Episode 60

I stared hard at whatever that was. Partly because my gaze was naturally drawn to the snow-white fur outfit, with a bushy tail dangling from it, and partly because the figure looked so familiar I couldn’t help but look. It had the exact visual of a weasel that seemed ready to say, “Welco-hyot! You’ve worked so hard-hyot!” and open up a storage room at any moment.

In other words, the Eunseo tribe. To be more accurate here, a person cosplaying as the Eunseo tribe.

The person armed in fur clothes turned their head, as if noticing my stare. Seeing them holding a Dusk paper bag in one hand and bringing a phone to their ear, I got the picture. I’d bet my account that was Mun Seonhwa.

― “Seonhwa unni, I found the place!”

“Seonhwa unni, I found the place!”

Never mind.

Now that I listened carefully, the voice asking where they were did seem a little different from Mun Seonhwa’s. No, I mean, I’d called Mun Seonhwa, so of course I thought it would be Mun Seonhwa. Feeling awkward all by myself for no reason, I rambled excuses inwardly and ended the call with a clumsy motion.

The white Eunseo tribe person came over, fidgeting with the top of their head, then unzipped the skin of their face to reveal their identity. It was Solo, one of our guild members. I was able to recognize Solo right away because, after that guild meetup that I still didn’t know how we’d all ended up attending, I’d met them a few more times thanks to Mun Seonhwa.

Solo came walking over as if they were about to wave and say, “Yo lol,” but their eyes naturally rolled to the side. Then they saw the person beside me and froze on the spot. Understandable.

“Uh…… hello…….”

“Hello.”

Gang Jegyeong returned the greeting amiably.

Right after that, another reddish-brown Eunseo tribe, running leisurely toward us with a plastic bag in hand, looked this way and stopped dead, flustered. That was understandable too.

“……Hello?”

“Hello.”

As if he didn’t find the sight funny at all, Gang Jegyeong greeted them calmly with a courteous smile. Well, I supposed he might be used to people being surprised when they saw him.

I sneered at their awkwardness and asked what the two of them were doing, but Solo, as if they had no time to mind me, hurriedly rummaged through the eco bag slung beside their bundle and pulled out two fairly thick books and a marker. They were the art books being sold this time. One of the two went into Mun Seonhwa’s hands.

The books were quickly opened to the first page and immediately held out in front of Gang Jegyeong.

“Ah, seriously, hello! You’re Retake, right? I’m a huge fan! Could I get your autograph……?”

“Should I sign here?”

“Yes!”

“Me too!”

“I’ll sign both.”

Aside from our first meeting, Solo usually showed a laid-back side that cracked dirty jokes all the time, but now they clasped both hands together and quietly watched Gang Jegyeong sign.

Not that Solo acting like that was surprising. They were the type to lose their senses and stare blankly at anything handsome or pretty, whether it was a person, animal, or object. When we met at the guild meetup, they couldn’t even meet my eyes or Mun Seonhwa’s. Those were the days. Now they were so cheeky that there was no one more annoying than them.

“What’s your nickname?”

“It’s Soloist in English, but please just write Solo in Korean.”

“Soloist……. Ah, you’re that priest.”

“Y-you know me?”

“You go around with Bread sometimes. I’ve seen you in the field too.”

Gang Jegyeong was just as different from when he was with me as Solo was. So he was someone capable of not approaching first, keeping an appropriate distance, and speaking softly. With me, he acted so unreserved, like we’d known each other for a while (which was true, but still), that I’d thought he was just naturally like that and had no shyness toward strangers at all.

……Or maybe he was managing his image because the other person was a woman. Considering the brief silence when I revealed over KakaoTalk yesterday that I wasn’t a woman, it wasn’t impossible.

“Retake, you’re really pre—handsome. You probably hear this so often you’re sick of it, but you’re so handsome I can’t not say it.”

I could practically see the word “pretty” shoot out of Solo’s mouth and get shoved back down their throat.

“I never get sick of hearing that. Thank you.”

“Wow, I think I’m going to faint.”

After even shaking hands with Gang Jegyeong, Solo muttered while leaning against Mun Seonhwa as if collapsing. Perhaps finding the reaction funny, Gang Jegyeong let out a clear laugh.

Solo was staring hard at the autograph drawn on the first page, and Mun Seonhwa, who was next in line to get an autograph, also had sparkling eyes, as if his heart was pounding. His glittering gaze moved here and there, following the smoothly moving tip of the pen.

“Please write Ceylon Tea for me.”

