WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 460: That Woman Y I
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* * *
It was summer.
"..."
A young man.
Go Yuir looked up at the sky without quite meaning to.
The sky was blue. But if the white clouds hadn't cast their shade, how deep could that blue ever have grown?
Everything was shade for the sky's sake.
The cries of the cicadas that had hatched too soon and now wailed somewhere far off. The leaves whose green was being scorched dry by the sunlight. The hazy chime of a wind whose source no one could name.
"Mr. Matiz."
A crisp tap of footsteps.
And a voice that came from behind, riding along with them.
Go Yuir turned around.
"I've finished packing the bicycles. The bike carrier you gave me really did make it easier. The hauling should go smoothly too. With this, every preparation for the trip is complete."
"...Ji-won-ah."
"Yes, Mr. Matiz."
A girl. Yu Ji-won tilted her head.
"There's no strength in your voice. Has something happened?"
"Yeah. Truth is, something came up out of nowhere. That Japan trip we've been planning for a year, looks like our schedule won't let us go. Sorry."
"I see."
Yu Ji-won nodded.
Expressionless.
"That's a lie."
"Tch. How'd you catch on?"
"Because you've teased me forty-one times now with that same brand of lie, so I've gotten used to it. There was never any way the trip was actually canceled to begin with."
"Why's that?"
"It's a trip you literally started planning a year ago. Someone like you would have controlled every variable from the start so the schedule couldn't slip. I believe in your abilities, Mr. Matiz."
Go Yuir lamented.
"Ah. Where did the cute little Ji-won go, the one who used to sulk because she couldn't tell whether my words were lies..."
"It eases my mind that a friend of yours will look after my grandmother. Still, I'd like to meet them in person to give my thanks."
"No. I'd recommend you don't meet her."
"Is there a particular reason?"
"No comment."
The truth was, Go Yuir didn't know the reason either.
'She refused so desperately, said the one thing that absolutely couldn't happen was Ji-won and her meeting. That girl.'
The woman who occupied the bizarre position of being his master, his colleague, and his little sister (?) all at once. Go Yuri was the one keeping her distance from Yu Ji-won.
From Go Yuir's standpoint, it was quite a surprise. It was the first time that girl had ever avoided a single person so badly.
-Beep boop! Absolutely not! If we meet, the variables get distorted!
-No, then at least explain the reason...
-Ugh. Do you have any idea how many times I've broken my back trying to make something resembling a decent person out of you, Go Yuir? The thing about you is, the moment you fall in love, you go blind. If explaining the circumstances were going to make things any better, I'd obviously have explained them by now, wouldn't I?
-...You're being awfully snippy about this.
-Ahahaha. Someday you'll understand too, Go Yuir. Someday.
There had been a strange conversation like that.
"Hmm."
Yu Ji-won clearly wasn't satisfied, but she didn't voice any particular complaint.
A trivial gripe or two didn't matter.
The first overseas trip of her life. And on top of that, the event of touring the Japanese archipelago by bicycle, just the two of them, was right around the corner.
"Then I'll see you early tomorrow morning."
"Sure. Oh, Ji-won-ah."
"Yes?"
"You haven't forgotten airplane manners, right? When kids your age ride a plane for the first time as students, there's always a fuss. If you don't want to embarrass me, get yourself ready properly."
"Of course. Haven't you warned me about it several times already?"
As if she'd predicted this exchange was coming, her face expressionless but her tone brimming with confidence, Yu Ji-won raised her left hand.
Up it went.
A shoe bag hung from it.
"It's proper etiquette to remove your shoes right before boarding the plane. I'm fully aware of it."
"That's my Ji-won. I don't think I've ever seen a kid as smart as you."
"I place a fair amount of trust in my own intelligence as well. Then I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yeah. Sleep well."
"Yes. Good night, Mr. Matiz."
It was summer.
* * *
"Hff, pfft, hk. Hu-hu-hk-."
"..."
