Between Justifications
"All three of them said they wanted to go see the cherry blossoms."
That was the situation.
Lately, Nature had been working without a single day off. Spirit contractor training, vocal lessons, dance practice, and everything else stacked on top of it — even a polite lie couldn't call the schedule easy. So for a bit of mental refreshment, a cherry blossom outing had been proposed, and somewhere along the way they had chosen me as their bodyguard.
"...Do I really need to go for that?"
To me it still felt dubious. I shrugged and slowly leaned back against the chair.
"Last time I looked, they'd already hired a few bodyguards. Can't they just go the same way this time?"
"Those were only one-day part-timers. Nature still doesn't have any official bodyguards."
"Then why not hire some properly while you're at it?"
"If something happens that Nature — spirit contractors and Awakeners — can't handle themselves, ordinary bodyguards wouldn't hold out either, would they?"
"Hmmm..."
I understood that much. Even so, questions remained.
"So it's just the three of them going?"
"Ah, I'll be going that day too! I want to catch my breath for once myself."
"Is that so? All right then..."
That roughly settled the picture.
"Then how about attaching a babysitter for Ayeong and everyone going together?"
"Excuse me...?"
"Doesn't the picture look better if we all go instead of leaving someone behind? Last time at the company dinner you already left Ayeong out on her own. Come on. Even if the timing was bad, going that far would leave her feeling pretty hurt."
"............"
"...I half-suspect it, but."
Hyewon.
Are you deliberately leaving Ayeong behind?
".....Yes. That's right."
"Hyewon..."
She admitted it. Lies wouldn't work on her, so she confessed without hiding it. This part was an unavoidable condition, a premise already laid down.
Even so.
"But I hope you'll understand that all of this is for Ayeong unnie's sake."
"For Ayeong's sake?"
You must not speak falsehoods. That did not mean, however, that you had to speak every truth. The little trick Sunu himself had once used on others: putting only a partial truth into words.
"Because of Nature, she hasn't been able to spend time with her baby lately, has she? Ideally I'd give her maternity leave, but Ayeong unnie insisted she wanted to keep working with us... So I simply set aside some personal time for Ayeong unnie alone so she could be with her child."
"Then just bring Ayeong and the baby along."
"Please don't misunderstand. This is a vacation for Nature, not a vacation for Ayeong unnie."
"....Hmmm."
Hyewon's argument went like this.
Ayeong and Sunu had been hired for Nature. Acting for Nature's benefit was only natural from the standpoint of people under contract. But if they brought a child along, eyes would inevitably be drawn to the baby rather than to Nature. That would sit poorly with the idea of a vacation for Nature. Therefore including them in the flower-viewing outing would be difficult.
"If we set aside personal time later, that would be one thing. But this vacation is strictly for Nature."
"..............."
Sunu's face went quiet. Truth be told, it was nothing more than wordplay. Yet that did not mean any falsehood had been mixed in. What she offered was a partial truth — the purpose for which Sunu had been hired, the reasons behind Nature's vacation, and so on. She spoke only the truths that favored a particular party, but still no lie was present.
"You said we have to stick together because we're a team, right? That's exactly it. But we aren't a 'party' — we're idols. Not everyone holds the same value. Everything has to move for Nature."
"....Fine. I get it. If you put it that way, I've got nothing left to say."
Sunu slowly nodded. There was no room left to argue. Just as Hyewon said, Nature was not a party but an idol group. As someone hired for the idols, falling in line for Nature's sake was the correct course.
"I know parties, but I don't know much about idols, so I said something weird... Sorry if it rubbed you the wrong way."
"No, it's fine. Then Sunu oppa is free that day, right?"
"Me? Aside from instructor work I'm basically a freeloading bum, so no problem."
"Then I'll lock in the date for two weeks from now!"
They set the appointment and wrapped up the meeting.
".....Hoo."
The seat after Sunu left.
"Hwaaaa....."
Hyewon let out a long breath and sank deep into the backrest. Half-slumped, she fluttered her top as if exhausted and muttered,
"I owe Yeonhwa so much..."
"Boss. Got a minute?"
"Yes. Just a second? Let me finish one call."
About an hour before lunch, Yeonhwa slipped out of the training room and came to Hyewon's office.
"All right... So what is it?"
"Nothing major. About that cherry blossom outing we promised last time? If I just go and invite the instructor without thinking, I'll only get cursed out and kicked to the curb, so I came here first."
"...Is that really 'nothing major'?"
"Knowing in advance and preparing for it makes it nothing major, doesn't it?"
"Haa, haaaa....?"
There were times Hyewon simply could not keep up with Yeonhwa. Yeonhwa, perfectly fine with that, unwrapped one of the candies kept for snacks, popped it into her mouth, and continued.
