Chapter 111
He leaped out of bed, showered in cold water, roughly dried his hair, and changed clothes. He was about to put on his usual thin long pants and long-sleeved shirt when Myeongjeon’s thoughts turned elsewhere.
‘Isn’t Japan even hotter than Korea?’
If he dressed the way he did back in Korea, he might roast to death. That meant short sleeves with shorts or a skirt… but Myeongjeon felt a little resistant. Until now, skirts and clothes that exposed his skin had been reserved for ‘special occasions’—promoting a song, performing onstage, or something like that.
Was he really supposed to dress that way in everyday life? But Myeongjeon soon changed his mind. It wasn’t as though men didn’t wear short sleeves and shorts. When it was hot enough to feel like he was going to die, hiding that much skin was the strange thing.
Having made up his mind, Myeongjeon rummaged through his closet and pulled out a pair of dolphin shorts. They weren’t too tight, and since they were loose, they allowed plenty of airflow. They were perfect.
* * *
“This is my first time traveling abroad.”
Incheon Airport’s departure hall.
Suyeon’s mother, Ms. Lee Hyein, who was acting as their guardian on this trip, had stepped away to visit the duty-free shops. Sitting on a chair near the departure gate and drinking coffee, Iseo spoke.
“Isn’t that usually the case?”
“Really? I thought you, Suyeon, would have gone abroad at least once.”
“…I haven’t.”
Suyeon hesitated for a moment for some reason. Iseo simply thought that was how it was.
The trip to Japan had been decided suddenly, with Hyuna’s arts college entrance exams approaching. Iseo had pushed the idea through, but Hyuna was the one most enthusiastic about the trip. Even now, she was beside them looking at her tablet and checking whether this or that was right.
“Why are you making the itinerary so rigid?”
“But we might only get to go once…! We have to see absolutely everything before we come back…!”
Hyuna’s tablet displayed all sorts of destinations. Animate. Surugaya. Melonbooks. Mandarake. Maidreamin… A maid café?
“Why on earth do you want to go to a maid café? Do we really need to visit somewhere like that?”
“I went to one in Korea.”
“You went to one in Korea?”
“Yes… I went to one in Korea, but something about it felt strangely inauthentic… So I thought I’d try one in Japan… to see what a maid café in the home country is like.”
“…Do you really need to experience something like that?”
In the middle of their conversation, Suyeon suddenly cut in with a question. Unlike Iseo, who simply said, “Exactly,” Hyuna seemed to have a different opinion.
“You have to experience things like that. It’s necessary to raise your level as an otaku…”
“Who on earth wants to raise their level like that? What benefit is there to reaching a higher level?”
Suyeon delivered a cold rebuttal. But Hyuna came up with a logically coherent answer of her own.
“Of course there’s a benefit. When you get into an argument with someone, you can say, ‘Have you ever even been to a maid café in Japan?’”
‘Is there ever a time to say something like that?’
Iseo wondered. Suyeon appeared to be thinking the same thing.
“There’s no way you’d ever say that. It’s not as though you’re arguing with other otaku.”
Hyuna froze for a moment at Suyeon’s indifferent remark. Then, in a slightly trembling voice, she spoke.
“…Huh? Aren’t you all otaku now…?”
“I’m curious why you thought that.”
“No, no, we just performed songs from Bocchi the Rock and everything, so I thought you’d become interested in music… and then started watching anime and reading manga… I thought that was what normally happened…”
Hyuna mumbled in a slightly trembling voice, apparently more flustered herself at Suyeon’s question of what she was talking about.
“Ordinary people don’t usually do that. Ordinary people don’t go digging into something, grow fond of it on their own, and then become completely absorbed in it.”
Iseo explained it to her. Hyuna stared at her with an expression that seemed to say, Don’t lie to me, as though her entire world had just collapsed.
But if that was the truth, what could she do? She had to learn to accept it. The world wasn’t going to be kind forever.
“Stop talking nonsense and eat this.”
Seoha had just returned from the duty-free shop with Ms. Hyein. She handed over a duty-free bag and said that.
* * *
They had booked a hotel near Tokyo Station. Hyuna wanted to visit Akihabara, and Ochanomizu Station, which they absolutely had to stop by, was not far from Tokyo Station either.
