the boy for a moment.
“……It was nothing.”
The boy beamed and ran to his mother. Watching him, Hathor lifted the corners of her mouth ever so slightly. I let out a small laugh at the sight.
She still wasn’t completely used to “kindness,” but at least Hathor no longer seemed to think it was strange to do something for someone without expecting anything in return.
It wasn’t until the sun began to sink that everything finally ended. People started packing up the remaining items and folding the tents. I was pretty exhausted too, after moving around nonstop since morning.
*Working even though it’s my day off……*
Hathor, however, looked perfectly fine.
“Are you not tired?”
“This is not enough to tire me.”
Just then, the person in charge of the event approached and handed Hathor a small envelope.
“Thank you for all your hard work today.”
Hathor accepted the envelope. Then she stared down at it for a long while.
“So this is the currency of this place.”
“Yeah. You got it for working today.”
Hathor carefully opened the envelope. She took out the bills inside and turned them over in her hands. When the wind blew, the thin bills fluttered slightly.
“What’s wrong?”
“I was wondering if this is the value of the work I did today.”
Hathor gazed at it for a long time. Until yesterday, she had thought of money as nothing more than a means of buying things. But today was different. It seemed as though the hours and sweat she had put in since morning, and the day she had spent with everyone else, were all contained inside those little bills.
“How strange.”
“What is?”
“I did not know money could be this heavy.”
“That’s because this is the first money you’ve ever earned.”
On the way home, with sunset still some time away, the sky was painted orange. We walked in silence for a while. Then Hathor suddenly stopped.
“Hae-na.”
“Yeah?”
Hathor pulled the money she had received today from her pocket.
“Let us buy something you want to eat with this.”
I blinked at her in confusion instead of answering.
“Because you brought me here.”
“But that’s money you earned.”
“Which is why I am saying I will spend it.”
I thought for a moment, then clapped my hands and said playfully,
“Then cake!”
Hathor paused. She must have remembered how she had eaten the cake I bought all by herself.
“I will buy you some. Today, we shall share it.”
I fell into step beside Hathor. Last week, she had handed me the snacks her grandmother gave her. Today, she was saying she wanted to buy something for me with the first money she had ever earned.
She was a dragon who still knew almost nothing about human society. But strangely enough… little by little, truly little by little, she seemed to be learning how to live in this place.