Everyone Has a Childlike Heart
It was Saturday again.
The market, that madhouse full of deception, had come to a brief halt, and the girl preparing for Summer Live had gone off to work out a new plan.
Which meant the people left behind handled other work.
“....”
I spent the morning at the convenience store, putting in hard labor.
I was continuing my routine of buying up food that was about to be discarded, using my own money, and donating it. First, I rang up the mountain of items one by one.
“....”
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The settlement process was dull.
So as I scanned the barcodes, I thought.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“....”
I stopped at the end of the previous loop and the beginning of this one because I was too overwhelmed... but it’s time to start again. Finding a clue to this endless regression is one thing, but there’s no reason to stop doing something meaningful.
A meaningful thing.
Making sure things went where they were needed.
In capitalist terms, it was the sort of thing that would get me mocked with, “What, did you hide a sickle and hammer in your jacket?” Even so, I wanted to do it.
The situation has changed a little. But I’m still me, and the world is still the world. It’d be stranger to compromise now and go along with things.
Extra money was for happiness.
What overflowed should go to the people who needed it.
It was a very simple logic.
That was how I had lived so far.
It was how I would keep living.
I was still a regressor.
The fact that everything could disappear tomorrow was still true today. So staying faithful to the present remained the same.
“....”
Just a little.
It was unfamiliar to feel myself looking forward to tomorrow.
Beep.
I finished scanning everything.
Now it was time to put in the physical work. In truth, that part wasn’t very complicated either. It was just the same repetitive exercise, moving between the storage room and the truck.
I hoisted up one box.
Then I set it down at the edge of the truck bed.
Do that dozens of times, and you were done.
“Hoo....”
Sweat poured down my back like rain.
Even though it was only a May morning, the heat was already vicious. But I didn’t care and fetched a box of snacks, carrying it to the truck bed.
I moved the last load.
“Heave-ho.”
The brown box flew through the air.
And then it came back down to earth.
Thud—!
The box of shrimp chips landed safely. From here on, they would face their tragic fate: dismemberment at the merciless hands of children at the orphanage.
“....”
Weirdly enough, shrimp chips seem to be more popular with kids than adults. I think Ms. Dodam likes them too.
Well....
Dodam mostly seemed to eat them as something like a snack to go with drinks. I had also been surprised recently to learn she liked drinking more than I’d expected.
After the arcade remodel was finished, Dodam had grinned at me and said,
- Boss, let’s grab a beer sometime. I’ll buy next time.
“....”
Probably just goodwill toward someone who’d connected her with a good investor, but that still seems like a dangerously unguarded offer.
Remembering what Dodam had said, I tidied the things stacked in the cargo bed. I also made sure to tie them down with a net so they wouldn’t bounce out during transport.
Then I sat on top of the truck and let out a sigh.
“Haa....”
A warm breeze brushed past me,
reminding me of the border between late spring and early summer.
“....”
I looked ahead.
The blue Han River flowed quietly along. People were walking down on the path below the hill. And a few clouds drifted through the sky above.
It was mid-May, still far from the chaos of July.
Thanks to the 22 billion won I’d accumulated,
the smoothly unfolding BigPlan,
and the precious connections that were still left to me,
I had gained a little breathing room in my heart.
“....”
But.
I didn’t say anything that could jinx it, like, “Feels peaceful....”
The more peaceful things seem, the more careful you have to be.
From a regressor’s experience,
I had never once seen someone say that and then have peace continue.
And to be precise,
this situation wasn’t peace at all.
It was a taut stage of preparation.
Team Leader Jeong Yu-ri would have read my email by now, and Ah-young had even taken time off her part-time job to prepare the draft for Summer Live.
There might not be anything I could do immediately,
but it was the calm before the storm.
And there’s Dodam’s arcade event too. The second event will start later tonight.
It might have been trivial to anyone who remembered the BigPlan from the previous loop, but the arcade event held on Friday was being talked about all over the place.
Before the revamped BigPlan planning even began,
it was the perfect thing to raise people’s expectations....
- Boss!
“....”
Perfect....
- Boss, wait a second! Don’t go!
“....”
I looked down.
A short-haired girl in shorts was scrambling up the slope below. Her white shirt was soaked through with sweat as she pushed herself uphill with desperate determination.
Why is Ms. Dodam here...?
Dodam came running in a loose, flopping gait. Then she braced a hand against her thin leg and panted.
“Huff, huff.... Haa.... I’m dead.”
“....”
“I didn’t know when you were leaving, h-heh.... so I came early.... Hoo....! I almost missed you right in front of my face.”
“....”
I got down from the truck.
“What brings you here?”
“No, I mean, well.... Hehe.”
Dodam wiped the sweat from her face with the hem of her white shirt and gave an awkward laugh. Her hair stuck to her sweat-damp cheeks, making her look like a frail, sickly beauty with a delicate smile.
