An Amusement Park Invitation
The mood had been perfectly nice just moments ago. “Jiyu, I-I’m sorry. I’ll contact you again later…!” Jiyu could only stare at Junho’s retreating back as he left with a grave expression, as if something urgent had suddenly occurred to him.
“Ah… did I just get dumped again?” It felt like yesterday’s nightmare was resurfacing. Of course, she had decided not to let such nightmares bother her anymore. “Ugh, but the atmosphere really was good, wasn’t it? Or was that just me?”
Her footsteps back toward the car felt unbearably heavy. She had been in such a good mood all day, yet now it all seemed like a fleeting dream. Thanks to the wine she had drunk while caught up in the moment, she had called a driver for the ride home.
Oh, right. I never gave him the LEGO. Her eyes fell on the shopping bag holding the packaged toy she had bought earlier. Jiyu had never been fond of assembly sets like LEGO. She had only purchased it because she wanted to give him a gift after seeing him hesitate.
“I’ll give it to him next time. Ah, driver, you can park right there.” After arriving at her apartment parking lot and paying the driver in cash, she paused just as she was about to head inside. For some reason the dark house looked strangely unfamiliar and lonely. She didn’t want to be alone right now.
Biting her lip, Jiyu eventually picked up her phone and dialed a number.
“Yap, you’ve reached Han Jia~”
The familiar, cheerful voice brought Jiyu an immediate sense of relief.
“Unnie…”
“What’s wrong? Why do you sound like that? You were so excited about meeting Junho today.”
“I’ll tell you everything if you buy beer and come over.”
“Hmm, then I guess I have no choice. Hang tight. I’ll be there soon.”
After the call ended, Jiyu gathered her courage, stepped inside, turned on the lights, showered, changed into comfortable clothes, and waited for Jia to arrive.
“Heyyy, Shin Jiyu! I’m here!”
“Unnie! Come in!”
“Whoa, it’s been a while since you greeted me that enthusiastically.”
Jia entered with a pleased expression, dressed extremely casually. She wore short dolphin shorts one would normally only wear at home, a white tank top, and a light cardigan thrown over it. The look suited her surprisingly well. She didn’t have Jiyu’s cute vibe, but Jia was attractive in her own right. Her tall frame paired perfectly with sharp, confident eyes, a straight nose, and naturally red lips that needed no makeup. Though her chest was modest, her height and perfect posture gave her a model-like figure. Kim Pilseok had initially gone after Jia instead of Jiyu and been brutally shot down.
“Here, I brought beer. So let’s hear it.”
Jia glanced around after stepping inside, then sat in her usual spot at the dining table and spoke first.
“Things were going amazingly until the middle, right?”
Jia was curious, and since Jiyu had been sharing pieces of the story whenever she needed advice, she had a general sense of the situation. Still, she hadn’t expected Jiyu to call sounding so defeated.
“Ugh, so… Junho oppa…”
“Wait, when did you start calling him oppa?”
“Ah, that’s… I decided to drop the formalities. Something happened yesterday. He still calls me Miss Jiyu, though.”
Miss Jiyu. It could sound stiff, but Jia thought it showed real progress. After all, Junho had kept iron walls up even back at the raid office.
“Hey, that’s huge progress. That guy was a total fortress.”
“….I begged him to call me that.”
“..Ah..”
Jia felt deeply frustrated. Jiyu had never liked anyone before, so at first Jia had found it fascinating and joyful. But watching how Junho treated her, it was impossible not to feel exasperated.
“Just give up already. Plenty of people like you. Why waste your time on a guy who’s built a wall like that?”
If Jiyu weren’t popular it might be different, but she was extremely well-liked. That popularity sometimes attracted creeps like Kim Pilseok, but Jiyu handled them fine, so Jia didn’t worry. With that kind of appeal, it was hard to understand why she would chase someone who clearly wasn’t interested.
Of course, she knew the heart rarely obeyed reason.
“I can’t, unnie. Honestly, I know he’s drawing a line. But… I still like him so much. What am I supposed to do?!”
“I’m asking because I’m genuinely curious… Look, I know Junho’s a good person. But why do you still like him when he keeps pushing you away like that?”
It was something she had always wondered. Some time had passed now, but they hadn’t known each other that long. Besides, Junho was on the mining team while Jiyu led the raid party, so they barely saw each other in the field. In the office, even when Jiyu tried desperately to stay close, Junho would slip away. They hadn’t had many chances to connect.
