My Childhood Friend Is Enjoying the Festival With Another Guy
Festival, D-5.
The moment I opened the door to the practice room, huge delivery boxes had already colonized the entire counter.
"They're here! They're here! They finally came!"
Hong Jihye pounced on the boxes and ripped the tape off.
What came out was... black dresses, absolutely covered in frills.
Yep. Those. Maid outfits.
"...Did you buy these yourself?"
At Bang Arin's question, Jihye answered with complete innocence.
"Of course! You can't become a real maid in someone else's borrowed clothes...! Got it?"
...By now, I'd simply learned to accept that she operated on a completely different scale of spending money.
"This is no time to be standing around gawking! If anyone's size is off we're exchanging them, so everybody try theirs on, now!"
And then, out of nowhere, the eyes of all three girls locked onto me.
What... why...
"...Kang Suho. Get out."
"Peek even once, and I'll... cut it off."
...Cut what?
A chill ran down my entire body at Cha Eunha's threat. It would have been a disaster if I'd asked what exactly she was planning to cut...
Before I could even answer, I was shoved out the door,
and a curtain went up over the practice room window.
For a long while there was a muffled commotion of one thing or another... Maybe ten minutes passed.
Then Hong Jihye opened the door.
"Ta-daa! What do you think!"
...How should I put it. She looked like someone who had been born wearing that kind of outfit.
Even her pose was perfect — apparently she'd practiced everything she'd ever seen in those fifteen-second video compilations on In★star.
"Ooooh! President, you look insane! What about me? How do I look!"
Cha Eunha bounced out after her.
Flouncing her skirt, she snapped about twenty selfies all by herself.
...Where exactly are you planning to post those?
Except... one person remained hidden behind the curtain until the very end.
"Arin! Come on out!"
"...No."
"You have to wear it on the day anyway!"
"...When the day comes... I'll come out."
In the end, Jihye grabbed the curtain and yanked it aside—
"...I'll kill you."
A black frilled dress, a pure white apron. An expressionless face radiating murderous intent...
Maid Bang Arin stood there.
It seemed like... everyone was waiting for my verdict,
so I just blurted out whatever came to mind.
"...You all look great. Prettier than usual... I think. All of you."
A beat of silence.
...Was the line really that bad?
The three girls exchanged brief, startled glances,
and Hong Jihye stepped forward first to smooth things over.
"Hey... don't expect anything back for a throwaway line like that."
Then she tossed some clothes to me as well.
"You too, Suho! Here, this one!"
What Hong Jihye threw at me was... a butler's uniform, complete with a black vest and a bow tie.
...Well, it's a relief it's not a maid outfit. Right?
Maid dress or butler suit, both were equally mortifying things to wear in front of the whole school, so...
I threw one last protest at Hong Jihye.
"...I'm not wearing that."
"You have to! The owner is the only guy in the club — you're supposed to be the butler! You get it, right...? Right?"
Cha Eunha chimed in, all fired up.
"She's right! We're all wearing ours... so if you run off and skip yours, Suho, you know that's a total haenamja move, right? A guy with zero loyalty."
Yeah, well. What say did I have...
In the end... I changed behind the curtain and came out.
...The moment I emerged, all three of them stared at me at once.
"...Ooh."
"Huh. Not bad, actually..."
"...You clean up okay?"
"...If that's teasing, quit it."
"...It's not, though? I mean it? A certain someone could stand to have a little more confidence in himself~"
Hong Jihye, clearly delighted with the result, was whacking me on the back, palm after palm.
In her head, this was apparently a 'confidence-instilling gesture'... but all it did was hurt.
Festival, D-4.
Menu development turned out to be far more treacherous than I'd expected.
...Why? Because the first problem was that I had to cook literally everything myself...
"Soufflé pancakes! This time, for sure! It has to be that!"
The very thing Hong Jihye had been singing about since her first day in the club. The problem was... it was genuinely hard.
The first attempt, the meringue collapsed and it came out as plain pancakes. The second, I botched the heat and burned the outside to a crisp. The third, it deflated and lost its shape the moment I flipped it.
...Nothing about this is easy.
