Pretty Cute, Isn't She?
I stood up first and held my hand out to Haruna, who was still leaning against the bench.
"If we keep sitting here, every shop is going to close. Come on, get up."
She eyed the hand I offered, hesitated for a second, then gently took it and rose from the bench.
"I-Is it really okay to just grab on like this? Someone like… me?"
"Honestly, I feel like I should be the one asking if you're okay with it. Convert my follower count and yours into combat power and I ought to drop dead the second I touch you, screaming 'Kyaaaaah!' the whole way down."
"Pfft—! Ah, I'm sorry. That was just too funny…"
Lee Jiyeon covered her mouth with her fingertips and laughed in the most demure way imaginable. I had never seen a pure-hearted girl this pure in my life.
Skin so pale it was almost translucent, like white jade. Long hair with just a hint of wave. Height maybe around 160 cm. Slender frame, yet every place that ought to stand out stood out with absolute conviction. The absolute textbook "I want to protect her" type. Even the way she kept fumbling and hesitating over her words radiated pure-hearted energy. One glance was enough to understand exactly how she had succeeded as a VTuber.
And the truly shocking part…
She barely looked any different from her avatar.
Complete beautiful-girl archetype. Normally the gap between a fundamentally 2D avatar and a 3D human being is enormous. Yet Lee Jiyeon looked so similar to the avatar I had seen on TreeWiki that it made me wonder if she had somehow performed human alchemy using the avatar as a reference.
"W-Why are you… staring at me like that?"
"Well… because you're cute."
The words slipped out before I could stop them. I had genuinely been thinking she was cute while staring, so of course they just tumbled out of my mouth.
Ah… I went a little too far with that one, didn't I?
I was still scrambling for some kind of excuse when—
"I-I-I-I… I'm c-cute… cute…?!"
Jiyeon's face flushed redder and redder, like someone had just switched on an electric heater.
Well, I didn't have a decent excuse ready anyway. Might as well double down.
Having my appearance and gender flipped gave me a sudden surge of courage I never would have had before.
"Jiyeon, you don't think you're cute?"
"N-Not at all! Who would ever call someone like me c-cute…"
She yanked her hood up and pressed it down hard with both hands. Even that embarrassed little gesture looked as adorable as a baby harp seal.
"I think you're extremely cu·te. How about trying to have a little more confidence in yourself?"
"Uuuuuugh…!"
Jiyeon looked like she was about to die of embarrassment. Just like earlier, her reactions were oddly entertaining. The old me would never have been able to see a reaction like this.
If it had been the previous me…
"Hey, Jiyeon? How long are you planning to keep that hood on?"
"W-Well… I think I need to stay like this for a little while. All the b-blood rushed to my face."
A mischievous impulse flickered through me—maybe I should just yank the hood off—but I killed it. Something told me that if I teased her any further, all sorts of problems would explode.
"You're going to walk all the way to the clothing store like that? You won't be able to see where you're going…"
"I-I can see a little bit ahead, so i-it's fine!"
As if to prove she could see, Jiyeon started scuttling forward. Her footsteps looked extremely precarious.
"Kyaaa—ah?"
"Should I say… nice catch?"
She had given off the same unstable vibe as a kid on ice skates for the first time, so I had stuck right next to her ready to move. Sure enough, she toppled forward right on cue. Catching her by the collar the instant her body tipped was, if I do say so myself, a textbook nice catch.
"Th-Thank you."
"If you're grateful, how about taking that hood off? I know this might sound weird coming from me, but… hiding that cute face of yours while you walk around is a genuine loss for the world."
It was the kind of cheesy line that belonged in a youth melodrama. But…!
When the "handsome" attribute is in play, an auto-success correction kicks in and the effectiveness goes completely off the charts!
And the result…?
Jiyeon's fingers started twitching like they had developed a will of their own, then slowly climbed up and gently tugged the hood down.
—The effect was tremendous!
From beneath the hood emerged a face as red as a boiled carrot, still looking exactly like a baby harp seal.
"Much better. Turns out the cliché where taking off the veil reveals a pretty face exists in real life too."
"I-If you keep saying things like that! It's a problem, it's a real problem…! I'll start believing even a little that I'm cute…"
Jiyeon still covered her face with both hands, mortified.
"Is there some reason you're not allowed to believe you're cute?"
"H-How dare someone like me…!"
"It's the truth, so who cares? And even if it weren't, people are drawn to narcissists. This might not be the best advice coming from a tiny streamer, but if you had a little more confidence in yourself, I think your fans would love it even more."
