Park Seoyun, Age 22—The Cousin Arrives!
Nine at night. I'd made it through another shift in one piece.
The convenience-store work was finally settling into my hands. At first, just standing at the register had been enough to set my fingertips trembling, but these days even a rush of customers didn't rattle me much. Stock the shelves, check the dates, ring people up. Next to a full day of farm work under the blazing country sun, my body had it easy.
Even so, the customers had pressed drinks on me again. Two canned coffees and an energy drink. Why were they all so good to me? Ayoung teased that they were hitting on me, but honestly, I still couldn't get a grip on what she meant. I was grateful either way.
On the way out, with the manager's permission, I'd also taken the food marked for disposal—lunch boxes, sandwiches, triangle kimbap. The thought of splitting them with Ayoung and Yuri put a lightness in my step.
"I'm home."
The moment I opened the front door, a familiar sweet scent met me, and with it a voice I was glad to hear.
"Hayun!"
Yuri. Her silvery-white hair spilled long down her back, and the instant she spotted me from her wheelchair, her whole face flushed a vivid pink and she broke into a wide smile.
"You worked hard again today."
"Yeah. Did you two eat?"
"We waited for you."
"You could've started without me."
"It's better when we eat together."
She said it with both arms flung wide. I kicked off my shoes and went over, meaning only to give her a light hug—but the moment I stepped into her arms, she seized my waist as if she'd been waiting and yanked me hard against her.
"Hnn... I missed you so much."
In nothing but a thin sleeveless top, Yuri's bare skin pressed hot against my clothes. Her slight lower body—there were no thighs—and her burning torso settled almost wholly across my hips and stomach. The heat coming straight through skin was hotter and stickier than I'd imagined, and for a second I couldn't breathe.
"You saw me this morning."
"Even so... if I don't breathe you in, my whole body gets itchy and restless."
She buried her face deep between my collarbone and the nape of my neck and let out a long, damp sigh. Warm, moist breath slid down the line of my throat and raised a shiver. I could feel it vividly—the tip of her small tongue flicking up to lick the bare skin there.
"Honestly. How can one person be this clingy?"
I stroked her soft hair, pressing down the strange tickle climbing up from below my waist.
"Where's Ayoung?"
"In the living room."
I turned my head. Ayoung was sprawled on the sofa—she'd started the morning shift at the convenience store today.
"How was the first day?"
"More doable than I thought. When the customers piled in, though, it was chaos."
"That's how it is at first. Give it a few days and it'll feel normal."
Ayoung sat up and pointed at the table. The discard bag she'd brought home was heaped there too.
"So we don't have to worry about food for a while?"
"Looks that way."
Yuri, practically hanging off me, looked back and forth between us. In those blue eyes, a thick, strange heat aimed at me was still spreading.
"Hayun, what's for dinner?"
"I'll cook. Kimchi stew."
"Again?! Kimchi stew?!"
Ayoung looked horrified, but I played the tuna-and-cheese rolled-omelet card and the negotiations wrapped up without a fight.
Yuri showed no intention of leaving my arms. She clutched my shirt and rubbed her cheek and lips against my chest.
"I like anything you make. I like it even more if you only look at me. And only touch me."
"Are you just going to live buried in Hayun?!"
Ayoung laughed as if she couldn't believe her eyes.
All through dinner, Yuri's hands kept slipping under the table—stroking the soft inside of my thigh, lacing her fingers through mine—never still for a moment. We'd finished eating and done the dishes when the bell rang.
Ding-dong!
"Hayun! Your big sister's here!"
I opened the door to find Seoyun standing there with a huge bag in each hand. She'd done herself up to look more or less like Kitagawa Marin from My Dress-Up Darling—a glittering blonde style catching the light, long hair fading to pale pink at the tips and spilling past her shoulders. Two buttons of the white shirt were undone, baring the line of her shoulders, and a deep valley of cleavage showed through, precarious. Below a dangerously short plaid pleated skirt slung low on her hips, long, smooth thighs were on full display. A black ribbon choker, flashy ear piercings, pink nail art. She looked like a gyaru heroine who had just stepped out of a monitor. Exactly that.
"Sis...? What on earth is that outfit?"
"Well? Getting the Kitagawa Marin vibe? Call it a little courtesy to the owner of the clothes~"
Seoyun flashed her usual bright smile and threw me a playful wink. Marin's signature fit—full chest, slender waist, that strange and dazzling silhouette—sat on my cousin's mature beauty and threw off a presence you could feel at a glance.
How is she already sprawled on the bed, flaunting that confidence, ahead of the people who actually live here...?
She tossed the big bags down beside the bed and lay there shamelessly in the middle of the master bedroom's mattress, as if the place were already hers. Between the open white shirt, the deep cut of her chest was fully on display, and beneath the short plaid skirt her long, smooth thighs sprawled in a tangle across the sheets. One leg crossed loosely over the other, her head buried in a pillow—she looked precarious and bold enough to have walked out of a photoshoot.
"Sis, you can't just flop onto someone else's bed like that."
"Oh my, Hayun. The most welcome guest is supposed to make herself the most comfortable~! And this outfit only comes alive if I shoot it on a bed. What am I supposed to do?"
She ignored my scolding and tapped the space beside her with fingers painted in flashy pink nail art.
"Since you're already in here, want to lie down next to me? I could hug you tight, Marin-style."
"I'll pass!"
Satisfied with how red my flustered face had gone, she shook that full chest and burst out laughing. Faced with the same unstoppable Seoyun as always, I had no choice but to throw up both hands and sigh.
"Sis, you carried all of this yourself?"
"Handing it over in person has its own flavor."