"Pfft. Pbbbt, pp. Pwup."
"..."
"Bwahahahaha! Ah, heh, ahahah!"
"..."
Jab.
Yu Ji-won silently poked Go Yuir.
You shouldn't expect a cute little gesture from her, like a nudge with the elbow.
A ballpoint tip. A metal ballpoint pen, that was what she poked him with. Yu Ji-won always kept up some self-defense art to protect herself.
The unfortunate fact was that Go Yuir did the same.
As if he'd already predicted exactly when and where she'd strike, he skillfully blocked Yu Ji-won's wave of attacks.
Jab. Jab. Jab. Ja-ab, jab.
"D-did you see? You saw, right? The stewardess's face. No. Sorry. You can't do facial recognition, Ji-won, so you can't read her expression. Ah, this. If I were a poet I'd have explained it to you in style. But I just can't, this one."
"Mr. Matiz."
"Ah, um, sir, ma'am. Ah. I'm terribly sorry, but our airline asks that you keep your shoes on inside the cabin-."
"Is this fun?"
"Funny as hell."
"You're telling me you laid down a whole year of buildup just to pull off this gloriously childish stunt?"
"They say a lion gives it everything even when it's catching a rabbit. I've got the heart of a lion."
"Then go catch heartworms and drop dead, please."
"Hahahahahahaha!"
There were various incidents and mishaps, but at any rate the two of them got through immigration safely.
The purpose of this trip was simple.
'Yu Ji-won's ability is [Mini-Map]. And the condition for triggering the Mini-Map is to set foot in a place like the local convenience store or city hall.'
According to a certain reincarnator's claim, once the apocalypse broke out down the line, it would be wise for the organizations of the Korean Peninsula and those of the Japanese archipelago to forge close cooperation.
'Once the world starts ending, there's no way anyone gets the luxury of leisurely travel. Realistically, now is the last chance to light up the [Mini-Map].'
Of course, there wasn't only this official sort of purpose.
A glance. Go Yuir looked over at Yu Ji-won, who had come into the lodging and even changed into her pajamas.
Even on a trip, Yu Ji-won was using the spare scraps of the night to throw herself into studying Japanese. Scratch, scratch, the sound of her pen shaved a thin layer off the rind of the night.
'...I want to make some room for Ji-won to catch her breath.'
This, more than anything, might be closer to the true purpose, Go Yuir thought.
Yu Ji-won had murdered her birth father and birth mother. She had dismembered the bodies and dumped them. And then, alone, she balanced her studies with modeling work while supporting a grandmother with dementia.
'Ji-won herself acts as if it's nothing, and she really does handle it all skillfully, but...'
For a weight of life that a child had to carry, it was far too heavy.
'You could have a different life, you know, Ji-won-ah. You're a kid with countless possibilities.'
Honestly.
If Yu Ji-won so much as wanted it... Go Yuir was even prepared to throw away the reincarnator's project at a moment's notice.
'She's a child who suffered her parents' violence her whole life. Just a little girl.'
'She barely escaped that, and now she's being jerked around at the whim of strange people's schedules, reincarnators and regressors and the like... I have no excuse to give her.'
So they had set off on a trip.
If lighting up the Mini-Map had been the only goal, it would have been far simpler to just put Yu Ji-won to sleep and use Go Yuri's [Teleportation]. There was no need anywhere to go to the trouble of flying.
If she wanted to leave, it was fine to leave.
If the thing called 'world annihilation' could only be stopped by deceiving and taming the child in front of him, then a world like that could go ahead and end, for all he cared.
That was what Go Yuir believed.
"..."
A halt.
Yu Ji-won's pen, which had been filling the notebook with dense rows of Chinese characters as she studied, came to a stop.
"...Haa."
A small sigh slipped from Yu Ji-won's lips.
"It's noisy. Far too noisy."
"Hm? I don't hear a thing, though?"
"I'm talking about you, Mr. Matiz."
