Running a Festival Booth Is Hard
Time slipped by in a blink, and before I knew it, festival day had arrived.
Our class had almost nothing left to prepare.
We cleared out most of the desks, arranged the seats like a movie theater, hung blackout curtains, and just queued up the films. That was it.
For snacks, we only stocked things we could reheat in a microwave and sell on the spot—and honestly, I was starting to wonder if we'd under-prepared.
The movies were all ones I'd put together myself. In practice, all we had to do was run three films and call it a day.
I can say this with confidence: our booth wasn't going to be one of the popular ones—but from an operator's perspective, there was no sweeter setup on campus.
For the record, we'd agreed to take shifts. Lua and I had the morning slot.
"Jinwoo, if you want to go wander around somewhere else, that's fine."
"Nah, I'm good. It's not like there's anything fun to do out there anyway. I'd rather just sleep in the nurse's office."
Lua looked at me with pure disapproval written all over her face.
"Even so—it's the festival. Going to the nurse's office is a little much, don't you think?"
"Nothing out there looks that fun to me."
"Really? There's face painting and stuff, though?"
Where did people with talents like that even come from?
I checked the school festival pamphlet and, sure enough, face painting was listed.
"Want to go try that later?"
"It's going to be nothing but girls. Why would I go?"
"It'd still be fun."
Would it, though?
Girls might enjoy it, but I couldn't see most guys getting much out of it.
With that thought lingering, I waited for the festival start time so I could hit play.
About ten minutes later, the festival finally kicked off.
Click.
The second I pressed play, the movie started rolling, and students began filtering in one by one to watch.
At the same time, others drifted over to order snacks from us.
"One hot bar and a cola."
"One hot bar and a cola~"
I microwaved a hot bar, pulled a can of cola from the mini fridge, and handed them over.
Starting with that student heading back to their seat, a steady stream of people began ordering snacks and drinks.
"The snacks and drinks are more popular than I expected."
Lua looked like her head was already spinning under the unexpected rush of questions.
Watching her, I started to feel that something was off.
What, exactly?
"…Why are there so many orders?"
Compared to the number of people actually watching the movie, the snack orders were way too high.
The movie audience was a little over twenty. That was a decent crowd, sure—but snack orders were far higher than that.
Which meant…
"…There are freeloaders who aren't even watching and still taking snacks."
Kids who had only come to score free snacks.
"Lua, there are people just grabbing snacks and leaving. What should we do?"
Lua listened, then gave a clumsy little smile and nodded.
"Not much we can do. We didn't pay for the snacks ourselves, and we don't really have grounds to stop them. It's a little… annoying, though."
She was right. The snacks weren't our money. They'd been bought with the booth operating fund.
The blackout curtains had been borrowed from the drama club for free, so most of the budget had gone into snacks—which meant we had a lot of them.
It was Lua's idea to stock enough that anyone who dropped by for even a short bit of the movie could have something. That was why we'd bought so much…
"They don't even watch the movie—they just hang outside and grab snacks. What is this, a food truck?"
"Jinwoo, calm down. It's fine."
"You're not mad?"
"I am, but… there's nothing we can do about it."
At her words, I had no choice but to swallow my irritation.
Still annoyed, I took a few more orders and passed them along, and Lua immediately got to work on the cooking.
If you could call microwaving "cooking."
The whole situation felt awkward, so I muttered to her under my breath.
"Hey, Lua."
"Hm?"
"Watch your hands."
"Ah… yeah. I will."
She nodded with a small smile, but I was still too worried, so I finally said it.
"Lua."
"Yeah? What is it?"
"Let's switch. I'll take cooking."
"It's fine. I can handle it."
"It's just a microwave anyway. So I'll do it. You take orders."
"I'm really okay…"
Honestly, I wasn't okay.
There were two reasons. First, I didn't want to keep watching those freeloaders grab snacks while openly chatting about which booth to hit next.
Even if it looked like a low-effort booth on the surface, we'd actually put real work into the setup.
