Chapter 20: Pay Up for My Mental Distress Compensation
In the warm May sunshine, I was busy enjoying a nice little sunbath.
This was the life of a freelancer: working when I wanted to work, and resting when I didn’t. I wasn’t exactly the perfect freelancer, since I still had to turn on my stream at fixed times, but a freelancer was a freelancer all the same.
Just as I was savoring the sunlight a little more and topping up my vitamin B, something filthy that blocked my solar intake caught my eye.
"Hey, Gyeong-do."
Lee Yebin had come over out of nowhere to pick a fight with me.
"Honey, it’s my day off today."
"Yeah, right, 'honey.'"
"We did We Got Married."
"Wasn't that more like, 'we did a duel'?"
No, we were married. Anyway, that was how it was.
"So, honey, could you please go away? I need some alone time too."
"You’re fucking insane."
Hearing the rage in Lee Yebin’s voice somehow made me feel even better.
"So why are you here?"
"Guess why I came."
I didn’t know why I was supposed to guess, but it was obvious enough.
"You want me to buy you food?"
"Yeah, buy it for me."
She was so damn brazen now. A full-on highway robber, if I’d ever seen one.
"Are you a highway robber?"
"Highway robber? What’s that?"
Typical of a bookworm who’d spent her entire life studying until her late teens. How could she not know even that joke?
"How can you not know the primate GOAT?"
"Primate GOAT? What’s that?"
"Ah, Lee Yebin. So even this one is only a half-finished human after all."
"What the hell is wrong with you? Did you eat something weird?"
I had no more words for the bookworm who couldn’t even keep up with my jokes.
"Get lost, mongrel. I have no intention of buying you anything."
"Mongrel, my ass. Do you know how many times you team-killed me yesterday?"
"Do you remember how many pieces of bread you’ve eaten in your life?"
"You crazy bastard. Absolute lunatic."
Thud, thud.
Her kicks came flying at me, but they were weaker than yesterday.
"Hey, if you kick any harder, I’m not buying."
"You will buy?"
"If Yeon-i gets home from class, I’ll buy one for her too."
"Yeon-i doesn’t get back until evening."
"Probably not. She’s coming back early today."
"Why?"
Just as a question mark seemed to appear over Lee Yebin’s head, Yeon-i showed up at the perfect moment.
The keypad sounded in Yeon-i’s usual bright, lively rhythm: ding-ding-ding-ding, ding-ding~.
I got to my feet and walked over to her.
"Yeon-i, good work."
"Hey, Oppa~ Not streaming today?"
"Day off."
"Yeon-i, hi hi!"
"Kyaa~ Unniii~!"
As soon as Lee Yebin appeared, Yeon-i’s face lit up even more.
Well, from Yeon-i’s point of view, I was her real older brother, and Yebin was the older sister next door. The two of them had known each other for so long that they were practically family.
Yeon-i threw herself at the smaller Lee Yebin as if she were throwing a tantrum, and Yebin hugged her back with a slightly strained look, like she was holding a golden retriever in her arms.
They were happy enough, so I let it go.
"Yeon-i, why did you get back so early?"
"I’ve got academy today!"
"Academy?"
"I go to art academy!"
"Ooooh! So you’ve finally decided to go for art school?"
Yeon-i grinned brightly and nodded.
Anyway, that was how things were. Yebin might not have known it, but Yeon-i had started going to art academy early this year.
And since getting into an art college was all about the entrance exam, the school had been giving her a few days off for on-site learning so she could go to class.
"Yeon-i, why’d you come home?"
"To mooch off your brother~"
"Oppa, hurry up and buy us something!"
She was acting like it was all been laid out for her, shameless as anything.
Fine. She was rude as hell, but she was still my little sister.
"All right, anyone got something they want to eat? Say it fast. First person to speak wins."
"Unni, pick whatever you want!"
"No, no~ Yeon-i should pick."
"I can pick?"
"Of course~"
They were having the time of their lives, just the two of them.
I was annoyed, but I still opened the delivery app and listened to what Yeon-i wanted.
And what she said was a little different from what I’d expected.
"I want mango bingsu!"
"Mango bingsu?"
"Yep, mango bingsu!"
Mango bingsu was genuinely out of left field.
All right, then. Any objections?
"Lee Yebin, any objections?"
"Hmm~ Nope!"
No objections? Really?
Hmm…
"...Hey, there’s a price cap."
"Price cap? How much?"
"Just order one more bingsu. Yebin, pick a flavor so I can get another one."
"Really pick one?"
"Otherwise I’ll choose for myself."
"Unni, no! Our Oppa has no taste!"
Me, no taste? I couldn’t just let that slide.
"Mango bingsu’s canceled."
"Ah, ahhh! Sorry, sorryyy!"
After calming Yeon-i down, I turned back to Lee Yebin.
"What do you want? Decide already."
"Hold on, I’m choosing…!"