Yu Ji-won set down her pen and drew her brows together. She was deliberately putting her attitude on display across her face.
"With you gazing at me that intently, how am I supposed to focus on studying?"
"?"
Go Yuir was dumbfounded.
"What, did you learn mind-reading or something? Now you read my heart with your eyes?"
"There's no need to read it. If you've been staring at me without pause for over two minutes, it means one of two things."
"What, what?"
"One. That despite skillfully deceiving me for a whole year, you've actually been moved to lust by my looks, and using the excuse of saving on lodging, you intend to seize the chance of living together to build a romantic relationship with me."
"Are you out of your mind?!"
"Two. That you're sunk in pointlessly serious thoughts, fretting over my future again."
"..."
"I've already chosen my own fate, Mr. Matiz. I'm always grateful that you think things through on my behalf, but if you keep those thoughts to yourself, they carry no meaning at all."
"...I see. That's true too."
"Speak to me. Talk it over with me."
Yu Ji-won looked him straight in the eye.
"Without conversation, I can't understand."
"..."
"I'm aware there's a sort of person who treats the absence of conversation, the silence, as some greater form of understanding instead, but that isn't understanding meant for me."
"...I'm sorry."
"It's all right."
Yu Ji-won rose and sat on the sofa.
This small place, booked through Airbnb, was charmingly well decorated despite its modest floor space, whether that was the owner's character or not.
Tap, tap. Yu Ji-won patted the spot beside her on the sofa. Go Yuir rose without a word and sat there.
"From the day before we left, your mood was different than usual. I'll ask again. What worry are you carrying, Mr. Matiz?"
"...This is a secret between just you and me."
"Is it weightier than the secret that I murdered my birth parents?"
It was her way of saying, what secrets could there possibly be between us at this point. Go Yuir huffed out a laugh.
"The truth is."
"Yes."
"There's a reincarnator named Go Yuri, who was supposedly my little sister in a past life."
"Hmm."
Yu Ji-won nodded.
"Is it a setting? Or a delusion?"
"No. It's astonishing, but it's true."
"That truly is an astonishing fact. I ask just in case, but how many years of buildup does this amount to?"
"Ah! I didn't take the lesson of the boy who cried wolf to heart."
They traded the conversation like this, but in truth Go Yuir knew it well.
That she was already assuming his words were 'truth.'
To Yu Ji-won, Go Yuir's claims were absolute. It wasn't that they were objectively absolute and therefore trustworthy. It was that, because she trusted, she simply granted the other person an absolute value.
"Please go on."
"She's a reincarnator. So she knows everything about what's going to happen in the future. The reason I ever met you came from her too."
"..."
"In the end, I wonder if that person and I forced a fixed fate on you. It's been weighing on my mind for a long while."
"I see."
Yu Ji-won nodded.
"That's a truly pointless worry. But, I finally understand. Why you've always been so desperate to give me what you call 'freedom' every time you look at me, Mr. Matiz."
"Are you disappointed?"
"Not at all. If anything, it's become clear."
Go Yuir's head tilted.
"Become clear, how?"
"The way for me to repay you, Mr. Matiz."
Yu Ji-won rose from the sofa.
"I'll sleep first. You should hurry to bed too, Mr. Matiz. We're set to start riding early at dawn tomorrow, aren't we?"
"Huh? Ah, right. Yeah. I should sleep. Yeah."
"Do have a good night."
With that, Yu Ji-won lay down on the bed off to one side of the room.
Unable to grasp the meaning of the words she'd left behind, Go Yuir tilted his head.
'What's that supposed to mean? A way to repay me.'
But just as Yu Ji-won said, the real bicycle trip began tomorrow, so Go Yuir too tidied up around himself and lay down on the sofa.
Ka-tok.
His smartphone gave a small buzz around the half-hour mark, just as he was drifting off to sleep.
"...?"
Go Yuir checked his phone.
-Little Sister (?): Come outside for a sec!
Footnotes:
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