Ding-dong.
I woke up to the sound of the doorbell.
At first, still half-asleep, Hator thought she must have heard it wrong and lay still with the blanket pulled all the way over her head. But a moment later, the doorbell rang again.
Ding-dong.
This time, there was no mistaking it.
“...Who is it?”
Hator sat up with a frown.
Sunlight streaming in through the window stretched in long bands across the floor. Bright light poured through the gap in the curtains she hadn’t closed properly overnight. Even though it had been a month since she’d moved in, unopened boxes were still stacked in one corner of the room.
Hator roughly smoothed back her tousled hair and headed for the entryway.
When she opened the door, a familiar face was standing there.
“Oh, you’re up.”
“...Hae-na?”
“Yeah. I stopped by for a minute before work.”
Hae-na looked Hator up and down.
“You were still asleep?”
“Yeah...”
“Do you know what time it is?”
Hator didn’t answer. Hae-na checked her watch.
“It’s past eight.”
“Humans are way too industrious first thing in the morning...”
“You live here now, too, so you need to adjust to it at least a little.”
Hae-na had to get to work and couldn’t stay long. Just as she was about to turn around, the living room caught her eye.
“...Wait a second.”
“What?”
“You still haven’t unpacked?”
Hator’s gaze followed Hae-na’s.
Boxes that had occupied the same corner since the day she moved in sat in the living room. They came in all different sizes. Of course, the boxes themselves didn’t look like anything from the human world. Their exteriors looked like something straight out of a fantasy game.
“I already took out what I need.”
“Then what are all those?”
“Things I don’t need.”
“What do you mean, things you don’t need? You brought them because you needed them.”
Hae-na spoke as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Anyway, I have to get to work now... If you have time today, try organizing those. I don’t think I’ll have time to help today, so do it yourself for once.”
Hae-na checked the time on her watch, then hurriedly turned and left. A moment later, the door closed.
Hator stared at the boxes stacked in the corner of the living room for a while.
“...You want me to open all of those?”
At first, she planned to open just one. She dispelled the locking spell and lifted the lid. The first thing she found was a piece of worn cloth.
Hator picked it up. It was clothing.
It was a coat she had worn in another world. Thicker and more cumbersome than human-world clothing, it was nevertheless familiar from years of wear.
Beneath it were a small leather pouch and several pieces of jewelry.
Hator took them out one by one and laid them across the floor.
“So I brought this, too.”
When she first crossed over to this world, she hadn’t planned to stay long. She intended to take only what she needed, accomplish her objective, and return immediately.
Of course, by human standards, that period had been a long time. But to Hator, a dragon who lived a life close to eternity, it was a short while.
There had been no reason to properly unpack her things.
That was what she had thought.
Hator took a small metal ornament from the box. When she placed it on her palm, the sunlight coming through the window faintly reflected off its surface. The moment she saw it, a memory from a very long time ago came rushing back.
She had still been young then.
She remembered clearly even what someone had said while presenting it to her. Hator stared at it for a moment, then placed it on the desk.
She didn’t feel like throwing it away.
By the time she had taken everything out piece by piece, one box was empty.
But strangely, she couldn’t stop.
She opened a second box.
The first had mostly contained clothes and jewelry, while this one was filled mostly with books.
The worn covers were densely covered in writing that couldn’t be seen in the human world. Hator turned the pages.
Amid the smell of paper, she caught a familiar scent.
The scent of home.
Hator slowly traced the letters with one finger. Since she had rarely had a chance to see this writing after coming here, perhaps she was feeling something like homesickness without realizing it.
Hator carried the books she had taken out to the bookshelf one at a time.
The remaining boxes contained household items and magical tools. Then she opened the last box.
At the very bottom was something wrapped in worn cloth.
Hator took it out and unwound the cloth. It was a small picture frame.
It looked like a photograph, but it was from another world.
Several dragons were standing together. Hator stared at the picture for a long time.
She was in it, too. Much younger than she was now.
All the faces beside her were familiar.
She could remember them one by one.
Some of them were probably still there even now, while she didn’t even know where others were. Hator slowly ran her finger along the edge of the frame.
It was the first time since coming to the human world that she had looked at a trace of home she had brought with her for so long.
Until then, she had thought only of returning once everything was over.
Once she understood humans and found a way to end the conflict, she would go back.
But at some point, the idea of returning had begun to feel strangely far away.
The time she had spent in the human world had quietly piled up.
She had talked with Hae-na, clashed with people, tried working and earning money, eaten foods she had never tasted before, and even met and spoken with a vampire here—a race she would never have had reason to exchange words with under normal circumstances.
In the meantime, nothing remained exactly the same as it had been when she first arrived.
Hator held the picture for a while longer, then stood it on the desk.
Time passed faster than she expected. As the angle of the sunlight coming through the window gradually shifted, all the boxes in the living room had been put away.
The books had been moved to the bookshelf, and the clothes had gone into the closet. The jewelry had been organized in one place, with everything finally settled where it belonged.
At first, she had only started because Hae-na told her to. She didn’t want to hear any more nagging, so she had planned to organize at least one box just for show. But at some point, Hator had started organizing everything of her own accord.
Hator was a dragon, a powerful race that held a high position in another world and was even worshiped by humans as a god.
Naturally, she had been accustomed to calling servants to do things for her rather than doing anything with her own hands. For someone like that to take care of something herself was remarkable.
Realizing how ridiculous she must look, Hator gave a small laugh and placed a little object she had bought in the shopping district beside the picture frame.
Something she had brought from her own world and something she had acquired here now sat together in the same space. Hator stared at them for a while.
If she had just arrived, she probably would never have imagined seeing this.
Back then, this house had been nothing more than a place to stay. It was somewhere to sleep and keep the things she needed, nothing more and nothing less.
But things were different now.
She cooked meals with her own hands and waited for her neighbor.
The difference didn’t feel as bad as she had expected.
Around sunset, the doorbell rang.
Ding-dong.
Hator got up and opened the door. Hae-na was standing there.
“You’re back?”
“Yeah.”
Hae-na looked inside and her eyes widened.
“...What? You unpacked everything?”
Hator answered as if it were nothing special.
“You told me to.”
“I mean, I didn’t think you’d actually do it...”
“You thought I couldn’t?”
“No, it’s just...”
Hae-na leaned her head slightly inside to look around. It wasn’t perfectly organized yet. But the fact that all the boxes that had been sitting untouched for days were gone made the place look tidy enough.
Strange books filled the bookshelf, and unfamiliar objects sat on the desk.
“Now it looks like someone actually lives here.”
At those words, Hator looked around her room for a moment.
A house where someone lived... It was a strange expression. She was a dragon, after all.
But she didn’t dislike it.
“...Does it?”
“Yeah.”
Hae-na checked the time.
“I’m going home. You should eat dinner, too.”
“All right.”
“What are you going to eat tonight?”
“I’ll think about it and decide.”
“Okay. Look at you, doing fine on your own now.”
Hae-na smiled and closed the door. The house fell quiet again.
Hator stood in the middle of the living room and looked around.
The space that had been stacked with boxes until yesterday was empty.
In their place, her belongings had finally found where they belonged.
Hator looked at the small picture on the desk.
A moment later, she shifted her gaze outside the window and saw the lights of the tall buildings. The view had been unfamiliar at first, but now it had become a familiar sight she saw every day. She turned on the living room light.
Only now did the space finally look a little like her own home.