Come Closer to Me, Part 3
Flare and Silvere were walking home together when Silvere spoke up.
"Flare, your identification documents will be ready soon. Would you like to try doing a job?"
"A job? You mean working to earn money?"
"What kind of job?"
"Hmm... Just watching my Cafe and making drinks instead of me. I actually have to go on business trips quite often, so I end up closing the Cafe a lot."
"Though there are barely any customers anyway."
"Well... it's not really about making money, so you just need to keep the place warm."
"The hours are from ten in the morning to ten at night, so you'll have plenty of free time."
"There's internet, too."
"I'll handle all the ordering, so you'd just need to check the inventory every day."
"What do you think? Interested?"
Flare fell into deep thought.
She weighed whether she should do it or not.
After pondering for a moment, Flare gave her answer.
"How about we get my ID first and talk about it then?"
"Hmm... I suppose so. It was a bit of a premature offer."
"I'll think about it positively for now."
After parting ways with Silvere, Flare returned home.
It was just before ten in the evening, a time when Hyun would still be awake.
"Welcome back, Flare. Did you eat well?"
Flare answered him.
"I had a great meal and a good time with A-yeong."
"Good. What are you going to do now, Flare?"
"I don't know. Maybe watch a TV drama first?"
"Sure, there's one on right now. Here's the remote."
Flare took the remote from Hyun and flipped through the channels.
As she surfed, she saw that the drama she had watched last time was about to air its next episode, so she stopped there.
Once the drama ended and the commercials started, Flare looked over at Hyun, who was on the verge of melting into the sofa.
"Hey, Hyun? Are you sleeping?"
"I'm not sleeping."
"For someone who isn't sleeping, you're awfully limp."
"You look sleepy. Am I wrong?"
"I told you, I'm not... *Yawn*—"
Flare watched the completely drained Hyun, a delighted, pleased expression spreading across her face.
This is fun. So this is why people say teasing others is so entertaining.
It was an emotion she had never known during her days as the Dragon Lord.
Just as Hyun was about to drift off completely, she switched the channel to a horror special she had spotted on the program guide.
Screeech—! A bloodcurdling shriek echoed from the TV, and Hyun, who had been on the verge of sleep, jumped out of his skin.
His eyes snapped wide open.
Thud, crash!
"Whoa, what the... That scared the life out of me. I'm wide awake now..."
Flare clutched her stomach, bursting into laughter at his reaction.
"Pfft! Bwahaha!"
"Ah, your reaction is priceless! Hyun, are you bad with scary things?"
"Yeah, I am, so don't put stuff like that on... Man, my heart is racing..."
Hyun wished he could claw back the sleepiness that had been completely banished by the scream.
"Please go easy on these jokes in the future. It's bad for my heart. *Sigh*, I'm completely awake now..."
"I don't think I want to. Your reaction is just too much fun."
Amused by his response, Flare rejected his plea, her tail wagging playfully.
"Isn't it about time to sleep, Flare?"
"True, it is about time. But seriously, your reaction was hilarious."
"I think I'm going to have very sweet dreams tonight. I'll make sure to think of how to tease you next time, so look forward to it, okay?"
Turning off the TV, Flare gave a cheerful laugh and sauntered off to her room, her tail swaying happily behind her.
Once inside, she grabbed her teddy bear, threw herself onto the bed, and let the plush toy and soft mattress cushion her fall as she landed perfectly.
Squish, squish.
She kneaded the teddy bear, trying to calm herself down, but she couldn't stop grinning.
"Ah, I need to sleep, but I'm too giddy to drift off."
(The Next Day)
Bolt!
"I'm late!"
And so, having woken up at exactly twelve o'clock the next day, Flare bolted out of her room in a frantic rush, still clutching her teddy bear.
Three days passed. At 3:00 PM, while Flare was watching TV with her teddy bear in her arms, she received a message from Silvere.
Flare slid over to Hyun, who was sitting a cushion away on the sofa, and brought up the news about her ID.
"A-yeong says my ID is ready. She asked if we're free today or tomorrow, and she wants you to come along too. When do you think you'll have time?"
At Flare's question, Hyun replied that anytime was fine.
"We can leave today. Should we go right now?"
At Hyun's suggestion, Flare pulled out her phone, saying she would text A-yeong.
Finishing the text, Flare turned to Hyun.
"Hyun, A-yeong said it's fine if we come right away. Let's go."
"Alright. Put on a jacket first. It's still a bit chilly outside, so you should wear something warm."
