So More People Will Recognize You (3)
After the two men and the mermaid had traveled together through Hapjeong Station and Hongik University Station, eyewitness accounts began flooding the internet at a remarkable pace.
Once word spread that Neoul had been spotted all over the subway stations, people began drifting toward stations he hadn’t even visited yet, or gathering there in small crowds.
After returning from Hongik University Station, Secretary Song drove to Baek Yuri’s home. Fortunately, no one had followed them by taxi.
Baek Yuri and Baek Gi-yeom were already waiting outside. Yuri stared awkwardly at the luxury sedan, then climbed in with caution, only to flinch the moment he saw the strange outfits worn by the two men and the mermaid.
“Why are you wearing that…?”
“Yuri hyung! Yuri hyung! Sit here!”
“Hello, Yuri hyung…!”
“Baek Yuri seonsaeng. This is Secretary Song.”
“Hello, Secretary Song. I’m trainee Baek Yuri. Thank you for driving us today.”
“Not at all. I’m paid to do this, so there’s no need to thank me.”
Yuri had barely finished exchanging greetings before he felt the irresistible urge to climb back out of the car. He was completely overwhelmed. By contrast, Baek Gi-yeom climbed in with cheerful ease and immediately praised the two men and the mermaid’s clothes.
“Hey, everyone~! Hello, Secretary too. Ooooh~ You’re all wearing something cute, huh?”
“Right?! The reaction earlier was amazing!”
Woo Cheong shouted brightly. Yet compared to the three sea creatures, Baek Gi-yeom’s outfit looked even more bizarre.
“Baek Gi-yeom seonsaeng. What is that on your clothes?”
“Oh, this?”
Baek Gi-yeom burst into laughter all by himself, folded in on himself as he shook, then straightened his shoulders and showed it off.
On a white background, in black letters, it said, “Married to Music.” The same phrase was written large across the hat and down the back, too; the handwriting, scrawled in thick permanent marker, was bold and wonderfully fearless.
“I made it myself.”
At some point, Baek Gi-yeom stripped the smile from his face and spoke in a chilling voice.
“Because of the dating rumor. Even after they said it wasn’t true, there were still people spreading it or choosing to believe it. When you put out a fire, you have to check carefully for embers and extinguish every last one. If you only put out the big blaze and leave, the smallest spark can spread into something worse.”
“A fire?”
“Their dad’s a firefighter,” Yuri added.
Baek Gi-yeom’s eyes flashed like a hunter’s as he rattled the shirt proudly.
“This level of performance ought to shut it down completely, right?”
“Ohhh… Hyung, the way you said that makes you sound like a mafia boss! Do you have a dragon tattoo on your back?”
Because Baek Gi-yeom always smiled, the sight of him not smiling felt strangely unfamiliar. His warm brown eyes gleamed like molten lava.
Woo Cheong lamented that Baek Gi-yeom had turned from “Baek Gi-yeom” into “Not-Gi-yeom” entirely.
That joke made Baek Gi-yeom lose a little of his momentum, and he lifted one corner of his mouth.
“I don’t have a tattoo. I hate pain, so I can’t even get my ears pierced. Yuri’s the one with a tattoo.”
“Yuri hyung has a dragon tattoo?”
Woo Cheong’s eyes went wide. Yeo Do-bin and Secretary Song were startled too, and both looked at Yuri in the rearview mirror. Secretary Song quickly faced forward again, only to glance back the instant the car stopped at a red light.
Baek Yuri had the sort of model-student image that made it seem like he had never been late a single day in his life. No one had ever even imagined that there might be a dragon winding up his spine, ascending across his back, or a serpentine dragon’s body covered in scales.
When everyone stared at him in shock, Neoul, who had been quiet until then, also widened his eyes and looked at Yuri as if to follow along.
Yuri was even more shocked than they were.
“No…! It’s not a dragon tattoo or anything like that. Absolutely not.”
Yes. It had better not be. Neoul nodded. If one’s father, older brothers, or older sisters were drawn on a human back, that would look rather strange indeed.
It would be like finding a portrait of one’s own family on the back of some unfamiliar human.
Though if dragons had many more individuals like humans or sardines, and all of them looked wildly different, perhaps that would be another matter.
According to Father King, long, long ago there had once been two more Dragon Kings, but after all those countless dragons, there were hardly any left now.
“It’s just a small one on my ankle.”
Baek Yuri flicked the ankle where he had stuck a skin-tone tattoo cover sticker.
“What kind of tattoo did you get…?”
Yeo Do-bin, who had been quiet the whole time, asked cautiously out of curiosity. Just then, the car came to a smooth stop at Apgujeong Station. Yuri put it off until later, saying he would explain then, and opened the door.
Yeo Do-bin and Woo Cheong stayed in the car while Baek Yuri, Baek Gi-yeom, and Neoul got out. As they went down the stairs, they could already see several people waiting there. Deeper inside, the area in front of the billboard was packed.
“It’s Baek Yuri!”
“Looks like Gi-yeom and Neoul came together!”
“Neoul! Hi!”
“Didn’t Neoul go around with Woo Cheong and Yeo Do-bin earlier? He’s not wearing the whale pajamas this time…!”
Voices overlapped in a rising murmur.
Other than simple greetings, it was hard for Neoul to make out much of anything. Too many words were stacking on top of each other as they poured through his ears, and his translation in his head glitched as though it had errored out.
Baek Gi-yeom’s “Married to Music” hat and shirt ended up getting an excellent reaction. There were many people cheering him on.
Still, it looked as though they couldn’t stay long. More people had gathered than anyone expected. Passersby had to squeeze awkwardly around the crowd, while others simply stopped to watch.
