The Spark of Affection
With a creak, the door swung open, and Soye stepped in ahead of me.
I followed her inside, and the moment we crossed the threshold, she turned to me with a question.
"Senior, is this really okay?"
"Is this okay? A spread like this is a feast fit for a king."
"…A hamburger is hardly a royal feast."
That's right — the place Soye and I had come to was a burger joint. An extremely cost-effective burger joint, at that.
Though judging by her expression, Soye was not remotely pleased about it.
"What's wrong?"
"…It's just, you're eating somewhere so cheap."
"Well, excuse me for not treating you to a forty-dollar Korean buffet."
"That's exactly what I wanted."
"You're free to go eat whatever you want, Soye."
"…Never mind. We're already inside, so let's just have our hamburgers."
She still looked full of complaints, but beneath all that grumbling lay a clear current of consideration for me. And honestly, how could I possibly dislike her for it?
"Okay, I'll just order my usual hamburger."
"Order it as a combo."
"I was only going to get the burger… plus I'm not big on sides."
"…But fries are delicious."
So that's what Soye is into — french fries.
Truthfully, I like fries too. But there's always a reason behind why I skip sides like those.
"Hey, Soye, did you know something?"
"What?"
"Hamburgers, by themselves, are actually pretty healthy?"
"I'm aware."
"But the sides in a combo are terribly bad for you. You gain tons of weight from them."
"Ugh…."
The moment weight came up, Soye's face twisted into an expression that said she was troubled in more ways than one.
At the same time, she shot me a look that plainly said she found me insufferable.
Apparently Soye is quite fond of sides — never mind the consequences for her waistline.
"Anyway, that's why I'm just getting a burger and a zero-calorie cola."
"……And you're actually going through with that?"
"Yep. What about you?"
"I… honestly don't know. I like hamburgers, but I have a surprising number of favorites."
After a long moment of deliberation, Soye fixed her eyes steadily on me, as if she intended to watch exactly what I ordered. Under that gaze, I soon picked out a chicken burger and a cola.
Roughly seven thousand won — by no means a cheap price — popped up on the kiosk screen, but Soye didn't seem bothered by it in the slightest.
"I'll have this."
She ordered the exact same thing I had, then went one step further and upgraded it to a full combo.
And of course, she covered my share too.
"Soye…?"
"……If you won't eat it, then I will."
"Fine, fine, I'll eat it, I'll eat it."
"You should have said that from the start."
Soye wore a small, quietly satisfied smile, clearly pleased with how things had turned out. And there was nothing at all I could say to her after that.
Before long the burgers arrived, and I took a seat beside her and started eating.
But the moment I raised my burger, Soye's eyes locked onto it.
"……Soye?"
"Yes?"
"It's just, if you stare too long…"
"Oh… um… your fingers… I was looking at your fingers…"
Ah. So she wasn't staring at the burger — she was staring at my hand.
Ahem. Right. Of course. Very well then.
…That somehow made it even more awkward.
"You don't have to worry about it."
"How can I not, when you got hurt because of me?"
"Would it help if I asked you not to?"
"Absolutely impossible. Not happening."
Please, please just stop worrying about it. I'm begging you.
It's honestly kind of embarrassing.
Soye stared hard at my fingers, let out a sigh, and finally began on her burger. Chomp, chomp. Munch, munch.
Watching her diligently work through it, I thought how adorable she was — and at the same time, since she was the one treating me, I couldn't help feeling a little guilty about being fed off her wallet.
"I'll pay next time."
"Why would you be the one paying, Senior?"
"I can't just freeload forever. I'm your senior in name, at least."
"This is a token of my gratitude. A token."
The fierce little badger that Soye had become — far fiercer than expected — was still glaring daggers at me, as if to say she'd stay angry the whole meal if I dared to insist on buying her food.
And yet I really did feel sorry about it.
Just as I found myself caught between one thing and another, I caught sight of Soye's expression — happily munching away at her burger, delighting in her fries.
When I stared openly at her this time, it was Soye who turned her head away.
"……What are you doing?"
"Nothing, it's just — you really seem to be enjoying it."
"Honestly, it's embarrassing, so stop staring at me…"
"Sorry, sorry."
I apologized and went back to my burger, and after that our conversation fell silent. In its place came only the sounds of eating.
Before I knew it, the burger in my hands had vanished without a trace, and I popped a fry into my mouth.
Crunch!
