Departure
Departure
On the day of the trip, to catch our ship we boarded the KTX and
headed down to Busan.
It really only took three hours from Seoul to Busan...
I guess that's what progress is all about.
Since it was my first time ever riding a train,
it was a really wonderful experience.
Even if it was just a short three-hour trip.
"I'll take you all sorts of places from now on."
"Thank you."
Had I liked it that much?
A-ra looked at me with an expression like she was looking at a pitiful child
and stroked my head.
If it were anyone else, it might have stung a little,
but because it was A-ra, far from being offended,
I actually liked it.
Since I wanted to visit more and more places and have fun together with A-ra.
If anything, I was grateful she said something like that for my sake.
We arrived at Busan Station, grabbed takeout coffee from a cafe, and stepped outside.
Maybe because of construction, everything was walled off with steel panels,
and it looked like it would be easy to get turned around.
A magic trick where I couldn't even tell if what I was facing was the way we'd come or the way we needed to go.
"Seong-hwan-a, this way, this way."
"Isn't that the way we came from earlier?"
"Huh?... Is it?"
A-ra seemed confused too.
With no other choice, we just picked a direction and walked until something turned up,
and luckily we came out at a spot connected to the subway.
I was pretty sure it was a right turn here, then straight ahead across the long crosswalk to reach Busan Port.
"Oh, I think that's Busan Port over there?"
"When I heard 'port,' I was expecting something like a ferry dock."
A-ra must have been picturing something like the ferry dock at Land's End Village.
That kind is a transport ship that hauls cars and all,
and the one we're taking is an ocean-going passenger ship,
so they're fundamentally different vessels, but...
We were scheduled to board the New Chameleon there and disembark at Hakata Port.
This was my first time on a ship too, so I was kinda looking forward to it.
*
The inside of Busan Port was pretty spacious.
There was a convenience store, and for some reason a Mom's Touch burger shop too.
"I'll go pick up the pocket Wi-Fi."
"Huh? They hand those out?"
"No, I reserved it separately. In Japan, a pocket Wi-Fi is way cheaper than buying a SIM card."
"Huh... So that's a thing."
"You've never seen one before?"
"Whenever I've gone abroad, I always just used roaming."
As expected, rich people are just different.
Roaming can hit you with bill shock if you're not careful...
To A-ra, it apparently meant less than a water balloon.
We went to a corner where the travel companies were clustered
and visited the pocket Wi-Fi booth for a brand called Dosirak.
The Qtube comments had been plastered with people saying this place was the cheapest and had solid internet speeds.
That's how you use collective intelligence.
After giving them my name and collecting the pocket Wi-Fi,
I returned to where A-ra was.
The atmosphere felt a bit busier than before.
"There are so many people."
"No kidding. There are tons of people who take a ship instead of a plane."
Ships have the downside of being slower than planes,
but for people who like taking their time traveling, there's nothing but upsides.
Maybe that's why, even though the Osaka route takes three whole days,
it looked like plenty of people were boarding.
The first upside was that the New Chameleon is a Japanese-registered ship.
Because of that, maybe, they used 110v inside the ship from the get-go,
and you could only use yen,
so even though we hadn't arrived in Japan yet, it gave you the full sensation of already being there.
And the second upside was luggage.
On a plane, you can only bring a limited amount of carry-on,
and there are restrictions on the quantities of batteries and liquids you can bring aboard.
But on a ship, none of that applies.
Maybe because of that, I could spot people here and there who had brought loads of beer aboard
or had brought their own food.
"I heard there's a beer vending machine inside."
They said there were quite a few Japanese beer vending machines.
And the prices were cheaper than buying them in Korea, at that.
Still... I was a little jealous of that fried chicken.
I should've bought some chicken too.
As I was licking my lips,
A-ra grabbed my sleeve and tugged it,
making me look her way.
"You want some? Should I go to Mom's Touch and get it? We've still got plenty of time."
"Sh-should we?"
I'd been found out.
A-ra was surprisingly quick on the uptake about me,
and whenever I wanted something, she'd usually grant it right away.
Though it was the same for me, of course.
"Then I'll go, so wait here."
"No, let's go together."
I took A-ra's hand.
She seemed to have been about to go alone so I could look around the ship,
but I could look around the ship as much as I wanted later.
We were going on a rare trip together, after all.
I didn't want to be apart from her.
*
"It's bigger than I thought."
The moment we boarded the ship, people started running, and I wondered what was going on.
It turned out there weren't many spots with tables inside the ship,
so they'd been running to claim seats.
Since we had a table inside our room,
we didn't care much,
but one of the reasons for taking the ship was that it was cheap,
so apparently most people opted for second class.
In contrast, we'd paid more than triple for just the room itself,
so we were moving leisurely to our room and setting down our luggage.
"Whoa... The view in here is insane."
It was a room with a direct view of the ocean.
I was a little disappointed there was no balcony or anything,
but considering there were rooms where you couldn't see outside at all,
the scenery was undeniably spectacular.
Now that I thought about it, did they say you could go up to the deck, too?
I'd have to go check it out later.
