Ch.104Step Aside, I Have Something for You to Do (6)

I found Saehyang and Hyerang, and that damned Do Hamin who had entered the clothing store and hadn’t come back out.

The tracking itself wasn’t particularly difficult. A guy walking around with two pretty girls on either arm naturally draws people’s attention one way or another. The hard part was making sure those three didn’t notice I was following them.

‘Wow, that girl with the straight black hair. She’s insanely pretty.’

‘Looking at that Bulsa High uniform, isn’t she that goddess everyone talks about from Bulsa High?’

‘Getting quite the show today. Starting with some loser walking around with two high school girls.’

Even the mask of Ban Doyoung, the most beautiful girl in this world, couldn’t help but draw just as much attention as Do Hamin parading down the street with two pretty girls on either side.

“Welcome to Spring Fall Love, a women’s clothing store that makes women pure and lovely… Oh! That intimidating face peering through our window earlier belongs to an incredibly beautiful student… So you’ve finally decided to come in?”

“What? Is there something on my face?”

“Ah, no, it’s nothing. I just made a mistake because your face is so pretty. Are you looking for something in particular?”

“My boyfriend.”

“…Excuse me?”

A sophisticated clothing store with a stylish sign decorated with fresh spring flowers and casual pink handwriting. The place where Saehyang and Hyerang had taken Hamin was a clothing store targeting young women in their teens and early twenties.

“I’ll just look around to see if he’s here or not.”

“Ah, yes… We only have female staff here, so I don’t think you’ll find what you’re looking for, but please feel free to look around…”

The inside of the store was as colorful and pink as the sign outside suggested. It was clearly a place with a high hurdle for guys—someone like Hamin would probably turn bright red at just the greeting from the staff and the displayed clothes, then make a U-turn without looking back.

From the entrance, they had set up a section with signs like <The Best Brassiere to Gift Girls Starting Puberty!>—it was practically a barrier spell.

“I didn’t see them come back out after they went in here…”

I lingered around the underwear section to catch any sign of the three leaving. If Hamin was here, he’d surely panic and signal his presence.

“Excuse me… student. I don’t think we have bras in your size in this section…”

“Looking is free, isn’t it?”

“Y-yes, of course. I apologize…”

I looked around the underwear section for about five minutes, but none of the three showed up near the entrance.

“…Maybe I need to go deeper inside.”

…

“Oh, this pink cardigan is pretty. Wouldn’t something like this be nice? I think it would suit well.”

“Yeah. I just found a nice white skirt too.”

“…”

Found you, chicken-heads.

It was worth digging a bit deeper. As I entered the spring clothing section where new items were displayed, I spotted Saehyang and Hyerang looking at new products with smug expressions.

“Oh, good find, Hyerang. I thought that was pretty nice too. Don’t you think it would go well with this pink cardigan I picked up?”

“At first I wasn’t sure what concept to go for, but once I started picking colors and styles you’d like, it started coming together. Is this the dress concept you had in mind?”

“Hmph, having a good friend is better than ten stylists. With this level of teamwork, we’ll definitely win first place on this school trip. Most guys would fall for it completely, right?”

“You never know until they see it in person.”

“Hehe, that’s true. That’s why we brought him directly, right?”

The two showed each other the clothes they’d picked out with smug smiles. From their conversation, it seemed their purpose for coming here was to choose clothes for the school trip.

“Where’s Hamin… Did he go to the bathroom?”

Well, visiting a clothing store is certainly within the bounds of normal, understandable behavior. Shopping for clothes in preparation for a trip is common regardless of gender—it happens all the time in real life, not just in youth romance webtoons.

Having a friend of the opposite sex join your shopping trip is also normal. When choosing clothes to wear at a travel destination, what’s most important is creating buzz, drawing attention from others.

Considering how Saehyang had recently been muttering about wanting a boyfriend, bringing along Hamin—a male friend she could comfortably invite—made perfect sense with plenty of foreshadowing. She could get real-time feedback on the clothes she’d wear.

Yes, if you only looked at the actions themselves, that is.

“But why keep it a secret from me and go off by themselves…?”

However, all those actions lost their legitimacy the moment they deliberately excluded the main heroine, Ban Doyoung.

“If it was just this, they could have told me too. It’s not like Ban Doyoung doesn’t buy clothes for school trips…”

Of course, until just before May, I was so broke my bank account started with double digits. But they could have at least mentioned it. My money source hasn’t even returned to his room next door yet.

