What Do You Two Think You're Doing?!
What do you two think you're doing?!
Scritch. Scritch.
"...Uuu, Mom's been stolen from me."
Arang wasn't crying like before, but her face was twisted on the verge of tears.
"Stolen? Sihyeon's been mine since long ago."
"What did you... do to Mom?!"
"Fufu, I've crossed a stairway of adulthood that a little girl like you couldn't possibly know about?"
"...Th-that's a lie!!"
...How on earth did things end up like this?
I was in the kitchen, cooking.
"Sihyeon, want some help?"
"No, Mom! I'll help you!"
I handled the cooking while the two of them kept bickering behind my back.
BANG!
I deliberately brought the kitchen knife down hard against the cutting board.
"You can just sit there and do nothing, so stop fighting...?"
Granted, it was all sound and fury — to an S-rank hunter and a Transcendent, it wouldn't even register as a threat.
"...Yeees."
"Haha, sorry..."
...Or so it seemed. Not exactly.
Tap. Tap.
I sliced the vegetables and dropped the chicken I'd prepped earlier into the pot.
Blub. Blub.
The water came to a boil, and I added ingredients one by one into the bubbling pot.
"Mom, I... I'll carry that for you...!"
"...Alright. Be careful, don't hurt yourself."
I prepped the rest of the ingredients as well.
Since I hadn't left the house, I hadn't done the shopping myself, but delivery services were so convenient these days that the kitchen was well stocked.
Grilling meat, simmering soup, braising the chicken in sauce.
"Can this go in here?"
"N-no, not there!"
"Oops... haha, my bad."
"Just go sit down..."
At one point Hayeon nearly ruined the dakdoritang by sneaking vinegar into it, but I managed to salvage it somehow.
"It's been a while since I cooked this much."
"Hmph, Mom didn't make all this for you, you know? I'm going to eat every last bit of it!"
"...Didn't I tell you to stop fighting?"
Those two, growling at each other every chance they got, were wearing me down.
I set the finished dishes out on the table.
Dakdoritang, braised short ribs, doenjang stew, blanched octopus...
"I'll carry this one!"
"Thank you."
"Hehe."
Along with side dishes like kimchi and braised soybeans, and a pot of rice...
"Hm...? Then shall I carry Sihyeon?"
"Ghh, d-don't touch her however you like..."
"Mom! Tell her no properly!"
Some of the dishes were too heavy for me to manage alone, but this house happened to have two women stronger than me.
"...It's been so long."
"A home-cooked meal... after all this time!"
...It looks a little sparse, though. Was there something else I could've made?
The tiny empty space on the table bothered me.
I wanted to fill it with something like meatball jeon or zucchini fritters, but...
Dinner time's already here. A shame — I'll have to make those next time.
Regretting that I couldn't add more, I took my seat.
And then...
"...Why are you both in the seats next to me?"
The table was designed for seating on three sides, yet these two were glued right up against me.
"A daughter should sit with her mom!"
"And I want to eat my meal right beside Sihyeon, that's all."
...Sandwiched between them like this, I couldn't even lift a spoon.
"Won't you two please take your own seats?"
I asked them, as politely as I could manage.
"B-but it's been so long since I've seen Mom, and I want to feed her..."
"Feeding someone is a job for a couple, isn't it? Which is why I should be the one sitting next to her."
But apparently neither of them had any intention of listening to me.
"I'm... really getting angry now...? Go to the empty seats. Now."
The chairs had open space at the small of the back.
Through those gaps, my tail lashed back and forth, rough and agitated.
"...Hiiing."
"Fufu, then I'll—"
"You too. Go sit down."
"...Tch."
Hayeon clicked her tongue as if she weren't happy about it either, but she complied without fuss.
"Alright, let's eat."
"Thank you for the meal!"
"...Looks delicious."
For the first time in a long while, all three of us sat around the same table.
...Maybe it's time I met the others too.
...There was no going back now anyway, so I might as well get used to this body.
Who knows what the kids will say...
I had missed this kind of warmth, once in a while.
The noisy, lively atmosphere — everyone laughing and chattering over each other.
"Let go of that! I was going to eat it!"
"I picked it up first, didn't I? Only my chopsticks have touched it."
"Grr! Stop using your Taoist arts!"
...Just not this kind of noisy.
"Haah, I'm stuffed..."
"Eating together after so long... it really was good."
The plates had been scraped perfectly clean.
It had been quite a spread, but we finished every last bit of it.
Of course, Arang alone had put away more than eighty percent of the food.
"Mom, you rest! We'll clean up!"
"I'm fine — let's clean up together."
"Aww, you worked hard cooking! We'll have it done in a flash!"
Thanks to Arang's thoughtfulness, I got to sit on the couch and rest for a bit.
...Come to think of it, there was something I needed to talk to Arang about.
One of the articles I'd seen before Hayeon arrived...
"What are you doing?"
"...Y-you startled me!"
While I was lost in thought, Hayeon had settled down beside me without my noticing.
"Hey! You! At Mom again...!"
"Hm? No idea what you're talking about. I'm just cleaning up."
"Grr! Sneakily using your clone technique?!"
Hayeon's clone was clearing the table, not a flicker of expression on its face.
Come to think of it, it had been quite a while since I'd seen her wear a look that blank.
"Why are you staring at me so hard?"
