My Childhood Friend Keeps Glaring at Us
1:20 PM.
"Ingredients... all gone! Sold out, totally sold out!"
With Hong Jihye's announcement, the maid café closed up shop early.
Every one of the five trays of eggs and three rice cookers' worth of rice we'd prepped had been wiped out before noon. Even after we taped a sign reading Sold Out — Closed for the Day to the door, disappointed customers kept lining up anyway...
Calling it a smashing success would be an understatement.
"Alright, time to count the takings! Drumroll, please—"
Jihye popped open the cash box and started tapping away at the calculator... then froze solid.
"...What. How much is it?"
"...We should open a franchise at the next festival."
Cha Eunha snatched the calculator from her and let out a shriek, while Bang Arin quietly closed the cash box again.
Then Hong Jihye flung off her apron and hollered, "Starting now — Cooking Research Club free time!!"
The festival afternoon was even hotter than the morning.
"That! Let's get that! Tteokbokki!"
The truth was... I hadn't exactly asked anyone to hang out with me, but somehow the four of us Cooking Research Club members had just naturally ended up wandering the festival together.
Eunha charged straight at the food stalls, and Jihye took one bite of tteokbokki and pulled a dead-serious face.
"...This texture is flour-based rice cake. More ketchup than gochujang. Sugar added in two stages... and they thickened it with fish cake broth. Not bad."
Then, out of nowhere, Jihye crossed her arms and dragged me up in front of the tteokbokki stand.
"Why are you just standing there dithering? Here, eat this."
Steam curling off a warm paper cup of tteokbokki, suddenly thrust right in front of my face.
...When she's offering this much, refusing would be rude.
It tasted like standard snack-bar tteokbokki, but somehow eating it here felt... different.
"...It's good. Thanks, Jihye."
And then, naturally, I speared a piece of fish cake with a toothpick and held it up to her mouth too.
"Jihye, you didn't eat the fish cake earlier... try a bite."
Maybe it was the heat, but Jihye's face had gone completely red as she kept talking.
...Or maybe the tteokbokki was too spicy for a kid's palate.
"Uh...? No, I-I can feed myself... you don't, don't have to..."
The moment those words left her mouth, Eunha swooped in from the side and stole the bite.
"You prepared this to feed me, right? Thanks~ Suho!"
"...Hey... Cha Eunha!!"
And so Eunha flitted away, with Jihye in hot, furious pursuit.
...Of course, Eunha was caught within moments and duly "punished" by Jihye.
As we were strolling between the booths again, the shooting gallery's advertising caught my eye.
The top prize was a pretty sizable teddy bear...
Then the students running the booth started boasting that nobody could ever knock that bear down with a cork gun.
And to be fair, watching from the side, I'd seen a whole truckload of kids try and fail to win it.
...You're not supposed to waste money at places like this.
So I was just going to walk on by...
"Hey, you four passing by! On a group date? Fun~"
"The guy in the middle needs to man up and win that teddy bear! Then give it to the prettiest girl of the other three~"
"Run away from a challenge here and you're a total loser! A loser!"
...They're really digging into my pride here.
No way. I'm not the kind of person who falls for this kind of cheap sales tactic.
Except it wasn't me who fell for it. It was the girls next to me.
"Hey... Kang Suho. Show them what we've got."
"...Right. Are we really just going to walk past the kids who think our Cooking Research Club is a joke?"
...Sigh. This is just my lot in life.
And so I paid the princely sum of 5,000 won and entered the game.
Exactly three chances.
Armed with an airsoft rifle, I had to hit a teddy bear sitting on a shelf a good few meters away.
Stay calm, Kang Suho. You've got this.
"...Ah."
...In moments like these, a guy's supposed to show his manly side. And I hadn't landed a single shot.
No face to show the girls now.
Just when I thought we'd be leaving the shooting gallery in defeat, Bang Arin — her expression grim as could be — paid her own 5,000 won and stepped in.
"...You did your best. Leave it to me now. Just watch."
Arin looked straight at the students running the booth and called out,
"...The rules earlier said you can keep playing for free every time you win a prize, right?"
The shooting gallery students answered brightly, "Of course! That is... if you CAN win! Every time you knock one down, we refill your ammo with three more shots~"
Hearing that, Arin smiled quietly... and murmured, in a voice just barely loud enough for me alone,
"...How convenient. This booth was made by some pretty dim kids."
"...Huh?"
"...Wha—?"
Arin fired three shots — and all three hit the giant teddy bear on the top shelf, dead center. Consecutively, no less.
The way she landed each successive shot squarely on the bear teetering on the edge of falling — knocking it down with a precise follow-up barrage — was nothing short of artistry.
Finally, the teddy bear toppled limply behind the shelf.
"...No way..."
"Unbelievable! Arin, what ARE you?! Are you a sniper?!"
And it didn't stop there — everything she aimed at, she hit, prize after prize tumbling down...
For a mere 5,000 won, Bang Arin swept the entire prize inventory.
Then, with the most refreshingly serene smile, she bowed to the students running the booth.
"...That was fun. I guess only kids who 'can't shoot' have come by so far. Keep up the good work."
