A Young Japanese Girl?
A young Japanese girl?
I was already up and getting ready to head out first thing in the morning.
"Work again today?"
"Yeah."
My little sister shuffled over awkwardly, fiddling with the shoe rack for no real reason. From the look of her, she was embarrassed about letting her worry show yesterday.
Yeah, it was pretty cringey.
"You're working hard."
"Eh... just doing what I do."
"Then give me more allowance."
"What?"
"If you work hard, you make more money, right? So offer up some allowance to your sister so she can feel secure!"
"What kind of logic is that..."
"I'm kidding. Go or don't. Whatever."
Slam.
My sister stuck her nose in the air and vanished behind her bedroom door before I could even answer.
I let out a hollow laugh, half-incredulous.
I hate it when she acts all snippy, but the awkward version isn't much better either.
As expected, our household gorilla only put me at ease when she was being completely shameless.
On the way to the company studio, the cold air made me hunch my shoulders, yet my steps felt strangely light.
I've got a lot to do.
I still needed to organize the concept materials for the MAMA stage, and I had to finish the track I was releasing as A-il.
Especially that song. The title was the part still giving me trouble.
'Even If You Can't See Me' or, in English, Invisible.
Going with the Korean gave it a warm, understated feel that matched the vibe of the song perfectly. On the other hand, the English version just looked cooler somehow. More stylish, you know?
Or was that just me?
I'd been leaning toward English from the start, but the lyrics didn't have a single English word in them. I'd written the whole thing in pure Korean. If I slapped an English title on it, would people think it was weird?
"What to do..."
I really want to lock this in by today.
While I was still wrestling with it, I arrived at the building. I bowed to the security guard and headed downstairs.
The moment I stepped inside, my hand reached for the snack box out of pure habit.
Peach mint candy.
A subtle sweetness and coolness spread across my tongue. It felt like only yesterday that I'd eyed it suspiciously and muttered "mint?", yet now I unwrapped one every time I sat down at my desk without even thinking.
Click.
I turned on the monitor and loaded up the DAW project. I hit play on the section I'd left unfinished yesterday.
A gentle acoustic guitar arpeggio filled the intro. From the second verse, a soft bass line slipped in underneath.
Maybe I should add a little more strings here.
I bumped that track up 0.5 dB, shortened the reverb tail on another part, and realized the lead-in to the second verse felt too empty—something else needed to go in there.
Tweak, listen, tweak again.
I completely lost track of time.
Growl—
The vibration from my stomach yanked my awareness back into place.
Ah, lunchtime already.
I hadn't eaten breakfast either, so the hunger hit hard.
"Same as always today."
I opened the delivery app and clicked the place I'd ordered from before without a second of hesitation.
A long sandwich. Perfect for a light meal. If I ordered the 30 cm, I could eat half now and save the rest for dinner.
Flawless strategy.
Delivery apps were gods.
I placed the order and tried to get back to work, but every nerve in my body was locked onto the studio door, so concentration was a lost cause.
About thirty minutes later—
Knock knock knock—
I pulled off my headphones and stood up at the sound.
"It's here—"
Our unspoken delivery system was that the security guard brought the food down for us. That rough face that had scared me a little at first had grown familiar, and now that he was also bringing me meals, I was downright glad to see him.
I opened the door picturing that very guard.
...Huh?
The face that should have been above my eye level was nowhere to be found.
Did I mishear the knock? Was I so hungry I was hearing things?
I was about to close the door again when my gaze dropped downward.
...?
Someone was standing there.
I startled and took three careful steps back, then peered cautiously.
A middle schooler...?
Her outfit was a bit flashy for that, but anyone could tell she was still a kid. An oversized cardigan that looked like she was playing dress-up as an adult, a skirt with a bold design, a small frame, and a baby face.
She looked familiar...
"Ah!"
That student from yesterday?
The young girl who'd been staring so pitifully at my taxi was standing there now, both hands tightly clutching a bag that looked suspiciously like my sandwich.
Why—no, how—was she here?
You needed a passcode to get into the building, and the basement wasn't exactly a place you wandered into by accident.