"Oh... it's just... it's been so long since I've seen you make that kind of face, it's strange to look at."
"Mmm...?"
Hayeon brushed my chin lightly with her index finger.
"So... you were looking at me, then?"
"...Huh? I... guess I was?"
Her finger traced softly along my chin.
Not scratching with the nail itself, but along the boundary where nail met finger — that curious spot, both soft and hard at once, brushed against my chin ever so gently.
"Hmm... should I be jealous that you're staring at my clone instead of me? Or should I call it adorable that you're looking at me?"
"S-stop that, this feels weird..."
Somehow, her behavior was different from usual.
Three months ago, the hugging, the risqué jokes, the way she clung to me relentlessly — all of it had been nothing more than play.
With her beaming, teasing smile, there had never been any hint of lust behind it.
...But this.
Her words were no longer light banter — they were a sticky, coiling seduction.
"Stop it... this feels strange..."
"Nope, I'm planning to do more. You... like it too, don't you?"
The hand reaching toward me was no longer a tool for startling me.
It was a tether — something meant to toy with my feelings and pull me across a line I should never have crossed.
"...It's — it's not that I feel bad, but."
And yet, all of it happened only with my silent, unspoken consent.
I didn't push her seduction away.
I didn't refuse her touch.
This strange feeling tickling a corner of my heart — it actually craved her hands.
"Mnnh..."
Before I knew it, a faint moan slipped out of me.
"...What do you two think you're doing!"
"...!"
At the voice ringing out from behind us, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
I whipped my head around to find Arang standing there, cheeks puffed out to their fullest.
"A-Arang? That, uh..."
"Mom, I told you to say no properly!!"
...I had nothing to say for myself.
"And you! Stop making moves on Mom!"
"Moves? I'm just giving Sihyeon exactly what she wants, that's all."
Arang stared at my flushed red face.
Looking somehow indignant, she scrunched up her brow.
"Uuu... no matter how much you try to seduce Mom, I'm never going to allow it!"
Arang wedged herself between me and Hayeon and sat down.
Even though Hayeon and I weren't sitting all that close, Arang forcibly pried the space between us open.
Whump.
And then she pulled me straight into her arms.
"Hmph! I'm never giving her up!"
"...A-Arang?"
Just like when she was little, Arang hugged me tight.
"Hmm...?"
"I... can't breathe..."
Granted, Arang was always hugging me, so she never squeezed hard enough to actually hurt...
My face is buried, I can't—
Arang's fully grown chest showed no mercy for how frail my body was.
"...Oh! Sorry!"
"No... it's fine."
Back when Arang was little, she'd once hugged me so hard she cracked half a rib.
...Damn this weak body.
If I were still human, I'd have died hundreds of times over by now.
"A-anyway... no more making moves on Mom! It's forbidden!"
Arang's declaration of the impregnable wall.
The way she sat there so proudly with her arms crossed was, honestly, pretty cute.
Just like when she was small...
Whenever Hayeon came over to visit, Arang always used to wedge herself into the seat between us.
She wouldn't even give me and Hayeon time alone together.
Come to think of it... I'd always assumed it was just cute childhood jealousy, but did Arang already know all along?
Thinking back, she'd never cared about me being alone with any of the other women on the team.
Hayeon had been the only one she ever interfered with.
Even though I never noticed, Arang may well have already known that Hayeon was in love with me.
Pat, pat.
Maybe it was the memory of that tiny little girl surfacing, but before I realized it, I was stroking Arang's head.
"...M-Mom?"
Arang, still pouting in the middle, seemed flustered by my gesture.
...Now that I thought about it, Arang was already an adult.
Twenty-one was still young, sure, but it was an age recognized as adulthood.
However much I'd raised her, casually petting her head like this was probably rude.
"Oh, sorry. You're an adult now, so this kind of thing—"
"No, it's fine! Please, keep going!"
...Hm. Apparently she was still a kid after all.
"...Hmmm?"
"Hm? Heehee, you never get to have this, do you?"
"Don't start fighting for no reason."
"Nooo promi~ses!"
While stroking Arang's head, I tilted my face slightly to the side to check on Hayeon.
...She's not about to start another fight, is she?
Hayeon was still smiling.
Thankfully, she didn't seem angry.
Though the fact that she was smiling with some strange look in her eyes did leave me a little uneasy...
"...Hehehe."
Baaa-ba-ra-ra-ba-bam~
Just as I kept petting her head, a loud ringtone burst out from Hayeon's phone — an enormous, booming singing voice.
Arang glanced at the screen, and her complexion changed in an instant.
The face that had been beaming like a happy little puppy morphed, in the blink of an eye, into pure terror.
"Who is it?"
"...Ah, th-that's... it's Yeongwol."
Yeongwol... Arang's childhood friend of many years.
We used to see her often when Yeongwol was little, and even after she'd grown quite a bit, she still came by the house with Arang from time to time.
I'd heard she was serving as vice guildmaster of Arang's guild now.
And yet, for some reason, Arang wasn't picking up.
"Why aren't you answering?"
"Uuuh... yeees..."
Arang opened her mouth as if to explain something, then hung her head low and reluctantly answered the call.
"Hel—"
- YOU PSYCHO BITCH!!!
...A thunderous roar of profanity exploded through the receiver and flooded the entire living room.
Never once in my life had I heard Yeongwol unleash a curse with such colossal vocal power.