Chapter 55
“···Ain’t it?”
I repeated Jinuri’s words.
What an out-of-nowhere way of speaking.
It made me tilt my head in puzzlement.
Did one of her parents come from Chungcheong Province?
“Ah.”
At my questioning,
Jinuri jumped in surprise and clapped a hand over her mouth.
That reaction made it seem like the dialect had slipped out before she knew it.
“Ah, no. It’s not that···!”
Jinuri waved her hands vigorously, making her emphatic denial clear.
She didn’t seem particularly fond of using dialect.
Some people are like that.
They say it’s embarrassing when a dialect draws attention.
Unlike me, whose attention had been caught by it,
···the people around us had a different interpretation.
‘Wow··· Nuri unni is really assertive. She’s just going for it···.’
‘What are those two? Are they dating?’
I heard whispers as Lee Seungah’s friends chatted with excited expressions.
The topic of conversation was focused on what Jinuri had just done.
A girl in the prime of her romance-drama-watching years.
That was exactly the expression on her face.
“N-no, it’s not like that!”
Seeing that, Jinuri’s face turned bright red.
“They were there···!”
She desperately continued making excuses, looking a little aggrieved.
“Uh··· just calm down a little.”
I raised both hands and slowly lowered them.
There was no need to get so worked up.
“···.”
Jinuri hesitated when she saw that,
then soon caught her breath.
“Sss··· whooo···.”
Jinuri slowly inhaled, then pushed the air from her lungs back out.
Haa, haa.
She seemed to be calming down little by little.
“So, who were they?”
I brought up the question I had left unanswered.
Jinuri narrowed her eyes halfway and looked sullen.
“···Ayoung and Sol.”
“Huh?”
My voice rose before I knew it.
Those were unexpected names. I hadn’t expected to hear them.
“Here? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Could you have seen them wrong?”
“No, I saw them clearly. I’m telling you, it was definitely the two of them!”
Jinuri tapped her thigh in exasperation.
“It’s not like people with looks like theirs are common. Even from far away, it was obviously the two of them.”
Above all,
“They were dressed in clothes that didn’t fit this place at all. They were dressed for enjoying a leisurely afternoon at a quiet café.”
Somehow, that example was strangely vivid.
She seemed displeased that they had come here dressed like that.
I thought it was possible, but
Jinuri still looked somehow sullen.
“But···.”
If Jinuri hadn’t seen wrong, then the two of them really were here.
That brought another question to mind.
“···Why are they here?”
Why had they come here?
And together, at that.
“How would I know?”
Jinuri shrugged.
Apparently having no idea, she folded her arms and tilted her head. Then she rubbed her chin and fell into thought.
“···Even so, it’s not like they actually like events like this.”
“Why not?”
“Why? Because it’s obvious at a glance.”
···Then what about me?
I was about to ask that, but
I looked back at what I was wearing.
I was cosplaying a game character in a suit.
“Hmm···.”
I decided to keep my mouth shut.
Even if it hadn’t been intentional, it was an outfit no one could deny was exactly that.
Just then, someone entered my field of vision.
The person who looked the most anxious out of everyone here.
“Hmm···.”
Lee Seungah, who had been making a low sound of discomfort, leaned forward by herself.
On the outside, her face looked remarkably calm. Unadorned and perfectly natural.
However.
Her inner thoughts were different.
— “···Could it be because of the picture I sent?”
Her Minimi was sweating profusely, almost excessively so.
Its pupils were shaking like an earthquake.
It was an obvious reaction from someone who had something to feel guilty about.
‘Hmm···.’
But wouldn’t coming all the way here because of that picture be taking things a little too far?
Why come here just because she had seen that one thing?
There was no reason to do so.
Even as I wondered whether she would really go that far,
I thought about what I would do if I heard that a friend had cosplayed.
Then······
‘Oh.’
I probably wouldn’t be able to resist either.
I’d probably come at least once out of curiosity.
“Ahem.”
Jinuri cleared her throat and drew everyone’s attention back to her.
“Anyway. It’s not like that. I just helped them avoid getting caught.”
She neatly summed up the situation.
After finishing, she looked somewhat relieved.
With an expression that said she had solved one problem, she contentedly took a long sip of her chocolate latte.
Meanwhile.
The others looked a little disappointed.
‘What? That was all?’
‘I thought they were something like that···.’
Disappointed voices reached my ears.
They were the whispers of people who had been denied a romance story.
“···.”
But.
One question still remained.
I asked Jinuri,
“But are you going to be okay?”
“Huh? Okay about what?”
Jinuri stared blankly at me.
Her face held nothing but innocent curiosity as she waited to hear what I meant.
