Lyrics
Lyrics
"Oppa!"
"Shh, the neighbors will hear."
It had been nearly two weeks since I'd last seen Minji, and I'd gone out to meet her.
I had suggested we go eat tonkatsu to get her out of the house, but in truth, I'd called her out for another reason.
Namely, Minji's eating habits after she'd become independent from the care facility were said to have been so terrible they could hardly be called a proper life.
From what I'd heard, she'd survived on nothing but ramen and triangle gimbap — an absolutely reckless way to live...
Before I started looking after her here and there, she had apparently gotten by on a single 500-won packet of instant ramen a day.
When I heard that from Minji's friend, my head had throbbed unbearably.
Just look.
This little sister of mine had come out without the slightest suspicion even when I said we were going to eat tonkatsu, of all things.
Wasn't that the very picture of a heart so clear it didn't have a single speck of dust?
"But you didn't bring the car today?"
"Yeah... They said there's no parking there."
"I see."
Had she gotten a little suspicious?
She was just grinning brightly, so I couldn't tell what she was thinking at all.
"Did you eat all the side dishes Oppa packed for you?"
"I ate them all and washed all the containers too. When are you going to take them back?"
"Tsk... If I'd known, I would've brought the car."
"Couldn't you have just left them here and picked them up later?"
Minji had pointed out something that hadn't even crossed my mind.
I would've come back here anyway...
Then Minji smiled bitterly.
I thought it might be the first time in my entire life I had ever seen Minji wear a bitter smile.
"Or I could just take a taxi later, couldn't I?"
"I guess so..."
"Then should I call a taxi for you?"
Only after I nodded, my face drooping, did Minji take out her phone.
.....
Wait a moment.
I couldn't let Minji call the taxi.
"Hold on... Oppa will call it."
"Huh? Okay."
Minji, who had been right on the verge of ordering one, tilted her head and put her phone back into her pocket.
I took out my phone, set the pickup location in front of Minji's place, and designated a hospital near my house as the destination, which was a bit farther away.
That was because if she caught me setting a nearby hospital as the destination and figured out what was going on, she might bolt.
"Where are we going?"
"Ahem, patience and endurance are what get you something even more delicious to eat."
"Hmm... okay."
Minji seemed a bit suspicious, but because it was me saying it, she nodded and went along with it.
And so, Minji was slowly being led toward the hospital.
I had heard that this was a method people had often used since the old days to get someone to the hospital.
*
After the taxi had driven for a while, the large hospital near our house began to come into view.
Since I had been hospitalized there myself, the hospital now felt familiar.
Still, it wasn't a place I wanted to visit often.
"Oppa? This isn't a tonkatsu place?"
"Huh? It isn't?"
Minji, having caught on that this was not a tonkatsu restaurant, began to tremble.
The truth was, Minji had trypanophobia — a phobia of needles that made her terribly afraid of them.
Did she say it came from a childhood trauma of being pricked by something?
That was why I had to trick her with the promise of food to get her to the hospital.
The fact that I was doing exactly what Mom used to do made me chuckle.
"Minji. You ever had a blood test?"
"No...? Not even once, why...?"
"You've got to go to the military too. Just think of it as a good experience."
"Wh...what does that... n...no way!!"
Perhaps realizing I was trying to drag her into that hospital, she began to struggle and tremble all over.
If anyone saw, they'd think I was trying to sell her off or something.
I was only trying to check up on my little sister's health, just in case there were any issues.
Because illnesses like hyperlipidemia and diabetes are catastrophic if you catch them too late.
"You'd better listen to Oppa, alright? Hm? Otherwise, your living allowance might get cut in half, you know."
"Ugh..."
"Your answer?"
I spoke a little more firmly, as if scolding her.
Because really, who told her to skip Mom's cooking and just eat ramen and gimbap?
"O...okay... but a blood test is kind of scary..."
"Don't worry. Oppa will cover your eyes for you."
With words that were not comforting in the slightest, we got out of the taxi.
Even before we entered the hospital, Minji's body was trembling a little.
*
"Hic..."
"Does it hurt a lot?"
"Yeah... it hurts..."
Minji had begun to hiccup rather than cry.
We were resting briefly on a chair in front of the administrative office so the bleeding would stop.
Maybe because she was the type to endure even pain with just medicine instead of going to the hospital, it seemed it had been a very long time since she'd felt the sensation of being pricked by a needle.
So with zero tolerance to needles, she seemed to be in a lot of pain.
"A dentistry student being afraid of needles... is that really okay?"
"If they're not aimed at me, I'm not scared."
"That's still weird in its own way."
I had heard that psychologically linked conditions like that operated in a self-centered way, but still, what kind of condition was that.
Could a person with hemophobia ever not be afraid of their own blood?
Ah, whatever.
