Behind Her Sister's Back (2)
Ice. Milk. Coffee. Milk foam, chilled and waiting. A dusting of cinnamon to finish.
Lee Jiyoon fell into thought as she made the iced cappuccino Seo Woojin had ordered.
Why is that man here?
That much, of course, she knew. She was the one who had brought it up — lightly, sideways — to her sister over dinner. She hadn't said it straight out. Nothing so blunt as I want Unni's boyfriend to treat me again. She'd come at it from an angle, something like I guess there's nothing to be done about chronic headaches. Still.
Set every complication aside and keep only the conclusion: she was glad she could be treated. Once the pain that had been clamping her skull like a band pulled too tight finally let go, handling customers seemed smoother, somehow. Her games seemed to be going better, somehow. And the clarity of waking from that deep, honeyed sleep went without saying. To exaggerate a little, it felt as if some impairment down one side of her body had been briefly set right, only to snap back to what it had been.
Right. All of that was fine.
If she were to speak, just for a moment, about the complicated thing she had set aside—
"Mmm..."
Her sister's little sister. Alone with her sister's boyfriend.
...Isn't that a little much?
The cappuccino they served in a cafe had far more milk foam than I'd expected. I'd only ordered it because the instant coffee mix I'd had recently said cappuccino on the packet. If I'd known, I would have just gotten an americano, or a mocha.
A corner of the cafe. I turned the emptied plastic cup in my fingers and let my gaze drift to the counter, and there was Lee Jiyoon in profile, talking with a woman I didn't know — a part-timer, most likely. White hair, nothing like her older sister Lee Hayun's. It fell in a calm line to her shoulders, and unlike last time it was tied back, lightly. Probably because she was on shift and wanted to look tidy. I didn't actually know.
I couldn't make out the words, but warm and friendly it was not. Not a trace of a smile on her. Expressionless, Jiyoon said something; the other woman nodded and said something back; Jiyoon returned the conversation with the same blank face. When I'd stopped by their house with Lee Hayun last time, she'd been more expressive than I expected. A bit of a shame. The dumbstruck look she'd given me when we ran into each other just now had been cuter than I thought, too. She herself seemed to hate it, though, judging by how hard she worked to hold that poker face.
Well. Personally, I found it hotter if she kept it up.
I was idling on my phone, figuring a little more waiting would see the end of it, when Jiyoon let her hair down, pulled on a baggy khaki jumper, and came over. Maybe it was the small face. Maybe she was simply pretty. Either way, the pitch-black ball cap tugged low over her eyes suited her absurdly well.
"Ahem. Ahem. Mr. Woojin."
"Yes."
We were the same age. She could have dropped the formalities without anyone thinking twice, and yet Jiyoon fastened polite speech to every sentence. I smiled at her, gentle, and the expression under the cap darkened by a fraction.
...Was I not supposed to smile? I'll just remember that.
"You came because you heard about me from Unni, right?"
"That's right. She said you were hurting again."
"Ugh.... Figures...."
Jiyoon scratched the back of her neck, ill at ease, glanced around, and dropped into the chair across the table. At the same moment, the part-timer who had been sneaking looks our way behind her back grew a little more blatant about it. Quite interested in Jiyoon's private life, apparently. Especially the kind with a man in it.
"...It's not that I have doubts about you treating me. I really am grateful. But."
"Yes. Yes."
She lifted the pulled-down cap a little and lowered her voice, as if this were a secret. A calm tone, nothing like her sister's, and pleasant to listen to.
"Since yesterday it's suddenly started throbbing again. ...Not as bad as before, but enough to nag at me...?"
"Ah.... I'm sorry. I'm not a doctor, after all."
"Ah, n-no.... You don't need to apologize to me at all...."
What I'd meant was simple. Unlike a doctor, who finds a cause, works through a process, and delivers a result, I was a Healing-type Transcendent — touch someone, and the body mended itself — so perhaps there'd been a slip. Not that it mattered. Ordinary people, Jiyoon included, had no idea how a treatment actually proceeded.
"Headaches are hard to pin to a clear cause, so it seems the treatment didn't quite take."
"The cause...?"
