#131
I’ve been completely discovered. The description of being “down-to-earth” was very embarrassing, but I couldn’t help thinking, “Well, what can I do about it?”
‘Today is a public date anyway.’
I wasn’t sure about Hyun Dowoon, but Shin Haejun wasn’t the type to stop showing affection just because others were watching. So we might end up showing even more embarrassing scenes.
Thinking that way made me feel like it didn’t matter at all.
I suppressed the urge to put my sunglasses back on and straightened my back a little more. If pictures were going to be taken everywhere anyway, I wanted to appear more confident.
‘It would be unsightly to appear timid next to those two.’
They were already such a glamorous company, and I didn’t want to look shabby. It would be embarrassing not just for me, but also for the two who chose me.
‘I never thought I’d be thinking like this.’
Was it because I’d been diligently taking my medication, consistently receiving counseling, and getting a lot of affection from those two and Nine?
Somehow the weather seemed brighter, and I felt a bit proud of myself. Of course, if others knew about these thoughts, I’d want to crawl into the ground from embarrassment.
While I was lost in these thoughts, it was time to get off the bus. The multiplex with the cinema was not far away.
As I got off the bus, I could see a crowd of people gathered outside the building. Seeing the swarm of people like a cloud, I was certain that those two would be there.
“He’s here! It’s Lee Jaeha!”
“Woooah!”
People who saw me get off cheered and rushed towards me. I was startled enough to step back momentarily, feeling the intense heat of their excitement.
I was prepared to push through somehow, but surprisingly, people didn’t rush at me or frantically take pictures.
They cheered while watching me from a distance, with only a very small number of people taking pictures.
‘Am I being self-conscious?’
It was fortunate, but somehow I felt extremely embarrassed.
I remembered hearing that people are generally less interested in others than we think. I had prepared myself for the possibility of being trampled by the crowd, but it seems that without those two, I don’t attract that much attention on my own.
The crowd parted to make a path for me. Walking through it felt like walking on a red carpet. With a slightly floating feeling, I walked through the crowd and arrived at the cinema on the top floor, where I saw even more people standing.
The two of them were shining much brighter than usual. I had put on some lip balm and tidied up my hair, but they looked so dazzling that I felt a bit dazed. I think Lee Jaeha’s face is handsomely attractive too, but seeing the two of them dressed up like peacocks made me feel a bit conflicted.
“Jaeha-ssi.”
“Hyung, was it difficult getting here?”
The two of them approached with bright smiles as they spotted me. The crowd behind me screamed as if sighing.
Whispers of ‘It’s the first time seeing them smile so brightly’ followed. They always smile at me… Somehow, thinking that it might be a face they only show to me made me feel a bit awkward.
“I just took the bus straight here, what’s difficult about that…”
Maybe because I felt shy and awkward. Even to my own ears, my voice sounded like I was whining. I felt a bit embarrassed after saying it, but Shin Haejun just looked at me fondly as if I were cute, which made me even more embarrassed.
“Well then, shall we go buy some snacks first?”
Hyun Dowoon held out his hand to me. I reflexively took his hand, then after a moment’s hesitation, I also held Shin Haejun’s hand with my other hand.
Shin Haejun looked a bit surprised for a moment when I took his hand, but he quickly returned to a grinning expression and enthusiastically headed towards the snack counter.
“Jaeha-ssi… do you like sweet things? Are you a caramel popcorn person?”
“Come on, why are you asking about that? How much could it cost?”
As Hyun Dowoon asked about my popcorn preference in front of the menu board, Shin Haejun scoffed, went to the front, and swiped his card, ordering all the food they were selling. Surprised by the sudden display of wealth, I could only gape at the flood of food that started pouring out.
“How… are we going to carry all this?”
It looked like it would invade the neighboring seats no matter how I looked at it. As I muttered with a serious face, Shin Haejun made the food float in the air as if it was no big deal. I thought it was a bit much to use his gravity manipulation power for this, but the people watching our date seemed to enjoy it like a rare and wonderful show.
‘Is he planning to use his power throughout the entire movie?’
I worriedly watched Shin Haejun enter the theater, excitedly using his skill.
“Wasn’t this movie supposed to be really popular?”
As we followed him in, I noticed that there wasn’t a single person sitting in the theater. Wondering what was going on, I tilted my head, and Hyun Dowoon calmly said “We rented it out” as he led me to sit in the center.
“Rented out…?”
As I gaped in bewilderment, Hyun Dowoon nodded as if it was no big deal.
‘You’re telling me it’s nothing to rent out an entire theater for the number one movie at the box office?’
