The Mannequin
The enormous center armrest kept Hyunji from sliding any closer, and she grumbled about it.
"……This car really is uncomfortable……."
"Then would it be all right if I rode with you in yours?"
"Of course. Obviously. I should've stopped by the house first today……."
"It's not urgent. Thank you."
"Thank me? I'm the one who's grateful……. I should be thanking you……."
"Even so."
"Then, oppa."
"Hm?"
She had been watching me like that, and now she closed her eyes and offered her lips in an exaggerated pout. I let out a soft laugh and met them with a quiet kiss. It was only a light brush, yet happiness spread across Hyunji's whole face, and my own chest went soft in answer. In the rearview mirror, Hwang Jiyoung's gaze was soaked in wonder and fluster, as if she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. I didn't mind.
"Oppa. Hurry."
"Got it."
"I'll be working for a little while, so please shop at your leisure."
"Thank you."
"Not at all. If you need a hand, please call."
The moment we reached the department store garage, I answered Hyunji's urging and Han Gyeo-wool's words, then stepped out of the car. Jiyoung climbed out awkwardly behind me, and I spoke to her quietly.
"Are you very uncomfortable?"
"Ah, no. It's just……. The two of you looked so good together. I wondered if I was in the way."
"You're not. Yesterday was hard on you too, wasn't it, Jiyoung?"
"……A little."
"Thank you for comforting Hyunji without letting it show. She seems almost all right now."
"If anything, Hyunji comforted me more."
"She did?"
"……I knew she was deep for her age, but……. She still surprises me sometimes."
"Yeah. She does that to me too. So, are you feeling a bit better?"
"Much better. If you could just give me a little time to adjust……."
"I understand. Let's get along from here. Oh—you remember what I told you back then, right?"
"……Which part……?"
"Try to recall it. I haven't changed my mind."
Jiyoung tilted her head, lost in thought, and then her face flushed crimson all at once. Only then, it seemed, did she remember what we had talked about after leaving the auditorium.
"……Ah, yes, yes……."
"And if I'm not to your liking, just say so. We'll leave it as me having flirted, and that'll be the end of it."
"Ah, no! I also……. Ah……."
She waved her hands in a flustered denial, then seemed to realize what the gesture implied and snapped her mouth shut. I only smiled gently and walked over to Hyunji.
"Oppa."
"Yeah. I was just talking with Jiyoung for a moment."
"……You're worried, aren't you? I'm really concerned too, but……."
Even now she was fretting over Jiyoung, and it was so endearing that I quietly took her hand and whispered.
"I asked her whether you seemed all right."
"……I'm a lot better too. Because you…… comforted me, oppa. Jiyoung doesn't have that……."
"Yeah. I also told her we should get along from now on."
"Yes. Please be kind to our Jiyoung."
At those words, offered with a shy little smile, I chuckled, gave Hyunji's hand a tug, and led her along.
"Shall we go, then? Which floor do you want to start on?"
"Mm. Before that, oppa."
"Yeah?"
"Are you prepared?"
She looked at me and whispered it with a smile full of mischief, and for a moment I had no idea what she meant. It didn't take more than a few minutes to find out.
"……I thought we were buying your clothes."
"No? I said we were going shopping. To. My. Heart's. Content."
"……I've been had."
"You're not going to take it back, are you?"
When she had casually said she wanted to shop, I had assumed she meant buying things for herself. The man in the mirror now had been swapped out entirely for an expensive shirt, cardigan, trousers, and shoes I had never once considered in ordinary life. Draped in all of it, I looked a bit like a petty thief who had come to strip a luxury boutique bare. It felt ridiculous enough that I might have complained—except Hyunji was squealing with delight, and I couldn't bring myself to sulk.
"……But this place is way too expensive."
"Yes. I have no intention of letting just anything hang off your body, oppa. It would be a waste."
"Home-shopping pants are plenty for me."
