Chapter 17 – Happily ever after #2

Ding-dong— Ding-dong—

As the doorbell rang repeatedly, Yuder turned to look at the intercom, but unfortunately, the screen was dead.

“Ah, it’s broken. They said someone’s coming to fix it tomorrow.”

Natasha spoke in a slurred voice, seemingly with no intention of going to the door as she started drinking her beer again.

Ding-dong—

“Delivery— No, I’ll get it.”

The clock read 11:10 PM.

It was unlikely anyone would visit at this hour, so it had to be a food delivery.

Yuder glanced at Natasha, who was completely wasted, her face flushed red as she giggled. He sighed and headed for the door.

And when he opened it—

“Yu-Yuder Bayer?”

A man with pink hair stood there, his eyes wide with shock.

Just as the man knew Yuder, Yuder knew him too.

He was one of the chatroom members.

The person who had come to Natasha’s house at this late hour was Cowabunga.

A wild Cowabunga has appeared!

Cowabunga saw Yuder’s face and seemed to think he was the real ‘Yuder.’

What should I do?

1. Knock him out and erase his memory.
2. Knock him out, and before erasing his memory, interrogate him about his relationship with Natasha.
3. Knock him out, and before erasing his memory, torture him to find out why he came to Natasha’s house at this late hour carrying a paper bag full of adult toys.

But just then.

“Oh, it’s Cowabunga.”

Cordelia, emerging from the master bedroom where Kim Hye-eun was resting, spoke with a look of half-delight, half-surprise. Cowabunga reacted instantly.

“Co-Cordelia! It’s really Cordelia!”

Why did this guy immediately think it was the real Yuder and Cordelia, instead of just cosplay?

Letting out a short sigh, Yuder gestured for Cowabunga to come in.

“Please, come in for now.”

“Huh? Ah, yes!”

His face brightening, Cowabunga quickly stepped inside.

A few minutes later.

Yuder sat facing Cowabunga, who was perched demurely on the sofa. He glanced between Cordelia, who was grinning as if she was thoroughly enjoying the situation, and Natasha, who was simultaneously expressing a strange mix of pleasure and annoyance at having been forced by Yuder to at least put on some clothes. Then, he spoke.

“Cowabunga-ssi, you’re a superpower user, aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes. That’s right. I’m a superpower user.”

Cowabunga admitted his identity with surprising meekness.

“Wait, hold on. What are you talking about? Bunga-bunga is a superpower user?”

“Nu-Noona! I told you not to call me Bunga-bunga!”

Cowabunga blushed instantly, looking genuinely embarrassed as he protested, but Natasha just scoffed.

“Hey, Cowabunga, Bunga-bunga, what’s the difference? And who told you to pick such a stupid nickname?”

“Kugh… Just call me Ninja Turtle instead…”

His nickname was derived from the Ninja Turtles in the first place.

But that was a pipe dream.

Natasha, who was already mischievous, had a little secret: when she got drunk, she became ten times more childish and even more playful.

“Nope. I’m gonna keep calling you Bunga-bunga. I’ll do what I want. Anyway, Bunga-bunga is a superpower user?”

“Yeah, he’s a superpower user.”

Yuder stated it firmly and looked at Cowabunga, who swallowed nervously, looking tense again.

From the way he was acting, it seemed this was the first time he had revealed he was a superpower user to others.

“What’s your ability?”

Natasha asked, setting down her beer can. Cowabunga hesitated for a moment, then seemed to decide he might as well go all the way and mustered his courage to speak.

“D-Do you know what psychometry is? It’s… when you touch something, you can read its memories or thoughts.”

A hint of exhilaration tinged Cowabunga’s voice.

His face was flushed, too.

He seemed to feel a sense of liberation from revealing a long-held secret.

The fact that he was a superpower user. And the revelation of what kind of ability he possessed.

Having confessed the secret he had hidden even from his family, let alone his best friends, Cowabunga looked at Natasha with eyes full of mixed expectation and anxiety.

And Natasha, with a displeased look on her face, said, “You’re forbidden from any physical contact with me from now on. Absolutely forbidden.”

“Huh? Physical contact?”

It was Cordelia who blinked at Natasha’s words, as if asking what she meant.

And for good reason. Physical contact? Natasha and Cowabunga having physical contact?

Cordelia’s eyes instantly turned into daggers, and Cowabunga shouted in a panic.

“W-Wait! It’s a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding! We’ve barely even shaken hands, what do you mean, physical contact? Nu-Noona, hurry up and say something. Huh?”

“Sob, sob. How can you pretend you don’t know me after the passionate night we spent together just last night?”

