A Tearful Reunion
I rummaged around and pulled on something that roughly passed for a tracksuit.
The time was 12:31 p.m.
A sigh slipped out of me mid-change, halfway through getting ready to go out.
This is all so sudden…
I had ended up accepting the real-life meetup Seol Yunha proposed.
Judging by how well she already knew the good cafés near my place, this wasn't her first or second time around here.
My brain hadn't been quick enough to invent an excuse and turn her down, so I had agreed on pure impulse.
"Arin, you're going out dressed like that?"
Even Mom knew the two of them — knew them as friends her daughter was very close with.
That meant they weren't just casual collab acquaintances from stream. They had to be closer than that.
"This is comfortable."
"You're going to see your unnies for the first time in ages. You should at least dress up a little."
What Mom pulled from the closet was a soft, floaty dress.
My eyelids twitched the moment I saw it.
She wanted me to walk outside in something that airy down below?
"I-I'm fine! Seol Yun— I mean, Hayun unnie said she wanted to play badminton, so what I'm wearing now is better!"
"…Badminton?"
"Yeah! She said she got into it recently…."
I really could not lie to save my life.
What kind of girls, meeting for the first time in months, go play badminton?
"Then that would be better. Do you have a racket and a shuttlecock?"
Fortunately, Mom let it pass without further suspicion.
"The unnies are bringing them!"
"And lunch is outside? Do you have money?"
"I've got tons in my account right now! I'm fine!"
Afraid a slip of the tongue might come out, I rattled it off in a panic.
I can go out on my own, thank you!!
I was fidgeting a little when Mom undid her own hair tie and held it out to me.
"Use this to tie your hair up when you play. Your body might still be weak, so if it gets hard, take a break. Got it?"
"Okay…."
I closed my hand tight around the hair tie.
It was such an ordinary gesture, and yet a warmth of affection came through it all the same.
"I'm heading out!"
"Take care of yourself! And if you're going anywhere far, call me!"
"I will!"
Mom saw me off with a smile.
She must have been happy that her daughter still remembered her unnies.
Beep—
I waved back with a matching smile and stepped out of the house.
A café at the intersection… that one, probably.
The meeting place was right around the corner.
About a ten-minute walk out of the apartment complex brought the intersection into view, and the café sitting on it stood out even from a distance.
Two girls… two girls…
The whole way there I squinted and scanned the front of the café.
Soon, among the passing crowd, I spotted two figures in white standing side by side.
I swallowed hard and approached. They must have spotted me too, because they raised their hands and waved.
"Arin!"
So that confirmed it, at least — Lee Hayun and Seo Jia.
The reality of it left me reeling.
How are they that pretty?!
Both of them were absurdly beautiful — the kind of faces an idol agency would street-cast without a second thought.
And they were dressed in clothes that made their figures impossible to ignore, so I had no idea where to put my eyes.
Girls like this doing VTubing is a national loss…
They had those clearly superior looks and still hid behind a model.
If there'd been even one photo of us together on the phone, I could have prepared myself — but strangely, there wasn't a single one.
"It's been so long!"
The short-haired one of the two came up and took my hand.
A chill shot straight down my spine.
I had zero resistance to girls — especially girls this pretty!
"H-h-hello…."
"Hm? Are you not feeling well? Your face is all red."
"Must be the heat. Jia, let's go inside first."
She'd called the other one Jia, so the long straight-haired one had to be Hayun.
Okay. I knew who was who now.
All that was left was to talk like a normal person….
Ding-a-ling—
I was still busy calming my racing heart when I found myself steered up to the café kiosk.
"Want anything, Arin?"
I blinked at Jia's question.
Want anything….
"Caramel macchiato, half a pump of syrup, oat milk."
Crap!
Without thinking, I'd rattled off my go-to order from my past life!
Both of them stared down at me blankly, thrown by the magic-spell of a sentence.
"…Sorry, can you say that again?"
"I'll do it."
Hayun nudged Jia aside and worked the kiosk herself.
She navigated the menu with the easy skill of a regular. The vibe she gave off was so mature that if I let my guard down for even a second, I felt like I might call her Mom.
"Jia, latte for you, right?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
"Then I'll take this… done. Let's grab a seat."
The order was finished in no time.