As she scrolled through her phone, she eventually came up with a not-bad idea.
"Chocolate brownie!"
"Chocolate brownie bingsu?"
"Yeah, that one!"
All right, then: one chocolate brownie bingsu and one mango bingsu.
Put together, the price was decent enough.
Hmm…
"I’m ordering injeolmi too, so don’t either of you touch it."
"Huh? Why injeolmi?"
"For Mom and Dad. You think this is only for your mouths?"
"Oooh~ Taking care of your parents too? Gyeong-do, Gyeong-do, you’re such a filial son?"
"More filial than you."
"What did you say?"
That was when Lee Yebin started picking a fight with me, so I threw it right back at her.
We were bickering and fighting again, but I still got the order placed in the end.
Then the three of us sat together on the living room sofa and started watching TV.
Very leisurely. Very peacefully.
About thirty minutes after we’d started watching TV, the bingsu arrived.
I put the injeolmi bingsu in the freezer and let Yeon-i and Lee Yebin have the other two.
"Aren’t you eating, Oppa?"
"I’ll have a little."
After drizzling condensed milk over it to make the bingsu taste even better, I dug in right away.
Lee Yebin, who’d ordered the chocolate brownie, scooped up a huge spoonful of it and brought it straight to her mouth, while Yeon-i sat there obediently, as if she were waiting for me to eat first.
She didn’t need to do that, but I was grateful to Yeon-i, polite and sweet as ever, and ate only a little from the outer edge of the mango bingsu.
"Oppa, it tastes better if you take a bigger bite with the mango."
"Let me try just the condensed milk and bingsu first."
"So how is it? Good, right?"
"Excellent."
That was my honest impression.
Yeon-i gave a big nod and started eating the mango bingsu properly.
Munch, munch. With chunks of mango piled on top, she looked exactly like a little kid. She was a high school junior, though.
"Yeon-i, try this too."
"Aah~"
Lee Yebin fed Yeon-i some of the chocolate brownie bingsu, and Yeon-i accepted it with a bright smile, eating it happily.
Watching them, only one thought came to mind.
"Seriously, aren’t you two the sisters and I’m the neighbor?"
"Right, so you should go back already."
"Right! This is our house!"
Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.
I’d thought I should probably keep them in check, but watching the two of them play around did make that thought fade a little.
After taking a bite of the chocolate brownie bingsu, my suspicion turned into certainty.
"Hey, but this really is good."
"Right? It’s insanely good, isn’t it?"
Lee Yebin looked smug as hell, but I decided to let it slide for today.
Instead, I decided to feed her some mango bingsu this time.
"Try the mango bingsu too. This is good."
"Okay~"
Lee Yebin reached for the mango bingsu with the filthy spoon she’d already used, and I stopped her with a light smack of my hand.
"Are you crazy? How dare you touch the mango bingsu with the spoon you used on the chocolate brownie."
"What the—!"
"Ugh, you really don’t listen to a damn word I say."
I grabbed a fresh spoon, scooped up some mango bingsu, and held it out like an order.
"Open up."
"My mouth is not—"
Before she could even protest, I stuffed the mango bingsu into her mouth, and her lips snapped shut.
She just sat there chewing on it instead.
"How is it? Good, right?"
-nod-
"Good. Here, use this one to eat the rest yourself."
After handing her the spoon her lips had touched, I went right back to gobbling up my own bingsu.
Lee Yebin only stared at me with a complicated, hard-to-read expression.
"Why are you staring at me like that?"
"...Is this what they call tsundere or whatever? Hey, you like me, don’t you?"
"So you’ve finally lost your mind. If you’re not going to eat, then just get lost."
"What? Yeon-i, you think so too, right?"
She dragged Yeon-i into it, but our Yeon-i was a very wise child.
"Unni, even so, that’s a little..."
She understood my heart far too well.
"That would make our Oppa sound way too stupid. How could he act like that toward a girl he likes?"
"...But your Oppa really is kind of an idiot, though."
"Now that I think about it, yeah."
"..."
"Just get both of you out of here. And stop eating my food."
"What? Come on~"
"You can’t be like that over food!"
"Please, I’d really appreciate it if both of you would just shut up and eat."
"Nope~"
Lee Yebin was grinning from ear to ear as she told me no, and I honestly wanted to flick her forehead so badly.
So, so badly.
But that wasn’t exactly an option. Yeon-i was right there. How was I supposed to get violent in front of her?
"Oh, right. Oppa, Unni."
"What."
"What is it, Yeon-i?"
In response to the two of us, Yeon-i pulled out a single blow that could have scored a double K.O.
"So, are you two actually dating? You were even filming We Got Married."
"Absolutely not."
"No, absolutely—!"
...And that was why adults used to call TV a box of fools.
Our smart little Yeon-i had gone and asked something this stupid.
I was really going to have to control what she watched from now on.