One More Time and You're Getting a Spanking
The two shameless brothers knelt right in front of me.
I yelled at Jia and Jihu to go put some clothes on this instant.
"What the hell is wrong with your sense of decency?!"
Once the two of them came back in ordinary pajamas and a spotted-puppy onesie, I spent a solid thirty minutes chewing them out.
"Hic… huuuh…"
"I told you we were gonna get in trouble…"
Jihu was bawling so hard his pajamas were soaked through with tears and snot. Jia scolded him under his breath.
Oh, is that how it is?
Jihu was a problem, sure—but from where I stood, Jia was the bigger one.
"Lee Jia! You're even worse!"
"Me? M-me…?"
"Jihu's still a kid! What's your excuse?! Do grown boys just walk into a grown girl's bathroom while she's washing up?!"
"No… Jihu was the one who wanted to…"
"Don't talk back!"
Excuses. Again.
"You're the older brother! When your little brother gets a stupid idea, you're supposed to tell him no, that it's wrong! Right? Or am I wrong?"
"You're right, but…"
"Enough! No dinner for either of you tonight!"
"But I'm the one who cooks…"
Ah. Right.
You do, don't you?
I'd completely forgotten—back in the other world, I'd always been the one making the meals.
"Then just Jihu's banned from dinner."
"Noonaaa…"
"Tsk!"
"Eek…"
The moment I sucked in a sharp, warning breath, Jihu clamped both hands over his mouth and started trembling.
That ought to do it.
If I'd been my usual self, I would have smashed every piece of furniture in this house—but these two had the same kind of temperament as girls, so I decided to leave it there. At least, unlike that hero bastard who'd been peeping while I was bathing at the hot springs, these two hadn't had any dirty ulterior motives.
"Both of you, get up. If either of you ever does something like this again, I swear I'll…"
Hmm… what was I supposed to say?
I was stuck.
What did you even threaten people with?
Kill them?
No, that was way too far.
Hit them?
That felt a little too violent.
Spanking?
That sounded kind of babyish…
None of the options felt quite right. Of the three, though, spanking seemed like the least bad choice. It didn't cross any lines, and it wasn't outright violence.
"One more time and you're getting a spanking!"
"A s-spanking?"
"W-where?"
Both of them asked where, exactly, they were going to get hit.
Why would you even ask that.
You people.
If I had to say…
"Uh… the butt?"
"Wh-what did you just say, you pervert?!"
Thud!
Jia shot to his feet and shoved me hard, face flaming scarlet, then fled straight into his own room.
I just stood there, brain short-circuiting.
Oh, for fuck's sake. Then what the hell was I supposed to say?
I'd already gone with spanking, and a spanking usually meant a spanking on the butt. Was I supposed to go with a belly slap? A double cheek slap?
They asked me to specify and then got mad about it.
"A butt-spanking from Noona…"
Unlike Jia, who'd stormed off in a huff, Jihu was still on his knees, murmuring to himself like he was under some kind of spell.
"N-Noona…"
"…"
Jihu suddenly twisted his legs together and asked,
"A-are you gonna scold me a lot?"
"…"
At Jihu's question about whether he was going to get scolded hard—
Throb.
My head started pounding like never before.
Unlike Jia, who'd at least had some sense of shame left, Jihu's face was pure, undiluted anticipation.
"…"
Without a word, I quietly walked into the room I figured was the one I'd woken up in that morning.
The second I was inside, I threw myself onto the bed and didn't get up again until the sun was going down.
The sun's finally setting. Feels like a ton of stuff already happened today…
Surprisingly, the sun was only just going down. Plenty had happened after school, and yet only about three hours had passed—the clock was just now pointing to six.
Grrrrrrrrumble…
Right on schedule, my body clock chimed in.
I'm hungry…
Whether it was because of that last line or pure sulking, Jia hadn't called me down for dinner. I couldn't hear any cooking sounds either.
Tch…
I was starving.
"Yeah. I'm not the kind of person who freeloads off someone else's cooking."
I pushed myself up from the bed.
I had zero intention of eating food from someone who got so pissy over one little comment that they refused to cook. Every man for himself. Survival of the fittest.
Did they think I couldn't cook?
I'd just duck out, whip up something for myself real quick, and bring it back in.
Fried egg wrapped in seaweed. That'll do.
Menu decided, I got up and started walking slowly toward the door.
Knock knock!
As if on cue, the second I reached it, someone knocked.
"Noona…"
From the other side came Jihu's voice, the fight completely gone out of it.
A full-body shiver ran through me the moment I heard him through the door.
Goddammit… now I'm thinking about what I saw earlier.
Innocent one second, sultry the next. The two of them with nothing but a towel each. Upper bodies flat and pressed tight with no curves at all—and below that, something jutting out far too impressively. The image flashed through my head all over again.
They should've just been fully naked. Then I could've processed it like running into a buddy at the neighborhood bathhouse.
If they'd done that, it wouldn't have hit me so hard. But watching male bodies do feminine things twisted my guts with pure revulsion. If they'd walked in completely bare going, "Ahh… so warm," I wouldn't have taken any damage at all.
"Noona…?"
When I didn't answer, Jihu called for me again. Something about that voice—like an abandoned puppy pitifully searching for its owner—made me scratch my head.
Ah, hell… it's not the bathroom. Opening the door should be fine.
