Phase 1. That Bitch Hui-gyeong (13)
After washing up and stepping out of the gym, Hui-gyeong was already waiting for me.
If the two of us had walked out of the gym right then and there, we would have started yelling and had a full-blown fight on the spot. Fortunately, though, I had managed to calm myself down through sheer force of will while I was in the shower.
I walked without a word.
Hui-gyeong followed.
When I kept to my usual pace she seemed to fall behind, so I slowed a little and matched my stride to hers.
Watching my profile as we went, she put on a deliberately cheerful voice.
"Do you always dress like that at the gym?"
"Like what?"
"You're in full tight clothes."
"You're wearing leggings too."
Whatever she took that reply to mean, Hui-gyeong flashed another eye-smile.
"Did you hate that I was wearing leggings?"
What the hell was she trying to pull?
"So you did hate it? Because other people kept coming up and talking to me…"
"Jo Hui-gyeong, want me to sign you up for a membership there?"
"Huh? No, there's no need…"
"Why not? You said you wanted to work out. I'll get you a membership. Go ahead and go."
Cutting her off like that made Hui-gyeong flustered; she started watching my face for cues.
But reading the intentions of someone walking blank-faced and staring straight ahead was never going to be easy.
In the end she too settled into walking forward with a dissatisfied look.
"I don't like that place."
"Then I'll sign you up somewhere else. Look around and tell me."
"I don't like any other place either."
"Then should I buy you a phone?"
"Oppa."
"If we pass a store that's already open, we'll go right in."
"Oppa, what are you doing?"
Hui-gyeong's expression hardened as she grabbed my arm and stopped me.
She looked ready to unload everything, but the moment she saw my blank face she flinched and stepped back.
This had to be a first for her.
The two of us scowling and shouting at each other was common enough, but looking at her with a face that showed absolutely no emotion at all—that was new.
Even continuing to answer her was something I was only doing because it was Hui-gyeong.
If anyone else had pushed me this far, I would have stopped talking and never looked them in the face again from that moment on.
"I'll buy you a phone. Take it and go do whatever the hell you want."
"Oppa, why are you like this…"
"You don't want it?"
"……."
Hui-gyeong's lips trembled.
Her lost gaze wandered this way and that before finally dropping to the ground.
"…Oppa, are you mad?"
"…No."
"You are mad."
"I said no."
"You are mad…"
"I said I'm not."
My flat, toneless replies made her voice shrink smaller and smaller.
She must have been sensing that something was going seriously wrong.
When someone likes the other person more, they get dragged around like a fool.
That doesn't mean they actually are a fool.
They just want to be together more, want to treat the other person better.
Looked at the other way, once that fondness disappears, not wanting to do those things anymore is only natural, isn't it?
Especially if the other person had been playing games with that fondness? Then reeling that feeling back in is the right move, isn't it?
So right now Hui-gyeong was looking at the face and tone of someone who had completely withdrawn that goodwill.
"Then why are you talking to me like that…"
At that, Hui-gyeong finally broke and burst into the tears she had been holding back, her voice thick with sobs.
To a third party it might have looked like it came out of nowhere, but sharp Hui-gyeong had felt it instinctively.
That a big change was about to happen inside my head and my chest, and that the change would never be good for her.
The warmth of the older brother who had been fawning over her only that morning was gone, so her anxiety had to be swelling in an instant.
"Hey, Jo Hui-gyeong."
"What."
"You said once you got out you'd act properly."
"……."
"It's been less than a few hours since you said that."
Feeling the guilt, my little sister shut her mouth.
Even so she stuck her lips out and planted a hand on her hip, trying to put on some kind of defiant front, but with tears hanging heavy in her eyes it only looked half-assed.
"The second we got to the gym you were talking nonstop to every guy in sight—trainers, members, didn't matter. You treated me like I wasn't even there. Was the exercise you said you wanted to do only the kind you can do with men?"
"…You deliberately wore tight clothes too so you could enjoy the girls staring. Especially the way you were flirting with that big-assed bitch."
Big-assed bitch? She meant the female trainer?
"You're calling that an excuse? That I was wrong too? Enjoy the girls staring? You saw plain as day that the stares made me uncomfortable and I went straight to work out. Fine, sure. Let's say I was wrong too. But that means you already knew you were wrong and you're still talking to me like this? Like, 'I was wrong, but you were too'?"
My little sister's face twisted.
Standing there stock-still, Hui-gyeong hung her head and sniffled as the tears came.
"Uuuuh… hhic… hic…!"
Look at her sitting there squeezing out the waterworks.
If she weren't a woman I liked, if she weren't my lover, I would have had zero reason to put up with this kind of crying.
