Chapter 89
The story continues off the page
Floaties for Everyone
Swim lesson at the water park, and she's demonstrating on you
The time we spent in the sauna was shorter than I expected.
By the time I was goofing around with the staff, a full hour had already slipped by.
When I saw the sauna crowd pour out all at once, I knew the water park had opened at 11.
‘Ah, what a hassle.’
An indoor water park with a hot spring attached.
Seeing everyone rush out like that made me a little reluctant to go.
“Let’s go!”
“L-let’s go.”
The two of them tugged on my arm.
I dug in my heels and held on.
“I think I’ll stay here a little longer. If we go now, it’ll be packed with people.”
“C-come on. L-let’s go.”
“Boss! That just proves you’re old! Live a little younger, like this one!”
“......”
But my feeble resistance crumbled uselessly as the two of them forcibly dragged me along.
“Go wash up.”
“See you in a bit!”
Kim Yang and Renea went into the women’s changing room.
I wondered if Raichen might be in the changing room too, but there was no sign of Raichen.
Had Raichen already gone off to the water park to have fun?
I showered off the sweat from the sauna and put on my swimsuit.
Though calling it a swimsuit was generous—it’s just black shorts and a long-sleeved top.
Around here, even when they say swimsuit, people just wear ordinary clothes.
After leaving the changing room and waiting at the entrance, my phone rang.
- Yeoena -
I briefly wondered if I really had to take a call on my day off, but ended up pressing the answer button.
“Hello?”
- Can you talk now?
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
I walked over to a nearby bench and sat down.
I could see people crowding in as they announced that today’s first wave pool session was about to start.
- This incident is being wrapped up for now. It’ll be reported in the press, but your name won’t come out.
Well, I figured as much.
She wouldn’t have called me for something like this.
- And... you know, that law.
Her voice was small.
I swallowed and listened closely.
“Yeah, how is it? Any reaction?”
- No, nothing. It’s the same.
“Really?”
- Yeah.
Her answer left a faint lingering trace.
I got the feeling she was hiding something.
But Yeoena said nothing more, and I didn’t ask.
Because of our respective positions—the Hunter Association’s vice president and the president of a matchmaking agency.
And this was probably the answer she wanted from me most.
- So don’t worry too much, Juseon. Just keep living as usual.
“Yeah, thanks.”
- I’ll make sure you get a separate fee for this job.
“If you give it to me, I’ll take it.”
I wasn’t about to refuse money.
Kyaaah!
Waaah!
Just then, the wave pool started up, and the screams of the crowd seemed to come through the phone.
Yeoena flinched and asked.
- Where are you now?
“Right now? The water park.”
- Why are you there?
“Company workshop. Someone said we should rest a bit, so I came with the staff.”
- ......
“Why?”
- No, have fun.
Click.
The call ended with a sharp, curt goodbye.
As I was left wondering what that was about and feeling uneasy, an old memory flashed through my head.
Back when we were dating, I remembered saying we should go to a water park after graduating from hunter training school.
“Ah...”
Well, we ended up breaking up naturally after graduation, so we never got to go.
Still, I couldn’t help feeling oddly uncomfortable.
While I was nursing the sour aftertaste from the call, Renea came sprinting over after coming out of the women’s changing room.
Her swimsuit was just ordinary short sleeves and shorts, similar to mine.
She flapped both arms excitedly enough to make me mistake her for an elementary school kid for a second and shouted.
“B-Boss! Boss!”
“What is it?”
“It was amazing! Amazing!”
“What was?”
“I mean Kim Yang! S-so, so! Those gigantic—!”
Startled, Renea made a circle with her arms to show how big it was.
“Seeing it in person was on another level—”
“I get it, so stop talking.”
Was it because she was 1,902 years old that she didn’t really understand the concept of sexual harassment?
I knew very well how amazing Kim Yang was.
75E.
I had heard it by accident when we had Alomang’s suit fitted last time.
“I’ll grow up too someday, right?”
“Huh? Are you going to reincarnate?”
“......”
She glared at me with her lips tightly shut, as if she knew she’d just said something absurd.
But what could I do?
For someone who’s 1,902 years old, ‘later’ can only mean something like reincarnation.
Kim Yang came out after her.
She was covering her body with a thin windbreaker, but for some reason she hadn’t zipped it all the way up, so the black bikini underneath showed through.
The bottom was short denim shorts instead of swimwear.
From the front it was revealing and lewd, but from other people’s perspective the windbreaker covered it—just the right amount of exposure.
‘She sure dresses like an SNS influencer.’
Anyway, with Kim Yang out too, I pointed straight at the wave pool.
“Let’s go to the wave pool. The waves are rolling in right now.”
If we didn’t go now, we’d have to wait ten minutes.
I had been too lazy to come, but now that I was here, it felt like a waste of money not to enjoy it.
“Ms. Renea, can you swim?”
“The time I spent playing in mountain streams is longer than the years you’ve been alive!”
Holy shit.
That sounds badass.
I was marveling at her, but she was still urging us to hurry up and go.
Grab!
Kim Yang grabbed my wrist and asked with a sidelong look.
“A-anything to say? Uh, nothing?”
“What? I said let’s go play in the wave pool.”
“......”