Thanks to them, I now had a nightmare experience burned into my memory for life. The scene from earlier made me not want to open up—but that young, trembling voice calling for me was something I had no resistance to. I couldn't just shut him out.
Wait. Am I actually soft on Jihu specifically? Probably just imagining it.
I'd only met the kid today, and yet he already felt like a little brother I'd known for years. Clingy enough that even having him stuck to my arm didn't feel all that gross. This world was brand new to me, so that couldn't be it—probably just Jihu's natural charisma doing the work.
How to put it.
Harmless, maybe?
And—this was weird to say out loud—but he had this strange, countryside-mutt kind of friendliness. The kind of vibe that said if you got close, he'd flip onto his back and pant at you. Even when he messed up, I couldn't bring myself to hate him outright.
Creeeak…
I carefully opened the door.
Clothes… he's dressed properly.
Thankfully, Jihu was wearing normal clothes. Not the spotted-puppy pajamas from when he'd been getting scolded. Then again, he'd cried hard enough to soak them through, so that made sense.
"Um…"
He started to speak, then for some reason buried his face in the dog plushie he was carrying.
Up top he had on a white hoodie with a giant dog-paw print stamped across the chest; down below, shorts that were only a little longer than boxer briefs.
Aren't those basically underwear?
The shorts were short enough to bother me, but otherwise he looked pretty normal.
A moment later, Jihu lifted his head from the plushie.
What the hell is that around his neck?
Scratch the "normal" part.
With the plushie out of the way, something I never could have imagined was fastened around Jihu's throat.
A choker.
And not just any choker—a black one cinched so tight it looked ready to choke him.
I should say something… no, never mind…
I wanted to ask why a kid who wasn't some street punk—or an actual dog, for that matter—was wearing a choker. But what did I know about this world that gave me the right to criticize?
Criticize.
After today, it was clear everything here was completely different. Shockingly different—I'd even seen a male student fixing his makeup right in front of the teacher at school. Even for a reverse-world guy, that was rude enough to earn an earful and a loving nick-kick. But the teacher had just smiled like it was business as usual and told him to do it during break.
If I'd been the teacher, I would've grabbed him by the head and slammed it into the desk on the spot.
This place was so far from the world I knew that I couldn't even call out shorts the length of underwear or a choker around the neck. For all I knew, the two of them walking into the bathroom earlier wasn't even weird by this world's standards.
"What is it?"
"Um… um…"
Jihu swallowed hard, then held out the plushie he'd been carrying.
"H-here!"
"…?"
What?
Why was he giving me a plushie?
When I just stood there without taking it, Jihu shoved it against my stomach.
"I-I was wrong earlier. While I was filling the tub it felt so nice and warm that I wanted to wash together, so Jihu talked Hyung into it. So please forgive Hyung!"
"…"
"Th-this is Jihu's favorite plushie, but I'll give it to Noona, so… okay?"
Push.
Watching my face carefully, Jihu shoved the plushie into me one more time.
"Why are you giving this to me."
"M-Mom said when you apologize, you give the other person the most important thing you have. So…"
"…Who said that."
"Mom told me. She said if you do something wrong, you have to pay the price. This is the last plushie Mom ever bought for Jihu, but I'll give it to Noona. So please forgive Hyung…"
"…"
"And if possible… please don't hate Jihu either…"
Jihu's voice trailed off at the end.
He was offering up his most treasured plushie to beg for forgiveness—not for himself, but for his older brother…
I'd never seen anything like this before. I had no idea what this feeling even was.
Somehow it felt like I was the one in the wrong?
It was just… something.
Push.
I pushed the plushie right back into Jihu's arms.
"Uuu…"
He looked like he might start crying. I let out a short laugh.
"I forgive you. Both of you—Jia and you."
"Ahh…!"
"You don't have to give me the plushie. I'll take the thought."
There hadn't really been anything to forgive in the first place. They hadn't been harboring dirty thoughts, and even if the end result had been an assault on my eyes, they'd done it for my sake. Getting mad about that would've been the weird part.
Looking at Jihu's pure, brother-protecting sincerity, I was genuinely moved—
"Th-then…"
"Hm?"
"The spanking… is the spanking still okay…?"
Looking embarrassed, Jihu hugged the plushie tight and rubbed his thighs together.
"Even if it hurts, Jihu can hold the plushie and tough it out…"
"…"
"Jihu'll take Hyung's share of the spanking too… you can hit bare skin if you want…"
"Get out."
"Huh?"
Jihu made a completely blank face. I pointed at the open door and said it again.
"I said get out."
"B-but why? Jihu wants to take the punish—"
"Oh, really? You actually want to be punished?"
"E-eek?!"
I pulled one of the table legs I'd smashed earlier out from beside the bed. The grip on those things had been so nice I'd kept a few instead of throwing them away.
"You said you wanted to be punished, right?"
"W-with your hand is fi—"
"Nope, nope. You said you'd take Jia's share too. Then you're getting it with this. Hands on the wall."
"Hic—hiiik…!"
Jihu hiccuped and started shaking like a leaf. Watching his legs tremble like aspen branches, I asked,
"You leaving? Or are you bending over."
"I-I'll leave…"
"Three, two."
Scramble!
Before I even got to one, Jihu bolted out of the room with a face gone deathly pale.
And that was how I successfully kicked out a Jihu who'd been harboring… ulterior motives(?).