"Tae-ung-a…… thank you……"

Jang Jiyu's voice was damp with tears.

This morning she'd been bristling because Isabella, Johanna and Emilia had spent the night in my room; this was a different girl entirely.

Now she was thanking me?

"Out of nowhere?"

"Yeah…… out of nowhere."

Jang Jiyu turned her gaze toward the lake.

"You've gotten so precious to me, Tae-ung~"

It was a little past four in the afternoon. The sun was sinking fast behind the Alpine ridges.

The winter days in St Moritz felt even shorter.

That was the view beyond Badrutt's Palace's huge windows: Sunlight tinged with sunset slid down the snowy ridges and stretched long across Lake St Moritz like a red carpet.

The world that had been dazzling white a moment ago slowly turned gold and red.

Jang Jiyu faced the view with her lips pressed tight.

Tomorrow she'd be twenty too. She wasn't a girl anymore.

Maybe that was why. Today she kept saying things she'd normally never have let slip.

"Tae-ung-a."

"What?"

"Honestly, I was so scared back then."

"……" "The money my mom left me. I was scared I'd lose all of it. And scared I'd end up having to tell Dad or Grandma I'd screwed up."

"……" "But something scared me more. The hundred billion you put in. When I saw it at home, I got even more scared."

"Why would that scare you?"

Jang Jiyu gazed at the lake under the setting sun, then turned her eyes to me.

"Am I really worth that much? That's what scared me."

I could feel exactly how tangled her feelings must have been.

Jang Jiyu turned her face back toward the lake.

"So I made up my mind. I'm going to pay you back for that, no matter what."

"The hundred billion?"

"No."

"A trillion, then?"

"No, that's not enough either."

"Then……?"

"A hundred trillion."

"……" Still talking big, as always! And yet somehow I got the feeling she just might pull it off.

"Okay. I'll look forward to it."

"I mean it."

"I know."

At my answer, Jang Jiyu went quiet for a…