Homecoming
Ugh… My head felt ready to split open.
The chandelier hanging from the ceiling seemed to glitter three or four times brighter than usual.
“……Ugh.”
I pushed up my heavy eyelids and started to sit up—then froze.
Looking down, I found Aimyu’s face nestled among a mess of brown hair, her breath coming in soft little snuffles. No—Ai’s face.
“……Unbelievable.”
A hollow laugh slipped out of me.
I dug through my memories. How exactly had last night’s drinking session ended?
Director Kawaguchi had gotten cheerfully drunk and left first, leaning on his attendant for support. Left behind were Sakura, completely wasted, Ai, and me.
I was the one who told her to come over.
Ai’s place was out on the edge of Tokyo, she’d said. The last trains had long since stopped running, and my conscience wouldn’t let me shove her into one of Japan’s notoriously brutal taxi fares. More than that, dumping a drunk girl alone on the streets at dawn was something the morals of my previous life simply would not allow.
I looked around. The living room was a disaster. Off in the distance, interpreter Sakura was dead asleep on the single-seater sofa; on the center sofa, Ai and I were tangled together.
I got up first and headed for the kitchen. Opening the fridge, I pulled out a cold bottle of water and drained it in one go. The icy slide down my throat finally cleared a little of the fog from my head.
I set the empty bottle on the table and picked up my phone from where I’d flung it onto the sofa. No messages of note. My thumb scrolled idly up the screen—then a certain face suddenly floated into my mind.
Come to think of it, Naeun said today, didn’t she?
I typed Luminous Entertainment into the YouTube search bar and opened the official channel. Right at the top sat a thumbnail that was impossible to miss.
Kim Naeun — Take My Heart Official MV
Scheduled for release today at 6:00 PM
“……So it’s finally coming out.”
A quiet smile spread across my lips before I knew it.
By the time I get back to Korea, she’ll already be making the rounds on the music shows.
A warm, fuzzy pride bloomed in a corner of my chest.
“Mmm…… Jiyeoong…….”
A languid voice from behind made me turn. Ai was scratching her messy hair and rubbing her eyes.
I took a fresh bottle of water from the fridge and held it out to her. She accepted it blankly, cracked the cap, and downed nearly half in one go.
“Haaah…….”
Looking like she might actually live, she suddenly seemed to remember something and pulled out her phone, tapping away with fierce concentration. Running it through a translation app, by the look of it.
A moment later she shoved the screen under my nose. The translated sentence floated there.
I dredged up the Japanese word for “it’s fine” and answered.
“Daijoubu.”
“Yoshi! Yoshi!”
Only then did she nod vigorously, relief written all over her face, and flash a bright grin. Then she went back to typing on her phone.
Promise?
I narrowed my eyes and groped through the fog of memory. When I just stared blankly into space, my eyes met Ai’s. Watching my reaction, she lifted the screen again as if to confirm I’d forgotten.
Ah—right. It was coming back, vaguely.
“Of course.”
Ai beamed. She stood next to me for a long while fiddling with her phone—then suddenly her eyes went round and she let out a short scream.
“Yaba~!”
“……?”
She urgently shoved the phone screen right in front of my face.
“Twiita?”
The photo we’d taken last night. Me with cheeks flushed from the alcohol, and Ai leaning on my shoulder, smiling radiantly. The caption read: With my hero, Jiyoung-nim.
The retweet and like counts were climbing by the second.
Well… fretting about it now won’t change anything.
Would it even become a big problem? Going dark on the fans after winning still made me feel guilty. That didn’t mean I’d only been playing around, though. Just like I’d said in my winner’s speech—I was going to repay them with music. Once I got back to Korea, album distribution was the first thing on the list.
In the days after Jiyoung’s photo went up, every entertainment news outlet in South Korea went into emergency mode.
The overwhelming winner of a major audition program. The first move from Han Jiyoung—who had vanished without a trace from the center of the storm—turned out to be a drinking photo with Japanese singer-songwriter Aimyu.
Aimyu already had a fanbase not only in Japan but across East Asia thanks to her musicality. And with news of her upcoming Korean concert already circulating, the photo was more than enough to be read as something beyond simple friendship.
In the editorial room of an entertainment magazine in Gangnam, the clatter of dozens of reporters hammering keyboards filled the air.
“Hey, is this confirmed? What’s the relationship between the two of them? Did they already know each other?”