“Hey, what’s gotten into this lady all of a sudden?”

As Cowabunga looked like he was about to cry, Natasha giggled with satisfaction, picked up her beer can again, and said, “Does Gayoung know?”

“Gayoung?”

The one who repeated the name wasn’t Cowabunga, but Cordelia. So, Yuder initiated a conversation with his eyes for the first time in a while.

‘AAA’s real name.’

‘Ah, right, right.’

Yoo Ga-young. That was definitely her name.

While Cordelia was coming to this realization on her own, Natasha, like a foreigner who had fully localized, poked Cowabunga with a back-scratcher that was lying around the house and asked again.

“Does Gayoung know?”

“No, well…”

Just from the way he trailed off, the answer was obvious.

So Natasha hugged her own shoulders, put on a truly sad expression, and said, “She doesn’t know. She has no idea. Poor Gayoung is having her memories read one-sidedly by creepy Bunga-bunga without even knowing it.”

At Natasha’s accusation, Cowabunga clutched his chest in agony as if struck by guilt, while Cordelia glared at him with a face that was half-intrigued, half-angry.

Flinching, Cowabunga hurriedly started making excuses.

“B-But with a power like psychometry… telling her could actually cause problems, you know? So I had no choice, it’s, uh, right. A white lie?”

At Cowabunga’s desperate excuse, Cordelia, though still looking displeased, at least dropped her dagger-like glare.

Natasha, who had been half-joking from the start, just hummed and drank her beer.

And one person, the most rational one in the room, Yuder, gave a slight nod.

‘It’s a mind-reading type of ability… Like Cowabunga said, it might be better for both of them if he just keeps it a secret.’

People say lovers shouldn’t have secrets, but it depended on the secret.

Mind-reading abilities could place a huge burden on the other person—the feeling of ‘having one’s mind read one-sidedly’—and could ruin even the closest relationships in an instant.

‘Of course, that doesn’t mean keeping it a secret forever is a good thing either.’

This was especially true for a couple, who weren’t just friends but were bound to have frequent physical contact—in other words, a relationship where Cowabunga would inevitably activate his power often, whether by mistake or unconsciously.

‘Well, it’s ultimately their problem to figure out.’

If it were about Maia, Dahlia, or Natasha, Yuder would have rolled up his sleeves and treated it as his own problem. But for Cowabunga, he would stop at just being a little concerned, shall we say?

So, instead of digging deeper, Yuder changed the subject.

“Anyway, why are you here?”

“That’s right, showing up unannounced at a woman’s house, especially at this late hour, with a bag full of lewd toys. So creepy. Hentai. Pervert. What were you planning to do to me? Something naughty, I’m sure. I knew you were this kind of pervert all along.”

“You called me! Noona!”

Yuder, Natasha, and Cowabunga spoke in turn.

As Natasha playfully hugged her shoulders, Cowabunga shot up from his seat to protest vehemently.

And for good reason, as Cordelia’s gaze upon him was far from kind.

‘Suspicious.’

Putting everything else aside, why did he bring a bag like that?

Facing Cordelia’s piercing gaze, Cowabunga broke into a cold sweat and made another excuse.

“No, th-this is what Noona asked me to bring, okay?”

“No, I didn’t. I never said that.”

“Hey, this lady is really trying to get me killed.”

“Heehee, and even if I did ask you to bring it, isn’t the one who actually brings it after hearing some drunken nonsense the real problem?”

It was an unbeatable argument.

So, Cowabunga, his face beet red, whimpered and turned back to Cordelia.

“I-It’s really not anything weird. I’m collaborating with Noona, and with Yu-hee, you see?”

“VTuber stuff?”

Cordelia asked suspiciously, and Cowabunga immediately nodded.

“Yes, that, and we had some things to discuss, so we were talking on Discord when she said she’d cut ties with me if I didn’t come right away, and that if I didn’t bring… ah, no, various things, she’d put a bullet in me, so I rushed over.”

“Did I say that?”

“You did, Noona, you did. Please, give me a break. Huh?”

As Cowabunga whimpered, Cordelia looked at Yuder, who nodded.

‘Natasha does get a little wild when she’s drunk.’

Not as much as Cordelia, but she does get pretty cute.

In any case, the matter of Cowabunga being branded a pervert and his social standing plummeting wasn’t very important to Yuder, so he returned to the main topic.

“Anyway, Natasha, can you tell us why you two have to rush the wedding?”

“The reason we have to rush the wedding?”

It was Cordelia who repeated the question. She blinked a few times, then cried out in shock.