Maybe because she was a homebody.
Her especially pale skin stood out even more.
I waited for her to catch her breath and thought.
“....”
If she shuts her mouth, does her image change that much? She gives off a completely different impression from her actual personality.
A moment later, Dodam hesitated before speaking.
“I just.... figured the arcade event starts tonight, so I’d come chat with the boss a little.... To be blunt, I wanted to talk about something with just the two of us while Aki wasn’t here.”
“Just the two of us?”
“Y-yeah....”
The implication was loaded.
But if you let that kind of thing shake you, you lost.
I waited silently for her to continue.
As expected, Dodam got straight to the point.
“Th-the, you know. That thing.”
“....”
“Th-that.... thing.”
“Take your time. I’ll wait.”
“....”
Dodam fidgeted with her fingers, visibly at a loss. It was a far cry from her usual self, when she’d strike a mantis-fist pose and howl like some wild thing.
At last, after a long hesitation, she opened her mouth.
“D-did BigMan have anything to say about my arcade event?”
“....”
For a moment,
Is my brother BigMan?
along with the memory of the previous loop, the thought flashed through me that her identity had been exposed again.
But I quickly sorted my head out and understood the situation.
“....”
Dodam still doesn’t know the connection between BigMan and me. She just knows I’ve been acting as BigMan’s proxy, so she came to ask about BigMan’s intentions naturally, didn’t she?
I didn’t know why she’d chosen a time when Ah-young wasn’t around, but if she had come in secret to ask what BigMan thought, that made sense.
I asked my inner BigMan, and he said that even accounting for it being the first project, it was excellent.
“....”
Even though she was the first person to step up and knew nothing, she’d used the BigMan system to create an emotional anchor and resonance. That was impressive.
So I answered her.
“He was very satisfied. Since this was the first pilot project, I imagine it must have been difficult, but he seemed impressed that you produced results in such a short time.”
“!”
Dodam’s face lit up.
She smiled like a boy who had broken through a 0.001 percent chance and stumbled on a rare item that had dropped by sheer luck. She clenched both fists and bounced on the balls of her feet.
“R-really?! He really said that?!”
“Yes, he was very satisfied. He said it was an especially outstanding result as a test case for the next VTuber project as well.”
“What exactly did he like about it—?!”
I relayed the opinion my inner BigMan had given me.
“He said it was impressive how you used a fighting game with remote communication to naturally preserve a space where fans could participate. And, in the end, how you built an emotional anchor called the ‘arcade.’ Leaving a memory in a place is a high-level branding technique, and he said you’d grasped that instinctively.”
“U-uhh...?”
Dodam tilted her head as my explanation grew longer.
So I summarized it briefly.
“He said you have the makings of a great planner.”
“O-ohh...! Ooooh! Ooooh!”
When I finished, Dodam suddenly threw both hands toward the sky. Then she puffed out her chest and declared,
“Big, BigMan-! God was watching over me...!”
“....”
“God has blessed us! Long live the BigMan nation! The greatest god of money in this world...!”
“He’s not a money god. He’s just an overseas investor.”
“What?”
Dodam suddenly jerked her head down and bumped it against me. Since she was so small, it didn’t do much damage.
She huffed and said,
“Boss, I’m disappointed! Unbeliever! Don’t insult BigMan! He’s the one I worship!”
“....”
Her headbutt had no force behind it to begin with. She probably wasn’t genuinely turning into a zealot; she was just teasing me for saying something that killed the mood.
“....”
A little.
Just a little.
There was some seriousness mixed in there too.
“....”
It hasn’t even been a week since she found out about him. Why is she so fired up about BigMan...?
Regardless of that thought, it was true that I had spoiled her mood.
So I apologized.
“I’m sorry. That was just my opinion, so please don’t take it too seriously.”
“N-no.... It’s just that it was basically pro wrestling, and then you countered with mixed martial arts out of nowhere, so I was a little caught off guard too.”
“I see?”
Dodam blushed a little. Then, with her hands clasped behind her back, she said,
“It’s just.... this is the first time anyone’s given me money and believed in me like this, so I got a little excited. Up until now, there were plenty of people trying to suck money out of me, but nobody who said, ‘Here, use it and try doing what you want.’”
“....”
“Thanks to the boss, I met a god, so I just wanted to talk comfortably with the boss about BigMan. It’s kind of embarrassing in front of Aki.”
“....”
“So.... that’s all.”
Dodam poked out her lower lip slightly as she spoke.
“This is a secret from Aki, okay?”
“Understood.”
Being given money and trust by someone.
It wasn’t just Ah-young who had been moved by that fact.
Dodam was no different.
No....
Maybe she was even more moved than Ah-young had been.
“....”
Maybe even in the previous loop, she had feelings she didn’t say in front of the other members because she was too embarrassed. In this loop, I just happened to learn them because I’d taken on the role of BigMan’s proxy.
