Chapter 71
A neat brunch café in the heart of Taepyeong City.
It was a 24-hour café that did business with both the undead and the living.
They said it was one of Taepyeong City’s most highly regarded eateries.
Lumina, who had led me here, dragged me along, insisting it was somewhere she absolutely wanted to visit at least once.
For a place supposedly famous for its food, there were fewer customers than I expected.
‘It is awfully early, after all.’
It was only eight in the morning.
It was too early for there to be many people.
Morning sunlight poured brightly through the floor-to-ceiling windows onto the tables.
“We don’t have to take pictures?”
“Pictures?”
“Yeah. I saw people taking pictures here and stuff. They said the cake and drinks were pretty.”
They really were pretty.
But was it worth taking a picture? Come to think of it, maybe not.
Maybe it was because I was too masculine.
I was the type who preferred enjoying things with my eyes rather than preserving them in photos.
“I’m fine.”
“Then I’ll just take one!”
“Okay.”
Click!
She took out her smartphone and snapped one photo, then pouted as though dissatisfied.
“I’ll take just one more?”
“Take your time. I can wait.”
“Thanks.”
Only after taking more than ten photos from various angles could she finally pick up her fork.
“Mmm~!”
Lumina put a piece of pancake into her mouth and let out an exclamation of delight with her eyes gently closed.
“It’s really good…….”
A soft exclamation.
Seeing her shiver all over with delight, I could tell how long she had been waiting for this moment.
A gentle smile spread around her lips.
“Hwaaah……. This is it. This is the taste…….”
This was her first meal since getting her head back.
Being able to fully experience smell and taste must have made this an especially meaningful moment for her.
“But didn’t you eat undead-only food even when you didn’t have a head? You ate that really enthusiastically too.”
“It wasn’t tasteless. But you see……. Undead-only food only affects mana, so it tastes different from food for the living. This feels a little more direct, I guess?”
Munch, munch.
She savored the pancake with exaggerated delight and took a long sip of the coffee served alongside it.
It struck me again: she really was incredibly beautiful.
A pure, innocent face that looked clear and fresh despite not wearing any makeup.
It was paired with a leather jacket, a crop top, and figure-hugging leather pants.
It was the kind of outfit that would suit a tough, delinquent older woman.
At first, I had thought it wouldn’t suit her innocent appearance.
But after looking at her for a while, this mismatched combination gave off a peculiar charm instead.
“They say the face makes the outfit.”
It suited her far better than I had expected.
She was naturally so beautiful that she seemed to effortlessly pull off the outfit, casually overriding any incongruity.
If anything, that incongruity allowed her innocent and sensual charms to show through at the same time.
On top of that, the sly, carefree older-sister energy she had shown when she had no head was gone, replaced by unmistakable embarrassment at her clothes and every single glance I gave her, so I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
This might sound a little strange to say.
But perhaps I could say she had become more enjoyable to watch?
Maybe that’s why I kept looking.
I stared blankly at her lips moving as she chewed.
Fwoosh!
Blue flames flared at the edge of her neck.
The flames reacted violently, as though she were feeling an intense emotion.
Just as beastfolk reveal their emotions more through their tails,
she revealed more fragments of her emotions through the flames.
Seeing her like this kept reminding me that she really was Lumina.
It reminded me of when we went to the auction together.
“Mincheol, aren’t you eating?”
“I should eat.”
It was just as I picked up my utensils.
“Um, Mincheol, there’s something I want to try…….”
She asked me cautiously.
“Something you want to do?”
“Yeah. Can I try it once?”
But her words were cut off by the phone that suddenly rang.
-Wooooong!!!
My smartphone suddenly began ringing loudly in my pocket.
Who could it be this early in the morning?
-Manager.
It was the manager.
“Right.”
The annual leave I had taken only lasted through yesterday.
I had taken just one day off, thinking we’d finish within today…….
I had gotten caught up in the atmosphere and briefly forgotten.
That I had to report to work in an hour.
‘But why at this hour……?’
There should still have been a little time before work.
The moment I pressed the call button, the manager’s voice came through.
-Minion, where are you?
“Ah, Manager. I just arrived in Taepyeong City.”
-I see. Did Lumina come back with you as well?
“Ah, yes. She came with me.”
-That old man Belarus didn’t do anything to you, did he?
“He almost did, but we got through it safely.”
-…I see. What a relief.
“But why are you calling at this hour? You never call before work normally.”
-…….
There was no answer from the other end.
“Manager?”
-Jinjo considers Minion her finest minion. That’s why Jinjo always trusts Minion.
She sounded strangely angry.
But it was different from the way she normally shouted or cried out petulantly whenever she was angry.
Unlike usual, the manager’s voice was somewhat subdued.
What was going on?
