Tale of Our Love // Pucca (EXTENDED)

Chapter 7

"Pucca! Get up! Get up!"

Her peaceful afternoon nap was disturbed immediately by the voice of a certain girl. Pucca shot her eyes open in an instant upon hearing Ching's excited tone, and she quickly turned towards her direction. It was an everyday thing. Pucca would come to the room that Jae-geun had prepared for her, and take a nap. She was never really disturbed by anyone or anything, save for this day. What did Ching even come here for? And what was with the eager look shining in her eyes? Confused by all this, Pucca sat up from her bed.

Of course that was when she realized that Ching wasn't the only one who was inside her room. Garu, Abyo, and Tobe were standing right there as well. It would seem as though Ching was the only one to create such loud noises. Abyo seemed to have wanted to make some sound, but Tobe prevented him from doing so, knowing how annoying his choice of words could be. Garu, on the other hand, was as quiet as he ever was. Only speaking when he found it necessary. He was the cinnamon roll of the group, the one that the rest of the group aspired to protect.

"Huh?" Pucca questioned the friends around her. "What's this about?"

"You know what this is about!" Ching said to her. "The festival! The festival!"

"What...? What festival... oh..."

This was a tradition in Sooga village. Once in a year, they would be celebrating the Yebae festival, a religious festival dedicated to Pucca herself, or in a more accurate sense, her Teansi persona. It was held at the shrine where Teansi was worshipped. It was a pretty big shrine, so it can fit all of the residents of Sooga Village. Since everyone in the village worshipped and believed in Teansi, all of them came.

Of course there just had to be that one guy Dong King who would ruin everything. If Teansi hadn't made a vow to her master that she would not harm humans, she would've placed a curse on him already. Thing was, she didn't know what kind of curse she would put on him anyway. Perhaps give him bad luck for the rest of his life? Or make him watch children's cartoons even if he passed out? As she thought of those things, they seemed pretty fun. Maybe she should try them out when her master isn't looking.

"Noooo, don't tell me you forgot!" Ching exclaimed. "The Yebae festival! The long-awaited festival of Sooga Village! We're all going to go mad with the food stalls this year, too! There's plenty of things to do! The cotton candy eating contest! The fire noodles challenge! Ah, there's so much to do! I'm so excited!"

Pucca had seen them participate in those competitions, but she never joined one for herself. As a result, she doesn't know how difficult it is to eat an entire cotton candy in just mere minutes, or how spicy the samyang noodles were.

But she did know that Ching and Abyo got in trouble with the village council because of how loud they were. Garu and Tobe were left out of it, considering how they were extremely silent. Tobe always warned Garu that Abyo was a bad influencer, and that he must never take any advice coming from said boy. Of course Garu couldn't understand the meaning behind that yet. Even after such a huge scolding, however, Ching and Abyo were still very noisy and kept rummaging through every stall they could find. Sometimes the vendors ran out of stock due to them both.

"We call this battle of ours..." Ching started, as if she was a game show host. "The battle of the five demons!"

"D-D-Demon sounds scary..." Garu stated. "How about... w-warriors?"

"Yeah, that's the point," Tobe explained. "Ching wants to be scary, not that she is."

"Hmph, I am scary!" Ching said arrogantly. "And I'll prove it to all of you by winning the contests!"

"Yeah, yeah," Abyo mocked her. "Same thing every year."

That was the harsh truth. Ching always said to her friends that she would win the contests, but she was always in the last place.