A White Lie for Cool Air
To pull it off, what we needed was Siyeon's silence and my sheer nerve.
And a situation and script so airtight they might as well have been written by an adult.
Mindful of cold-air sickness, I steered clear of the blasting units and aimed for a windless model wherever possible. I pored over the energy-efficiency grades too, writing off the near-extinct Grade 1 units and settling for something around Grade 2.
Even a magical girl still feared progressive electricity rates.
Three million…
For all the long-term savings, the sticker price sat on the high end of everything on the floor. But what choice was there? This wasn't some appliance you used for a year or two and tossed.
Lately the money going into the computer, the air conditioner, and other appliances had started to edge past a full month of magical-girl activity funds, and the unease was creeping in.
Of course, if I folded Siyeon's activity funds into the pot, we could live more than comfortably…
But I can't do that…
I swallowed a bitter taste at the thought of money I'd never properly held in my hands. I wasn't some adult snatching New Year's cash under the pretense of "saving it for later." The memories of those days still shouted at my conscience whenever I so much as considered touching Siyeon's funds.
This wasn't a moment for conscience, though. It was a moment for a white lie.
I steeled myself, walked up to the clerk in the appliance section, and opened my mouth.
What I needed now was the courage to spit out that white lie—and the acting chops to sell it.
"Mister."
I made my voice as babyish as I could and tugged at his pant leg from eye level.
"Hm? What is it?"
A sharp white dress shirt, a green necktie, black belt and matching dress pants—the clean, put-together uniform of a male clerk. Looking up into a gaze that must have been a good 180 centimeters high, I was freshly reminded of just how small I'd become, and still I pressed on.
"Mommy said to order an air conditioner."
"H-huh?"
Confusion colored his voice. From his perspective, two kids who looked young enough to be his own children had just waltzed up and announced they wanted to buy an air conditioner. First thought: Where are these kids' parents? Second thought, once the shock settled: Are they joking?
But I was dead serious.
In this moment we were a pair of clueless little brats whose concept-free mother had gone up to the second floor to shop for clothes, and we were here to carry out her errand to the letter.
No amount of flipping through the customer-service manual would cover a situation this absurd.
So I pulled out the paper that would shake his already reeling mind one more time and held it up.
"She said to show you this when we buy the air conditioner!"
Printed cleanly on the A4 sheet were our home address and the layout of the AC piping, plus a neat list of requests about post-order installation costs. The kind of detailed instructions only an adult would write—proof that two kids hadn't just wandered in as a prank. The clerk sank into deep thought.
"So… do you know which one she told you to get?"
"Yep!"
With that childish answer I seized his hand and dashed straight for the unit I'd already settled on. Siyeon covered her mouth with her free hand and kept her silence unbroken. Her only job was to serve as a totem of credibility. For some reason, two kids holding hands looked a lot more persuasive than one alone.
We stopped in front of the magnificent air conditioner that would solve our heat problem, and I held out the card.
"Here. Card."
"Ah… right…"
The clerk tilted his head, looking faintly unsettled. It would count toward his sales numbers either way, but his face still said, Is this actually okay? Probably no one on staff—not even the veterans with ten-plus years—had ever run into anything like this.
Congratulations on the rare experience.
Once the payment went through and the card was back in my hand, we stepped onto the escalator heading up from the basement. My phone chimed a belated payment alert. I turned my head to glance at Siyeon, still holding my hand—and found her cheeks puffed out like she'd been holding her breath the whole time.
"You can talk now."
"Pwah—!"
The second permission dropped, a pathetic little gasp burst out of her. Our joined hands had gone damp with shared sweat, so I let go, then gently pinched one of her cheeks between thumb and forefinger and scolded her.
"Honestly. Why were you holding your breath?"
Seen through adult eyes, a child was impossibly cute. I was only still functional because of Siyeon. If I'd been alone, the upstairs and downstairs neighbors would already be…
Ah. No. Good thoughts… good thoughts.