"It might not be an illness at all. It could be habits. Environment."
"Habits.... Environment...."
I tossed out something that sounded plausible enough, and Jiyoon, fidgeting with the ends of her hair, gave a nod you could barely see.
"...Honestly, Unni is a little loud. Not exactly in the way, more... slightly irritating."
"Hayun-noona does have that side to her. You know. Like a puppy that just latches onto people?"
"I really hate that."
"Because of the headaches?"
"More than that, it's.... how do I put it. Unni means well when she does it, but I don't particularly need it. It's a hassle, and I just wish she'd stop paying attention to me...."
"I see."
"If I'm honest about it, it feels like I'm the only one who comes off as the bad person...."
"I think I roughly get it."
"It's a bit better these days, but that was especially bad in high school, you know?"
I tilted the subject a little toward Lee Hayun, and an old story burst straight out of Jiyoon's mouth, as if I'd hit a PTSD switch. Her sister had always had too many friends, and she was famous at school, so attention had spilled naturally onto a first-year Jiyoon who had only wanted to be left quiet. Responding was a hassle, so she'd ignored all of it, and just as naturally the other girls had started ignoring her. That had been comfortable. She'd liked it. Then one day her sister caught on that the younger one was being shut out, and under the banner of a special lecture on how to make friends, she had made a nuisance of herself for days.
And in among those grievances, the pieces worth filing away.
"Even then I was suffering through exam prep and the headaches, and Unni kept barging into my room.... Ugh...."
One. Lee Jiyoon found her sister's needlessly tender nature secretly tiresome. Which meant that, contrary to what I'd assumed, the two of them were not especially close. Not an I'd die without you arrangement.
Two. Complicated relationships were a hassle. Women, men — gender irrelevant. The mere fact of having to pay attention to another person was, simply, annoying.
Three.
"What's the use of having a lot of friends."
"......"
"Especially men being all sweet to a girl. The motive's obvious."
Probably. Something had been done to her by a man. If it had been something truly bad, even talking to me would have been hard, so it wasn't that far. My guess: an incident irritating enough that she didn't want to mention it. Maybe male customers had hassled her on the job. Or, since she'd said she liked games, maybe some girl-crazed buffalo had latched onto her in one. Hmm. Should I be thanking those bastards? Thanks to them, Jiyoon had stayed clean. Untouched.
"They might just be people with kindness worn into them, you know?"
"I believe human nature is evil. There's no kindness without a price."
"When I treated you last time, I don't recall receiving anything in particular."
"......Th-that is true, but...."
The old grievances paused there. The moment the talk came back around to treatment, Jiyoon, who had been grumbling with her chin in her hand, cleared her throat. Spilling a whole round of it seemed to have made her a little easier with me.
"...Anyway. Since it came up — if there's something you want from me, say so. That's easier for me, too."
"Something I want?"
"E-except weird things. Within what I can actually do."
"...Hmm."
A sister sandwich.
I couldn't say that. I let the pause sit.
Back when I'd briefly taken up "work," leaving the place I'd been living to get a room of my own, I remembered something like two hundred million won changing hands per treatment, on average. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars, more or less. The money still in my account was what I'd gathered then. With a young man's sense of things I'd named what I thought was a hefty price, but set against what the medicine would actually have cost, was that amount practically free? There had been incurable cases even money couldn't touch, of course. Well. I hadn't known what I was worth back then. Anyway, even if I hoped for a price of that size, Jiyoon was never going to hand it over.
......
Ah.
"Then, how about this?"
"What is it?"
"I don't think a full cure is realistic. We'll probably have to keep meeting like this, now and then."
"...And?"
"Each time, you be my practice partner."
"......?"
The moment the words ended, Jiyoon's sharp green eyes turned on me, blank and unblinking, carrying the question of what a practice partner was supposed to mean.
"Practice partner...?"
"You're her little sister. You'd know better than anyone what Hayun-noona likes, wouldn't you?"
"...Ah. Yes. Roughly."
"So I was hoping you might go around with me and tell me the things she'd like. Foods she likes. Places she'd enjoy. Things I could do that would make her happy. That sort of thing."
"...Mmm. So you want me to stand in for Unni."
