Why Did This Fall Off, Nyang?
Before I knew it, the tour was drawing to its end.
Yahoo! I'm finally going home today!
We checked out of the hotel and gathered in the lobby.
"Everyone's got their bags, right? Nothing left behind?"
"Yes!"
"It's the last day, so we'll stop by just one place and that'll be it. I'm really sad about it. I hope all of you are, too."
A shame. If I could, I wanted to take this whole trip over again—for the five million won.
Shin Chae-rin tossed out a bright little cheer and started off.
"And we're off~ It's the last day, so let's pack it full of fun!"
The place we'd come to was the Large Aquarium. A major corporation ran it, and people said the quality showed.
Chae-rin ran through the usual warnings, and I, as always, did not listen. Something about not getting lost and sticking close. I kept my eyes on her while slyly tipping my gaze past her shoulder to sightsee the aquarium beyond—
"Seon!!! Are you listening?"
"Nyang?! I-I am listening, nyang!"
How did she know I wasn't?
"You really are?"
"I am, nyang."
"Hmm..."
And the sparks jumped to Caselia, too.
"And you, Caselia—don't just stand there watching while this cat slips off on a whim. Keep an eye out, please."
"......Yes."
Caselia answered only because she had to, wearing the wronged look of someone who knew perfectly well this wasn't her fault. I patted her back, the way you comfort a person.
"All right, in we go!"
We stepped into the aquarium under the weight of Shin Chae-rin's glare. The world around us went dark with impossible suddenness, and the only light left was a faint glow underfoot, running on ahead along the path. I took a few more steps without hearing a word of the explanation Chae-rin was spinning, and then a wash of watery light filled one whole side of my vision.
The whole group stopped at once.
"Whoa..."
Beyond an enormous wall of glass, fish of every color swam as if they were gliding through open sky. A school of yellow ones seemed to rush straight at us, then, an instant before they struck the glass, wheeled as one and streamed away somewhere else.
I even got to see Caselia marvel, for the first time.
"It is... truly beautiful."
Her eyes would not leave the fish flickering this way and that. Neither would mine. I kept chasing one with silver scales. It was my first time in an aquarium, too.
"Beneath the sea... do creatures such as these truly live?"
A pure, innocent question. Chae-rin, professional guide that she was, lit up and answered.
"Hehe. Pretty, right?"
"Yes. I am astonished that so many fish exist."
And with that, Caselia simply started talking. Whenever she caught fish with her comrades, she said, it was always freshwater fish, and every last one of them had been a dull, unclean color. The fish here looked so clean that they would probably taste wonderful if you ate them... ate them?
"Eh?"
"It brings to mind the salmon we had the day before yesterday. The flesh was orange, and looked so appetizing... ah."
She had been rattling on in high spirits about this and that, and only stopped when she saw our faces.
"...A slip of the tongue. I apologize..."
"What?! N-no, it's fine! That can happen. Ahaha... S-salmon really is tasty, though."
No one answered. Shin Chae-rin's attempt to rescue the mood ended in catastrophic failure, and there was nothing for it but to move along.
"Ahem. Well then, let's head over there! You'll have even more to see!"
I shaped a nyang-nyang punch and drummed it into Caselia's stomach. Pomf, pomf, pomf.
"...I am sorry."
"Glutton hero, nyang."
"Ngh."
Even the aquarium's ornamental fish, it seemed, were candidates for taxidermy in Caselia's subspace stomach.
We drifted through the aquarium in a daze, until we reached a place where my mouth simply would not close. It was an underwater tunnel. One moment we were walking a dark passage; the next, the view ahead changed completely, and blue light flooded in from every side. Until just now, only one wall of a dark room had held any fish. Here, every direction but the floor was ocean.
"Whooooaa!!!"
Ocean on the right. Ocean on the left. Ocean overhead, too.
"It feels like we walked into the sea!"
Beyond the clear glass, an undersea world seemed to stretch on without end. A single enormous ray slowly rolled onto its back and skimmed past the glass ceiling. Baby sea turtles climbed up onto their mother and crossed the water on her shell.
Caselia did not ask whether a sea divided from us by nothing but a single pane of glass might break. After watching the cable car's death-defying crawl along those cables, she seemed to have adapted to this sort of thing.
"Eek?! A-a shark, nyang!!!"
I had spotted a shark that was obviously huge. Those pointed teeth made it feel like a threat. I'd heard sharks were strong—if it rammed this glass, wouldn't the glass break?
And with that thought, I went and asked the sort of question only an ignorant idiot hero would.
"That glass won't break even if a shark hits it, nyang?!"
Chae-rin snickered and told me.
"Hehe. It's fine~ This isn't ordinary glass. It's made of something called acrylic, so it isn't going to break. It looks this thin, but it's actually dozens of centimeters thick."
Then she looked at me, and grinned.
"Aww, aww. Were you scaaared~?"
She petted my head.
"Gek?!"
"Kyahaha."
"Hey—!!!"
I flailed my arms, shook off her hand, and drummed a nyang-nyang punch into her stomach.
Pomf, pomf, pomf!
"Kyahahaha!"
......She liked it. If anything, she liked it more. This would not do. I was not going to nyang-nyang punch Chae-rin.
The moment I pulled my hands back, she looked disappointed.
So she really does like it.
