Turning My Head, There She Was
When I turned my head, there was Yuna staring at me with a pouty face. Her slightly protruding lips looked both adorable and a little ridiculous.
“Can’t I just watch the performance?”
“Watching is fine. But the face you were making just now? It looked like you’d been completely bewitched by a nine-tailed fox.”
What the hell does a nine-tailed-fox-bewitched face even look like?
Had I really been making that kind of expression?
I supposed it was possible. I do love that song, after all.
“Come on, it wasn’t that bad.”
“It was. Exactly that bad. You are hereby forbidden from looking at that woman. Forbidden!”
Yuna grabbed my head with her small hands as I tried to turn back and held it firmly in place, as if ordering me to look only at her.
“Think about it the other way around. How would you feel if I was drooling over a male idol?”
An image immediately formed in my mind—Yuna happily watching fancams of male idols on her phone.
Hmm. It would probably be cute.
But at the same time, a sticky, unpleasant feeling rose from the pit of my stomach. A sludgy emotion that quietly ruined my mood.
“Yeah… I’d probably feel pretty bad.”
“See? That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Sorry. It’s just… that’s one of my favorite songs.”
She probably didn’t know.
The real reason I liked that song.
It was because Yuni had covered it.
“I found the original after I heard your cover. It’s seriously an amazing track.”
Before that, I hadn’t even known a song like that existed in the world. It was only after hearing Yuni sing it that I realized it was a masterpiece.
“When you put it like that… ugh. I hate it even more now.”
Yuna squished my cheeks with both hands, her face scrunched up in displeasure. I wondered what exactly she found so upsetting.
Then, in a tiny voice that gradually grew smaller and smaller, she murmured,
“If you want to hear it that badly… I’ll sing it for you.”
At those words, the face she was still holding between her hands felt like it was burning up right along with me.
But seeing her push through her own embarrassment to say something like that made me desperately want to tease her.
“Really? When are you going to sing it?”
“…Huh? When?”
She clearly hadn’t expected me to respond like that. Yuna’s expression turned visibly flustered.
Honestly, of course I had an ulterior motive for wanting to hear her sing it in person. The last time we went to karaoke, it had been incredible.
“…Whenever you have time?”
Yuna seemed to short-circuit, unsure how to answer. When exactly would she have time? It was probably just something she’d said without thinking.
Watching her fumble with such a weak reply, I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.
Then, from somewhere nearby, I started catching quiet whispers.
At those words, I instinctively started glancing around.
Students walking by kept sneaking glances in our direction. For some reason, a lot of eyes seemed to be gathering on us.
Now that I thought about it… what exactly was our current situation?
Yuna’s face was so close I could see her eyelashes. She was holding my face with both hands, our bodies pressed close together.
From an outside perspective, it was undeniably an embarrassing position.
“Yuna… maybe you should let go now…”
“Huh?… Oh.”
It seemed Yuna had also scanned our surroundings. She must have finally read the atmosphere.
She quickly pulled her hands away from my face and scooted back, putting distance between us.
“Ah~! The weather’s so hot today. What’s for lunch at the cafeteria?”
“Ahaha. Right? Oppa.”
With awkward smiles plastered on our faces, Yuna and I started walking as if nothing had happened.
But anyone looking at us could see that both our faces were bright red.
It definitely wasn’t because of the warm weather.
We needed to get out of here. Fast.
I quickened my pace toward the cafeteria, covering my face with both hands because I couldn’t bear to look up.
After the classroom incident, this was our second round of public humiliation play.
The student cafeteria was nice and cool thanks to the air conditioning.
Yuna and I kept checking our surroundings to make sure none of the people from earlier were around. It didn’t seem like anyone was staring at us anymore.
We brought our ordered food to a table and sat across from each other.
I popped a piece of pork cutlet drenched in cheap-looking sauce into my mouth and chewed. Mm. That low-budget flavor.
That was the real charm of cafeteria food—the slightly delinquent taste. The quality wasn’t great, but there was something addictive about it.
Yuna slurped up some of her udon, then said,
“This feels like an amusement park somehow.”
“Yeah. Kinda gives off diner vibes too.”
I gulped down a cold glass of water, and the embarrassment from earlier seemed to fade a little.