What's the point of thinking about that?
"So, shall we really go eat tonkatsu now?"
"...Are you trying to drag me somewhere again?"
"No, this time I mean it."
"Hic..."
Just like a hamster you'd just brought home, Minji the hamster had her guard raised to the max.
Whenever I reached out my hand, she would hiccup as if it were a defensive hiss.
It was all fine, but I wished she would stop pinching her brother's side and thigh.
Oppa is doing this for your own good, you know?
*
"Go on inside, then."
"Tch! You promised you'd treat me next time too, that's a promise!"
"I got it, so just go inside already."
After eating tonkatsu with Minji, I had gathered up the containers from her place and come back outside.
The next time I went, it would probably be to check the results or to bring her more side dishes.
Or, wait.
Should I tell her to come pick up the side dishes herself from now on?
It's all fine, but the time I spend going back and forth leaves me short on time for myself.
"I've got to take care of our Lil' One and Pipsqueak too..."
And now I had to go pick up A-ra and the munchkin cat as well.
Was that this week?
"Busy, busy."
Still, living this kind of life didn't seem so bad.
In fact, hadn't this been exactly the kind of life I had wanted?
Now, the only thing I feared was that this life might drift away.
***
"Mmmmm..."
"It's not coming together?"
"No... I'm already at the last part, but I can't think of it..."
"...Noona, it's only been three hours since you started writing lyrics. You've already come up with lyrics that satisfy you?"
"Yeah. I'll let you hear them later."
A-ra wrote until she was satisfied with the lyrics she came up with.
Since every single song she wrote had become a hit, A-ra being satisfied was proof that it would be a hit without fail.
So, the days when A-ra got stuck agonizing in order to write until she was satisfied had grown more frequent.
Even when we were deep in our dating phase, she had often been unable to go on dates and we had just cuddled at home while she wrote lyrics, so by now I'd grown used to it.
In the past, she used to suffer through it alone, groaning and fretting as she wrote, but now she wrote while holding Lil' One and petting him to soothe her heart, which made a wry smile cross my face.
Animals truly did wonders for a person's mental state.
But A-ra really did seem to be a monster among monsters.
Was it even human to finish a set of lyrics in only about three hours?
Other singer-songwriters would probably be horrified if they saw.
Even I, her husband, felt like I was going to be horrified.
"Seong-hwan-a, do you think 'I'll detain you' is better? Or 'I'll arrest you'?"
"What's the theme this time?"
"It's a song about loving someone forever, but 'arrest' is better than 'detain,' right?"
They were both terrifying, so I had no idea which one she thought was better.
On top of that, since A-ra was writing while thinking of me, it was even a little frightening.
Arrest was what the police did, and detention was what the courts did.
So, between me and A-ra as a married couple, the legally binding force would be detention, I supposed.
"Of course. Noona is single-mindedly devoted to her Seong-hwan."
"Then how about trying a different subject besides me?"
"Like what?"
"Hmm... like Director? Or Eun-ji?"
"To my unnie and little sister? Ugh, that's so creepy, Noona can't do it."
She shook her head, saying it was too hard to write lyrics like that about women.
Well, I supposed if she wrote that kind of thing and ended up with lyrics about slave contracts or being a handmaiden, it could cause real trouble.
"Then I'll go take care of some things."
"Ah! Bring Pipsqueak over here!"
"Pipsqueak?"
She already had Lil' One sitting on her lap and was petting him to no end, and yet she wanted me to bring Pipsqueak too.
My wife seemed to be far too greedy.
*
"Phew... done cleaning this place too..."
I finished cleaning even the game room in the duplex and came out.
Maybe because autumn was passing now, it was only 7 o'clock but outside was already dark, nearly pitch-black.
It was always when it got dark like this that incidents and accidents tended to happen...
I hoped everyone else was getting by without any troubles too.
"Huh? Our little rascal pups. Why are you sitting here?"
"Woof!"
"Mung."
Weren't the two puppies who had just been sitting on A-ra's lap now sitting at the bottom of the stairs?
They were stuck close together too, radiating the feeling that they had become completely inseparable friends by now.
Little worm...
Daddy brought home a husband for you pretty well, didn't he?
But you're still a baby, so I shouldn't touch you, right?
Still, the only times these guys let me hold them were when I came home and when they were hungry.
The reason they were sitting here was naturally because of that too.
"Hungry?"
"Woof!"
"Mung!"
"Oh, Pipsqueak just barked really loud all of a sudden?"
"Mung."
Our baby dog had started playing innocent.
I scooped both of them up at once, held them in both arms, and walked slowly toward the kitchen.
Now now, if you squirm and thrash around, you'll get hurt.
If you fall from here, Daddy won't be able to catch you in time.
"Ah... this heals me."
This was the real healing.
Pomeranians really are the best.