Want to Duck Inside Somewhere and Rest?
Naturally, we didn't drink on the second day.
I'd already put away quite a bit on the first night, and I was still nursing a hangover besides — but the biggest reason was that Baek Eun-hwa had no intention of making the same mistake twice.
The second day passed ordinarily enough. The third did too. The hours I spent with her fell, for the most part, squarely into the category of rest — the kind of time that actually deserved the word.
She changed her snow-white hair to ordinary black and shifted those blue eyes toward something dark, or brown, and walked around not as the A-Class hero Baekyeou but as Baek Eun-hwa — or simply as a beautiful woman. I made sure she could feel like she was actually resting, rather than carrying the weight of being a hero.
Of course, I didn't hold back on the lectures or the advice along the way, and whenever I said something to her, Baek Eun-hwa would sink into thought.
And just like that, the fourth day arrived. We had reached the halfway mark of the week I was spending with her.
"Handler, want some coffee?"
"Two sugars, please."
"Got it."
In the time we'd been spending together, Baek Eun-hwa and I had grown quite a bit closer — more than I'd expected, honestly. We were the same age to begin with, and the same gender besides. On top of that, we'd been living in the same house, the same room, even the same bed for days now. It would have been stranger if we hadn't gotten close.
I sank comfortably into the sofa and let myself rest in her home.
"……?"
I had come here to give Baek Eun-hwa some emotional rest, to work through her problems — and yet somehow I'd ended up with the air of someone placing a coffee order. Even I had to admit that was ridiculous.
Even so, I was fairly sure I was having a real effect on her. After days of my nagging, Baek Eun-hwa had started thinking more, and the unnecessary apologies she used to offer me had dwindled — just a little. A tiny, tiny little.
"Ah, Eun-hwa. I actually don't do well with hot drinks. Could you make it iced instead? Sorry for saying so late."
"…Well. I can do that much."
"Hehe. Sorry. I even saw you boiling the water a minute ago. And I'm only mentioning it now."
Even a moment like this one. A few days ago, Baek Eun-hwa would have been the one apologizing — sorry she hadn't asked in advance, sorry for assuming. Now she just answered me like a normal person, and I liked that. It meant that what I'd been saying to her was landing, even if only a little. Bit by bit.
"…So? Handler. What are you planning to do today?"
"Do?"
"From the first day on, we've been going out, looking at things, going places. Are you just going to keep lying on that sofa today?"
"Hmm…. Is there somewhere you'd like to go, Eun-hwa?"
"If there were, I would have said so myself, without waiting for you to ask. Don't you think?"
"Ahh."
She's sharp. Fine. I'll give her that. A little too sharp.
With that thought, I started turning over where we should go today — where I ought to take her. We'd already done cafés and the nearby park plenty of times. So where would be good?
"Hmm…."
Honestly, going out was just one of many ways to spend the day lightly and comfortably — a way to let her have an ordinary life, an ordinary rest. She didn't have to go out. It was simply better to take a walk and sit in a decent café with a pretty view than to sit at home drinking soda, and better to stroll through a park than to lie in bed wasting the hours like an idiot.
"Nnngh……!!!"
Going out was a good thing, I wouldn't deny that. You moved your muscles, you breathed some cool air, you got a bit of openness and a change of mood. So leaving the house itself was fine. The question was where to go this time — and that was a perfectly reasonable thing to stew over.
I stretched out on the sofa and started thinking about what we should do for fun…
"An amusement park?"
"What?"
"Eun-hwa, want to go to an amusement park?"
"……Suddenly?"
"Yep."
"……?"
And just like that, the amusement park it was. Buying tickets on the day of wasn't the usual move, but it was a weekday, so it hardly mattered. Tickets were no problem at all — we'd be able to walk the park far more comfortably than on a weekend — and she'd get a hit of dopamine that a regular outing or a stroll simply couldn't deliver.
"Heh heh…."
Even I had to admit it was a perfect call.
"…You really don't seem like someone who plans anything, you know that?"
"My plan is to help you, Eun-hwa. I'd say I'm executing it without a hitch."
"You're good with words, I'll give you that."
"That's my job."
"…Haa."
