Party (3)
Party (3)
"Ahaha... I'm so sorry. Looks like I won it."
"What's there to be sorry about! Now then, a round of applause for our second-place winner, Seong-hwan~!"
The moment Lee Min-ho prompted the applause,
everyone who had been watching began clapping loudly.
I scratched my head watching the audience
and reached out toward the thick stack of gift certificates placed in front of me.
They said it was a hundred certificates, each worth 100,000 won.
It really was thick...
It felt like holding a hundred bills of cash, and that made it intensely nerve-wracking.
To make absolutely sure I wouldn't lose them, I tucked them into the inner pocket of my suit
and fastened the button.
I should buy A-ra something tomorrow.
"Well then, next is the first-place prize everyone has been eagerly awaiting."
"What is the first-place prize?"
"This time, the first-place prize is an item anonymously donated by someone."
As soon as Lee Min-ho finished speaking, spotlights began flooding
the corner that had been hidden behind a cloth screen earlier.
A spotlight all to itself—something I'd never once experienced.
It had to be incredible, beyond anything I'd imagined.
But come to think of it, that wasn't in my script.
And then Lee Min-ho slowly approached that spot,
grabbed the cloth with his hand, and yanked it down as if pulling off a garment.
"An incredible prize! The first-place prize is a Mercedes-Benz E-Class!"
Lee Min-ho shouted loudly, and a few murmurs of admiration rose from the audience.
They'd shown little interest in the New World Department Store gift certificates, and since the audience was mostly women,
cars really did seem to please them.
"We'll skip the detailed explanation and move straight to the drawing, shall we?"
"Who will draw it this time?"
"Hmm... Seong-hwan, who drew the second-place prize, would you like to draw again?"
Since my name had already been drawn, there was no way I'd win first prize,
so they were telling me to draw, basically.
I nodded to Lee Min-ho
and put my hand back into the box from earlier.
"This time, given the nature of the prize, I'll mix it up several times before drawing the lot."
"Don't just do it half-heartedly thinking there's no chance you'll get picked yourself."
"I just came into an unexpected ten million won, so of course I'll do it properly."
Our skit-like exchange made the watching audience start laughing.
I really meant that, though.
Doing a half-hearted job when I'd just gotten ten million won
would be crossing the line.
"Alright then, I'll draw for real now."
I put my hand back into the box and began stirring around inside.
Anyway, I'm really envious of whoever wins it.
Isn't a Mercedes-Benz E-Class a pretty expensive car?
'This is it!'
I had a hunch, so I grabbed the lot right at the bottom
and pulled it out.
Like the other lots, it was folded in half,
but for some reason this lot was radiating a different aura from the others.
Could it be the lot with A-ra's name written on it?
That would be a little troublesome.
It might cast doubt on the fairness.
"Uh... what happens if A-ra noona's name comes out here?"
"There's no way that would happen, so don't worry and just announce it already."
Lee Min-ho urged me to check the lot, saying overlaps like that never happen.
It was because the clock was already pointing to 11, close to the party's end time.
"In that case, I will now confirm the first-place winner."
And then, just like before, a drumroll sound effect began playing,
followed by very loud firecracker and fanfare sounds.
"Congratulations. The winner of the first-place Mercedes-Benz E-Class is Lee Min-ho... ssi.........."
"Huh? Seong-hwan, stop kidding around and just read the name, please."
"No, it really is you. You."
I brought the lot closer to the camera and showed the inside.
And so, Lee Min-ho's name appeared on the large screen,
and the spotlights that had been shining on the car until just now turned on Lee Min-ho.
*
"Phew........"
After confirming that he really had won, Lee Min-ho
calmed his excitement and barely managed to sit down.
Even if Lee Min-ho was a man—and you're not supposed to manhandle men—
they asked a weak guy like me to calm down a guy acting like a woman.
"Seong-hwan, congrats."
"Thank you."
Even though the party was over, there seemed to be a lot of drinks and food left over,
so a few people were still staying and eating.
A-ra had joined them too, and once she saw me sitting down on a chair,
she brought me a cold drink and held it out.
"It was tough, right?"
"Being the MC wasn't hard, but calming down the excited Lee Min-ho was..."
"Ahaha... Well, he won a car, so that's understandable."
From what I heard, it was a car valued at around 70 million won.
It was surprising that the gap between second and first place was sevenfold,
but I was also surprised again that there was someone who could donate such a car.
"I heard it was one of the shareholders?"
"It's not you, noona, right?"
"Hey, did you think noona would do something like that without discussing it with you?"
Saying that, A-ra drank from the drink in her hand.