Had she forgotten again?
I once again forced her to face reality.
“You have to perform soon. Once you’re onstage, they’ll definitely see you.”
“···.”
Jinuri didn’t answer.
— “Ah.”
Her Minimi let out a short exclamation in her place, then
only blinked silently.
I thought she was all right, but the hand holding her latte began to tremble.
— “···Fuck.”
In the end, it couldn’t hold back and spat out a short curse.
It turned into a teary, miserable mess.
“···.”
···Tsk.
It wasn’t entirely without responsibility on my part.
Looking at the Minimi, I wondered if I should help a little.
* * *
“Haaah···!”
Lee Sol let out a tired breath.
“Here.”
Shin Ayoung bought a cold cola from a vending machine and handed it to her.
“···Ah, thanks.”
Lee Sol opened the can and downed it in one gulp.
Only then did she look as if she had come back to life.
“···Which areas did we still have left?”
Shin Ayoung answered Lee Sol’s question.
“We still have half of it left.”
Even after walking around like this, they hadn’t seen so much as the heel of Lee Seungho.
The venue itself was huge, but the real problem was how many people there were.
They wondered if they might have passed him without noticing along the way.
“···Phew···.”
A deep sigh escaped her, and Shin Ayoung lightly rubbed the back of her neck.
The fatigue was finally catching up with her.
They had been walking since morning. They had gone shopping and then come straight here.
After moving nonstop, it was only natural that she was tired.
“···.”
Shin Ayoung silently rolled her eyes and looked down to the side.
If even she, who usually moved around so energetically, was like this···
“Ugh···.”
Lee Sol was even worse.
She squatted against the wall, almost half asleep.
She looked as if she was about to fall asleep completely.
Meanwhile.
‘···Impressive.’
Watching people hurry past, Shin Ayoung couldn’t help feeling impressed.
Almost no one looked tired. Everyone moved with bright, sparkling eyes.
They even looked a little busy.
Was this the difference between people who enjoyed something and people who didn’t?
“···.”
Thinking she might rest for a moment, Shin Ayoung sat down beside Lee Sol,
and right then,
Bzzz— Bzzz—
“···!”
Her phone buzzed.
A text had arrived. It was from Lee Seungho.
— [Lee Seungho: Where are you guys right now?]
It was a group message sent to both Lee Sol and herself.
It was a short message, if not an extremely short one.
But why send a message like this at this exact moment?
Shin Ayoung’s mind began racing.
“···Do you think Seungho noticed that we came?”
As Shin Ayoung looked down at the message, a small bead of cold sweat slid down her face.
If that was really the case,
they were in a difficult situation.
After all, they had come secretly without asking permission.
“···Probably not.”
Lee Sol forced herself to deny it, insisting that he couldn’t have noticed.
Shin Ayoung nodded.
That was true, too.
With this many people around, how could he possibly have spotted them so precisely?
“···Let’s make something up for now.”
At Shin Ayoung’s suggestion, Lee Sol timidly nodded.
“···Okay.”
Lee Sol thought about what excuse to make, then came up with one.
“I’ll say I was studying.”
“Should we say we’re studying together?”
“Yeah, that works.”
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Shin Ayoung typed rapidly and sent a DM.
Soon,
the 1 beside the message disappeared.
— [Lee Seungho: OK]
Then another message came in.
“Hey.”
A low, deep voice pierced their eardrums.
“Eek!”
Shin Ayoung jumped straight up.
She couldn’t help being startled by the voice that had suddenly come from right beside them.
“U-uh, what?”
When she saw who the voice belonged to, Shin Ayoung rolled her pupils around as if she had malfunctioned.
Lee Seungho was standing there.
“···What are you two doing here?”
His eyes were half-lidded, and his expression was somewhat sullen.
He reacted as if he wasn’t pleased by their appearance.
She didn’t register his tone at all.
In that brief instant, Shin Ayoung scanned him from head to toe.
“···.”
It wasn’t a school uniform. Even if the design was similar, a suit was different. Shin Ayoung realized that.
More than anything, his natural makeup and swept-back hairstyle,
the unfamiliarity of his appearance compared to usual,
brought her to a complete halt and left her mind blank.
“···.”
Shin Ayoung’s gaze followed the floor tiles.
For some reason, she found it difficult to meet his eyes, and a strange tickle stirred in her chest.
Come to think of it, that was true.
This was their first meeting since she had become aware of her feelings.
“···.”
Shin Ayoung had no idea how she was supposed to react.
Her thoughts kept cutting off, one after another.
Just.
She was like that for quite a while.
······Can I take a picture?
She was lost in that thought.
Sol probably wasn’t much different.