Do you have time?
Do you have time?
'...What do I think?'
Of course, I was extremely flustered.
The reason why Seo-ah was showing me this.
No, the reason why she even drew this in the first place.
I couldn't even guess.
Just as I was unable to say anything because I couldn't think of an answer to her question about what I thought,
Seo-ah, who had been looking elsewhere, turned her head toward the monitor.
At that moment, Seo-ah's body froze completely.
"...!!"
Her face, viewed from the side, turned deathly pale.
She was frozen so still that I couldn't even hear her breathing, staring intently at the monitor.
Only then did I realize.
'She showed me the wrong thing.'
It was clear she had pulled up the wrong drawing.
She wouldn't have been as shocked as if she'd seen a ghost if it were the drawing she intended to show me.
But even if she showed me the wrong thing, I still didn't know the reason why she drew this.
And what the identity of that video paused on the side was, remained a mystery.
But then.
I saw tears welling up in Seo-ah's eyes.
I could see her eyes reddening in real-time, as if a single tremor would cause tears to roll down.
...There was no time to think anymore.
Thinking that my relationship with Seo-ah would really be over if things went on like this, I hurriedly opened my mouth.
"I-it's drawn well."
A sudden compliment popped out.
Seo-ah looked at me, her tearful expression mixed with surprise.
Thinking it was working, I didn't stop and kept talking.
It looks like you put a lot of effort into it.
The colors are pretty.
It looks like a photo.
"And the veins and stuff are depicted really realistically..."
Compliments I came up with using my half-broken brain.
And only after I had almost finished saying the last part did I realize I shouldn't have mentioned it.
I shut my mouth immediately, but.
"...G-get out...!"
In the end, a single tear fell from Seo-ah's eyes, and I was kicked out.
Surprisingly, a little while later, everyone, including Seo-ah, was sitting at the dining table eating.
Seo-ah, whom I thought would hole up in her room and not eat dinner, was sitting at the table looking at her phone as usual, but—
Her eyes were a little swollen, and her expression was stiff and pouty.
The fact that she wouldn't make eye contact with me was similar to usual, but her gaze was fixed on her phone to the point where I could feel her stubbornness in refusing to look at me at all.
And Kang Ji-eun, noticing that something was strange, finally spoke up.
"...Seo-ah, are you okay? Is something wrong?"
Her expression and tone were full of worry.
But naturally, I knew that this was a situation where she couldn't properly answer that worried question.
"N-no, it's nothing..."
Seo-ah shook her head slightly and mumbled vaguely.
Her voice was quieter than usual, and the end was slightly cracked.
Despite her timid denial, Ji-eun still looked worried, but she seemed to decide not to pry further and quietly continued eating.
But then.
Kang Yu-na, noticing that Seo-ah was in a bad mood, made the worst possible choice without any malice.
"Oh, right! Didn't you say you were going to draw a picture for Si-woo?"
Seo-ah mumbled vaguely once again at her surprise attack, as she had no way of knowing that the drawing was the very cause of her bad mood.
"...I-it's just drawn well."
Since Seo-ah didn't usually get annoyed with the other two besides me, I thought it would end with her just timidly mumbling, but.
"Oh, really? Then can you show us too?"
Ji-eun, not noticing it, must have thought the drawing was a good conversation topic, so she brought it up one more time—
Seo-ah's eyes began to redden once again.
And after putting down her spoon, she stood up from her seat and said.
"I, I'm going to get up first..."
Leaving those words behind in a small, trembling voice, Seo-ah kicked away from the table and ran toward her room as if fleeing.
Silence descended upon the dining table.
Both of them were dumbfounded, staring in the direction where Seo-ah had disappeared.
Thus, a somewhat quiet meal continued.
After dinner.
If things went on like this, it was obvious that Kang Ji-eun, who was practically our family's conflict solver, would go find Seo-ah and ask what happened.
I was also full of the desire to ask Seo-ah for the reason.
But the atmosphere felt like a catastrophe where Seo-ah might really run away from home if I did that.
I decided to sacrifice myself one more time.
"Noona."
Ji-eun, who was just about to head to Seo-ah's room, stopped and looked back at me.
"Hmm?"
"Um, about that... massage I promised to give you last time, I'll do it now."
I said it as naturally as possible.
I hated my brain for the fact that the result of my short deliberation on what excuse to use to keep Ji-eun away from Seo-ah was just a massage.
