WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Satori
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Healers Are Not Tools ◈
Chapter 20: ???: Big Sis! I'll Buy You a Bra!
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[Im Harin - 9:55 a.m.]
「(A sticker of a rabbit bowing)」
「Hana!」
「Hurry up and come out. Hurry!」
「I'm eating apples with Grandma, so come right over!」
“How is she this quick to act...?”
Was this what high school girls were like?
At ten on a Sunday morning, Im Harin had bombarded me with messages, then actually shown up in person.
Was this normal? Did women really go shopping for underwear together?
Wait, wouldn't the male version be going to a PC cafe with your buddies, then going shopping for briefs? That was insane. How did that make any sense???
[Im Harin - 10:05 a.m.]
「(A photo of apples on a plate)」
「When are you coming down? If you don't, I'm coming up???」
“...Crazy bitch.”
Forget making a calm, rational decision. At this rate, Harin had more than enough energy to kidnap me.
Ha... Fine. Let's look on the bright side.
I'd never been on a date when I was a man. I could think of this as a huge win.
Besides, I'd already spent half an hour staring blankly at Lupang because I had no idea which bra to buy, then fled the site.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
“Hana! Are you dead in there? You're not, right?”
High school girls were strong, too.
The heavy pounding on my front door rang through the apartment.
“Didn't you say you were eating apples?”
“It only takes ten minutes to eat apples!! Come on, let's go. We have to buy everything quickly so we can come home, go to the PC cafe, and play games! There aren't enough hours in the day!”
Was this what people meant by having their energy drained?
Was this why middle-aged guys said the generation gap was exhausting?
“This is driving me crazy...”
For now, I grabbed the same black hoodie I'd worn yesterday and threw it on.
Good thing I'd showered as soon as I woke up because I'd had a feeling she might actually come.
“Seriously, you. If only you put this much effort into going to school.”
“I'm doing great at school, so don't worry about me.”
When I opened the front door and stepped outside, I immediately saw Harin smiling in her casual clothes.
Kids these days really did grow up fast. Out of uniform, I couldn't tell whether she was in high school or college.
“But, Hana... Hmm.”
Harin suddenly folded her arms and began looking me up and down.
“What? You wanted to go. You said we didn't have time. What are you doing?”
“Are these the only clothes you have? You wore dolphin shorts and a hoodie yesterday, too. And the time before that?”
“I have other clothes. I just can't be bothered to get them out.”
There were other pants and skirts in the apartment.
But after trying them on, I'd found these the most comfortable.
“You're kind of proud of your body, aren't you?”
“...What?”
“Well, you do have really pretty thighs, and your legs are pretty long, too. If I were you, I'd probably show them off so everyone could...”
“That's not it. Wait here. I'll go change.”
“Huh? Hana? Hana? Wait, Hana?!”
I hadn't known it would look that way.
I wasn't a pervert, and I had no intention of showing off my figure. I went straight back inside, grabbed the first pair of sweatpants I saw, and put them on.
* * *
Anyway, after being more or less dragged out of the house, I ended up in a department store that reeked of cosmetics.
...I hadn't even known there was a department store near my place.
“Do you have a favorite brand? I'll buy you something from there.”
“...No?”
Did women have those? Wasn't underwear just something you put on?
There were brands to think about, too?
“You really don't? What about something you've always wanted to try?”
“Nothing in particular.”
“Aww... Are you keeping me at a distance? I thought we were really close now.”
No, I really didn't know!
How was I supposed to know who made the panties and bras Jeong Hana had worn?!
Was it time to use that move?
“We are close. You think I'm refusing to tell you on purpose, right?”
“You've just kept saying you don't know this whole time.”
“That's because I really don't know, Harin. You said your grandma told you about me.”
Harin looked around as she stepped onto the escalator with me, then tilted her head.
“You don't mean how you sometimes keep Grandma company and eat with her, right?”
“You seemed to know about it last time.”
“You were an or...”
She scratched the back of her head, leaving the word unfinished.
“An orphanage?”
“Right. Think about it. I grew up there. Do you think I cared what brand my bras or panties were? I just wore whatever the nuns gave me.”
“Oh... I'm sorry.”
The orphanage really was the best.
It worked for everything.
Honestly, it was a pretty convincing excuse, wasn't it?
“Then, um... Even after moving into that place, you've never really worn anything nice?”
“It's not like I make much money. I didn't really see the point.”
“Wow... Then I'll buy you something pretty today.”
“Buy me food instead.”
“No! No way!!”
I'd rather have fried chicken than a pretty bra.
Half ignoring me, Harin took my hand and led me off the escalator, straight into an underwear shop that made me uncomfortable just looking at the entrance.
Ugh, this was awkward.
I didn't even know where to look.
“Let's see... What about this one?”
Harin lifted an underwear set off the rack and showed it to me.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The color looks kind of perverted.”
Red? Seriously, red?
“No, Hana. You can get it in all sorts of colors. Touch it and see how the fabric feels.”
Why would I touch a bra? I wasn't a pervert.
Besides, weren't they all more or less the same?
“Bras just itch when I wear them anyway...”
“That's because you're wearing those things Daiso sells for two or three thousand won! Do you know how much this one costs?”
“Whatever it costs, it'll still itch against my chest... Gah...”
《89,900 won》
What? Wasn't that a pricing error?
