Those Who Say "Just You Wait"
In the end, Yeo-eun bought the dress.
She even went so far as to change into it right there in the boutique the moment the payment went through. Her justification was that unless she was out on a date with me, she would never have an occasion to wear such a thing anyway.
Of course, she had tacked on one bizarre condition: in exchange for wearing the one-piece dress, I had to grant her a favor. It was an agreement she had decided entirely on her own without my consent, but seeing the desperate, pleading look in her eyes, I couldn't help but relent and say yes.
"See? Nobody's paying any attention to you."
"Y-Yeah..."
"It flatters your figure, too. Now that you've got it on, it feels pretty good, doesn't it?"
I showered her with compliments the entire time we walked together. Yeo-eun was blessed with a textbook hourglass silhouette—a slender waist paired with broad, feminine hips. To the eyes of other women in this world, her build might seem bulky or overwhelming, but to me, her curves were nothing short of breathtaking.
"Flattering where, exactly? Is this actually covering anything?"
"At the very least, it softens the swell of your hips. I'm telling you, you look really pretty."
The new dress featured a drawstring cinch around the waistline. When she first stepped out of the fitting room, she hadn't tightened it at all, letting the fabric drape over her like a shapeless burlap sack. I was the one who pulled the cords tight and cinched it. In exchange for the favor she demanded, she had promised not to touch the knot I tied.
"Ugh, dammit... It's so short, I can't stop thinking about it."
She kept tugging nervously at the hem as we walked. Perhaps because she was so tall, the fabric barely reached halfway down her thighs. On the boutique's mannequin, the hem had clearly fallen just above the knees, but her plump, full rear was likely pulling the skirt up even higher.
"Pfft. Fidgeting like that only makes it look more conspicuous, Noona. Just walk naturally."
"Easy for you to say! If even a gentle breeze kicks up, my whole backside is going to be on full display!"
Her long legs extending beneath the hem effortlessly commanded my gaze. Firm, sleek, and sculpted like thoroughbred muscle, they hardly looked like the lower body of someone who spent all day sitting behind a streaming desk. What made it even more fascinating was how slender her ankles were and how gracefully her calves tapered, giving her an athletic, statuesque grace rather than looking bulky.
"Haha... Would that really happen? Does it bother you that much?"
"Just a little... Haah. Should I wrap my windbreaker around my waist to cover it up?"
"I told you, you look great. Why go through the trouble of dressing up pretty just to hide it?"
On top of that, her bashful, self-conscious demeanor was stirring up my impulses. Most women in this world didn't give a damn if their underwear was visible or not. Just down the alleyway to our left, a couple of delinquent girls were squatting with their legs sprawled wide open while smoking cigarettes. Yet Yeo-eun—who was ordinarily so carefree and brazen that nothing seemed to faze her—was acting demure and modest, exactly like the women from my previous life. It was probably because she hadn't worn a skirt in years.
"Noona, want to check that place out?"
"Where... the arcade? For real?"
"Yeah. I figured you'd enjoy the games in there."
"Hell yeah! Back in my day, I used to—"
A massive, neon-lit arcade stood along the street. The moment I brought it up, her eyes lit up with excitement.
"Oh! They have this one too? Pure nostalgia! What about you? Have you played any of these?"
"No. It's my first time visiting a place like this."
The instant she set foot inside the arcade, she completely forgot about tugging at her hemline. Wearing a radiant, innocent smile, she wandered around to inspect the cabinets.
"Man, it's been ages for me, too. Should we start with the airplane shooter?"
"Sure. But you'll have to teach me. I don't really know what to do."
"Leave it to me! First, let's get some tokens... Whoa, holy crap. Why does one play cost this much?"
Her high spirits were momentarily dampened when she saw the token rates, scowling and muttering about highway robbery. Even so, she exchanged the bills and we took our seats at the cabinet.
"This? I'm supposed to pick this item up?"
"Yeah, yeah! You take it first. A boss will spawn if we push a little further."
Keeping Yeo-eun in a good mood was effortless. All I had to do was feign ignorance, ask questions here and there, and play along with genuine enthusiasm. That alone was enough to send her excitement through the roof.
"Whoa! That was awesome, Noona."
"Agh, dammit! So close! We could've gone further."
"I guess I went down too fast. You were seriously impressive, though."
"Nah, you held your own pretty well for a complete beginner."
Sprinkling in earnest compliments like that sealed the deal.
"What's this screen?"
"Oh, that's the high-score leaderboard where you enter your initials."
"Whoa. Me too?"
