Sister-in-Law, You Can't Do This - 1
It was late at night when Marie came home. I thought about giving her a proper welcome, then changed my mind.
A warm greeting was all well and good, but I could hardly pester someone already worn thin with exhaustion.
“Ah… thank you. I was feeling a little stiff and tired, as it happens.”
Marie spent a long moment simply staring in surprise before her shoulders slumped. She had overreacted at the sight of my face and drained what little energy she had left.
“Yeah. Get some real sleep tonight and we’ll talk more tomorrow. You worked hard.”
I gave her shoulder a light pat. Color rose in Marie’s cheeks. She said nothing, yet she looked like a shy child quietly pleased by the praise.
“Yes. And… a crate of wine should be arriving soon, so I thought I’d mention it in advance. Good night.”
Marie headed for her room with her shoulders still drooping. She would be staying at our house tonight rather than with Valerie. The sixth-floor renovations still weren’t finished.
“Ah… it feels like everything’s settling inside me. Korean food already feels like home.”
And then morning arrived. Marie, freshly rested, spooned up kimchi stew with pure delight, declaring that the way it soothed her stomach was simply too good.
“You’re basically Korean now.”
I asked while serving myself more stew. A faint smile curved Marie’s lips. Camilla, seated beside her, wore the same expression.
Janet and I on one side of the table, Marie and Camilla across from us. Gathered like this, the sense that we were a real family settled thick and warm. All the more so because of the reincarnation bonds we could never speak of to outsiders—ties that let us talk freely only among ourselves.
“Being together like this really does feel like family.”
“Family, is it? A fine word.”
Camilla murmured as she lifted her spoon. The way she piled kimchi, broth, and meat onto her rice was pure Korean through and through. She chewed for a long while before opening her mouth again.
“If we are to be family, would it not be good to grow even closer?”
“Closer… I suppose there’s no harm in that.”
Growing closer. The idea pleased me well enough, yet Camilla’s gaze had turned oddly sly, and that stuck with me. It felt as though the closeness each of us imagined was not the same thing.
After the dishes we sat side by side in the living room with coffee. The long wooden sofa gave us plenty of room.
“You played the piano yourself at the party yesterday?”
When the cups were half empty, Marie’s eyes went round as she met Janet’s gaze.
“Yes. I’d heard she could play, but seeing it in person was astonishing. Have you ever watched her, Marie?”
Janet nodded as she asked. Her eyes looked somehow hazy, almost as if she were under the influence of something.
“There were times I saw it often. When we were children, and later I received instruction at the French court as well. I even performed at banquets now and then.”
“Is that so?”
“It was an age of extreme extravagance, so musicians were sometimes simply folded into the guest list. Because of that I suffered a great deal. There was no need to wait for anyone—they would just order me to play on the spot.”
A deep sigh slipped from Marie’s lips. Remembering the past had clearly left her chest tight. It had not been a happy stretch of years for either of us.
Camilla spoke.
“I have heard it was a glittering age.”
“It was. Because of that I had naturally begun to follow their standards… until Ji-hyuk stopped me. At the time I didn’t fully understand why.”
“And now?”
“I understand perfectly. It would be strange not to.”
A soft curve touched Marie’s mouth. Had things gone as they once would have, she would have spent her life setting the fashions of French high society. Because I had blocked that path, she had lived differently—simply enough that anyone looking on would think her frugal, and sincerely enough that they would believe she truly cared for the people.
“If I hadn’t, I figured the revolutionary soldiers would have run you through on a pike. Or taken your head on the guillotine.”
When I brought up the history that had actually happened, Marie nodded. She understood everything now.
“Leo.”
Janet set her empty cup aside with a soft click and called my name. Voice and expression alike made it clear the conversation was about to turn serious.
“Yeah. I’m listening.”
“Since heavy topics are already floating around, I thought I might share something serious of my own.”
“Go ahead.”
A heavy topic. That was entirely up to the speaker, so from the listener’s side it was hard to guess. Stories about specters, stories about our future—the possibilities stretched endlessly.
“Ji-hyuk.”
Hearing my name in that low voice made me tense for no good reason. A dry swallow clicked down my throat.
“Yeah. Tell me. What’s going on?”
“I’ll keep it simple. Let’s make babies—with the three of us.”
What?
In that instant the dry swallow I had been mid-way through lodged hard in the middle of my throat.
“Cough—hack…!”
I bent forward, coughing helplessly. It wasn’t the first or second time I’d choked on my own spit, so the awkwardness was familiar. The misery, however, was not.
I coughed for a long while before I finally got my breath back. It had hurt so much my eyes watered.
“Are you serious?”
I managed to scrape my voice into order and ask. Janet nodded.
“Yes. Both of them agreed. And of course I have as well.”
“But why…?”
“There are respectable-sounding reasons, but more than that—each of us shares a special bond with you. We were simply drawn by that bond.”
Drawn by the bond. A lovely phrase, yet the earlier words “make babies” had already shattered any sense of romance. Everything got pulled in that direction.
The respectable reasons, I supposed, were the binding force of family ties—or the desire to knot our fates more tightly so that each other’s safety would be that much more secure.
“The ‘make babies’ part makes even the good intentions sound shady.”
“We’re all people who already lived through that blushing, tender stage and left it behind. Myself included.”
That much was true. Every one of them had given birth before, then grown old and left the world in ordinary fashion.
This is actually possible?
To put it crudely: milfs who had borne their own children yet somehow still had zero experience with men? A contradiction that only worked on paper had become reality. From an outside view it was both absurd and strangely fascinating.
“Pay my feelings no mind. I once married for pure politics and still produced a child; the fondness I hold for you is more than enough.”
