Encounter
Minwoo had always gone around wearing nothing but that easy, round-faced smile. Right now, though, his expression looked quite serious.
Pulled along by his hand, I arrived at a secluded corner of the orphanage—a container warehouse stuffed with things the place no longer used, and a heap of secondhand goods stacked outside because the warehouse had filled to bursting.
From the warehouse whose door had been pulled off from disuse, a faint thread of smoke was leaking out. Smoke so thin I never would have noticed it if my eyes hadn't gotten sharper.
As I drew closer, an acrid smell hit me. A glance inside the warehouse found a girl smoking.
Han Sehee. Seventeen this year, she was the oldest of the kids at the orphanage, responsible enough that everyone trusted her and followed her lead.
"Sehee noona's been getting kind of rough lately... The kids say she's been hanging around with some scary noonas..."
"Sehee?"
I'd had a feeling she was struggling even before I came to this gender-reversed world, but seeing her smoking in a corner made it obvious something had well and truly gone wrong.
I had a pretty good idea why she'd ended up like this. I'd gone through a similar stretch myself.
Under Yohan Orphanage policy, kids who graduate high school can no longer stay. They give you more time to prepare for the outside world than most places do, but being thrown out into society is terrifying all the same.
Well. That's why I ran off early. At seventeen. Life was going to be unstable anyway, so I figured I might as well start making money fast. Six years of everything from chicken-shop part-time work to parcel loading, forging a body of densely packed, practical muscle...
...I didn't want the other kids to have to go through any of that. I hoped it wasn't too late.
"Minwoo. Keep watch nearby. Don't let anyone else come near, and stay back yourself."
"O-okay."
The words were barely out of my mouth before I started walking toward Sehee. Even as the distance closed, she kept staring at her phone. Only when I came up right behind her did she finally turn around. I plucked the cigarette from her lips, stuck it in my own mouth, and took one long, hard drag.
"O-oppa?!"
The half-smoked cigarette shrank in an instant. I'd quit more than a year ago, so it nearly knocked me sideways, but I clenched my teeth and rode it out. The breath I let out with the smoke was thick with worry.
The shock of seeing a little sister I especially cherished—my especially cherished little sister—smoking so blatantly wasn't going to fade anytime soon.
Had she picked up cigarettes because this was a gender-reversed world? Or had she been doing this in the old world, too?
"Sehee. Take out every cigarette you've got left."
"Okay..."
I must have gone through about five of them. Sehee's face grew graver by the second. She wasn't allowed to look that grave already. I still hadn't calmed down. Still, she seemed to understand this wasn't something that would blow over easily.
I'm not sure you'd call it counseling, exactly. Either way, it didn't take long.
In two years she would have to go out into the world. Even if she studied hard, she wouldn't have the means to attend university, and even with government support, there was no telling whether she could live a stable life. With her future that uncertain, she'd gone limp, and she'd started getting mixed up with worse and worse people...
A kid who'd always been good at studying, and the moment she hits high school, this. Back in my day, kids weren't this mentally fragile.
Usually, the solution to this kind of situation boiled down to one thing.
Money.
Money brings stability, and a stable life makes growth possible. How could anyone not call money all-powerful?
The truth was, you couldn't look after every kid who left the orphanage, and the idea of a single person bankrolling someone was absurd. But... a little support for a little sister I'd been that close with... wouldn't that be all right?
Especially Sehee, who'd always been so good at her studies and had clearly loved them, which made it sting all the more. And she and I had been especially close.
Of course I was barely taking care of myself. But they say shared pain is halved, don't they?
Reeking of cigarette smoke, I slung an arm around Sehee's shoulders. Visually, it looked like a scary neighborhood thug pretending to be friendly right before he shook you down for cash.
"Sehee, I hear it costs about eighty million won to get through college."
"Uh—huh?"
"Just study hard. We've lived together for years. You think I can't cover that?"
"What?! No, but still—"
"Heh heh... The Director doesn't even know this, but I've been streaming lately. Started last week, and I've already made tens of millions. I've got the money to help you."
I hadn't actually made that much. But that wasn't what mattered. Impulsive as the decision was, I didn't regret it. This wasn't someone I'd only met once or twice.