Crispy, savory, golden fries. They were definitely delicious — in that unhealthy kind of way.
Soye, meanwhile, was eating at a noticeably leisurely pace, chewing everything thoroughly. She seemed to be only about halfway through, which struck me as rather slow. Healthier, sure, but slow all the same.
"…You eat really fast, Senior."
I nodded at her remark.
"I've been a fast eater since I was little."
"Doesn't that upset your stomach?"
"Can't say it ever really has."
"If I eat too fast it actually messes mine up, so eating slowly kind of became a habit for me."
"Eating slowly is better for you anyway."
In the middle of that back-and-forth, Soye casually tipped her own fries out onto my tray.
"Soye?"
"Share the fries with me. I'm too full to finish them all myself."
"…No, but they're yours."
"You looked like you needed a little more, Senior."
Busted.
The truth was, when ordering, I'd deliberately picked the cheapest thing on the menu that still seemed filling. That choice had left me a little short, and Soye, sharp as ever, had apparently noticed.
Or maybe she'd judged it from watching how quickly I polished off my food. Eating fast and eating a lot are two different things, of course — my speed is just the way I eat.
Either way, the only thing that mattered was how grateful I was that Soye kept looking out for me like this.
"I'll dig in, then."
"Enjoy them, Senior."
And with a soft little smile, Soye started eating her fries.
If even her eating is cute, just how much cuter is she planning to get? I don't know. There's simply no end to Soye's cuteness.
At the same time, I felt pathetic for having caused this girl worry over something so trivial. A stray basketball, and my finger ligaments stretched like that? Pathetic.
Weak little ligaments. Come back stronger.
On a side note…
"Hey, slacker."
"Yes?"
"Who did you get in a fight with?"
The moment she spotted my hand, this woman — my brand-new older sister — came at me swinging with accusations.
"No… I didn't fight anyone…"
"Then who the hell beat you up?"
"No, that's not it either…"
Wearing the expression of someone listening to her poor little brother complain that the neighborhood bully had roughed him up, she heard the full story from me — and then pounded me on the back, thump thump.
"A real smooth operator with the ladies, huh~ Impressive. My little brother?"
I'd always romanticized the idea of siblings — an older brother, an older sister to look up to. Now I finally understood why every friend I had with siblings told me, "That's a fantasy."
Fantasy? Such a thing doesn't exist. Only enemies exist.
A week passed, and club time came around again.
Perhaps I'd grown used to moving around with two fingers in a cast, because making the remaining judge's gavels went remarkably smoothly.
Granted, it was a touch uncomfortable having Soye stand guard over me the whole time, glaring holes into my head — but the gavels got finished all the same.
In any case, all the props were ready before exam season hit, and it was finally time for us stage crew to start rehearsing in sync with the actors.
The actor-assigned members had clearly been practicing hard on their own; once everyone had been cast in a fitting role, they threw themselves into their performances. Every time a scene passed, we swapped out backdrops, prepared props, and did our best on our end.
After running through one minimal full rehearsal and trading feedback with each other — a very wholesome afternoon of club activity — it was over.
"Alright, everyone, we won't be meeting for the next three weeks~ Spend the last two weeks studying hard for exams, get those good grades, and we'll see each other again in May~"
""Yesss~""
And with that, all club activities before the midterms came to a close.
Afterward, the second-year staff volunteered to pack up the supplies ahead of time for the sake of the first-years, and since I was one of those second-years, I spent the time helping put everything away.
Once the packing was done, I stayed behind alone to finish the last of the cleanup, and was just about to head home when…
"The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath…"
A voice drifted in from the direction of the practice room. A tone I had never once heard from its owner — and yet I knew instantly who it belonged to.
Carefully, I walked to the club practice room and opened the door. And there, inside, stood the very person I knew.
"…It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."
Facing the mirror, without glancing at the script even once, Soye was performing Portia from The Merchant of Venice.
True to the setup — Portia disguised as a man, standing before the court as a scholar of law — she pressed her voice as low and masculine as it would go, carrying the performance onward.
Watching her like that, I knew for certain: she was, without a doubt, the Soye I knew.
And at the same time, I found myself stepping carefully toward her.
Witnessing Soye secretly practicing an actor's role, and speaking to her anyway.
That was the decisive moment that had brought the original Sun Woo-bin and Soye closer together — the moment when the small dream she had quietly harbored in her heart was finally, at long last, witnessed by someone else.