After Story 181

“Take some dumplings with you. If you buy vegetable dumplings, we’ll give you kimchi dumplings for free.”

She couldn’t pass that by.

The steam from the steamer, the smell of the steam, as well as the words that she would get extra freebies, made Haneul stop.

“Are they good?” Haneul asked the lady.

The lady smiled and opened the steamer. Well-cooked dumplings revealed their figures.

“Try one. I wouldn’t be able to sell them with so much confidence if they weren’t good.”

“I really like dumplings, but none of the recent products were to my taste.”

“This one’s different. Also, it’s buy one get one free.”

She received the dumpling that the lady gave her on a toothpick.

As she ate, she wondered if there were any dumplings in this world that were bad. The saltiness was just right, and there was no smell of pork either.

“Unni, can I try the kimchi dumplings as well?”

“Sure. Here.”

She tried a kimchi dumpling as well. In truth, it was decided that she would buy these when she stopped. It was just a matter of how many she would pick up.

“They’re good, aren’t they?”

“They are. Give me three.”

Three frozen dumplings, including the free kimchi dumplings, made a total of six bags that were put inside her cart.

Haneul spoke before she left,

“Can you give me one more bag of vegetable dumplings?”

“Want the kimchi one too?”

“I’d love it.”

“I’m giving it to you because you’re pretty.”

“You’re quite pretty yourself, unni.”

After exchanging giggles, Haneul pushed the cart away. She was going to send one to Maru’s house, and the rest to her and his parent’s houses.

Ever since they introduced each other to their parents, they moved in together. When she talked about living together before marriage to her mother, her mother spoke in realization,

“No wonder it felt like no one lived in your house.”

Thankfully, none of their parents objected to the two of them living together. This was probably thanks to the fact that they were financially independent and had a decent social status.

Actually, she was originally planning to hide that she was living together until the end, but she decided to reveal it since she made her ‘declaration of war.’

She left the first-floor food corner and went to the second-floor electronics corner. They needed a humidifier, and she was also planning to buy a new vacuum cleaner. Though, of course, it was her husband who would be using the latter most of the time. After all, whenever she did the cleaning, he would make a dissatisfied expression and take up a mop himself.

“Han Haneul!”

She grabbed the hands of a college friend that worked here. She could see the employees working here giving her a glance. Her friend grabbed her hand and took her to the others.

“We have a celebrity here! This is my friend Haneul.”

“Hello.”

Half of them recognized her and the other half that did not just smiled awkwardly. The overwhelming majority of those who recognized her knew her as the model for ‘Friendly Aroma.’ It was rather bitter that her reputation as an actress was still low.

Maybe because of that, she could imagine her husband’s face, grinning at her and telling her that he was more famous for the time being.

“What is it?” her friend asked.

“Nothing. I just remembered a cute enemy.”

“Cute enemy?”

After greeting her awkwardly, the other employees left only her and her friend behind.

“So what brings you here?” her friend asked again.

“Why else would I be here? I’m here to raise the sales performance of my working friend. It’d be better if I can get an employee discount too if possible.”

“What, you’re here to buy things? You don’t have to though.”

“And yet you’re smiling.”

Haneul asked her friend to show her humidifiers and vacuum cleaners.

“Do you have anything in mind?”

“I guess you can show me the popular ones that give you a lot of incentives.”

“As expected of a celebrity.”

“I haven’t really earned much as an actress. It’s mostly other income.”

Her friend showed her some products and asked, “Are you still doing that aroma business? I saw that Yeonjoo was modeling these days.”

“The main model is Yeonjoo now. I’m only involved in planning and product development. I rarely model for them now.”

“I’m envious of both of you.”

“Would you like to come over here if you don’t think that you fit in this place? We keep opening more and more exclusive offline stores, and I don’t think being a sales clerk there is going to be a bad thing.”

After listening to that, her friend hesitated for a little before shaking her head.

“I’ll stay here until I can. Since I started this, I’ll do it until I get sick of it before I quit. I don’t think it’s right to just switch midway.”

Haneul smiled and nodded. “You’re right. You decide what’s best for you.”

She decided on the items with the help of her friend. She was shown the price of a recently manufactured product, with an employee discount and a promotion event.

“You should really buy it on the Internet rather than here. If you get it there, you can get interest-free installments and even a few giveaways,” said her friend.

Haneul shook her head. If her objective was to buy things for cheap, then she would indeed have bought them through the Internet. The reason she came all the way here was to see her friend. Whether she liked it or not, life was about the people around you after all.

Spending money for people she could call friends was definitely not wasteful.

“Robotic vacuum cleaners are starting to come out, huh?”

At this point in time, they should only move according to the distance sensor, and in a few years, they would start to have memory capabilities and be able to remember the layout of the house.

“They were released not too long ago. The entire store is dead set on selling those. Even the ones who come here from other stores are hung up on them, you know?”

“You too?”

“I’m in somewhat of a similar position.”

“Then give me that one as well.”

“It’s pricey, you know?”

“It’s okay.”

“President Han, you’re a big spender today.”

Her friend hummed and took out a box from the counter.

Haneul crossed her arms and looked around. A man and a woman that seemed to be newlyweds were standing in front of a refrigerator. That looked like a not-so-distant future to her.

Having knowledge was scary for a lot of sales clerks. If she brought her husband to buy furniture for a new house, the employees there would probably have a hard time. This coolant blah blah, that motor blah blah, this panel blah blah, that software blah blah.