“Whoa! They’re saying GalNeoul, Baek Yuri, and Baek Gi-yeom are here!”
And then, from farther away, someone came sprinting toward them while shouting.
Neoul saw Baek Yuri and Baek Gi-yeom exchange glances. It was the signal to leave rather than keep taking photos. Both of them were beginning to look troubled.
Neoul started to pull out the letter he had brought, then paused and opened his mouth.
Human…. No.
Remembering the term MC Jeong On-do had used to address an unspecified crowd, Neoul said, “Passengers.”
He opened one palm and pointed to the side.
“Those who are walking through here are experiencing inconvenience.”
Where he pointed, an elderly woman in a wheelchair was standing in the way, while a man holding the wheelchair’s handle looked increasingly embarrassed.
“You have come to see our faces, yes? If you line up in two neat rows, I will show you my face up close.”
At Neoul’s words, Baek Gi-yeom clapped once and jumped in immediately.
“Okay! Everyone! Two-line train~! Please line up right against the wall and fold your arms in half, front position! Don’t crowd too close, keep a safe distance~ Don’t push or pull the person in front of you~ And please watch your feet so you don’t step on anyone~”
Baek Gi-yeom gradually added rhythm to his words and, before long, was chatting away with the energy of an amusement park employee.
“Everyone, please line up slowly and carefully so nobody falls!”
Baek Yuri joined in as well. With his unusual volume and projection, Yuri’s voice carried far and wide.
“Everyone! Please line up!”
“The kids want you against the wall~!”
The fans began relaying the message among themselves and shifting carefully into place. Before long, a long train-like line had formed, leaving a wide enough passage for people to get through.
Thanks to that, the two men and the mermaid were able to take photos in front of the billboard at their leisure and read each message one by one.
Neoul taped his letter onto the billboard and then approached the fans, posing for every request they made, right up close. The fans stood neatly in line, raising their phones and filming diligently.
“N-Neoul! The cat heart!”
I’m not good at cat hearts… Why do they keep asking for this?
I wish they’d ask for the things I’m actually good at. How many times has this already been requested?
Fortunately, the fans thought even his lopsided cat heart was adorable.
“So cute!”
“He’s seriously adorable!”
It was strange. Since living on land, Neoul had realized that among humans, he ranked as very tall and large. But wasn’t the word “cute” usually reserved for small, round things or babies?
He couldn’t understand why humans kept calling him cute. To him, the humans looking up at him with bright eyes from a lower height seemed far cuter than he did.
Their faces differed slightly when he looked closely, but their sparkling eyes and the way they couldn’t quite hide their smiles were all pleasing to see. So were their trembling voices and their booming ones alike.
If they wanted something cute to look at, they could simply look in a mirror. These tiny beings didn’t seem to realize how cute they were.
“You are the ones who are cuter.”
Neoul said it lightly and stepped aside.
“What pose would you like me to do now?”
* * *
The group left Apgujeong Station and got back into the car.
The line had grown and grown, which was troublesome, but the fans didn’t chase after them when they finally left the station. They stayed in line and shouted good-bye instead. Thanks to that, everyone made it back safely without anyone getting hurt.
“Why did you hyungs take so long to come out? Did something happen?”
“Check social media in a little while and you’ll find out~”
Baek Gi-yeom said, draping himself lazily against the seatback.
Secretary Song showed them the sheet listing the stations where their ads were posted and was selecting the next destination, but Baek Gi-yeom and Baek Yuri both waved their hands in a hurry.
“It’s okay! We’ll each go quietly on our own later!”
“That’s right. Just bringing us here today was already such a huge favor.”
Neoul agreed with them.
“For today, I believe I should stop here as well.”
Because it had become known that they were touring subway stations, far too many people had gathered. Just now, things had been fine thanks to the fans’ orderly cooperation, but there was no guarantee the next outing would be so safe.
“Still, it was fun.”
Baek Yuri smiled as he looked at the message slips he had secretly tucked away. There were so many that he couldn’t take them all, so he had discreetly pulled off only a few.
Neoul was shocked when he saw that.
“You were allowed to take those?”
“They’re support messages the fans gave me. Since they’re mine, of course I can take them.”
Baek Gi-yeom and Woo Cheong chimed in from beside him.
“I just took pictures of the long messages and made them big. I want to read them again slowly.”
“Raccoon Brother, you’ve got the face of a washed cotton candy raccoon. I pasted a bunch onto the back of my phone!”
Neoul suddenly felt wronged.
The humans had said, “Let’s go see the billboard and the notes,” not, “Let’s go take them.” So he had thought he was only supposed to look, and he had, in the most literal sense, looked very diligently indeed.
The certification photos Yeo Do-bin had taken were all blurry, so he couldn’t read the writing, and the ones Woo Cheong had taken could be enlarged enough to see the notes, but many of them were hidden behind Neoul’s own body.
If I had known I could take them, I would have just torn the whole billboard off and brought it home.
Rather than peeling off the tiny notes one by one, it would have been far faster and more efficient to remove the board itself. Then he could have brought all the encouragement written on it, too.
He had sturdy legs now anyway. If it wouldn’t fit in the car, he could simply carry it home on foot.
Even if he couldn’t bring all fourteen home, he at least wanted to take one and place it somewhere in the living room or bedroom so he could look at it whenever he liked.
“This won’t do. Please wait a moment. I’m going to take the billboard right now.”
“Huh?”
“Eh?”
“Hyung?”
“N-Neoul…?”
Just as Neoul reached for the lock on the car door, Secretary Song quickly locked it from his side.