Kim Yang stared at me for a moment, then let go. As I was about to follow Renea, who had already cheerfully gone into the wave pool, Kim Yang called me again.
“P-please take a picture of me.”
“What kind of picture?”
“For SNS.”
“Ah...? So you wore that swimsuit just to post it on SNS?”
“Yeah.”
A short answer that felt a little cold.
She held out her phone to me.
Thanks to Kim Yang’s SNS, Meracle got publicity, and I got the Alomang suit for free, so I should at least do this much.
Kim Yang wanted a photo with the wave pool as the backdrop.
She didn’t do any special pose. Just a casual everyday feel?
I wasn’t sure if this kind of thing still works these days.
“Ready?”
Nod.
Click, click!
“There, done?”
“Y-you only took two shots.”
“Two is enough.”
“A-again.”
Why am I still working even here?
Click, click, click, click!
This time I took several shots the way Kim Yang wanted, then handed her the phone.
“Hey, that’s enough, right?”
I thought they came out pretty well, so I figured we’d finally get to have some fun—
But Kim Yang, dissatisfied with something, grabbed my wrist and dragged me somewhere else.
“What now?”
“A-again.”
“If this was going to happen, I should’ve just bought the suit with my own money.”
“L-lie. C-cheapskate.”
“...... Okay, that part was a lie. I couldn’t have bought that with my own money.”
Custom suits are insanely expensive.
If I can settle it by doing a little labor like this, then sure.
Next was a concept shot of her coming out of the changing room.
Click, click! Click, click!
“Hey, but I’m not very good at taking pictures. Is that okay?”
“J-just take it.”
“Quantity over quality, huh. Well, I guess that’s Kim Yang for you.”
“N-no fun. O-old-school. O-old fogey.”
“Weren’t you pretty quick on the draw?”
After grumbling and taking a few more shots, I handed the phone back to Kim Yang for another check.
“This time they really came out well.”
“......”
But why was she still so dissatisfied?
She didn’t even check the photos before pouting and dragging me away again.
This time she even lay down on a public sunbed to pose—
“Are you taking that off?”
“Yeah.”
Kim Yang took off the windbreaker and laid it aside, then lay down.
But her pose was a little too much.
“...You post photos like this too?”
“S-sexual harassment. I-I’ll sue. I-I’ll win.”
“Okay, sorry.”
I could feel the people passing by glancing at Kim Yang, so I started taking photos, thinking I’d better do it quickly.
Click, click! Click, click!
“This time it’s really good, right? You came out looking pretty.”
As I said that while handing her the phone, Kim Yang slowly got up and asked.
“Pretty?”
“Yeah, it came out really pretty. That’s enough now, right?”
At my words, Kim Yang tucked the phone into her aqua bag without even checking the photos and nodded.
“Y-yeah. Then it’s fine.”
“What, you’re not even going to check?”
“I-I can’t post this one.”
“You little shit—!”
I was about to complain, annoyed and wondering why she’d made me do this in the first place.
But Kim Yang grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the wave pool.
“L-let’s go. B-boss.”
“Alright, fine. Where’s Ms. Renea?”
“I-I don’t know. J-just go have fun.”
I didn’t think finding a pink-haired girl would be hard, but with all the different races packed together, it really was hard to spot her.
The wave pool was still crashing hard. Near the entrance, the dwarves stood out especially; since they were too short to go into the deeper water, they were playing farther back.
“Hehe! Dad, look at this!”
“Hahaha! You swim well, just like your dad!”
We passed the dwarf family having fun even in water only up to their thighs and headed toward the center.
Kim Yang naturally placed both hands on my shoulders from behind.
That was only natural if you didn’t want to get separated from the group in a wave pool.
“G-gotta go.”
“Whoa, hey. The waves are pretty strong.”
“P-pathetic.”
Give me a break.
Then the orca beastman acting as a lifeguard shouted in a panic.
“Hey, elf! You can’t take off your swimsuit! Put it back on!”
I guess those elf bastards would be used to swimming naked in streams or lakes, so it made sense.
The important thing was that there was an elf in our group.
“No way, right?”
“......”
I had been worried, but thankfully it was Renea, who surfaced beside us after diving under.
“Puhah! This is fun! Swimming when the waves are crashing is so fun!”
“Ah, thank goodness. You’re wearing your swimsuit properly.”
“Hmph, excellent.”
“...I truly don’t understand why you would praise something so basic.”
Renea didn’t seem all that pleased even after being praised.
But this was the first time I’d sincerely praised her like that while spending time with her.
Ba-bam! Ba-baam!
An ominous tune rang out from the front of the wave pool.
A moment later, an enormous wave began rolling in.
“Wow...”
As I marveled at it, I felt a sensation on my back. Kim Yang looped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist, hugging me tightly.
“Hey, wait a second—!”
“Maaah—”
“Damn it—!”
Before I had time to say anything, the wave pool slammed into us. Being shoved backward and carried by a wave much stronger than I expected was actually pretty fun.
It was a little annoying, though, seeing a few martial artists in the middle bracing against the waves like they were training.
I got pushed all the way to the far end by the waves and collapsed on the floor, with Kim Yang still clinging to my back.
“It’s suffocating, so let go.”
“J-just once more. It, it’s fun.”
“......”