I was getting nervous.
“Yes, I’m always grateful for that, too. But why are you suddenly telling me this……?”
-That’s why I trusted you enough to send you even into that harsh wasteland. But this is a problem.
“Huh?”
-Leaving Jinjo waiting alone in the convenience store while you flirt with that woman!
Huh?
What was she talking about?
-If that Lumina woman found her head, shouldn’t she have told Jinjo too, of course?!
I froze for a moment.
Aside from the Endless group, Belarus, and the two of us, no one knew that Lumina had found her head.
We had only just arrived in Taepyeong City.
How did the manager know?
“Um, Manager.”
-What is it! I won’t listen to any excuses!
“Are you by any chance……nearby right now?”
At my question, the voice on the other end cut off abruptly.
-…W-why would Minion need to know that?
“If you’re nearby, why don’t you join us…….”
That was when it happened.
Across from me, Lumina rapidly shook her head from side to side.
It looked like she didn’t want that.
Tap, tap.
I turned my head at the sound of tapping on the window.
-Lumina, do you really dislike Jinjo coming over that much?
There stood a silver-haired girl plastered against the restaurant’s floor-to-ceiling window.
It was Jinjo, the convenience store manager.
Jinjo glared alternately at Lumina and me, her red eyes glittering as she pressed so close to the glass that her nose was squashed against it.
Her gaze swept harshly over Lumina’s head and the pancakes on the table.
“Aaaah!!”
Lumina, who checked outside the window a beat after me, shrieked in surprise.
“J-Jinjo? W-when did you……?”
-It. L.ooks. F.un.
“Th-this is, um…….”
-Coming all the way here with Jinjo’s minion, and abandoning the friend who’s helped you for so long, too?
Jinjo outside bared her fangs and huffed, then spoke into her smartphone through the window.
“W-would you like to come in……?”
No sooner had she finished speaking.
Ssswish.
Jinjo’s body vanished like a shadow from outside the window,
only to reappear squarely beside me.
“Hmph! What a sly little trick!”
Jinjo sat pressed close beside me with her arms crossed, her red eyes flashing as she glared fiercely at Lumina.
“Th-this is just breakfast…….”
“Don’t lie!”
“……”
“Trying to make a move on Jinjo’s minion when Jinjo isn’t here! How shameless!”
“Ahem…….”
Lumina turned her head away.
When she hadn’t had a head, she probably would have taken the offensive instead, but perhaps now that she had a head,
she couldn’t come up with a proper retort.
I could feel that she had become more bashful.
“The thing is, you’re misunderstanding something…….”
“Do you think I don’t know you’re trying to buy my minion off with sweet, expensive brunch?!”
The manager hugged my arm tightly and growled at Lumina.
“Huh?”
Lumina seemed flustered and couldn’t respond to the manager’s words.
“You’ve had your eye on my employee for a while now, and now that you’ve finally recovered your head, you’re trying to recruit him!”
“Th-that…….”
Strictly speaking, she wasn’t entirely wrong based on the situation.
It really did look like a clandestine meeting where the head of another company was treating a successfully returning dispatched employee to an expensive breakfast and urging him to change jobs.
Lumina was apparently a fairly famous delivery driver, too.
“Y-yes, that’s it! Mincheol seemed pretty good at his job, so I was going to ask whether he wanted to work with me while he had the chance!”
Lumina answered as though agreeing with the manager.
The blue flames along the edge of her neck trembled.
The bashful, demure expression on her face was overlaid by a trace of her usual confidence.
Lumina noona, that wasn’t what this was about.
We had come to eat together to celebrate her recovering her head for the first time today.
“M-Mincheol? You’re casually using Jinjo’s minion’s name…….”
“He said it was okay for me to call him that, r-right? Didn’t you, Mincheol?”
“M-Minion! Is that really true?”
Both their gazes turned to me.
“Uh, I did say that, but……”
“See?”
“H-how could you…….”
The manager looked at me as though the world had ended.
“M-Minion, then could it be that being Jinjo’s first minion wasn’t enough for you? Even so, how could you let her call you by your name…….”
“S-so what? We’re closer than you think, okay? So please step aside, Manager, since you’re only my boss at work.”
“Ugh.”
For a moment, it was as though the Lumina from before she had regained her head had returned.
“And there’s no reason I can’t recruit him. Now that I’ve found my head, I’ll be taking only safe jobs. And if the circumstances line up, I might even become Endless’s exclusive model. I’ll be making plenty of money, too, so if Mincheol wants, I can make him my exclusive manager and pay him a generous commission…….”
Bang!
“Th-that I absolutely cannot allow!!”
The manager slammed the table and rose.
“No! Absolutely not! How dare you set your sights on him! Our convenience store has excellent benefits!”
