A Maid Café at the Festival — and a Date Invitation
It was already the Cooking Research Club's third activity day. Today's menu was omurice — Hong Jihye's pick, chosen on the grounds that "winning with visuals matters too." Though honestly, by the time you actually eat it, doesn't the visual fall apart anyway…?
I stir-fried the chicken rice, gently cooked the egg to a soft, half-set finish, and draped it over the top. …But an omurice without ketchup isn't an omurice at all. The moment I reached for the bottle, the two of them thrust their plates out at me in perfect unison.
"Me! Me! Write 'I love you' on mine!"
"Hey! No cutting in line! I want hearts! Five hearts!"
"…"
So many demands.
So there I was, pouring genuine artistic devotion into piping hearts onto the plates… when the practice room door slid open with a rattle.
"…So it was real."
Standing in the doorway was Bang Arin.
Ketchup bottle still in hand, Jihye sprinted over and hung herself off Arin's arm. …So apparently they knew each other already, despite being classmates. Or maybe Jihye was just one-sidedly pretending they did…
"This girl's famous in our class! I begged her every single morning for a whole week to join the club! And she never once even looked at me! …So it really is true — the newbie has all the pull, huh…"
Hong Jihye glanced back and forth between me and Cha Eunha, then went on with an air of someone who'd just figured everything out.
"…So you two… were all already friends with each other, just not with me…? I'm not even surprised…"
Bang Arin peeled Jihye off her arm, then strode straight over to my side of the kitchen. She stared down at the omurice sitting on the counter.
"…Give me one."
I handed her a spoon. She scooped up a bite and chewed slowly. And then… without a word, she kept eating.
"…Well?! How is it?! It's good, right?!"
While Jihye fussed at her side, Arin didn't speak until the plate was half empty.
"…Not bad. Tastes like something from a franchise chain."
…That was a compliment, right?
When I finished eating and started on the dishes, Arin quietly came up beside me and picked up a dish towel. Taking the bowls from my hands to dry them, she spoke, casual as anything.
"…Your face. It looks better these days."
"…Does it?"
"Mm. …Glad to hear it. I was worried."
So I'd worried someone for nothing.
That was all she said. That was all it was…
And yet, somehow, hearing I was worried made the tip of my nose sting a little.
…So there was someone out there who worried about me.
The next morning, the commotion Eunha kicked up the moment she walked into the classroom nearly knocked my pencil case out of my hands.
…Even Arin had gone to that Cooking Research Club?
Bang Arin… you? Why on earth?
You hated it.
Kang Suho — suffocating, that's what this was.
Not a single word of class registered in my ears. Eunha was the type to wedge herself into anything fun, so I could let that slide. But it felt like everyone was crossing over to the other side, one by one — everyone except me.
…An absurd thought even flickered through my mind: was Kang Suho getting revenge on me or something?
After school, I waited for Arin by the front gate. I'd heard Eunha chattering that today wasn't an activity day for that club.
"…Arin."
"…Min Sihyeon."
Arin stopped walking, her face showing barely a flicker of surprise.
"Um… you, yesterday…"
"What? Are you calling me out because I went to the club where Kang Suho is?"
So she had no intention of beating around the bush. Fine. Neither did I.
"Why did you go? Everyone… these days it feels like I'm the only one being frozen out."
Bang Arin gave a laugh that said she couldn't believe what she was hearing, and shot back:
"Hey, Min Sihyeon. Do I need your permission to go wherever I want?"
…Why was she like this all of a sudden?
"N-no, that's not what I…!"
Arin let out a sigh and looked me dead in the eye.
"Min Sihyeon, you know it already."
"Whatever the reason was, doesn't matter. You crushed Kang Suho, and so… it's over. Between you two."
…Over?
Whether I stood there frozen or not, she kept going.
"But whatever happens between you two… do the rest of us really have to keep walking on eggshells around it forever?"
"You don't exactly plan on apologizing either, honestly. …You probably think none of it was even your fault in the first place. Whatever."
"…Apologize for what, exactly?"
Arin gave a hollow little laugh, glanced up at the sky once — then down at the ground — then back at my face.
"Forget it. It's not like anything changes just because I tell you."
"…I'm only saying this as a friend, so… just remember: nothing in this world is guaranteed."
With that, she simply turned and walked away.
Leaving behind exactly one last remark.
"Or else just — go date Kim Minhyun, the one you were practically serenading with how interested you were."
…Date?
Right… like I couldn't do that?
That night, I passed through the dark living room into my room and pulled that letter out of my drawer.
A letter I'd rewritten over and over, word by single word. One that began "You looked so cool playing guitar" — the one where I'd poured out feelings I'd carried forever. The one I'd shown Kang Suho.
As I read slowly through it… something felt wrong.
It was definitely my heart. I'd written it with total sincerity. So why did it read… exactly like a fan letter sent to some idol?
"…No."
Who cared what shape it took? What mattered was the feeling inside it.
Heart pounding, late into the night — I sent Kim Minhyun a DM.
…It's not a bother, right? He's probably asleep.
…Will he see it soon?
My worries were for nothing — Kim Minhyun replied with a beaming bunny emoji.
We traded message after message, the conversation blossoming… until I finally brought up the real reason.
Kim Minhyun paused for a beat, then sent back a bunny emoji grinning from ear to ear.
