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Translator: Vine
Chapter Title: The Ice Cream Festival
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"What lovely weather."
Here, a warm spring breeze was blowing.
It had already been last week since I last came out to cause some trouble.
Since then, I hadn't stepped foot outside, holed up at home, so it really had been a long time since I'd been out.
On the way to the festival.
Seo-eun, Ms. Soobin, and I were walking down the street for the first time in a while.
Ah, I suppose it wasn't "for the first time in a while" for Ms. Soobin. She was always out and about, doing groceries.
Anyway, I could feel my mood brightening after basking in the sun for the first time in ages.
Right. People need to get some sunbathing in now and then. What was it... I think I heard somewhere that sunlight has vitamin D. You can't stay cooped up inside all the time.
"Oppa, are you wearing black again?"
Seo-eun chided me.
Having lived together for quite a while, I'd come to realize that Seo-eun had a specific criterion for distinguishing between calling me 'Hyung' and 'Oppa.'
Normally, she'd call me 'Hyung,' but when she needed to ask for a favor or was in a good mood, she'd call me 'Oppa.'
...Couldn't you just stick to 'Oppa'?
Honestly, if I really sat her down and gave her a good scolding, I think she'd call me 'Oppa' all the time.
But honestly, I didn't want to go that far. It'd just make things awkward and create distance between us, wouldn't it? I'd have to wait for her heart to open someday. A day would surely come when she'd call me 'Oppa' consistently, right? It definitely would...
Anyway, she was calling me 'Oppa' now, probably because she was in a good mood, so that was nice. But why was I wearing black again?
I checked the clothes I was wearing. A black coat. I'd dressed normally underneath, though it wouldn't be visible anyway, hidden by the coat.
As a result, I looked like Egoistic, all in black. No, I'm telling you, black suits coats best!
I decided to tell Seo-eun a truth she wouldn't understand.
"Seo-eun, for men, black is the only way."
"Oh, please."
Seo-eun chuckled and replied. Huh, she wasn't usually one to respond so brightly, was she? As someone who was expecting a scornful retort, this was quite bewildering.
Instead, she was humming to herself as she walked, looking quite pleased.
Seo-eun, you were really serious about ice cream, huh?
Or maybe she was just happy to be out for the first time in a while?
Ms. Soobin, too, seemed to find Seo-eun's demeanor endearing, as she covered her mouth and smiled contentedly.
Perhaps because Seo-eun had unusual silver hair, people were glancing at her, and Ms. Soobin was naturally such a beauty that simply walking down the street made people instantly turn their attention. What was going on?
By the way, Ms. Soobin had an identity-obscuring filter applied to her because she had initially appeared on broadcast. Of course, the identity-obscuring filter itself was a function that caused facial blindness in anyone who looked at her face, so it didn't work on me, as I already knew Ms. Soobin was Ms. Soobin.
But now that I thought about it, it was quite peculiar. I, who had appeared on all sorts of broadcasts, could confidently walk around bare-faced because I wore a mask and used a filter, but for Ms. Soobin, the identity-obscuring filter was essential every time she went out.
This identity-obscuring filter, by the way, was also the pinnacle of cutting-edge technology. It was invented by a genius American researcher who questioned, "How long do heroes have to wear strange, skintight masks?" Once you went through the device, the identity-obscuring effect would apply to your face for a certain period...
Seo-eun somehow managed to look at the blueprints and build one for our underground base, even though every Hero Association office had one. Thanks, Seo-eun-mong!
Without the identity-obscuring filter, we'd be doomed... Ms. Soobin wouldn't be able to do groceries, you know.
If Ms. Soobin couldn't go outside, we'd have no choice but to order delivery food for all three meals. That's what being a 'homebody' meant...
"Oh, there it is!"
Seo-eun exclaimed, brimming with excitement.
Yeah, I see it too.
[The 13th International Ice Cream Festival]
Here, a massive banner was hung.
This was the site of an ice cream festival, a place I never thought I'd see in my life.
Every street was filled with booths, each with a refrigerator. All I could wonder was how much the total electricity bill for this festival would amount to.
Seo-eun was already turning her head every which way in excitement, and Ms. Soobin was also looking around curiously.
"Oh, rice ice cream!"
Seo-eun scurried off somewhere. Hey, wait for us!
Ms. Soobin and I slowly followed behind, and by the time we caught up, Seo-eun already had an ice cream in hand.
A white ice cream in a cone.
"It's delicious! Oppa, Ms. Soobin, do you want some?"
Seo-eun's eyes sparkled as she asked.
Rice ice cream, huh? I'd only ever heard of it, never actually tried it.
"Sure, let me try."
I took the cone Seo-eun offered and took a bite.
Hmm. It's good.
I thought it might taste like instant rice, but it was surprisingly close to vanilla.
"Oh, it's quite palatable, isn't it? Here, Ms. Soobin, have a bite too."
"Huh? M-me?"
Ms. Soobin suddenly looked flustered, her face starting to flush. What was going on with her?
"It's delicious, aren't you going to try it?"
"Yeah, Sis, try it!"
