Post-Meal Claw Machine Devotion
The cafe lived up to its name—Alraune's Flower Garden—with flowers of every kind decorating the space. We climbed the wooden stairs along the side to the second floor, where a stone pond in the center greeted us warmly. The ceiling featured a waterfall structure, filling the air with the refreshing sound of cascading water. Iron birdcages holding individual blooms added a unique charm when paired with the falling water. The lighting was intentionally dim, bathing everything in a soft, gentle atmosphere.
Hana and I settled at the cactus-shaped table we'd claimed earlier. A slight thirst had been building, so the moment I sat down I took a sip of the coffee they'd brought out. The vanilla syrup and Alraune honey blended into something magical. I felt a twinge of guilt toward my arteries, but hey—I'm still young. I'll let future me deal with the consequences in twenty years.
Hana, on the other hand, seemed to rank the toast far above the coffee. She kept smacking her lips while staring at the honey toast.
"Hehehe, that toast looks so good~. They gave us whipped cream on the side. Seha, do you prefer sprinkling it or dipping?"
"I dip my sweet-and-sour pork, so don't push your agenda on me!"
"I like it soaked, so I want the cream to really seep into the bread..."
Hana's face twisted into a conflicted expression.
"Then cut it in half and put my share on my plate. They gave us plenty of cream anyway, so I'll just scoop some with a knife."
"Oh... Suddenly you seem really smart, Seha. Who are you? Give us back our Seha!"
"Ugh, I'm not valedictorian or anything, but I do study! And eat your salad instead of being picky. You need nutritional balance."
"Ew, I hate vegetables. I'll just eat the chicken pieces."
"You have goat legs but refuse to eat vegetables? And the salad here has amazing dressing—it's actually worth eating."
"My legs may be goat legs, but everything above them is basically human~. And if I want, I can change these legs into human ones. Look. Don't they look model-thin like this?"
"We're eating here. Stop shedding fur. Change them to human legs, please."
"Ugh! Humans are omnivores anyway, but your meat-to-vegetable ratio is way higher. Me hating vegetables is completely natural."
Hana shook her goat-like legs and happily took a bite of chicken breast. Technically they're called goat legs because of the hooves. If someone saw the real version—with actual hooves instead of the human-looking legs she uses now—they'd probably mistake them for black stockings and high heels. When I first saw her, I asked why a little kid was wearing her mom's office clothes.
A Balrog's leg structure starts with soft black fur wrapping the lower thighs. Below that, the skin looks smooth like it's wearing stockings all the way to the ankles, ending in hooves. From a distance it really does look like perfectly coordinated stockings and heels. Hana adds a white ring around her upper shins on top of that. Some kind of trendy fashion among demons, apparently.
"Hey, Yoon Seha. Are you seriously staring at a girl's legs like that? In a cafe full of people? That's pretty bold."
"Sorry. I was explaining, so I looked for a second. Still looks like legs that would make excellent bone broth, though."
"Do you actually want to get kicked?"
She lifted her foot like she was about to jab my knee, so I apologized immediately.
"By the way, do they water all these flowers individually? Doing it once a day would probably take over an hour."
Hana mumbled around a quarter piece of honey toast.
"The owner is an Alraune, so she can probably handle it while doing other things. If you gave her vines a watering can, maybe she could spray them automatically like some kind of auto-hunt feature?"
"That would make the trees rot. Whenever I go back to my hometown during the holidays, this cafe always comes to mind. Unless it's a specially cultivated area, flowers like these are rare back home."
"Isn't it insanely hot there? Does having the Balrog's Blessing cancel out the heat?"
"It actually amplifies it and makes things even hotter. On the plus side, your body's vitality circulates at double the normal rate. Flames are a sign of life force, after all. It makes you throw yourself passionately into whatever you do."
"I prefer living a nice, relaxed life... I'll pass on the extreme heat zone for now."
"You'll end up going there eventually anyway, so don't worry~"
"Huh? What do you mean by that? You said it like going to the extreme heat zone is already decided."
"Hehe, who knows? What could I possibly mean~?"
Hana gave a seductive little laugh and speared another piece of honey toast with her fork. Then she pointed it at me and told me to open my mouth.
"If you only eat salad, your honey toast friend will cry. Have a bite. Ah~ng~"
"I can just eat it with my own hands..."
"Ah~~ng~~~♡"
"Aang....."
I obediently ate the toast she fed me. Hoo... it was sweet. Ridiculously sweet. I'd barely touched it with the fresh cream, yet the sweetness exploded in my mouth like shooting stars. Still, the moist bread combined with the Alraune's homemade honey kept my mouth coming back for more on pure instinct.
"How is it? Tastes better when I feed you, right?"
Hana rested her chin on one hand, watching me.
