Even If I Want To, I Hold Back
After that, I was completely captivated by Chae-yeon and couldn't escape.
I was gauging when this awkward distance between us might disappear when she leaned in and kissed me a few more times before pulling away.
The Chae-yeon from just now didn't just look pretty like usual.
She looked cool.
Cool, pretty, and cute. She was pulling off everything at once.
I'd come out to the living room and was resting my head on her thigh while watching TV, but Chae-yeon was still humming to herself with a delighted expression.
“Yeoni, you look like you're in a good mood.”
“Yeah!! I am. Seeing you get all flustered just makes me feel better.”
Lying there with my head on her thigh, I looked up at her. Chae-yeon met my eyes with a light laugh and gently stroked my hair.
Her touch felt so nice that I softly closed my eyes.
“Your hair is so soft, Jung-woo.”
“It used to be like straw after I bleached it, but it's back to normal now.”
“You bleached your hair too?!”
“Yeah. Want to see?”
I showed her the bleached photos saved in my phone gallery. Since it was the first time she'd seen them, Chae-yeon stared at the pictures with great interest.
“Ash gray and red wine. You bleached it twice?”
“I did the red wine after the ash gray started fading.”
“Wow, that's cool. It suits you.”
“Really? Fun fact—before the red wine, I was supposed to ask for just the roots to be bleached, but I didn't say anything and got the whole thing done.”
“So then… your hair.”
“Everything except the roots got bleached five times. Ta-da, the ultimate idiot story.”
“No wonder it turned into a broom.”
“My scalp got inflamed and it was a whole mess.”
After that ordeal, I'd sworn I'd never bleach my hair again… but as time passed, the urge started creeping back in.
I wanted to do it properly one last time, just once.
“You want to bleach it again?”
“Just one more time.”
“You already have a color in mind, huh?”
“Yeah. White hair!!”
“White hair?! You want to bleach it white?”
“I've wanted to try it for a while.”
“But you barely go outside even if you bleach it. There's no one to show it to.”
“What do you mean? There's you. I can show it to Yeoni.”
Chae-yeon looked startled at my words, then laughed and ruffled my hair again.
That said, meeting Yeoni with white hair would definitely stand out. Even with ash gray, people had stared. How much worse would white be?
“If you showed up with white hair out of nowhere, I'd probably be shocked.”
“You wouldn't pretend not to know me, right?”
“If it suits you, you're my boyfriend. If it doesn't, you're a stranger.”
“My treatment depends on your evaluation?”
“Still, I think it'll look good. Now that I think about it, you like accessories too?”
“Yeah, I do. Especially rings and piercings.”
“People who like piercings usually want to get more holes in their ears.”
“I want to get one more on each side too. But I'm scared my mom will be shocked, so I can't.”
“If your mom saw that, she'd probably clutch the back of her neck and faint.”
My gaze fixed on Chae-yeon's lips as she kept talking without pause. That kiss from earlier was still bothering me—I couldn't just let it go.
She must have felt my stare, because she let out a soft laugh.
“Want to do it again?”
“Even if I want to, I'm holding back.”
“Why hold back? Just do it. It's only the two of us here.”
Uh… I don't know why, but that line sounded strangely suggestive.
It's just the two of us. She's asking if I want to do it again. Telling me not to hold back.
If you only heard the words, it could easily be misunderstood.
While I was thinking that, Chae-yeon had already closed the distance until there wasn't even room for a sheet of paper between us.
Once again, her lips found mine first.
I'd meant to match her energy, thinking the first time was the hardest, but her forwardness felt so unfamiliar that I froze solid.
“Jung-woo, you're cute.”
At least when it came to affection and skinship, I'd been the only one who could take the lead… How did it end up like this?
Where was I supposed to lead now?!
“Jung-woo, do you have any other Switch games?”
“Yeah, plenty. Tell me if there's something you want to play.”
“Hmm… I want to try a fighting game.”
“A fighting game? I've got those too.”
Seeing Chae-yeon want to play games, I connected the Switch to the TV and booted up Crash Brothers.
No need to question why she wanted a fighting game.
She'd loved them since we were kids.
Back when we went to the gamjatang place and played fighting games while eating ice cream, it was always with Chae-yeon.
We must have played countless times, and my record against her was zero wins.
I'd never beaten her once.