Once again I was tugged along by the hand toward an empty table.
"How have you been?"
Jia asked once I'd settled onto a soft bench seat.
The way she put it, she clearly had no idea Yu Arin had been sick.
Well… that tracks.
You could tell just from the diary.
She'd been a thoughtful kid for her age.
There was no way she would have volunteered the fact that she was ill to unnies she was close with — especially not when their whole relationship was about having fun together on stream.
She wouldn't have wanted to break that.
"Mhm."
It was time to come clean.
"You seemed really busy yourself, Arin, but you prepped a lot, huh? Even made a new avatar."
"And your gaming got crazy good. But… can effort alone do that…?"
It had been Yu Arin who never answered their last messages.
So these two, with no way of knowing she'd been fighting an illness, must have assumed she was ghosting them out of disappointment.
They'd been so close — the guilt must have weighed on them.
I hated to pile more onto that, but if we were going to keep working together, this had to be cleared up now.
"Um… there's something I need to say first…."
I fretted with my fingers as I got the words out.
Both of their gazes turned on me.
Arin, you wanted to keep it hidden — but if I hide it too, we'll only drift further apart.
In exchange, I'll make sure your unnies make it big. Okay?
"The truth is, I was sick until recently, and because of the aftereffects I lose bits of my memory here and there."
It stung my conscience that it was a lie, but there was no other way — not with family, not with friends.
For me to live as I was now, "memory loss" was an essential setup.
"……."
"…W-what?"
The eyes fixed on me went round.
The shock was so sharp their mouths even fell open.
They looked at each other, then back at me.
"Y-you lost your memories?"
"Yes. The big things, like you unnies, I still remember — but most of the little details are gone."
"How could that…."
Moisture gathered in Hayun's eyes.
She looked ready to burst into tears any second.
Sensing it, Jia hurriedly passed her a tissue and patted her back.
"W-when did you get sick?"
"A while ago. Three or four months…."
"Are you still sick now?!"
"No. I'm all better!"
I forced a bright, energetic smile.
Even so, Hayun couldn't lift her head.
She seemed to be holding the sobs in by sheer will, but she kept pressing the tissue hard against her eyes.
"Uh… um…."
After a brief silence, I turned to Jia — who kept glancing helplessly between me and Hayun — and smiled wide again.
"I'm really okay! I just don't remember some things!"
"R-right…."
Now Jia bit down hard on her lower lip too.
At this rate we were heading for a full-blown flood of tears.
In my whole life I had never once comforted a crying girl, so I had no idea what to do next.
"I-I need the restroom…."
"Huh? Oh — go ahead."
Once Hayun was gone, Jia worked her lips for a moment, then seemed to steel herself and raised a topic.
"So… that means you don't remember when we went to the amusement park either?"
"No."
"Or riding the sleds at the ski resort?"
"No."
"Or eating near here and going to karaoke?"
"That one either…."
Just how much had they gone out together?!
I was starting to understand why Arin had held these two so dear.
Most of what was written in the diary was stream-related — was there another journal somewhere?
"Haa…."
After firing off question after question, Jia finally dropped her head with a sigh.
"If something like that was going on, you should've called us…."
Arin herself probably hadn't known the illness would get that serious.
She'd even left notes about wanting to get healthy again soon.
Not wanting to worry her unnies was admirable, but….
That was the wrong call.
The next news they got of her could have been a funeral — or they could have decided she hated them forever and cut them off.
It was hindsight, sure, but either way would have left these two with a deep wound.
"Still… I'm so glad you're better."
Jia took my hand and squeezed it the way she had before.
A sharp little jolt went through my chest.
This feeling should have been Arin's to receive. Carrying it in her place felt heavy.
"I'm sorry…. We had no idea…."
"It's okay. I never told you unnies either."
"We had our own stuff going on, and we were juggling part-time jobs…. Not that that's anything I should be saying to you, after you were sick…."
"I really am fine."
It was hard.
Getting it all out here was the right thing to do — but watching the two of them so sad made me feel like I might cry myself.
"Oh — you're back?"
While she was still gently holding my hand, Hayun returned from the restroom, her eyes thoroughly bloodshot.
She sat down, looked over my face for a moment — and then,
"…Hic…!"
she broke down crying right there in the middle of the café.