Other People's Rice Cakes Always Look Bigger
"Soyeon, are you telling me the happy times we shared meant nothing? How could you bring a new woman into your home without saying a single word to me?"
"Haah…."
"You're thinking of me as a bothersome woman again, aren't you!"
Boing!
A suspicious woman who seemed to be on familiar terms with the landlord sprang to her feet. Judging by her expression alone, she was genuinely wounded.
I had no idea what exactly was going on.
So this is my fault, huh?
Like I'd already established, I'd essentially let a complete stranger into my home in the dead of night. And not just any woman—a beauty so striking that Korea's strongest had tried to scout her on sight alone.
Whatever her relationship with the landlord was, it seemed best to defuse the misunderstanding by explaining that the landlord and I had no relationship at all.
I took a step toward the two of them and started projecting my text——
Chk.
The bothersome woman (per Kim Soyeon) suddenly closed the distance and seized me by both shoulders.
"————?!" (Hut?!)
She stared at my face for a long moment, savoring it slowly, then turned down the corners of her mouth and spoke.
"You pass…."
I had no idea what I'd passed, but it felt good all the same. The word pass doesn't usually carry a negative meaning, does it?
From the moment she'd pronounced me "passed," she'd retracted the appraising glare she'd been leveling at me. Apparently, she had accepted me.
She sat down on the sofa, then glanced back at the landlord—who had a hand pressed to her forehead—and sighed.
"Soyeon, why do you have so many women around you? I'm jealous."
The landlord breezily ignored her, patting the seat beside her instead.
"Yuna, come sit here. I'll explain."
[Ah, yes.]
"So your name is Yuna."
I scooted over at her invitation and settled in beside her.
"Yuna. Curious about who this is?"
[Mm-hm, mm-hm.]
"She's my older sister. Her name is Kim Juyeon, but don't worry about her."
[Wha—!]
The landlord had a sister?! I'd simply assumed the woman was some girlfriend-type. Finding out she was a blood relative was an even bigger shock.
Then again, the things the woman had said earlier came flooding back all at once.
Soyeon. Did you throw me away and trade up for that woman…?
Soyeon, are you telling me the happy times we shared meant nothing——
Hmm. Is this the kind of thing sisters say to each other on the regular?
It wasn't as if I had any point of comparison—I didn't have a blood sister, or even a sisterly friend I was close to.
In times like these, I could just ask Yumin, a genuine woman—
Oh, right, you were a loner. Sorry…. I won't ask.
[————! ————?]
What's a "loner"? You don't need to know.
Yumin, who had been mocking me with a chorus of "boohoo," suddenly piped up. Had something come to mind? I hoped to god it wasn't the meaning of "loner" she'd just unearthed.
[——————————.]
Oh ho.
[————————————————. ————————————————.]
Hm?
[——————————.]
Summing up Yumin's lecture: in her world, siblings—sisters or brothers—traveling everywhere joined at the hip was perfectly ordinary.
She'd heard it firsthand at her magic academy, so it was certainly a credible source.
"——————————." (But this is Earth, you know.)
The Middle Ages and the modern day, the same thing? In the modern era, a man seen traipsing around with young boys in tow gets the handcuffs slapped on him on the spot.
Yumin really was useless for anything that wasn't magic. She ate a lot, was curious about everything, and spouted nonsense constantly.
And what exactly do you do?!
[——————————.]
You blocked it from coming out?!
Hm. Fair enough. I'll let it slide for a week.
Anyway.
Even if it looked like Yumin and I were just chattering away, I was actually gauging the atmosphere between the two sisters.
Listening to their exchange, it felt like Kim Juyeon was unilaterally courting the landlord. Like a male bird during mating season, showing off every dance move it had spent its whole life perfecting.
The landlord nodded along and offered the occasional response to Juyeon's patter, but she didn't look particularly interested.
Juyeon, meanwhile, was pouring out affection with everything she had.
Hm. Kind of pitiful, honestly.
Still, they were sisters; it wasn't my place to care.
And the landlord was pushing thirty this year. That meant she knew how to read a situation and handle it properly.
She'll take one look at the situation and sort it out herself.
It wasn't something I needed to stick my nose into in the first place.
I swayed side to side, half-listening to the sisters' conversation, when the landlord—still pinned in Juyeon's grasp—began fixing me with a long, deliberate stare. Blatantly attempting to change the subject.
So I answered.
[Is something the matter?]
Despite my projected text, the landlord didn't reply—she simply kept staring. And for some reason, her gaze didn't seem to be on my face, but a little… lower?
"Yuna, are you wearing anything right now?"
[What kind of question is that? What do you take me for?!]
"Yuna, you walk around without underwear on?!"
Kim Juyeon whipped around toward me and asked. Suddenly switching targets to me? Wasn't that going too far? However much your sister torments you, digging up someone else's embarrassments is another matter entirely!