“How the hell does a boob cover cost ninety thousand won?”
“Oh my god... You sound so clueless.”
Harin tapped the red bra.
“This one's made from a new material. It's really good. It's super comfortable, and even for someone with a large cup size like you, it absorbs sweat well, so you won't get heat rash...”
“Okay, okay. Enough. What are you, a salesperson...? Ha... This is too expensive.”
No matter how good it was, wasn't it still just a bra?
Letting a high school girl burn her allowance on this would be pretty shameless.
“How could I ask you to buy me something that costs ninety thousand won? Forget it. Let's get something else.”
“But do you like it?”
“I don't really know. I've never worn this style.”
For starters, it looked different.
How should I put it? The bras Jeong Hana owned were the kind you could just pull on like a tank top...
“Ha... You really leave me no choice. This one... and this one...”
“What are you doing? You're not...”
“I'm not what? Try them on one at a time and come out. You can try all of these on... right?”
Smiling, Harin suddenly directed the question at a female employee who'd been watching us from about fifty meters away.
“Yes, please feel free to try them on.”
“See? It's fine. Trying them on doesn't cost anything. Oh, but what size are you?”
“I-I told you, I don't know...”
“Jeez, you don't know anything. All you're good at is games.”
If you knew that, you shouldn't have brought me!
Without giving me a chance to refuse, Harin thrust the hangers in both hands toward me.
“Here. Hurry up and go try them on!”
“No, I... Wait. How many are you giving...?”
In the end, I was shoved into a fitting room before I could get the words out.
“...I'm going to lose my mind.”
There was no way I could get away with not trying them on and just saying, “Yep, tried them,” right?
A bra inspection would be taking things a bit far, but she was definitely the type to keep asking whether I'd tried on her gifts.
“Ugh.”
After staring at the bras on their hangers, I let out a long sigh and opened the fitting room door a crack.
“Harin. I don't know how to put this on. Help me.”
Better to ask for help with something I didn't know than struggle to do it alone.
* * *
After finishing our shopping at the department store, we went home, dropped off our purchases, and headed out again.
“This one's on me.”
Still feeling horribly guilty, I drew the line the moment we entered the cafe Harin had been begging to visit.
“Huh? I don't mind buying you this, too.”
“I'd feel too bad. You know you spent over two hundred thousand won earlier, right?”
“Of course I do. I paid with my card.”
“You... I don't know how much allowance you get, but is it really okay to spend that much?”
That was the problem.
Even if she'd bought me just one ninety-thousand-won bra, I'd been ready to ask if she was out of her mind...
But Harin had casually bought me two underwear sets.
And they were both black with such plain designs that I couldn't even refuse on those grounds!
“Yeah. My mom and dad give me plenty of spending money, so it's not really a problem.”
“No, I... Ugh. Fine. Thanks. I'll wear them. But I'm buying our drinks today.”
I wanted to feel a little less guilty about sucking a high school girl's allowance dry!
“Okay. Then I'll have... this.”
Harin tapped the ordering screen installed at our table with a few beeps. The drink she picked seemed to be a seasonal special.
The problem was that its name was packed with English words, and I couldn't begin to guess what it would taste like.
“I'll just have a mango smoothie...”
“By the way, Hana.”
As soon as we finished ordering, Harin propped her chin on her hand and stared at me.
“Don't you work?”
“Are you asking if I'm an unemployed bum?”
“Oh, I'm not judging. You said earlier that you don't make much money, right? And now that I think about it, I've never heard you mention a part-time job.”
Yeah, neither had I.
There hadn't been a single deposit in Jeong Hana's bank account that looked like pay from a part-time job.
“Well... Pretty much. Not many places are hiring part-timers these days, either.”
Honestly, I wasn't planning on getting one just yet.
And if I really needed money, I had a last resort.
There was a reason the term “gold farming” had started in Lost of Fantasy. If I was truly desperate, I could make money whenever I wanted.
“Really? Then why don't you try this?”
“What... Are you recommending a part-time job?”
Harin nodded and held her phone out to me.
《The Lost of Fantasy PlayPeople channel is accepting your valuable tips and guides!》
PlayPeople?
What? Had they started as a YouTube channel here instead of a website?
Seeing this version felt kind of fresh. They'd been a pretty famous guide site.
“What's this?”
“It's a channel run by a company called PlayPeople. They take tips and guides for different games like this, then turn them into Shorts and videos.”
“So you're saying I should make some money by sending them guides and stuff I know?”
“Yeah! They're famous for paying really well!”
So I wouldn't even have to go to the trouble of writing a guide. They'd pay me just for telling them various tips?
“Want to try it? They might even invite you to join the company as an employee! I heard lots of people became staff that way through Mushroom Story and Dungeon and Warrior.”
“Really? Well, I'm not going to. Too much hassle.”
Harin immediately looked as though her world had come crashing down.
“T-too much hassle? That's why you won't do it?”
“Yep. Too much hassle.”
You wouldn't know this, but...
Back in my world, people hadn't called them “PP pests,” said “PlayPeople? Hard pass,” or mocked them as “all-talk PP” for nothing.
“I just want to play games in peace.”
Unfortunately, the world didn't always go the way I wanted.
Footnotes:
Lupang parodies the Korean online retailer Coupang. Dungeon and Warrior echoes the game Dungeon & Fighter.
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