Bamboo Forest Manager

“Yawn.”

The sauna was all good, but the problem was that my body felt oddly sluggish when it was time to head home.

Anyway, I felt good because I had rested well without any disturbance, and the freshness from sweating in the sauna still lingered.

As the warmth wafted up, I entered the house, my body soaked in the unique sulfur scent.

Thanks to a kind of warning message from senior Ju-hee, I was now filled with the desire to work on my assignment. I hadn’t done anything for the past two days, but I figured I could catch up if I pulled an all-nighter.

Besides, considering my editing speed was fairly fast, it should be easy.

“I should just grab the materials and head to the PC café.”

The last time I edited a video on my laptop at home, the lag was too severe. After sending the video-related materials by email, I entered the house with thoughts of going to the PC café.

“You’re back?”

The moment I saw her still there, thinking that she should have gone home, my expression soured.

“What are you doing here?”

When I asked why she hadn’t left yet, Yu Arin glanced at me and then focused back on her cellphone.

“Just, too lazy to go home. It’s a free Friday anyway, so I’m resting.”

“……”

“I cleaned up neatly. It’s damn clean.”

The house was definitely cleaner. I knew Yu Arin said that she would clean my home, but I didn’t expect her to do it so diligently.

“And you, things like used tissues should be thrown away right after…”

“Got it! Don’t say it!”

“Hehe, you’re healthy, Woojin.”

“…Shit.”

If a man lives alone, there’s a certain aspect that’s inevitable, and when I forcibly stopped Yu Arin from broaching the topic, she laughed playfully. I don’t know how she can joke about something like that.

“Are you going to eat? I had the dried pollock soup.”

“No, I’m going to the PC café. Senior Ju-hee kind of half-threatened me because of editing.”

Upon hearing my words, Yu Arin jumped up.

Seemingly bursting with interest, she hurriedly started fixing her clothes.

“Hurry up! Let’s go! I want to watch you edit and see it for myself!”

“…It’s faster if I do it alone.”

“Hey, I’ll help too. Okay? Okay?”

If she’s going to help, that changes things entirely. Even just adding subtitles by my side would definitely make things easier for me.

“Of course, the master will buy me food, right?”

Slyly swaying her hips, Yu Arin approached stealthily. I thought it was because she was drunk yesterday.

But seeing her today, it feels like she’s somehow gotten closer to me.

“You seem to enjoy calling me ‘master’ lately.”

It was just a joke between us as the manager and caretaker of the Bamboo Forest, but I feel like she’s been saying it more often lately.

At my words, Yu Arin immediately changes her expression and shrugs nonchalantly.

“Doing this so you’ll ask me to do less, right? You know you actually listen to me when I call you ‘master’?”

“Is that so?”

“That must mean you have a taste for that sort of thing?”

Laughing as if she’s discovered a weakness of mine, she tapped on my shoulder, and I couldn’t help but want to deny it.

“It’s just because you ended up being the sub-manager, so you’re doing it out of guilt. What taste about being called something?”

“So, it’s not your taste to be called ‘master’?”

“…Do we have to keep talking about this?”

Even though Yu Arin and I swear at each other all the time, discussing this sort of thing felt a wee bit uncomfortable. Seeing my reaction, Yu Arin shrugged, indicating she had no intention of prying further.

Anyway.

Since we decided to go together, I transferred the files from my laptop to an email and then headed to the PC café with Yu Arin. It was the Zero PC Café where Chan-woo works part-time, but he wasn’t there, either because it wasn’t his shift or he wasn’t working today.

“Too bad, we could have gotten some free service.”

Now that Yu Arin’s relationship with Chan-woo seems to be completely over, she actually seems to miss having him around. Seeing her like this complicated things a little, but it seemed the two of them had reached some sort of conclusion and put an end to their relationship.

In the end, I wondered if I hadn’t been able to help Chan-woo at all, despite saying I would.

I head to a corner of the PC room and settle in. Before starting the editing, I hadn’t eaten properly yet, so I ordered some ramen and dumplings for a quick meal.

“Order me some mixed grain powder milkshake.”

“Buy it yourself.”

“Masterrrr!”

“Stop that, it’s freaking creepy.”

“Masterrrr!!”

“Fuck, I really want to smack you right now.”

“Damn it master.”

After ordering and eating quickly, I started editing with Yu Arin.

“Just add subtitles to the file I gave you. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

“It’s not hard, but it’s annoying, huh?”

Exactly.

But Yu Arin, without complaining, started adding subtitles to the videos I passed to her.

“Wouldn’t it be better to use a different angle here?”

Surprisingly, she began to offer advice on various editing matters.

“I can’t help it. That’s the only angle we have.”

“Why? I remember we took a few shots from different angles too?”

“Because those shots were taken with my phone, and the quality difference is significant.”

“Ah.”

“Senior Ju-hee’s phone battery had died, so we had no choice.”

As we talked about this and that, time began to pass, and before we knew it, it was evening.

Sigh…

But with Yu Arin’s help, we definitely made rapid progress.

The work progressed much faster than expected. Having just one more person to help with the tedious tasks significantly sped the workflow up, which was satisfying.

