"I Mean, It's My Meal Pass!"
For a chaebol family’s youngest daughter, Kwon Seah, getting a single buffet reservation at Hanseong Hotel was almost absurdly easy—just one phone call, and it was done.
In the first place, the reason I’d even been able to get my hands on a meal voucher was thanks to Chief Secretary Lee Eunbyul’s help.
The five of us, gathered for what was basically a meetup in all but name, were chatting in the clan channel.
I’d been worried someone might feel uncomfortable, but thankfully it turned out to be all my needless fussing and nothing more.
As expected of people who’d already shown such good sense from the moment they applied to the clan.
“The fountain... the lounge... is that them? But there’s a woman there?”
I was wandering around Hanseong Hotel while shamelessly eavesdropping on Shuri’s messages.
I’d dressed as ordinarily as possible, so I didn’t look particularly suspicious, did I?
Anyway, in that huge lounge, there was only one group of people sitting on the sofa by the fountain and talking.
No, but there’s a woman, though. Is she somewhere else?
“Uh... uhuhuh? Looks like it, right?!”
Just as I was mulling it over, two men and a woman walked up to the man and woman who’d been chatting in front of the fountain, all smiles—and the group instantly became five.
The five of them naturally kept talking for a moment before heading into the buffet together.
What is this? There are two women in our clan besides me?!
“Ahem... you see those people who just went in?”
Beside me stood the buffet manager Lee Eunbyul had called in for me.
I’d said she was overkill for this kind of thing, but I couldn’t exactly ignore Chief Secretary Lee Eunbyul’s advice that a manager would make seating arrangements easier and more flexible.
“Could you seat me around those people... not right beside them, I don’t need that exact close, maybe behind them? Anyway, somewhere in that direction?”
“Understood, Miss Seah. Please wait a moment.”
The woman, impeccably dressed in a black suit so polished it practically shone, smiled brightly and led me into the buffet with her.
No, but the lineup of five looked livelier than I’d expected.
There are two women? And the three men also seem surprisingly decent, too?!
“Wow... this really is huge and gorgeous.”
“Right? What on earth does Clan Leader do to get a meal voucher for a place like this?”
The two women were talking naturally among themselves.
“Whoa...! I only just looked around, but the food lineup is no joke.”
“It really isn’t. There are familiar dishes too.”
“Sss... can you drink here? Any beer? Beer?”
The three men were chatting without a trace of awkwardness as they sat down.
I didn’t trail after them like some clueless hanger-on; instead, I picked up a bowl of mushroom soup nearby and took a seat behind the clan members’ table.
“So, how about we do a quick round of introductions? It’d feel a little disappointing to just start talking after taking our food.”
“Sounds good! There seem to be so many things that look amazing here that it’d be a shame if they got cold.”
“Then, as I’m sure everyone’s already guessed... nice to meet you. I’m Shuri.”
Shuri was more normal-looking than I’d expected—no, actually, he was handsome enough that calling him a good-looking guy would’ve been perfectly fair.
He looked fairly tall, and his voice had a pretty decent tone, too.
Ah, but he was a man. I’d been hoping, just from the femininity of the nickname, that maybe he was a woman...!
“I’m Lina. Yes, that Lina-whatever-it-is.”
So that was Lina—LinaChewsEverything, right?
He was generously built, to put it kindly, with a body so impressively broad that it made me worry about his health just looking at him.
But how should I put it? His voice was pleasant, and he had a soft, easy air about him, so he didn’t leave a bad impression.
“I’m Pathfinder.”
The man who gave a light greeting—Pathfinder—was wearing jet-black sunglasses and looked a little like a kid, which somehow made him seem older instead.
He gave off a vibe that made me think he had to be in his late thirties at the very least.
Come to think of it, wasn’t he one of the people who almost always used honorifics in clan chat?
“Oh... so that leaves only the women, then? I’m Irel.”
Smiling brightly, IrelWannaEat waved her right hand in greeting.
No, her username was insane, but her face was seriously beautiful...?!
“I’m Lenako, uh... haha.”
Lenako’s Palace Expedition Team, her face tinted red as she fanned herself with one hand, was the shortest of the five.
