Morning at the Pension
The first morning at the pension. Carrying the sandwiches the owner had prepared, I headed toward the bedroom where the girls were still asleep.
“Wake up, both of you. It’s morning.”
“Mmm…”
They looked as if they’d felt lonely without me, legs tangled together as they slept soundly. I set the breakfast down on the small table, pulled away the crumpled blanket, and woke Haeun first.
“Haeun, it’s morning. Time to get ready for work.”
“What work…?”
“Hik…!”
Unlike Haeun, who was whining despite having fallen asleep first, Hinami stirred beside her and sat up abruptly on the bed. The word “work” seemed to have triggered some kind of trauma in her. I approached the pitiful-looking Hinami, gently stroking her hair, then forced the still-snoring Haeun upright as well.
“Ah, whyyy…”
“Eat. Breakfast.”
“…Oh. We’re on vacation today.”
Haeun rubbed her eyes and grumbled while Hinami placed a hand on her own chest and let out a long breath. I handed them each a sandwich, then pulled up a chair for myself and began chewing my own breakfast in silence.
…Was I here on vacation, or was I here to babysit these two? I was a little confused. Not that I wanted to leave, of course.
“What’s this? Did you make it, Juhyuk…?”
“No. The owner did. She left it at the door and texted me.”
“Really…?”
“…”
Haeun was still half-asleep, drifting through a dream, while Hinami and I both quietly bit into our sandwiches. I handed coffee to the more alert one first, turned on the wall-mounted TV, then leaned back in my chair and tilted my head to watch. It was nothing but pointless news, but one thing stood out clearly: heavy rain was expected today.
…Well, the weather didn’t matter anyway. The three of us weren’t going anywhere.
“…It’s good. The sandwich.”
“Yeah.”
I glanced sideways at Hinami, who was staring at me without hiding her faintly flushed cheeks. I passed coffee to Haeun too, who had finally woken up enough to take a bite of bread thanks to the noisy TV, and downed some caffeine myself. I really was tired. I’d driven for over three hours yesterday. An hour from home to the pension, another hour back to Seoul to pick up Hinami, and another hour returning. It would’ve been so much easier if we could’ve all come together at once. But her job made that impossible.
…Hinami must be exhausted too. Even if she wasn’t driving, she had to ride in a car like this every single day.
“…Juhyuk.”
“What.”
“Did we turn off the gas before we left?”
“I did.”
“The air conditioner?”
“You turned it off right in front of me.”
“The water?”
“Didn’t hear any running.”
“…Then we’re good.”
Compared to that, our Haeun, who enjoyed a relatively sweet work-life balance, was fretting over the most pointless things while enjoying her breakfast. Well, she’d been living a bit busier lately. She went to work a little later than me, worked hard at her desk until we left together, and on her days off she even prepared videos in advance. At night, well… she always took care of me like usual. She never said it out loud, but compared to when we first met, she’d clearly lost all her extra weight. The strange part was that her chest looked even bigger than before. Probably because her waist had gotten so much narrower.
“Ah, did you turn off the gas properly?”
“…I didn’t even turn on the lights. I just went in and came right back out.”
“You must be tired too.”
“Well, I only have about three more weeks until my break…”
Unlike Haeun, who had slimmed down in a good way, Hinami’s face looked haggard in a bad way, with heavy dark circles under her eyes. Honestly, it wasn’t that I had no dirty thoughts, but today I just wanted her to rest properly.
“Are you going to rest during your break?”
“No. I’ll take a few days off, then practice nonstop. Instead of events or filming.”
“Sounds like when I was a player.”
“…You must’ve had a hard time too, Oppa.”
“Still better than having no work at all.”
“…That’s true.”
Hinami nodded at my words, then quietly stood up, dragged a chair over, and sat right beside me, pressing close. Seeing that, Haeun pressed her lips together and suddenly stretched out her left foot to kick my leg. In return, I stepped on her other foot and pressed down firmly. Hinami, who had been watching quietly, placed her own foot on top of mine as well. With our three feet piled together, we stared at one another for a moment.
“…Pfft.”
“Hey, don’t laugh. The coffee on the bed…”
“Ah, sorry. Sorry…”
Haeun burst out laughing first, set down the coffee she’d nearly spilled, then climbed onto my lap and finished off the remaining sandwich before deliberately stealing my coffee. Hinami watched, then drank the last two sips of my coffee herself.
It was a morning that felt less erotic and more like three siblings with no boundaries. In the room filled with that warm atmosphere—
“Should we shower soon?”
“…Wouldn’t it be better to digest first, Juhyuk?”
“We can digest while showering.”
“…”
She ground her hips against my thigh. I yanked off her loose T-shirt in one motion.