For some reason, it seemed to be effective; Ji-eun's eyes widened slightly, and she looked hesitant.
"Uh... but Seo-ah—"
She hesitated, glancing toward Seo-ah's room.
'Still, there's a possibility.'
I hurriedly took another step closer.
"I-I'll go talk to Seo-ah later. You look the most tired right now, Noona. I'll do it for just 5 minutes, okay?"
Perhaps because I approached suddenly, Ji-eun, seemingly flustered by the close proximity, stared at me blankly for a while.
I could see her hand trembling slightly.
Her restless appearance for some reason didn't seem like her usual blunt self.
Then she let out a small sigh.
"...O-okay."
Thank goodness.
I swallowed a sigh of relief inwardly and tried to head straight to Ji-eun's room.
But suddenly, Ji-eun was moving toward the hallway where Seo-ah's room was.
"N-Noona?"
I called her, flustered.
"Uh, what about the massage...?"
Was she planning to get the massage after stopping by Seo-ah's room?
"Oh... I thought it would be better to get it in your room... is that not okay?"
Fortunately, that wasn't it.
I didn't understand why she insisted on getting the massage in my room instead of hers, but I was relieved just that Ji-eun wasn't going to Seo-ah's room.
"Ah, yeah. ...Then let's go to my room."
Like that, we headed to my room with Ji-eun leading the way.
While walking down the hallway, Ji-eun glanced at Seo-ah's room one last time as if conflicted.
My heart sank for a moment, but fortunately, she didn't stop walking and came to the front of my room door.
Creak—
As she opened the door and entered, Ji-eun looked around the room once.
Her gaze made me briefly wonder if there was anything I needed to hide.
"Sit... here."
I said, pointing to the edge of the bed.
Ji-eun hesitated for a moment, then quietly sat on the edge of the bed.
"..."
"..."
Even though I was the one who brought her here, it was a very awkward situation.
Both me, who said I'd give Noona a massage, and Ji-eun, who came to my room to receive that massage.
I spoke up first in that awkward atmosphere.
"Where is it uncomfortable? Shoulders? Neck? Or..."
Asking that because I wondered if she was uncomfortable somewhere to the point of needing a massage, since she accepted the massage instead of going to Seo-ah, who seemed to have something going on.
"D-do you... have a lot of time...?"
With a somewhat nervous look, she threw another question at me instead of answering my question.
"Huh? Uh, I do."
There were no assignments or anything I had to finish today.
When I answered like that, Ji-eun hesitated more, then asked in a voice that was barely audible.
"Then today... um, could you do it all over?"
Ji-eun asking me to give her a full-body massage, not just one part like her shoulders, neck, or arms.
If the person were Kang Yu-na, I might have hesitated a bit because I wouldn't know what would happen—
"Yeah, I'll do it. Where should I start?"
Because it was Ji-eun, I readily nodded.
Then, with a noticeably brighter expression, Ji-eun turned her body and lay face down on the bed, saying.
"...E-ears, start with my ears..."
"...Ears?"
I was momentarily flustered by the unexpected body part.
When people say massage, usually—
Shoulders and neck, arms and legs.
Or I thought of parts like hands and feet, but I hadn't expected ears to come out of Ji-eun's mouth.
'I did touch her ears slightly when I gave her a neck massage last time... Did that relieve her fatigue that much?'
I recalled that time for a moment.
After Kang Yu-na had teased us and disappeared.
—J-just a little more...
The words she said while taking my hand and carefully placing it on her ear.
...Whether my memory was wrong or not, that scene came to mind as if it were slightly erotic.
Anyway, I was a bit puzzled by the request to start with her ears, but thinking what's the harm in doing it since she asked, I approached the bed.
But there was one problem.
Ji-eun was lying face down, burying her face in the pillow.
Like this, my hand could easily reach one ear, but the other ear was a bit far, so I didn't think I could give a proper massage.
"Noona, to massage your ears... I think you need to sit up again."
So when I asked Ji-eun to sit up again, she muttered something while burying her face deep in the pillow.
"...Ride..."
The sound was too small and muffled, so I couldn't hear it properly.
"Huh? What?"
When I leaned my ear close and asked again—
Ji-eun hesitated for a long time, then said in a voice that was barely audible, just like a breath, again.
"U-um, just... ride on top of me..."