Chapter 159: I just wanted to believe

“I’m a half-elf. That’s why my physical abilities are superior to humans.”

A faint smile touched Koharu’s lips at my words.

“We already knew that, Unni.”

Seeing her expression, I realized it must have sounded like a joke.

“No, I’m being serious. Karen already knew properly. Right?”

“Huh? Uh-huh…”

A somewhat unenthusiastic reply came, but I turned my head again and said,

“The RP I presented. The experiences I shared on stream. I’ve told you everything without holding back. There are no lies there.”

Koharu’s smile became more awkward than before. I caught her exchanging a brief glance with Sara.

Sara was the first to speak.

“No, isn’t insisting it’s real part of the template… I mean, concept? Being overly immersed in RP is Choeun’s characteristic.”

“That’s how everyone interpreted it. Isn’t it easier to understand if you just take it literally?”

“How can we take it literally…”

Sara quickly refilled her glass.

“Bomi unni, you still have a long way to go. When Choeun unni is denied once, seriously sticking to it is part of the template.”

“Stop being a know-it-all for a second. I think Choeun is being serious.”

Sara shook her head once and let out a sigh.

“Actually, if you say you’ve had a lot to drink, it explains things simply, right? Choeun-ah, are you drunk?”

“Do I look like it?”

“Yeah. You don’t look drunk at all. You look the most sober among us. Damn it.”

For the two who seemed lost and flustered, I decided to enlist Karen’s help in the end. I turned my gaze to the side. Karen was fiddling with her glass, her lips sealed.

“Karen. Can you tell them?”

She looked up at my quiet voice and met my eyes.

“You knew. Even when I told you back then, you believed me.”

Karen, still holding her glass, slightly lowered her head as she looked at me.

“…Leah. Actually…”

A quiet voice flowed out.

“When you told me back then… I didn’t think it was real at all.”

Her voice trembled slightly at the end.

Sara and Koharu simultaneously looked at her.

“But that… doesn’t mean I doubted you… It’s just… I thought you believed it.”

I blinked.

Karen carefully raised her head and continued.

“I knew those stories were really important to you… so I didn’t want to deny them. So, if I pretended to believe… then… I guess that’s what it was.”

Silence flowed.

I couldn’t say anything for a moment.

It was true that I had trusted her.

I had asked her here now because I thought she had ‘believed me’ too.

But now, I realized it wasn’t that, but that she had ‘been considerate.’

“…So that’s how it was.”

I nodded slightly.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Rather… it felt like her.

I smiled faintly.

“…Still, thank you for telling me honestly.”

Karen smiled sheepishly. Then she started fiddling with her glass again, like someone waiting for the ice in it to melt.

A moment of silence passed.

“…But me too.”

Karen spoke slowly. Her voice was low and very cautious.

“My thoughts have changed a bit lately.”

Karen didn’t meet my eyes, her gaze fixed somewhere on the table as she spoke.

“When you jumped in the department store. Even then, I actually thought… it didn’t make sense.”

Sara shifted her gaze, and Koharu also nodded silently. Everyone remembered. The surprising event of that day.

“But I became certain after seeing you today. At the swimming pool—”

Only then did Karen turn her head towards me.

“…That just, it didn’t fit with anything I’d known until now.”

Her voice trembled slightly again. But her expression showed she wouldn’t avoid it any longer.

“So… now I don’t feel like you’re lying. It just, really… felt like you were someone who experienced those things.”

I looked at her quietly.

“I don’t really know what it means for me to believe, but I can’t say anymore that you made up all those stories.”

“Well, Choeun unni really wasn’t human!”

Koharu agreed with an exaggeratedly high tension. Sara also nodded.

“…That jump and swimming. That was really a bit strange.”

But as she brought the glass to her lips, she added one more thing.

“But to think you came from another world because of that… it’s not easy.”

I didn’t feel like blaming Sara for her attitude. What you’ve seen with your own eyes and what you haven’t. The difference was bound to be stark.

Then Karen spoke.

“Bomi unni. That… I think it’s natural. I still don’t really know. Whether another world is really possible. It’s right to think it doesn’t make sense…”

She just said her thoughts had changed, but was it too much for Karen to fully accept it too?

Around the time that thought occurred to me,

“But you know.”

Karen put strength into her voice.

“I asked Leah at the beginning, right? ‘Why did you show us that?’”

She had asked such a question. I had answered honestly.

“But Leah… just said she didn’t want to hide it.”

Karen looked directly into my eyes.

