Afterglow
The afterglow of a first time always lingers thick and deep.
The feel of a kiss. The hammering of a heart. The sensation of tasting the mouth between someone else's legs.
You press your still-flushed body against the sheets afterward and hold onto that residue, that memory.
No wonder people never forget their first love, their first time — even after girlfriends change, even after marriage.
The best case of all is to do everything with your first love. Then you never have to carry around pointless guilt.
"I'm heading out."
"Yeah…"
Just the afternoon lectures left, and the day would be over. There was truly nothing else to do. Until yesterday, home and school had been the entire map of my world.
If I kept holding onto this afterglow, maybe someday another chance would—
"Ah, Cheol."
"Yeah?"
"Are you… coming over today?"
"……"
Wasn't that usually my line to ask?
Of course I wanted to sleep at her place. That much was true.
"I have to get to school early tomorrow. And Mom's home."
"Right… yeah."
"You're going out tomorrow too, right, Noona?"
"Tomorrow… I am. Yeah."
"Then you should rest. What if you keep going and it messes up your playing?"
"Is that all you have in your head?"
"Ah…… sorry. I thought that's what you meant."
"It is, but… anyway! No."
"Pick one… I'm going."
"Yeah."
I stretched out my stiff body and set off for campus.
Even now, the thought that my semen was still filling her lower belly felt unreal.
At school, nothing else entered my mind.
Look at a woman and I saw Noona's breasts. Look at a man and I saw my own cock driving into her.
One time, and I already felt like a sex addict.
Technically it hadn't been just once — more like several — but still.
"Haa…"
"What's wrong?"
"Oh. You're here."
Lee Ye-na, a classmate from the same department. Two years younger than me. The kind of person people call a female friend.
In this day and age, for a "female friend" to actually work, you need to meet every condition. You only see each other at work or school. You keep non-work contact to a minimum. If you ever grab a meal, you go Dutch. We followed all of it perfectly.
She was also casually friendly with my sister from the few times they'd met.
"You got here a while ago, right? You look exhausted."
"I'm fine. It's nothing."
Of course I was exhausted. We'd had sex until I couldn't tell whether I'd slept or not.
With my own blood sister.
"How's your sister doing these days?"
"For now… I think she's managed to get through it."
"I see… that's a relief."
Ye-na had been one of the people who came to Father's funeral. She'd arrived after the casket was closed, so she never saw Noona completely broken. Bring that day up even now and she'd probably dissolve into tears.
"So she's still doing piano work?"
"Yeah. She's busy. Concerts, lessons…"
"That's nice… I wish I could play an instrument too."
"Want to learn from my sister?"
"What?! No… actually, I'm already learning from someone else."
"Oh, really?"
"Hello…"
"Hello!"
The professor walked in and the lecture began. It was a thoroughly boring stretch of time.
"……"
The convenience store on the way home. I stood at a fork in the road of choice.
Do I buy this… or not…
A classic scene: a pathetic guy whose first time had just ended, confidence soaring so high it scraped the sky. That pathetic guy was currently debating whether to buy condoms.
You could call it swaggering over a single night. But looking at how Noona had acted, it felt like the chance could come again anytime. Even if not today — wouldn't it be smart to keep one on me just in case…?
Even I thought I sounded like a total loser.
"That'll be… ten thousand nine hundred won."
A cup ramen, a triangle kimbap, and chocolate milk for cover. And, slipped in casually, a pack of 0.02-millimeter condoms.
I never thought the day would come when I'd buy condoms in my life…
And prices had really gone up. Even without the condoms, the rest came to nearly five thousand won. I was genuinely surprised.
"Mom, you're home?"
I hurried inside, stashed the condoms, and was eating the decoy food when Mom came back. She put on a brave face, but the hollowed-out look of someone who still hadn't filled Father's absence was plain to see. So whenever she came home — even mid-game — I always went out to hug her.
"Yeah. Did you have fun with your sister yesterday?"
"……Yeah."
Fun didn't begin to cover it. Sticky and messy and thorough.
"Did you eat meat, Mom?"
"Oh my, can you smell it?"
"A little. Hey, good for you. You don't usually eat meat."
"You're right. First time in a while. Is your sister eating properly? What did you two have last night?"
"We ate tonkatsu out."
"Good. At least that."
"We watched a movie too."
"Sounds like you really had a good time…"
She stroked my hair as she said it quietly. Just watching her made my chest ache.
"When are you free, Mom?"
"Why?"
"Let's go somewhere. The three of us."
"Should we?"
"Yeah. We've never once gone anywhere as a family."
"That's true…"
Both parents worked, so the idea of going somewhere together had never even occurred to us. Because of that, I had never once in my life been on a family trip. I'd always been jealous when other people came back from theirs. Realizing how precious that was this late felt overdue — but the thought of going once, before I lost Mom too, settled hard and deep in my chest.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Hm?"
