Dragon and Japan
"Ohhh. The airport! Haaah!! That airport smell! This feeling! This vast space! This atmosphere!!"
"Airports have a smell? Haaah? I don't really get it."
"They do! It's that feeling right before a trip!"
Ha-yan and I had taken the early-morning airport bus and arrived before lunch. We had already said our goodbyes to her mother and father the evening before, so we quietly grabbed our luggage and slipped out of the house. Still, now that we were actually at the airport, we ought to call them at least once.
I was fishing my phone out of my pocket when the conversation next to me reached my ears.
"Yeah, Mom. Mm-hmm, we got here fine. Ah. Yeah. The flight's after lunch, so we're going to look around the airport a bit and grab something to eat. Mm-hmm. I'll call again once we get there. Okay!"
Ha-yan finished her call with her mother in record time and trotted over to me.
"Let's go in already! We need to check in and get inside! There's a perfume I really want to buy!"
"Y-yeah. Okay, okay. Slow down, slow down!"
Ha-yan was already hyped up as far as she could go. I simply took both our bags in my hands and trailed after her into the terminal like a faithful attendant.
We finished the check-in process while gawking at the enormous scale of the airport and the crowds of people, then quickly made our way into the cluster of duty-free shops. The stores had only just begun opening their doors, and Ha-yan immediately started sweeping up every item she had been too self-conscious to examine properly during the last school trip.
Ah, so that's why she brought an extra empty suitcase.
"Hehe. I've always wanted to try this perfume… and this liquor is a gift for Mom and Dad… and this skirt I've been wanting! Plus a present for Ji-yeon, one for Hoon, one for Rhea…"
"Don't just pile everything on because it doesn't feel heavy. It's still luggage."
"We're leaving most of it at the hotel anyway, so who cares? When else am I going to get to shop at a duty-free store like this?"
"You could come whenever you felt like it. Where should we go next? America? Europe?"
"Hehe, let's graduate first and then think about it. Once we graduate there will be more work, but we'll still have more free time than we do now, right?"
I grumbled the whole time about the ever-growing mountain of bags filling both my arms, yet I still followed obediently behind her, serving as her dedicated conversation partner. Ha-yan was normally thrifty, but once that particular switch flipped she spent like there was no tomorrow. At times like this, the smart move was to keep my mouth shut and just trail after her—that alone earned me points.
Who said that? Do Ji-yeon.
Any other topic might be questionable, but intel about Ha-yan could only come from an information broker of Ji-yeon's caliber. The advice had always produced guaranteed results, and I had benefited from it more than a few times already.
After we had thoroughly ransacked the duty-free shops for who-knows-how-long, Ha-yan—who had been power-walking the whole time—suddenly stopped dead, spun around, and looked at my completely drained face.
"I'm hungry! Let's eat!"
"Oh thank you, gods."
Whether gods actually existed or not, I was extremely grateful either way. My legs had been about to fall off.
"Korean food for the last meal at the airport always feels special!"
"It's actually pretty decent. I expected it to be terrible."
"Most of the customers are either leaving the country or just arriving from overseas. If the quality dropped, what do you think would happen? They have to maintain at least a baseline. If it were a complete mess, the airport complaints would never stop."
"Yeah, that makes sense."
After finishing our lively duty-free shopping spree, we thoroughly enjoyed the Korean food we probably wouldn't eat properly for the next two weeks. Boarding time was steadily approaching. Stomachs full of solid Korean fare and each of us having downed our preferred drinks in one go, we began drifting toward the gate.
By the time we arrived, business-class passengers were already boarding. Naturally Ha-yan and I joined that short line. Why wouldn't we? We had money—why suffer in economy? When else were we going to fly business? The flight was short enough that there wasn't even a better seat class available.
Next time we went somewhere farther, I would have to get Ha-yan into first class.
"Yes~ confirmed. Enjoy your trip."
"Thank youuu!!"
After one final ticket and passport check, we boarded the plane and found our seats. There was a different kind of excitement from the school trip—something brighter. Technically we were heading to an evaluation, but neither of us felt the slightest worry about it. Our preparations were already perfect, just like this moment right now.
"Ah. I left my power bank in the overhead bag. Hmm."
Ha-yan glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then—
"Yap!"
—instantly teleported the power bank out of her bag. When she could casually cast magic of that difficulty level, what was there to worry about?
What if they suddenly demanded we take the evaluation with completely different magic? Well… I would probably start by holding the life-lines of every mage in Osaka in my hand and then think it over. Who did they think they were, poking around for trouble?
"Hehe. Nice, nice. After takeoff it's a little over an hour, right? I downloaded some old variety shows. Want to watch together?"
"Works for me."
We agreed to watch them after takeoff and fastened our seatbelts. After a short wait the plane lifted off without a hitch, and before long we were touching down in Osaka, Japan.
"Have they arrived?"
"Yes. Word just came that they landed at Kansai Airport."
"Tell everyone to keep their guard up. If anything happens to those two while they are in Japan, every single one of you had better be ready to pack your bags and leave."
"Of course. I will make certain the message is delivered."
Around the time the two of them stepped off the plane in high spirits, another place was growing noisy for an entirely different reason.
