Cute Antics
Sprawled out on the sofa, Yui suddenly found a man filling her field of vision.
She had been so completely limp and relaxed that the ceiling and the floor had swapped places.
“……”
Her two legs floated toward the sky.
The face of the man in the black hoodie and mask was down below.
……!!
The moment she registered reality she tried to scramble upright, but it was already too late. Their eyes had met while her hair was still sweeping the floor.
The hand she threw out to push herself up with her elbow slid uselessly across the smooth leather, and her face planted straight back into the cushions.
Auuuugh…!
She had basically just performed a full formal bow. It was ridiculous.
When she cautiously lifted her head—
“……”
—the man had frozen in the doorway as well, only his eyes moving, the rest of him clearly visible above the mask.
Yui’s face burned as hot as a perfectly ripe tomato.
Ah, no!
She fixed her posture and hastily smoothed her tangled hair with her fingertips.
There was only one way to salvage the mortifying spectacle just now.
Greet him with perfect adult courtesy and pretend it had never happened.
Yui straightened her back and composed herself.
Then, in the most elegant Japanese she could produce:
(Hello. It’s been a while.)
Her voice was calm.
Her gaze was steady.
However.
The man’s reaction was less than ideal.
If anything, he took a tiny step backward. His eyes flickered, and the hand fidgeting with the edge of his hood looked awkward.
Clear distance.
……Huh? Why? Because I looked ridiculous just now? He never used to avoid me like this.
“(I must have made a mistake because I was tired. You’ve seen me at my worst.)
She looked him straight in the eyes once more and spoke with the grave seriousness of some aristocrat.
His brows twitched, and an even stronger wave of rejection seemed to radiate from him.
Why?!
She sensed he was about to turn and flee on the spot—and at the same moment, the memory of Do-yoon’s kindness, of how he had prepared candy for her, flashed through her mind.
Back then Yui hadn’t been this mature.
She had been a trembling foreigner who stumbled over her words.
And the man had approached her carefully, the way one might approach a child.
In that case…?
She let the tension drop from her shoulders and lifted her gaze slightly.
She made her eyes sparkle and arranged her face into a pure, curious expression.
“C-candy!”
Clumsy Korean instead of Japanese.
“Ehehe.”
A simple, innocent little laugh.
“Candy. I ate it well-seumnida.”
Suddenly switching to fluent Korean after speaking nothing but Japanese would have been weird.
So she chose Tourist-from-Japan Mode.
When she spoke like this in taxis, the drivers never tried to chat with her.
It was one of the personal gimmicks she sometimes showed on stream.
Amazingly, the man’s gaze swung back to her.
The momentum that had looked ready to bolt at any second softened.
His pupils were still trembling even harder for some reason, but at least his retreating feet had stopped. Yui was satisfied.
This is the answer!
The certainty melted the rest of her tension away.
“Present, prepared. I prepared it.”
She snatched up the bag she had tossed onto the sofa behind her and unzipped it.
She also made sure to casually close the distance under the pretext of showing him the inside.
It was packed full of every kind of Japanese sweets.
Of course she hadn’t brought them from Japan; she had bought them at the “World Confectionery” near her house specifically for this day.
“Kore… this! Nihon gashiku!”
“……?”
“Present! Japanese snacks! Because thank you!”
Yui carefully closed the remaining gap the way one might approach a wild animal with food as bait.
Once the contents of the bag were fully visible, the hesitant man slowly reached out to take one of the snacks—
Ziiip—
Yui closed the bag again.
“Weren’t you telling me to eat them?”
“I will put them myself. Leave them.”
“Huh?”
She needed an excuse.
If she simply handed over the gift and that was the end of it, the future in which he said bye-bye and left was already crystal clear.
While the man hesitated, Yui’s heart was hammering a wild beat.
“S-studio. Snack box inside! I will leave them there.”
In her urgency her Korean had become considerably smoother, though Yui herself didn’t even notice.
“……All right. Go ahead.”
The man turned back toward the studio.
Yes.
She secretly exhaled in relief, hugged the bag tightly to her chest, and followed.
While trailing after him, the stairs and hallway felt far longer than usual.
Whether it was the difference in leg length or something else, the distance between them only kept growing.
He’s fast.
Walk a little slower, would you.
Watching his back, a small hypothesis surfaced.
Looking back over everything so far:
Whenever she acted clumsy or pure, he would reluctantly—or maybe out of concern—give her attention.
Every single time his guard had softened even a little, wasn’t that the pattern?
Shall I test it?
Yui let herself wobble as if she were about to sit down right there.
“Aaaah. My legs…”
The man immediately looked back.
