54. Let's Be Secret Friends with Big Sis
54. Let's Be Secret Friends with Big Sis
54. Let's Be Secret Friends with Big Sis
"This is the place."
The address Lee Seol-ha had sent me led to a room cafe inside the academy.
A space students often used when they wanted to have private conversations.
Still, since CCTV monitored the interior, nobody tried anything inappropriate.
"Whew..."
I let out a determined breath tinged with a sigh and opened the door.
"Welcome! Oh my, little boy, are you lost?"
The employee looked at me as if trying to figure out how an elementary schooler had wandered in.
Apparently she hadn't gotten the memo that the first-year students had shrunk.
Another staff member beside her whispered an explanation.
"Hey... that person is a student..."
"Wha... what!?"
The employee stared at me like it was absurd.
I pulled my student ID from my pocket and showed it to her.
Her eyes darted between the photo and my face, completely unconvinced.
Once the other staff member filled her in,
she seemed to finally understand. She flashed an awkward smile and bowed her head, saying, "I'm so sorry!"
I wanted to get out of this awkward moment as fast as possible.
"Someone I'm meeting is in room 5. May I go in?"
"Ah... your companion...! Yes, yes. Go right in!"
She stammered and pointed me toward room 5.
Then, as if something had just occurred to her, she spoke again.
"The, um, person who arrived first hasn't paid yet...?"
"...I'll cover it."
Lee Seol-ha was broke, so she'd apparently dumped the bill on me.
'If she was going to do this, why not just ask to meet outside...'
Since Lee Seol-ha was penniless, I had no choice but to hand over the little cash I had left.
I checked my remaining balance on my phone as I walked down the room cafe hallway.
The rooms weren't visible from outside, but the conversations inside—
if you stood still and focused, you could sometimes make them out.
The sound of couples feeding each other food.
Light, giggly laughter over whatever they found amusing.
Sounds layered upon sounds as they savored the happy moments of being teenagers.
My mind drifted to my own romance, which was closer to a thriller.
'Why exactly am I stuck doing these life-threatening relationships...?'
Getting caught means death.
Wasn't that a line straight out of a thriller?
Could you even call this dating?
This was all the fault of that Fenrir shit pointlessly stuck inside my body.
'Well, I still need to stay alive...'
I rationalized it as unavoidable.
Then I stood in front of room 5, where Lee Seol-ha was waiting.
Once I opened this door, Lee Seol-ha would be sitting there,
and I'd have to win over a girl teetering between reason and instinct.
Using my body, shrunk precisely to her tastes, no less.
I saw no point in wasting time. I opened the door and stepped inside.
"You're here?"
Lee Seol-ha was seated there, looking at me with a flushed face.
Her eyes were hazy as she spoke.
"Come sit over here. You had a hard time getting here, didn't you?"
She patted the seat next to her, urging me to sit.
What on earth was going through her head?
Wondering that, I took the seat beside her anyway.
My fight was just beginning.
***
"When is he coming..."
Lee Seol-ha had sent Han Si-jun a message and gotten a reply agreeing to meet.
Now she was sitting in the room cafe, the meeting spot.
She had nothing but coins in her pocket, and her pride stung a little over sticking Han Si-jun with the bill,
but her rational mind was largely absent, so it didn't sting nearly as much as usual.
In fact, anticipation might have been the better word for it.
Lee Seol-ha pictured small Han Si-jun opening the door and walking in,
and her mouth began to water.
"I... why am I acting like this...?"
Lee Seol-ha found men repulsive.
Maybe it was because of her violent father.
She hated and loathed men so much that mere physical contact made her want to kill them.
She'd hated Han Si-jun for that reason too.
He was even the childhood friend of Yu Ha-yeon, the object of her jealousy.
Han Si-jun had more reasons to be hated than any other man.
But.
That day.
Inside the Gate, she had seen Han Si-jun shrunk.
The moment she saw him, Lee Seol-ha's instincts stirred, and her clouded reason couldn't stop them.
'Was this my taste all along?'
Lee Seol-ha had realized it for the first time.
The fact that she liked small, cute kids.
Was it instinct, or was it simply a preference?
She couldn't properly judge, but she could say one thing for certain.
'I want Han Si-jun to call me his big sister.'
Han Si-jun, shrunk perfectly to her taste.
He no longer fell within the range of her misandry.
She wanted to dote on him.
She wanted to treat him like a younger brother.
Even though he was a man.
More than that,
there was something else more important to Lee Seol-ha.
'If he's Yu Ha-yeon's childhood friend, wouldn't he be somewhat special...?'
The fact that this cute, shrunk Han Si-jun was Yu Ha-yeon's childhood friend.
That was incredibly attractive to Lee Seol-ha.
She envied Yu Ha-yeon's ability, and so she felt jealousy.
Wouldn't the childhood friend of the target of her jealousy be different?
If she could claim him, could she become like Yu Ha-yeon?
Under normal circumstances, Lee Seol-ha's cold judgment would have shot back that this wasn't something a person should do.