And she had a fairly ordinary vibe, I guess?
Unlike Irel beside her, who’d dressed quite vividly and prettily, she was wearing plain clothes as if proudly advertising that she was a homebody.
“Mm-hm... something like this.”
All five of them had faces that left a definite impression.
“Well then, now that introductions are out of the way, should we go get some food? You must all be hungry.”
“Oh, honestly, from the moment I walked in I was about ready to lose my mind wanting to eat.”
The broad-shouldered Lina got up quickly from his seat.
The other four also rose and headed off to fetch food.
“Hm...?”
But something was odd.
Had I seen Shuri somewhere before? His face wasn’t so uniquely memorable that I could place it at a glance...
There was this feeling I’d seen him somewhere. But where could I possibly have seen a guy like this?
“Maybe a convenience store? A department store? ... Pazik? Ah, uh...?”
I really had no clue at all!
He was just too plain in the best possible way—handsome in a thoroughly ordinary, forgettable sense—so I couldn’t get any kind of read on him.
“Seah-a—”
“—Ah, n-no, it’s fine! I’ll take care of my own meal from here on, so thank you for your help. Please tell Chief Secretary Lee that I’ll speak well of her.”
The moment I got up from my seat, the manager began following me like a shadow.
Honestly, I didn’t want to be any more of a nuisance, so I quickly sent her away.
Besides, if I kept talking with her around, the others might feel awkward, so this was probably for the best!
“But here... for a buffet, there’s kind of a lot of this sort of thing?”
“Ah... you noticed. I was surprised too. They said if you place an order, they make it fresh right away and bring it out. I was shocked when I heard they’d even grill the meat and serve it immediately.”
Irel and Lenako seemed to hit it off quickly, probably because they were both women, and were already chatting away as they walked.
And Lina, as if demonstrating some secret to maintaining his impressive build, piled all sorts of food onto a white plate like a mountain.
It wasn’t just mindlessly shoveling everything onto a plate like a pig; there was a rhythm and pattern to it, which somehow made me laugh.
“Excuse me, miss. Do you have alcohol here?”
“Of course we do, sir. What would you like? Over here we have...”
From the moment he came in, Pathfinder had been talking about booze, and now he’d actually cornered one of the staff and started asking about everything from draft beer to wine and a whole range of other drinks.
Heh. They were enjoying the buffet I’d paid for more thoroughly than I expected, weren’t they?
Since I was, after all, a hopelessly isolated type, I grabbed a plate with a hunk of beef, a few pieces of sushi, and a cocktail, then went to sit down.
“Whoa... Lina, can you really eat all that?”
“Oh, of course I can. Yes. Why wouldn’t I be able to eat all this? Haha!”
With an easy laugh, Lina sat down first.
Irel, watching that, gave a thumbs-up and praised him with surprising tact.
Ah... but what was this? Was today a day when my intuition was especially sharp?
Shuri and IrelWannaEat both felt like people I’d seen somewhere before.
“I’m sure I’ve seen them somewhere... their faces feel ridiculously familiar... and their bodies too...?”
... Seah. Have you become a pervert?
How can a body feel familiar? Use your head!
Since when do chest lines or hip lines feel familiar? Where exactly do you think you’ve seen a woman’s body before?
“Huh?”
... Wait a second. There was somewhere they could be familiar from, wasn’t there?
I quickly pulled out my smartphone and opened Rewitter.
“By the way, Ms. Irel, aren’t you kind of famous?”
At the same time I started searching, Shuri brought it up.
Irel, who’d been stuffing spaghetti into her mouth, swallowed immediately, took a sip of her drink, and nodded.
“Yes, that’s right. I can’t exactly say I’m not famous, can I?”
“Huh? You’re a streamer?”
“Ah—well, I’m only really famous among people who already know me...”
No way, I wasn’t seeing things, was I?!
“I go live on Pazik sometimes, but I’m mainly active as a commercial cosplayer. My name’s Jenny.”
I kept moving my thumb and checked Jenny’s Rewitter account.
Her cosplay gallery posts had helped me a lot, but what I’d really needed was a proper example.