“If you’re Ceylon Tea, aren’t you the number one assassin? And Bread’s guild’s vice guild master.”

“Whoa, amazing, that’s right.”

When Gang Jegyeong recognized him, he looked as if he might die of happiness. Of course he did, since he took great pride in being the number one assassin.

Seeing Mun Seonhwa grinning foolishly while getting his autograph, it seemed he had completely forgotten the lunchboxes, so I opened the bag abandoned on the chair myself and took out the rectangular plastic lunchboxes. One was a small lunchbox with Vienna sausages as the side dish, and the other had chicken.

At the crinkling sound of the plastic bag, Mun Seonhwa turned this way, chattering that he had forgotten, and helped open the lunchboxes.

“If we’d had more time, I would’ve bought you something better. What should we do? This was all they had right now…….”

“I ate a little before coming out in the morning, so this is more than enough. Thank you.”

“Eat whichever one you want!”

Once given the choice, Gang Jegyeong seemed to ponder for a moment, then promptly took the lunchbox with the chicken. I’d thought he might eat the Vienna sausages since he had a childlike palate. Of course, chicken was also something kids liked. Anyway, for someone who looked like he lived on chicken breast and dew, he loved fast food like fried chicken an awful lot.

As I sat on the bench and checked my phone, quite a bit of time had passed. 12:34. Since the event started at one, we didn’t have that much leeway. We didn’t need to wait in the entrance line, so I didn’t think we’d be late even if we stopped by the goods shop, but if we ate too leisurely, we would definitely end up entering after the event had begun.

Whatever else happened, they’d said the trailer video would be revealed when the event started, so if we didn’t want to miss it, we had to go in on time.

I’d already eaten lunch anyway, so I tore open my wooden chopsticks, thinking I’d just eat roughly until Gang Jegyeong finished. As I did, I brought up the question I’d wanted to ask for a while to Mun Seonhwa and Solo, who were squatting on the ground and staring blankly this way.

“So. Did you skin an Eunseo tribe member and wear it?”

“Yep, made it in legendary grade.”

Mun Seonhwa sprang to his feet, spun around once, and giggled, asking if he hadn’t made it well. At that, Gang Jegyeong seemed surprised by Mun Seonhwa’s words, and he widened his eyes as he asked back.

“You made it yourself?”

“Ah, of course! Not completely, but…….”

“Is this your major? The quality seems really high.”

Hearing Gang Jegyeong’s kind-hearted stream of compliments, Mun Seonhwa grew triumphant and raised his shoulders as high as they would go. All excited, he said things like this much was easy to make with just a little practice, though he was also somewhat amazing, and that the texture of the fur was absolutely killer, even holding out his tail as if telling Gang Jegyeong to touch it himself. Gang Jegyeong, delighted, went ahead and touched it, then couldn’t take his hand away. They were getting along famously.

Would we be able to go in on time at this rate? I was a little worried, but seeing Gang Jegyeong carefully stroke the tail and murmur that it was soft, I started to feel like being a little late wasn’t such a big deal.

“By the way, did you two meet upstairs? Because the staff told you?”

Mun Seonhwa, who had been pouring all his energy into talking about the Eunseo tribe outfit, slipped in another question.

Gang Jegyeong made a troubled expression, as if he didn’t know how to explain it. It wasn’t as though we’d met in an ordinary way. But were we supposed to suddenly go into every detail, like some drama, about how our eyes had met, we’d fought a fierce staring contest, and then my uncle called my name so he found out?

“……We just happened to meet upstairs.”

When I imagined what kind of reaction would follow if they heard the full story, it seemed like it would get extremely annoying, so I vaguely shortened the explanation for him. Mun Seonhwa gave me a sideways glare, clearly dissatisfied with the ambiguous answer, so I picked up a Vienna sausage with the back end of my chopsticks and handed it to him as a gag. He kept his eyes narrowed, but still gladly accepted and ate the sausage.

……There were only a few of those. I should’ve given him something else.

“Still, you two don’t seem all that awkward. Did you get close on the way here?”

Solo, who had been crunching on a cookie from who knew where while admiring Gang Jegyeong’s face, asked as if taking the baton.

Rather than saying Gang Jegyeong and I had gotten close on the way here…….

“It just…… felt like we were close from the start.”

“It wasn’t awkward, was it?”

He seemed to feel the same way, looking at me as he chimed in, half asking. When I first saw his face, I was shocked, but I didn’t think I’d ever particularly felt that it was awkward. It had been a little burdensome, though. Thanks to a certain someone acting as if personal space didn’t even exist.