Now ABCD-RD United Rules Here - 2
Live now: [R.D.2] The Grand Romantic Noodle-Making Journey
Live viewer count: 51,211
Thursday evening.
The RD members had put on another planned broadcast the day after Wednesday’s, and the screen was split into four sections.
One showed Danhui and Hae-rin kneading the dough, another showed Oiram and Yulhwa chopping vegetables, and the last was a hand cam that captured the members’ hands in close-up.
The whole setup felt like a cooking show.
RD really were making noodles from scratch.
Squish, squish.
Bubble, bubble.
Scrape, scrape.
“....”
“....”
“....”
“....”
Even so, the fans loved it.
Hand-cam live broadcasts had been banned back in the Arc Network days. And this was also their first studio broadcast that wasn’t prerecorded.
“A scene where my wives are preparing food.... This is truly a precious sight, haha.”
While that stream of nonsense flew back and forth, Danhui was kneading the dough and speaking to Hae-rin.
“By the way, Hae-rin. When you were in Japan, what did you eat?”
Hae-rin kneaded the dough as she answered.
“Just whatever from convenience stores? Oh, I was eating pudding, and the staff member who came with me kept watching and laughing a lot.”
“Why?”
“He asked why people from Korea always come into convenience stores and head straight for pudding. He said whenever he looks, they always take the pudding first.”
“So what did you say?”
“I got it on my mouth and went, ‘Utya, utyatya pudding is delicious,’ and he said I was a funny person before heading off to the restroom.”
“Hae-rin did?”
“No, the staff member did.”
Danhui nodded.
“Ah, he must’ve had to poop.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
The stream had this quiet kind of madness simmering through it, and because of that, the viewers stayed satisfied even without any flashy spectacle. The noisy, oddly gentle cooking session came to an end.
Yulhwa and Oiram tasted the dough that had absorbed the sisters’ hands-on touch.
And they praised it to the heavens.
“Oh wow, this is just flour.”
“Danhui unnie, are you sure you actually mixed this properly?”
Danhui ignored them.
“All right! Today’s plan has ended safely as well. Were you all happy, Daniel, Julius, Oidan, and Sun Class? We’ll be back tomorrow with another full, fun broadcast, so please look forward to it, and don’t forget to subscribe, like, and turn on notifications. I hope you all have a happy day today too!”
“Ah!”
Danhui added a final notice about the busy senior sisters’ schedule.
“Next week, Friday night at 9 p.m.! July 30th! Our Big Plan sisters and seniors, ABCD seniors, will be holding their live event! ...so please show it lots of love. But you’re all BigMen anyway, so of course you’ll be going, right?”
While ABCD was busy with lessons, RD handled a variety of planned broadcasts.
ABCD’s fandom watched those planned streams too. Since the two fan communities had always been on good terms, the integration of the groups was moving quickly.
And while the Studio Romance side kept riding the momentum of its miraculous recovery, Aurora Entertainment was working late into the night to prepare for the live event that was now only a week away.
Then Friday arrived.
*
Friday morning.
“....”
I was in the rooftop room above the convenience store.
I was in the middle of packing, so I was putting a few clothes and toiletries into a large backpack. I didn’t toss in just anything. It was all stuff I’d used since the very first day of the regression.
Gray T-shirt.
Black pants.
Socks and underwear.
Travel toiletries.
Phone and battery pack.
That was it.
There wasn’t much, so I could pack it all up quickly.
I closed the zipper.
Riiip—
Even after everything went in, the backpack still looked thin.
That was only natural. On the first day of regression, I was always an unemployed nobody with nothing to my name. Anything important got bought on Monday, after the lottery winnings made things comfortable.
I set the thin backpack by the shoe rack.
Then I looked back.
“....”
A one-room rooftop place, barely four pyeong in size.
There was a clean bathroom and a tiny kitchen. By mid-July, it had gotten pretty hot, but I never bothered to install an air conditioner. There was no point now, anyway.
I wandered over to the kitchen sink for no reason. I’d used it often over the past two months, so the place had settled into a kind of lived-in rhythm. I’d sometimes boil ramen or make food for Ah-young.
I turned the faucet.
Whoosh—
The water came out fine.
Of course it did. This was a convenience store next to the Han River, after all.
“....”
“Manager-nim, you’re really good at cooking.”
“Manager-nim! How did you do this?”
“Manager-nim~ please make pizza bread one more time.”
“Brother Taek, where did you learn to cook?”
“Brother Taek, if you open a restaurant again later....”
“Oppa, thank you. Hehe.”
“....”
That’s probably enough use out of this place.
I turned it off again.
Click!
“....”
I looked beside me.
On the mattress, there was a neatly folded blanket and a charger. Next to them stood the computer desk with dual monitors. On the desk, three-set purchases of All-Star Boxes were stacked up like a tower.
I’d made over 30 billion won from this place.
And with that money, I’d done quite a few things.
I could say I’d spent it well enough.
“....”
Still....
I should’ve earned a little more.
I’d done a lot as BigMan.
ABCD, Big Plan, even the RD acquisition.
Objectively, I’d done enough that people could call it “saving” them. I had turned people who would otherwise have been swept away by the waves of the world toward a future instead.
“....”
Even so.
I could have done better.
In the waves that were crashing over this world, I could have prepared an even better stage, a better world.
Maybe I could have saved more people.
“....”
If only I’d earned.
A little.
More.
“....”
I reached out my hand.
At my fingertips was the only unopened All-Star Box. On its smooth surface was a simple yellow illustration of Aki-chan.
It was something she had given me in this timeline.