"First, about the instructor's condition. He's clearly avoiding us."
"Is he? I haven't really sensed—"
"If dodging with your body was enough to count as dodging, mental-attack monsters like Wraiths would all be dead."
"....Are you in a bad mood?"
".........Tsk."
Yeonhwa unwrapped another candy and put it in her mouth. On the surface she looked like someone who moved without a thought in her head, but she was the kind who still knew what lines not to cross. Even so, the words kept spilling out — this was not just low blood sugar from training.
"I'm human too. Getting ignored can piss me off a little, you know?"
"....Ah."
Come to think of it, Yeonhwa had said earlier that if she had simply brought up the cherry blossom outing, she would have been thoroughly cursed out and rejected. And there was only one reason she would already know that.
"Did you already propose it—"
"I did. And one look is enough to tell, right?"
".........."
She had been turned down. That was why Yeonhwa had come.
"If we go back and try talking to him again, the instructor won't even listen. But the boss is still different, right?"
"...What do you need me to do?"
Her gaze turned serious. Yeonhwa grinned.
"Remember when we first debuted? When Ayeong unnie got loaded into the ambulance."
That day, the instructor had not followed Ayeong unnie. He had stayed right there and watched our debut stage all the way to the end.
"But you realize that logic is actually insanely psychopathic, right?"
Idols about to debut right in front of him. And right beside him, a friend whose water had broken and who was writhing in pain. He had even promised to be there when that friend gave birth.
"No matter how much of a manager he is, staying till the end to watch a debut stage — does that even make sense? Okay, fine, I can understand that far."
But then.
"After the debut stage ends, instead of rushing straight to the ER, he does all the cleanup and the greetings too? Is that... something a human being can actually do?"
Sure, some people had that kind of personality. People who set private feelings aside and put official duty first. But in Yeonhwa's eyes, Sunu was not that kind of calculated, logical person. If anything, he was an extreme mood-driven type — the sort who would flip the table and call something trash the moment it stopped sitting right with him. In short, a spirit contractor through and through.
"I think I've got it now. Right now the instructor simply doesn't want to look at us."
"Excuse me....?"
"He doesn't want to see us, so he needs a justification. He needs a justification, so he uses his job as that justification."
"Why do you think that?"
"Isn't it obvious? Who wants to keep staring at a woman he once jumped and the women who watched the whole thing?"
".......That does make sense!"
Once she heard it, the situation clicked. Before she heard it, the premise had never even crossed her mind. Yeonhwa shrugged.
"Dungeons aren't dens of evil for no reason. They're dungeons because every kind of human scum ends up in them."
Someone who had spent nearly half a lifetime with Sunu would be blinded by the light and unable to understand. Harin and Sujin, fresh out into society, knew too little to see it either. But Yeonhwa was different. Precisely because she was Yeonhwa, she could see it.
"The boss looks at the instructor like he's some great person, but to me he's just a filthy tangled mess of a guy. Filthy tangled, filthy kind, and if he were the type who could just say no and refuse, that would be one thing — but he's also soft as hell about not wanting to watch the people next to him suffer."
Still, for the moment that personality was actually useful.
"Listen carefully to what I say next. It'll be the important clue for persuading the instructor."
"...I'm all ears."
After that, Yeonhwa explained it to Hyewon — how to persuade Sunu, what to watch out for, and above all, how to play the game of wordplay well.
"I've never thought about it this way before..."
"Then learn it while you have the chance. And one more thing, Boss."
People with the instructor's personality — at the critical moment, they sway more easily to emotion than to logic.
"...What does that mean?"
"What do you think it means."
Yeonhwa made a gesture no idol should ever make and answered.
"Sex. Sex."
"Pffht?!"
And so.
"You're going... cherry blossom viewing....?"
"That's how it turned out. Can't be helped. Unlike back when we were a party, I'm under contract for Nature now."
A scene Ayeong had been certain would never happen began to unfold right in front of her eyes.
"Don't feel too left out. We'll go together separately sometime later."
"....Okay."
Of course, it was not the worst case. Strictly speaking it was second-worst; look at it from the angle of monopolizing Sunu and it might even be good. Still—
....I'm uneasy.
Just as he had seemed like a different person after the company dinner last time, what if after this cherry blossom outing he changed again — became as distant as he had been before? A faint anxiety bloomed in her chest, and Ayeong asked him,
"Sunu-nim... you won't abandon me, will you...?"
"Hm?"
An abrupt question. Even so, Sunu smiled as he answered.
"Abandon you? You're not trash. Between friends, something like that wouldn't happen over something this small."
"....Yes. I... I'll never leave you either!"
Yes. Just like that.
Sunu was still Sunu. And so Ayeong set her heart at ease and watched him go.