episode_0004

‘shower’

It was an unusual name.

Ji-hoon thought for a moment that she was joking, but Sonagi’s face was quite serious, so he didn’t say anything.

She wasn’t the type to joke around with her name in front of her friend who had amnesia. Ji-hoon couldn’t figure it out, but she was a very serious person, and Sonagi got up from her seat after hearing everything Ji-hoon had to say.

She, the problem solver, approached the black refrigerator to sort out the awkward atmosphere.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

Ji-hoon nods at Sonagi’s light remark. He was so hungry that it was surprising that he hadn’t noticed it until now.

“I didn’t have any money, so I couldn’t eat anything since morning.”

“Really? Wow… What would you have done if you hadn’t met me? You’re not stupid…”

Sonagi muttered and opened the top compartment of the refrigerator. She quickly scanned the refrigerator and saw that there was nothing there that could fill her stomach except for beer, so she opened the bottom compartment, the freezer.

“Umm…”

Because it was the lower room, her body naturally squatted down. Since she had been living alone in this one-room apartment for a long time, she didn’t think about the fact that Ji-hoon would see her rear end. The sight of her plump butt sticking out from behind was really nice to look at.

‘My butt is killing me…’

It was a fact that could be seen even when riding a motorcycle, but the butt of the solutionist Sonagi was quite large. It was not so large that it was burdensome, but the pelvis was wide open and there was a lot of flesh on the buttocks, giving it the shape called ‘apple hips’.

Thanks to that, Sonagi’s butt, which was rummaging through frozen food, was stuck all the way back as if she was asking for a back rub, and her butt fat was not spread out to the left and right, but rather, the plump flesh was just right.

Ji-hoon didn’t have the hobby of calmly admiring other people’s butts, but he still couldn’t miss the sexy butt wrapped in a black bodysuit in front of him.

“Ah.. there’s nothing to eat.”

Clicking her tongue and shaking her hands, Sonagi gets up. Her slim waist and moderately sized breasts stand out strangely, but she wasn’t intentionally trying to seduce Jihoon.

“Jihoon. Do you want to eat some ramen? I should go to the convenience store, but there’s nothing in the freezer to eat right now.”

“….what if?”

In a way, it’s just a simple suggestion to eat ‘ramen’, which is a normal food. However, combining something as obvious as ‘Do you want to eat ramen?’ with the suggestion to go to a ‘convenience store’ gives rise to a strange imagination.

Was he trying to seduce me? Ji-hoon’s heart pounded for no reason, but the relationship he had set up with Sonagi was ‘friends’. There was no way a friend would seduce him to have sex. Ji-hoon decided to think as ‘normally’ as possible.

He might have thought this way because he saw Sonagi’s plump butt.

” Ramen would be nice. Should I boil it? ”

“No, that’s okay. You’re really bad at boiling ramen.”

Unfortunately, Ji-hoon’s thoughts were a mistake.

* * *

“What is it?”

“What.. What is this?”

Ji-hoon, who entered the convenience store with So-na-gi, was flustered. The convenience store itself was less than a 5-minute walk away, and the flashy billboards were a pain in the eyes, but the store itself wasn’t strange.

The problem wasn’t the worker, it was a robot standing there.

The robot stuck inside the bulletproof glass wasn’t an android, but a really crude-looking tin robot. It had a body that looked like a giant vacuum cleaner that would be used in schools or public institutions, and two freely movable arms that ended in a torso.

Even one red triangular eye was looking at Ji-Hoon.

“What is it?”

Ji-hoon quickly grabs Sonagi’s arm at the robot’s voice asking again. Sonagi unexpectedly bursts out laughing at the sight.

“I wondered what I saw that scared you… Hey! Didn’t you see the sign when you came in? This convenience store is a Japanese company. That’s why there’s a robot made in Japan.”

“No, there’s a Japanese-speaking robot in Incheon.”

“I guess recording Korean was too much of a hassle. And you can’t have a conversation with him anyway. Just bring him the item, he’ll scan the barcode, pay, and you’re done.”

“Is the rain over?” we exchanged glances and turned around.

“Wow… This is so rough.”

It was absurd. Ji-hoon felt sad for no reason as he looked at the sight of the clerk robot with its triangular red eyes shining and pitifully sitting in the bulletproof booth.

While he was watching the guy, Ji-hoon decided to help So-na-gi. He said he was helping her in a grand way, but all he did was stick right next to her while she was buying ramen and look at the products on display at the counter.

‘I thought there was something strange…’

Surprisingly, it’s ordinary. The ramen is different in packaging, but if you pick one up and look at it, it’s ordinary. The red packaging and the promotional text, “The ruinous hot spicy taste of the end of the century!” are a bit unique, but there’s nothing else.

When I picked up the ramen package and checked the back, it was the same ramen I knew, except that the nutritional information was written quite simply. It contained a single fried, packaged noodle, soup, and flakes.

‘Well, ramen is ramen.’

If you think about it, a company is a group that makes money. There is no way that making and selling delicious products will change. I don’t know exactly what year this world is in, but ramen is ramen.

“Do you eat spicy food well?”

“I eat well. I eat fire chicken well too.”

“Fire chicken…?”

Sonagi acts as if it’s the first time he’s heard the word. Hasn’t this world become a crazy place where even toothpaste tastes like spicy chicken? Jihoon shrugged his shoulders, feeling a little regretful.

“Neo, it’s trendy in Seoul. It’s like bibim noodles with super spicy sauce.”

“Oh… That sounds okay… But aren’t you lying? You said you couldn’t get into Neo Seoul.”

“Hey.. Of course, if it’s popular in Neo Seoul, you can buy it nearby.”

“Aha~ Nearby~?”