Come to think of it, both of them were born into wealth…
Of course, I too had accumulated an unimaginable amount of income from dungeon raids, but I was too scared to touch it and just left it in my bank account.
“The date was… set quite suddenly, wasn’t it? What did you do about all the people who had tickets?”
“When we offered to compensate them with three times the ticket price and pay a separate rental fee, the cinema took care of it.”
Ah… if it’s three times the ticket price… even I would…
For a moment, I thought I’d like to receive that compensation too, but then I shook my head, thinking it was a petty thought. I initially thought there was no need to spend so much money just for a date, but I changed my mind about that too. The economy runs when people with money spend it.
Once I sat in the middle seat and felt the wide-open view, I started to feel good. It was quite fun to taste the snacks that Shin Haejun had floating in the air one by one during the intermission before the movie started.
Before I knew it, I had relaxed, loosening my posture and leaning back on the seat, munching on the popcorn handed to me from both sides as the movie began.
‘Huh?’
I had high expectations since it was number one at the box office, but the story wasn’t particularly enjoyable. I came without reading any plot summaries to avoid spoilers, but I kept feeling like I’d seen this somewhere before.
‘A story about a secretary rescuing a kidnapped lady…?’
This is what’s number one at the box office?
I kept having a sense of déjà vu with every scene. As I watched with an uneasy feeling up to about the middle, a key scene appeared that sparked a clear memory.
It was revealed that the secretary, who was actually a spy, had a change of heart due to the lady’s kindness and became loyal to her. Even after seeing the organization’s mark on the injured secretary’s arm, the lady had turned a blind eye and wrapped a handkerchief around it herself.
‘That mark… looks familiar!’
The mark in the movie looked extremely familiar. That’s when I remembered where I’d seen this story before.
‘It’s the story of Grace and Ena from Limitless Nine!’
The storyline was exactly the same as the main story of Ena, a new character in Limitless Nine.
It was the story of Ena, who was a spy for an organization, entering the royal palace as a maid, being touched by Princess Grace, rescuing the kidnapped Grace, and becoming her knight.
Ena was a typical rogue character who used daggers, traps, and debuff items. When she was first released, she was popular due to her cute appearance, but eventually lost popularity because of her low performance efficiency and difficult control.
Still, you had to try new characters at least once in Limitless Nine because there was a system that increased overall stats by 5% each time you cleared a character’s route. That’s why I had cleared Ena too, and I could recognize at a glance the mark that had given me so much trouble back then.
There was a quest in the story where you had to use the organization’s mark to find their headquarters, and it was so brutally difficult that you couldn’t help but memorize the shape of the mark, even if you were stupid.
‘The storyline is similar, and the shape of the mark is exactly the same.’
Isn’t this completely plagiarized?
‘Has the author started plagiarizing now?’
They must have played Limitless Nine, but is it okay to copy the content like this? It’s just changing a fantasy story into a modern one!
It still feels fishy. It seems like I did fly here while trying to save a student, but to think the author happened to be a Limitless Nine user like me.
Is that how they were able to bring Nine along? More accurately, unlike being a normal game system outside, here it acts like a living person…
As I was seriously pondering this, suddenly Shin Haejun shook me from the side.
“Hyung, Lee Jaeha! The movie’s over?”
“Ah.”
I opened my mouth blankly, then nodded. It seemed the movie had ended while I was lost in thought.
“Didn’t you enjoy it?”
“Ah… well…”
When I responded half-heartedly to Hyun Dowoon’s question, he smiled and leaned in to whisper in my ear.
“To be honest, I didn’t enjoy it much either. Watching Jaeha-ssi was much more interesting.”
It seemed Hyun Dowoon had been watching me watch the movie the whole time. I was so deep in thought that I hadn’t even noticed his gaze.
“For dinner… we chose Western cuisine, is that okay?”
I nodded at Hyun Dowoon’s words. I thought they would ask for my opinion, but unexpectedly, it seems they decided between themselves.
“Say it’s fine even if it’s not. They say everyone eats pasta on dates anyway.”
Shin Haejun casually remarked from the side. Come to think of it, it seems Shin Haejun also learned about dating from the internet, not just me.
“But… I’m full.”
After nibbling on nachos, grilled squid, and various types of popcorn, I quickly became full. As I stood there awkwardly, rubbing my stomach, Shin Haejun said simply,
“We’ll just look around the department store and take a walk, your stomach will empty out.”
“…You’re not going to clear out all the people in the department store too, are you…?”
I asked just in case, and Shin Haejun looked at me as if I was being ridiculous and asked,
“Would you like that?”
After they had already cleared out the entire movie theater… I felt extremely embarrassed.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
