Ski Resort (2)
Ski Resort (2)
The road to the central plaza, where the coin karaoke and arcade were located, was full of hills, so we took the car.
It was cold out, and we had already worn ourselves out skiing,
so we didn't have the energy to go walking around again.
Jeong Hwan-yi and Lee Min-ho must have felt the same. They were both basking in the car's heater.
Sure enough, as evening came and the weather grew colder,
there were noticeably fewer people walking around outside.
It seemed the cold made even people who came here to play lazy.
"Looks like a lot of people drive down here just like we do."
"Honestly, it's way too cold."
"It's cold, and everyone's probably shivering from muscle aches."
And on top of that, we'd just gotten out of the bath.
We probably felt the cold more than anyone else.
Once we reached the central plaza, we parked the car
and dashed into the building.
Actually, could I even call it a building?
It was that style where they just put up walls and a roof over an outdoor space, so you couldn't really call it a building,
but it felt like a place you could at least call 'indoors'.
Still, the heater was blasting full force,
so it wasn't cold at all. In fact, with the stars showing beautifully through the transparent ceiling,
the atmosphere was pretty nice.
"It really would be a great place for setting up food stall bars."
"Yeah... It has that street food stall feel without being cold."
"You could get some pretty decent business ideas from a place like this... As expected, places that make good money are something else."
We, barely twenty years old, were probably
admiring things from a perspective quite different from our peers.
I mean, I was a bit sloppy about it, but those two were guys capable of handling everything from planning to filming,
and they were smart in so many ways.
How did we, who are nothing more than ordinary university students,
end up like this...
Come to think of it, was it mostly my fault?
After wandering around the interior for a while,
we decided to tackle dinner first.
For the record, we had put the meat in the fridge.
It was because grilling meat in our current physical condition was too exhausting.
"Don't tell me everything here is a food court?"
"It's a bit pricey, but they do sell a lot of different things."
Checking the menu, the prices listed were far more expensive than eating at a department store in Seoul.
A single hamburger set for 15,000 won made me seriously wonder if they'd written the prices by mistake.
"This is a frozen hamburger."
"My family ate it once before too. You know those cheap hamburgers they sell at the mart?
They took those apart, added some vegetables, and served it like that."
"The fries are frozen too."
"Wow... So this is why people who make a lot of money are smart."
So by saving money to this extent, that's what people call using a money duplication bug, right?
*
"Huh? There's a cable car too?"
Looking at the sign, there was a place where you could ride a cable car leading to the mountain right behind.
Though, it looked like they didn't operate at night.
The price was 25,000 won for a round trip...
25,000 won per person.
"Taking a ride once on the last day wouldn't be bad."
"As expected of a tourist spot, it's expensive..."
"Yeah, seeing that the price difference between round trip and one-way is only 4,000 won, it is a bit pricey."
It felt like it was already too late to say I was scared and didn't want to ride,
so I just stayed quiet.
These guys really have no fear, I swear...
Maybe it was just because I had something like a fear of heights,
but just looking at things like that made my hands sweat profusely.
"Seong-hwan, what's wrong?"
"Just thinking it might be a little scary."
As I wiped the sweat from my hands onto my clothes and sniffled,
the two of them burst out laughing.
"At times like this, you act like such a guy. Don't tell me you're scared?"
"I- I am..."
"Now that I think about it, you squeezed your eyes shut tight when we got on the lift earlier."
Lee Min-ho started snickering, saying he had seen everything from the side.
No, wouldn't anyone feel scared riding a lift?
I'd even felt terror while riding it, worried we might fall off.
"Yeah, laugh it up, laugh it up. I'm not taking the lift, I'm only using the ski escalator."
"What, are you sulking?"
"I'm not sulking. Let's go eat, quickly."
I pushed Lee Min-ho's back as he kept snickering,
hurrying him along.
At this rate, we were going to end up just talking here and heading right back to the lodging.
***
"Unnie, what are you thinking about?"
"Just thinking about Seong-hwan..."
"Didn't you say he went on a trip to a ski resort with his friends today?"
"Yeah..."
Eun-ji, with a hairstyle a little different from usual,
spoke to A-ra casually while eating ice cream.
It was the hairstyle commonly called twin tails,
and recently, it had become popular on broadcast for being cute,
so it was now one of the styles she wore often.
Meanwhile, A-ra, who stuck to straight hair,
let out a big sigh while watching Eun-ji enjoy her ice cream.
"If you were going to worry that much, you should've just not let him go."
"...The way you say that, someone might think I'm keeping Seong-hwan locked up."
"My oppa says that for men, marriage is basically about being tied down."
"That goes for women too."
Marriage is about being bound to each other legally and emotionally and living together.
