104. A Beauty Who Opens Hypercar Doors
104. A Beauty Who Opens Hypercar Doors
***
"Sure, then."
Having accepted Eunha's kindness without hesitation, Serin picked up her fork.
Squish.
The fork sank into the surface of the apple pie so softly that she wondered whether pie was supposed to be this tender on the outside.
Serin, who had been slowly lifting a piece of apple pie to her mouth, suddenly stopped just before taking a bite.
"Aren't you going to eat, Eunha?"
Seeing Eunha watching her with an expectant expression, the words slipped out before she knew it.
"Oh, I was going to eat too."
At my words, Eunha answered quietly and picked up a piece of apple pie. Seeing that, Serin took her first bite too.
So they each ate their apple pie,
but their reactions were different.
Eunha, who already knew the taste, relaxed her expression slightly at the familiar flavor of the apple pie.
Serin, by contrast, opened her eyes wide within seconds of taking a bite.
A strange texture, so moist it seemed to almost melt apart.
And then the rich apple filling spreading through her mouth. The deep, flavorful apple filling along the thin pie crust was neither too sweet nor overwhelming—it was almost startling.
Eunha glanced at Serin and asked with a small smile.
"How is it? Good, right?"
"...Yes. It's better than I expected."
As she said that.
Squish.
I speared another piece of the impossibly moist pie and brought it to my mouth.
Honestly, I didn't particularly like pie, and I wasn't the type to order it even when it was on the menu, so I hadn't expected much.
But this apple pie suited my taste so well it was almost shocking.
No, it was good enough that I figured almost anyone would like it.
"I can see why you recommended it, Eunha."
Serin smiled faintly as she cut another piece of apple pie.
Eunha, who had been watching Serin and waiting for her reaction, beamed as if she were even happier than Serin at her satisfied expression, and began recommending other desserts one by one.
Serin had been eating the recommended desserts as Eunha placed them on her plate, thinking nothing of it, when she suddenly stopped eating and stared at Eunha.
"Are you actually eating, Eunha?"
"Yes, I'm eating too."
At Eunha's casual lie, Serin laughed in disbelief and cut a piece of a nearby chocolate dessert, placing it on the plate across from her.
"Here, you eat too, Eunha."
Eunha hesitated for a moment at Serin's action, then stopped handing Serin other desserts and ate the one she'd been given. Serin watched her quietly.
She watched Eunha eat as if paying her back for exactly what Eunha had done, and Eunha's embarrassment under her gaze was plainly visible.
"Pfft..."
It was so absurd she laughed.
Because what were they even doing?
"Then from now on, let's each just eat on our own. Got it?"
Eunha nodded slightly.
After that, Eunha didn't put any more desserts on Serin's plate.
So they each began tasting the desserts that filled the two tables one by one.
But no matter how much the two of them ate, the desserts didn't seem to diminish. Perhaps because every dessert was quite large, even though their hands seemed to be constantly moving, the desserts on the table looked unchanged.
"They're not going down no matter how much we eat."
"We did order... a bit too much."
Serin smiled slightly at Eunha's embarrassed, quiet voice and reached for a dessert farther away.
As they ate this and that with little conversation between them, Serin came to understand something at some point.
She'd thought the cafe's desserts were all fairly pricey, but it wasn't purely because of the cafe's atmosphere. It was simply because none of the desserts were small in portion.
Whether the cafe made them in-house or not, every dessert showed signs of care. None of them were as shockingly delicious as that first apple pie, but they were all worth eating.
Then Serin gulped down a nearby lemonade, and Eunha watched her while slowly organizing her thoughts.
It was a question she'd been dying to ask from the moment they first met, but one that was hard to ask rashly. Still, now that they'd each grown somewhat comfortable with the atmosphere, Eunha spoke up.
"The character Rin... did you model her directly on yourself, Serin?"
"Ah, yes."
Serin answered without hesitation.
Eunha nodded as if thinking, 'I knew it,' and, as if feeling a sense of kinship with Serin, showed a bit more interest as she spoke.
"I thought so. Your appearance right now really is so similar to the character Rin's appearance. Honestly, I was so surprised when I first saw you today. You're really so pretty... and I kept thinking that if you brought the character Rin into reality, she'd feel just like you do now. And partway through, even though I knew it was rude, I stared at you a bit earlier because the more I looked, the prettier you seemed than even the character 'Rin'... I guess my eyes just kept going to you without me realizing."
Serin, who had been sipping lemonade while listening to Eunha's continuing words, gradually stopped moving and ended up looking at Eunha with a subtle expression.
Crunch.
The sound of the plastic cup holding the lemonade bending slightly.
Serin, realizing she'd unconsciously tightened her grip on the lemonade, pulled the straw from her lips.
"Ah... um, yes, thank you."
Even as she answered flustered, Serin felt her hands and feet curling up. She actually felt heat rising to her face.
I stared at Eunha, wondering what on earth she was thinking, praising someone so openly to their face. But she only smiled back at me without a hint of malice, so I couldn't bring myself to say anything.
Then, as if unable to resist, Eunha gazed longingly at Serin's pure white hair with slightly admiring eyes and began to pile it on.