Family of someone who works here? An intern? Part-timer? Do they even hire minors?
But if she was bringing the sandwich...
Was she the security guard's kid?
I'd never heard his age, but he looked roughly mid-forties. A middle-school-aged daughter would make sense.
Daughter or part-timer, maybe the guard had stepped out for lunch and sent her down in his place.
"..."
"..."
Awkward silence stretched while my brain spun. The girl kept her head bowed, lips moving soundlessly, until a tiny murmur reached me.
"Um, excuse me... Do you speak Japanese?"
"Huh?"
Japanese?
It was too soft to catch everything, but a few words snagged in my ear.
"Pardon?"
She drew in a small breath, then spoke even more quietly.
"(Japanese... probably not. I hate how my pronunciation gets all twisted when I use Korean...)"
...
I had no idea what she was saying, but this time it was definitely Japanese.
No way.
A foreigner?
Had the guard married internationally? If not, who even was this kid?
Intern? Part-timer?
Desperate to salvage the situation somehow, I dug through my barren brain for any foreign language I could scrape up.
"Su-sumimasen? Sorry? Japanese... no-no."
What the hell was I even saying?
My mind went completely blank.
"(Huh? Ah, no no. I'm the one who's sorry. Here, this is for you.)"
The girl flushed and thrust the sandwich bag at me.
"(Ah, our eyes met... s-so embarrassing.)"
Still no idea what she was muttering, but the bag was definitely from the sandwich place I'd ordered from.
"Ah, thank you. A-arigatou? Is that right...?"
I carefully took it.
Even after handing over the bag, she didn't leave. She just stood there fidgeting.
...Can I just close the door?
It felt weirdly unfinished. The sad face of the girl standing blankly behind my taxi yesterday floated up in my mind.
Whatever coincidence this was, it had to be some kind of fate.
"Hang on a second."
"...?"
I turned and rummaged through the snack box. Peach mint candies, mint chocolate cookies, peach pudding—I swept up a little of everything I usually snacked on alone.
Kids liked sweet things, right?
I came back out with both hands full and held them out to her.
"This, uh, so candy. And uh, pudding? Wait, pudding's English, right? So, um, food. It's food. Sweet sweet."
Not a single scrap of actual Japanese in there, but I figured throwing a few English words at the problem might get the meaning across somehow.
"Eh!"
She blinked up at me. Then her face went a whole shade redder.
"(Ah, u-uh, thank you. You're even kind...)"
She held out both hands, so she didn't seem to mind. I carefully piled the snacks on top of them, and she hugged the whole armful to her chest like it was treasure.
"(Thank you very much.)"
She mumbled something final in Japanese and bowed deeply at the waist.
"Take care on your way."
After closing the door, I leaned my back against the studio doorknob and let out a long breath.
Strange.
Normally, facing a stranger—especially a girl—would make my legs go numb with tension. Today I hadn't trembled nearly that badly.
It was still awkward. I'd stammered and fumbled the whole interaction. But the kind of terror that made me want to run away just wasn't there.
...Is it because she reminded me of my sister?
My sister's middle-school years had overlapped with the worst of my depression, so my memories of her from back then were hazy. If I hadn't locked myself in my room, maybe I would have seen a little sister who felt something like this.
Meaningless what-if, but still.
At any rate, I'd learned that facing young kids wasn't as uncomfortable as I'd expected. Or maybe my condition had actually improved that much.
I unwrapped the sandwich the young girl had delivered and took a bite. Crispy outside, soft inside. The chicken breast, cheese, and lettuce erased the hunger in one go.
As I chewed, the girl's voice from earlier quietly circled my ear again.
But that tone... I feel like I've heard it somewhere before.
A strange sense of déjà vu rose up, but I quickly shook my head.
Come on. When would I ever have a reason to hear Japanese?
Must have been my imagination.
I finished the sandwich. If I wanted to wrap everything up today, every minute counted.
"Oh? Yui-nim... do you have plans after work today?"
"N-no? Why, why?"
"Well, your clothes and everything."
Han So-yeong slowly looked Yui over from head to toe.