As we chatted about random things, the conversation somehow drifted into strange territory.
“…I’m seriously going crazy. Everyone’s acting like it’s their personal mission to make me watch movies.”
Now that she mentioned it, there had been a lot of that on her streams lately. Whenever Yuni casually mentioned her tastes during chat, viewers would jump in with aggressive recommendations.
These recommendation villains kept showing up with movies and dramas they’d enjoyed, pushing them on her with frightening enthusiasm.
“I know exactly what you mean. Those hardcore masterpiece-pushing villains.”
If you mention a movie, they’ll insist it’s a classic and you must watch it. Talk about a drama, and suddenly that one is the greatest of all time. Their passion was honestly a little scary. And why were they donating money just to recommend stuff?
“If it was just them, that’d be fine… but even the people around me keep telling me to watch things.”
“Crime City 3 just came out and it’s so good. Or Suzume’s Door-Locking? You still haven’t seen it? Are you insane? It’s actually blowing up right now.”
Seeing how tired Yuna already looked, I could imagine how much she’d been hounded.
I wasn’t much of a movie watcher myself, so I nodded in sympathy.
“Do you like movies, oppa?”
Yuna must have realized she’d been talking too much and asked me with a slightly embarrassed look.
“I don’t watch them that often, but I don’t dislike them either. I’m neutral, I guess?”
I mostly watched internet broadcasts or VTuber streams, so I rarely touched OTT services or movies. But even though I didn’t seek them out, I usually enjoyed them once I started watching.
“What genres do you usually watch?”
“I’m not too picky, but I can’t watch crime or thriller stuff at all.”
“Why? Can’t handle gore?”
“No, it’s not that.”
What was I supposed to say?
It wasn’t about the violence. It wasn’t about being scared either. I actually handled horror movies pretty well.
There was a reason, but I didn’t want to tell Yuna. It was something that only mattered to me. It was just my boring family history—nothing she needed to worry about even a little.
“…”
When I stayed silent and my expression darkened, Yuna seemed to notice right away.
Before she could get flustered, I quickly changed the subject.
“The genre I like most is probably romantic comedy?”
“Oh. You watch rom-coms? Don’t guys usually avoid those?”
That’s because you don’t know. How much some of us love them.
Honestly, I only knew about myself, but whenever I watched romance, I went absolutely crazy. What could I do? My cheeks would lift so high they felt like they were ascending to heaven.
“Yeah. Sometimes when I’m bored.”
“Our tastes are pretty similar then. Want to go watch a movie together?”
“Should we?”
From building rapport to suggesting a date—it all flowed so naturally from Yuna’s mouth that I was genuinely surprised.
I guess it made sense since she talked for a living. But still… Yuna, it feels like you’ve done this a lot?
I couldn’t help the thought that popped into a corner of my mind.
For some reason, I suddenly became curious about Yuna’s dating history.
“Yuna.”
“Yes?”
“You asked me before, so… can I ask you something too?”
“What is it?”
“How much dating experience do you have?”
At my question, Yuna froze mid-slurp, her udon noodles dangling from her mouth like a paused video.
What was that reaction? Did she have something to hide?
She didn’t have a hundred ex-boyfriends or anything, right?
It wasn’t like Yuna was lacking in any way. She was a little short, but her proportions were great, her skin was snow-white, and her face was beautiful. Still, if someone with a baby face like hers had been out there stealing hearts left and right, that would’ve been genuinely terrifying.
“Asking a girl something like that is rude, you know…”
Hey, you asked me the same thing first.
Yuna rolled her eyes around before beckoning me closer with her hand. She seemed to want me to lean in.
I bent forward and brought my ear close to her.
“I’m only telling you because it’s you, oppa.”
Yeah, yeah, I got it. Just say it already.
Whether it was from her job or what, Yuna was even building anticipation here.
“…I’m a forever solo. This is my first time doing anything like this with a guy too.”
Yuna said it while blushing furiously.
For some reason, hearing that I was her first didn’t feel bad at all.
…No. Honestly, it felt amazing.
I see. So you were on the same team as all those countless Uniz after all.
In that moment, I felt a strange sense of camaraderie with her.