"I can't deny it... yum..."
It was so sweet that eating it every day for a week would probably give me diabetes. We chatted a while longer in the cafe before heading back outside. For the record, we saved the cookies for dessert after demolishing the army stew instead of eating them immediately. The coffee and toast had already delivered plenty of sweetness—adding cookies would have been impossible. It wouldn't be sweet-and-savory anymore; it'd be pure lethal sweetness overload. Sometimes you need to savor sweetness in moderation.
"My stomach feels a little empty now. Don't you think so, Seha?"
"It's fine for me, aside from the sweetness that won't leave my mouth. We have dinner later, so hold off on snacks. Just endure for four hours and we'll have rice with ham army stew."
"When you put it that way, I guess I have to endure... Now what should we do? Want to go to karaoke?"
"Karaoke? I haven't been in a while. Doesn't sound bad."
"Then it's post-meal karaoke♪ What song should we sing...?"
"Why did you suddenly stop walking? Is someone blocking the way saying 'You shall not pass'?"
Hana, who had been leading the way to karaoke, had stopped and was staring off to the side as if spellbound. I turned to look in the same direction and saw an unmanned arcade filled with several claw machines.
"You completely lose your mind the moment you see anything from the Patisserie Series, like you've been hypnotized. They all look the same to me..."
"What are you talking about!! Each of these kids has so much unique personality!"
Hana suddenly got fired up.
"Look closely at the new blueberry cake doll. It's completely different from the mango version that came out before! The expression, colors, even the texture—everything!"
Ugh, it had begun. Lee Hana's Patisserie Series switch had been flipped. She'd been obsessed with the line since middle school, dumping her allowance on every new release like it was some kind of tax. You know that meme image—the cartoon character holding a wad of cash shouting 'Shut up and take my money!'? Hana was basically the living embodiment of that character right now.
"Seha, wait just a second. Let's do one pull and then go to karaoke. That's okay, right? Yeah?"
Hana practically clung to the claw machine as she begged me. Her tail had even wrapped around the joystick—she clearly wasn't going anywhere.
"How could I possibly stop you? We have more than enough time, so go ahead and try."
"Hehe, thanks~ Just wait for me, Blueberry~ Big sis will bring you home right away~"
She pulled out her wallet and immediately fed five thousand won into the machine.
1 Play Ticket Bonus!
Remaining Plays: 6
"Isn't it better to put in a thousand won at a time instead of five thousand all at once? This is straight-up badass energy."
"True man trait: inserts five thousand won in one go. Loser man trait: timidly inserts a thousand won at a time."
Our Balrog-nim suddenly began lecturing on claw machine theory.
"Listen carefully, Seha. The claw machine is like performing a ritual at an altar. You can't half-ass it by testing the waters with a thousand won. You have to bet everything you have and charge in headfirst before the god of claw machines will answer you."
"Hmm, is that how it works...? I still don't really get it. As a certified loser man, I'll just use my remaining two five-hundred-won coins on the snack machine over here."
While Hana focused intently on moving the crane, I fed my two leftover five-hundred-won coins into the snack vending machine. The moment the coins dropped, flashy music played and the buttons lit up.
"The result of my thousand-won investment is... one bag of fruit jelly and two coin chocolates?"
Not bad at all. If anything, I'd gotten more than my money's worth. Super lucky☆ I wondered if Hana had successfully gotten her doll too.
"Hana~ With a thousand won I managed to get this much to eat..."
In contrast to my modest victory announcement, Hana was gripping the claw machine's joystick with trembling hands like she might snap it in half. I stood on my tiptoes and peeked over her shoulder at the remaining plays. The six attempts that had been left earlier were now down to just one. She'd even pressed the start button right as I walked over. If this round failed too, there would be nowhere left to retreat.
When I'd been pulling for jelly earlier, I'd heard her say something like 'One failure is just shaking off the bad luck. It's all part of stacking up to the jackpot~.' But the situation looked pretty hopeless now.
All I could see was Hana muttering prayers to the machine like a gambling addict.
"Please please please... Crane, it's time to actually pull it for me... Right? It looks like it's less than thirty centimeters from the drop chute, so please..."
I tossed one of the jellies I'd won into my mouth and watched Hana's final desperate attempt from the side. She carefully moved the claw to the right, then positioned it directly above the doll—at nearly a perfect perpendicular angle. She even drew a flaming cross in the air and offered another prayer to the god of claw machines. Wait, is a demon supposed to draw a cross? Is this what the news means by "MZ demons" these days?
Hana's strangely reverent prayer continued in the silence. Then she let out a deep sigh and firmly pressed the button. The machine's lights immediately began flashing wildly as the claw slowly descended toward the doll's head, aiming to grab it. Was it actually going to work this time?