"I-Is that so…"
"From my limited life experience, yeah."
Jiyeon froze in place as if she had just realized something. I wondered if she was mid-personality update, but—
"I-I'm so sorryyy! Something like that is impossible!!"
She shouted loud enough that every pedestrian walking through the shopping district turned to stare. Well, of course. Changing the self-image someone has spent their whole life building isn't something you do in a single moment. I understood that better than anyone.
I was about to keep walking when Jiyeon called out to me in a tiny voice.
"Minseo… E-Everyone's looking, so my m-muscles locked up and I can't move."
How does a person freeze solid just because people are looking at them?
Are you a Weeping Angel or what?!
Complaining internally wouldn't make the statue—sorry, the Weeping Angel—in front of me start moving. I had no choice but to help.
Picking her up and carrying her would only draw even more stares, so that was out. Holding her hand, though… that should be fine.
"Close your eyes and take my hand. Just give up your eyesight until we get out of this area."
"S-Someone like me, you can just leave me behind…!"
"Don't talk like the character making a tearful sacrifice in a zombie movie. Just close your eyes already."
Jiyeon obediently closed her eyes at my slightly needling words. I snagged her hand and carefully led her along.
She squeezed her eyes shut and entrusted her entire body to the sensation at her fingertips.
Following someone with complete trust.
This is totally like the first night of a honeymoon, isn't it?!
In the darkness behind her closed eyelids, she could almost see Kim Minseo in a formal suit.
In a society that encouraged men to marry multiple brides at once, a one-to-one wedding was a stroke of luck on the level of winning the lottery.
No one has ever been this kind to me before… and she's so ridiculously handsome… i-if possible, m-marriage…!
Jiyeon's runaway fantasy train screeched to a sudden halt.
Ah… right. It still doesn't feel real, but Kim Minseo is a woman.
No matter how handsome, how sensual, how cool she was— a woman was still a woman. There was no way she could date another woman…
…right?
In that moment, two thoughts started a tug-of-war inside Jiyeon's heart, just like when she first met Minseo.
Team Blue clung to a rigid Confucian value system: "Dating another woman is absolutely impossible!"
Team Red spoke with pure honest desire: "If you ignore the fact that she's a woman, she's your perfect ideal type!"
While her eyes stayed closed, the tug-of-war refused to produce a winner. After racking her brain until it nearly exploded and imagining every possible scenario, she arrived at a disappointingly mundane conclusion:
None of this matters unless Kim Minseo sees me as a romantic option first.
Yeah… when Minseo said I was cute, she was just saying it as a friend.
She tried to soothe her own dejected heart as best she could.
"Is this far enough? You can move on your own now, right?"
Drawn by that calm, fragrant mid-low voice that sounded like high-quality black tea, she cracked her eyes open. They were on a quieter street with far fewer people. And right in front of them stood the clothing store she had already picked out.
"Y-Yes, I can move fine now."
"Freezing solid the second people's eyes land on you… it's not like you're 173 or anything. Can you even function in daily life?"
"N-Normally I just stay indoors with no sunlight and live on the internet, so…"
Having to say her bleak hikikomori lifestyle out loud made her so embarrassed she couldn't lift her head.
"We're pretty similar."
"Huh? Similar?"
"My daily life feels genuinely similar to that. It gives me this weird sense of kinship—like, 'Oh, there's someone else in the world like me.'"
Kim Minseo's daily life was similar to hers?
No way!
That was impossible!
"D-Don't lie! Minseo, I bet you wake up at 6 a.m. with a clear head, go jogging along the Han River park, wash off the sweat with a refreshing shower, then have a single piece of toast and coffee while reading something difficult like How to Win Friends and Influence People!"
"What kind of fantasy are you projecting onto a rag who woke up this morning and immediately threw up from a hangover?!"
Looking genuinely shocked, Kim Minseo opened her mouth again.
"No matter how pretty 'pretty trash' is, it doesn't change the fact that it's still useless trash to society. I'm exactly that type."
"Th-That can't be…!"
Someone as perfect and invincible-looking as Kim Minseo was actually living the same kind of life as me…
For a moment her jaw refused to close. But they needed to finish what they came for quickly so she could hand the camera over to Minseo, so she hurried into the clothing store.
Kim Minseo, however, just stood there staring blankly and did not follow her inside. Wondering if something was wrong, Jiyeon stepped back out—and Minseo spoke as if she had been waiting for that exact moment.
"This is… a men's clothing store."
"I know."