We'd hung the blackout curtains, built a separate snack counter inside, and arranged the seating as carefully as we could.
And yet some people treated our effort like a free snack shuttle. It really grated on me.
The other reason was worry—simple worry that Lua might burn her hand on a hot dish coming out of the microwave.
It might have been overprotective, but I couldn't help it.
And if I were being petty about the little things: the snack side meant constant small movements, which meant standing. Standing made your legs hurt.
Lua hesitated for a while, then nodded and came over.
"Then… will you switch with me?"
"Right away. Sit here and take the orders."
"Okay."
She nodded, and we swapped places. From then on, Lua handled the customers and took orders.
I, in turn, did what she'd been doing—heating sausages, warming hot bars, and squeezing ketchup and mustard over them.
Once I started making the food, it was honestly more comfortable. Especially not having to look those freeloaders in the face. That alone made it great.
Lua looked more at ease too. Everyone was happy.
…Or so I thought, for about twenty minutes. Then something else went wrong.
Snack orders had finally slowed down, and we were watching the movie together when—
"Excuse me~ The screen went off~!"
The screen had gone off.
"Huh? The screen went off?"
"I'll go check."
"No, I'll go. I'm closer to the TV."
I shot out of the snack booth to check the situation.
And I figured it out immediately. Someone had been walking around near the cable and pulled it out. Probably snagged it with their foot.
"One moment~ Sorry about that~"
I apologized lightly, plugged the cord back in, and the TV came back to life.
When I returned to the snack booth, Lua tilted her head and asked,
"What was the problem?"
"Someone must've tripped on the cable and pulled it out while they were walking around."
"Ugh…"
Lua let out a sympathetic sigh, and I just shrugged at her.
Yeah. Issues like this? Manageable.
Or so I thought.
…The world, as it turned out, was a far more demanding place than I'd expected.
"Excuse me…"
Someone knocked on the snack booth. I leaned out to greet them, and the person—a girl—looked deeply apologetic as she quietly spoke up.
"Um… do you happen to have any tissues?"
"Tissues?"
"Yes, I… spilled my drink…"
Now we even had people spilling drinks.
Fine. Mistakes happen. Honestly, this was better. Better than those freeloaders who only came for snacks.
And this girl was practically radiating apology. That I could smile through.
"I'll wipe it up for you. Go sit somewhere else."
"I'm really so sorry…"
Leaving the student apologizing like a criminal, I grabbed a rag and headed over.
"Lua, I'll be right back," I said, tossing her a quick word.
But this time, Lua snatched the rag out of my hands.
"Lua?"
"I'll go clean it. You rest."
She grabbed my shoulders and steered me straight to a chair.
Once she'd sat me down, she walked over to the seat where the girl had spilled her drink and started cleaning with crisp, efficient movements.
She looked almost imposing doing it—and yet a question wouldn't leave my head.
Why was she so determined to clean it herself? Was she looking out for me?
If that was it, I would've been genuinely grateful.
In the middle of all that, Lua not only finished cleaning but even went over and comforted the girl who'd been so excessively apologetic.
Ah. So that was why.
Lua Im really was a kind person.
Look at that generosity—forgiving someone for a mistake wasn't enough; she had to soothe them too.
Wasn't that exactly the virtue people needed these days? I meant that seriously.
Anyway, by the time the first movie ended and lunch rolled around, our shift was finally over.
"You two did great~"
"Nice work. How was it?"
The vice class president and her friend, who were taking the afternoon, came over, and I briefly ran them through the things they needed to watch out for.
Basically: food coming out of the microwave is extremely hot, so be careful—and the person cooking has to stand the whole time, which is exhausting, so bring an extra chair during lunch.
Once I'd finished the advice, Lua was looking at me with a little grin.
"…Why are you smiling?"
"No reason. You just seem reliable."
I had no idea what about me was reliable.
The actually reliable one was her.
With that thought, I naturally fell into step with Lua, and we headed off to lunch together.