She came inside and presented Ayoung with a Pretty Cure Arcana cosplay. Ayoung dashed to the mirror, held the costume up against herself, and lit up—already as happy as if she'd become Pretty Cure Arcana in the flesh.
"And this one's yours, Hayun."
"Sis, I told you, you don't have to bring anything for me."
"No! This sister absolutely has to see you in it!"
She was determined to put me in a cosplay of Hysilens, a character from a game called Star Rail. Seoyun never changed. She laughed off my refusal and pulled a large costume box out of the shopping bag. Across the front, in big letters, it read:
"Sis, what kind of outfit is this, exactly?"
"It's the costume of a character named Hysilens from a game called Star Rail! I figured it would suit your build and your vibe perfectly, so I even had it custom-made!"
She started pulling thin, soft pieces out of the box one by one and holding them up against me. The outfit was more outrageous than I'd imagined. A tight bodysuit that traced every line of the body, the neckline cut deep over the chest, bold slashes at the waist and along the hips that left skin bare. The leather straps and decorative cords that came with it were made to wind around the body, precarious and close.
"Sis, th-this is a bit... it's way too exposed, isn't it? This isn't clothes. It's just a few straps and scraps of cloth layered together!"
"Oh my, cosplay is all about bringing out the character's details! You're tall, and your figure's healthy and pretty. Put this on and you'd be perfect, honestly!"
She didn't give me a chance to refuse. She shoved me through the door.
"Just put it on and come out! If the size is off, I'll alter it!"
Left alone in the room, I looked down at the outfit with a troubled face.
I had no idea how the thin cloth and leather straps were supposed to go on, and I fumbled for a long while. Once the top was on, the deep neckline pushed the swell of my chest up until it felt ready to spill, and the cutouts at my waist left bare skin showing. When I cinched the leather cords around my thighs and hips, the firm flesh was pressed into a strange, shaped curve. Feeling my face burn scarlet, I carefully opened the door and stepped out into the living room.
"...Sis, this really feels way too sexy..."
Whenever she decided something didn't quite suit me, she put me in yet another of Hysilens's outfits.
All three of them in the living room turned to look at me at once.
"Whoa... that's insane."
Ayoung's mouth fell open, and she nearly dropped the cosplay costume in her hands. Seoyun smiled, satisfied, and clapped.
"See? What did I tell you? It suits you perfectly!"
"Sis, the chest is cut way too low... and the thigh straps are squeezing so tight I can't stop thinking about them..."
I shifted awkwardly, trying to cover my thighs and my chest, and the blue eyes of Yuri in her wheelchair went completely wet with heat. She rolled the chair right up in front of me, tipped her head back, and slowly looked me over from the bottom up. Her breathing roughened in an instant as she took in the steep valley of my chest showing through the thin fabric, and the soft inner flesh of my thighs sunk into the straps.
"Hayun..."
"Yeah? Yuri, what's wrong...?"
She reached out and slowly ran a finger up the leather strap cinched around my thigh. Cold leather and the hot tip of her finger touched bare skin, and my body jerked.
"It's so... so sexy..."
"Right? You think it's too much too, don't you?"
"No... I like it so much I can't look away..."
She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, then rose in the wheelchair and pressed her cheek to the bare skin exposed along my waist. Her hot breath touched the line of my side directly, and a shiver ran through me.
"Yuri, wait... your skin's all over me...!"
"I want to hold all of you while you're still in this... The flesh inside the leather straps is puffed up so soft... I keep wanting to touch it..."
Her hand crept up along the thigh strap and closed, slow and sticky, over the boldly bared side of my hip and my rear.
"Ahn...! Yuri, where are you putting your hands? Everyone can see...!"
"That's because you're standing there dressed like that..."
Seoyun and Ayoung watched and laughed under their breath, as if they couldn't believe it. Then Seoyun came over with a camera.
"Okay, Hayun, stay just like that! Yuri wrapped around your thigh is an incredible shot. Let's take a few!"
"Sis! What photos?!"
My protests did nothing. Seoyun's shutter kept going off, and Yuri stared up at my thighs and my chest, swallowing again and again. In the end I had to pace the living room in the Hysilens costume for a long while, worn down by the three of them and by Yuri's strange, hungry gaze.
Next it was Yuri's turn.
"Yuri, this one's yours."
She took the shopping bag in both hands and opened the wrapping.
"Whoa..."
What came out was lingerie made of nothing but black see-through lace and thin straps—bold, and barely there. Mesh that only just covered the tips of the breasts, cut so the whole line of the hips showed.
"...Sis? This is a little too sexy."
"It's pretty, though. If Yuri wears it, it'll be seriously sexy. Stimulating, even."
Seoyun laughed as if it were nothing. What surprised me more was Yuri.
"Seoyun, it's so pretty...!"
She hugged the gift tight to her chest. The thong and the lace bra wedged deep between her full breasts. Then she looked up at me with eyes gone completely hot.
"Hayun."
"What?"
"Later... I'll be wearing only this, so you have to look."
"Why would you show me that?"
"Because you're going to peel them off me, one by one, with your hands."
"...What?"
"Kidding. Heehee."
Yuri stuck her tongue out a little and smiled, strange and sweet. Beside her, Ayoung snorted and muttered.
"Yuri, you better pull it off tonight."
"I will. I'm really going to get completely eaten up by Hayun."
"What are you two talking about without me?"
"See-cret~!"
It stung a little, being the only one left out—but then the computer Seoyun had assembled for us booted up, and the game swallowed my attention. What we launched on Steam was a classic: Cooking Shop.
"Ayoung! Hamburgers!"
"I know! Don't burn the patties!"
"Drinks first!"
"The customer's leaving! Aaaaagh!"
Past three in the morning, Ayoung, Seoyun, and I were still lost in the game.