So each of us received a bag stuffed full of prizes, and Arin looked down at the big teddy bear for a moment... then held it out to me.
"...Carry it."
"...Me?"
"My arms hurt."
Just as I was thinking how pathetic it was — the cool role stolen by Arin, me reduced to a pack mule — she leaned in and whispered in my ear.
"...You were kind of cute. Getting all red-faced and sulky over missing every shot."
...Exactly which part of that was cute?
Arin really does have... quite the peculiar taste.
"Oh my, Sihyeon~ Your face is so pale. ...Are you feeling sick somewhere?"
Ms. Choi Ji-woo, our homeroom teacher, had been touring the booths, and she stopped mid-stride to peer closely at my face.
"No, ma'am! I'm fine. I think it's just the heat."
"Really...? Tell me if it gets too much. I'll find a replacement for you."
She smiled and walked on, but...
At the door, she glanced back at me with a worried look. ...Guess you can't fool a homeroom teacher's eyes.
Ever since I'd visited the Cooking Research Club's maid café that morning and then... thrown everything up in the bathroom, my date with Minhyun had effectively ended right there.
I fudged some excuse to Minhyun, but... something must have shown on my face.
Right now I was only half-forcing myself through the afternoon shift at our class booth.
Ugh... I just want to go home already.
Still, it's true I had fun this morning... and everyone else is working hard, so I should too.
"Sihyeon, two ciders for table three!"
"Okay... got it!"
I picked up the tray and turned around — and from the direction of the booth entrance, a familiar burst of laughter drifted in.
"It's over here! Suho and Eunha's class!"
The moment I raised my head, I saw the scene through the window.
Hong Jihye. Arin. Eunha, waving her hand. And right in the middle of them... Kang Suho.
Wherever he'd gotten it, Suho was carefully cradling a teddy bear in his arms.
...Did he win it as a prize?
Before I knew it, the four of them had come inside our classroom, wandered around checking out the booth...
and taken seats by the window.
...And all four of them were deliberately pretending not to see me.
What is this supposed to be? Seriously. I'm... I'm standing right at the front, and they just walked straight past. Like I don't exist.
Then Eunha pulled out a giant board game and sat down.
...The kind that needs at least three or four people to play. You roll the dice, buy land with your money, and collect tolls whenever someone lands on your property — that game.
Watching the four of them amiably setting up... made my mood turn strange.
...Why am I the one naturally left out of that group?
Because I rejected Kang Suho's feelings?
That — that one thing — means they get to ostracize me like this now?
Ha... this is so irritating. All of it... every last bit.
Whatever tangled mess my feelings were in... as time passed, the four of them at that board game were having the time of their lives.
And... even while I worked, my eyes kept locking onto that table and refusing to let go.
Of course, I wasn't the only one looking over there.
Everyone was. With all the noise and commotion, naturally everyone's gaze drifted toward the group having the most fun.
"Ah! Kang Suho! You landed on Busan! Busan!"
"...I don't have any money."
"So what if you're broke? Forehead on the table, right now."
And with that, Eunha put her whole heart into the knuckle rap she delivered to Suho's forehead.
...That one's gotta actually hurt.
A little while later, the tables turned and it was Eunha who landed on Suho's property and had to pay her toll...
and Suho gave her forehead only the lightest little tap — a 'tok' so soft you could barely hear it.
Watching this, the girls beside them erupted in outrage.
"Boo! Boo! Boring! Kang Suho's no fun! Going easy is forbidden! Forbidden!"
"...Games should be fair. It's no fun if you go easy on someone."
Suho was doing his best to pretend he hadn't heard.
Well... if he'd hit her for real, Eunha would cry.
...Stop looking over there, Min Sihyeon.
Whether or not Suho's table is having fun — what does that have to do with me?
If I keep looking... if I keep looking, I lose.
After playing for a good while longer, the four of them got up from their seats.
As they turned to leave, I couldn't hold it in any longer... and spoke up.
"...Hey."
Hong Jihye — that ponytail girl — looked at me like I was a piece of dirt,
and Eunha and Arin, looking thoroughly disappointed, averted their eyes.
...Kang Suho simply turned his whole body away.
Ha... hilarious. All of you.
I don't even need to ask — the cause of all this is Kang Suho. You, isn't it?
Up until now I'd been too uncomfortable to face any of them... but I think it's time to settle this once and for all.
"Kang Suho."
"...We need to talk. You've been leaving all my DMs on read. What is this supposed to be?"
Then suddenly, Hong Jihye wedged herself between me and Suho.
"Suho doesn't want to talk to someone like y—"
Suho... looked me dead in the eye with the expression of someone who'd made up his mind, and cut in.
Hong Jihye stopped mid-word and said nothing more. Eunha and Arin were the same.
"...Fine. Let's talk. ...Where?"
...This isn't something the rest of these uninvited guests need to hear, so I should take us somewhere we can be alone.
"...Kang Suho, follow me. ...And the rest of you, don't follow. 'We two' are going to talk in private."
If I square things with Suho and sort this all out...
then everything will go back to the way it was. Suho will clear up his misunderstanding too.
So will Eunha and Arin.
...Definitely. Definitely, it will. Yes. It will.