At the desk’s shout, a reporter frantically flipped through materials.
“We dug through every last record from Han Jiyoung’s trainee days—there’s zero overlap with Aimyu! Luminous Entertainment is flat-out denying they know anything about it either!”
“Is that what matters right now? Whether the connection is a parachute or pure coincidence is irrelevant! What matters is Han Jiyoung’s return date! We need people at the airport!”
Under the director’s pressure, a senior reporter beside him frowned and raised a doubt.
“Uh, but what if it’s an old photo? It could’ve been taken before the audition.”
The junior reporter shot back immediately.
“Why would she upload an old photo now? Looking at the fan angle, they definitely met that day.”
“See? That proves she’s in Japan right now!”
The director slammed the desk and stood.
“Anyway—by any means necessary, get a Han Jiyoung interview! You saw the public reaction, right? Other companies are already camping out at the airport. Deploy our people too!”
The moment the order dropped, everyone nodded in unison.
“Yes, Director! We’re dispatching field teams in pairs to both Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 at Incheon Airport right now!”
“Photo team, pack the high-powered telephoto lenses! She’s going to try to cover her face!”
The instant the commands went out, the reporters moved as one, as if they’d rehearsed it.
“Hey, pull every single flight schedule coming in from Narita and Haneda! Check if we can source the business-class manifests!”
“Senior, real-time search rankings just got completely eaten by Han Jiyoung from number one through five! Han Jiyoung Aimyu, Han Jiyoung Japan, Han Jiyoung disappearance explanation… This is no joke!”
“Other outlets are already at the airport going live! If we’re late, we’re finished—move!”
After Ai and Sakura returned to their own lives, I stayed in Tokyo a few more days.
The day before my return, Director Kawaguchi begged several times to buy my ticket again like last time. I politely refused.
Just the hotel bill alone had already been astronomical.
Out of boredom I’d once looked up the nightly rate for the penthouse suite I’d been staying in. The number that popped onto the screen made me quietly close the browser window.
Was I really allowed to receive treatment like this?
It made me want to groan. Thanks to Kawaguchi’s stubbornness, Studio Iter’s budget had clearly taken a serious hit. At least for the way home, I wanted to go quietly on my own money.
I, Han Jiyoung, was now a woman of means who could swipe a plane ticket without so much as blinking.
I arrived at Haneda Airport alone. After finishing the procedures and browsing the duty-free shops half-heartedly, I stood in front of the gate. Coming in, I’d been guided like a celebrity; leaving, I looked like any ordinary traveler.
I boarded the plane and took my seat.
Wheeeee—
With the roar of the massive engines, the aircraft pushed off the ground. Watching Tokyo’s skyline slowly shrink beyond the window, I sank deep into the seatback.
It was a good experience.
I started playing the Aimyu album I’d pre-downloaded on my phone.
Nice.
Eyes closed, lost in the music, I somehow found myself already at Incheon Airport.
After clearing immigration, I pulled my hat low and adjusted my mask.
Whirr—
The transparent glass doors slid open to either side.
“There! It’s Han Jiyoung!”
A man’s sharp shout shattered the quiet. As if that cry were a signal flare, blinding flashes erupted from every direction.
Flash! Pop! Flash—!
“……!”
The sudden barrage of camera lights burned my vision pure white. Startled, I froze in place, feet rooted to the floor.
“Han Jiyoung-ssi! Han Jiyoung-ssi!”
“Just a moment! Look this way, please!”
Men in black suits and people with cameras surged toward me like a zombie horde. Dozens of recorders and microphones thrust right up under my chin. A wall of bodies blocked every step.
“What’s your relationship with Aimyu-ssi from Japan? Did you already know each other?”
“Was disappearing after your win because you were preparing to enter the Japanese market?”
The questions flew like sharp arrows from every side, tangled and impossible to separate. In the middle of it all, the reporters shoved one another and raised their voices.
“Hey, stop pushing! You’re shaking the camera!”
“Step back a little! Let’s get an interview!”
“Han Jiyoung-ssi! Look to the right and wave once for us!”
“Is that what matters right now? Jiyoung-ssi, when are you announcing the collab with Aimyu-ssi?”
Seriously—over one photo, they’re reacting like this?
I was exhausted. No—maybe the right word was scared.
I had no idea what I was supposed to say in a moment like this.