A Vanity Table...? (2)
The riot of color blooming across my field of vision left my eyes with no intention whatsoever of moving on.
Everywhere else in the store, the palette had mostly said ah, yes—furniture. The vanity section was another creature entirely: my first head-on collision with a crashing wave of every color under the sun.
"Okay, sure, the colors are pretty... but isn't this a little too far removed from everything else?"
Pastels at one end, screaming primaries at the other... Startled by shades so alien to the whites, blacks, browns, and grays that had ruled the rest of the floor, I found my hand drifting out on its own to touch them, one by one, and the softness under my fingertips lifted my mood before I knew it.
Yeah. A vanity really is a must-have.
"Unni, the looks are important, but start by checking whether you can see yourself comfortably from the seat, and what the storage space is like."
"Okay."
Right. It's what's on the inside that counts.
Every vanity came with its own stool, and I went from seat to seat, studying myself in each mirror. Against all expectations, the plush cushions didn't so much as sink beneath me. A stool that my old body would have flattened in an instant bore the weight without complaint, still proudly broadcasting its robust health through my backside.
And then there was the girl in the mirror—sunk deep into that softness, blissed out of her mind, eyes all but shooting off light. The still-unfamiliar beauty stared back at me, and for no good reason at all, I got embarrassed.
Unfamiliar sensations. Unfamiliar feelings. A world turned strange. I'd felt it behind the wheel, too—everything was new.
My eyeline sits way lower than it ever did in a chair this height.
"Isn't this mirror a bit too big?"
The pretty girl's face occupied the center of the glass, but with so much mirror left above and on either side, it threw the room behind us into perfect, unforgiving clarity.
"Yes. You'd never run short of mirror, but the drawers are too far away."
"Mm... then maybe something else... Wow, this one's pretty."
Plopping from one stool to the next as I browsed, I finally landed on a vanity I liked. I settled in before an ivory piece—feminine without going overboard, its surface scattered with drifting pale-pink petals—and looked to Yeji.
"This one's pretty. The storage looks generous, and the mirror's just the right size."
"It does seem that way."
Having seconded me, Yeji then tacked on a remark she could so easily have spared me.
"It would be rather difficult for you to sit at one of those dazzling showpieces every day, Unni—not when a brief encounter with all that brilliance turns your face that red. Something modestly pretty like this suits you nicely."
"Ms. Yeji......"
I know, okay? I can't believe it either—that a thirty-something ahjussi is sitting here doing this...
Her words carving straight through my chest, I bowed my head.
Let's just call it: this one.
—Squawk! Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp!
"Have you decided?"
"Yes. We'll take this one for the vanity. The desk, the chair, the storage cabinet, the dining table, the vanity—could you ring up everything we've picked out so far?"
Yeji fished the card Suho had given me out of the wallet she'd insisted on pressing into my hand and held it out to the clerk, who accepted it and replied,
"Of course. One moment, please."
We hadn't even been there all that long, yet every last drop of energy had drained out of me, as if we'd been at it for hours.
Now I get to go ho... no, wait. We still have to hit the mart.
Knowing I still had a good couple of hours to spend out here somehow made the fatigue settle in all the deeper.
"Ma'am? What address should we deliver your items to?"
My address...
What was it again? I know the way back to the house—but I don't actually know the address...
"Um, Ms. Yeji? I... don't know my own address..?"
"It's all right. I know it."
I stole a glance as Yeji took the tablet from the clerk and typed in the address, then let my eyes wander around the store. Countless goods preened and postured like courtesans angling for favor, clamoring to be chosen. And among them, I spotted a thing or two I'd once genuinely ached to own.
Things I'd always, in the end, put back because of the price tag...
So this is what it feels like to shop without counting the cost...
The old me used to fix a budget first, then weigh quality, function, every last factor—and only after all that would I even glance at how the thing looked. But the wares here flaunted their exteriors for all they were worth, begging to be chosen.
Simply being able to choose something without thinking about the price widened my options enormously. No—widened wasn't the end of it; I even caught myself entertaining the arrogant notion that I could have absolutely anything.
Get a grip, Song Gaon... The bigger the spending gets, the more it's me who'll suffer for it later.
Truthfully, the old way of life—deciding the price first, paying it, and calculating only the benefit that purchase would buy me—hadn't been a bad one. For the things I truly needed—something for work, say, or tied to my health—I never once pinched pennies. My rule had been to avoid overspending, not to live like a miser.
I'd gotten by that way, savoring small happinesses along the road. When it came to anything bordering on luxury, no matter how many times buy it circled my skull, I'd usually set the item back down in the end—yet looking back, whatever had turned out to be truly necessary was something I'd somehow scraped the money together for and bought after all.
If it was necessary, I'd buy it eventually, even if late. Whatever it happened to be. More than once, while I was setting money aside, a cheaper and better model would hit the market, and the wait worked out in my favor. As for things I'd merely wanted to own, the wanting always shrank with time.