…Oh my god.
Oh my god, for real? Kim Minhyun? With… me?
…I have to tell someone. Without a second thought, I shared the news with the group chat with Eunha and Arin.
They were clearly congratulating me, so why did I feel like this?
Was I the one who'd been abandoned here? …What reaction had I even been expecting? I couldn't read my own heart.
Something about it soured my mood instantly, and I just wanted to sleep. I switched off my phone, tossed it to the far side of the room, and surrendered myself to the covers.
Still — at least now I had a boy to walk around with at the festival. That was a good thing.
It's a good thing.
…Yeah… I guess that's what good is.
"—And that's why! The Cooking Research Club is opening a booth at the festival! …Ow… ow ow ow…"
Hong Jihye slammed her palm on the counter in the practice room as she declared it — then winced in pain from hitting it herself. What even was the point of slamming it down solo if it just hurt?
"The festival is next Friday! This is… our golden opportunity to brand the Cooking Research Club into every student's brain!"
"Ooh! A booth! What are we doing?!"
Cha Eunha's eyes sparkled with interest, while Bang Arin already wore the face of someone thoroughly sick of this. …Not that Arin was even a member, yet here she was, always around. Anyway…
Eunha and Jihye went back and forth at length — this is right… no, we have to do that… — until Jihye finally pulled out her trump card with a look of begrudging resignation.
On the very last page of the notebook she'd spread open — the Cooking Research Club Revival Operation — were four stick figures in frill-covered outfits, drawn at some unknown point in time.
"…What is that."
"A maid café."
"…What?!"
The flabbergasted voices of all three of us, myself included, overlapped in perfect unison.
Oblivious or uncaring, Jihye launched into an impassioned speech.
"I saw it on InsTagram… at festivals in Japan, this stuff is an absolute blockbuster! Just think about it. Delicious smells, pretty outfits, buzz! All three in perfect harmony…"
Bang Arin's cold blade cut the speech short.
"…What exactly is 'perfect' about it… I'd be too embarrassed to show my face at school. If we did something like that."
Cha Eunha cautiously chimed in too.
"But… wouldn't we be copying other people? I've seen a few clubs do that kind of thing before."
Jihye puffed out her chest, dignity fully intact.
"No no, why would you say something so hurtful. We operate on a different level. The best other clubs can manage is mass-market desserts they hauled in from somewhere. The only place in this school with a fully equipped kitchen… is us. Just us."
"…And who's making the desserts?"
Jihye answered as if I'd asked something self-evident.
"You obviously, Suho. It's not like the rest of us can cook?"
"…Don't tell me you're planning to run away now, at this point?"
…Yeah, yeah. That's just my lot in life.
"But seriously — does everyone here have it in them to wear a… maid outfit, or whatever it's called?"
Cha Eunha, mid-thought — wait, what exactly IS a maid outfit? — went digging through InsTagram and gasped in horror. Bang Arin had looked displeased from the very start.
…I didn't need to look to know this proposal was dead on arrival. Obvious.
But something about our expressions must have tipped her off, because Jihye came back with an offer we couldn't refuse.
"…I'm not asking you to help for free."
From her pocket, Jihye produced three tickets of unmistakably luxurious quality and handed one to each of us.
…They looked like some kind of resort pass. Nothing specific was written on them anywhere. But the paper itself felt incredibly expensive.
Eunha and I stared at each other, blinking, both thinking what even IS this?…
Only Bang Arin seemed to recognize the paper's true worth — her mouth had fallen wide open and no words were coming out.
She stayed silent for a long moment, then looked at Jihye and asked:
"…You. Only daughter of a chaebol family?"
Jihye just smiled slyly and gave nothing away.
"Well… isn't that beside the point? I mean, if I'm going to spend summer break glued to my house or the study room anyway… a little refresh is fine too, right? For the sake of our Cooking Research Club's team spirit…"
She went on with this heroic expression, saying all the right things… but was this piece of paper really that big a deal?
Together with Eunha, I went over to Arin and asked what it was. Arin answered carefully.
"…One of these goes for over ten million won. Regular people can't get their hands on it."
Eunha and I just blinked at each other for a long while… and only then did the value of this scrap of paper actually sink in.
A… resort pass worth ten million won? This wasn't even a joke anymore…
Jihye, having delivered her one-woman oration all on her own, took in our dumbfounded faces and grinned.
"…So — everyone's in, right? If that's not enough, I can throw in a little more…"
Bang Arin silently raised an OK sign with her fingers…
Cha Eunha had already glued herself to Jihye's side, swearing fervent oaths of loyalty.
…Come to think of it, I never had a choice in the first place, did I.
The tickets were still nagging at me, so I asked Jihye carefully.
"…Is it really okay, just taking something this expensive?"
Jihye answered with an easy smile.
"…It's not like I have any other use for them anyway. Don't worry about it."
…What was I supposed to make of that?
So it turned out she really was some chaebol family's only daughter after all… or something like that, right?
And so everyone set the ticket talk aside —
and as the heated debate over the maid café raged on, gazing down at that resort ticket said to be worth ten million won, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.
Me, Cha Eunha, Bang Arin, and Hong Jihye. That makes four of us… so that's who's going, right.
…And then the thought of the one person missing stirred up my head — but I forced myself to forget it.
It's over.
With him, it's over.