"Hey, just go. I'll buy you a phone. Take it and live however you want. I'm not stopping you anymore. I'll tell Mom."
She shook her head hard, refusing.
She kept shaking it with broken, heaving breaths.
"Why? I said I'm fine with it now."
"Oppaaa…"
"You like going around looking at guys. Do what you want. Meet a hundred, meet a thousand—I'm fine. I've transcended."
"…Hiiing."
"But do it somewhere I'm not. So I never even know. Don't interrupt my workouts like today."
She couldn't answer anymore; she only shook her head and sniffled.
She forced her face up toward the sky, trying to stop the tears, but how was blurred vision supposed to hold the sky?
She looked at me desperately again and only cried harder.
The uncomfortable silence stretched on without end.
I had hoped she would say something, anything, but all she did was cry.
Tired of the sight, I turned my body away.
Realizing I was about to leave her, Hui-gyeong panicked and grabbed me at once.
"Where are you going!"
"Tutoring."
"You said until… hhic! nine…!"
"I'll handle it."
"Oppaaa…!"
When I still ignored her, Hui-gyeong yanked hard on my arm and clung desperately.
"Oppa, oppa! I was wrong! I won't do it again! So don't leave me! I won't do it again! Please, oppa…!"
"Won't do what again?"
"……."
"Say it properly."
"Hwaaaang~. Heung… Oppaaa…"
"You're not going to say it?!"
In the end she made me raise my voice at her.
Startled by the volume, Hui-gyeong swallowed her tearful breaths but still refused to let go of my arm.
"Huuuh… hhic… hwaaaang…"
"If you don't talk I'm shaking you off and leaving."
"No, no! Don't go!"
"I said talk. What won't you do again?"
Sensing she couldn't hold out any longer, Hui-gyeong finally whispered in a tiny voice.
"…I won't talk to other guys."
"What the fuck, the way you're saying it is weird. Say it properly."
"……."
"I'm going."
"No, I'll say it! I'll say it!"
"What is it."
"…I won't… hhic! deliberately talk to other guys just to see your reaction…"
Yeah. I figured she was doing it on purpose.
Ever since yesterday she had been hypersensitive to the word "jealousy" and gotten hooked on the fun of it.
Fuck, she wasn't even a kid.
"Don't play games with people. It's genuinely pathetic."
"Yes…"
"Got it?"
"I got it…"
"Aigoo."
"Oppa."
"What."
"You're forgiving me… right? Huh? Please forgive me, huuuh… hwaaaang…"
Even a pretty woman ends up with her face crumpled to the extreme when she cries.
It was still morning, so there weren't zero people on the street.
Even with people glancing our way, Hui-gyeong paid them no mind at all and just bawled at the top of her lungs.
Only when she started gasping like she was about to choke did I finally decide to forgive my little sister.
"If you do it again, we're done."
"Yes…!"
"Never do it again. Absolutely never."
"I won't do it again…"
Only then did she seem to settle; the heaving of her shoulders quieted.
Her face was still a mess of tears, but the way she held it in with those big eyes and lips made her look, to anyone watching, like a pitiful beauty.
"I'm going to tutoring, so go straight home. Got it?"
"…Can't you walk me there?"
"Tsk…!"
"Okayyy—! Just don't say anything more, please, I'm having a hard enough time as it is!"
…Why do women, after being the ones who did wrong, still raise their voices like that?
And the fact that she genuinely looked like she felt wronged only made the heat start rising in me again.
"Anyway, go straight home."
"Okay."
"And the phone?"
"I don't need it!"
She says she doesn't need a phone.
I let out a hollow laugh and ruffled her hair; Hui-gyeong swatted my hand away.
"I'm going home!"
"Go on, go."
And so we turned our backs on each other and headed our separate ways.
Hui-gyeong toward home, me toward the subway station for tutoring.
"Oppaaa."
There weren't many people around, so even with the distance growing her soft call still reached me clearly.
"What?"
"You'll give me an arm pillow when we sleep tonight, right?"
A snort of laughter escaped me.
"I will."
I started to go again, and she called once more.
"Oppaaa."
"What now."
"I'm really sorry about earlier. I won't do it again."
Only then did I let the tension leave my eyes and smile.
"I already said I forgive you. It's over, then."
Only then did Hui-gyeong smile bashfully and wave her hand.
"Okay. Have a good day at tutoring, oppa. See you tonight."
They say if you laugh right after crying something grows on your ass.
Maybe later, after tutoring, I should pull Hui-gyeong's panties down and check.
The fact that I was already thinking perverted thoughts the second the whole thing was over just proved I was every bit the piece of work myself.