"Yep. We played as a team."
"You really are amazing at this, Noona. You even made the leaderboard."
"Mwahahaha! It was nothing! Just a walk in the park."
Her nostrils flared with pride as she burst into uncontrollable laughter. She seemed entirely oblivious to the fact that I had intentionally thrown my lives away early on just to make her look good. I had discreetly let go of the joystick midway through the run. In truth, I had played similar arcade shooters in my past life; while the title was different, the core mechanics were identical. Still, in this lifetime, it genuinely was my first visit to an arcade. Even if I had played with everything I had, I doubted I could have matched her veteran reflexes.
"Wanna try the light-gun shooter over there? Ever held a gun before?"
"Me? Why would I have ever fired a gun?"
"Ah, right. Fair point. Well, it's not a real firearm, but you grip it like this..."
A gun, huh.
Well, at least in this life, I had never touched one.
We spent a thoroughly enjoyable time playing through the machines. To be honest, watching Yeo-eun puff her chest out with smug satisfaction was far more entertaining than the games themselves. My deliberate effort to lift her spirits was my way of reciprocating the effort she had made for me. Stepping into a style of clothing she had never worn before was a daring leap and a meaningful change. Regardless of scale, embracing change was never easy.
"You got the basics down now, right?"
"Yeah... but do I have to play this specific character?"
"You can pick whoever you want. I only taught you with him because his inputs are the simplest."
The crack in our harmony started at the fighting game cabinet.
Every title we had played up to this point was cooperative. The fighting game, however, pitted us directly against each other.
"All right, I'll hop over to the other side and challenge you."
"Hmm... Noona, why don't you just stay here and play against the CPU? I can just watch."
"Come on! Fighting a real person is ten times more fun than beating up a computer. Just one match!"
"Fine, okay."
After explaining the fundamentals while seated beside me, Yeo-eun slipped over to the opposite cabinet. The bulky arcade frame now stood between us, cutting off our line of sight. All that remained on screen were our chosen avatars.
Though reluctant, I decided to humor her for a single match since she seemed so eager.
Whoosh, whoosh!"Haa-at! Haa-at! Haa-at!"
The winged fairy character Yeo-eun selected unleashed a relentless flurry of kicks. She spammed the exact same attack without missing a beat. My plan was to guard patiently just as she had instructed, looking for an opening to counterattack.
Moments later...
"Haa-at! Haa-at! Haa-at!"
"Pffft-hahaha!"
Her muffled snickering drifted over from the opposite cabinet. The match was over without me landing a single blow. And I had such a sensible strategy, too.
"Noona, stop using that character. Pick someone else."
"Fiiine~"
I leaned around the side of the machine and told her to switch. Round two commenced.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
Her newly selected character wore a gaudy leather jacket and did nothing but throw repetitive backhanded jabs.
"Why can't I block this?"
"Block better, then! Or try using a throw~!"
Her taunting voice carried an unbearable smugness. Once again, I was wiped out without landing a single scratch. Round three started immediately after.
"What the heck! Why do you keep jumping around?!"
"Just giving you a chance to hit me~ Hehehehe!"
Her character bounced endlessly across the screen, easily dodging all of my awkward flailing before delivering an infuriating poke to finish me off.
Three rounds, straight losses. I pushed back my stool and marched over to her side.
"Give me tokens."
"Huh? I thought you only wanted one match..."
"Give me the coins."
"O-Oh, okay."
Yeo-eun handed over a handful of coins. I stormed back to my seat and slammed them into the slot.
I suppose my pride had taken a genuine hit. Losing a game to her was completely fine, but that mocking laughter of hers was not. What truly stung was that I hadn't lost an honest, hard-fought brawl; I had been utterly clowned on and toyed with, which lit a fiery urge for payback.
I really should have stopped after that first match. What began as minor irritation had devolved into genuine, smoldering fury. Five full sets, completely swept. In round terms, that meant I had been publicly humiliated for fifteen consecutive rounds. Yeo-eun hadn't played a single round seriously; she picked one cheesy move per match and trolled me mercilessly until the clock ran down. By the end, I had stopped speaking altogether, glaring at the screen in stony silence.
"Ah, out of money..."
I had burned through every single coin she gave me. In hindsight, it had been a ridiculous matchup from the start. I was a novice holding the stick for the first time, while she was a seasoned arcade veteran.
"What's the matter, cutie? Run out of cash?"
