Don't Hide During the Play
The incident at their first meeting aside, Yeoncheong recovered quickly. Or rather, she had to recover quickly.
The feeding of french fries had simply been a warm act of consideration, meant to keep her friend's hands from getting dirty. And Seoha using her straw was nothing more than an unavoidable choice, made purely because there wasn't much cola left. Yeoncheong recited this self-hypnosis like a mantra.
Truthfully, she knew perfectly well the real reason Seoha had opened her mouth like a baby bird, or playfully bitten down on the straw. If she didn't pull herself together, she had no idea what other bold stunt Seoha might pull on her while she was still stammering in a daze.
And so the two of them walked on, Yeoncheong wound tight as a spring.
What's going on...? Why isn't she doing anything?
Contrary to her expectations, Seoha really was just taking a stroll, pure and simple. Pushing her too hard, too fast, would wear her out — so her friend was deliberately giving Yeoncheong a chance to catch her breath.
But Yeoncheong knew none of this. She was too busy sneaking glances at Seoha without even watching where she was going...
Thud.
"Gwack!"
"...Cheonga!"
Like a scene straight out of a cartoon, Yeoncheong — deaf even to Seoha's voice calling from beside her — collided head-on with a utility pole and toppled over with a sound too ridiculous for words.
Startled, Seoha crouched down and examined her forehead.
"Are you okay? What were you thinking about so hard that you didn't even answer when I called you?"
"..."
Unable to bring herself to say Because I was worried about what you might do, Yeoncheong kept her mouth firmly shut. Suyeon had been like this too, and now Seoha as well. Was it truly written all over her face? Or could they just naturally sense it because she was thinking about the person she liked?
"Ah. You were worrying I'd pull something like I did at the store, weren't you?"
"..."
This time, she would have preferred any kind of response at all — but Yeoncheong chose a silence that amounted to a yes. Seoha's lips quirked at the sight of her.
"Hmm... Honestly, I'd rather keep you worrying and never tell you... but then you might actually hurt yourself."
Thankfully there was no real injury. Seoha gave her friend's forehead a light tap-tap and rose to her feet, then held out a hand to help Yeoncheong up.
"Until the play starts, we're just going to walk. Normally. Like normal people."
"...Really?"
"Of course. Walking next to you is fun all on its own."
Yeoncheong shot her a look that said, Then what do you call this arm-linking situation we're in right now? Seoha just shrugged.
"Ah, this is insurance. You might crash into something else, after all."
Maybe it was the memory of the hamburger joint — or maybe she simply didn't want other people seeing. Seoha cast one quick, sweeping glance around them, then turned her body slightly toward Yeoncheong and smiled.
Faced with an answer that came without a single second of hesitation, and that bright, radiant smile, Yeoncheong couldn't manage a single word. She just turned her head away to hide the color flooding her face.
As if to prove her own words, Seoha really did do nothing at all, and the two of them headed for the theater, checking the time as it drew near.
Yeoncheong picked up a small pamphlet with a brief introduction to the play and followed behind Seoha. The seating area was already bustling with audience members. When she spotted two conspicuously empty seats near the front and glanced over at her friend, Seoha — their eyes meeting — gave a nod.
"You're telling me you got front-row seats purely through ticketing? Pure luck?"
"Yep. You thought I paid a premium and bought them out or something?"
"No. Of course not."
Considering everything Yeoncheong had recently learned about Seoha's family, it was an absurd thing to say. Seoha always insisted it was her parents' money, not hers — but if she truly set her mind to it, renting out the entire theater would have been a simple matter.
"Besides, if I were going to buy seats, I'd have grabbed the ones all the way in the back where nobody could see us. I have zero reason to pick the front row."
She had a point. There had been no guarantee Yeoncheong would even enjoy the play in the first place, and Seoha's real objective was, obviously, not the play itself.
As if deciding that was enough of that boring talk, Seoha leaned in toward her and nudged at the pamphlet in Yeoncheong's hands.
"Wanna hold hands?"
"No! I like holding it like this."
Yeoncheong clicked her tongue at the flirting that flowed from Seoha as naturally as breathing. So that's why she didn't grab a pamphlet for herself. If this had been her plan from the moment they walked in, there had been no choice but to take the bait.