"...This is tough."
"It's fine! Failures are just data! And when we eat them all, it's evidence destruction too!"
"Exactly! This one's ugly but it's soooo good!"
Still... having not one but three designated 'failure-eaters' on staff was the sole redeeming feature of this club.
And so, the ninth attempt.
Low heat, lid on, timer running... and when I eased it over, carefully—
the thick, snow-white batter wobbled. A perfect, jiggling bounce.
"That's— that's it...!"
"WAAAAAH!"
Cha Eunha and Hong Jihye, who'd been watching, celebrated so hard you'd think they'd done it themselves...
and honestly, something in my chest swelled with pride.
Onto the plate, a dusting of powdered sugar, and a pat of butter to finish.
The moment I slid the fork in and it split open, soft and airy— a single tear rolled down Hong Jihye's cheek.
"This is it... this is exactly what I saw on In★star..."
"...Are you seriously crying right now?"
"I am! I dreamed about this for three months!"
But that struck me as a little odd.
By all accounts she was a rich girl from a wealthy family... was it really because she couldn't buy a single soufflé pancake?
They couldn't cost more than twenty thousand won or so. Something didn't add up.
"...You never buy stuff like this normally?"
Hong Jihye seemed to catch the intent behind my question, because she changed the subject.
"Ahaha... well... let's just say I don't have much time for snacking... whatever! That's not the point here, is it?"
Then she nudged me with her elbow, a little harder than necessary, and went on.
"Besides... I wanted to eat it because you made it. Not something somebody else cooked."
Leaving only those words behind, Hong Jihye fled the room as if running away.
...My ears, too — and hers — were just a little red at the tips.
Festival, D-2.
Only one final hurdle stood between us and the festival... the faculty advisor's sign-off.
Me, Hong Jihye, Cha Eunha, and last of all, Bang Arin.
The four of us went together to the teachers' office to see the math teacher— Ms. Park Seung-ah.
Taking the proposal in hand, Ms. Park Seung-ah froze for a long moment, paper still gripped mid-air.
"...Maid, what?"
"A maid café, ma'am!"
"...Are you four actually serious about this? Omurice and soufflé pancakes on the menu...? And who, exactly, is cooking all this?"
Three girls pointed at me in perfect unison.
"...Yes. I'll be doing it."
The crease between the teacher's brows deepened into something like a canyon.
She's not going to reject it here, is she... — but just then, Ms. Park met Hong Jihye's eyes, let out a deep sigh, and slammed her stamp down with a thunk.
...Is there seriously some history between those two?
"...Students will behave like students, and keep this dignified. If any 'questionable' photos end up circulating on the internet, this club is shut down that very day."
"And—"
The teacher added, shooting me a sidelong glance.
"...The pancake, whatever it's called — the test batch. ...You will naturally be setting aside the faculty advisor's portion. Understood?"
...This woman is completely hooked on the food, isn't she.
I'd thought she was just terrifying... but I kept discovering unexpected sides to her.
And then... Festival, D-2.
The classroom had already turned half playground.
Our class booth had been decided — a 'mini-game café' — so everyone stayed after school, blowing up balloons and painting the signboard.
Across the hall, the sound of the band club's rehearsal thundered — boom, boom — through the corridor,
and laughter kept bursting out from somewhere, all the time.
The air itself felt giddy.
The whole school was... swelling up with excitement, waiting only for Friday. That was the feeling.
I wasn't the only one, of course.
Everyone was just waiting for the festival... to go on a date with the boy they'd been secretly thinking about.
Plenty of couples got together by confessing at times like these, too.
"Sihyeon, blow this balloon up for me!"
"Huh? Yeah... okay."
I sat in the corner, doing only what I was told.
Kang Suho... and Eunha, too, had both dropped out, saying they had club activities...
Leaving me alone, seriously.
Watching the others bustling around, a strange unease crept over me.
Last year, at the festival... I'd been one of those giddy kids. How did it come to this?
Last year, there was a boy who'd blown balloons beside me.
When he lost his grip mid-blow and the balloon shot off — fwip! — the two of us doubled over laughing, and on festival day we wandered through every single booth together... and at the end he bought us a chicken skewer, split in half.