Deep underground in central Osaka—essentially the headquarters of Japan's mages—Takanashi Misa was receiving real-time reports that Cha Siu and Lee Ha-yan had arrived at the airport. Because of previous incidents, they had already earned something that wasn't quite hatred but certainly wasn't affection from Cha Siu either.
The sudden appearance of a mana stone in South Korea had been welcome news… until one of their own people discovered it and brought unintended chaos and fury down on their heads. This time they intended to thoroughly soothe that anger.
Even while laying those plans, however, Takanashi Misa nursed one small regret.
"Ugh. Why did he have to settle in that country of all places? He lived through the Korean War, for heaven's sake. He could have just come to Japan."
Why of all places? Why did that great mage they called their "benefactor" have to put down roots in the Republic of Korea? From every conversation she had managed to have with him so far, he was Korean down to the marrow of his bones—requesting naturalization was already awkward. She had never even managed to bring the subject up. She was fairly certain her head would leave her shoulders if she did.
There were even intelligence reports that whenever political talk turned to Dokdo, their benefactor would explode in pure rage. Of course Takanashi Misa, thoroughly enchanted by the benefactor and far better informed about actual history than ordinary people, knew perfectly well that those Japanese political claims were complete nonsense. But knowing the truth still gave her no way to act. She couldn't exactly seal those politicians' mouths with magic. Mages simply had to operate under those constraints.
"What can we do? We have to treat it as our own karma. Is the driver who will pick the benefactor up at Umeda Station ready?"
"Yes, of course. He will be departing shortly."
"Tell him to escort them without the slightest mistake."
"Understood."
Takanashi watched her secretary hurry out and steeled her resolve once more. Growing closer to him would be a pleasant bonus, but at the very least she would erase the bad impression this time.
"Whoa… the airport itself wasn't anything special, but this place is insane. Is it actually bigger than Seoul Station if you only look at size?"
"I don't think it's quite that big. Comparing it to Seoul Station is a stretch, right? But yeah, it's huge. And the number of trains running through here is ridiculous."
Having landed safely at Kansai Airport in Osaka, we finished the arrival procedures in short order and boarded a train bound for Umeda Station—supposedly the largest in Osaka. I had kept refusing, saying it was unnecessary, but Takanashi in Japan had insisted on taking care of us, so we had no choice but to accept. I didn't particularly enjoy owing people favors, yet this felt less like me going into debt and more like them repaying one. They probably knew they still owed us for what they had done.
In the end, as long as Ha-yan was comfortable, nothing else mattered to me.
We poured out of Umeda Station along with a massive crowd, and a woman who looked vaguely familiar was already waiting at the entrance in a sharp suit. The moment she spotted us dragging three enormous suitcases, she hurried over.
"Would you be Cha Siu-nim and Lee Ha-yan-nim? I was the one standing beside Takanashi Misa-nim last time…"
"Ah! The grumbling secretary unnie who stood next to her!"
"Ah. Um. Uh. Yes. I'm not sure about the grumbling part, but I am that secretary. I was sent to escort the two of you."
Ha-yan's greeting was a little rude if you wanted to call it that, but I didn't particularly care. Ha-yan wasn't thoughtless. She already knew exactly what had happened with these people at the company. She was deliberately poking them to get a rise out of them.
Ha-yan was always polite to people she met for the first time. Starting off this blatantly rude was her quiet way of saying she wasn't happy with them either. She was a mage herself, after all; when I told her what they had been doing in Korea, she had gotten properly furious. They had clearly been up to something shady right in our backyard without our knowledge.
And they knew it too. They knew exactly who Ha-yan was to me—that we felt more for each other than simple master and disciple. So who had to bow first? Even if we cursed them out, these people still had to smile and take it.
The secretary's face colored slightly, but given that they were the ones who had ruined first impressions from the start, she had no room to complain. A quick peek into her thoughts confirmed that higher-ups had already given her strict orders.
She completely shut off her own opinions and spoke again.
"Takanashi-nim instructed me to escort both of you to the hotel. The hotel you originally planned to stay at also happens to belong to our group, so your rooms have already been upgraded to suites. Every expense incurred inside will be covered by us, so please don't feel any burden."
"Hmm. You don't have to go that far. It's not like I'm short on money."
"Ahaha. We are well aware. With the assets the benefactor possesses, he could buy our entire group if he wished. Still, we would be grateful if you would not refuse the hospitality we offer."
"Nobody hates free things. That includes me."
"Thank you for saying so. Then shall we be on our way?"
If they were going to come at us with this attitude from the beginning, there was no real reason to refuse, was there?
But hang on. I felt like I had forgotten something.
At that same moment, Kansai Airport.
Riiing. Riiing. Riiing.
"…Did I get left behind?"
One particular homunculus who had been scheduled to travel to Japan with them. One particular homunculus who had suddenly found herself with nothing to do once school went on vacation.
Yang Ho-jin-sensei—no, just Yang Ho-jin—desperately called Cha Siu and Lee Ha-yan, who were supposed to be waiting for her at Kansai Airport. More than thirty minutes passed without either of their voices ever coming through the receiver.
"Uuuugh… Master is so mean… Ha-yan-agassi, please…"
Just as Yang Ho-jin was about to give up on everything—
"Hmm…? Uwaaagh!!"
—something beneath her feet glittered for an instant, and both she and all her luggage vanished without a trace.