"And your hair color, how is it so pretty? It doesn't look like you dyed it, Serin. Is it natural?"
"Yes, I'm mixed-race, so..."
Serin, fidgeting with her fingers as she touched her white hair for no reason, nodded slightly.
Clink.
Serin set the lemonade down on the table, and feeling that if this went on she'd keep hearing strange things, she opened her mouth to shake off the embarrassment.
"The character Jeanne d'Arc... isn't your actual appearance either, is it, Eunha?"
"Ah, right. Actually, it was a character I made by accidentally copying my own appearance when I first created a character by mistake, and somehow it ended up solidifying into me playing professionally as the character Jeanne d'Arc now."
"You're much prettier in person too, Eunha, so don't people recognize you everywhere you go? Seeing fans just now, you seem really popular both online and offline."
Serin spoke as if deliberately praising Eunha, as if to say "now you try being on the receiving end," but although Eunha smiled bashfully, she nodded and actually agreed.
"Yes, that's why I don't really go out much. There are just so many people who recognize me these days..."
As if she knew she was pretty. Serin was at a loss for words at Eunha saying it was troublesome.
'I thought she'd say she wasn't...'
Not only did Eunha openly agree, she said with her own mouth that she was that popular, and since it seemed to be true, Serin had nothing to say.
Eunha, looking at the speechless Serin, gave her a quick once-over and spoke.
"You have the kind of looks that would be really popular too, Serin. Doesn't it cause you trouble? You've gotten more famous as Rin recently too."
"Ah, ah... yes, well. That's true. I don't go out much either because of people's stares."
...I answered in confusion, and found myself wondering what I was even saying.
"Oh, and one more thing I was curious about—did you intentionally make the character Rin's appearance that way?"
"No. I also, well, made it by accident..."
Strictly speaking, the previous 'me' had made it, but I still wondered what on earth that version of me had been thinking, making a character that copied my real appearance exactly.
"I actually regretted it a bit at first when I made a character that looked like me, but now, well... I'm trying to accept it. Oh, and Serin, even when you meet a lot of people, don't give them too much attention. Fans and such—honestly, I'm grateful, but when you treat each and every person so importantly, everything becomes exhausting."
Eunha told her as if sharing a little tip, and Serin found herself nodding without realizing it.
"Oh, and Serin, don't you think we actually have a lot in common?"
"In common?"
"Yes, like how we both made our characters from our real appearances, and how neither of us really knows why and made them by accident—if you think about it, those things are the same."
At Eunha's now lively way of speaking and leading the conversation, Serin nodded slightly, and her thoughts about Eunha changed.
She'd thought Eunha was a pure and shy person,
but now she saw that once she got close to someone or the distance narrowed, she seemed to become quite talkative.
......
And so, having only picked at the desserts enough to taste them, Eunha and Serin left the cafe, leaving the numerous desserts behind.
They could have talked more inside, but Eunha had suddenly said there was somewhere she wanted to go with Serin and led her outside.
Serin had cleared her schedule and taken the whole day off from streaming, so she simply followed wherever Eunha went.
Spending a day with someone like this didn't feel bad.
Meeting a new person brought strange feelings.
And since the other person was a famous pro player, she'd thought it might be a bit special, but what she felt while spending time together was that their ways of thinking weren't all that different.
The more they talked, the more she thought Eunha was a decent person, and she felt like she could understand why she was popular.
As Serin was thinking that.
Less than a minute after leaving the cafe, her eyes were drawn without her meaning to look at a car that visibly caught attention.
Serin wasn't interested in cars and didn't know much about them, but the car looked extraordinary from its exterior alone. She'd heard that cars like that were called supercars, and anything above that was called a hypercar. She was about to pass by, thinking the car in front of her must cost at least several billion won, when.
"Serin?"
Eunha suddenly stopped walking and called out to her.
Serin turned her head. In her field of vision, Eunha walked naturally toward the hypercar she'd been looking at, and when Serin approached within a certain distance, the hypercar suddenly lit up with a small sound.
Serin stared blankly, thinking, no way.
Seeing Serin's expression, Eunha smiled slightly and opened the hypercar's door herself.
Swoosh.
Serin stared at the hypercar's door opening silently, looking a bit bewildered,
"Get in."
Eunha spoke to Serin in a voice that was now quite gentle, as if all her tension had completely melted away.
Serin's eyes went to the car's exterior without her meaning to, and she opened her mouth.
"This... is your car, Eunha?"
She asked, truly wondering.
"Yes."
Eunha answered without hesitation and looked at Serin as if asking if there was a problem.
And she held the car door open as if telling her to get in.
Eunha, holding the door of the luxurious hypercar, looked different all over again. Exuding refined feminine beauty, she matched the backdrop of the hypercar so well that she looked like a scene from a photoshoot.
Watching that, Serin felt that saying anything would make her look cheap, so...
Serin moved her feet without a word.
Step.
As she slid into the seat of the hypercar Eunha had opened for her, Serin felt deeply self-conscious.
Wasn't this a scene you'd only see in a movie?
A beauty who opens a hypercar door for you and says, "Get in."
'No, I don't think I've even seen that in a movie.'
Swoosh.
Beyond the smoothly closing door, she could see Eunha walking around the car with practiced ease.