“Keeping it a secret from me while taking Hamin to look at new clothes together…”

From my experience watching many romance stories, when supporting female characters secretly go shopping with the male lead without telling the heroine, there are typically two scenarios.

The first is shopping for a gift for the heroine. For occasions like birthdays, the male lead wants to surprise the heroine with a gift but doesn’t know what she’d like, so he seeks advice from her friends. This is a common story in youth romance.

The heroine feels jealous and lonely, thinking she’s being ignored by the male lead as an important day approaches, and her emotions explode from these misunderstandings.

Later, when everything is revealed and she realizes it was all a misunderstanding, her friendship with her friends deepens, and her feelings for the male lead become more tender—it’s a perfect story for deepening relationships.

The charm lies in seeing the heroine’s cute, blushing face when she learns the truth and realizes she had been making embarrassing assumptions…

Setting aside the fact that I’d have to play that role, I knew this episode wouldn’t flow toward such a happy ending.

Why did I think that? Because my birthday was still months away.

“My birthday is September 6th…?”

It was strange. I thought I only shared a name with Ban Doyoung from <Half of Half>, but to think we even shared the same birthday. Could this really be called fate?

Of course, mine is a birthday I was born with, while Ban Doyoung’s was just assigned by the author in the setting. But thanks to that, I could easily remember it with just a glance. Since we shared a birthday, we naturally had the same zodiac sign.

“Besides, Hamin only knows my birthday is in Virgo…”

As far as I remember, I never told Hamin my exact birth date. But he wouldn’t be completely mistaken about it either, since I had given him the Virgo hint.

No matter how thorough his preparation might be, he wouldn’t be shopping for a gift at a clothing store now when September was still months away and he’d barely broken into three digits in his bank account. Saehyang and Hyerang would know that too.

So if it wasn’t a gift for the heroine, there was only one possibility for why Saehyang and Hyerang brought Hamin here.

“Could Saehyang… with Hamin…?”

She was starting to develop an interest in the grown-up Hamin that wasn’t there before. There was no other way to explain the current episode.

“But if I just wear this, it might not have the right feel. Don’t I need something more underneath?”

“Of course I knew and prepared for that. Ta-da~!”

“What’s that… The brassiere from the entrance… You brought that?”

“What do you think? Don’t you think Hamin would really like this…?”

“…”

Saehyang held up a pink brassiere from the <The Best Brassiere to Gift Girls Starting Puberty!> section, showing it to Hyerang.

Judging by its size, it was a modest brassiere that would perfectly suit Saehyang. Definitely not something that could be gifted to Ban Doyoung.

“If I emphasize my innocent charm with the pink cardigan and white skirt I just showed Hamin, and then let the pink bra lace peek out from under the white blouse… Even Hamin wouldn’t be able to resist, right?”

“Wow, Saehyang, are you a genius? This would definitely work even on Hamin.”

“Hehehe… I can’t wait to see what face Hamin will make, seriously.”

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. Are you going to show him that pink bra during the school trip?”

“Of course. If I show it to him beforehand, he might run away, right? I’ll keep it safely tucked away and show it to him at a moment when he absolutely can’t escape, and then… Huh?”

“And then what?”

“Eek! D-Doyoung! H-how long have you been there?!”

“You chicken-cat bitch…”

“W-what’s a chicken-cat supposed to be?”

“Shut up. Where’s Hamin?”

“Huh?”

“Where the hell is Hamin?!”

“In… in fitting room number 2 over there…”

I ran toward the fitting rooms in the back, following where Saehyang pointed.

“C-customer! There’s still another customer in that fitting room…!”

“I know, it’s mine.”

*Click*

Without a moment’s hesitation, I opened the door to fitting room number 2 that Saehyang had indicated.

“Hamin, you bastard, don’t you dare run—!”

“…Eek!”

“…Huh?”

In the place Saehyang had directed me to, instead of Hamin, there was a girl crouching down. A girl with freckles all over her face who looked perfect in a pink cardigan and white skirt.

“Hey, Saehyang, Hamin’s not in fitting room number 2!”

“T-that can’t be right…? I definitely put the clothes in there earlier.”

“…”

“Ah, sorry. My… sister is looking for her runaway boyfriend. Brown hair, yellow eyes, with freckles on his face like yours…”

“…”

Wait.

“…Hamin?”

“T-this is, well…”

…

*Click*

I locked the door to fitting room number 2.