15. Heredity
After a small... no, a somewhat large commotion.
Serin had gone to shower, and I was sitting at the kitchen table, a good distance from the bathroom. The elevator repairs must already have started; now and then a dull thrum-thrum bored straight into my ears.
Then, cutting through the noise, a ringtone. It was the default tone, so for a second I couldn't tell whose it was, but the sound was coming from across the room. Serin's phone.
She wasn't going to be done washing and out already. I headed for the living room. The phone lay tossed beside the blankets we'd straightened, and the simple caller name on the screen caught my eye.
I picked it up, walked to the bathroom door, and let my voice out.
"Hey, Baek Serin— your mom's calling."
Shaaaa—
Through the rush of water, her voice came back before long.
"Answer it—"
"......You want me to answer?"
She must have shut the water off for a moment. The stream hammering the floor went quiet.
"She already knows you and I are together, so it's fine."
"Ah... all right."
That wasn't the point I'd been asking. ...Well, maybe it didn't matter. I was close with her parents anyway.
I hit the call button, and Serin's mother's voice came spilling through the phone at once.
"Serin, how did it go?"
"......Hello, ma'am. Serin's in the shower."
"...Oh? Eunhyeon?"
......How did it go? Had I misheard?
"Yes. Should I put Serin on?"
"Hm? No, it's fine. I've got things to say to you, too."
"...Ah, yes."
Standing in front of the bathroom felt awkward, and this sounded like it might run long, so I turned back toward the kitchen.
"I heard the two of you were drinking?"
"......Yes, we were."
...She knew. Serin must have contacted her on her own yesterday.
"How was it? Did Serin drink a lot?"
"About three cans of beer. This morning she's... fine."
No need to mention what had happened last night.
"Reaaally...? So, did you do it?"
"Ghk— W-wait, what?"
"What, you didn't?"
"......No. Nothing happened."
I'd always known she was the uninhibited type. Hearing it directly was a little... a lot.
My throat felt parched, so I took water from the fridge, and her questions picked right back up.
"Eunhyeon, you don't even keep condoms at home? ......Honey, shut up. I'm on the phone with Eunhyeon...... ahem."
"......"
Ma'am, I already heard all of that. And as for her father... never mind.
"Anyway, if I had my way I'd stop by and at least give you a present, but I can't just walk into the sanctuary, can I?"
"...What do you mean by that."
"If I showed up and ruined the mood... Ah... honey, enough. You want to get pinched in broad daylight?"
"......"
Terrifying. What was this. Her father was pitiful. I felt sorry for him.
The mood on the other end of the phone had gone strange enough that I was gulping water just to have something to do, and then her father's screams started coming through.
...It went on like that for a while. The racket, loud enough for a war, gradually settled. Now and then I caught save me, run, just endure it. I heard sorry even more often than those—and near the end I was fairly sure he'd switched to I sincerely apologize.
"Hoo... See you when I get to work later, honey? Tell them nobody comes into the office today."
"......"
"Ah, Eunhyeon. Where were we?"
"Ah, uh... I'm not really sure."
"Anyway... I feel bad, thinking Serin might be wearing herself out cooking for you."
"It's all right. Serin does almost all the housework anyway."
"That's a relief, then... Ah, I should get to the lesson— I mean, I need to head to work, so I'll call next time?"
"......Ah, yes. Have a good day."
"You too, Eunhyeon. And the condoms... never mind. It's fine if you just go ahead."
"......Ah, uh... I'll hang up."
I couldn't get a yes out. I set the phone down like I was fleeing the call, and a moment later it seemed her mother had hung up first.
...What a way to have the life drained out of me first thing in the morning. By then Baek Serin seemed to have finished her shower; a hair dryer was going in the bathroom.
I sat there stunned for a long while, and before long she appeared. She'd even finished doing her hair before coming out. It looked quite neat.
"What did Mom say?"
"......Nothing."
"......Then why are you like that?"
Baek Serin glared at me with deeply suspicious eyes and pressed herself into the seat right beside me, hip against mine.
What was I supposed to say. Did I even need to answer.
......The genes were definitely strong.
Changing the subject might be the better move.
"Should we order breakfast?"
"Fine by me. You'd find cooking a pain, wouldn't you."
"It's not really that. Even if we wanted to eat out, the elevator's under construction."
"Ah... right."