But that was traditional fighting games. Crash Brothers was different, and since I'd played it a lot, there was a chance I could win.
What if I lost this too?
I'd just have to quit and enter a monastery.
“Are the controls similar?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Want to bet on it?”
“It'd be boring without a bet. Let's play for a wish!”
“Sounds good. I'm not losing.”
“Says the guy who's never beaten me.”
“That was when we were kids. I'll win this time.”
Crash Brothers was a fighting game with all of Nintendo's characters gathered in one place.
I hadn't tried every character, but having played Nintendo since elementary school, I could usually tell how to use them just by looking.
“Huh? I want to play this one. Kirby!!”
“Then I'll take Ice Climbers.”
“What? Why are there two of them?”
“That's just how this character works.”
Anyone who's played Crash Brothers knows how broken Ice Climbers can be.
Kirby, the character Chae-yeon picked, was one a lot of people played out of nostalgia, but it wasn't as strong as you'd think.
Too cheap? So what. Even if it's my girlfriend, I still want that first win.
Alright, time to swing that hammer.
With Ice Climbers, once one character dies, only one remains—and then the character becomes garbage.
Which also means that as long as both are alive, they're basically invincible.
I swung my hammer at the approaching Kirby and got in a bonus second swing.
“Ah, what the—?! Hitting twice with one attack is cheating.”
“That's just how the character was made. What do you want me to do about it?”
The Kirby that had been charging nonstop seemed to realize it couldn't focus near the hammer and switched to ranged attacks.
Ice Climbers weren't just broken up close—their ranged game was broken too.
Just straight-up ice projectiles.
“Ranged chip damage.”
“Hey!! This character is seriously cheap.”
“Just dodge it. It's not that hard.”
Ice Climbers required some skill to use effectively, but against a newbie like Chae-yeon, my current level was more than enough.
Kirby, overwhelmed by the hammer and ice, came to a stop.
And the look in Chae-yeon's eyes as she controlled it changed.
“Okay, I've got the hang of it now.”
I launched another ice projectile at the Kirby charging the same way as before. Kirby dodged at the perfect timing and kept coming.
Seeing it get close, I swung the hammer.
But Kirby used a stop-motion technique to avoid it.
Ice Climbers' biggest weakness.
Attack delay.
Taking advantage of that window, Kirby started wailing on Ice Climbers with wild abandon.
How did she already know how to do a full combo on her first try?
After that, Kirby kept attacking with off-beat timing and stop-motion, never letting up.
Eventually, one character died, leaving only one left.
Still, it wasn't a hopeless situation. I'd already landed a lot of hits on Kirby early on with the hammer and ranged chip damage.
“Alright, now it's one-on-one? Perfect.”
“You're on low health too. Be careful.”
“You be careful.”
I kept playing, a little tense and gritting my teeth.
In the end…
Chae-yeon won.
“I won!!”
“H-how did I lose?”
“You picked a carry character and still lost to a newbie. Just quit already.”
If I lost even after picking the character that's hardest for newbies to deal with…
I had nothing to say.
Defeat and shame combined, and my right to speak was immediately confiscated.
“Jung-woo, I told you. You can't beat me in fighting games.”
“So what do you wish for?”
“I'll savor my victory a little longer before telling you. Loser boyfriend~?”
Chae-yeon laughed nonstop as she spun around me.
I understood being happy about beating an experienced player as a newbie, but I hadn't expected her to tease me this sincerely.
If I hadn't picked Ice Climbers, it wouldn't have gone this far.
“What kind of wish should I make for our Jung-woo?”
“Just say anything.”
“Jung-woo, are you sulking?”
“Who sulks over something like this? I'm not sulking.”
“Your lips are all pouty though?”
“They've always looked like this.”
“Liar.”
“It's true.”
—Smooch!!
At the sudden kiss, my lips that had been sticking out retreated on their own.
“You always look like you're trying to run away whenever I get close.”
“M-me? No. I've never done that.”
“Then my wish is for you to stay still right now. Don't move.”
Chae-yeon said that and slowly leaned in closer.
I tried to back away from the shrinking distance, but she stared at me with a look full of killing intent.
“If you don't stay still, I'll tell Dad that you flicked Jung-woo's forehead and made him cry.”
She's using a threat here? What am I supposed to do?!
“So stay still. Got it?”
In the end, I had no choice but to stay frozen in place and accept everything Chae-yeon did.