There was no need to finish everything right away, but just in case, I planned to dedicate the entire day to the assignment.

“Hey, you should slowly…”

I was thinking of sending Yu Arin home, so I looked beside me, only to find her already asleep.

“She must have been tired.”

When I thought about it, she drank yesterday, woke up to cure her hangover, cleaned, and has been helping me since then. Feeling sorry, I scratched the back of my head and pondered for a moment.

I thought about telling her to go home and sleep for the day, but waking her up now wouldn’t make a difference since I wouldn’t be taking her home anyway.

I’ll just finish what I was doing and then go.

And so I decided to work for another hour before taking Yu Arin home and then returning to the PC café.

“Yawn.”

Yu Arin yawned while staring intently at her phone. Just a while ago, she was half-asleep, leaning on me as we walked, but now she seemed to be doing better, busily looking at something on her phone.

“Hey, do you know about the fight that broke out in the Bamboo Forest?”

“You were looking at the Bamboo Forest?”

I couldn’t tell if this person has fallen into the trap of online communities or if she is just highly responsible.

I guess it might be a bit of both.

“Anonymous11 and Anonymous288. Are these two fighting?”

“Yeah, I saw it earlier. They’re not really trashing the board or anything. Since it’s Friday and not many people are on, so I just let them be. Watching that kind of thing can be entertaining at times.”

“…You seem to manage things pretty loosely, don’t you?”

I wonder if she wanted to block the two who were fighting right away as Yu Arin tapped away on her phone with dissatisfaction.

It seemed like she was about to send a warning message telling them not to fight.

“After all, it’s a university community. As long as they don’t dirty the board too much, I prefer to leave them be with a laissez-faire approach.”

I don’t really intervene much unless it’s something dirty like certain images or spreading pornography like someone happens to do.

“Are you sure that’s really okay?”

“It’s fine.”

“…You’re getting cursed out a lot though?”

“What?”

As soon as I entered the Bamboo Forest to check, there were already several posts cursing me.

It’s Friday night, they’re the ones fighting, but they complain to me for not stopping them, and it gradually turns into cursing me without reason.

Seeing that, I let out a hollow laugh and put my phone away again.

“Well, that’s good then. Since it ends with them just cursing me.”

Would they even remember what they were fighting about by now?

This is exactly the mindset a manager should have.

“Ha, if someone curses me, I’ll confront them right away.”

“I know. That’s why I thought about blocking you but then just endured it.”

“…”

I was going to tell her because she would always stand up and respond if someone cursed the Admin.

“Just ignore it. It’s easier if you think of it as a dog barking at you from across the street.”

It was an anonymous comment anyway, and since badmouthing the Admins was usually for no significant reason, it was easier to ignore than to confront.

In the midst of exchanging various stories about the Bamboo Forest, we arrived at Yu Arin’s house. I’d thought she lived alone, but she lives in an apartment with her family.

Standing in front of the apartment building, intending to see me off, there was Yu Arin, staring straight at me. Wondering what was going on, I looked at her, and she became gloomy, checking her surroundings.

“How should I explain that I spent the night outside yesterday?”

“…You haven’t told them yet?”

“My dad and mom told me to explain when I come back.”

“And you were still able to stay at the PC café with me?”

“If I go home, I’m dead anyway, so I just stayed there.”

“If it were me, I would have gone straight home. Better to die early if I’m going to die anyway.”

Yu Arin, who doesn’t even hear my words and falls into her own worries. She crosses her arms and taps the floor impatiently, looking quite desperate.

“Let’s put our heads together and think. How can we phrase it to get in the least trouble?”

“What’s there to phrase. Just be honest. Say we drank with some female friends and blacked out. So, we slept at a friend’s house, sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“You should come in with me to explain.”

That’s funny.

“Sure, they’d love it if a male friend came in to explain.”

Maybe since it was one of the girls. Taking me was a much worse move than going in alone.

But Yu Arin, perhaps getting anxious, bit her nails and then took a deep breath and said,

“Let’s go in together. There’s a way.”

“Hold on. You’re not going to pretend I’m your boyfriend like last time, are you?”

“Do you think I would ask you to do what I did to Pyo Jinho? It’s nothing. Just come in for a moment.”

“…I don’t feel comfortable doing this.”

“You were honestly super comfortable today because I added the subtitles for you. It was much faster than usual, right?”

“That’s…”

It was true.

Subtitles weren’t hard to add, but they were a bothersome task.

Eventually, unable to resist, I cautiously followed Yu Arin into the house.

“Excuse me.”

“Come in.”

The interior was just an ordinary home.

What caught my eye was a photo of a young Yu Arin wearing a Taekwondo uniform and performing a kick. Her hair was blonde even back then, but she looked quite cute, different from now.

I thought the house was too quiet since I was expecting the appearance of someone very angry after hearing our greeting.

“What’s this?”

How should I put it?

Should I say it feels like there’s no sign of anyone around?

Staring intently at the bedroom door, Yu Arin burst into laughter and sprawled out on the living room sofa, saying,

“Heeheehee! Mom and Dad went on a trip. To Japan for five days and four nights. Scared?”

“……”

“Go boil some ramen.”

This wench, is she for real?

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