Chapter 17
Chapter 17
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 17
Chapter Title: Remnants of the Past Abandoned on the Street
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I took off my sunglasses and wandered around the inside of the variety store, picking up one by one the things that looked like they'd be fun to use in my stream.
"Ho, is this a Hahoe mask?"
The next thing that caught my eye after the sunglasses was a Hahoe mask—one of those traditional Korean masks with an exaggerated grinning expression and a cut-out mouth that made your real lips show through when you wore it.
It felt like the mask perfectly reflected my inner self, and I loved it instantly.
"Anyone seeing this at night would piss themselves."
I picked up the Hahoe mask too, and thinking I'd take one last lap around the store, I circled the aisles widely until my eyes landed on a box on display.
"A tripod with a built-in power bank?"
I lifted the box and read the description. The tripod itself had a power bank function, and when you folded the legs, it could extend and retract like a selfie stick—a versatile phone mount.
"Oh, this is nice."
Getting interested, I read the detailed specs on the back of the box. It listed all sorts of features.
The one that appealed to me most was the gimbal function. It kept the phone level when mounted on the stick and you moved around—anti-shake stabilization, basically.
"You're reserved too."
I grabbed the three items I liked and headed to the counter.
"Could you ring these three up, please?"
"Sure, happy to help."
The clerk took the items, scanned the barcodes, and announced the prices.
"Sunglasses, 90,000 won. Phone mount, 80,000 won. Hahoe mask, 30,000 won. Total comes to 200,000 won."
Hearing the price hit me with regret, and cold sweat started beading up.
"You've bought quite a bit, so here's a little service gift."
The clerk said she'd throw in a freebie, went over to the display corner, and came back with a pair of transparent plastic glasses.
"See this button here? Press it, and LED lights come on. Pink LEDs, so I thought they'd suit you perfectly."
It was a pair of translucent heart-shaped glasses that emitted a pink glow.
I'd been thinking of dropping one item, but with this freebie shoved at me, I couldn't back out now.
"Ah, thank you. I'll pay with phone pay."
"Great, thank you. I'll put them in a paper bag for you."
"Thanks, I'll put them to good use. I'll come back again."
I finished paying and stepped out the door, muttering to myself.
"This place knows how to do business."
Outside, I glanced at the paper bag weighing down my right hand, then pulled out the sunglasses and slipped them on.
Black bucket hat, black mask, black long padding coat down to my ankles, shiny pale pink hair, and 8-bit sunglasses—perfect attention-grabber outfit.
Looking at my reflection in the variety store's glass window, it was a sight.
"Attention-grabbing pink penguin..."
It was ridiculous, but I was kinda satisfied with my show-off fashion, so I gave a slight nod. Then I pulled out my phone to check the map for the clothing store.
The map showed the clothing store past the central plaza on Rodeo Street.
I looked up and saw a round plaza not far off, so I headed that way.
I reached the plaza quickly, and across from it, I spotted the clothing store.
As if proving how good business must be with rent that high in prime Rodeo central plaza, the store occupied a massive five-story building plus basement—six floors total, all clothes.
It was top of the search results for nearby clothing stores, so it had to be pretty famous.
I was admiring the building and about to head inside when...
Next to a bench in the plaza, there was a homeless man trembling violently in front of a plastic basket he'd placed ahead of him.
His face was caked in grime, pitch black, looking utterly worn down by the hardships of time.
He wore what might've been a thin padding jacket—or rags; it was so torn up, the stuffing was poking out everywhere.
His face was so wrinkled, you couldn't tell if he was middle-aged or elderly.
I wondered if that's what I'd have become if I'd kept going the way I was, gotten hurt somehow, and couldn't even do day labor anymore.
Snapping out of it, I realized my feet had carried me toward the homeless man.
I approached and looked down at him; he looked up at me.
His eyes were dull and vacant, like life held no meaning.
Eyes that clung to existence out of fear of death, just like mine used to be.
No sense of kinship or anything.
