Shopping (2)
Shopping (2)
After finishing the first round of shopping, they headed up to the top floor.
The things we'd bought were definitely my clothes,
but A-ra looked as happy as if they were hers—somehow refreshed.
What could be the reason?
"When you buy clothes, it puts me in a good mood too, you know?"
"Is that all?"
"Yeah, you turned me down before when I said I'd buy you things. You said you were sorry."
That was true.
What was the point of a jobless bastard wearing luxury clothes worth hundreds of thousands of won.
When A-ra offered to buy them, I had politely declined.
Anyway, when I said I'd carry the bags since they were my clothes,
she politely refused, saying this was something a woman should carry.
Thinking back, in that other world, when people went shopping or to the market,
it was the men who carried the bags, so maybe this was only natural.
The weight wasn't the issue, but since everything was in boxes, the bulk made it
a little cumbersome to carry alone—that was my reasoning.
If I stubbornly insisted, wouldn't that just bruise A-ra's dignity as a woman?
So, doing the manly thing, I suggested we take a short break before moving on,
and we headed to the lounge set up on the department store's rooftop.
"It feels so open up here!"
The moment they reached the rooftop,
A-ra stretched and took off her mask.
It wasn't a day with a lot of fine dust,
and with the heating inside the department store making the air a bit stuffy,
the outside air felt crisp and refreshing.
"Seong-hwan-a, want some ice cream?"
"I'll go buy some. Vanilla? Chocolate?"
"No, no, you just guard the bags."
A-ra pulled me by the hand and sat me down on a bench,
set the bags beside me, and vanished in an instant.
Well, she only went to the ice cream stand right in front of us.
In less than a minute, she came back with an ice cream in each hand
and sat down next to me.
As she licked her ice cream, saying it was delicious,
A-ra looked as excited as the innocent little kids running around the rooftop.
I hadn't even started eating yet,
but seeing A-ra crunching away on her cone with loud, happy crunches,
I gave a wry smile and held mine out to her.
"Have this one too."
"Huh? No, you eat it, Seong-hwan."
A-ra shook her head and urged me to eat it.
Seeing that, I chuckled and placed the ice cream in A-ra's hand.
"I can just buy another one, so go ahead and eat."
"R-really? You sure?"
I rested my chin on my hand and admired A-ra eating happily.
The sight of her holding it with both hands and putting ice cream into her mouth like a squirrel
was cute enough to set fire to the hearts of 13 out of 10 men.
I wasn't sure about the sensibilities of men in this world,
but personally, that was how I felt.
Anyway, since she had her mask off, people did recognize her after all.
There were plenty of eyes on A-ra, but also quite a lot of eyes on me.
"E-excuse me, are you the Qtuber Seong-hwan?"
"Huh?"
Just then, a woman I had never seen before approached us,
pulled out a notepad and pen, and held them out to me.
"I'm a fan from Qtube, would you mind giving me an autograph?"
"A f-fan? Um... I don't have a signature."
"Seong-hwan-a, just write your name with a little flourish and it'll be fine."
At A-ra's cheerful reply, I nodded,
took the notepad and pen, and wrote my name with a bit of a flourish.
Surprisingly, it did end up looking like an autograph.
I handed the notepad and pen back to her,
and she bowed her head, saying thank you.
"Thank you! I really enjoy watching your Qtube videos!"
"Ah... thank you."
"If it's not too much trouble, please do a live broadcast sometime!"
Having said everything she wanted to say,
she ran off the rooftop without looking back.
Ever since I started making Qtube videos, I had heard the word 'fan' quite often,
but this was the first time someone asked for an autograph,
so I was a bit flustered.
So a signature is just writing your name with a flourish, huh.
Anyway, she was a pretty good-looking person.
Maybe not on A-ra's level,
but she had a face that could eat most celebrities alive.
"What is my husband thinking about right now?"
"N-nothing at all."
"Hmm... is that really true?"
A-ra stared at me intently with a playful expression.
She was at it again with the teasing.
I decided not to let her off easy today—I'd keep pressing until I knocked her down.
When I gave a sly grin,
A-ra started to make a face that said she knew she'd messed up.
This expression was taken from the look A-ra gets right before she starts teasing someone,
so no one knew it better than A-ra herself.
"Ah! Don't tell me you're jealous?"
"J-jealous?! No way, I don't do that kind of thing...!"
"If some other guy hit on you, I'd beat him to a pulp, you know?"