The sound of the door lock disengaging from the entryway. I didn't need to look to know who it was.
"I'm home~"
"Welcome back. Have you eaten?"
"I came to eat."
"What's the occasion? You always say you already ate."
"I didn't eat, so I'm starving…"
"Really? You two didn't eat?"
"Ah… yeah. We slept in."
More accurately, we'd kept going until it was time for school and missed every meal. I'd grabbed a triangle kimbap on the way, but Noona probably hadn't eaten all day. No wonder she was hungry.
"What do we have at home?"
"Doenjang-jjigae."
"Really? Yes!"
If I preferred kimchi stew, Noona preferred soybean paste stew. Said it was easier on the stomach, or something like that.
"You going to be okay?"
"Yeah. I'm fine. This much is nothing."
She scooped herself a noticeably larger serving of rice than usual. I already knew she'd start eating and then try to push some of it onto me, and it made me nervous.
Mom went into the master bedroom to hang laundry.
"What did you do?"
"Just… slept alone, woke up, practiced."
"Ah. Does it still hurt?"
"Yeah. I'm fine."
A whispered exchange, buried under the TV noise drifting from the bedroom. After we'd finished, she'd said her lower belly ached with a dull throb.
"Right, Noona. When are you free?"
"Hm? Why?"
"Let's go on a trip with Mom. We've never once gone on a trip."
"You're right? Let's go! Where to?"
"Haven't decided yet."
"What about somewhere like Jeju Island?"
"That'd be nice."
Nothing romanticizes a family trip like a plane. Trains were fine, but planes were better. These days the prices were basically the same anyway. And of course, to get to Jeju you had no choice but to fly.
"How many nights if we go?"
"Hmm… two nights, three days seems about right, doesn't it?"
Two nights and three days would leave more than enough time for… that. Not the rice-cake kind of that.
"Then, you know…"
"What?"
Noona gestured for me to lean in, as if she wanted to borrow my ear. When I brought it close, a soft, suggestive breath tickled against it.
"What about… the rooms?"
"Rooms…? Obviously we'd all be in one room."
"Ah… right."
Why did she look disappointed?
"Then can I sleep over tonight?"
"Sleep…?"
"Yeah. Just sleep."
"You know my bed's tiny."
"Who said anything about your room? I'm sleeping in the living room."
"Ah…"
Then don't whisper it in my ear like that. I'd already started wondering whether I was supposed to glue myself to her tonight.
"You weren't thinking something weird, were you?"
"I'm not you, Noona. Come on."
"I wasn't thinking that either, okay…?"
For someone who supposedly wasn't, she flushed and snapped pretty hard.
"I'm going to bed first… I'm so tired."
"Yeah. Good night."
"Night~"
Mom went into the master bedroom and closed the door. In our house, people usually shut their doors at night because someone was always getting up for water or the bathroom. I had other reasons on top of that, but still.
"When are you going to sleep?"
"Dunno… maybe after a few games, when I get sleepy. You?"
"I don't know either."
True to her word, Noona spread out bedding in the living room, lay down, and started scrolling on her phone. Normally I would have closed my door, but I left it open, curious about when she'd fall asleep.
"Ugh…"
When someone else is on your mind, the best fix is to look somewhere else. In my case, Noona kept pulling at my attention, so I redirected it into a game. If I looked at her right now — no bra — looking wouldn't be where it ended.
"Cheol."
"Ah, come on… gank… please…"
"Hey. Park Ji-chul."
"Aaaagh. Pull already…!"
"So you're just not answering."
I let two ganks slip past, and the perfect chance I'd seized turned to nothing — all because I couldn't finish a low-health walking champion. If I'd at least gotten that kill, it would have been playable.
"…Hey."
"……What."
"Honestly. Completely lost in your game."
"I can't exactly get lost in you, Noona."
I'd heard her from the start and pretended not to. Looking at her for real, I genuinely wasn't sure I could hold back. Even if it didn't go all the way, my hand would definitely head for her chest. Whether she meant to or not, she was already tempting me in that bottomless outfit.
"…I'd rather you got lost in me."
"……Don't say weird things. I'm seriously going to lose it."
"Are you planning to end it with that one day?"
"……"
A lethal question, and silence poured into the space after it. Only the clack of skills on the keyboard, the click of the mouse, and the game audio leaking from my headphones filled the room.
I didn't want to end it with that day either. But continuing this relationship terrified me. If we kept going and she somehow got pregnant, it would be a real disaster. Mom might drop dead of shock on the spot. Literally.
I pulled off the headset and turned my chair toward the sister I'd been carefully avoiding. She was wearing a striped shirt that barely covered the tops of her thighs, looking up at me with a wounded expression.
"……I don't want to end it either."
"Then don't ignore me."
"……"
As she said it, she caught the hem of her shirt and lifted it. A pair of ornate lace panties — the kind you only ever saw on maid cosplay — seized my eyes and refused to let go.