“I guess I’ll be using the internet to buy those then,” she muttered to herself and looked past the couple.

Large TVs filled an entire wall, ranging from small, 32-inch TVs to ones as large as a single-sized bed.

She thought about the TV at home. It was a boxy CRT TV.

Her husband was busy with shoots, and she herself was busy doing business, so she didn’t really mind since they both spent a lot of time outside, but looking at a large screen made her think that she should change it out.

In her memories were LED TVs that could fold, but technology wasn’t as advanced in the current era.

Just as she was going through thin, flat-screen TVs,

-The man next door is a detective? How can that be?!

Her husband came on screen. Hearing the ear-piercing shout, she stopped for a moment and looked at the drama. Ganghwan’s soft smile overlapped on top of her husband’s shaky eyes. The acting was good enough for anyone to be sucked in without knowing what was happening.

“Talent sure is scary.”

Leaving aside her husband, Ganghwan’s acting was somewhat indescribable. It was hard to put a finger on his acting even with all sorts of direct and indirect expressions. In the end, it came down to the old-fashioned praise: I can’t imagine anyone other than Yang Ganghwan playing that role.

“This one’s really fun these days. You know I don’t really watch dramas, right? But this one’s really different.”

“Are you sure you aren’t the only one who likes it? It looks scary.”

“You should watch it once. You won’t be able to escape,” said the couple who were browsing refrigerators before.

She perked up her ears and listened to them, inwardly cheering for the man.

Yes, it’s fun. So do your best to persuade your girlfriend and watch it together.

“I was wondering where you had gone.”

Haneul turned around to see her friend, holding a box containing the robotic vacuum cleaner. Her friend also looked at the TV.

“I usually put on soccer or cooking shows, but I changed all of them to this show.”

“You did this?”

“Yeah, you’ll see him soon.”

After the scene at the police station, her husband came out. It was the scene where he was looking at his own house with a complicated gaze.

“I’m totally into this guy these days, you know? He looks like a total wolf, but look at his acting. He looks really precarious. It makes me want to keep watching, hoping for the best.”

“Really?”

“I’m not really sure about acting and whatnot, but I’m sure this guy will be a huge star after this.”

“The movie this actor shot at the beginning of the year did well too.”

“You know him too?”

“Somewhat.”

Her friend looked at the changes in Maru’s expressions and spoke,

“He looks rough, but don’t you want to just protect him? I thought I graduated from stanning idols, but I found myself looking him up. It’s been 3, 4 years? since he debuted, but he’s already playing a main character. I don’t want him to become so famous.”

“You’re showing signs of hipsterism.”

“Hipsterism? What’s that?”

Maybe it was a word that wasn’t as widespread in Korea at this point in time? She smiled and said that it was nothing.

“Anyway, he looks around my age, but he’s doing so well. I’m somewhat envious, and it makes me sad thinking about myself.”

“You’re doing perfectly adequately. You know there’s no reason to be envious of him, right?”

“Thanks for saying that. Anyway, I summed up the price of the vacuum cleaner, humidifier, and the robotic cleaner. Together they’re quite pricey though. Are you okay with that? You should really buy it through the internet….”

“I said it’s okay. Also, any TVs here that you get incentives on?”

Her friend blinked.

“TV? Th-there is.”

“How much do the 60-inch ones cost? There’s no price tag.”

“They cost millions.”

“Pretty decent then.”

Her friend pointed at the TV.

“You’re buying this too? For real? Did you decide earlier to buy one today?”

“No, I was originally going to just buy a vacuum cleaner and a humidifier, but what you said made me think that I should buy it.”

“What did I even say?”

“Something like that. Anyway, give me this one as well.”

Her friend left, saying that she was going to tell her manager about it, eager to get some free gifts for her.

“She’s a fan and does free promotions, so I should do something for her.”

She smiled in satisfaction as she watched the drama that her husband was in.

The second episode finished airing yesterday. The viewing rate was 0.16%. The dramas airing on the other two channels recorded 1% and 0.8% respectively.

There was a lot of ridicule on the internet, and articles were written about it as well.

Private-owned channels’ dramas: are they good if they go past 1%?

She had experienced lives where private-owned channels were successful and unsuccessful. She could not predict the outcome this time either.

However, the responses from the ones who watched the drama were slowly appearing as well. They were very positive.

Next week’s viewing rates would probably see a change. Word of mouth was spreading the drama after all.

“How would you like to pay?”

“I’ll pay in full.”

She received the credit card that a male employee returned to her and looked at her friend.

“I wonder if that was of any help.”

“That was more than enough. The TV and the robot vacuum have personal incentives, so my salary is going to be quite decent this month. It’s all thanks to you, so I’ll treat you out sometime.”

“Sounds good.”

“Also, if you ever happen to see Han Maru while working, please get me his autograph.”

“Is that all you need?”

“Sure. But hey, sounds like you know him.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“What the, are you two close?”

Haneul shrugged. She was planning to introduce Maru to the people close to her in a while. She looked forward to what kind of expression this girl would make, but she also felt somewhat apologetic.

“I’ll be the one to treat you.”

“Why?”

“Something like that. I gotta get going now. See you later.”

Haneul looked behind her as she left the counter. Her husband’s face could be seen on the large display TVs.

“Looking good.”

She chuckled and pushed the cart.

𝐟𝗿𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝗯𝗻𝐨𝘃𝐞𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝐦

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