And so Baek Eun-hwa and I arrived at the amusement park. The truth was, the last time I'd been to one was once or twice back at the orphanage — but that hardly mattered. This wasn't a place you came to study anything difficult. At most, you rode some attractions and had a good time. If I could just have fun with her, that was enough, wasn't it?
It wasn't simply about playing around. What mattered was letting her feel a little freer — letting her enjoy herself as Baek Eun-hwa, as an ordinary person, not as a hero.
"Come on, Eun-hwa! Let's go!"
"…Fine."
I took the lead and enthusiastically herded her toward the entrance. Baek Eun-hwa sighed at the sight of me, but she followed me in all the same. And then we proceeded to wander the park with absolutely no plan whatsoever.
The reason we'd come here in the first place had been pretty impulsive too… no, wait. There had been a clear reason, and I had thought it through, so that counted as having a brain, didn't it?
Anyway.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!"
"Nnh…."
We rode the roller coaster. You know the kind — the train hanging from the rail, plunging from the top all the way down. Except this one wasn't a regular sit-down coaster. Your whole body dangled from something, with nothing under your feet — one of those hanging rides purpose-built to wring every last drop of dopamine out of you. I couldn't help it. I screamed my head off on pure reflex.
Baek Eun-hwa, sitting next to me, barely raised her voice at all.
"Hiyah! Hiyah!"
"Why are you only attacking me?!"
"Well, I can't go attacking strangers, can I? Hiyah!"
And then there were bumper cars right next to us. The park wasn't that crowded for once, so it looked like we could actually have some fun, and I talked her into it. Then I rammed her like an eight-ton truck with a busted steering wheel, running on nothing but impulse.
"Kyaaah!!!"
"If this is scary, shouldn't you just ride the kiddie attractions?"
"I-it is scary, okay?! Unlike some people, I don't have a tough body!!!!"
"…Good grief."
We rode the Viking ship too. And a few other things besides. Anyway. We ended up having a better time than I'd expected. It had been a long while since I'd visited an amusement park, and Baek Eun-hwa… she didn't scream, but she didn't look like she hated it either. Light, maybe. That was the word. She wore an expression just a little lighter than usual as she walked around with me.
"Fun, right, Eun-hwa?"
"In its own way."
"Heh heh. I figured heroes deal with way worse than this on a regular basis. Honestly, I wondered if you'd even find it that exciting."
"Even a hero doesn't usually get dropped from a few dozen meters in the air, I'll have you know."
"Ah."
Was that so? Fair enough, actually.
"Still, I'm glad you seem to be enjoying yourself. I dragged you here on a whim, but you're having more fun than I expected, aren't you?"
Coming to an amusement park — and spending time like this with someone I could actually call a friend my own age — was something I hadn't done in quite a while either, so I was genuinely having a good time. It was a different kind of pleasure from the everyday hours we'd been sharing. Spending time with heroes like Batori or Saran had been enjoyable in its own way, that was true… but there was a familiarity that came with being the same age.
"…Well. That's true enough."
And I suspected I wasn't the only one who felt that way. I'd known it for a while, honestly. If she hadn't been having fun, there would have been no reason to wait in line for the rides — even if the lines were shorter than on a weekend — and no reason to keep walking the park like this. And there would have been no reason to wear expressions that, even if they weren't overflowing with joy, could never have been mistaken for dislike.
So I was happy too.
I was taking my time picking the next one, turning over which ride Baek Eun-hwa might enjoy, when—
"But, Eun-hwa…? If I get on one more ride, I think I am genuinely going to collapse…?"
"…We've only been on about five, haven't we?"
"…Hehe."
"You're… incredibly frail."
"Well, I'm just an ordinary office worker. A civil servant, basically? I've been screaming so much my throat's starting to hurt."
"……."
Pushing any further on the rides was going to be a problem in more ways than one. I'd put my body through a lot in a short span, and the fatigue had hit much harder than I'd expected — which was why I'd said so honestly. What I got back, though, was a look laced with something like pity.
"Want to duck inside somewhere and rest for a bit? A café, maybe… I wonder if there's one around."
"Haa…."
"Hehe."
"There was an animal café a little ways back. We can go in there and rest."
"Oh."
Baek Eun-hwa understood the state I was in and, better yet, offered a genuinely welcome alternative. Not loud, not exhausting — and packed with tiny, adorable animals.
Animals, though. Yeah. I can't say no to animals.