"Your hair and makeup too."
"Ahaha, I, um, I, evening! I have an evening yakusoku!"
"I see... I'll have to leave at twelve again today, so you'll be eating lunch alone. Will you be all right?"
"...Of course. I'm not a kid."
"I only asked because you might not know the neighborhood yet. Don't get the wrong idea."
Han So-yeong swallowed the comment that Yui looked exactly like a middle-schooler on a field trip and returned to her seat. Kurogami Yui then proceeded to perform the miracle of translating only three lines of Japanese in an entire hour.
When twelve o'clock came, she kept shooting glances at So-yeong until the other woman left.
"I'm heading out. Thank you again today, Yui-nim."
"Don't mention it. Go on, or you'll be late."
She waved her hands in a hurry-up motion, then sat around the office for another twenty minutes just in case. After tidying her hair, she carefully made her way down to the lobby and headed straight for the security guard.
"Excuse me!"
"Yes? What is it, Yui-nim?"
"Achi-me, ahem. Did anyone come down to the basement this morning? To work?"
The guard answered right away.
"Ahh~ the person who uses the basement? Yes, he's been coming pretty often lately."
"Yes yes. Did he come today too?"
"He did."
At the news that the man was here, Yui's face lit up.
"Do you have some business with him?"
"Uh—yes yes! I do."
"Then your timing is perfect. The delivery he ordered just arrived. Would you mind taking it down for him since you're heading that way?"
"Ah! Yes please! Gamusam-nida!"
The guard wondered why the artist was thanking him when she was the one taking the delivery, then remembered again that she was a foreigner. Of course, Yui's Korean was nearly perfect. She was simply thanking him for giving her an excuse to go downstairs.
She had rummaged through her entire closet and stayed up all night before coming to work that morning, praying, please be there, please be there. She wasn't being greedy—she only wanted to talk to him just once. Apparently the gods had listened.
Yui cheerfully swung the sandwich bag as she headed downstairs... and then froze solid in front of the door.
How do I even start talking?
Yui knew her own weak point with painful clarity. She looked young. Extremely young. And when you layered on the distinctive Japanese-accented Korean, she looked even younger.
When I speak Japanese I'm fluent and adult-like, you know!
She hated being treated like a child in general, and she especially didn't want that treatment from someone she was interested in. But starting in Japanese out of nowhere?
If that guy doesn't speak Japanese, it's all for nothing.
She stood outside tearing at her hair until she started worrying his food would get cold, then thought screw it and knocked.
Creeeak—
The door opened and Yui's mouth fell open.
She'd let her guard down.
Coming face-to-face with the man without a mask or hat—just his bare face—Yui locked up completely.
Do I even dare speak to him?
While her confidence hit rock bottom, the man startled and stepped back, and only then did her brain reboot. In a last-ditch effort to look even a little more adult, she ended up greeting him in Japanese.
By the time the heart-pounding conversation was over—
"Eh?"
She was holding both hands full of mint snacks.
Blatant little-kid treatment.
She should have been angry. Her blood should have been boiling.
"H-hmph! D-do you think I'm a little kid or something."
Of all things, he'd given her a mountain of mint candy she wouldn't even eat.
A mountain.
A whole mountain.
"..."
She hated mint, but the act of looking after her felt far too good.
Heh.
Yui's lips curled into a dopey grin.
"Hehe."
Maybe... being treated like a kid isn't so bad sometimes.
In truth, the voice that had reached Yui's ears hadn't been unfamiliar at all. It was the voice of Muse Family's composer Yeong-il—also known as A-il—that she had heard any number of times on stream, in the recording studio, and in meetings. Enough data had already accumulated in her eardrums for her to recognize it.
But the lethal visuals right in front of her had completely deafened her. Whenever Do-yoon opened his mouth, every scrap of her attention was too busy dissecting that face for the voice to register properly. And for Yui, whose brain held the deep-seated prejudice that Yeong-il could not possibly be handsome, the suspicion never even formed.
She simply hugged the simple, pure desire of when, how, and with what excuse can I see him again? and kept going ehehe— to herself.