Besides, Ms. Lee Hyein apparently often stayed at this hotel whenever she came to Tokyo on business… Myeongjeon decided it wasn’t so bad. It looked like a rather high-end hotel. For some reason, though, its name made his Korean blood boil and filled him with an urge to throw a lunchbox bomb.
“Can we really unpack this early? Don’t hotels usually let you check in around two or three?”
“That’s usually true, but I’ve stayed at this hotel quite a lot. They’re allowing it because I’m a regular guest.”
Ms. Lee Hyein answered Seoha’s question. Myeongjeon stared at the keys the front desk had given them, wondering just how often someone had to stay at a hotel to become a regular guest. There were two keys: one for a double room and one for a triple room. It seemed Myeongjeon and Ms. Lee Hyein would share one room, while the other three would stay in the other.
“But isn’t a place like this expensive…?”
The girls had been overwhelmed by the lavish interior, and only asked that question after watching ‘Mom’ pay for everything. Ms. Lee Hyein answered with a gentle smile.
“It’s a gift to thank you for getting along so well with my daughter. Don’t give it another thought and enjoy your stay. We won’t be here long, so a day or two is fine.”
It must truly have been a luxury hotel, because the hotel bellhops followed them from the moment they got off the shuttle bus until the very end. They had held the keys only briefly before taking them back. The other three let out awed exclamations as the bellhops even carried all their luggage.
‘Is this what capitalism is like…?’
But he was reminded of the old days. Even when he was young, servant culture had still been somewhat alive. His own family had not had servants, but quite a few well-off households employed them. Even as a child, he had thought it was a rather barbaric sight.
So now they justified having servants by calling it a paid occupation. Was this really okay? Japan really was…
‘No, but this is convenient.’
Myeongjeon had been criticizing capitalism until just a moment ago, but all such thoughts vanished when he realized he didn’t have to drag his suitcase upstairs and that someone would even carry it to his room. Right. These people were being paid for their work, so why complain so much about capitalism and all that? There was no such thing as a high or low occupation.
“Please enjoy your stay.”
“Ah! Thank you!”
While Hyein was unpacking, Myeongjeon had gone to the next room out of boredom and overheard a conversation. It sounded like Hyuna’s voice. Her Japanese seemed quite fluent.
“You can speak Japanese too?”
Myeongjeon asked Hyuna in surprise. She answered fluently, without even the slight hesitation she sometimes had in Korean.
“Uh… I suppose I can speak a little…”
“Knowing Japanese is one of an otaku’s virtues.”
“Then can you speak it?”
Iseo chimed in while Hyuna was answering, and Seoha suddenly attacked Iseo in turn. Iseo stared at Seoha with an expression of betrayal, while Myeongjeon left her to it and looked back toward his own room. Hyein was coming outside after finishing unpacking.
“All right, girls. Shall we go get something to eat?”
They left the hotel and walked aimlessly. The girls seemed fascinated by scenery they had never seen before, following Hyein while exclaiming things like, “Wow!” and “Amazing.”
“Isn’t it fascinating to you?”
Iseo caught up with Myeongjeon and asked him that. Myeongjeon answered, “It is fascinating,” but in reality, it wasn’t. That was because he had been to Japan several times before. His reasons had simply been different.
‘Back then, I only came to buy instruments or perform.’
Myeongjeon had often visited Japan for brief periods to work as a session musician on performance tours, or simply to buy instruments before leaving again. Of course, that had all happened a long time ago, but surprisingly, Japan’s atmosphere was similar to how he remembered it. It felt as though time had stopped.
Seeing Hyein walking confidently ahead, Myeongjeon caught up and asked her a question.
“Did you make a reservation?”
“No, I didn’t. But isn’t wandering into places on a whim part of the fun of traveling?”
He nodded. That was true. What fun was there in a trip where you researched everything and planned out every route? Besides, they…
“I noticed earlier that Hyuna seems to speak some Japanese.”
“Really? Mom can’t speak Japanese either, so I just go around speaking English. It’s nice that Hyuna can speak it. We can ask her for help if we need anything.”
The group wandered until they arrived at a restaurant that looked decent. It was the sort of unassuming, quintessentially ‘Japanese restaurant’ that wasn’t particularly boisterous.
“Let’s eat here. Hyuna.”
“Yes?”
“I’m not very good at Japanese. Would you mind helping us with it?”