Noona, despite how she looks, is the largest shareholder of our agency, which is a major corporation.
That was because she'd taken over all 25 percent that the CEO had held.
Considering that the heads of ordinary major corporations, the chaebol families, often hold less than 1 percent of shares in their own companies,
the amount A-ra held was enough to shake up the balance entirely.
"And a Mercedes-Benz E-Class isn't noona's style."
"That's true. Noona's all about sports cars, after all."
"It's a woman's romance."
I let out a wry smile upon hearing A-ra's words that someday, her dream was to build a big tower-style parking garage
and fill it all up with her own cars.
It's not that it can't be done, but I figured managing all of them would be the harder part.
While we were having that idle chatter, Eun-ji and Hwa-young, who had gone inside to sleep earlier, came back out.
Eun-ji, who had insisted she wasn't embarrassed until just before she went to bed, was now blushing
and came out hiding behind Hwa-young's back, and I nearly burst out laughing.
"A-ra, we're going to head in now."
"Yeah, get home safe. Eun-ji, you too."
"Uh... Unnie, you get home safe too... Seong-hwan, see you next time."
She was clearly very embarrassed about showing her drunken state.
Well, it was the first time I'd seen her like that, after all.
As we watched the two of them leave, this time Lee Min-ho and his girlfriend came over
and stood in front of us.
"A-ra-nim, we'll be heading off now as well."
"Lee Min-ho, you worked hard today too."
"Hard work? What do you mean. Seong-hwan, see you on Monday."
"Are you that happy?"
"Of course I am. A guy fresh out of college like me getting a Benz... I couldn't even imagine it."
Lee Min-ho was about to start his excitement mode up again,
but his girlfriend dragged him out.
That noona must have it pretty rough, pretty rough indeed.
"Yaaawn... Should we head home soon too?"
"Let's do that. But first, I'll call a driver."
Since we'd both been drinking, we couldn't drive the car we'd brought.
So, we filled our stomachs while killing time until the driver arrived,
and as it happened, we got the call just as we'd finished eating and went downstairs.
***
The next day, we came to New World Department Store
to use up all ten million won worth of gift certificates I'd won yesterday.
I learned for the first time that New World Department Store gift certificates can also be used
at Engmart, an affiliate right next to the department store.
Since Engmart sold all sorts of electronics too,
the range of choices had become wider than expected.
"Can we really buy everything we want?"
"It's free money anyway, right. Let's use it all up today and go."
I'd heard something when I was younger—
if you leave something free unused, the fortune that should come to you won't, and it'll go to someone else instead.
When I first heard it, I thought, what is this, some kind of local government budget logic? Is that really a thing?
But after I learned about year-end tax settlements,
I started thinking that, somehow, it really might be possible.
"Noona, do you want to look at the electronics too?"
"What about clothes?"
"I just bought clothes recently so I'm not really thinking about them."
Because A-ra had the special profession of being an idol,
she tended to buy clothes often.
So much so that if she sold just the clothes worn once and then left hanging in the closet,
it might bring in a few years' worth of living expenses.
Having set a goal first,
we began by making a loop around the department store.
Clothes were like artifacts—you never knew when you'd find something you liked—
so there was no telling if we might suddenly want something.
"How about this?"
"Hmm... it feels a bit out of style."
The things I picked out seemed to be styles that were already a little out of fashion.
Was my taste for picking that kind of thing just bad, or was A-ra super sensitive about style?
Could it be because common sense is reversed here?
After giving the department store a broad sweep, we crossed
the central bridge connecting Engmart and New World Department Store, like we were on a date.
Not having to go outside and being able to go back and forth between the department store and the mart—
I thought that was a really great idea.
First, to look around everywhere in the mart too,
we decided to slowly move around starting from the first floor.
As expected, A-ra couldn't take her eyes off the butcher counter for a long time,
checking out which meat looked decent.
"Now that I think about it, we can use the gift certificates to buy meat too, right?"
"They said you can use them like cash, so wouldn't we be able to?"
"Then should we just buy about a million won's worth of meat? Let's put it in the freezer and eat it slowly."
"A million won's worth... that'd be incredibly heavy."
Since a single chunk of brisket costs around 200,000 won,
we'd have to buy at least 30 kilograms to make a million won's worth.
Even for A-ra, would she really be able to carry all that back and forth?
"You're underestimating noona, aren't you, Seong-hwan?"
"Hey now, I think it's a reasonable assessment."
"I can't let this slide. Tonight, I'll show you 100 percent of noona's strength."
Had I dug my own grave again?
Watching A-ra start picking out meat again with that comment,
I began trembling all over.