“I don’t know either. At first there seemed to be a reason, but then I just… started liking him. Just like that! I like everything about him. When he makes that sad face for no reason, I just want him to be happy.”
It was a truly hopeless sight.
If she’s fallen this hard, there really is no saving her.
Had Jiyu not said those words, Jia would have kept urging her to give up. But she now realized such advice was pointless. Once someone had fallen this deeply, there were only two paths: get properly rejected, or seduce them into dating.
“Sigh. Can’t be helped, then. I figured you’d be like this, so I came prepared. Take this.”
When Jia pulled out the crumpled item from her pocket, Jiyu looked puzzled.
“What’s that crumpled thing?”
“Two amusement park tickets. What else?”
“Huh? An amusement park all of a sudden?”
Of course Jiyu loved amusement parks. She and Jia had gone together often as children.
“You know how amusement parks are. Couples go there all the time, and that racing heartbeat on roller coasters gets mistaken for love. Right?”
A place couples or people in the talking stage visited like a required course. An amusement park was the perfect stage for those hoping to spark romance. In fact, many relationships began when the pounding heart from a scary ride was misinterpreted as feelings for the person beside them.
“Go there, wear couple headbands, take pictures on the carousel, and hold his hand tight on that roller coaster you love!”
“Pictures of us together…!”
Jiyu muttered about setting one as her wallpaper, looking utterly adorable.
“Sigh. Still, our little Jiyu has someone she likes now. It makes me feel kinda sad for some reason.”
The two had been close since childhood. Their parents were friends, so they had naturally grown up together, awakened around the same time, and hopped between raid parties to gain experience. It felt like just yesterday they had promised to form a guild and recruited members. Feeling like her friend had grown up in the blink of an eye, Jia playfully pretended to sob.
“Aww, what’s there to feel sad about? Unnie is my favorite person in the whole world!”
“Hmm, of course that’s true, right?”
Satisfied with the answer, Jia smiled and took a sip of beer.
“Oh, and when you go to the amusement park, try wearing something with this vibe.”
When she showed a coordination photo she had thought of beforehand, Jiyu’s eyes widened in surprise.
“That doesn’t seem like it would suit me… Something like that looks good on someone like you, unnie…!”
“Originally…”
“Originally?”
“Wearing clothes you don’t normally wear lets people discover a new side of you. Don’t you want to see Junho’s heart skip a beat at the new look?”
“I-I do…!”
The two had always been perfectly in sync since they were little.
“Then you shall wear these clothes!”
“Yes, understood! Master…!”
“Go forth and seize love, my disciple!”
They both quite enjoyed playing around like this. The two were so alike they seemed like real sisters.
Even after returning home in a daze, his mind refused to settle. The same chaotic feelings swirled inside him as when Jiyu had been standing right in front of him.
It was confusing. Why had that notification appeared? Was what he suspected actually true? The fastest way to confirm would be to form a Binding with Jiyu.
The thought had crossed his mind. But the notification had just shown him that Binding had become a trauma for him. Besides, forming a Binding meant becoming that close to someone, and he wasn’t mentally ready for it yet.
“I don’t understand it from the start.”
Why would someone as bright, cheerful, and kind as Jiyu like him? Was it because he seemed like a good person who helped others? Because he was gentle? Kind?
…Those appearances were all fabricated. He had created them because he wanted someone to love him. There had been a time when he desperately needed that. The personality he had built brought more benefits than expected, so he had simply kept acting that way.
“Yeah. She doesn’t know. That’s why she can like me.”
It had been that way since birth. He didn’t know who his parents were. His earliest memories were of a small room in an orphanage. So he had been someone unloved from the moment he came into the world. No relatives, no grandparents—only the orphanage staff. But there were too many children and too few caregivers. It was a harsh environment for receiving fair love.
Having grown up like that, the first time he loved someone had been with Yu Hyejeong. That was why he had been able to love her so passionately—because he believed that if he acted a certain way, she would love him back.
But thinking about it now… he wasn’t even sure that feeling had truly been love. Hadn’t it just been obsession? So maybe that was why Yu Hyejeong had looked at him with such disgust. If he had been a better person, would she have loved him?
“None of that matters anymore.”
Anyway, this was who he was. He still hadn’t completely severed his feelings for Yu Hyejeong, yet he couldn’t properly push Jiyu away either. So he was this kind of trash.
Even so, could she still like him? It was only because she didn’t know anything that she could show her feelings so openly.
Vrrr—
While he was lost in thought, his phone suddenly vibrated.
He had no intention of replying, so he started to set the phone down when—
Vrrr—