I'll Take Responsibility
"Jiwoo-chan... you're hiding something from Tsuki, aren't you?"
"Hiding something? No? I don't think so?"
Tsuki had spent about three hours on the flight to Japan fidgeting and stewing. The moment we stepped off the plane, she hit me with that strange accusation.
What on earth made her think I was hiding something?
Had I done something weird?
Honestly, checking the flight times and seats on the phone I'd snatched from her without a word and booking the tickets on the spot... even I had to admit that was a bit much.
"Sorry. I felt bad about trying to send you off alone."
"Jiwoo-chan. What are you talking about? When Tsuki came to Korea, Tsuki came all by herself! Just fine!"
"Ah... right."
Thinking about it, she had a point.
She'd hopped on a plane with no help from anyone, just from hearing a company name I'd mentioned once during a VTuber music-show project.
"That's not the point right now, Jiwoo-chan. Be honest. You're hiding something from Tsuki... no, from all of us!"
"I'm not hiding anything. Why would you even think that?"
"Heheh. This great detective Tsuki will tell you!"
Tsuki struck a weird pose, looking like she might nod off on her feet at any second.
"Tsuki thought of two reasons!"
"Two of them...?"
"Yep! Listen up. First!"
I'd said I'd never been on a plane before, and yet I'd acted far too at home on the flight. First-time flyers tend to get lost starting from check-in. According to her, I'd been way too comfortable.
"And the second?"
"You didn't take your shoes off on the plane!"
"...What?"
"Tsuki knows! In Korea, when you take your very first flight, you absolutely have to take your shoes off! It's a guk-ru? A national rule!"
"A national rule?"
Lee Yuwol had once asked, as a joke, whether I'd taken my shoes off on a plane — and Tsuki had believed it with her whole heart.
Do I tell her? Or not?
In a way, this might have been one of the more serious dilemmas of both my past life and this one.
Yeah. I should tell her.
If the older girls pulled another weird prank later and she believed it and said something bizarre to the viewers, that would be...
A dark history.
Just thinking about it made me dizzy.
"Tsuki... the truth is..."
Like shattering a child's illusion, I told her the facts. That everything had been the older girls messing with her.
"Th-that's impossible..."
Tsuki took a few steps back, wearing an expression of profound shock.
Wait — that much of a shock?
Even after I'd told her the truth.
I'd expected something more like I knew it! or her flying into a rage about being tricked and never forgiving us.
Her unexpected reaction left me a little thrown.
"Th-then! The thing about Santa definitely coming to Korea?! And how every summer everyone goes to the beach as a group, and Jiwoo-chan's super daring bikini!"
"Uh... I don't know what you mean by the second one. But the odds that both of those are lies... one hundred percent."
"Th-that can't be..."
Thud.
Tsuki sank to the airport floor.
"It's over... Tsuki's life is over... I was only looking forward to summer..."
So it was the bikini, not Santa?
Looked at another way, maybe she'd already known and was just pretending to fall for it as a sophisticated strategy to see me in a bikini. The thought crossed my mind for a second.
A bikini, though...
Even in my past life I never went anywhere just because it was summer. I'd used that time to work a little more.
Salespeople don't get summer vacation... rest doesn't exist in the first place.
If a call came in at dawn, you flew out, whether it was the countryside or overseas.
"Anyway, Tsuki... let's move somewhere else. People are staring."
Sitting down in the middle of the airport, of course people were looking. Japan was still a place where people lived, so everyone started pulling out their phones to film whatever this was.
I quickly covered my face with a hat and mask, pulled Tsuki to her feet, and left the airport.
The reason I wasn't wearing sunglasses was that security had already nabbed us once, so I'd taken them off to look a little less conspicuous.
"This way. To get to my family home... but Jiwoo-chan? Are you really going to be okay? Tsuki's house is... pretty scary."
A faint unease showed on Tsuki's face.
I'd already heard her family used to be yakuza.
Even so, I was going to Tsuki's family home to say it proudly. To ask them to let Tsuki achieve what she wanted.
"Jiwoo-chan. You don't have to go that far..."
Whenever the family home came up, Tsuki seemed to shrink. A kid that lively, unable to square her shoulders... that's when an adult has to step in.
"Don't worry. Leave it to me. I'll... take responsibility."
"Jiwoo-chan..."
Tsuki looked at me with shining, moved eyes.
They wouldn't actually kill me, right? I was a guest who'd come as Tsuki's friend.
In my past life as a salesman, the scariest place had been China. And it was some kind of martial-sect business, so the people were pretty rough, and if you didn't have guanxi they wouldn't even deal with you, which made things considerably...
"I almost died... I can't even count how many times a knife went into me. And then the higher-ups would still scream at me to land the contract somehow..."
"Jiwoo-chan?"
"It's nothing. Let's go. I've always wanted to take a trip to Japan at least once!"
I needed to be back in Korea by three in the afternoon tomorrow or I'd be late... even if we went back to Tsuki's family home in the evening and talked things through.
I pulled out my phone and checked the time.
1:10.
Plenty of time.
"Come on! Let's do some sightseeing fast and then head to your family home."
"...Okay!"
Her answer was a little slow, but it should be fine!
And I had no idea then that it was not fine at all.
"This is... your house?"
Our place was a fairly spacious two-story country home too. But Tsuki's house looked even bigger.