Shifting the pamphlet to the middle, Yeoncheong read down the description and tilted her head.
"'An interactive comic mystery performed with the audience'?"
"Yeah, apparently they call audience members up on stage throughout the show. I hear that's a big part of its popularity."
At that, Yeoncheong lifted her head and looked around.
The two of them were seated in the second row. Worse, right beside the aisle where people kept coming and going. Statistically speaking, these were seats with an extremely high probability of getting called up.
"Haah... please, please don't let it be me..."
"Why? You're great at improvisation, Yeoncheong."
Yeoncheong shot her a look that said, When have I ever.
Kindly obliging her friend's attempt at denial, Seoha helpfully jogged her memory of the occasion.
"Forgot the festival? You know, when you were going 'woof woof' and running around panting with a collar on your neck..."
Out of context, it was a sentence practically engineered to provoke the strangest misunderstandings.
The theater was still noisy since the play hadn't started yet, so it seemed no one else had overheard — but Yeoncheong's face went scarlet as she clamped a hand over her friend's mouth at lightning speed.
She managed to accomplish the paradoxical feat of yelling in a whisper.
"I did not pant! And that was a festival penalty, anyway!"
"Improv is improv, either way."
Just as she was about to fire back at Seoha, who shrugged with utter composure, every light in the theater went dark — the signal that the play was beginning — and Yeoncheong resignedly straightened up in her seat.
Despite the pamphlet billing it as a comic mystery, the play leaned far more heavily on comedy than deduction.
The entire audience knew the culprit's identity from the very start. The premise was that this all-knowing audience, playing the role of witnesses, had to help a bumbling, Dim-and-Dumber detective duo catch the criminal.
On top of that, hauling audience members onto the stage to maximize the comedy of each situation made it easy to see why the show was so popular.
One bit in particular stood out: just when it seemed like a single audience member was being called up for questioning, a robber — the culprit himself — burst onto the scene and promptly made the poor audience member the victim. It was a gloriously distinctive opening that set the tone for the whole performance.
Then they loaded the "fallen" victim onto a stretcher and carried them backstage, and the sight of the volunteer's flustered expression as they tried to play dead was so vivid the audience couldn't help laughing.
From then on it was more of the same: audience members helping the hopeless detective duo, getting tangled in the culprit's schemes, accidentally sabotaging the investigation — the laughter never stopped, and before anyone knew it, the play had reached its final act.
The detective had finally caught the culprit. Now came the interrogation scene.
Yeoncheong, who had spent the entire show hiding herself away every time the actors' gazes swept the crowd searching for volunteers, was watching intently, curious how it would all wrap up.
"Damn it! You lie through your teeth without blinking an eye — how am I supposed to tell what's real anymore?!"
The investigation stalled against an obviously flimsy lie that anyone could see through.
No matter how loudly the audience shouted that the guy was clearly the culprit, the detective kept playing ignorant. And then the junior detective rolled out a huge monitor, shouting his line.
"Detective! I've brought a tool that will expose that shameless liar's falsehoods!"
"Oh! A lie detector?"
"No, sir. A heart rate monitor."
The audience burst out laughing, while the senior detective stared at the monitor with a disgruntled look.
"Listen, Detective. They say when a person lies, their heart rate goes up from the stress. Wouldn't this count as a kind of lie detector?"
"Hmm... I suppose that does make a certain sense..."
But the senior detective had been hopelessly gullible for the entire play. He caved almost instantly to his junior's logical (?) persuasion.
"If you still won't believe it, let's test it on the witnesses."
"The witnesses? Who?"
"Aw, come on~ There are plenty of them right here, Detective."
The senior detective turned his head to follow his junior's gaze toward the audience seating, and then —
"Aha."
He grinned widely, looking straight at the section where the audience members who'd so dutifully played witness were sitting.
Yeoncheong had once again ducked swiftly behind her chair — but the actor standing on stage had clearly been watching her every move, and pointed directly at her.
"You there... the young lady witness who keeps hiding behind her chair. Please come up."