“Uh—” He hurried over in a fluster.
I knew it!
The wary light in his eyes faded, and he instinctively closed the distance as if he might help her.
This was it.
“I exercised, so. Legs. Hurt.”
“Are you all right?”
“J-just walk a little slowly for me.”
“Huh? Ah, yes.”
Watching his stride shrink so noticeably afterward, Yui smiled in satisfaction.
Good. Let’s keep going like this.
At twenty-four, she had always bitten anyone’s head off the moment they treated her like a child—yet in front of someone she liked, her pride didn’t even sting; she just kept grinning to herself.
Maybe this cursed little body isn’t so bad after all…?
Creeeak—
The soundproofed door opened smoothly, and Yui stepped inside at a leisurely pace.
She had come here to record before, so the studio itself was completely familiar.
However.
“Sugeee—! So cool!”
She clapped her palms together with exaggerated delight and giggled as if she were seeing it for the first time.
“……”
The more Yui overacted, the softer the man’s gaze became, grain by grain.
Wasn’t the look he gave her clearly gentler now?
And the gentler it became, the more excited Yui got.
“Waaah, the mic is huge!”
“……Yeah. It is.”
“The keyboard is so cool too!”
“……That’s a MIDI controller.”
“Ooooh! MIDI! Looks expensive. Heeeh—”
Cute, childish, almost pouty.
Words and gestures she had never once used in her entire life poured out of her mouth without resistance.
Now she could even walk right past him under the pretense of looking around and he no longer flinched away.
The atmosphere was good.
She didn’t want to leave.
Crouching beside the snack box, she carefully placed the sweets she had brought into it one by one.
“This is candy. This is mochi. This is mini chocolate.”
She cheerfully explained each one to the man.
“Hehe, Japanese candy! Eat this. Mint is bleh.”
“The peach mint candy is actually pretty good.”
“No-no, chocolate is the best! I’m gonna eat one~ Ah, eum, open the wrapper for me. It won’t open~”
“……Here.”
Because she didn’t want to leave, she moved slowly. Even more slowly.
She had been dragging out the sorting for quite a while when the man looked at his work monitor, then sneaked a glance at Yui, then back at the monitor.
He repeated the motion several times.
Hah.
The silent signal for “When are you leaving?”
She didn’t want to.
“I-I, bathroom!”
“……That way.”
“Gamsahamnida!”
She decided to buy more time by stepping away for a moment.
In front of the bathroom mirror she washed her hands, lightly fixed her makeup, and tidied her hair once more.
How can I get even closer?
Come to think of it, she had been so absorbed she hadn’t even asked his name.
First, introductions.
Not knowing each other’s names left far too much distance.
“Hmm.”
Facing herself in the bathroom mirror, the excitement cooled a little and a mild sense of reality check washed over her.
Was enduring all this humiliation worth being able to stay near him longer?
She wondered if she really needed to go this far—then decided to find meaning simply in the fact that she could remain in his immediate vicinity.
His voice is nice too.
She hadn’t noticed before, but that quiet, measured voice was the kind that settled pleasantly in the ear.
And it felt strangely familiar somehow.
Last time she had been too busy staring to notice.
Probably just her imagination.
They hadn’t even talked that long today, had they?
Yui shook her head once and checked the face in the mirror.
Face status: normal!
Operation commence.
The moment she stepped out she headed for the water purifier.
“Um, one cup of water.”
Slowly. Trickle, trickle.
She waited until the cup was completely full.
Even after filling it she only wet her lips, then wandered slowly around the studio with the cup still in her hand.
From the corner of her eye she checked the man: while she had been in the bathroom he had opened the work program and was fiddling with something.
Was he about to start working?
Disappointing.
Just like the teacher in that YouTube video had said, she decided to start with praise.
Praise could make even whales dance.
“Composing? Heeeh~ Pro? Amazing.”
Next she would ask him to play one of the songs he had made.
Then she would mention that she liked singing too, talk about preferences…
And naturally flow into, “Oh my, come to think of it we don’t even know each other’s names, hehe,” like water finding its path.
Yui nodded resolutely to herself and took one more step closer to the man.
Close enough that she could see the work monitor.
She didn’t know much about composing, so she couldn’t tell exactly what program it was.
But she could at least read the name floating at the top of the window.
[Blackout Cat – MAMA]
“Hup—?”
That title.
Why was it the name of the file this man was working on?
Huh? Wait… wait wait wait wait.
A cold line of dread ran down her spine.
A composer who freely used the Muse Family studio.
A voice that felt somehow familiar.
And the decisive factor: the person working on a Blackout Cat track.
“Ehhh…?”