Hyuna thought for a moment at Hyein’s request, then nodded hesitantly. Once they entered the restaurant and waited to be shown to their seats, they found a menu covered in Japanese.
“What? Why is it so expensive?”
“What’s on the menu?”
While Iseo and Seoha stared wide-eyed, Hyein narrowed her eyes at the menu. Hyuna quietly came over and explained.
“Uh… it looks like this is an unajū (うな重, a freshwater eel rice bowl) restaurant. It’s eel over rice.”
“Thanks. Girls, are you okay with eel?”
The girls nodded at Hyein’s question. Myeongjeon did the same. Perhaps Hyuna gained some confidence from that, because she smiled and said, “Leave the ordering to me!”
But Hyuna’s moment of glory ended there.
“Which sauce would you like?”
“Would you like it prepared hつまぶし-style? Or would you like it prepared normally?”
“What would you like for dessert?”
“Uh… s-sumimasen… c-could you speak a little more slowly? Yukkuri… what was it again…”
Perhaps the clerk thought she could speak Japanese, because he began firing questions at her mercilessly. His intonation was slightly different, as though he was also using a dialect. Hyuna’s eyes even grew a little teary as she desperately tried to communicate with the clerk, but even to Myeongjeon, she looked like she was having a very hard time.
“You said you could speak Japanese?”
“I-I can’t speak that well…!”
“It’s all right. He was speaking too quickly. It’s understandable that you couldn’t follow him.”
Despite Hyein’s reassurance, Hyuna remained dejected. Myeongjeon thought it was a little different from that, but he didn’t say so aloud. There was no need to kick someone when they were already feeling discouraged.
“Otaku are usually like that. You know how you can say things like, ‘I’ll fight with my life on the line to protect the world and you!’ but you can’t say, ‘I’d like ramen in size M, please. Chopsticks and pepper, please’? That’s what otaku are like.”
Perhaps Iseo had a different opinion, because she kept grinning as she took subtle digs at Hyuna.
“Y-you can’t speak Japanese at all, Somat-nim! Fashion otaku! Cosplay girl! A fake who only puts on a menhera persona! I hate Somat-nim!”
Apparently enraged by the one-sided roasting, Hyuna suddenly shouted out everything she wanted to say, then fled like a character in a cartoon.
Seoha chased after the stunned Hyuna, while Iseo seemed dazed by the keywords ‘fashion otaku,’ ‘fake,’ and ‘I hate Somat-nim.’ Watching the scene, Myeongjeon wondered what kind of farce this was supposed to be.
* * *
Ochanomizu.
It had originally been a place that sold instruments to students from the nearby universities. Before long, instrument shops sprang up everywhere, and eventually an instrument district stretching for more than 500 meters was formed.
He was a clerk at an instrument shop in Ochanomizu. He worked at a fairly old store—not old enough to call it a tradition, but still well established. He took pride in his work and had considerable skill with instruments. He was even confident enough to demonstrate them for customers.
‘Those customers don’t look like they’re going to buy anything.’
He also had an eye for identifying customers. After dealing with so many people, he had developed a sense that was accurate nearly ninety percent of the time. According to that sense, the customers who had just entered were the type who would ‘absolutely not buy an instrument.’
‘Maybe their mother…? She could be a teacher. Since she’s young, maybe an aunt? Anyway, there’s one woman like that and four girls who are obviously high school students. They might be Korean.’
That was his first impression of the customers. And it was exactly right. As soon as they entered, the high school girls began saying things in Korean he couldn’t understand, like “
Wow, this is insane.
”, “
There are so many instruments! Can we try them?
”
He thought girls like that would never buy an instrument. The idea of high school girls forming a band was something that only existed in manga. Even if it happened in real life rather than manga, they wouldn’t be particularly skilled. It wasn’t a prejudiced statement about women; it was simply an objective fact.
“Can we play this? for demonstrate.”
“Uh… uh… okay. Okay.”
It was a little surprising that the person he had taken for an aunt spoke fluent English… but that didn’t particularly change his opinion.
When the tall, well-built girl suddenly picked up Jack Bruce’s Warwick Thumb Fretless signature model, saying, “
I’ve always wanted to try this! Warwick fretless
!” he honestly thought it was a waste of the instrument.
That was, at least, until the girl played it.