Setting Out
They'd told me the others would handle the gear, so all I needed to pack were the few personal things I couldn't do without. Family photos, maybe. A charm. Some little religious token — that sort of thing.
Not because I was going off to die. Just the ordinary objects people get anxious without once they're off their person. A meaningless ring. A pair of earrings. Things like that.
So the only thing I really had to check was my clothes. If I'd lived on Earth for even a few years — hell, a few months — I might have had something of my own to take. As it was, the best I could manage was the terminal. And even that wasn't sentimental so much as the modern habit of always having a phone on you.
I checked the outfit one more time. Everyone had been busy since morning, so the others who shared the room were already gone.
No matter how I looked at it, the clothes were shamelessly revealing. Mortifyingly so.
At least a slightly thicker panel of fabric had been layered over the crotch, so the split itself wasn't visible. Small mercies.
Well. I wasn't going to be having sex in this thing, so as long as I didn't let my mind go there, it was fine…
Better to just own it, I decided. Hiding and covering up would only make the embarrassment worse.
Think positive. At least the walk wouldn't be boring for anyone looking…
Of course, the front view would be a little hard to manage — but if I kept my eyes on the upper half of people, it should be all right.
"Hoo."
When I'd woken up that morning, a single pack of liquor concentrate had been sitting on my bed. Had to be Minseo, or maybe Jiu or Hyejin, stashing it there for me.
A gift, I figured. Take it along and, when things got really rough, secretly mix a sip. Something like that.
Like slipping insoles into a friend's boots before they ship out for the army. Or handing someone a tie. Same energy.
Compared to the security team, they were all decent people. I shoved the pack into my pocket too.
The concentrate pouch stuck out conspicuously against the body-hugging silhouette of the outfit, but whatever. This wasn't an actual military march. They'd cut me some slack.
I swung my arms and legs around. Nothing hurt, thankfully. For everything they'd put me through yesterday, my lower half was still intact.
So maybe — even if they abandoned me out there — I'd still manage to crawl my way back somehow. Still, I took one last look around the room that might turn out to be my last, and then—
I headed for the corridor.
"…"
I walked as casually as I could manage, performing indifference while the fabric crushed tight against every inch of me and eyes snagged on the result.
The murmur of voices grew louder as I went.
The airlock.
Past the place that now served as little more than a front gate, people were moving back and forth, setting up bags and gear.
They looked busy enough that I started to wonder if I was the only one taking it easy…
"…?"
Why was everyone in regular clothes? Had I misunderstood something…?
I stopped walking. My hands went to cover myself on instinct — the exact feeling of being the one person naked in a bathhouse full of fully dressed people, starring in some hidden-camera nightmare.
In a bathhouse, naked is normal. But if you're the only one naked, you start wondering if something's wrong with you. If the whole world flipped while you weren't looking.
"…Ah, Yeoreum—"
Minseo spotted me and started to greet me, then her eyes flicked down for a fraction of a second before climbing back up.
"…Unnie? Why are you dressed like—"
She closed the distance in a single stride, eyes still sliding downward as she asked.
Ever since I'd ended up in this body, I'd gotten very good at tracking exactly where people's gazes went.
"E-everyone wears it like this, th-they said…"
"…Pfft—!"
Minseo, who had been sneaking looks at my chest, my thighs, my legs, my stomach — everything but my face — burst out laughing at my answer.
"…?"
"No, of course you're supposed to put something over it. If they told you to wear underwear, would you show up in just your underwear?"
"I—I didn't…!"
My heart started hammering. Because I was mortified.
Nobody had explained this. Not even the people who were supposedly on my side. In this place it was common sense — no, forget common sense, I'd never even seen clothes like these before…!
I was the one who didn't know how anything worked here, and the fact that no one had bothered to tell me was genuinely shocking.
Granted, thinking about it, support was one thing — there was no actual reason I had to wear something this indecent on top of it.
"Ahaha…! You really are an idiot! I mean, even so, how do you show up wearing only this? Oh my god, that's hilarious."
I felt wronged. It wasn't like I couldn't tell it looked weird. But this was a future hundreds of years past my own.
There were intersex people here — people with both — so I'd figured maybe walking around in just this wouldn't be that strange.
That assumption was apparently what had made me look like a complete fool.
My face burned. It was the kind of mistake that earned it.
"Pff. Ah, that's too funny. Go put some clothes on. Or just leave like that, I don't really care. There's spare clothes in the bags anyway."
"……"
I turned around. It felt exactly like showing up to work in a swimsuit. In other words: humiliating…
"Ah, wait—!"
I spun and started walking with one hand already covering my ass, and Minseo's urgent voice came from behind me.
"Hieut…! Wh-what is it…?"
"It's too hot. I can't take it. Just once—"
"Hik…! N-no!"
I said it and ran.
It didn't take her long to catch me, but at least it was Minseo. That was something.
She'd made demands that blunt before, sure — but if it had been Jiu, I would have rejoined the others reeking of semen.
Lucky the security team hadn't spotted me first.
So I just… whatever. Considered it payment for the lesson in common sense.
Which is to say, I let her touch as much as she wanted.
"Bring back lots of food."
"What are you talking about. I'm eating all of it."
By the time I came back in proper clothes, departure was genuinely close.