"No... it's just... it's so sudden..."
Looks like she'd fallen for Sweet Seong Yuhan. Sehee started tearing up. If a girl from this gender-reversed world was doing this in front of a man, she must have been having a really hard time.
"Hey, Sehee, you crying? What's that about. Crying in front of a guy—and you were smoking, too."
Whether it was the smoke from the cigarette in my hand, she made a funny face, squinting, somewhere between laughing and crying. A smile tugged at my mouth. Well, with this body, it probably looked pretty sinister.
Voices mixed together from somewhere far off. It seemed it was time to head back.
"Sehee. Don't let the kids see you crying. Come finish crying in front of me later. That's enough for now."
"Okay. I'm sorry, oppa..."
"Sorry for what. If you really mean it, quit smoking from now on."
"Ahaha... Got it, oppa."
Yeah. Our Sehee looked prettiest when she smiled. I waited for her tears to stop, and then a familiar voice came from behind—a voice I'd been hearing a lot lately.
I turned around to find a beauty with long jet-black hair, and Minwoo gripping her arm as if to hold her back.
And on this side, Sehee hunched in on herself, and... Geum Taeyang, a cigarette in one hand, his arm around Sehee's shoulders, wearing a vile grin.
"Ah, fuck."
A video is supposed to have variety. Filming nothing but me volunteering would never make anything interesting to watch.
People have to find it fun first. Only then do they watch—and only then can they take any good influence from it, or not.
So after we'd delivered the donated goods, I was wandering the orphanage, looking around for extra footage. Ending up here was pure coincidence.
This corner of the grounds seemed to be where they piled the various things the orphanage no longer needed. The atmosphere was so secluded that I was just telling the managers we should give it a quick glance and leave—when a male student suddenly blocked our path.
He threw out excuse after excuse, trying to convince us we shouldn't go in, but they were clumsy, full of holes.
There's something here.
The fact that a male student was guarding a place like this alone was strange to begin with. He even gave off the feeling of someone keeping watch.
I'd built a decent working relationship with the managers over time, so a look was enough to get on the same page. They would stall him. I would go in.
"Student. We'll just take a little look around. Can't even allow that? We did come with permission, you know."
"Ah... still, though."
The moment a manager started talking to him to pull his attention, I moved.
Looking the space over properly, I found thick smoke flowing from a container warehouse in one corner. From the faint acrid smell hanging in the air, that was definitely cigarette smoke.
Had that student just been keeping watch for another kid who was smoking?
Society these days tends to look the other way when students smoke, but wrong is still wrong. If a delinquent is nearby, it can have a bad influence on the other children at the orphanage.
Thinking that, I started walking toward the container warehouse. Behind me, the male student shouted something and came after me. Hearing him, I picked up speed. Maybe smoking on orphanage grounds carried a heavy penalty—he started chasing even more desperately.
I'd thought I was fairly quick on my feet, but he caught up in an instant and reached for me. I slipped into the container at the exact moment his hand closed on my arm.
Cough—! Cough—!
Cigarette smoke filled the cramped space. Why would anyone smoke this much?
When I forced my eyes open through the acrid haze, a shocking scene unfolded.
Two people stood in cigarette smoke settled like fog. A blond man with a cigarette in one hand had his arm slung around a girl's shoulders, wearing a vile grin.
Whether from the smell of the smoke, the girl was squinting, tears running down her face, and several cigarette butts littered the floor.
From his clothes and his build, the man didn't look like an orphanage kid. He was clearly an adult, no matter how you looked at it.
Someone who'd come as a volunteer? Why come all the way here to do something like that?
If you asked me whether I was a good person, I don't think I could give you a definite yes. It isn't as if I've never had my own small transgressions. Everyone lives with a little wickedness in them, don't they? Human beings are complicated.
But that man was definitely a wicked one. The kind of person I'd always been at odds with.
Anger surged up. I pressed it down as much as I could and spoke.
"What...... are you doing there."
"...Ah, fuck."
He turned, spat out a filthy curse—and his face felt somehow familiar.
The managers who'd rushed over confirmed it too, and stopped dead in surprise.