Never again. I swore it—and punched Caselia in the stomach.
"Ngh?"
I checked her face. Not a trace of enjoyment.
Then I can hit her all I want!
And so the idiot hero became a sandbag.
Pomf, pomf, pomf.
When the aquarium was done, we went to a buffet nearby and demolished dish after dish, every one of them delicious.
"Phew...! I'm stuffed, nyang."
Chicken, pizza, sushi, meat, dessert. Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Western. There wasn't a single thing we hadn't eaten.
"Idiot hero. Did you eat well, nyang?"
"Yes. It has been a long time since I had a meal so delicious, and so filling."
"Ooh..."
I was glad Caselia had eaten until she was full. A buffet has no limit. I hadn't been the one treating her, and yet, somehow, I felt proud.
We returned to the Association with the wistful ache of a last day still hanging over us. Now it really was time to part.
Shin Chae-rin cupped her hands into a megaphone and called out.
"Everyone—four days of travel. Did you enjoy it?"
"Yes!!!"
"As of today, Welcome to Korea is over."
Applause cracked out, and a cheer went up with it.
"The goal of this tour was to fasten the very first button of your adjustment to Korea. It was only a short while, but I hope it becomes even a little bit of a memory for you, and even a little bit of help, in living here. If it does, I think I'll be really proud."
The rims of Chae-rin's eyes reddened.
"Of course there's still plenty you won't know, but you'll make it through just fine! I'm cheering for all of you! And last of all—let's take a photo together!"
Everyone crowded in around her. She lifted her phone high and fit us all onto the screen. The moment I held up a peace sign, the whole group smiled and did the same.
"One, two, three. Cheese~"
Click!
"There. Now it really is over. I'm going to miss you all so much. Everyone got my number, right?"
"Yes."
All of us looked down at the slip of paper with Chae-rin's number written on it.
"When you get your smartphones later, someone other than me will explain them, so save it then. If there's something you don't know, you can call and ask me, and it's fine to just check in, too—so please, make sure you save it!"
So this really was the end. Four days. A long time, and a short one, for tying yourself to people.
Chae-rin hugged them one by one. Grun, Brana, Kadur, Caselia. And last of all, me. She came down to my eye level and held me.
"Seon. You have to call, okay? We're friends, right?"
"Obviously, nyang. If this isn't friends, then what is, nyang? I like friends, nyang."
"Hehehe. That's nice."
She led us up to the second floor of the Association, wiping at her tears as she went. The place she brought us to was a classroom; here, we were told, we would receive our phones and sit through a lesson.
"Everyone. See you again!"
Chae-rin waved, and grew distant.
A short while later, a smartphone instructor arrived and taught us everything from the ground up. When the two-hour class was over, she tucked in one tiny little advertisement—if we wanted to know smartphones even better, we should take her class—and then she left.
We said our last goodbyes to the dwarf family and came down to the first floor.
"Phew...!"
Now it was really, really, truly over. It was time to go home. Where Caselia would stay was the Association's temporary lodging. And I would go to my own house.
But.
Swish, swish~
There was the tail. That absolutely outrageous tail, which had lashed Caselia and me together and made us one body. We looked at each other and said nothing. We stayed like that for a long while.
There was exactly one thing I had to say.
"!!!"
I had thought it over, and over, and over again before those words came out.
I-it was the only choice I had!
But even after I'd managed to say it so bravely, Caselia didn't open her mouth, so I started to worry she hated the idea, and tacked more on.
"Th-the tail is my body, and... the tail grabbed the idiot hero all on its own, nyang... S-so I can offer my place, at least... nyang..."
She still said nothing.
"A-are you coming with me, nyang...?"
I crowded in close and tipped my face up at her.
"A-and my place is way better than the temporary lodging..."
"Would that truly be all right?"
"Hyih?"
Caselia was the one who asked.
"...If I were to go to your home, Seon-nim, I wondered whether it might inconvenience you..."
She was worried about me, of all things. I waved it off in a hurry.
"I-I'm fine, nyang! Even if... even if I'm not, it can't be helped, nyang... The tail won't come off, nyang..."
"...That is true as well."
Right. This really was something that couldn't be helped. It wasn't as if I wanted to let Caselia into my house......
......
I wasn't sure.
"Then, may I gather my luggage from the temporary lodging?"
"Of course you can, nyang."
And so I helped Caselia pack.
Before we left the Association, we received our Otherworlder IDs. It wasn't Yoon Seo-yoon or Leila. They worked weekdays.
We got on a bus and rode it straight home.
Beep-beep-beep. Chirrrrip~
The door opened, and we stepped inside.
"Phew...! The smell of home, for the first time in ages, nyang!"
I had missed it. So this was how good it felt—a house you come back to after earning five million won.
Caselia peered around the place and spoke.
"So this is your home, Seon-nim...?"
Then—
"...?"
Srrrrk.
A thoroughly familiar weight settled around my backside. Something felt wrong. I turned my head and looked down.
And I saw it. A black tail, soft with fluff.
"Eh?"
"Huh?"
That was definitely supposed to be at Caselia's waist. But it had lowered itself, back to its original place—hanging limp beneath my backside, where it belonged. Faced with a situation that had seemed as if it would never, ever happen, Caselia and I could not get a word out. My mind went pure white.
Swish?