At his words, Flare scoffed, showing off her pride as a dragon and insisting her body temperature wouldn't drop, turning the worry back on him instead.
"What do you take a dragon for? I'm perfectly fine in just a tracksuit."
"You're the weak one, Hyun. A dragon's body temperature doesn't drop from a little breeze like this. So make sure you bundle up."
With that, Flare hurried him along to get out the door.
"So let's go! I need to get my ID!"
"Alright, alright, we're going."
Once Hyun was ready, Flare dragged him out, and they set off for the Cafe.
Chime!
"A-yeong, I'm here!"
Flare greeted her warmly as she pushed open the Cafe door.
"Ah, Flare, you're here? And you brought Hyun along too, just like I asked. Good to see you both."
"Hey, Sis. You told us to come together."
Silvere guided Hyun and Flare to the counter seats and pulled out an envelope containing administrative documents and an ID card.
"Have a seat first. We need to look over the ID and the paperwork."
"Let's see... Your name has been processed as a naturalized foreigner under the alias Han Yeoreum. Your age is listed as twenty-four, and you have no family. How does that sound?"
"Cleanly processed, right?"
"I went through quite a bit of trouble to get this sorted out, you know."
(Actually, the President went through much more trouble.)
Since Silvere's role mostly involved repelling external threats, she usually handled things with a simple phone call. Unless it was a special case like Flare's, she tended to live like a total slacker.
But it wasn't as if she didn't work. She had done her fair share of rolling around on the front lines. If those external entities hadn't been suppressed or killed by Silvere, the Earth would have been reduced to ashes long ago. In that light, this level of slacking off was practically her birthright.
The dragons found dead and recorded in ancient texts were actually beasts strong enough to leave a scratch on Silvere's scales when attacking with all their might.
Of course, to Silvere, a dragon possessing power rivaling a Lord, they were merely "decent fighters."
Calling them "decent" was a massive understatement of their strength, and if those deceased dragons whose souls had departed to the Goddess's embrace could hear her, they would have flooded her with protests.
But since they were all dead, dead dragons tell no tales.
Anyway, back to the matter at hand.
"It turned out well, right? I took care of it exactly as requested."
Hyun carefully inspected the newly minted ID and administrative documents alongside Flare, then slipped them back into the envelope and thanked her.
"Thanks, Sis. I keep asking you for favors, but you always help without a single complaint."
"Don't worry about it. I do it because I want to. It's not like you make these requests every day."
"Next time, let me buy you something delicious. Or maybe we can go shopping together? This time, I'll try on whatever you want me to wear."
Hearing this, Silvere grabbed Hyun by the shoulders and pressed him.
"What? Really? That's a promise, right?"
"I have so many things I want to dress you up in. You're going to wear all of them, right?"
From A-yeong's reaction, Hyun instinctively realized he had made a grave slip of the tongue, but it was already too late.
"Pfft!"
Flare caught on to Hyun's blunder and couldn't hold back her laughter.
"You definitely messed up. Did you already forget how many clothes you bought when you took me shopping last time?"
Hyun recalled the time they went to buy Flare's clothes, and a wave of sheer exhaustion washed over him.
"The clerk packed so many separate bags for us, yet you forgot so quickly?"
With Flare's teasing follow-up, Hyun realized he had dug his own grave.
Of course, to Flare, watching Silvere's intense excitement and Hyun's despair was pure entertainment.
Maybe this is what a truly peaceful daily life is like, she thought. Having absolutely no desire to mediate, she simply watched the spectacle unfold.
Hyun was only allowed to leave the Cafe after solemnly swearing to A-yeong that he would enthusiastically accompany her on her shopping spree.
Flare had watched the whole thing with absolute fascination, not even entertaining the thought of stopping it.
She had stood by spectating for about twenty minutes, right up until the moment Hyun finally surrendered and promised to spend an entire day shopping with her.
"Hyun, what are you going to do? You actually have to go shopping with her now. Pfft!"
Hyun spoke with a look of utter transcendence.
"Well, what can I do? It's my fault for speaking without thinking. *Sigh*..."
"Right, right. But don't worry, I'll make a special exception and tag along to watch your fashion show, okay?"
"Since you walked right into this shopping trap yourself, you'll just have to deal with it~"
In the end, it was a day where only Flare and Silvere walked away happy. Hyun's future looked bleak as he contemplated the shopping hell that awaited him.
He tried to console himself with the thought that the sacrifice of the few brought happiness to the many, but there was no denying it was going to be an incredibly exhausting day.
Was this not a disaster of his own making?