Serin glanced toward the entryway, then picked the conversation back up.
"I don't mind skipping breakfast, though."
"You're not hungry? You only ate one meal yesterday, too."
"I usually eat about that much, and what I drank last night basically counted as dinner."
She turned her head and looked at me again. A closed-lip mmm slipped out of her, and then she slowly parted her lips.
"And you don't eat breakfast anyway."
"That's true."
"But if I say I'm eating, you're the only one who gets stuck with the trouble."
"You don't have to worry about that."
Serin's eyes blinked a couple of times, as if she were trying to weigh what I meant. It really wasn't that much trouble for me.
"I can do that much for someone I like."
"......Th-that's, uh, huh?"
Baek Serin blinked over and over like a machine on the fritz. I'd thought we were far enough along that I could say that much. Apparently she wasn't.
Heating her face bright red wasn't enough. Her lips twitched, and she started stammering.
"Y-you, you, youuu... did you take money from my parents.—?!"
"......No. No way."
"Th-then did something happen after we drank last night?"
"Nothing at all."
Hm. Teasing her might be more fun than I'd thought. Enough that I might want to use it now and then.
"Ha, seriously... what is this. You're not this kind of guy......"
"You seem to hate it, so I won't."
"Are you insane."
"......"
...She hated it enough to go dead serious on the spot. So this was what people meant by a look that stung.
"Hurry up and say you like me."
"......Ah, I'm hungry."
"Grr, you little— hey——!!"
Ah. I hadn't expected her to yell. The way she swung back and forth also felt like armor for hiding her embarrassment.
...Ah. Was that why her mouth had been so foul?
"Hey. Were you swearing every time you got embarrassed?"
"......"
I'd been sure she would bark something back at the top of her lungs. Instead Baek Serin went mute, as if she'd swallowed honey. Curious, I studied her face. Her lips were trembling.
As if she had decided not to let a single word out of her mouth......
...Aha.
"So when you want to lie, you're just not going to talk?"
"Nnnnngh......"
"I like you, Baek Serin."
"Hwaaaaaaah——!!"
"Pfft—"
Seen like this, she was kind of cute.
......Had something gone wrong with my eyes. Love goggles, or whatever they were called.
"Hey, be honest. You didn't swear this much in middle school."
"......Shi— ...fine, so what are you gonna do about it."
In the end she sighed hard enough to sink the floor, like someone forced into a confession. They say people who get cursed at live long. If that were true, I might already have achieved immortality.
These days she was correcting it to some extent, and it was tapering off little by little.
......Wait.
"Hey. Hey. What are you going to do at college?"
"...What's this all of a sudden?"
"You can't lie."
"So? I've always been honest."
I almost let that confident attitude of hers pass as just how she was.
But still. If you couldn't lie at all while living your life, inconvenient situations would come up all the time. Why else did people talk about white lies.
"Do you even have a sense of crisis."
"Then name a situation where I'd have no choice but to lie."
"......Hm. Someone confessed to you."
"I'd tell them to get lost."
"......"
The answer came so fast it left me stunned. Well... she could talk like that now, but she probably wouldn't actually swear at them.
I tried to think of something else, and nothing suitable came to mind. Contrary to my worries, was the world surprisingly livable?
...Still, maybe I'd ask just one thing. Using the curse left a bad taste, but honestly, I was curious.
"...Hey. I'm only asking just in case."
"What."
"What did you talk about with your mom yesterday."
"......"
No matter how I turned it over, there was no way Baek Serin had reported that she was drinking for no reason at all. It was also a little suspicious that her mother had called first thing in the morning, as if she were trying to confirm something.
Serin still had her mouth shut, so I added one more line.
"I won't say I like you."
"Aagh, o-okay. I'll show you...."
...I hadn't known it would work this well. She must really hate it.
She dithered for another long while, then reluctantly took her phone. Glancing this way again and again, she let out a small phew.
"...Hey, um... don't... get any weird ideas, okay?"
Serin quietly slid the phone across the table. A messenger screen met my eyes at once.
What could possibly be so awful to show. She dug through my messages without a second thought.
Of course it was still her private life, so it might be uncomfortable for her......
"......"
I blinked, wondering if I'd misread it. Naturally, the black text was still perfectly clear.
...So.
"...Hey. Min Eunhyeon."
"......Yeah."
"......I didn't take everything off."
"...Right."
But of course......