Shaking myself out of the hyper-focused haze, I realized two girls had seated themselves on the stools next to me. Clad in flashy, delinquent attire with heavy makeup caked on their faces, they looked roughly around my age or slightly younger.
"Want Noona to spot you some coins? Or should we get payback for you?"
A heavy sigh slipped past my lips. In this life, bizarre women seemed perpetually drawn to me. The pair had apparently sat down during my final round, carrying the sharp, overpowering stench of cheap cigarettes and heavy perfume. I had assumed they were just waiting for their turn on the cabinet.
I decided to ignore them and stood up to leave. Instantly, one of them reached out and seized my shoulder.
"Where do you think you're going? When someone talks to you, you answer."
"Hey, don't scare the kid. We're not bad people, sweetheart. Do you like games? How about you hang out with us—"
There was no need to waste basic courtesy on people like this. Nor was there any reason for me to get my own hands dirty in a petty scuffle.
"Noona!"
Raising my voice just enough to carry over the arcade din, I called out a single word, letting my irritation bleed into the tone.
"What? Out of money already?"
A head popped over the top of the cabinet. Yeo-eun had looked up with a smirk, struggling to hold back her laughter, but the moment she registered the scene before her, her expression twisted into a terrifying scowl.
"What the hell? Where do you think your filthy hands are touching?!"
As Yeo-eun stormed around the cabinet, the two delinquent girls sprang to their feet in sheer panic. Comically enough, they seemed utterly intimidated just by Yeo-eun's sheer physical presence and towering height.
"Noona."
"Jeongseo, are you all right?"
"No, I'm not. Why did you keep spamming that exact same move? Was that some kind of bug or glitch?"
"Huh? What? No, of course not! A glitch? It's just a simple basic skill. If you think about it for even a second, it's super easy to counter—"
Paying zero attention to the intruders, I pressed forward with my grievance, treating the two delinquent girls as if they were entirely invisible.
"So you're saying I wasn't thinking? You're calling me an idiot, aren't you?"
"N-No, that's not what I meant at all! I mean, well..."
The menacing aura Yeo-eun had worn a second ago collapsed into flustered stammering under my relentless questioning. Meanwhile, the two delinquent girls were attempting to slink away quietly.
"Hey, you two. Where do you think you're sneaking off to? Stay right there."
Yeo-eun clearly had no intention of letting them off easy. She spoke in an ordinary, level tone, yet it carried the rumbling vibration of an apex predator growling over its territory.
"Is that really what's important right now, Noona? Nothing happened with them, so drop it. We need to talk."
"Huh? Wait, but—"
"I said, we need to talk. Follow me."
I turned on my heel. I had no desire to let a public scene escalate any further. More importantly, an intense, suffocating impulse was boiling up inside my chest. I desperately needed a secluded space away from everyone's eyes.
"Jeongseo, you're really okay, right?"
"Yeah, nothing happened. You were standing right across from me anyway."
A row of coin karaoke booths caught my eye. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the two delinquents scurrying toward the arcade exit at top speed. It was for the best; if they had dared to talk back, things would have gotten ugly, and knowing Yeo-eun's temperament, she never would have backed down.
"Hurry up and feed the machine."
"Huh? Why..."
"What do you mean why? Put on some background music. Any random song."
I pulled her inside the booth and clicked the door firmly shut. While Yeo-eun fed bills into the karaoke machine, I retrieved a travel bottle of hand sanitizer from my bag and thoroughly rubbed it over my hands.
"Jeongseo? Um... what are you doing?"
"I don't know. I'm completely stressed out right now. It's your fault, so you're going to take responsibility."
"Huh? What did I even..."
Feeling a prick of guilt, Yeo-eun averted her gaze. The burning indignance from being thoroughly toyed with in the game coexisted with a swell of affection for how fiercely she had bristled to protect me. The clash of emotions made my latent urges flare uncontrollably, and I had no intention of holding them back. There was no reason to.
Slide.
"Ah..."
"What the...?"
I slipped my hand beneath the hem of her dress, only to pull it right back out when my fingers met an unexpected texture.
"T-That's, um..."
Flustered, Yeo-eun began stammering incoherently. Ignoring her feeble excuses, I flipped the hem of the one-piece dress upward. Above her smooth, flawless thighs, what was supposed to be there was nowhere to be found.
"Are you serious right now, Noona? Where the hell are your panties?"
"In my bag..."
The real reason she had been clutching her skirt and fussing over the hem all the way to the arcade—she hadn't been wearing any underwear at all.
As the two of us stood there struck utterly dumb, a jaunty karaoke melody began to blare through the speakers.