Escape (3)
Escape (3)
"Uwaaahk!"
Someone snatched Hwa-young's hand just as she slipped on something and nearly fell.
Because of the backlight, she couldn't see well, but
it was her younger sister Eun-ji, with her youthful face.
"Unnie, are you okay?!"
"Hoo... I seriously thought I was in big trouble."
"The dock is pretty slick... you almost had a really bad accident."
As Hwa-young broke out in a cold sweat and clutched her chest,
Yeji started scolding her.
Hwa-young had been fiddling with her fishing rod when she spotted a large crab on the lower rocks. She'd devised a plan to climb down and catch it herself despite the danger.
Of course, the streetlamp brightly illuminated the lower rocks, so
she must have assumed it was safe. But once she actually started climbing down, her own body was blocking the light,
and she couldn't even make out the shapes of the rocks below.
She'd stepped wrong and nearly tumbled, but Yeji and Eun-ji, who had remembered Seong-hwan's warning,
were watching right in front of her, so they managed to pull her back before she fell into the water.
Even so, it was unavoidable that she ended up with
small scrapes on her knees and forearms from the rocks.
"You know if this had been a sea rock or a tetrapod, we could've all made the news together, right?"
"Yeah, it could've been a huge accident plastered all over terrestrial broadcasting, cable, SNS, and Qtube combined."
"Yeah... I'm sorry."
"Haa... I don't know if Seong-hwan has a good grasp of women's psychology in general... or just ours..."
Seong-hwan had always had a good grasp of women's hearts, but
this time, it was as if he had prophesied exactly what foolish thing they'd do to get hurt and had anticipated it.
Normally, when Hwa-young did something foolish, A-ra would have teamed up with her
and they would have done something even stupider, but maybe because she'd taken her husband's advice to heart.
Today A-ra, who was quietly doing nothing but fishing, just seemed miraculous.
"A-ra unnie! I think we should stop fishing for today!"
"Hm? Did something happen?"
Since she'd been a little farther away, A-ra had tilted her head and come over, wondering if they'd at least caught a fish for all that racket.
But when she saw Hwa-young with blood beading up on her scraped knees and forearms,
she was startled.
"Hwa... Hwa-young! What's wrong? What happened?"
"I almost slipped and fell on the rocks earlier."
"Why would you climb down there! It's incredibly slippery here!"
Rocks in places where the waves crash hard are extremely dangerous.
Waves, taken one at a time, are weak enough to be laughable,
but it's different when they hit thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of times.
Rocks battered by waves over long ages become polished and slippery.
A common example you can see is the pebbles on a pebble beach.
"First, let's go to the hospital. You scraped yourself on the rocks, right?"
"Yeah, is it that dangerous?"
"You could get infected with Vibrio bacteria or something."
Saying safety came first, she took Hwa-young's hand and headed toward the car.
Hwa-young, feeling sorry toward the three who had been fishing all because of her, hung her head low
and wore an extremely apologetic expression.
"Hwa-young, are you crying?"
"I'm not crying..."
"She says it's fine, so quit it. And here you are, an unnie, about to show tears, tsk tsk..."
"You only call me unnie at times like this."
"I don't really call Yeji unnie either."
It meant they were so close that she didn't use 'unnie' but called someone two years older by name.
Part of it was also because Yeji had only learned that Hwa-young was an unnie much later,
so it was hard for her to call her that.
"Eun-ji, can you keep an eye on unnie's fishing rod?"
"Got it, hurry back."
"There's a general hospital right up ahead, do you need anything?"
"Umm... a World Cone?"
At the mention of an ice cream name right there,
A-ra laughed, thinking that Hwa-young was indeed being Hwa-young.
***
When I got back home and sat on the sofa leaning back,
an automatic sigh escaped me.
And as I rolled my stiff shoulders to loosen up,
a yawn so big it felt like my mouth might tear open came out.
"Haaaam... should I just go to sleep now?"
After coughing for a while as if someone were gossiping about me somewhere,
sleep quickly came washing over me.
Considering I'd taken a nap like that and still felt sleepy,
people really are fascinating creatures.
"Should I wash up and then sleep... or just wash tomorrow..."
Even heading toward the bathtub, never mind filling the tub with water, felt like too much trouble,
so I'd just sleep today.
Going into the main bedroom was also a hassle.
I'd just turn off the lights and sleep here in the living room.
*
"Oh, Seong-hwan, you're awake?"
"Yeah... hey..."
When I looked at the clock, it had already shot past 11 o'clock.
Since I'd gone to sleep at 9 last night, I must have slept a full 14 hours.
"But, Eun-ji."
"Yeah?"
"Why are you here?"
"A-ra unnie said so? That you promised to make something delicious."
"Ah, right, I did."
I hadn't remembered because I'd been half-asleep.
I'd told A-ra I would make spicy fish stew for her, so I'd said to bring everyone over.
When I stretched and stood up, I felt momentarily dizzy, like my head was spinning around.
