Didn't Think I'd Run Into Them at the Snack Shop
"Let's go to the snack shop."
That was what Riya said to me the moment school let out, her voice firm and decisive.
Riya loved the kind of food you could get at places like that. Tteokbokki, of course, but also sundae, fish cakes, kimmari, fried snacks — pretty much everything a snack shop sold. Honestly, if you judged her by her palate alone, no one would ever guess she was half-Russian.
"You can't even handle spicy food."
"Spicy and liking something are two different things."
For all that she adored snack-shop food, Riya herself couldn't really handle the spicy stuff — tteokbokki, ramyeon, anything with heat. On the occasions we went together, she'd end up filling half her stomach with water just to get through the meal. She could say spicy and liking something were separate all she wanted, but at that point, maybe she should just like something else.
"Alright. Let's go right now."
"Right now?"
"Yeah. We don't have much time."
We had enough time to eat, but her academy started at two, so the window we had wasn't generous. It was already one o'clock — we'd basically have to eat and go our separate ways almost immediately.
So Riya and I headed straight for the neighborhood snack shop we always went to. It wasn't a franchise, but it was pretty well-known around here, and we were regulars.
"One medium tteokbokki and a fried set, please."
It was lunch, not dinner, so there was no need to order anything heavy. Riya had to go to her academy right after, and I had kendo — eating too much would only work against us.
Once we ordered, the food didn't take long. After about five minutes, a plate of red tteokbokki and a pile of fried snacks sat on the table.
"Thanks for the food."
This place's tteokbokki ran spicier than most. Not stomach-burning levels, but more heat than you'd expect if you just dug in casually.
I'm fine, though.
I handled spice well enough that this was nothing. Back in the day, I'd even put away plenty of fire-chicken noodles. The problem was the girl sitting across from me, tongue out, breathing hard.
"Sss… haah… so good."
Her pale face was flushed red and sheened with sweat. She'd eaten this tteokbokki plenty of times before, and still her eyes had gone a little watery from the heat.
"Spicy?"
"Yeah. But it's fine… haah…"
Her face was bright red, her tongue stuck out, her breathing rough — and somehow her expression itself barely changed. From the outside, you might almost think she was putting it on. Of course, the suffering was completely real.
"One drink over here, please!"
Same as last time, I ordered her a fruit juice. She took the peach-flavored bottle and drained it in one go.
"Hwaah…"
Her tongue was still out, but she seemed to have settled enough to catch her breath. While she recovered, I dipped the last sweet-potato fry in soy sauce and held it out to her.
"Here."
"Ah… thanks."
She hesitated for a second, then chomped down on the fry. It was a pretty big piece, and both her cheeks puffed out a little. Those slightly rounded cheeks looked exactly like a hamster's. Riya's mouth and head were so small that anything even moderately sized filled them completely.
Her personality's nothing like one, though.
I was watching her chew when she suddenly pointed past me — clearly not at me, but at whatever was behind me.
"Sihyun. Friend."
"Friend?"
I turned at the word, and immediately understood what she meant. Standing where she'd pointed was none other than Kim Hoyeon.
If it had just been him, I wouldn't have been all that surprised. What genuinely threw me was the girl standing next to him.
"Baek Sihyun?"
"What are you doing here?"
"You… came with your girlfriend, I'm guessing."
Hoyeon sounded startled, but I was the one more shocked. This was a guy with zero history with girls. He wasn't a bad person — he just somehow had no connection to women at all. More precisely, he had no interest in them. Looking at his personality, you'd think he'd be more interested than anyone, and yet.
Which made the girl beside him all the more unusual. She looked a little younger than us. The gym pants she was wearing put her as a second-year at our school. Long black hair and green eyes — a pretty distinctive look — but I didn't know her. Completely new face. No prior acquaintance at all.
"Who's this?"
I didn't name anyone specifically, but Hoyeon knew exactly who I was asking about. A faintly flustered look crossed his face before he answered in a tone that tried for firmness — though his expression wasn't firm in the slightest.
"A junior I know. We've got academy together soon, and she asked if we could grab a meal first."
"Hello, sunbae. I'm Jin Haryeong."
Jin Haryeong. I'd definitely heard that name from Hoyeon before. She was the junior who'd given him chocolate on Valentine's Day. I'd shrugged it off at the time, but apparently that connection hadn't ended there.