'Hey, you ate the bigger half.'
'The person who buys it always eats the bigger half. That's the rule.'
'...You have zero conscience, you know that? That wasn't your money — it was MINE.'
...And this year.
This year, all I hear about that boy... is rumors.
My hands stopped mid-blow on the balloon.
Butler outfit. ...Kang Suho?
I couldn't picture it. No — I didn't want to. Because if I pictured it...
Just then, the other girls' questions snapped the thread of my gloomy thoughts.
"Sihyeon, what are you doing during the festival? Did you get a booth shift?"
"Ah, I... have plans in the morning, so I'm afternoon shift."
"Ooooh, what's this, what's this... Min Sihyeon. Plans? Don't tell me — a guy?"
"...Secret."
All I had to do was say it. That I'd be going around with Kim Minhyun.
That that perfect, golden boy had chosen me... that was all it would take.
Until yesterday, my mouth had practically itched to brag about it...
but strangely, after hearing about Kang Suho, the words just wouldn't come out.
Ha... Forget it, Min Sihyeon.
Thinking like this is an insult to Minhyun, too.
Determined not to think about it anymore... I sent Minhyun a DM.
The reply came fast, complete with a beaming rabbit emoji.
...And that was the end of the conversation.
I stared at that four-line chat window for a long time, then flipped my phone face-down.
Of course, if I wanted to keep talking... I could. He'd keep the conversation going. Minhyun was... kind like that.
So why... why did it keep feeling so empty and lonely?
Ha... Min Sihyeon, seriously... what has gotten into you.
And so, the morning of the festival arrived.
The cooking practice room in the annex already looked like a war zone.
Even so, thanks to what I'd call... the very thorough management of me and Bang Arin, everything was coming together without a single thing slipping through.
"Table setup done! Sign's hung!"
"Omurice rice, par-cooked. Hey... Hong Jihye. Don't touch the eggs."
"The menu! Where'd the menu board go?!"
"...It's in your hand."
Hanging in the window was the sign Cha Eunha claimed to have stayed up all night painting.
~ Cooking Research Club Maid Café ~
Welcome Home, Master ♡
...Did the heart really have to be there?
But it was far too late to point that out. There wasn't time to fix it even if I did.
Bang Arin must have been thinking something similar, because she stepped out to look at it once,
heaved a deep sigh, and went back inside.
And then— 10 a.m. The maid café opened its doors.
"Welcome home, Master!"
Before Hong Jihye and Cha Eunha's voices had even finished ringing out— the first wave of customers came crashing in.
After that... my memory gets hazy.
Orders piling up, pancakes on the griddle, hearts drawn in ketchup on the omurice...
Wasn't this less a maid café for me and more straight-up manual labor?
The practice room's air conditioning was unquestionably running at full blast... but cooking over a flame in midsummer was brutal work.
And with the butler uniform layered on top of it all... I was suffocating to the point of madness.
...So when I heard the line had stretched all the way down the corridor, I couldn't even manage a laugh.
Just when I thought, this is going to kill me of heatstroke, Bang Arin would mouth the words 'don't die' at me and bring a customer's drink over, one at a time. ...Fine. I'd give it everything I had.
"Suho! Two more soufflés! And one Heart-Pop Omurice!"
"Arin! Water for table three!"
"Right away... Master. ...Ugh. Why am I doing this again..."
Grousing all the while, Bang Arin was serving her heart out,
while Cha Eunha, our hawker, and Hong Jihye, our front-of-house host, were both already completely immersed in their maid café roles.
...At this point, weren't they maids in a past life? Like, in Victorian England?
It was chaos, it was noisy, it was hot.
...But it wasn't bad. No, honestly... it was fun.
So this kind of festival existed, too.
Just as I was lost in that thought,
the sound of Cha Eunha enthusiastically rounding up customers outside suddenly cut off.
...What now? Who could've shown up to make her go quiet like that?
Bang Arin was staring out the door with a face gone ice-cold—
and there, in the open doorway,
Kim Minhyun and— Min Sihyeon stood... holding hands.