At that, Jiyoung burst out a little puff of laughter, and the luxury clerk's laugh joined hers. My face heated in an instant. They seemed to think I was joking, but I meant it. Those elastic-waist pants were so comfortable—a three-pack that didn't even cost forty dollars. This cardigan alone looked like it could buy me dozens of them, and the money stung a little.
"But it looks so good on you, oppa. Right?"
"Yes. This shirt is perfect. This one is oppa's."
"Right, right. Please wrap this for now. What about this cardigan?"
"Mm, isn't it a bit loud? Oppa's so fresh-faced. Chanel or Dior would suit him better than this."
"Of course we're going there too."
"Ah, okay. Then I'll go pull a number."
"Ma'am, we already have numbers held. Which houses will you be needing?"
"Ah, then……."
I watched Hyunji confer with Jiyoung as gravely as if they were in a strategy meeting, then let out a sigh. I had given my word, so I had to keep it. And, well—if it made her that happy, playing mannequin for a little while was hardly a problem. Jiyoung had even started calling me oppa somewhere along the way, so she seemed more at ease too.
……I can barely even tell the difference.
The fabric was soft, sure, and the fine detailing was something to marvel at, but that was all. A knit was just a knit, and a cardigan was just a cardigan. I had decided to stop looking at price tags after the one on that earlier cardigan. It wasn't a number I could accept.
Feels like I'm taking too much.
And from the way they were talking, this was only the beginning. Just how much were they planning to buy? Even the dress and coat I had bought at the outlet that time had felt like a real burden. It struck me anew that in the world before this one, a girl like Hyunji would have had no business crossing paths with a man of my means.
I understand how Hyunji feels, but.
It wasn't that my pride was wounded, or that I was worried. Hyunji and I had already shared enough that things like this no longer made us awkward. I could feel, clearly, that she wanted to do something for me the same way I held her dear. I was only uneasy because our ideas of spending lived on different scales. What snagged at me was that, for all the thought she put into me, there was so little of any material kind I could give her in return.
I was saving it, but maybe I ought to start considering the ace up my sleeve. I'll have to think harder.
It was a complicated feeling. But as Lee Hyesun had said, once I had even agreed to the support corporation, failing to adapt to Hyunji's spending habits would make no sense at all. I had already steeled myself. I just worried whether I would have to live this luxuriously from now on, and whether I could keep everyone in hand. More and more, Hyesun's words were starting to feel like practical advice.
……Don't think too deeply.
I shook my head and quietly studied the mirror. Fretting over things that hadn't happened yet was a waste. Today Hyunji had gotten the better of me, but from here on I only had to keep my center—I was telling myself that when the mirror caught the two of them once again, Hyunji and Jiyoung trotting toward me with armfuls of clothes. At the sight I heaved a deep sigh and simply surrendered my body to them.
"……Aigoo."
"Hehe. We bought a lot."
"Seriously. That Chanel shirt and the knit were insane, for real."
"Yeah. What you're wearing now is nice too."
"I think this one suits you so well."
"That it does."
We were catching our breath in a café inside the department store. I sprawled against the table and sighed at the shirt's frill tickling my neck. It wasn't excessive, but it had a slightly fluttery, dangling quality—a design I would absolutely, never buy with my own money—yet Hyunji had loved it. Did she like this androgynous feel?
"……You're too cute, oppa."
"……I'm asking if this is right for my age."
"You look really lovely. So cute, Mr. Shinwoo."
"You were calling me oppa a minute ago."
"……I-I'm sorry. I got a little excited……."
"It's fine. Call me whatever's comfortable. I like being called oppa, anyway."
I sat up from the table and quietly took the straw of my Americano between my lips. Still, a department store was a department store—they were even delivering that heap of shopping bags. I hadn't known they offered a delivery service at all.
"What are we going to do if this much already wears you out?"
"Ah, you two have to shop too. I'm not tired. I'm fine."
"Mm, we can do ours anytime, though."
"If you shop with Mom later, you're really going to faint."
