WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 165: Epilogue: This Is No Ordinary First Meeting (1)
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For those reasons, Han San headed for Busan.
By ship.
“The Gyeongbu Line[1] may have been restored, but...”
As Ayame adjusted her glasses and sighed, Han San immediately picked up the thought.
“The other routes are being restored one by one as well. Still...”
The ship had not been chosen because the roads were unusable.
The first reason was that the ship belonged to Han San.
“Rather than taking a car to Gyeongseong, leaving it there, and then taking a train, wouldn't it be faster and more comfortable to sail down from Sokcho on my own water wagon?”
This was his first formal meeting[2] with her family. Wouldn't arriving in his own water wagon help him save face?
The second reason was the luggage.
“Um... San.”
“Yes, Miss Aya.”
“That crate. Is it really going to be all right?”
A large crate bound with rope stood where Ayame pointed.
It had been wrapped three times in thick cloth, with straw stuffed into every corner to maximize its cushioning. It was the sort of crate that might make even Crown Prince Sado feel as though he had returned to his royal mother's embrace.[4]
“It'll be fine.”
“Mmm... All right.”
Ayame wore a complicated expression. It was roughly thirty percent joy, twenty percent worry, forty percent emotion, and ten percent fear.
Han San smiled and moved to pat her shoulder, then thought, well, not yet. Surely not yet. He merely cleared his throat.
“Anyway, don't worry, Miss Aya.”
Ayame, meanwhile, had seen Han San try to initiate some physical contact, then cancel it and retreat as naturally as flowing water.
It had not actually been natural at all. To call it smooth as flowing water, one would have needed to put the word mud in front of it. The movement had been far too awkward to miss.
She puffed out her cheeks a little.
“Hmph.”
Leaning against one of the boxes piled on deck, Ayame pursed her lips and held out one gloved hand.
“Ah.”
The instant Han San reflexively took her fingertips, Ayame twisted her wrist and slipped out of the glove.
It was summer. Shlick, and the sweat-soaked glove came off, revealing the smooth white back of her hand, marked by chafing.
Han San paused and looked up.
Ayame kept her gaze averted, her face slightly red, but she did not pull back her hand as she leaned against the crate.
Han San considered it briefly. He put the removed glove into his pocket, then, still holding her fingertips, bent at the waist...
“Ah!”
“Huh?”
Ayame startled. Han San stopped as well.
Their eyes met aboard the ship cutting across the East Sea, beneath the summer sun.
Ayame, who had thought Han San would take out something like a handkerchief and wipe her hand, was rather startled. Her heart pounded, but she still did not withdraw her hand. Only her fingertips fidgeted.
Han San, who had stopped just before bringing his lips to the back of her hand, wondered in embarrassment whether he had misunderstood.
Not for long, though.
Han San brought his lips to the back of her hand.
A summer day at sea.
The back of the young lady's hand, which had been enclosed in a leather glove, carried a scent that called the sea to mind. It tasted ever so faintly salty, too.
Ayame fidgeted her fingers. Soon, from the back of her hand to her fingertips, they turned red.
“Mmm...”
“Mm...”
Ayame and Han San, who had lifted his lips from her hand, remained silent for a while.
Then.
As if they had agreed upon it, both suddenly began taking a deep interest in the distant horizon.
“San! Those are clouds over there! Aren't they clouds?”
“Oh! They really are! Clouds. Remarkable. Clouds, wow. There, above the horizon, that... What was that called? The sky? Things floating softly in the sky, wow. Clouds all over the sky.”
“Mhm, mhm! Clouds in the sky... Ah! Those! Those are geese! Right?”
“Yes! I see. Geese, I see... ‘I see’ and ‘geese.’ Hmm. Not bad for something I just came up with?”
“Ahahaha!”
Ayame burst out laughing. Han San laughed too.
The executives of Han's Myriad Commerce watched the pair with complicated expressions.
“Honestly, part of me wants to throw them both into the sea, but another part of me is so touched to see our sajang acting like that...”