“Haeun-unni.”
“…What.”
“Where did you buy that bra? It looks really comfortable.”
“…I didn’t buy it. Ask him.”
…I gave the girl a sly smile, mouthed a promise to buy her one later, then stood up in the room that was now filled with hot air instead of warmth. To avoid indigestion, I moved slowly toward the shower. After all, we weren’t leaving this place today.
**
I knocked on the door of the house I’d only lent out temporarily, then pressed the doorbell several times just in case. I waited for an answer that would never come. There was only one reason I’d come down to the lower floor on this gloomy weekend to visit someone I wasn’t even close with. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity that had presented itself.
-The boss went on a trip, right? They left work early yesterday saying they were going on a trip together.
I’d unexpectedly gotten good information from Hwang Sua, who contacted me often despite her busy schedule. …Well, from her perspective, Juhyuk and I were basically future brother-in-law and sister-in-law, so there was no reason for her to refuse when I asked about my sister. Still, just in case the information was wrong, I made sure to have at least a minimal excuse. A younger sister visiting her older sister’s house wasn’t strange in itself. But contrary to my concerns, there was no one inside to respond. Only then did I enter the password I obviously knew and stepped into the empty house.
“…”
As I stepped into the quiet, still foyer, only the faint sound of rain echoed from beyond the walls. Carefully avoiding the neatly arranged shoes, I took off my sandals and stepped inside.
“Hoo…”
…No one. Not even an ant. Aside from the remote on the sofa, nothing was out of place. I looked around the eerily clean living room, then headed into what used to be my closet.
“…”
It was that man’s room now. Contrary to my expectations, there was no smell at all. The bed was neatly made, and aside from the bookshelf and computer, there was no interior decoration whatsoever—just a dull, colorless room. I pulled out the chair, sat down lightly, and secretly turned on his computer. With a soft whir of the cooler, both monitors lit up. A familiar login screen.
…Fortunately, the password was set to a PIN. Just four digits. If there had been no character limit, I would’ve given up cleanly and searched my sister’s computer instead. I took out my phone, searched for that man’s profile, and tried entering his birthday.
0130. Incorrect.
9401. Incorrect.
I dug deeper, thinking it might be his parents’ birthday, but before I could even determine whether it was right or wrong, I couldn’t find Juhyuk’s parents at all. I didn’t know what kind of circumstances were involved, but this made things difficult. Feeling disappointed, I was about to turn off the computer and head to my sister’s room when—
“…Ah.”
On a whim, I tried entering my sister’s birthday.
0919.
…Ironically, the lock on that meticulous man’s computer opened easily. I swallowed hard and searched through the computer, which had a plain desktop background. The folders were organized just as neatly as his room. First, I opened the folder labeled “Work Files.”
“…”
…Videos of a woman visible only from the neck down, playing guitar in various outfits, filled the folder. There was no need to see her face. The protagonist of the videos was Seo Haeun. My sister. I clicked on one of the videos, each labeled with a date and song title.
“…Ha.”
I hadn’t felt it much from the small thumbnail, but in full screen, my sister’s chest filled the entire display. …So this was what they’d been talking about with the YouTuber stuff. Judging by the most recent date being this week, she was still doing it. Even the outfit… that was it. The game character I’d been playing just earlier. It didn’t feel like a nun’s outfit at all, but anyway—it was a nun character.
Suppressing the unpleasant feeling that rose in me at seeing my own sister like this, I searched for the song listed in the video title. I couldn’t find it with the one I’d just watched, but when I searched for older songs, I quickly found the same channel as the videos in the folder.
“Ha…”
Channel name: Sophia. 67,000 subscribers. Views, on the other hand… averaged around 200,000. A channel where views fluctuated wildly depending on how revealing the outfit was.
…The thought that my own sister had been secretly doing something like this made my head spin. Sex was private, so fine. But this was something that could be exposed at any time without it being strange. …Or maybe she didn’t care if she got caught. After all, even if her identity was exposed, the one who’d have to deal with the headache wouldn’t be my sister—it would be me.
“Haa…”
I forced down the unpleasant feeling and exited the work files folder to search through the others. I skipped over thumbnail photos and that man’s personal schedule. What caught my eye was a rainbow-colored flower-shaped folder that also existed on my own computer.
…The photo album synced with his phone.
“…”
What I wanted was evidence of an affair with some woman other than the two of them. Or evidence of rape in their relationship. If I was lucky, I might find a fatal weakness. I took a deep breath, then reached for that all-too-predictable Pandora’s box.
“Hi…ik…….”
…Photos that shattered a woman’s dignity far beyond anything I’d seen before. I couldn’t help but be horrified.