"R-really? Actually... if some other woman hit on you, I'd kill her."
".....Kill her?"
"Yeah."
"Killing is a little..."
"Then, I'll just beat her up, like you said."
Did A-ra always have a yandere streak?
I thought she was just a megadere...
Well, no—if someone hit on my wife, that's absolutely worth killing over.
The law might not call it self-defense, but I considered it self-defense.
Because I am unconditionally on A-ra's side, after all.
"Shall we go look at clothes again soon?"
"Yeah, where should we go next?"
"Can't we go somewhere a little cheaper this time?"
"No."
She was so firm that I almost laughed out loud.
So just how much did we spend at that place we went to earlier?
***
"Welcome!"
Weekend shifts were annoying as hell,
but seeing couples walk into the store holding hands made me even more pissed off.
Normally, I would've picked up some guy,
gone on a date, and headed straight to a motel,
but suddenly the afternoon shift worker said she couldn't come in due to an emergency,
so I got called in.
On my day off, what the hell is this.
I wanted to scream, but I couldn't,
so I just wailed about it in my head,
but maybe because I got the frustration out—
I felt a little better.
Anyway, the couple that just walked in had a different vibe.
A pretty woman with a handsome guy on her arm, you could say.
They both looked young,
but the clothes the woman was wearing
were luxury brands that anyone would have heard of at least once.
Compared to her, the guy's clothes were cheap,
but the fit was so good they didn't look cheap at all—
in fact, you could've told me they were designer and I would've believed it.
I guess that's why they say fashion isn't about the clothes—it's about the face and body type.
"How about this?"
"Isn't it too flashy? I don't think I could hold my head up outside wearing something like this."
"Why would a guy be embarrassed about something like that?"
"No... that's something only possible because you're an idol. Someone ordinary like me can't pull it off."
"You're not an ordinary person anymore, you know."
Listening to their conversation,
the woman seemed to be an idol,
and the guy seemed to be a Qtuber.
Could it be that combination I'm thinking of?
Their voices sounded similar too...
Even their eyes...
I felt like I was right, but since I was on the clock, I couldn't exactly ask.
If I got nosy with a customer for no reason and a complaint came in,
coming to work on my day off would be totally pointless.
"Then how about this?"
"It's simple, I like it."
"Then this one, and..."
The female customer picked out a bunch of things and handed them to me,
asking me to check if his size was available.
I looked it up on the tablet PC, and aside from the first one she handed me,
the sizes were all in stock, so I went to the stockroom, grabbed them in their boxes,
and set them next to the register.
"Let's just buy this much here."
"You're planning to buy more?"
"We should buy other things besides clothes. Aren't you cold as a guy?"
"You say that, but you don't have anything on over your outfit either."
"Women and men are different."
The female customer really seemed to dote on the male customer.
If that weren't the case, you'd almost never see regular customers buying
such expensive things in bulk like that, to the point where your hands would tremble.
I turned around and saw that the store manager and the floor manager were getting ready
to escort the customers somewhere.
No idea why they just let VIP customers like that wander around on their own.
Were they slow to notice?
I started calculating the items that had been placed on the counter one by one.
I had worked at this department store for quite a while,
but it had been a really long time since I'd seen a total like this
at any register outside the VIP lounge.
"How would you like to pay?"
"Ah, in full, please."
I took the card she handed me.
It was a black card, the kind the internet said you could use to buy tanks and airplanes.
The rumor that Song A-ra owned one of these cards had been circulating for a while—turns out it was true.
When the payment was all done, I returned the card along with the receipt.
Only then did the store manager and staff waiting outside come in
and take all the bags the female customer had been holding.
"We apologize, VVIP customer, but while you're enjoying your shopping, would it be alright if we escorted you to the lounge for a moment?"
"Sure, why not. Seong-hwan-a, let's rest a bit and look around some more."
"Again? I think this is more than enough..."
"We should buy a watch or something too."
The male customer sighed, looking exhausted,
but the female customer smiled brightly, as if she was still full of energy.
To think that 'Song A-ra,' known for being so chic and aloof, would smile at a guy like that.
It seemed their business at this store was done,
as the two customers, the store manager, and the staff gradually moved farther away.
They said they were escorting them to the VIP lounge, huh...
"They clearly already went wild at other stores too, and yet they burned through 40 million won at this store alone..."
Looking at the total on the POS machine, I let out a sigh of my own.
When would I ever be able to spend money like that.
Probably never in my lifetime.