The time the landlord had caught me without underwear while carrying me had been pure accident. I mean, wasn't it weirder for women's underwear to be lying around in a home where a man lived alone? Sure, ordered clothes arrived by teleport, but back then I'd had neither the money nor the time! If that stranger at the burger joint hadn't handed me a hundred thousand won, I'd probably still be going commando right now.
Yumin, you're out of your mind.
[——————————.]
Right?
Even if my cultivation had ascended to the heavens, I was not some deranged pervert who'd wander around outside for days without underwear.
"No, it's just—I was curious, that's all."
Even as she said this, the landlord kept her eyes glued to my chest.
Uncomfortable under such a blatant gaze, I crossed my arms over my chest. Through my forearms came the sensation—soft, plush, yielding.
Feeling that pillowy warmth against my arms, I thought: Could it be she's staring because hers are smaller than mine?
I analyzed the landlord's gaze with care. It wasn't fixed on my face but squarely on my chest—and it seemed to linger, almost obsessively, on the parts that bulged out from under my pressed arms.
"Yuna. Would it be all right if I touched them?"
[Yes?]
Kim Juyeon, spectating from the sidelines, was clearly enjoying the show, her eyes sparkling with interest.
Whoosh.
The landlord rose to her feet and strode straight toward me. She has zero concept of personal distance…! Though, granted, I'd been the one firing off free hugs on day one, so any notion of distance had probably evaporated right then and there. Still, there's such a thing as psychological weight.
Even though Lee Yumin was gone, the relationships Lee Yumin had built hadn't vanished with her. My relationship with Kim Soyeon was that of tenant and landlord. We never met separately—just the occasional chance encounter and a bit of small talk. Which was exactly why the landlord's active approach felt so awkward.
Because she was treating the current me not as landlord Kim Soyeon's tenant, but as Kim Soyeon—a close older sister to Lee Yuna.
….
Long-winded as I am, to distill it down to a single point: the current situation was unbearably, excruciatingly awkward.
[Do you really need to think it over?]
Just then, Yumin's voice sharpened into clarity once more. She added, her tone brimming with amusement:
[You have my blessing. Do as you please.]
No, no…. Well… I mean… it's fine, I guess?
If I got all stiff and serious and said, "Soyeon-unnie, I don't think that's appropriate," all three of us would just end up marinating in awkwardness anyway. Which meant shutting my eyes tightly and letting her have one feel was far and away the better option.
"————…." (Phew….)
I took a long, deep breath, then slowly unwound the arms wrapped around my chest, spreading them wide to welcome the landlord. If the body's original owner was enjoying this, I might as well indulge her.
In exchange—
[Please be gentle….]
After granting the landlord access to my chest, I lay sprawled across my bed, every ounce of strength drained from my body. It hadn't been physically exhausting—only mentally.
Because the landlord hadn't stopped at a single touch. She kept kneading away, exhaling appreciative noises the entire time—"Hm." "Ha." "Oh."
I nearly died of embarrassment.
Having groped her fill, the landlord arrived at her verdict: my chest was, in fact, the bigger one.
Afterward, Juyeon muttered, "Really? Then I want a feel of Soyeon too," and pounced on the landlord—only to be hurled out of the house by a thoroughly enraged landlord.
As she chased Juyeon out, the landlord used magic, and the speed at which she chanted her incantation was nothing short of staggering. Yeah. She really is Upper Realm.
Once Juyeon was gone, the landlord explained why she'd touched my chest in the first place: my pajamas had somehow seemed too small, so she'd needed to check. Or something like that.
There's an old saying that someone else's rice cake always looks bigger—and this was exactly that. Except this time, the other rice cake genuinely was bigger.
"————." (Ugh.)
I lay in bed, blinking my eyelids in slow motion. Not by any will of my own—they were drooping all on their own. My face still burned with embarrassment, but fatigue was winning out; sleep came surprisingly easily.
"——————————." (Goodnight, Yumin.)
[——————————.]
I bid Yumin goodnight and closed my eyes. God, I was sleepy.
At that very moment, in the Korean Mage Association's residential quarters.
The S-Rank mages' dormitory sat in total darkness, every room's lights extinguished—except for one. The single glowing window belonged to Goo Seoha's suite.
Any S-Rank mage had the earning power to buy her own home outright instead of relying on association housing, but Seoha stubbornly clung to the association's quarters. Her official reason: as the face of the Korean branch, she simply had to be on-site. The truth: her commute took less than three minutes.
"Heeheehee. Hehe."
Burrowed under her blanket, Goo Seoha was firing off messages to Han Sejin, utterly incapable of containing her urge to talk about the woman named Lee Yuna she'd met that morning.
The moon hung luminous and full, bathing the quiet earth in silver. It was four in the morning.