It wasn't that tall, but it stretched out sideways, so there seemed to be a lot of rooms. The exterior looked quite old, like a building from another era. Twisted wood here and there, and a front gate that looked as if it had cracked.
"W-wood gets sturdier with time, so it won't collapse! And this was designed for earthquakes too... there have been quakes a few times before, but it held through all of them!"
Reading the unease on my face, Tsuki rattled on, emphasizing how sturdy it was.
Well, Japan gets a lot of earthquakes, so they design for that. A building that looked that old, and it could still withstand frequent quakes... it should be fine.
"Let's go in."
"Okay..."
Tsuki patted her chest, took several deep breaths, and finally pressed the doorbell.
Bzzzzt!
A slightly crackling tone rang through the whole building.
"Who is it?"
A lovely woman's voice came through the intercom speaker.
"I-it's me... Tsuki."
"Tsuki?!"
The woman startled at the name, unable to hide the urgency in her voice.
"Tsuki! Run! Right now, Grandfather is—"
"Did you just say Tsuki?! Where is she!"
"F-Father, please just calm—"
"Tsuki! Get in here this instant!"
The voice was rough and husky from the first word.
Tremble.
I glanced beside me. Tsuki was shaking with fear.
"It's okay. I'm right here."
"Jiwoo-chan... haah... whoo..."
I took her hand lightly, and her trembling gradually settled.
"We're coming in."
Tsuki put her hand on the gate and slowly pushed.
What on earth was going on in there... were they angry because we'd arrived too late?
I'd said it would be fine.
But I stepped into the house with Tsuki, half worry and half unease sitting in my chest.
The moment we entered the entryway, a woman was there to greet us.
"So you're the one who enchanted our Tsuki. I can see it... you've got everything our Tsuki would fall for."
Tsuki's mother looked me up and down, her gaze lingering for a moment on my chest.
"You still look so young... but they're quite large. Makes me want to give them a squeeze."
"Excuse me, what did you just—"
"Grandfather is waiting inside... Tsuki and her friend, this way."
"Mom... even in front of Jiwoo-chan, do you have to get that... polished?"
Tsuki looked at her mother's behavior with a sense of wrongness, like she'd just walked into an uncanny valley.
"Ahem... Tsuki, don't say weird things! Get inside!"
"Ah.... Okay! I-I got it!"
As if she'd finally snapped back to normal, Tsuki sighed in relief, kicked off her shoes, and dashed into the house.
I even tidied up Tsuki's shoes, which were lying scattered on the floor.
"Oh my? You even tidy them so neatly. Just like how you look?"
"I heard that in Japan, tidying up is a matter of courtesy."
"Your Japanese... is quite good."
Tsuki's mother treated me as if she already knew I was Korean. Had she already heard from Tsuki?
"I only know a little."
"Modesty... go into the second room down the hall."
"Thank you."
I gave a light knock on the second room Tsuki's mother had indicated.
"Come in."
That husky voice from inside. Permission granted, I opened the door and went in.
Inside the room was a white-haired old man with a face covered in scars, and a little ways off, Tsuki standing with her hand raised.
"Welcome. So you're our Tsuki's friend?"
"Yes. We're around the same age, so we became friends. And... as you know, Tsuki is very lively and has a great personality, so she gets close to people quickly."
Tsuki's grandfather looked briefly satisfied, then his face hardened in an instant.
"So. What did you come here for."
Straight to the point already.
Fine by me. Wrapping this up fast and heading back at a leisurely pace was much better for me than dragging things out.
My phone was being flooded with messages from Kang Ho-yeon. I was ignoring them for now because I was scared of the aftermath...
Whether I get scolded now or later, I'm getting scolded either way.
"I've come to take Tsuki with me."
If the other party was going straight to the point, there was no need for me to drag it out either. I was the one in a hurry, so I'd show my cards first.
"Our Tsuki? And what do you plan to do with her? Tsuki can't do anything. She just sits at a computer all day, doesn't study, and pours herself into strange things. She's useless."
"That's not true at all. Please look at this."
I opened my phone's photo album and handed it to Tsuki's grandfather.
"These are the results of everything Tsuki worked for after coming to Korea. Please take a look."
"...You, get out."
"G-Grandfather... I want to stay here too..."
"Now!"
"...Hngh."
At a single bark, her shoulders slumped and she went outside.
Now it was just me and Tsuki's grandfather in the room.
Ah... this is bad.
The word human trafficking kept floating through my head. I clasped one slightly trembling hand with the other to hide it.
"Then let's have a look."
Tsuki's grandfather touched the screen. Tsuki's voice flowed from the phone speaker.
"A song... I can't understand the words since it's in Korean, but..."
But?
Looking at his face, I couldn't tell if he liked it or hated it.
After that first remark, Tsuki's grandfather watched in silence all the way to the end.
"So what do you intend to do with Tsuki? Are you planning to take responsibility for her?"
"Responsibility..."
I was still a high schooler. I couldn't take responsibility for another person.
Even so.
"The three months I spent with Tsuki were so happy. Before, I was thrashing around in a colorless, scentless space. Now I want to keep struggling in a place full of color — where Tsuki is, and the other members too."
Come to think of it, at some point I'd been dyed by the members myself.
I didn't want to be separated.