“D-Don’t tell me?!”

“Jino’s birthday is in ten days.”

“Eh?”

Cordelia blinked, and Yuder narrowed his eyes.

He had asked why they needed to get married quickly, and the answer was that Kang Jin-ho’s birthday was in ten days. What on earth did that mean?

Seeing their reactions, Natasha sighed heavily, as if finding her own words absurd, then chugged the rest of her beer can in one go and grumbled, “Jino says we have to get married before he becomes a 31-year-old ahjussi. So what does that make me, at 32? Huh? What does that make me?”

“Wait, hold on. Wait. That’s the reason? The reason you have to get married?”

“Yeah, that’s the reason.”

Seeing Natasha grumble again, it seemed to be true.

And in that moment.

Cordelia crossed her arms and nodded as if she understood.

“Yep, I get it. Makes sense.”

Why. Why are you the only one who finds that reason convincing?

But Yuder’s confusion was brief.

Wasn’t this the same Cordelia who had pestered him so much about how they had to start dating before he turned thirty?

Their upbringings and subsequent experiences were so different that it was hard to see Cordelia and Hong Yu-hee as the same person anymore, but their fundamental nature was the same.

You have to date before you become an ahjussi, and you have to get married before you become an ahjussi.

It seemed Hong Yu-hee was more concerned than expected about her age gap with Kang Jin-ho—or more precisely, how others viewed their age gap.

But just then.

“Wait. Were you two thinking it was something like a premarital pregnancy? It’s Jino we’re talking about.”

At the sentence, which implied so much, Yuder and Cordelia both gave an awkward laugh.

Because Natasha was right.

Kang Jin-ho, of all people, making a mistake like a shotgun wedding?

Unless it was part of some deliberate scheme, it was impossible.

But regardless of this fact, perhaps because it was a rather embarrassing topic, Cowabunga gave an awkward smile and tried to change the subject.

“Well, I mean… it’s not like it’s strange for them to get married at any time, so isn’t it fine? Aboki-hyeong pretends not to, but I think he secretly wants to get married soon too.”

“Ah, that makes sense too. Right, Yuder? Huh?”

“Hmph-hmph.”

Cordelia asked teasingly, and Yuder cleared his throat. Cordelia was satisfied seeing the tips of his ears turn red.

Like my cute little puppy.

“U-Um, by the way.”

Just as Natasha pouted and raised her beer can again at the mischievous smile spreading across Cordelia’s face…

Cowabunga spoke up cautiously, looking back and forth between Yuder and Cordelia with an expectant expression.

“C-Could you possibly show me some martial arts? Or magic…”

Even for a superpower user, martial arts and magic were fascinating.

At Cowabunga’s request, Cordelia looked at Yuder, who gave a bitter smile and summoned the Black Flame Dragon.

“So, are things going well with AAA?”

“With Gayoung-noona, hehehe… Ah, right, right. Thank you so much for the sprinkler.”

The thoroughly drunk Cowabunga bowed deeply in gratitude, and Cordelia, equally drunk with her face and even her neck flushed red, laughed and replied, “Yep, yep, that’s right. Keep being grateful. Be very grateful. The sprinkler is a god, it’s invincible. Much stronger than Cupid’s arrow. Oh, and believe in Cordeliaism, too. Got it?”

“Yes, yes, I’ll be a faithful believer. Cordelia-nim is a total angel!”

“No, no. An archangel. Don’t you go subtly lowering my rank.”

“Aigoo, my mistake. Cordelia-nim is a total archangel!”

“Hehehe.”

Cordelia laughed, and Cowabunga laughed too.

As the two of them got even more wasted, Yuder and Natasha stood on the balcony, getting some night air.

“Jino, no, Yuder.”

“Yes, Natasha.”

“You’re a real piece of work. I should’ve just devoured you, even if you resisted.”

She said it with a playful laugh, but Yuder could tell now.

It was something he could understand because he was seeing it through the eyes of a third party, not Kang Jin-ho.

But for that very reason, he held his tongue.

Yuder remained silent, and Natasha looked at him with eyes mixed with resentment and gratitude before shifting her gaze to the night sky.

“I miss Alexei.”

“Me too.”

If he had seen Kang Jin-ho’s wedding, what would he have said?

Would he have been proud, saying how great it was?

Or would he have clicked his tongue, saying he was walking into a prison of his own free will?

Either way, Natasha was right.

Alexei.

He missed him.

And the next morning.

Yuder and Cordelia headed to Kang Jin-ho and Hong Yu-hee’s apartment.

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Translated By: Meher (RaidenTL)

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