A Dogshit Situation
"When did you even start playing games?"
"That... hasn't been long."
My voice trembled, thinning toward the end until it was barely there. Younger sister or not, from where I stood this was someone I was meeting for the first time today. Every word demanded caution, so the shaking was inevitable.
"You haven't eaten yet, have you? Move. Let me in. I'll make you something."
I stepped aside in a daze as my sister walked into the apartment like she owned the place. Only then did the enormous grocery bag in her arms come into focus. Green onions and other vegetables poked out from between the plastic. She'd clearly come already resolved to feed me.
"Why is your place this filthy? Clean up once in a while!"
Watching her scowl as she surveyed the apartment, I felt a strange, unplaceable guilt. The "me" my sister remembered and the person standing here now were not the same. We shared a face, nothing more. I could never become Lee Harin. In the end, I had no choice but to live as myself.
Would putting on Lee Harin's act at this point make that performance the real me? I didn't have the luxury of choosing. I already existed as Lee Harin.
"What do you even eat on a normal day? There's nothing in the fridge except bottled water. What would you have done if I hadn't brought groceries?"
My sister started touring the apartment like she was on patrol. She flicked on lights, even disappeared into the bathroom, and the set of her shoulders radiated a grim determination to confirm exactly how I had been living.
Had she always been this overprotective of her older sister? Without context — without even a scrap of information — I had no idea how to handle any of this. The fact that she didn't find my passive, one-word answers strange suggested this was no ordinary sibling relationship. Judging by the behavior alone, she seemed more like the unnie.
She emerged from the bathroom. Thankfully, the state of the toilet hadn't earned a complaint. I could only stand there and watch, like a criminal whose house was being tossed. Nothing from one to ten seemed to please her; her expression soured with every new corner she inspected.
If I'd known this was coming, I would have cleaned. No — wait. Wasn't I the older sister? Where the hell had I pawned off my dignity as the unnie?
"What's that?"
Something had pinged on her radar. The look she leveled at the Connector sitting in the corner of the studio was not a friendly one. It was the face of someone demanding to know where the hell that thing had come from.
"It's a Connector. Just a kind of login device."
"Yeah. So you bought it?"
"Uh...?"
"Did you buy it."
"Well... it's not the kind of thing you pick up off the street."
"How much."
"Ei—"
The instant the Connector's price surfaced in my mind, I quietly shut my mouth. How a person spent their own money was their business — but from my sister's point of view, I would look like a lunatic who had blown eight million won on a single game. Should I even say it?
I hemmed and hawed, stalling. Judging by that expression, giving her the real number would be a disaster. My body was already leaden with fatigue; now my head felt equally crushed under the weight of thinking. Unable to guess what Lee Harin's relationship with this girl had actually been, I couldn't find a single useful thing to say.
It felt like standing across from a psychopathic serial killer. Beyond needing caution with every answer, I couldn't even afford to rub her the wrong way. What kind of relationship had Lee Harin normally had with her sister? I wanted to act the part, but knowing nothing about Lee Harin, I couldn't even try. More than that — I knew nothing about the sister standing in front of me, either.
"That's a Connector, right? I know those are expensive, so just be honest."
"......"
I quietly held up eight fingers.
"It can't be eighty thousand. Eight hundred thousand?"
Younger sister or not, she was still a kid. To be this clueless about how the world worked. This wasn't some machine that merely displayed virtual reality — it made you feel everything as if it were real. Would that only cost eight hundred thousand won? Even building a high-end PC easily chewed through several million. A Connector that outperformed that was always going to cost more.
I had no choice but to shake my head at her shout of eight hundred thousand.
"What? Eight million?! Did you get scammed again? I told you to ask me or Seojun before you buy anything!"
Seojun. Who the hell was Seojun? Did I have another sibling besides Seoyeon? And what on earth had Lee Harin done that the mere mention of buying a Connector would set her sister off like this? I was dizzy.
"Connectors usually cost about that much. Cheap as it looks, that's actually the cheapest model."
The answer seemed to land, at least a little. Her furrowed brow eased by a fraction. But she was still glaring at me with her head turned away — so I hadn't exactly answered well. At this point she just seemed dissatisfied with every single thing I did.
Lee Harin... what kind of life had she lived? From my sister's reaction, one thing was obvious: it hadn't been an ordinary one. How unreliable must she have seemed, for her sister to worry over her like this, piece by piece?
"So you bought that and you've just been gaming nonstop?"
"No... well."
It felt like being interrogated by the police. The thought that I was walking a tightrope had already soaked my back in cold sweat. No — stay calm. Whatever was inside, my exterior was Lee Harin's. Even if she noticed something off, she wasn't going to press it that hard.
"I'm taking it easy. You don't have to worry."
"Fine. I'll trust you this once. More importantly, you're hungry, right? I'll make something, so just wait a bit."
I could only watch her back as she walked to the sink.
Lee Seoyeon. One of the people who knew my past. I'd hoped, honestly, that I might learn something about the previous "me." But the more I talked with my sister, the larger the questions about the old "me" became.
What position had Lee Harin occupied in this family? And how would they accept the person who had stepped into Lee Harin's body? Idle, useless thoughts — whether I even had the right to be called family. I couldn't recognize my own sister's face, and I was talking about family. The idea was so absurd I almost wanted to laugh.
Then, suddenly, my younger sister turned toward me.
"Unnie, where's the cooking oil? I can't find it anywhere."
I was about to answer on instinct when a thought flashed through my mind. Did this house... even have cooking oil? I'd never really cooked here, so I couldn't remember for sure. But thinking back to when I'd looked the place over, I hadn't seen cooking oil — or even common seasonings like soy sauce and salt.
"It's probably all gone."
"You should restock that stuff before it runs out."
I said I understood, but getting lectured over something I had no intention of doing was more of a chore than I'd expected. And considering the only food in the house had been instant ramen, there might never have been cooking oil in the first place. Even if there had been, it would probably be a relic well past its expiration date. From everything I'd seen so far, Lee Harin had been a long way from anyone who cooked.
The bright, rhythmic chop of a kitchen knife on the cutting board filled the studio. Then came the sizzle of meat hitting a pan. I was briefly distracted by the smell teasing my nose — and then my sister was looking at me again, thoroughly displeased, as if something had gone wrong.
"Harin unnie. Do you even do the dishes? There isn't a single plate."
It felt like being inspected by a superior officer. Why so much nagging over every little thing?
"I've been... out of it lately."
I wasn't lying. Waking up as a woman overnight was not a fact you simply accepted. Sometimes I would sink into thought and just let the hours slip past in a daze. Even knowing I had no choice but to accept reality, I couldn't help scraping by on whatever meals I could manage and holing up at home on the computer. That might have been why I'd thrown myself even harder into the game. While I was playing, I could focus on nothing else — and forget every other worry, if only for a little while.
"Unnie, at least keep basic hygiene. You'll get sick."
What was I supposed to say to that? All I could do was nod and say I understood. Surely there was nothing left to pick at.
...I shouldn't have let my guard down. How had I forgotten that the moment you relax, the crisis is already standing right next to you? It was something my body should have remembered from my mercenary days.
"W-what...?"
"Didn't you hear me? Looking at the state you're in, this clearly isn't going to work. How about I live with you for a while?"
My sister delivered that bone-chilling joke in a clear, bright voice.
This fucking...