“It may look shameless of me to ask this… but please.”
Camilla and Marie each added a line, urging me on. I was already so flustered that my mind felt emptied out.
“Are you sure this is all right?”
I met Janet’s eyes again. From my side there was nothing to lose, yet I couldn’t easily find anything to gain either. Our bonds already felt solid enough as they stood.
Still, I understood what Janet was thinking. If any of them built a household with another man, distance would inevitably grow—physical or emotional.
“Leo.”
“Yeah.”
“Come to the bed.”
Janet dropped her voice and put steel into her gaze, as if refusal would not be tolerated.
Around the time Marie was whispering “Grow bigger, grow bigger♥” into Seo Ji-hyuk’s ear atop the bed, a small uproar broke out in a certain French household.
An enormous estate handed down through the ages. A great house that had stubbornly endured every fire of revolution and war. The rulers of Vichy—the Ystua family.
“Unnie’s getting married? What the hell is this…!”
Black hair, pink eyes. A woman whose build was the spitting image of Elodie’s flared with open fury.
Louise Ystua. The youngest of the house—temperamental and rough-edged, yet not vicious.
“My lady, please calm yourself.”
A woman with black hair tied back—Christine—spoke with perfect composure, trying to soothe her. Having served at her side since childhood, she showed not the slightest fear. She knew her mistress’s nature was, at its root, worthy of the Ystua name.
“How am I supposed to calm down?! Something this insane happens while I’m gone and nobody even calls me?!”
Unnie, the whole family—everyone!
Louise seethed for a long while, then clenched her fist.
Crunch!
The iron harmonica in her hand crumpled like paper. It had become the unfortunate sacrifice of the monstrous strength she had been born with as an Awakened.
“Haaah!”
Only after she had crushed the ruined ball even smaller did she drop onto the floor. She was still fuming, but a little of the heat had left her.
“Perhaps they held their tongues precisely because they expected a reaction this fierce from you, my lady. The Saint could hardly have failed to foresee it.”
“I know! I know, but it still stings!”
Louise pouted and knitted her brows. I liked her first. Wondering what sort of man had snatched her sister away left her head in a tangle.
“How the hell did he even reel Unnie in? She lived like she’d sworn off men completely.”
Once the heat cooled, the fundamental question spilled from Louise’s lips. Christine found it reasonable enough to nod.
“Looks, wealth, power—even men who possessed every conventionally attractive quality never moved her in the slightest.”
“Exactly! To Unnie, men weren’t even men. They were just people.”
That was why she never so much as flinched when men stripped bare. No matter how deep the wounds or how grotesque the sight, she never recoiled. A Saint. Elodie possessed a character as noble as the title she bore. Louise, as her younger sister, knew that better than anyone—perhaps even better than the parents who had given them life.
“I wonder what sort of person he is.”
“No idea. We’ve never met him. Mother and Father say they’ve never met him either. The man never even came to pay his respects, right?”
Was that normal? If you were going to marry into a family, you came and introduced yourself, didn’t you? The more she thought, the stranger it became. As her thoughts twisted tighter, Louise’s brow furrowed.
“Ugh, the more I think the more tangled it gets. Is Unnie hiding him on purpose?”
“That possibility cannot be ruled out. However, I would not dare presume to know the Saint’s mind.”
“There are Awakened who can read thoughts, right?”
“You mean the sort who read minds through contact. I have heard they exist here and there.”
From what she gathered, most belonged to the various associations. Because the ability was so useful, it was kept confidential. If it were advertised openly, the scouting offers—or the dangerous handshakes that came with a knife already pressed to the palm—would never stop.
“No, that isn’t the point right now!”
What did any of that matter!
Louise gave a short shout to clear her head.
“Unnie. Let’s finish talking about Unnie.”
“Yes. Where the Saint is, and whom she has chosen, are what matter.”
“Right. So—have you found out anything?”
“I only just arrived with you, my lady, so I know nothing yet.”
Still, she could learn soon enough. Christine gently soothed Louise, then drew her phone from her jacket pocket to make use of the contact network shared by those who served the family.
Barely a minute after Christine sent the message, people with time on their hands began pouring out every scrap of gossip as though they had been waiting for the chance.
Useful information was scarce. Most replies simply said they had no idea.
Then a rather intriguing scrap of information caught Christine’s eye. Korea. Therefore the odds that the man was Korean were high—an entirely reasonable inference.
“My lady.”
When Christine called her name, Louise—who had been sprawled on the floor—bolted upright. Even as a young lady of a great house, lying flat on the floor looked perfectly natural on her.
“What? You reeled something in? Your face says you did.”
“Some reasonably plausible information has come in. They say the likelihood she is in Korea is high.”
Korea. The country name felt oddly familiar, and that alone made it stick.
Louise fell silent a moment, then asked in a calmer tone.
“That’s the country Unnie visited last time, right? I think I heard the news.”
“Yes. There are records that she paid a visit and exchanged greetings with the leadership there.”
“So it really is the place.”
She had gone to that country, met someone, and fallen in love with someone from that country—hence this decision.
“Then Henri must be there too.”
“He is utterly devoted to protecting the Saint. It is safe to assume he is at her side.”
“Once you calm down, there are actually quite a few leads.”
A little leisure returned to Louise’s expression; the corner of her mouth twisted slyly.
“So it seems.”
“Then dig around a bit for me. Full location tracking would be rude, so even if that isn’t possible… you can at least follow the trail, right?”
“…Yes. I shall try.”
Do her best, and if it didn’t work out, so be it. Christine sighed inwardly and bowed her head.