"Ah, she knows it's her. Come out quickly, please. Or shall we come get you ourselves?"
Seoha called out to Yeoncheong, who had hunched herself down in her seat.
"Yeona, they're calling for you."
"Seriously? It's really me?"
Seoha nodded. And when a countdown started on top of everything else, Yeoncheong could hold out no longer. She scrambled awkwardly to her feet, and when the actors whipped the crowd into a cheering, applauding frenzy, there was simply no way she could refuse to go up.
Haah... why me, of all people...
Having no idea why she'd been singled out, Yeoncheong heaved a sigh and climbed onto the stage.
"My, my~ this witness looks quite young. Are you a student?"
As Yeoncheong nodded, the junior detective asked for her understanding and fastened a wearable device around her wrist. A number popped up on the pitch-black monitor, accompanied by a heart icon.
"Alright, student. All you have to do is answer our questions honestly with a 'yes' or 'no.' The results will show up on this monitor, and we'll use them to verify the reliability of this equipment."
"...Okay."
Having wrapped up the explanation smoothly, the senior detective carried the scene forward with light banter.
"Third year?"
"Yes."
"Did you come here with a friend?"
"Yes."
"Perhaps... a boyfriend?"
"No."
It was a bit of comic back-and-forth to loosen up the audience's nerves, and thanks to it, Yeoncheong — up on stage — felt noticeably lighter as well.
Judging that she must be comfortable by now, the senior detective stroked his chin and put on an air of interrogation.
"Ahem... coming to see a play like this together with a classmate. You two must be quite close, hm?"
"...Yes."
Perhaps because no truly awkward question had come yet, the heart rate on the monitor still looked perfectly calm.
But the actor playing the detective had performed this role dozens upon dozens of times. Which meant he'd also brought audience members up and watched the monitor dozens of times over.
No real detective, but he could smell it — the little pause before her answers. Sensing that pushing this angle would produce an entertaining reaction, the actor glanced out at the audience seating.
Specifically, at the seat next to Yeoncheong. Having confirmed the girl who looked like the friend she'd come with — Seoha — the senior detective flashed a sly grin and threw out a new question.
"The way I see it, your friend is pretty."
"Yes...?"
The question took a sharp turn, and this time Yeoncheong wavered, unmistakably. The actor playing the senior detective clearly smelled blood, and repeated the question for good measure.
"Objectively speaking, your friend is pretty. True or false?"
Her heart rate shot straight up at the question that had landed out of nowhere.
Seoha was staring right at her from the audience. The theater had gone dead silent, waiting for her answer.
Yeoncheong gave a small nod and answered in a voice that crawled out of her throat — and the mic'd actor immediately appointed himself her personal megaphone.
"Oh, your friend? Congratulations. She's apparently so gorgeous it's blinding."
"No! I never said—!"
All Yeoncheong had said was yes. She tried to refute the actor's spreading of malicious rumors, but.
The actor's sheer vocal power. Small venue or not, a theater was still a theater.
In moments like this, the loudest voice won. By this point, any hunt for meaning in her spiking heart rate had long since been forgotten.
After all, the thing had been brought out as a stage prop purely to showcase audience members floundering helplessly. In showing exactly this kind of reaction, Yeoncheong had already made the bit a 120% success.
"Alright then, moving on—"
"You still have more questions?"
Yeoncheong's eyes went round with disbelief, and the actor playing the senior detective looked out at the audience as he replied.
"Hmm... just a few more confirmations, and I think we could officially recognize this as a proper lie detector..."
"And if it makes you uncomfortable, you don't have to answer. We can simply bring up a different witness — your friend, for example — and continue the test with her."
The junior detective, ever eager to stir the pot from the sidelines. Yeoncheong's head whipped back and forth in frantic refusal.
"Absolutely not!"
Better that she suffer up here herself. She had no idea what kind of answers Seoha might give.
"Very well! Then: 'I like the friend I came with.' True? Or false?"
"Why are all your questions like that?!"
Another question came flying in with the brakes completely off, and when Yeoncheong exploded, the theater dissolved into waves of laughter all over again.
The only one who couldn't laugh was Yeoncheong herself, standing on stage with her face burning scarlet.