How on earth do you fix orthostatic hypotension?
"Would eating a lot of salt work?"
Don't people commonly say that eating salty food gives you high blood pressure?
So if I ate salt to raise my blood pressure, wouldn't it become normal?
"What on earth is he talking about?"
"Yeji Nuna, hello."
"Yeah, did you sleep well? You were sleeping so soundly, A-ra told us not to wake you."
At times like this, she could've just woken me up a bit.
It was a little embarrassing knowing everyone had seen me sleeping on the living room sofa.
"Where's A-ra Noona?"
"The inner room? The big room? I saw her go into the bedroom?"
When I looked for A-ra, Yeji called me a complete devoted husband and grinned teasingly, so I headed into the bedroom.
In the bedroom, A-ra was there wearing only her underwear.
Looking now, clothes were laid out neatly on the bed because she'd been about to change.
"You came?"
"Seong-hwan, you're awake? Hey, can you hold this from behind for a bit?"
The clothes were stuck somewhere and wouldn't go on, so they were wrapped over her head like a mask. She probably couldn't see whether I'd come in or not.
"Hnng...! Seong-hwan?"
Of course, at times like this, you're not supposed to help her obediently. You have to play a prank.
From behind the defenseless A-ra, I hugged her tightly and reached my hands toward her chest.
"Noona, do you know how many days we haven't done it?"
"N-now that you mention it, has it been five or six days...?"
A-ra, who'd managed to free herself from the clothes on her own, looked into my eyes.
Honestly, I wanted to just do it right this moment,
but weren't there guests outside again today?
Why does it feel like every time it gets hard for me to hold back, someone comes over?
Was I under some kind of curse?
"S-Seong-hwan, someone might come in..."
"Don't worry, I locked the door."
And the hand that had been kneading her chest headed downward, toward her lower half.
That's right... this small crevice...
I'd wanted to touch this.
"What's wrong? It's just me touching your belly button a bit."
"Th-that spot is sensitive... haht..."
This time, I stroked the crevice even lower down.
The more I touched, the wetter it got. My head began to fill with excitement to the point where I could feel my own lower half growing wetter too.
"Hoo... later when everyone's gone, I'm going to use that."
"Wh-what... what do you mean, that...?"
"The Lead-right... we've still got one sheet left, right?"
Usually, A-ra had the stronger sex drive, so I tended to stay still and let her do as she liked,
but today, I felt like I'd have a hard time holding back.
***
"But Noona."
"Yeah."
"Didn't you say you caught a black porgy?"
"Isn't this a black porgy?"
I rummaged through the fish the four of them had caught,
and there was no black porgy anywhere.
Instead, what A-ra was pointing at was not a black porgy but a striped beakfish.
A striped beakfish does differ slightly in appearance from a black porgy,
but the similar feature is that they both have stripes.
Well, the stripes on a black porgy are faint,
and the color they give off is silver, so it's not to the point where you can't tell them apart.
In contrast, a striped beakfish is beautifully checkered in black and white,
and it has this cute-looking characteristic.
"This is a striped beakfish, you know?"
"Huh? Uh........this is a striped beakfish?"
"Look here, see this?"
"Ah... I must have mistaken it because it was dark."
A-ra, who had put her hand through the mouth of the large 40cm striped beakfish and out its gills to lift it, scratched her head.
She must have just seen wrong.
"But isn't it a bit much to make spicy fish stew with a striped beakfish?"
"What if we slice the flesh into sashimi and toss the rest and the other fish in to boil?"
"That sounds good. If we waste striped beakfish flesh on spicy fish stew for no reason, it feels like the Dragon King might come and drag us off."
I'd once seen a post on a community site about someone who boiled striped beakfish and barred knifejaw into spicy fish stew.
To be honest, considering the financial means of A-ra and the members,
I'd probably just think 'well, okay' even if they boiled giant grouper or roughscale sole into spicy fish stew.
"Oh, a sea bream."
"Eun-ji caught that one."
"What on earth are you guys doing that sea bream are just pouring out of the ocean...?"
I thought sea bream was also a high-grade fish...
Ah, whatever.
I'll just toss everything in.
"Let's slice half into sashimi and boil the other half."
"Agreed~"
"I should spread the word on the community that Queens members boiled striped beakfish and sea bream into spicy fish stew."
Whether they boiled giant grouper or roughscale sole into spicy fish stew, grilled it, ate it as sashimi, or fried it,
it was entirely up to them, but sighs of lament would surely pour from the mouths of people who loved sashimi.
To be honest, one reason was also that I wanted to taste spicy fish stew made with high-grade fish just once, but...
"Ah, or instead of spicy fish stew, should I make clear fish stew?"
When I suddenly thought of clear fish stew and asked everyone how that might be,
they nodded, saying it wasn't a bad idea.
Then I should try making clear fish stew.
Rather than spicy fish stew, clear fish stew brings out a stronger taste from the fish.
At the very least, I might get cursed out a little less.