Hyebin and Yujin still hadn't approached. Maybe because Soyeon and Dahyeon were standing next to me…
"You pack everything?"
"Probably. But…"
People were clustered in twos and threes, talking. The easy atmosphere of people whose deaths weren't yet a certainty.
A little stiffer than usual… but that was only natural.
"Unnie."
Only Soyeon and Dahyeon were near me. Minseo and Jiu kept catching my eye from a distance — hanging back, reading the room.
"Ah, y-yes…?"
"Come back safe. I'm so worried I don't know what to do."
Soyeon said it looking at me. A hand came up and ruffled my hair, but I hadn't styled it in the first place, so it didn't really bother me.
"Y-yes…"
"Nothing's going to happen. If it gets too hard, you tell someone. Resting is way more useful than forcing yourself to keep walking. You know that, right?"
"…Yes…"
I knew it well enough. I'd already seen two people get hurt at once from pushing a march too hard.
"We should get going soon. Up we go. Let's get this on you."
Dahyeon, who'd been watching me with worried eyes, checked the time and lifted the bag set aside for me — the one that looked like a hard-shell carrier, same as before.
"Ugh…"
The moment I turned my back and shrugged it on, a frankly oppressive weight settled across my shoulders.
That was when the dread hit properly — departure was really here — along with the thought that if I hadn't been wearing that clinging base layer underneath, my shoulders would already be screaming.
Something like desperation. The not-wanting-to-go feeling kept rising, and I looked up at Dahyeon, but…
"Be careful. And go easy on the booze. Heh."
She just said it, eyeing the concentrate pack bulging from my pocket.
I staggered. The shifted center of gravity still felt alien as I made my way toward the others.
Maybe because the time had come. The little clusters began drifting back, and then—
Fifteen people stood ringed by everyone else.
Someone rummaging through a bag, double-checking supplies. People with nothing but black machine-looking gear strapped to their backs. Between them I caught Yujin's face.
She'd been talking with Hyebin; when she saw me she flashed a grin, and Hyebin met my eyes too and smiled.
My stomach turned over.
"Yeoreum-Yeoreum. Heh! You made it? Not too heavy? Hm?"
"Ehehe… Uh, y-yes. I-I'm fine…"
The one mercy was that things were still okay for now. Even with dozens of people around, nobody was about to slap me across the face out of nowhere.
I approached awkwardly, and Yujin grabbed my arm and yanked. I nearly went over, but Hyebin put a hand on my chest and steadied me.
The murmuring swelled a little more. People closed in another step around us — and Soyeon, wearing a faintly awkward expression, opened her mouth.
"Uhm, is this the kind of moment where I'm supposed to say something? Haha…"
Standing there like someone on a podium, just as she'd said, Soyeon got a few small smiles from the crowd.
"I'm just temporary, okay! I don't really know how to do the whole inspiring-speech thing… Just — come back safe! Don't push yourselves! Leave me a little chocolate if you can! And go easy on the drinking!"
She glanced at me with a small smile on that last part, but it didn't feel like it was only for me.
Everyone had packed a little something, after all.
"All right then — take care!"
Soyeon started to raise a hand, then seemed to lose track of what pose to hold and just waved it instead.
People laughed. Honestly, so did I. It was pretty funny.
Behind the waving Soyeon, Dahyeon caught my eye and waved too. We exchanged a look.
People started walking. Somewhere in my peripheral vision I locked eyes with Jiu, who'd been watching me—
I dipped my head in a small bow.
The moving group scanned around, found me, and arranged themselves with me and the security team at the very front.
Nobody ordered it, but they fell into pairs—
Toward the direction the first escape pod's signal had come from.
We set out.
"Ah, right. This."
"Yes…?"
Yujin shoved a hand into an inner pocket of her top and pulled out a handgun—
"Eh…?"
"Everyone's carrying one. Not that you get to shoot us with it, okay? Non-lethal anyway."
She spun the pistol around — finger through the trigger guard, the show-off — and offered it grip-first.
"Hopefully you won't need it, but you never know. Dahyeon said she'd just carry yours for you, but you should be able to protect your own body. Right?"
"Uh…"
Was that it? It felt a little like dumping a job on me, but given the headcount in this group, it probably didn't mean much either way.
I took the gun. It was light enough that it barely felt like a real firearm.
"You know how to shoot? You pull that and it goes — you know that much. Thumb that and the mag drops, loading's the reverse. And that clack thing? That's—"
"Ah, I know…"
I'd been a tank crewman. I knew this much. Guns were one of the more finished pieces of engineering out there, after all.
Still, just in case, I fiddled with it a little. After the clothes fiasco, I wasn't ruling out another common-sense landmine.
Press to fire. Slide. Rack it and the chambered round ejects. Slide lock. Muzzle—
"Hey."
"Hieek…!"
"It's not a toy. Ah, you know what, just give it here. Points off for that just now."
Yujin clamped onto my wrist.
"N-no…! I t-took the bullet out…! That's why I was looking…!"
"You treat it like it's loaded even when it isn't. And what were you going to do looking down the barrel? Non-lethal or not — take one of these in the eye at that range and you're dead. Hand it over."
She yanked the pistol away.
I was so unfairly treated I could have cried…