“It makes me want to date someone too.”
“Exactly. The sajang is over there rubbing our faces in it with a young lady, and Chief Hong-cheol, who stayed in Sebeom Valley, is all lovey-dovey with Manager Im's mother. Where are single people supposed to go without feeling miserable...?”
One of the grumbling executives raised their head just then.
“Shouldn't we be arriving soon?”
“Seems like it.”
“Hey! Sajang! Miss!”
Having just told a few more jokes that left Aya rolling with laughter, Han San looked up at the call.
Busan was approaching.
Busan had not been around long enough to be called Gyeongsang's great lady. Yet it was too large to call Gyeongsang's baby saint.
All things considered, calling it Gyeongsang's villainess seemed appropriate.
Furthermore, the Busan of this era was not the villainess from the original story, but a villainess possessed by a transmigrator.
“San, can you see it? That thing over there. That's the ferry.”
Ayame, granddaughter of a great Busan businessman, pointed ahead.
Han San followed the fingertips he had kissed with his gaze.
The Kanpu Ferry[3].
Beyond it were ships linking Busan and Shimonoseki.
Japan's railways across the sea and the Gyeongbu Line beginning in Busan. Those ships formed the sea tunnel connecting the two.
People and goods from Japan crossed here, loaded onto trains, and traveled up the peninsula, all the way to Manchuria. Conversely, grain and people gathered in Manchuria and Chosun boarded ships here for Japan.
That was why Busan kept growing in this era. Where goods flowed back and forth, the place in between grew fat.
Across that fattened city were traces left by the flood, like stretch marks. The Great Flood of the Gap-sul Year had hit the Three Southern Provinces especially hard, and Busan was a coastal city.
Yet even those wounds could not become scars, because the goods passing through were simply too plentiful.
“Get this up here!”
“Okay! Got it!”
Amid the shouts of foremen speaking Japanese and workers replying in a jumble of Korean and Japanese, Busan's recovery was proceeding at a rapid pace.
Han San was impressed.
“Things really do get done quickly when there are many people.”
Like someone receiving the compliment herself, Ayame smiled shyly.
“This way. My family said they'd send someone.”
Ayame and Han San had disembarked and walked a short distance along the harbor when it happened.
Creeeak...
A strange sound came from somewhere, accompanied by shouting.
“Hey! Over there...!”
Without even looking, Han San reached out. Thunk! The slipping cargo crates halted. Then, wham! he pushed hard and forced them back into place.
The crates wobbled once before standing firmly where they belonged.
Only then did Han San glance toward the sound and speak to the dumbfounded dockworker.
“Be more careful.”
“Ah... Y-yes, sir! Thank goodness nothing serious happened...”
The dockworker could not continue. Han San had already walked away.
Not for long. Ayame stopped him.
“San! Let me see your hand!”
“I'm fine...”
“That isn't for you to decide! Your hand, quickly!”
Han San awkwardly held out his hand. Ayame furrowed her brow as she examined his callused palm, then carefully pinched out a thin wooden splinter with her thumbnail and index fingernail.
“It was nothing...”
“Quiet!”
Ayame took out a handkerchief. Only after meticulously wiping his palm did she breathe deeply.
“There. It's all right now.”
“...Yes.”
“Honestly...”
Ayame put her hands on her hips. That did not last long either. Soon, she lowered her head.
“...Thank you, San.”
“It was nothing. I'm just glad you're all right too, Miss.”
“Mhm!”
They looked at one another.
Then they smiled.
Han San repeatedly clenched and opened the hand that still held the feel of her handkerchief, before raising it to the back of his head.
“Anyway, this place certainly is bustling.”
Naturally, it could not compare to the Busan of the future where Han San, a man of superior temporal class, had lived. Still, it seemed as though it could beat even late-1980s Sokcho.
“Right? Busan is nice, isn't it?”
Ayame looked proud.