“...Aki.”
Even a regressor trapped in infinity still has a loop full of regrets.
“....”
Ah-young’s empty back came to mind.
Seeing that, I had made up my mind to acquire RD. But that was as far as I got. The people I could save now were only them.
And yet Ah-young thanked me.
Thank you, BigMan. For saving everyone.
...I didn’t save everyone, though.
Still.
Gathering my courage from that one line, I packed the yellow All-Star Box away.
The thin backpack grew a little bulge.
“....”
I slung the backpack over my shoulder and stepped out.
My rooftop life ended here. Even if I came in to the convenience store as manager until the very end, where I lived had to go back to the one-room apartment from the first day of regression.
Unless I jumped straight into the sea or left the country, this was always how it went.
If I spent the time between in some half-assed, similar place and then hit the first day of regression there.... it would throw me into a truly awful kind of confusion. Going back to the one-room place at least a week before the regression was better for my head.
“....”
Eight days left.
The road back to the beginning.
My mind was calm.
“....”
I stepped out of the rooftop room.
“I’ve stayed well.”
To someone I didn’t know, I offered a quiet farewell and locked the door.
Click.
I went down the stairs.
The hallway was dark, in contrast to the oppressive July sun outside.
Then I passed the second-floor lounge. I remembered the foreign film I’d watched there once with Ah-young and Dodam. It had been calm and nothing special, but hopeful.
Dodam just fell asleep because she was bored. I figured she’d hate a movie like that, since she’s the impulsive type.
I went down to the first floor.
A cheap blue plastic outdoor table came into view.
That was where Ah-young and I had made plans and watched the fireworks together. She had said she wanted to stand someday on the greatest stage of all, the kind where fireworks like that would be launched.
A stage like that would need to be booked at least two months in advance. The setup cost alone would probably be around 8 billion won. And I’d need to secure at least 4,000 people in the audience.
The convenience store came into view.
Its lights were off and the door was firmly locked. In front of it were the truck I’d used when making donations and the camper van I’d toured the country in with Dr. Jang.
“....”
I looked back.
The convenience store.
It was too convenient.
I didn’t want to leave.
Had I made it too comfortable?
“....”
Just then, my phone rang.
Ping!
I looked at the screen.
The group chat, which now included me, had the elders who’d become close over time making breakfast plans with cheerful chatter from early morning. It was the pastor, the priest, Dr. Jang, and Ah-young’s mother.
Religions,
lives,
genders,
all different people talking about a place.
We’d only known each other for a few days, but they’d already become close enough to want to meet tomorrow.
The elders heard each other talking, asked to be introduced once, and after I let them know, it seems like they became really close very quickly.
Maybe that was because they were people who had lived lonely lives.
“....”
I hesitated for a moment.
Then I said it.
They were briefly surprised.
Then they cheered.
And then they discussed who would bring what, what the menu should be, and what time would be best to meet.
The means by which people were tied to one another.
That was their own version of the Big Plan.
“....”
I stared at the convenience store.
Plans had been made here.
I’d decided to leave, and yet.
It looked like I’d have to stay one more day after all.
Making a stupid excuse, I tossed my bag next to the outdoor table. Then I sat blankly under the parasol.
“....”
Of course I didn’t want to leave.
It was too comfortable because I’d made it that way.
*
Representative Baek Su-cheol drove toward the company.
He was on his way back after finally getting some sleep at home for the first time in a while. Sitting in the passenger seat was his older sister, Baek Hyang. Today, as always, she was dressed in white hanbok.
While they waited at the red light, silence filled the car.
“....”
“....”
Baek Su-cheol was the first to speak.
“Sis, do you need anything else for the ritual later?”
“....”
Baek Hyang shook her head. Her white hair fluttered lightly.
“No.”
“I see.”
Silence again.
“....”
“....”
The light was taking especially long, so Su-cheol opened his mouth again.
“Sis.”
“?”
“You know, I had that dream again yesterday. Maybe it’s because I came home after such a long time? It was so vivid, like it was playing on a color TV.”
“....”
“The day your hair turned white, and you held my hand and went off to save the people in the village. I guess it’s because that memory is still so clear. Maybe because I nearly died and came back to life. It was just like a movie, with the doctor bursting in the moment I got to the hospital... hehe.”
“I see.”
Su-cheol nodded.
“Yeah, but...”
“?”
“When I got up and thought about it, something felt strange.”
“What did.”
“Our neighborhood was a total backwater, right? And the illness I had was one of those super-rare diseases you hardly ever see anywhere in the world.”
“....”
“So how did it happen that, just like that, there was a doctor at the hospital who’d actually performed that surgery? And you’d even saved that doctor’s son once when he fell into the water. So he cut the surgery costs down by a ton, too.”
“....”
“And then there was the stationery shop lady, that foul-tempered old bat. Since when was she so nice to our family? If it hadn’t been for that lady, I’d probably have gone wandering around hungry again and collapsed to death.”
“....”
Su-cheol scratched his chin.
“Something. I can’t quite remember what, but... when did those people and our family become so close? I can’t really remember....”
His thought was cut off by a horn from behind.
Honk!
The light had changed without him noticing.
“!”
“!”
Su-cheol hurriedly looked ahead and drove on.
“Whew, maybe I’m so tense that I keep having weird thoughts. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking.”
Baek Hyang started to answer, then closed her mouth.
....
In the end, even if she said it, he wouldn’t believe her.
The month that had stretched on without end.
All the things that had happened in that time.
....
For now, she would simply go perform the ritual at her younger brother’s request.