“Benefits?”
“That’s right!”
“The premium all-inclusive room and board you mentioned, plus the blood-sucking allowance?”
“Exactly! How magnificent a package…….”
“Mincheol.”
At that moment, Lumina looked at me.
“Endless said they’d pay you ten times your current hourly wage, right? I can match that. Come work with your noona and run deliveries together. I can teach you how to ride a motorcycle from start to finish, you know?”
“W-what?”
The manager’s eyes widened at the headhunting unfolding before her.
“Th-that…….”
“I don’t drink blood, either. I won’t suck your blood, and I can guarantee a five-day workweek. What do you say? Want to work with me?”
After finishing, Lumina bit her lower lip and waited for my answer.
Ten times the hourly wage.
A guaranteed five-day workweek.
“Th-that…….”
The manager’s large eyes visibly wavered.
Ten times.
Those were terms too good to refuse.
“Ugh, n-no…….”
The manager tightly gripped my sleeve.
With her head bowed low and clinging to my arm, her voice trembled faintly.
“M-Minion……. Are you really going to leave? And leave Jinjo alone?”
“Manager…….”
“M-money…… If it’s money, Jinjo can raise it a little more! Jinjo will even try to refrain from drinking your blood, so p-please don’t go…….”
Tears had already begun to well in the corners of the manager’s eyes.
She looked like a frightened little child afraid I might leave.
Seeing the small, white hand clutching my sleeve tremble, I couldn’t bring myself to shake it off.
“Where would I go?”
I smiled and gently patted the manager’s head.
“Lumina noona’s offer is very tempting, but I’m afraid I have to respectfully decline.”
“N-noona……. Heehee, n-no, that’s not the point. Really? I said ten times your hourly wage!”
Lumina asked again, sounding disappointed.
“The terms are incredibly tempting, but I’m actually a little afraid of riding a motorcycle.”
“You can ride behind me.”
“Then I’d be luggage, not a coworker. And…….”
I glanced down at the manager clinging tightly to my arm.
“With Manager holding on to me this tightly, I can’t just coldly abandon her and leave. I’m a fairly loyal person, you know.”
“M-Minionaaa—!!”
Overcome with emotion, the manager threw her arms around my waist and began sobbing loudly.
The gazes of the few customers in the café turned toward our table, but dignity seemed unimportant to the manager right now.
“Phew, what a shame.”
Lumina sighed theatrically and shrugged at my refusal.
But a faint smile played at the corners of her lips.
“Well, I can still keep helping you recover my memories. Contact me anytime.”
“Yeah. Come to think of it, I’d rather not have you as my employee either. I think it’s better if we don’t work together.”
Lumina propped her chin on her hand and gazed intently at me.
“That way, I can call you out separately anytime without using work as an excuse.”
Lumina’s face reddened, but this time she didn’t avert her gaze.
As though steeling her resolve.
A strangely sensual smile flitted across her innocent face.
“Th-that won’t do either! Calling my minion separately? I won’t allow it anymore!”
“Manager Jinjo, that’s outside your authority. And, Mincheol.”
“Yes?”
“Since our first agenda item was interrupted halfway through, I’ll set another date. Is that all right?”
The first agenda item.
She was talking about a date.
I had said I would, and I didn’t like things ending so ambiguously either.
“Yes, of course.”
I could feel the manager glaring at me.
Her gaze was incredibly sharp.
***
After we finished breakfast, the manager congratulated Lumina.
“Congratulations. You’ve recovered your head. Now all that’s left is your memories.”
“Yeah. It’s thanks to you. It was possible because you helped, Manager.”
“Hmph, Jinjo didn’t do much to help. Thank Minion instead.”
Lumina waved at me.
“I’ll come visit again soon~! Then, let’s have a more intimate chat.”
As soon as she finished speaking, she put on her helmet as if fleeing, and her ears were bright red.
“Don’t come~!!”
Lumina rode away on her motorcycle.
It was a little sad to part like this, so I watched her retreating back for a while.
It had been pretty entertaining watching Lumina’s expressions.
‘What a shame.’
“Jinjo is disappointed in Minion…….”
“Are you disappointed? But I maintained my chastity.”
“Hmph, h-how dare you think saying that will appease Jinjo’s anger!”
“So, how much are you going to raise my hourly wage?”
“Ugh…….”
The manager broke into a sweat before opening her mouth.
“D-double……. How about it?”
“Ah, where did I put Lumina noona’s contact information?”
“T-three times! Th-that is the most I can do!!”
“Thank you, Manager.”
“Y-you rotten minion…….”
I suddenly felt a powerful urge to pat the cute manager’s head.
“I’ll work even harder.”
“…In exchange, let me drink your blood once…….”
“Of course.”
Only then did the manager regain her smile.