Chapter 54
A sea of people—
The sound of people was loud enough to drown out the background music.
“Hmm···.”
After buying a ticket, Lee Sol came back outside.
She looked around the event venue and let out a short hum.
“Wow··· There are so many people. This must be a pretty big event.”
Shin Ayoung looked around and marveled.
“···Yeah.”
Lee Sol agreed.
It wouldn’t be strange to call it swarming, either. The inside of the event venue was packed with people.
And nearly every one of them seemed to be cosplaying.
There were some who weren’t, but most of them were.
The ones who weren’t must have been the ones out of place here.
“I never knew Seungho was into this kind of hobby.”
Shin Ayoung wore a subtle smile. She looked as if she was considering trying it herself.
“···.”
But that wasn’t it.
Not that.
“He said he came to help Seungah with her event.”
“Huh?”
Shin Ayoung slowed her steps and whipped her head around.
“Seungah··· You mean Lee Seungho’s younger sister?”
“Yeah.”
“···How do you know that?”
Well.
Simply put.
“Because I asked Seungho.”
“Reaaally?”
Shin Ayoung dragged out the end of her sentence.
She tried not to let it show, but perhaps she wasn’t doing a very good job.
The color drained slightly from her pupils.
Her gaze lost its focus, and she stared off into the distance.
“···.”
Ahem.
Lee Sol inwardly snorted.
It felt like proof that she was still one step ahead.
The tension she had felt eased little by little.
Good. Let’s just keep going like this.
“She’s probably running a booth inside.”
Lee Sol went ahead first, her steps brimming with confidence.
“···.”
Just as they were about to go inside,
she stopped for a moment.
“Uh, well···.”
Her body stiffened.
That.
A sea of people— A sea of people— A sea of people—
There were even more people inside than outside.
Booths lined up in rows, with lines stretching out in front of them.
Booths and people. People and booths.
An endless, dizzying spectacle.
“···We’re supposed to look through all of this?”
Lee Sol lightly pressed a hand to her forehead. She was starting to feel dizzy.
To be honest, she wasn’t particularly fond of crowded places.
And densely populated places even less so.
She hesitated to go inside.
“Then let’s do this.”
Shin Ayoung raised her index finger and twirled it around.
“We’ll split up and look around, then contact each other when we find him—”
“No.”
Lee Sol caught Shin Ayoung by the wrist as she was about to leave.
Her grip tightened faintly.
“Let’s look together.”
She couldn’t leave Shin Ayoung to wander around alone.
Who knew what might happen if she left her by herself?
Even if she was still one step ahead,
she couldn’t let her guard down.
“Okay, then.”
* * *
Day two. The day proceeded exactly like yesterday.
I came to realize that running a business was an endless repetition of the same labor.
Take an order, prepare the item, accept the money, and make the sale.
After doing it for a while, we could even chat idly in between.
The only difference was
that there was one more person.
“Here.”
Jinuri deftly filled a bag with merchandise and held it out to me.
I took the money and handed the bag straight to the customer.
That was the difference.
Jinuri had come into the booth.
She was helping us now. No one had asked her to; she had simply volunteered.
“Are you really sure you don’t want to walk around?”
Lee Seungah checked on Jinuri.
Perhaps she was worried about her, because she kept coming into the booth every so often.
— “Is it really okay not to go have fun?”
Lee Seungah’s Minimi peered around Jinuri.
“I’m fine. I already bought everything I wanted while looking around yesterday.”
Jinuri coolly shrugged.
She neatly packed the merchandise into a bag. She was remarkably efficient.
“Honestly, I did want to try this once.”
She let out a light snort of laughter.
— “···Ahem. Isn’t being staff kind of cool?”
Jinuri’s Minimi grinned with crinkled eyes.
She seemed to have a certain romantic notion about being ‘staff.’
“Even if I wanted to set up a booth, I’m hopeless with my hands, so I’d half given up on the idea. And I don’t have anyone to do it with.”
“Well, that’s a relief, but···.”
“I said I’m really fine.”
Jinuri repeated the process of neatly packing the items.
— “Why is she acting like that?”
Jinuri’s Minimi blinked its round eyes and sank into thought.
It tapped the plastic with its tiny, fern-like hands.
Then those hands gradually slowed.
— “···Ah.”
It stopped abruptly.
— “···Did she not like it?”
Perhaps being helped had made her uncomfortable.
It was a perfectly reasonable guess for her to make,
but to me, it looked as though her thoughts were heading in a strange direction.
“···Did I make you uncomfortable···?”
At Jinuri’s anxious question,
“No, no.”
Lee Seungah shook her head repeatedly.
Even after that denial,
“···Really?”
she still looked doubtful.
— “···What if she can’t say anything because she feels bad? Should I take the hint and leave even now?”