…For real?
This guy actually had a romantic lead? Hard to believe. Not that I planned to interfere. Getting tangled up in whatever was between them wouldn't do anyone any good. I had zero interest in meddling with a friend's love life.
…Though I was a little curious why he'd suddenly developed an interest in the opposite sex.
"Sihyun."
"Hm?"
"Look this way."
I turned back toward Riya and found her watching me with a faintly dissatisfied expression. A stranger would have had a hard time reading it, but I knew. That slightly raised outer corner of her eyes, the barely-there downturn at the corner of her mouth. A little unhappy. Not a lot — just a touch of complaint.
"Look at me."
"…"
Riya took my head in both hands and fixed my gaze on her. With everything else blocked out, our eyes locked, and her face filled my entire field of vision. After about three seconds like that, her face started turning redder and redder.
"Auh…"
In the end, her own blushing got the better of her. She let go of my face and pulled back. It happened sometimes — not often, but when we hadn't seen each other much lately, or when we were about to part ways. If my attention drifted to someone else, she'd do this.
Though for some reason she always ends up embarrassed and stops herself…
But I didn't mind. I liked it, actually. I couldn't put a concrete reason to it.
"Haryeong."
"Yes, sunbae."
"…Want to just go somewhere else?"
"…Okay. Then let's go to a place I know."
With a soft clink of the door, the two of them left the shop and headed elsewhere.
A brief silence settled. Once her flushed face had cooled, Riya speared one of the remaining fries with her chopsticks and spoke first.
"That junior. I know her."
"Jin Haryeong? From where?"
"Art academy. Same class. We've never actually talked, though."
I hadn't expected that connection. An art academy made sense — Riya practically lived at hers. Of course they wouldn't have spoken if they weren't close. Honestly, just knowing her face was impressive enough.
"Shall we head out, then?"
We finished off what little food was left and left the shop right away. Checking the time, if we left now she'd make it to academy without being late. Outside, she suddenly looped her arm through mine.
"I'll go alone."
"Alone? Shouldn't we walk together?"
"It's fine."
She rested her head against my arm for a moment, then let go with what looked like reluctance. No — looking at her face, it was definitely reluctance.
"I'm off."
"Do your best. Don't overdo it."
With that, Riya headed for her art academy, and I started toward home. Nothing much to do anyway — I figured I'd just go to the kendo dojo.
Grab my shinai and get over there quick.
And so I set off down the street, with no idea what was about to happen.
"If you don't hand it over right now, you're actually getting hit."
The voice came from an alley on the way to the kendo dojo. Rough, classic thug voices, and the content to match. This neighborhood's safety wasn't great, but it wasn't the kind of place you usually heard that sort of thing either.
What's going on?
It wasn't nosiness. The main road was just a short walk ahead, so there wasn't any real danger.
And I kind of want to check.
Normally I wouldn't have paid it any mind… but for some reason, this time it bothered me. I couldn't say why. Worst case, the shinai would do the job. If things went south, I could just run.
With that thought, I stepped a little deeper into the alley and found three figures.
"Hey! Hand it over already!"
"I really don't have any!!"
Two thugs. Guys I'd never seen before. Their uniforms put them as students from a nearby vocational high school — one with a pretty bad reputation, at that. Before I could even wonder how they'd ended up all the way over here, I looked at the student caught between them and froze.
Messy black hair, a thin frame. Someone I'd already seen today.
Kang Yuwon?
Kang Yuwon. The protagonist of this world. He was surrounded by two thugs getting shaken down for money.
What is this… cartoon situation.
What era was this supposed to be, that thugs were still shaking people down for cash? First time I'd seen anything like it — past life or this one. Come to think of it, Kang Yuwon did have a backstory about being bullied in middle school… It hadn't been an important detail, so I'd glossed over it. Just background flavor for a high-school protagonist's history and personality. Nothing like that was supposed to happen once high school started, either.
I should help him, though.
Looking at these guys, they weren't anyone I couldn't handle. Confirmed, I took hold of the cloth-wrapped shinai in my hand.
A ranked kendo practitioner wasn't supposed to hit people with a sword.
You're not a sword anymore.
I approached them with what was now just a somewhat stiff cloth-wrapped stick.