I made Dodam a promise.
“I’ll keep it secret. If you ever want to know what BigMan thinks, ask me anytime. Don’t hesitate.”
“!”
Dodam looked a little moved.
“That’s so damn cool.... So you had the authority to talk back to a Dubai oil tycoon.”
“A Dubai oil tycoon?”
“Yep.”
Dodam spoke brightly.
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m pretty sure God is a tycoon working out of Dubai. The hours when BigMan seems to be moving to make donations line up exactly with daytime in Dubai.”
“....”
“And I heard the royal family of the United Arab Emirates cares a lot about the number ‘100,’ and BigMan’s donations just happen to be....”
Chatter, chatter.
That was how Dodam’s rumor-based analysis began. In the end, she even followed me around while I volunteered and kept reciting her theory about BigMan’s true identity.
I listened to her in a daze while driving.
“....”
“So after studying in Japan, he got interested in subculture. And the girlfriend he met there had an incurable illness and died, which led him to carry forward the dream his orphaned girlfriend had cherished, the dream of becoming an idol....”
Listening to her analysis from the passenger seat, I started to feel strangely light-headed.
“....”
I thought Ms. Dodam had a strong grip on reality. It’s just that her direction is different, but her imagination is on a level with Beriri.
To be more precise,
because she was so worn down by reality,
it felt like she was borrowing someone else’s dream and nurturing it.
The only difference was that the dream had been heavily romanticized and exaggerated.
To put it another way, she’s like a fan who believes in a VTuber named BigMan.
It was ironic.
A VTuber herself, imagining and worshipping a fictional BigMan....
But Dodam wasn’t being ridiculous.
Between her packed broadcast schedule, she was willing to confide in me, her proxy. That was proof of how deeply she had immersed herself in the dream called BigMan.
“....”
So I listened quietly.
It was the only thing I could do.
...BigMan is someone who will have to disappear someday.
Whatever I thought about that, Dodam followed me all the way to the temple with a bright expression.
“So anyway. The BigMan I imagine is a charismatic ruler of the underworld, but he’s warm to my girl....!”
Even while I moved the donated goods, Dodam grunted and carried them beside me. And all the while, she kept talking about her BigMan scenario.
When the temple head saw that, he scolded me.
“You brat. You already changed wives? Even if a person has just one connection, they’re supposed to cherish it. That’s basic human decency....!”
“That’s not what this is.”
But Dodam’s scenario didn’t stop.
“So, boss, if you see the god next time, you have to preserve that noble face....!”
“....”
At that, I looked up at the sky.
I wanted to finish the thought I’d left hanging.
“...Peaceful, isn’t it.”
*
A long bicycle path stretched beside the Han River.
A woman was riding a bike along it.
“Utya, utyatya....”
She sped forward with exhilarating momentum.
Her hair, tied back in a single bundle, trailed behind her like the tail of a comet, and the wind cut across her face beneath her sunglasses.
Whoooosh—!
She muttered to herself.
“Utyatya....”
This is my last ride before I leave for Japan on a business trip. Maybe I should pick up the pace a little?
Thinking that,
she was about to push the pedals harder.
That was right before her eyes met a pigeon that had suddenly burst out in front of her. It came flying from somewhere, scattering filthy feathers as it collided with her.
Smack!
“Utya—?!”
Startled out of her mind,
the woman jerked the handlebars sharply.
And then she went down in a spectacular spill.
Crash!
She rolled across the grass. The fall was so violent that the world seemed to spin wildly in front of her eyes.
“Gah....!”
Since it’s grass, maybe I didn’t get hurt too badly....
“Haa....”
For a while she could only groan. Then, barely, she got back to her feet. Her whole body had been bruised, and there wasn’t a spot that didn’t ache.
“I’m screwed....”
The scene in front of her was a disaster.
The bike she’d been riding had fallen down below, into a narrow stream. The front wheel was still spinning, but it had bent slightly.
The woman stared blankly around her.
She had come this far after riding for a long time, so even if she tried to take a taxi, she’d still have to get out to the front road. On top of that, the screen of her phone was cracked and flickering.
So she muttered,
“Utyatya....”
What was done was done.
There was no point in only thinking negative thoughts.
It was better to just go “Utyatya” like a baby.
The moment she thought that,
a voice came from behind her.
“Are you all right?”
“!”
She turned around.
A white truck had stopped.
From it, a blank-faced man and a short-haired woman got out. They had been driving along when they must have noticed her and come over, looking around in surprise.
The woman who loved riding bikes, Jang Se-yeon, smiled.
“Utyatya!”
Of course.
Utyatya was the right answer.
That’s why the broadcasts went so well too. At first the boss said absolutely not, but there was no way anyone could hate Utyatya.
Such an absurdly cheerful thought.
She was a VTuber.
More specifically, a member of a major agency group.
“Utyatya!”
Her other name was Haerin, from Romantic Drive.