"Ah. That. I want to do that again too. I can't forget her saying, 'Leave everything in my size.'"
At Jiyoung's words, Hyunji smiled shyly, glanced at me sidelong, and whispered.
"……Then should we pester Mom and bring oppa along one more time?"
"……Let's. That'll be fun. We've never done men's clothes."
"Right, right."
"The fall-winter drop is in the summer, right? How long are we supposed to wait until then?"
"I know. Should we just ask them to open it for us?"
"What are you talking about? There's more?"
"Ah, Hyunji's mother is a VVIP."
"And?"
"When the brands release new collections, they bring everything to the house. Two trucks show up, something like that."
"……What?"
When I tilted my head and asked again, Hyunji and Jiyoung burst into bright laughter. It was good that I couldn't feel so much as a shadow on either of them anymore. But was what I had just heard actually real?
"The models even do a private showing, so it's incredibly convenient."
"……That actually exists?"
"Yes. Or she books the whole store on a holiday, or after closing, and shops that way. It's been forever since I shopped during regular hours like this, too."
"True. Director Hwang loved private bookings."
"Not often, though. Mom…… no, the Director also…… had to stretch herself."
For a moment Jiyoung floundered over what to call Director Hwang. Hyunji and I quietly watched her, and I was the first to ask, as if it were nothing.
"The two of them were on that level?"
"……Thank you. I understand why you're surprised, Shinwoo oppa."
I had only been trying not to make a thing of it, but Hyunji's soft smile and the warm way she looked at me left me a little embarrassed. Jiyoung seemed to feel it too. Her cheeks flushed faintly as she took a sip of coffee and went on.
"If anything, for someone on Hyunji's mother's level, it's better for the department store to handle them separately. It serves both sides. They get to look as though they're giving preferred-customer treatment, and they keep her from coming in during regular hours. Ordinary customers would feel out of place if they saw it. And of course the quality of service would drop."
She had a point. Even I felt awkward right now. I had often sensed other shoppers watching our little spree with discomfort, and the clerks clinging only to us had made it worse.
"I thought that kind of thing was exaggerated in dramas and movies."
"Like you said, oppa, a lot of it is exaggerated. Tormenting the models and all that. If anything, we're grateful."
"Right. Those people are so appreciated. They save us all the time we'd spend dressing and undressing."
"Yeah. It's incredibly hard work. And sometimes they even share information that's hard to come by."
"Did you manage to get that ballet costume back then?"
"……Yeah. Barely. But now……."
"I guess so."
I felt how much of the world I still didn't know. Even so, it was a little funny that today's shopping was what had started to make any of it make sense.
"Come here. Let's take a few pictures."
"Okay."
"Ah, one moment."
Hyunji immediately cupped her chin in her hands and looked at the camera, but Jiyoung hurriedly checked a mirror, then turned toward the smartphone I was holding.
"Here. Is this all right?"
"Yes. You came out so well, oppa."
"You should be looking at the two of you, not me."
We took a few more selfies to post on Instagram, and when I lowered the phone, Hyunji smiled shyly and whispered to me.
"……But oppa. That shirt is really so pretty……."
"Really. It looks custom-made."
"The shoulders, a bit. I feel like this needs a slimmer body."
In truth, the shoulders and chest were a little tight. Not painfully so, and the clerk had insisted this was the perfect fit, which was why I was still wearing it. Still, I was uneasy, afraid the seams might give the moment I put any strength into my body.
"If it's uncomfortable, would you like to change?"
"……We already sent everything for delivery."
"Then we just buy one more."
"Stop. This is enough. I won't even be able to wear all of it."
"Aww. It's over already?"
"Two hours was plenty. You two need to shop too. And then we can go eat."
"Sounds good. You liked that brunch place, right? How about there?"
"Ah, that place. Sure."
"I'll make the reservation."
Jiyoung took out her smartphone and sent a message. Hyunji, smiling shyly at my answer, looked back and forth between Jiyoung and me, then parted her lips.