The Minimi folded its arms and twisted this way and that, deep in thought.
“···.”
What an overreaction.
I handed an item to a customer, then called out to them from behind.
“Don’t worry about it. She was actually excited that you offered to help.”
“Huh? Really?”
Jinuri’s eyes widened.
— “Is that true?”
The Minimi’s expression, which had been puffed up and limp like soaked seaweed, sprang back into shape.
Bouncy, bouncy.
It quickly returned to normal. Its emotions changed dramatically.
“Yeah, you seemed pretty happy about putting me to work.”
“Hey! When did I ever say that?”
Lee Seungah bristled.
‘Hey,’ really.
She was speaking so casually to a brother two years older than her.
“I even recorded it.”
“···Huh? Really?”
“No.”
As if I would have.
···Whack. Whack. Whack.
Lee Seungah huffed as she lightly pounded my back.
“Ow. Oof.”
Her fists were tiny, but they sure packed a sting.
···Anyway, it seemed she really had been excited.
“···.”
Jinuri had been quietly watching us, and the corners of her mouth lifted slightly.
Looking somewhat fascinated, she spoke in a low voice.
“You two are surprisingly close.”
At those words, we both turned to look at her.
“?”
“We are?”
That was genuinely the first time I had ever heard anyone say that.
Lee Seungah’s Minimi was so shocked that it stopped moving. Its mouth hung open as it froze.
“It’s not like you’re not close. Don’t siblings usually help each other with things like this?”
“Hmm···.”
I couldn’t let that one slide.
I held out a sheet of paper to Jinuri. On it was the amount I was supposed to receive this time.
“···This much.”
“Oh, really? For today and tomorrow?”
Her voice rose on its own.
Jinuri’s gaze moved back and forth between the paper and me.
“Thank you~”
I nodded as I handed an item to a customer.
“···Then I suppose that makes sense.”
Jinuri soon accepted the explanation.
* * *
“Ugh···!”
Jinuri stretched out her stiff body. As she stretched, a groan escaped her.
After crouching constantly, every part of her body ached.
This was tiring too.
···While she was stretching.
“···?”
Two figures entered Jinuri’s field of vision.
More precisely, both of them did.
Their slow gait. The way their heads turned as they looked around, as if unfamiliar with the place.
The behavior of newcomers who didn’t fit this space at all.
However.
Their silhouettes looked strangely familiar, as if she had seen them somewhere before.
They caught her eye. She could see them clearly.
“···.”
Jinuri narrowed her eyes and stared hard in that direction.
One second··· two seconds··· three seconds···.
“Fuuuck···!”
A curse nearly slipped out before she could stop it.
Jinuri covered her mouth with one hand and held it back.
It didn’t take long for her to realize that the two silhouettes were people she knew.
Lee Sol and Shin Ayoung.
‘···Why are they here?’
Her eyes trembled as if they had malfunctioned.
She could feel it happening herself.
“···.”
At that moment.
Sssss···.
The two slowly turned their heads in this direction. Their movement felt sluggish, like slow motion.
‘Ah.’
The first thought that came to her.
She couldn’t let them find out.
Jinuri moved quickly and naturally. She picked up the paper bags and wrapping materials from the floor.
The only people who needed to hide here were herself and Lee Seungho.
“H-here you gooo···!”
Jinuri reached out from behind him.
As she handed the item forward, she covered Lee Seungho’s face with a paper bag.
Once the customer who had received the item left,
Jinuri lightly pressed his shoulder down beneath the table.
He kept up a normal-person act at school too, so she had a duty to hide him as a fellow member of the same secret.
···How long had they stayed like that?
‘Are they gone?’
She peeked around beyond the booth.
Nothing.
Perhaps they had moved somewhere else; the two of them were no longer visible.
“Phew···.”
As she let out a sigh of relief,
the area beside her grew noisy.
She heard people whispering.
“···?”
Wondering what was happening, she turned her head that way.
“Whoa, whoa···!”
“···.”
Lee Seungah’s friends wore startled expressions. Their faces were oddly flushed.
“Ohhh··· This···.”
Lee Seungah looked over this way, her reaction betraying her confusion.
She muttered something to herself.
“···.”
Lee Seungho blinked and looked up at me.
“···Uh···.”
Jinuri calmly retraced what she must look like right now.
She had been moving so frantically that she hadn’t noticed it.
She was clinging to Lee Seungho from behind as if hugging him.
His face was nestled between her arms, like he was riding piggyback.
That was how she had been hiding him.
“···Ah.”
She hurriedly pulled away and threw her arms wide.
Tap, tap, tap··· She backed away, step by hesitant step.
“Uh, uhh···.”
This was a situation anyone could misunderstand,
so Jinuri denied it to them, raising her voice. Her face burned with embarrassment.
“N-no!”
It really wasn’t like that.