I'm the type miles away from charity. Charity? Bullshit—barely scraping by myself.
That was me.
We stared blankly into each other's eyes in silence for a while before I finally spoke.
"Hey, old man. You trying to die out here in this weather?"
Just days ago, I'd been the one deserving pity, but voicing sympathy embarrassed me. Out came curse words mixed with my dialect and unique accent creeping back in, proving my out-of-town roots.
Even with my harsh words, the homeless man just stared up at me blankly.
"Fuck. I'm busy just surviving myself."
No response from him, so I spat a curse and pulled out the fake leather wallet I'd bought for 2,000 won—a fortune—at the school store back in elementary school.
It was beat-up now, the kind no one would pick up off the ground, but it was a cherished possession I'd used for over ten years, full of mixed feelings.
I pulled out a crumpled 10,000-won bill, paused, then emptied the whole 100,000 won inside into his basket.
"Haa, fuck. Old man, this is money I busted my ass day-laboring for. Was saving it, damn it."
The homeless man didn't touch the money; he just stared blankly at the basket.
I glanced at his ragged clothes, shrugged off my padding jacket, and draped it over his shoulders.
"Put that on and go grab a hot bowl of soup nearby, yeah? Don't freeze to death here."
I didn't know if he sensed my actions as pity or if I just wanted him not to—but harsh words kept spilling from my mouth anyway.
"Even if life's a dog's life, good days come eventually if you hang in there."
He ignored the money and fiddled only with the jacket I'd given him, so worried someone might steal it, I snatched the cash back up, shoved it into his hand, and hurried off toward the store without looking back.
"Attention-grabbing pink penguin turns into a batshit crazy pink show-off chick."
Black bucket hat, hoodie pulled down to my shoulders, training pants clipped with clothespins, black socks with white sneakers, 8-bit sunglasses, and as the final highlight, pretty pale pink hair.
Crazy bitch incarnate.
"Fucking cold."
A chill hit my milky pale skin peeking out from the loose hoodie and my shoulders flushed red like they'd been spritzed with fruit juice, speeding up my steps into the store without thinking.
Inside the store, warm air circulated thanks to the lights shining on the displayed clothes.
"Thought I was gonna freeze solid."
The store was huge, with maybe ten clerks bustling around.
A passing clerk gave me a crazy-bitch stare but kept moving busily, tidying clothes even without customers.
I stood there blankly, unsure where to start shopping, when one of the clerks who'd been eyeing me whispered to a woman, who then approached me.
The other clerks wore name tags, but this woman had none.
She looked mid-20s, incredibly young and beautiful. Her outfit screamed career woman—sharp, suit-like fashion showing exactly what that meant—with a bob haircut tucked behind her ear, revealing a long, casual surgical-style earring on one side.
Her heels clicked as she came over and greeted me.
"Hello, ma'am?"
First time seeing such a stunning woman up close, I spaced out for a second before scrambling to reply.
"Ah, yes? Hello."
"Hee-hee. What a cute customer."
"Uh... thank you?"
"Your voice is gorgeous too. It's like fruit juice bursting out with every word. Never heard anything like it—do you do voice acting?"
She must've thought I was nervous; she raised both hands in a circle and gestured reassuringly with exaggerated calm.
"No, I'm just an unemployed shut-in."
She beamed prettily, chatting kindly to ease my tension.
"Ahaha. If there are pretty shut-ins like you, being unemployed might not be so bad."
"Ah... haha, thank you."
"So adorable. Is there something specific you're looking for? I'd be happy to help."
Despite her career-woman vibe that seemed hard to approach, she kept smiling warmly and attending to me.
"As you can see from my current getup, everything from one to ten is a mess, so I'm buying from underwear on up."
"Hard to tell with the glasses and mask, but just your jawline and face shape scream pretty. With looks like that, even rags would suit you. And deep fashion never gets mainstream approval anyway."
From her words, I wondered if she was even seeing the clothespins as fashion.