Both Seong-hwan and A-ra knew that well.
"Still, sending him on a trip with just guys is a little worrying."
"Jeonghwan-ssi and Lee Min-ho-ssi are reliable, so I'm a bit less worried, but..."
"What about Seong-hwan?"
"You know Seong-hwan is really delicate."
"He is kind of like that."
Eun-ji began to picture Seong-hwan in her mind.
A foolish man with a gentle expression, who looked frail yet soft, and who only knew his own wife.
The fact that a person like that actually existed
had been a shock to her at first.
"Anyway, where did he go?"
"Towards Jeolla Province."
"He went pretty far. There are ski resorts around here too."
"I guess his friends said since they were going anyway, they should go far."
"Hmm... Sounds fun."
Eun-ji pulled the ice cream she'd been eating out of her mouth with a pop and held it in her hand,
then let out a sigh and started looking at the ceiling.
It was what people commonly called the 'post-nut clarity' phenomenon—
hearing that someone else went off to have fun made her, working diligently,
feel a slight sense of deprivation.
"Unnie, should we blow through one schedule slot and go play too?"
"Where to?"
At Eun-ji's words, A-ra's expression brightened in an instant.
That was because if she latched onto Eun-ji, who would occasionally poke holes in the schedule to go have fun,
A-ra could also blow a hole in her schedule without getting too much hassle.
And when Eun-ji put a hole in the schedule, it inevitably forced Yeji or Hwa-young to
do the same, so she was thinking it would be fun if they all went together to play.
"Since Seong-hwan went to the ski resort... shall we go fishing?"
"Fishing? Should we go sea fishing?"
"Yeah. Let's go to the sea."
She started coaxing A-ra,
insisting there was a connection since they were both leisure sports.
As it happened, A-ra had also watched a fishing program yesterday,
so her urge to go fishing had built up considerably.
"How about we leave the day after Seong-hwan gets back?"
"That soon?"
"To be honest, I'm dying to go play soon."
"Same here."
For the two of them, whose schedules were packed tight this winter,
there was barely any justification to make time for rest.
Though Eun-ji was somewhat headstrong, so she could probably get away with a no-show once or so,
she figured if she didn't do it now, she wouldn't get another chance.
"Didn't you say he went for 4 days and 3 nights? Then he'll be back in two days?"
"Yeah, though getting back will take a little while."
"Anyway, when Seong-hwan gets back, tell him we're going fishing."
"What if he says he wants to come along?"
"What do you mean what if? We just tell him he went to play so he should rest comfortably.
And besides, Seong-hwan doesn't have the stamina for actual sea fishing."
The kind of sea fishing the two of them had in mind was either fishing from atop rocks
or renting a small motorboat and heading far out to sea.
Since that was a bit far removed from what men usually thought of as harbor fishing,
they knew he probably wouldn't even try to follow along.
***
"It's not as bad as I thought."
"About a 7 out of 10?"
"7? I feel like you could give it at least an 8..."
Of course, it was a bit pricey, but it wasn't tasteless or anything.
Rather, maybe because the seasoning was a bit strong, it was decent to eat,
and seeing how the other customers seemed similarly satisfied,
I figured the reviews probably weren't that bad.
"If there's a drawback, I guess the portions are a bit small."
"You ate all that and you're saying the portions are small?"
Three plates were laid out in front of Lee Min-ho.
They were the dishes that had held pork cutlet, udon, and gimbap.
"Don't worry about him, he eats a lot when he exercises."
"You're probably the only one here eating little, Seong-hwan."
In front of me, there was only the bowl that had held mini pasta, the small dish for pickles,
and a glass of cola.
"Eat a bit more, you."
"What do you want me to do when I've never been able to eat much from birth?"
"That's why your body is weak. Don't you know that no matter if you're a man, you need a certain level of stamina to back you up?"
"Then teach me some kind of exercise I can actually do."
They say that originally, every person has a kind of exercise that suits them individually.
A-ra had told me that gym workouts weren't right for me,
and just looking at the results, I could tell they had no effect.
"Let's think about that slowly later, and for now, let's go sing some songs."
"I saw earlier, there were a lot of people."
"Students?"
Would I end up wandering around, getting recognized, and getting into trouble for no reason?
"No, apparently the high schoolers are being controlled and can't come out of their lodging."
"Really? Coming all this way to play and then why..."
"When we went on school trips to places like this, they said it was free time but still wouldn't let us out, remember?"
I remembered.
After arriving at the lodging, they'd show us dreams and hope,
then tell us to only play in the rooms and not go outside because we'd be a nuisance.
The facility was something we paid our own money to use,
and I still couldn't understand
how they could tell us we were a nuisance and keep us from going out.