Is This a Festival? - 3
I sorted out my thoughts atop the spring rider.
....
Of all the regressions I’d lived through, this was a rather unique situation.
To be honest, it was the first of its kind.
Boing.
Boing.
Boing.
....
Who would have thought?
That I’d end up hearing from A-yeong’s mother first….
Boing.
Boing.
Boing.
This really had been beyond all expectation.
Within my three-month regression cycle, the mere idea of contacting someone’s family was nonsense. No matter how close I got to people, at most we exchanged names properly or ended up as business partners.
And yet, family. Family, of all things… and her family contacted me first.
Of course, A-yeong’s mother hadn’t been stalking me. She hadn’t called my cell phone directly; she’d reached me through the store phone.
A little while earlier, then.
It had been a Saturday morning, and A-yeong hadn’t come in to work.
The store phone had started ringing out of nowhere, so I’d answered it without suspicion.
“Hello?”
“Ah! Hello. Is this the convenience store where ‘Lee A-yeong’ works?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t disclose an employee’s personal information.”
“Ah! I’m sorry. I went and said something awkward to Manager Seonwoo, didn’t I? Look at me, getting all flustered, hoho… Right, I should introduce myself first, shouldn’t I?”
“?”
And that was how the most random introduction of all began.
Her name was Lee Eun-ryeong.
She’d been a social worker once, and later a private volunteer. She was also the one who’d helped A-yeong become naturalized in Korea. She didn’t have a husband, but she had been acting as her guardian and helping her for years.
“Thank you so much. A-yeong has really brightened up lately. She kept saying how grateful she was to Manager Seonwoo. I haven’t even been able to take proper care of her myself….”
What A-yeong’s mother had called to suggest was a meal. It had come so suddenly that I’d struggled to come up with any excuse to refuse, especially since I had no other plans.
I didn’t know A-yeong would talk about me to her parents. And if she went so far as to suggest a meal out of the blue, just how well had she described me…?
The way she spoke made it sound as if she’d met a lifesaver.
Just how much had she told her?
Still.
She must have hidden the part about Bigman.
We’d promised each other that much on the day I revealed my identity.
Even so, A-yeong’s mother had an overflowing air of goodwill about her.
So….
....
…I’d ended up accepting.
“Oh my, really? Thank you.”
“No, I’m the one who should be grateful that you’d even treat me.”
“Ohoho! You really are as humble as A-yeong said.”
“Not at all.”
A-yeong’s mother said she’d come by in the evening. She seemed like the sort of person who found real satisfaction in hosting and treating others as a private volunteer.
And then I came out holding the spring rider.
Back to the present.
I was still riding the spring rider, and I was still analyzing why this situation had happened. That was how far outside expectations it was.
....
A-yeong probably told her parents where she worked as an emergency contact. It can’t be easy for a naturalized woman living alone. As for the VTuber company, she likely gave them the manager’s number.
Boing.
Boing.
Boing.
....
The first Monday of this cycle.
Meeting a VTuber whose pronunciation slipped out of nowhere, on top of that.
Then casually taking off the red pill at the convenience store.
And now, finally, facing her parents….
This particular cycle with A-yeong kept producing unexpected events.
The fact itself felt fresh, but also a little unnerving. Not because those things were trying to hurt me, but because they were trying to wrap me in warmth instead….
....
…I couldn’t refuse it.
....
Boing.
Boing.
Boing.
A connection, then.
Maybe this was another strange kind of connection.
....
Still.
Another question crossed my mind all of a sudden.
Does A-yeong know about this situation?
....
I hadn’t told her not to mention it, so maybe the two of them would come together. The time even overlapped with her evening part-time shift.
But something felt off.
A-yeong is twenty-three this year. Do parents normally talk for her in a situation like this…?
No matter how I looked at it….
A-yeong didn’t seem like the type to be that dependent.
She’d be more likely to bring her mother herself, wouldn’t she?
....
That would have been unique too.
But it would have been more natural than this.
I felt like I ought to say something about that strange sense of unease.
So I pulled out my phone right away. It was still early morning, but I judged that reporting the situation as soon as I understood it would help.
She’ll answer right away once she wakes up and reads it.
....
I went into my private chat with A-yeong. It was full of her jokes—things like, “If Bigman suddenly says hello during a broadcast, people will get startled, right?” and “This is scenery only I get to know.”
Tap.
Tap.
[A-yeong, I have a matter to ask you about.]
Surprisingly, the moment I sent the message, it switched to “read.” And an astonishingly fast reply came back. It was the kind of speed that didn’t even bother with spacing.
Ping!
[Is that so?]
This time, no reply came at once. For a very brief moment, the read status didn’t change. The answer came about a minute later.
Ping!
Ping!
Below the reply came a rabbit emoji covering its face. Its design held a whole range of emotions beneath that dazed expression.
[I was wondering whether you already knew that I had made a lunch appointment with your mother.]
Ping!
A blushing rabbit emoji appeared this time, covering its face with both ears. It was clearly trying to express embarrassment.
And then message after message came pouring in.
Ping!
Ping!
Ping!
“?”
A-yeong had clearly misunderstood what I meant. So I explained the situation as precisely as I could. I wrote carefully, making use of the five Ws and one H so there would be no room for misunderstanding.