"Noona, want to go up to the deck and come back?"
"That was a place we were allowed to go?"
"Earlier I saw some people heading up to look around."
"Then I can't resist."
So A-ra, full of curiosity, had been holding herself back.
Given there were chairs up on the deck too, it seemed obvious it was an area open to everyone.
We slipped out of the room, rounded the corner, and found a huge iron door.
The door, firmly secured,
was a bit much for me to open.
The door itself was heavy, and maybe because of the wind, it wouldn't budge an inch.
"What's wrong?"
"The door won't open."
"Move aside."
At A-ra's word, I stepped aside slightly.
Having made me step back so I wouldn't get hurt, A-ra
grabbed the door handle, twisted and pulled,
and in one go, flung open a door that had been like an iron-walled fortress.
"It's definitely hard for a man to open."
"..."
I guess I really am weak.
***
Once we actually got up to the deck, there wasn't much to see.
The ship wasn't even moving yet,
and up there, there were quite a few couples kissing,
so we both blushed and went back to our room.
Why were those people kissing in a place like that... getting A-ra's engine started?
"R-right. Noona, you want a beer?"
"Beer? You bought some?"
"No, there are tons of beer vending machines in here."
"One can each ought to be fine... Then I'll go buy them."
"Let's go together."
"What for, I'll be right back. Keep looking around outside or something."
Grabbing her wallet and mask, A-ra left the room.
The room, which had felt warm just moments before, now felt as if it had gone cold.
Looks like I've really reached a point where I can't be alone anymore.
I felt like I might get depressed any second now.
"I'll follow her."
I grabbed my mask too and stepped outside.
There were quite a few vending machines around here.
Where had A-ra gone?
She wasn't by the vending machines on the lower floor, nor over in the forward section,
so I headed for the vending machine next to the shop as a last resort.
"Huh? What's all that?"
Near the shop, a crowd of people was swarming.
Now that I thought about it, did they say the shop opened around this time?
Then it made sense that many people were gathered.
I should buy some snacks and ice cream too and head back up.
But...
The closer I got, the more I began to think
that the crowd wasn't there because of the shop.
If they were gathered because of the shop,
shouldn't the people who'd bought things be exiting the crowd?
But the people there were packed in and showed no intention whatsoever of making their way out.
No way...
"Noona? What are you doing here?"
"Hmm?"
Speak of the devil.
A-ra, who had been signing autographs for people at a table in front of the shop,
looked up at me.
"Excuse me. Let me just pass through for a moment."
"Oh my, go right ahead."
What's this?
The people here weren't aggressive—
there was this incredibly gentlemanly air about them.
Normally, if you pass through a crowd of fans, they cling to you and make a huge fuss begging for autographs,
but the people getting autographs here
were observing proper decorum and even lining up to receive them.
"What's all this?"
"Surprising, right?"
The sight of A-ra giving out autographs
was something you couldn't see except at official signing events or right after concerts.
So I'd thought the fans you see at those events were the whole picture.
But apparently, that wasn't the case.
Had those kinds of fans really only been a tiny minority after all?
Looking at the scene before me now,
it was such a polar opposite that it even started to feel unfamiliar.
"The people who come to sign events follow the rules well too. It's the concerts that are a bit of a problem."
"The atmosphere there is..."
I didn't need to explain about concert venues.
It's a place where people sing along, jump around, and play,
so the fans are in a considerably excited state.
Maybe because of that, incidents of fans verbally abusing or assaulting idols and singers happen frequently,
and the story about a male idol group being sexually harassed at a concert venue—
that's a pretty famous anecdote.
What was it again?
Someone went up asking for an autograph, was refused, and then stripped the idol's clothes off, wasn't it?
There were even bodyguards present, but they got witch-hunted for not doing their jobs properly.
In terms of that other world, it'd be equivalent to stripping all the clothes off a female idol.
There was no way the internet would've stayed quiet.
I'd even heard that after that incident, fans were banned from using the backdoor entrance at concert venues.
"Anyway, let's go soon."
"Okay. Let me just finish this up."
She signed all the remaining sheets of A4 paper
and handed them out one by one to the people standing in line.
Even the person whose turn got cut off right in front of them just wore a slightly disappointed expression, and mentioning they'd half expected not to get one since the A4 sheets were limited, they just requested a single handshake and left satisfied.
"But where did the A4 paper come from?"
"The staff brought it over."
At first one of the staff had approached trying to get an autograph for herself,
and the sight got spotted by the other passengers, so the whole thing blew up.
In the end, they brought over several sheets of A4 paper
and ended up creating something like an impromptu fan signing.
Watching A-ra look after her fans to the very end, I gave a wry smile
and went to the vending machine to get two cans of beer.
Not as cheap as I thought, huh.
If it looks like about 500ml and it's 450 yen...
Or wait, is that cheap since it's Japanese beer?
"Let's go up and have a drink."
"This is my first time drinking with Seong-hwan."
A-ra showed a slightly suggestive expression.
No way, was she thinking about doing it on board the ship?
The soundproofing and all probably isn't great.