So the person I’d been diligently studying was Jenny, who had 300,000 followers...!
“O... ohhh...”
And that Jenny was right here in front of me?!
She’d come in with such a ridiculous, pervy-sounding username like IrelWannaEat, how was I supposed to recognize her?
“Well now... I thought this lady looked familiar from somewhere, and it turns out she’s the one who used to post in the gallery from time to time.”
“Huh? Then do you know Labellehar-nim too?”
Like hell I do! I only just found out myself!
“Ah—no, no. There’s no way you’d know. I just thought it looked interesting, so I applied after seeing the posts on the Galaxy Train gallery.”
Wow... good thing I came sneaking around.
So there really was a Jenny in our clan?!
In that case, could we do a collab more naturally like I do with Lilith or Mallang-i? Didn’t she say she sometimes streamed on Pazik just now?
Could I, could I maybe even learn some secret for making cosplay sexier?
“Oh wow... I thought you were just pretty, but you’re famous-pretty.”
Jenny smiled with her eyes and kept eating.
Ha... I really did well to hand out those meal vouchers.
Thanks to Shuri saying, with such tact, that they should share and eat together with the clan members, I’d even managed to learn this much!
Ah, but what should I do?
I wanted to get a little closer to Jenny. But if I suddenly said I was here, or casually appeared too obviously, wouldn’t that give me away way too much?
Damn it, and I only wanted to get closer to her as myself—I didn’t want to reveal that I was Kwon Seah...!
“But...”
Jenny, neatly finishing the food on her plate, spoke up.
“Does anyone here happen to know more about our clan leader?”
... Huh? What’s this conversation?
“Uh... no? I do talk to her over DM pretty often, but it’s always just about clan battles and stuff.”
“Shuri-nim, you help clan leader by making tables and things, right?”
At Lina’s words, Shuri nodded.
“Yes. Other than that, we don’t really have much in the way of private conversation, so I was pretty shocked when she said she was streaming last time.”
“Right? Nobody really knows, do they? Honestly, if I’m being completely honest, I joined at first because she was a woman—that alone made me think it’d be kind of fun, so I applied.”
Jenny continued with a smile.
“But after I got in, I realized she was even more interesting than I expected. So I thought maybe the rest of you knew something I didn’t.”
“Hmm... well, I got in through a similar sort of application myself.”
Pathfinder said, emptying his second drink.
“I imagine everyone’s about the same. As far as I know, nobody joined because they were personally close to her.”
“Waaah... so none of you even know what kind of work she does?”
Jenny’s eyes sparkled as she spoke.
Ah, no, what was this? Was she interested in me?
It felt weirdly like she was praising me, and my chest was starting to pound in a dangerously fluttery way.
“Honestly, I’m really curious about what kind of person clan leader is. Aren’t you all curious too?”
“Ah, definitely. I’m pretty curious too.”
Lina had already made it through half the mountain of food on his plate.
“She’s the kind of person who spends money like water, right?”
“Right. But she’s not some terrible person.”
“There’s a reason people say generosity comes from a full granary. I mean... looking at how she forgave that Heretic girl? That alone says she’s a pretty decent person.”
“Ah... honestly, I thought she was going to wipe the floor with her back then, but she let it slide in a fun way just for a single drawing, didn’t she?”
No, no, no—what is this atmosphere?
Why are they praising a person who isn’t even sitting at the table?
“Huff...”
This isn’t some hidden camera prank, is it?
They’re not just pretending not to know I’m listening so they can praise me and prop me up, are they?!
The suddenly launched conversation about me, and the praise that came with it, showed absolutely no sign of stopping anytime soon—and, absurdly enough, it was genuinely flattering.
“Ugh... ngh... it’s, it’s embarrassing...”
In the end, the praise I could hear so plainly became too much, and I covered my face with both hands.
Ah! Hearing people talk about me in real life made me want to die from embarrassment...!
And yet, for some reason, it also felt good?!
“Ah... then would you all like to hear something I have to say? I actually heard something really interesting.”
“What kind of story is it? Something related to clan leader, right?”
“Yes, that’s right. I think I might know who our Labellehar-nim really is.”
... What?!