....
Tap.
Tap.
[A-yeong’s mother called the store this morning. She said she wanted to have a meal with me. So I thanked her and accepted. I was asking whether you already knew about this situation.]
Send.
....
This time, the message switched to “read” immediately.
But no reply came, even after several minutes. Just as I was about to call, worried that I might have conveyed the meaning badly again, someone on the other end rang me first.
“!”
It was A-yeong.
I answered the call.
“Hello?”
Through the phone.
I heard A-yeong’s flustered voice.
She was so flustered that she started speaking in Japanese.
Then she switched back to Korean.
“…Th, th, that! Hold on, stop for a second! Just wait a minute! I’m going to talk my mom into it right away and call you back. Please wait a little and answer again!”
“Understood. There’s no problem if the two of you take your time and coordinate.”
“No. O-oppa? What about oppa?”
“Yes?”
“Are you okay with it? Isn’t it a burden?”
....
The sudden drop into casual speech.
Was she that flustered?
“I’m fine. I don’t think it’s rude. On the contrary, it means you spoke well of me to your mother. But if you’re uncomfortable, it may be better to reschedule.”
....
A brief silence.
....
....
At last, A-yeong spoke.
“Then, um… let’s meet together today.”
“Yes, understood.”
*
Evening came.
As promised, A-yeong’s mother, Lee Eun-ryeong, came to the convenience store. And around the same time, A-yeong arrived too. The two women stood in front of me.
A-yeong kept readjusting her baseball cap awkwardly. Her face was red, and she kept shifting her feet. Beside her stood her mother, glancing back and forth between A-yeong and me with a delighted expression.
A-yeong groaned and said, “You should’ve told me….”
“Ohoho! I was just planning to talk a bit with Manager Seonwoo.”
“But still….”
“My, look at her pouting. Do you always act like that in front of Manager Seonwoo? The quiet little girl always acts spoiled when she gets a chance, huh?”
“No, that’s not it…. It’s just because Mom suddenly said she wanted to come see the manager….”
“You told me all about how you always go on and on about Manager Seonwoo, how you whine to him all the time. I only wanted to treat him to a meal because I was grateful.”
“T-That’s… but you didn’t have to come….”
“Just a few months ago, you kept saying work at the company was rough. Then the moment Manager Seonwoo came up, your whole face brightened. Of course I’m grateful.”
....
Her eyes kept darting over here.
Usually bright and cheerful, A-yeong was at a loss for what to do.
She seemed embarrassed that her private feelings had been exposed.
....
I more or less understood the situation.
She probably didn’t tell her mother the details about the VTuber company, but she did tell her things hadn’t been going well until recently… And maybe she boasted a little about the convenience store after the remodel?
I bowed to A-yeong’s mother.
“Good evening. I’m Seonwoo Taek, the manager. A-yeong’s hard work is always a tremendous help to me.”
“Hoho! My, I never expected you to be such a polite young man. No wonder our A-yeong talks about you all the time. She’s always saying she did this at the convenience store, ate that, had fun doing this with Manager Seonwoo….”
“M-Mom, stop…!”
It really did look like a close mother and daughter.
In the end, A-yeong covered her face with both hands. But the warmth in her mother’s gaze toward me never faded.
A relationship laid bare, and goodwill without the least trace of embarrassment.
....
Since she left out the part about the VTuber company, she must have gone into detail about our days at the convenience store. That’s why her mother thinks of me like a real boss—or even a benefactor.
A VTuber who kept classified matters secret even from her family. I couldn’t tell whether that was excellent professional discipline or whether I ought to be more concerned about red pills going in a different direction.
Even so.
I hadn’t expected her to talk more about convenience-store stories than about her actual VTuber work.
In a situation like this, Bigman and all that….
It started to feel strangely pointless.
....
It was a strange feeling.
In front of Lee A-yeong and Lee Eun-ryeong,
I wasn’t Bigman.
I was Seonwoo Taek.
Not a regressor,
not an investor,
not a man of power….
Just.
Manager Seonwoo Taek.
Some strange guy who lived at a convenience store.
That was who I was.
And it felt truly alive.
The sense of liberation, and the faint embarrassment that came with it, were both unfamiliar.
....
I looked back.
As the evening sun set, the store sign glittered in the sunset glow. That shimmer made this moment stand out more than anything else.
Like a sunset that was beautiful precisely because it would disappear someday.
....
Time remaining until my regression.
Fifteen days.
And I had seen family.
It was a shining moment.
....
I held it all in my eyes, then looked back at the mother and daughter. I looked at the people I had come to know too deeply in this cycle.
“Please take good care of me.”
“Hm?”
“Oh my, I should be the one saying that. Please take good care of us.”
“Ah, Mom!”
And just like that, the three of us went out to eat dinner together. I wanted to keep that sparkle that would never return held safely in my eyes.
*
Sunday evening.
The VTuber community was thrown into chaos again. It was the kind of confusion people showed when something they had believed could never break finally shattered.
- What the hell is this?
- This is fucked up, seriously….
- Wow, the entire domestic VTuber scene is really done for
- For real??? No joke, this is actually happening???
That chaos began from a breaking report.