But in her current side-effect-induced state, her reason was partially paralyzed.
She resolved to follow her desires.
To follow her instincts.
With those thoughts, Lee Seol-ha sat still and waited for Han Si-jun to arrive.
After some time had passed,
the shrunk Han Si-jun arrived at the room cafe.
***
"..."
Lee Seol-ha watched me with a flushed face.
I took a moment to look around the room cafe first.
Once you'd left your shoes at the entrance, there was a small cushioned sofa inside.
A setup designed so that two people would absolutely sit side by side while watching TV.
I didn't understand why the academy had a place like this,
but I guessed the chairwoman had it installed since graduates would end up doing hard work.
"Come sit over here. You had a hard time getting here, didn't you?"
I had no choice but to sit next to Lee Seol-ha, who was lightly patting the cushion beside her.
She smiled contentedly once I sat down.
I decided to ask her, at least as a formality.
"So, why did you call me here? You've made it pretty clear you hate me."
"...Don't be so prickly. Will you hear me out?"
Lee Seol-ha placed her hand on the floor as she spoke.
There wasn't an ounce of hesitation in the gesture.
She started talking about her misandry, a subject I hadn't seen coming at all.
"I have misandry. If a man's body so much as brushes against me, it's unbearably disgusting. But you seem a little different."
"...Because I've shrunk?"
"Maybe. Maybe that's my taste."
Lee Seol-ha spoke while doing her best to maintain her reason.
Even as her eyes held that hazy look.
But her actions didn't seem able to keep pace with her words.
As she talked, her fingertips kept tracing over my body.
"Sorry about this. I can't help it... Still, I'm holding back a lot. You can understand your big sister, can't you...?"
"How does that make you my big sister."
"S...sorry! Another slip."
When slips happen that often, they stop looking like accidents.
But Lee Seol-ha genuinely was trying hard not to slip,
so I decided to hold my tongue.
"You've shrunk, so you seem to fall outside the range of my hatred. Also, your smaller appearance is my taste."
In a lot more words, Lee Seol-ha was basically describing herself as a pervert.
I listened without interrupting.
"S...so here's the thing. Could you do your big sister a favor...?"
"Could you put a little distance between us first...?"
"Ah, sorry, slipped again..."
Unable to properly control her instincts, Lee Seol-ha kept pressing her body against mine.
That was why my movement was getting restricted, and I'd asked her to give me some space.
But the real reason was different.
'This is dangerous...'
Lee Seol-ha's unique floral scent wafted around her.
A floral scent that seemed heavy yet faint.
It quietly worked on a man's heart.
If I suddenly planted a kiss on Lee Seol-ha, I'd definitely die, wouldn't I?
No matter how immune I was to her misandry, I had to be careful dealing with her.
I kept my composure as I asked her.
"What's the favor?"
"Uh... well."
Lee Seol-ha hesitated for a second, then tightly gripped my arm and said,
"I told you I have misandry, right...? Once you turn big again, I won't be able to touch a man ever again. I'd rather die than touch one."
"And?"
"In my life, touching a man... this is going to be the last time...? Just until my body returns, could you help me out...? I'll... I'll compensate you...!"
Lee Seol-ha was asking me to help her.
Help her satisfy her own taste, in other words.
The part that made my ears perk up was the 'compensation' from Lee Seol-ha.
"Lee Seol-ha, what's the compensation? I need to know that first."
"Money... is off the table... A favor...? I'll do you one favor...!"
"Anything?"
"A...anything...!!"
Maybe her reason was paralyzed, because she was declaring she'd grant any favor whatsoever.
The reason she'd become saddled with debt in the first place was that she'd signed as a guarantor for a relative during a side-effect incident.
Her instincts, unfortunately, didn't seem to have learned from experience.
I had no reason to refuse her offer.
"Alright. I'll help. So how should I help? Call you my big sister? Or touch your hand like this?"
"S...something about the way your hands move is a little too practiced... I'm not imagining that, am I...?"
The dexterity I'd built up from petting Ban Ha-na and holding Yu Ha-yeon's hand was fairly advanced by now.
Lee Seol-ha gave me a suspicious look when she noticed it.
I smiled as innocently as I could and played dumb.
Lee Seol-ha eyed me slightly doubtfully, but the hazy glaze quickly returned to her eyes.
She began explaining what she wanted me to do.
"First, when it's just the two of us, call me your big sister. I-it doesn't mean anything. It's just weird otherwise, you know...? There's such a big maturity gap, and you're not calling me your big sister..."
Lee Seol-ha tacked on flimsy excuses without admitting she was indulging her own taste.
I mentally summarized what she'd told me.
Showing a different side when alone and hiding the relationship from others.
There was a name for that kind of arrangement.
Lee Seol-ha gazed at me through eyes clouded with nothing but instinct and said,
"Let's be secret friends with your big sister."
Secret friends.
A relationship hidden from others, that changes the moment you're alone.
That was what Lee Seol-ha wanted from me.