These days, riding on Lee Suho's capital, I could do whatever I set my mind to. But he and I were bound by a contract—nothing more, nothing less—and an excess of luxury or convenience would only turn to poison for me in the end.
My body changed. I didn't.
"......"
"Ah—she's the Madam, you see."
"...Ah, I see. Yes. I'll go and verify, then."
Their exchange apparently concluded, and the clerk stepped away for a moment. I watched him go, moving in total silence despite the dress shoes that ought to have clicked with every step, then eased over beside Yeji.
"What was that about?"
"The CEO told me to get a tax invoice, since he'll be expensing all of this."
"Ohh... is that so?"
"It's a corporate card, so he asked what my relationship to the cardholder was."
"Huh?"
"The CEO's name is printed right on it. With someone else using the CEO's corporate card, I imagine he wanted to confirm exactly who I was."
Right. It was never my card to begin with.
A store displaying this dazzling a spread of merchandise. From the very first tour, the clerk had been introducing the place as premium—which meant everything stocked here was bound to be expensive.
The bill would be substantial, and the card bore a company name and a man's name. And two women had walked in together. Frankly, not checking would have been the stranger choice.
Mulling that over, I was surveying the furniture one more time when the clerk returned, handed me back the card, and passed me a sheaf of paperwork.
"Your payment is complete in full, and here is the tax invoice you requested."
"Thank you. Oh—when would delivery be?"
"If you'd like, we can arrange it for this evening or tomorrow."
"Tomorrow morning, please."
Part of me wanted it tonight, but in my current state—still not even sure what the room looked like—I figured I ought to see the place first and give it at least a basic dusting. If even the refrigerator, an appliance I'd be using nearly every day, was in that state, then the rooms that had gone untouched this whole time would need a proper deep-clean today.
"Of course. Will there be anything else?"
"No, no. That's everything."
With the clerk seeing us off, my steps out of the store felt light. Light to the point of absurdity—even my hands felt lighter. I felt the gulf between this new life and the old one, where I'd bought DIY furniture kits and groaned under a trunk loaded to bursting, all to shave down the cost and get the best product for it.
So this is what they call capital...
"Ms. Yeji."
"Yes?"
"Did I... overspend today..? How much did it come to?"
"Hmm. ...The CEO ordered me not to tell you the amount."
Only now, thinking it over, did it click: the price tags I'd seen all my life—tagged to end in something like 90 won, all so the leading digit would come in one lower—were attached to none of the products here.
No price tags at all. That should have tipped me off—why didn't I catch it?
"Why not? I was actually wondering about that—there weren't even price tags."
Yeji went quiet for a long while; when I turned my head, she appeared to be placing a call to someone.
"Ah—hello, sir. Yes. We've just left the store. Yes. In that case, I'll head back to the office separately and clock out right away. Yes~"
"......"
Ms. Yeji. Was my question so dire it required summoning the Demon King..?
Confronted with a difficult question, her composed solution—dialing up Suho to hand me off—very nearly wrung a tongue-click out of me.
"Oh, Unni? Hurry and get going. The CEO has apparently already left for the mart."
"...Huh?"
"I have to clock out. Unni, hurry and get going."
I stared at her, dumbfounded.
Is that kind of blade-edged ruthlessness a job requirement for serving under the Demon King?
—Pop.
"Got it. Enjoy your evening."
"Okay~"
Is she happy because it's quitting time, or because I gave up on asking?
While I was still divining Yeji's mood, the car—running without a single pause—delivered us to the mart in no time at all.
Once we reached the mart, unlike at the furniture store, I tore through the shopping at full gallop.
List in hand—every item to buy sorted in advance—I did nothing but mechanically toss one thing after another into the cart Suho was pushing, and the moment we rolled up to the register, I was hit with a piece of news that beggared belief.
"That comes to 663,270 won altogether."
"Huh?"
663,000 won... on a single grocery run..?
"Here you go. And the receipt, please."
"Of course~"
And why are you handing that card over so naturally..?
I was thoroughly rattled. Where I stood half-convinced the register had made some terrible mistake, Lee Suho passed over the card and began moving our groceries back into the cart with practiced ease—and my sidelong glance at him slid down to the cart itself.
With ingredients heaped clear above the wire mesh, it seemed fair enough.
Did we buy too much? No. Still—there was literally nothing to start with...
As things stood, the fridge and freezer back home were a total war zone: every last ingredient, water aside, had been annihilated.
So I'd expected the bill to run high. I just hadn't expected this high.
"Here's your card and receipt. Thank you!"
Long must it have been—Suho had folded the receipt over about seven times. He tucked card and paper into his pocket and gripped the cart's handle.
"Let's go, Noona."
"Huh...? Oh—okay..."