"Something like that."
"...How long would it take?"
"Mm. Thirty minutes? You'd only need a rough read on whether Noona would like it or not."
"If it's only that, well.... Yes. I'll help. Compared to you treating me, it's not a difficult thing to ask."
Did she think a price like this was cheap, for treatment? Fortunately, Jiyoon nodded with hardly a flicker of resistance. I offered her a faint smile, picked up the empty cup, and rose.
"Shall we step outside and keep talking? Treating you in here is a bit much, after all."
"Then.... Oh, the alley right out front doesn't have many people, so if we stopped by there for a bit......"
Stopped by, and then what.
She had said it. This was not the picture she had wanted.
"Are you all right?"
"...I'm fine, so please just finish as fast as you can...."
The alley was as empty as she remembered. A few people at most, shuffling out in slippers for a cigarette, and one or two passersby simply walking through. The problem was that empty was not the same as deserted.
"......"
"......"
Past Seo Woojin's body, a man's footsteps. Step. Step. Then, close by, a wet and irritable hawk and spit, as if the sight had offended his eyes. Her fists clenched. She shook. Then she gave up, and let the strength drain out of her hands.
Honestly, there hadn't been many choices. One: go somewhere with Seo Woojin where there was truly no one. Two: go somewhere with him where there were only a few people. Three: go somewhere crowded — never a choice to begin with. So it came down to one and two. The first had the advantage of not having to mind anyone's eyes, but think about it. That meant seeking out some shadowy little place, alone, with her sister's boyfriend. At the extreme — a house. Or something. Anyway. Unless she were drunk enough to have turned into an idiot, she had no intention of going somewhere like that alone with her sister's boyfriend.
So the next thing she could choose was two. Somewhere with moderately few people. Fortunately, she was not alone with Seo Woojin. And because she was not alone, there were eyes.
"It should be over in about ten seconds."
"......"
Held awkwardly in his arms, Lee Jiyoon nodded. She hadn't been pulled in tight, of course. It was only a pretense. Instead of being stroked like lovers in an alley, she had simply chosen to hide her face in Seo Woojin's embrace so it couldn't be seen. Either way the picture was strange, but there was a difference between a face showing and a face hidden. As proof, nearly a handspan of empty air gaped between them. To anyone else's eyes, a couple's stupid little display. Between the two of them — not really. Nothing at all.
"How is it? Does your head feel a bit better now?"
"Yes, yep.... Wait, my hat...."
Treatment done, Seo Woojin spoke to her quietly. Jiyoon jerked back out of his arms and yanked the cap down low. Count everyone nearby and it was three people at most, and yet somehow it felt as if every one of them was staring at us.
"I-it's over, so let's go. Ahem. Ahem. You wanted me to tell you what Unni likes, right?"
"Yes."
"Things Unni likes.... Things Unni likes...."
She fled the alley in a flurry, reaching for anything she knew about her sister. Except — what did Unni even like? Maybe because she'd just been put through something shameful, she couldn't quite—
Ah. Right.
"Unni used to like Coin Karaoke...."
...she did. But go there, and it'd be just the two of us.
"......Unni likes tteokbokki. Spicy rice cakes."
"Tteokbokki...."
"She hasn't had any lately, so if you took her she'd probably like it.... Oh, and it has to be spicy. Always. She likes the fish cakes more than the rice cakes. It's five minutes from here, so I'll lead and show you where it is first...."
As if to bury what she had just muttered, Jiyoon blurted the rest in a rush and strode out of the alley. Calm down. There was nothing to be nervous about. Why was she even nervous? All she had to do was imitate Unni, give him a little advice as payment for the treatment, say bye-bye, and split. Being conscious of it for no reason was the stranger thing. A business relationship. A business relationship.
The deep breath finished, she spun around, and their eyes met.
"...Let's go. Woojin."
"Yes?"
"I-it's acting. Unni acting. I have to make good on the treatment I got from you, after all."
"Ah...."
"Then, again.... Let's go, Woojin."
"...Ahem. Yes, Noona."
"Don't laugh!!"
Jamming the cap down over her eyes, she set off in the lead, snow-white hair streaming behind her.