I shelved the happy fantasy of smashing through the downstairs ceiling and the upstairs floor, unlocked my phone, and pressed a hand to my stomach as the hour grew late. Emptiness was starting to set in.
Right around when the escalator delivered us to the upper floor, something that hadn't even registered when we came for appliances swam into view: the food court every big-box store seemed to have.
Portions miserably small, prices miserably high. Still—if we went all the way home just to order delivery that was expensive anyway…
If both options cost too much, better to settle it somewhere close.
Decision made, I turned to Siyeon.
"Want to eat something here before we go?"
"Yeah!"
The answer shot out so fast it felt almost rude to have asked. Memories surfaced of my own childhood in the previous life—being dragged to the mart by family and begging to eat here without a second thought for price or portion size.
Once I'd learned the meaning of value, I'd rarely set foot in a store cafeteria again. But here it was: the original all-in-one restaurant, from stews and soups to fried food, Chinese, noodles, and snack-bar fare. Practically nothing was missing. The real problem was deciding what to order.
"What do you want?"
"Um…"
I'd asked, but at a mart food court there wasn't much a kid would actually eat. Pork cutlet, maybe the special mixed cutlet plate, or omurice. That was about it.
"Omurice!"
"Then I'll take the special mixed cutlet."
These days even food courts had gone automated—kiosks standing in for people. And that was the problem. There was no such thing as a kiosk built for children.
The height…
The screen towered impossibly high for Siyeon and me. Two little girls stood frozen in front of it.
In the end, from inside the nearly empty food court—
"What are you trying to order, dears?"
—an ajumma stepped out and came to our rescue. I'd once wondered how miserable it could really be to be short. Standing here unable to even place an order by myself, I felt that misery keenly.
"Omurice and… s-sp…"
"The special mixed cutlet, please."
I held the card up as high as I could. She took it, finished the payment on the kiosk, and—lucky for us—happened to work the very counter that would make our food. No need to stare blankly at a number ticket. She took the ticket herself, steered us to a nearby table, and sat us down.
"Just wait right here. I'll bring it when it's ready."
"Thank youuu."
"Thank you."
Kindness that went beyond simple courtesy. Siyeon and I both bowed our heads in gratitude. Moments like that made the world feel livable after all.
The food arrived almost at once—a steaming plate of omurice and a special mixed cutlet with pork cutlet, fish cutlet, and fried shrimp, plus a side soup, corn salad, and a scoop of rice.
For just over ten thousand won the spread might have looked sparse, but for bodies our size it was more than enough. The sweet-and-tangy sauce spilling over the edges of the plate was familiar and delicious.
We finished a meal that would have been perfect if not for the price, stepped out of the mart—and the heat hit us so hard we wanted to turn right back around. Weather that killed any desire to walk. So we climbed into the first taxi waiting in the line out front, called out the address, and rode home.
Even after we got back, the nightmare of the heat refused to end. Tiny beads of sweat traced paths down fair skin. Before long the damp had darkened the fabric around our collars as if we'd been dunked in water.
"We'll just tough it out with the fan for a few days…"
"I'm gonna wash up…"
And so began the lonely two-person war of waiting for the air conditioner. Twice as many showers, twice as much laundry. Trapped in the cycle of sweltering heat, showers, and laundry, we waited and endured.
Then a thought struck me, and I asked the two beasts flopped across the cushions:
"Aren't you guys hot?"
"……"
"?"
No answer came. A sudden wrongness made me look toward the cushions. Siyeon's mascot, who normally coiled up tight, and the little bear, who usually laced his fingers behind his head and crossed his legs—neither was in their usual pose. Both lay sprawled any which way across the cushions, tongues lolling toward the floor like corpses.
So even they feel the heat.
I scooped one mascot up in each hand. A damp, sticky liquid was running over their surfaces.
Was this… some kind of sweat?
I'd thought it was a lonely war of two. Turns out it had been four all along.