Seeing that Busan pride, Han San stopped himself from saying, [Yes, it's only a notch below Gyeongseong.] He had at least that much tact.
“The land prices must be enormous.”
“Hehehe.”
Ayame laughed.
The reason for that laughter soon became clear.
On the way to the Hajama residence in the car sent to meet them, shops and homes lined both sides of the road. Perhaps they had been well prepared and suffered less flood damage, for intact signs caught his eye.
Hajama Trading Company.
Hajama Restaurant.
Hajama Collective Housing...
Han San opened his mouth even wider than he had upon first seeing Busan's skyline.
“Don't tell me this is all...”
“Hehehehe.”
Ayame drew in her shoulders as she laughed. Twenty percent shyness, twenty percent pride, no, the desire to show off.
And sixty percent of the feeling that said, I am so, so happy that we are close enough for me to show you this smug side of myself.
Naturally, Han San recognized it. Smiling broadly, he said,
“Wow, really... As expected. No wonder even the Government-General makes a point of treating your family with respect, Miss Aya.”
“Right, right?
I, um, well, I was only lucky enough to be born into a good family! But Grandfather built all this with his bare hands!
He originally worked around Osaka, then came to Busan in the last century. That was almost fifty years ago. He even brought rice from Kyushu and distributed it here. Then, after becoming independent in this century, he established the Hajama Group...”
Ayame chattered on about her grandfather's life.
As though boasting, no, she was genuinely boasting.
When a grandfather bragged about a grandchild, the grandchild could brag about the grandfather too.
‘It's nice to see how close they are.’
Han San nodded along warmly as he listened. Then Ayame, who had enthusiastically continued praising her grandfather, suddenly looked as if she had made a mistake.
“Ah, um... Of course, we cannot leave out the fact that Grandfather is Japanese when talking about how he managed to build such a large business in Busan... Things like the geopolitical situation, too...”
Han San only smiled more at Ayame's hesitant manner as she watched his reaction.
“Goodness, Miss. Why are you talking as if you're making excuses?”
“Mhm, but...”
“It's all right. You're talking about your family.
Besides, wasn't I the one who asked you to introduce them to me? If you stop when you were telling me so well, you'll make me feel disappointed.”
Ayame cautiously studied Han San's face and felt his sincerity. Then she smiled brightly once more.
“San... Thank you.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
Han San truly did not mind in the slightest.
After all.
‘Could Miss Aya's grandfather possibly be worse than my little brother from my previous life?’
Having Mr. Han Bada among his family, Han San had plenty of room in his heart.
Not only that.
‘No matter what others say, family is precious. Especially Miss Aya's family... Well, they could become my family too.’
Therefore.
“Don't worry, Miss.”
Han San could smile and nod.
“No matter what kind of people your family are, Miss Aya, I'm ready to accept them all.”
One hour later, in the reception room of the Hajama residence in Dongnae.
Han San began to regret that declaration. Perhaps it had been somewhat premature.
“Your visit. It isn't merely a visit. It is a formal meeting where the two families face one another, a true meeting between families.”
“Wow... Tsuchisan, you've nailed the heart of it.”
“...Tsuchisan and Tsuchitsuki.
Your assessment is deep.
Very deep.
I, Tsuchihi, also fully agree. Without beating around the bush, I will get straight to the facts.”
Men who all looked identical except for their glasses, which were triangular, crescent-shaped, or sunglasses, had crowded together and were murmuring among themselves.
‘Ah... Heavens.’
Like a small polar bear dropped into a village of Malay bears, Han San could only groan in pain, as though space and time themselves were twisting.
Footnotes:
[1] The Gyeongbu Line was the main railway linking Busan to Gyeongseong, completed under Japanese imperial control in 1905.
[2] A formal meeting between the families of a couple considering marriage.
[3] The Kanpu Ferry was the ferry service linking Busan with Shimonoseki, Japan, and a key colonial transport connection.
[4] Crown Prince Sado was starved to death while confined in a rice chest, making the crate comparison darkly ironic.
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