Sonagi laughed at Jihoon’s lie and picked a bright red ramen bag. It was the kind of ramen you would see in the world Jihoon lived in.

“Is there anything else you want to eat?”

“Just a minute..”

Since I was already at the convenience store, I wanted to look around calmly. There were no punks with bushy hair groping themselves around, and there was a friend who was barely walking to the convenience store with a submachine gun on his waist.

Ji-hoon wanted to enjoy this world as much as possible and gather information. That’s why he was looking at the ramen closely for no reason.

‘Vassar’

The logo of a company he had never seen before was printed in red letters, very large. However, this company had more than one or two ramen. Ji-hoon wondered if only the ramen was like this, so he grabbed the snacks next to him and checked them out.

It was the same. The chocolate candy with a raccoon drawn on it, the snack that was clearly Pepero to anyone who saw it, and the homework that Ji-hoon had never seen before were all clearly made by a company called ‘Vassar’.

“What are you looking at so curiously again?”

Sonagi looks at Jihoon as if he finds it amusing, but also a little bit pitiful.

“No.. What is this.. What is this, how is the company name here?”

“Basar? Why?”

“Snacks and ramen made by Basar… What is this? Toilet paper and all the other items in this convenience store are made by Basar.”

“Yes. Why?”

There is not a hint of doubt in Sonagi’s expression.

“No… I mean. Isn’t that weird? What kind of company makes so many things?”

“What is that? Of course it is because it is a company. It is a megacorp. Oh, it is Japan, so it is a zaibatsu…”

Sonagi scratched his head with one hand and turned to the refrigerator filled with drinks.

The green drink she was holding was also obviously made by ‘Basar’. The logo was so big that it would be foolish not to notice.

“Mega… Megacorp…? Zaibatsu…?”

Although it was a word he had never heard before, Ji-hoon used his head as much as possible.

‘Megacorp seems to just mean a large corporation… What’s Zaibatsu? It sounds similar to zaibatsu…’

He looked at the shower. She was looking at Ji-hoon, wondering if there was anything else she wanted to buy besides drinks.

“Can you make anything with Megacom?”

“Of course they can. They have so many factories. If it’s Basar Zaibatsu, they can make guns, missiles, socks, underwear, and even the ramen we eat today. There’s nothing they can’t make.”

” and…”

Ji-hoon was a little taken aback when he heard about the greatness of Basar Zaibatsu. However, since he had seen comics, dramas, and movies about a world where such huge, huge corporations ruled the world, it was not that he didn’t understand it at all.

‘Well… reality isn’t much different…’

Isn’t it true that, even though they don’t do business under the same company name and sign, as they rise through the ranks, they end up being siblings? Although he doesn’t know much about real companies, he often hears stories like, “They all have the same last name.” So Ji-hoon was convinced.

“You’re not going to buy anything, are you? Let’s go quickly. I’m starving too. Ah, don’t buy kimchi. There’s some in the fridge and the one here tastes really bad.”

“…If it’s a Japanese company, isn’t it kimchi instead of kimchi?”

Sonagi nodded silently, snorting, “Ahem~.” She really can’t do business. Thinking to herself, Jihoon placed his hand near the counter, leaned against it, and carefully observed how the people were buying things.

In this world, you can’t always be with Sonagi. You’re not a little kid who calls out “Mom! Mom!” every time you go to the bathroom, and you can’t ask Sonagi to go with you every time you go to the convenience store.

” When I say it, I say it. ”

“What does this mean?”

“I want to check the price. You don’t have a chip in your brain, so you can’t see the HUD, so I don’t know, but the information is in my head right now.”

Sonagi deliberately stays still, perhaps for Jihoon’s sake. After Sonagi did nothing for 10 seconds, the robot naturally lowered its eyes and displayed a price on the pure white floor.

“Only… . 2 thousand won.. Crazy…”

It was the price of a pack of ramen and a can of soda.

“You can’t just go all the way to Neo Seoul and buy some ramen, right?”

Sonagi shrugged her shoulders as if she had no other choice and tried to stick out her ankle. At that moment, she stopped and looked at Jihoon. Her expression was strange.

“What, you’ve been holding back since a while ago because you wanted to buy that?”

“Huh? What? What is it?”

It was only then that Ji-hoon realized that there was something stuck to his right palm. It was a pink box.

0.001

An object he had never been able to use in his life was lying under the palm of his hand.

“No…”

This was beyond words. I came to the convenience store to eat ramen at my female friend’s house, and they were wasting time to buy condoms?

In a situation where a ‘woman’ buys ramen and you don’t even prepare it secretly, you make her buy condoms too?

‘This fucking shit…’

In a situation where it was awkward to say no and it felt like she would be called a brat if she said yes, Sonagi looked into Jihoon’s eyes without saying anything. She looked at Jihoon’s flustered, awkward, and timid expression for a long time before snorting and laughing.

“You little brat…”

He curses briefly and slaps his hand. Is it because Ji-hoon broke the box? Sonagi picks up the condom and hands it to the robot. There is a beep sound, and Sonagi holds out her wrist.

There was a barcode on it. When the beep sounded, Sonagi didn’t say anything and just opened the black bag near the cash register and shoved the ramen and condom box inside before looking at Jihoon.

“Hey, why are you standing there like an idiot? Weren’t you going to buy that? Do you know how scary Zaibatsu are these days? Didn’t you know that if you break something and run away, guys scarier than your family will come?”

“Ah.. no, all, haha. Of course I knew, damn it.. but it’s because I’m being sold.”

Ji-hoon laughs awkwardly. He had somehow ended up bringing a condom with him while going to Sonagi’s house.

There was a strange awkwardness in Sonagi’s words, but she turned around and headed to her home first.

So Ji-hoon couldn’t know that Sonagi, who had turned her back quickly, was fanning herself with her hand.