“Come to think of it… that meant, a lot, that she trusted us.”

I hesitated for a moment, unsure how to respond. In the meantime, Karen continued.

“Leah trusted us and showed us, but I kept thinking, ‘Is it real?’ ‘Probably not,’ and interpreting it differently.”

Her voice was calm, but each word struck clearly.

“Even if she shows us something else in the future, I don’t want to worry each time, ‘Is this real?’ Among friends, I don’t want to be someone who only believes if it’s absolutely convincing.”

She smiled faintly. Her face looked somewhat relieved.

“So… I just wanted to believe. I still don’t understand, but believing… I think I can do that.”

I just looked quietly into her eyes. The emotion contained within them felt more sincere than any evidence.

“Wow…”

It was Koharu who let out a small gasp of admiration.

“Dohee unni speaks so well. Korea University really is different, huh?”

“Yoona.”

Sara immediately retorted.

She slammed her glass down with a thud and shook her head.

“Can’t you be serious in a serious atmosphere for once?”

“Ah, that’s not it…”

Yoona laughed awkwardly and scratched her head.

“I just… I don’t really know! I guess Choeun unni and Dohee unni are right, whatever.”

It was a simple statement, but the emotion conveyed within it was by no means light. Koharu probably wanted to accept the situation in that way.

Sara quietly picked up her glass.

…For some reason, her pace of drinking was quite fast.

She wet her lips slightly, remained silent for a long time, and then slowly opened her mouth.

“…I still don’t believe it.”

It was a blunt statement.

I looked up.

“But, Choeun-ah.”

Even though I was already looking at her, my gaze fixed on her again at her call.

“…Since I’ve known you until now. I’ve never once thought you were a liar. I’ve often thought you were a bit strange. Anyway! What I want to say is… so whether that story is true or not, I know that you’re sincere with us.”

And, she smiled faintly.

“So… that’s enough, I guess.”

As Sara finished speaking, Koharu, who had been quiet, suddenly lifted her glass.

“Wow~ This emotional atmosphere, what to do!”

The forced tension in her voice was evident.

She shook her glass and deliberately made an exaggerated expression.

“Ah, I’m awkward. I’m so unfamiliar with this heartwarming atmosphere~ I have to be the mood maker! Me!”

Sara sighed and said.

“She definitely has a serious allergy to seriousness.”

Even so, Sara also raised her glass.

“Yeah, let’s just drink. Talking more will just sober us up.”

Karen also smiled faintly and raised hers.

“We have to toast. Other world or not, we’re the same members.”

I quietly watched them.

Their attitudes were different, but I felt like all three of them had offered something towards me.

Doubt and bewilderment.

It felt strangely new that they had passed through those emotions and were now remaining face-to-face.

I hadn’t wanted to tell them to believe me unconditionally.

It was enough if we could laugh like this now.

I also raised my glass.

It was then.

“We haven’t done a toast yet, have we?”

Koharu said, raising her glass above her head.

“…What are you talking about? Suddenly now?”

Sara frowned.

“Ah, come on! Let’s do it once! When else are we going to do it if not now?”

Karen chuckled.

“Then Yoona, you lead. Since you suggested it.”

“Um… Um. I should do that!”

Koharu, who had jumped up, shouted.

“Hello! Blooming Core 3rd Gen!”

“Cosmos!”

After the glasses clinked, comments flew out one by one.

“Bad taste.”

“Why are we doing the group greeting for collabs all the way out here?”

“Why! It was pretty good!”

Laughter hung on everyone’s boisterous faces.

Within that laughter, I felt the desire to stay just a little longer.

---

“Leah…”

Karen sidled up next to me and rested her chin on my shoulder.

“At the pool earlier… the thing I couldn’t touch, you know? I was so disappointed… Just once now… can’t I touch it?”

I slapped away the hand that was stealthily heading towards my chest.

“Go do the dishes. You and Koharu lost the bet.”

“…Dishes? Eeeh… Just me? Yoona’s over there doing that…”

“Karaoke!”

Koharu suddenly shouted.

Her eyes were half-closed, and her tongue was already slurring.

“Karaoke!”

“…Why has she become a karaoke parrot?”

I turned my gaze towards Sara.

She was still maintaining a straight posture, and her hand holding the glass seemed steady, but…

…She was trying to operate her smartphone with a bottle cap. I had no idea what she was trying to do.

The toast a little while ago, which had felt like it accomplished something, now just felt embarrassing.

Because it felt like a rather long night was about to begin for me.