Under the relentless barrage from Seo-eun and me, Ms. Soobin's face grew redder and redder, until she finally lowered her head.
"Y-yes. Please, give it to me."
She stammered as she reached out her hand.
No, why had she reverted to her extremely timid self from the early days?
Was it because I was too forceful in telling her to eat it? Had the nightmare of our first meeting resurfaced?
"...Ugh... this... indirect... Am I the only one... who thinks this is strange?"
She mumbled something, but it was too quiet to make out. Then she closed her eyes and took a determined bite of the ice cream. No, why was she eating ice cream with such a solemn expression?
"Mmm... it's delicious!"
After one bite, her eyes finally lit up as she said it was delicious. See? It's quite palatable, tasting like a slightly savory vanilla ice cream.
After she took her bite, the remaining cone returned to Seo-eun's hand, and Seo-eun neatly finished the rest. She eats well.
***
And so, we wandered around the festival for a while, sampling ice cream here and there. We ate so many different things that it felt like we were spending money like water, but since we had money to spare, it wasn't a problem.
Perhaps because it was a global festival, traveling from country to country, we truly saw all sorts of ice cream. Familiar basic flavors like chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and mint chocolate were naturally abundant, as were branded ice creams like 'Dad is an Alien' and 'Shooting Star.' Besides those, there were countless ice creams that seemed like they could only ever be found here.
Wasabi flavor, cold noodle flavor, steak flavor, ramen flavor—horrible hybrid ice creams of some kind. But the steak flavor was surprisingly good. I wondered if this was what flame-grilled ice cream would taste like? I don't even know what I'm saying.
And then there were things that shouldn't exist in this world: desk flavor, booger flavor, earwax flavor, and so on. Why were they selling those for money...?
...Of course, we made a bet: the loser of rock-paper-scissors had to eat it, so I bought the booger-flavored one. Ms. Soobin, who was the only one to throw scissors and lost, ate it with teary eyes, but her complexion rapidly worsened after one bite, so we just threw the rest away. Don't eat it; let the trash can have it.
Now we were eating mango-flavored ice cream. I wasn't sure why we had to eat mango flavor after coming all this way... Don't you agree, Seo-eun?
When I asked, as if chiding her, she proudly whispered back, without an ounce of shame. What she said, standing on tiptoes and putting her mouth to my ear, was.
"....Since Oppa is the leader of the Mango Faction, you have to eat mango-flavored ice cream!"
"Seo-eun... honestly, don't you think this 'mango' thing is getting a bit old now? It's not fun if you overdo it."
"No? It's fun every time we do it! And no matter how much you deny it, Oppa, your fan club's name is already the Mango Faction."
Seo-eun burst into laughter after saying that. Now she truly lived for the joy of teasing me...
Alright, as long as you're happy, that's all that matters.
As we looked at this and that, we eventually arrived at the event corner.
This was where they sold collaboration ice creams, like Frankenstein-flavored and Mickey MouXXe-flavored ice cream.
Over there, they even had Egoistic-flavored ice cream...
Huh?
Wait, what-flavored ice cream?
"Alright, available only here! Egoistic-flavored ice cream!"
A woman inside the booth was loudly hawking her wares.
What is that?
This is a violation of my publicity rights!
"Oppa, *chuckle*, they even have your ice cream. Hahahaha!"
Seo-eun was practically blooming with laughter. Is it that funny?
Wait, Ms. Soobin is also turning her head away and laughing?
What was even funnier was that this particular booth was the only one with a line. In front, people were holding their ice cream and taking verification photos. For Instagram, perhaps? It was truly dizzying...
At Seo-eun and Ms. Soobin's strong insistence, I too ended up standing in line and buying my own-flavored ice cream. What on earth would Egoistic-flavored ice cream taste like...?
The ice cream itself was a common vanilla, topped with my trademark half-mask made of chocolate. They'd even rendered the eyes and mouth in chocolate, which... gave me a strange feeling. The only difference was that it had mango inside?
Fortunately, it was edible. Would the person selling it know? That Egoistic himself had come and eaten Egoistic-flavored ice cream...
Further inside, we found a game area. It was a dart-throwing game to pop balloons. They said if you hit enough, you'd get a prize. But since it was an ice cream festival, the prize was also ice cream. A 10-tier ice cream? What on earth was that?
"Seo-eun, Oppa will show you. Back in my day, I was a dart-throwing master, you know? I'll get you that 10-tier ice cream or whatever it is!"
"Oppa, you're not planning to cheat with your telekinesis, are you?"
Flustered by Seo-eun's words, I decided to just hurry up and play the game. That's why I dislike quick-witted kids. It was a booth for two players, and since no one else was there, we could play right away.
"Whew... This weighty, cool sensation."
I was holding the dart and spouting nonsense to Seo-eun when, just then, someone else came to play the game next to us.
Without thinking, I casually glanced over to see who had arrived,
And my brain froze.
Radiant golden hair.
An appearance more beautiful than anyone else in the world.
The person who had come to play the game was Stardus, Shin Haru.
Uh... what are you doing here?