Yui clapped a hand over her mouth and let out a tiny scream.
How did I not realize?! Am I an idiot?
The last time she had spoken with Yeong-il by voice had been almost two months ago.
His speaking voice was lower than his singing voice, so even after listening to A-il’s tracks recently she hadn’t made the connection.
On top of that, this man simply didn’t talk much.
There was also the problem that her brain had stopped functioning normally the moment she saw his face, of course.
Furthermore.
In Yui’s mind, Yeong-il had been ugly.
A hikikomori who never left his room, social anxiety, the awkward lack of confidence from their first conversation—
Prejudice stacked on prejudice until she had already decided that was simply who he was.
This man was just as clumsy.
Thinking back slowly, Yeong-il’s mannerisms and this man’s overlapped perfectly.
The speaking pace.
The little pauses for breath.
The answers that came a beat late.
She had thought, This guy is so unreliable! during their calls—but hearing the same things while looking at his face made even the awkwardness feel heart-fluttering.
Once it became certain, every thought crashed in at once and left Yui restless.
Yu Nari floated up in her mind.
Her relationship with the composer Yeong-il floated up.
And above all else—
—Open the wrapper for me~
—Aaaah~ my legs hurt.
—Sugee~ so cool! Heeeh~
Every calculated bit of aegyo and child-acting came flooding back.
Yui turned bright red from the tips of her ears all the way down her neck.
She had poured her entire soul into it. In twenty-four years of life she had never once done anything like that.
She must have completely lost her mind.
There was something about this man’s face that simply made her soul leave her body.
And when she could see his wariness melting because of her, how was she supposed to hold back?
She had gotten excited and made a complete spectacle of herself.
…Calm down. Calm down.
She took a stealthy deep breath behind him and tried to regain her cool.
Fortunately.
This man still doesn’t know my identity.
Yeong-il would have heard her voice after just as long a gap, and he had never heard her speak Japanese, so he probably wouldn’t figure it out easily.
The fact that her VTuber character’s image and her real appearance were completely different would help too.
There’s no way he watched the last collab stream, right? A composer wouldn’t bother keeping up with broadcasts…
Probably hadn’t watched it.
Even if he had seen the collab, without watching her regular streams it would still be hard to be sure.
Yeah.
It’s fine.
While Yui was busy patting herself on the back—
Do-yoon, who had been working the MIDI controller, slowly turned his chair to face her.
“……”
Yui swallowed hard.
He had lowered his mask earlier to eat the snacks.
Seeing Do-yoon’s bare face up close was seriously dangerous.
Her heart started racing all over again.
Ah. This is bad for my health.
Leaving the corners of her mouth that kept sliding upward alone, she spun her thoughts.
For now… retreat.
She wanted to dive into a mouse hole right this second, but she absolutely could not show it.
Yeong-il still didn’t know who she was, after all.
She needed time at home to sort out this tangled mess of a head.
“Eung? What is it? Het.”
Yui put on the sunniest, most clueless smile she could manage—
but the man’s next words cracked it right down the middle.
“……Um, I’d like to focus now, so when were you planning to head back…… Yui-nim, right?”
“Eh—?”
Ah, ah ah he knew the whole time?!?
Emergency.
Emergency.
Emergency.
Every single plan collapsed like a sandcastle in the tide.
A twenty-four-year-old adult child who had secretly tracked down the man her fellow streamer liked and performed every cute trick in the book.
That was the title she was about to earn.
If she had at least managed to seduce him it might have been different.
She hadn’t even gotten his number.
(She already had his contact, so it wouldn’t have meant much anyway……)
Yui squeezed her eyes shut.
Not like this. Not like this.
In front of the ideal type she had met for the first time in her life.
She could not suffer this total humiliation.
I’m twenty-four years old and stone-cold sober—what the hell have I been doing?!
Yui drew a breath and spoke slowly.
“I—eh.”
“Yes?”
“No.”
“Huh? What?”
“I am not Yui-seumnida.”
“……Excuse me?”
Already half out of her mind from pure mental collapse, Yui simply let the words her brain supplied spill out one after another.
“I am Kurogami Yui’s younger sister-seumnida.”
“Whaaat?”
“I cannot speak Hangugeo well like unnie. I am 18! High school student!”
Desperate to bluff her way through, she improvised an entire roleplay on the spot.
“Kurogami Mai! Nice to meet you-seumnida!”
She volunteered for the very student treatment she had always hated and forced a fresh, youthful smile onto her face.
The corners of her mouth, yanked upward by sheer will, felt ready to start twitching.
Under Do-yoon’s unreadable gaze,
Yui—no, “Kurogami Mai”—
swallowed hard one more time.