With My Sister's Boyfriend
"Come to think of it, you and Jiyoon have been gaming together every night lately, haven't you?"
A few days later, in the middle of what had quietly turned into a daily ritual—lunch with Lee Hayun and her packed bento—she tossed the question over while flicking her chopsticks, a piece of broccoli still in her mouth.
"Yes."
"You said you didn't like games. That's a surprise."
I didn't. I still couldn't see the point of a game that amounted to clicking on a character's head. But Lee Jiyoon liked that sort of thing, so what was I supposed to do? If it meant stacking up a few more points of contact with her, a petty little annoyance was easy enough to swallow. Lately, besides, watching that guy CZ throw a fit had been entertaining enough to make it bearable.
Every time Jiyoon and I so much as talked, he wedged himself in under the excuse of a briefing, and it was so fucking obvious. Was he really that desperate for her attention over nothing but a voice? If so, he'd be better off looking for a woman in the real world instead of one who only existed inside a game.
Anyway. Thanks to you I'm taking first at least once a day, so I ought to send a gift, shouldn't I. The thing you love most. Lee Jiyoon's voice. Something like that. With my voice laid right over the top.
...Would you hate that?
Who knows. Couldn't say. Filter it out yourself and spend the whole day jerking off to it. Be my guest.
"I only played once in a while. Jiyoon's the one who keeps dragging me in to play every day."
"Haa... that girl really needs to cut back on games... Oh, right. You two dropped the formal speech, didn't you?"
"She said since we'd be seeing each other at the academy soon anyway, we might as well start speaking casually."
"Yesterday, when I was heading to the bathroom, I heard 'Woojin' through the door. At first I thought I'd misheard."
"She's not the type to do that."
Lee Hayun muttered it while popping cherry tomatoes like a squirrel. I hadn't particularly meant to hide it, so I wasn't flustered. Two people the same age dropping honorifics wasn't suspicious. All it left me with was a idle little note to myself: so Lee Jiyoon hadn't even told her sister the trivial things.
"She's still awkward about it, though. She keeps tacking honorifics on at the end."
"Still, it is kind of fascinating. Maybe because I've never heard Jiyoon say a boy's name before?"
Then if she wouldn't even bring up the trivial things, could she ever tell her sister the important ones?
I let the pleasant little fantasy run on as I wet my throat from a water bottle. Only for a moment.
"Here. Aaah~"
The crisp smell of a croquette, right against my lips, dragged me back to the real world.
"I can eat it myself."
"That's not the point."
"Then what is?"
"Education."
"Education?"
"Mhm."
"......"
"Hurry up. Aaah~"
Still beaming, Lee Hayun pressed the croquette firmly into my lips. Ask her what kind of education she meant and she'd obviously flail through some nonsense excuse, but the reason was plain enough. She kept losing the lead in bed, so for once she wanted to take charge properly, the way a real noona should. She'd have an easier time if she just gave up and let herself fall apart.
"Good boy. Eating so well."
I looked at her steadily, then dipped my head without a word and crunched through the croquette. She stroked my hair, careful, almost cautious. Maybe it was the slight difference in our heights, but the picture was ridiculous. Rather than her stretching an arm all the way up to pet me like that...
Like this.
"...Hey, don't...!"
"You're doing it too, Noona. Why can't I?"
A hand resting lightly on her head from above was far more natural, wasn't it? I swallowed the croquette with a gulp and let out a short laugh, and Lee Hayun's brow pinched.
"I'm the noona! You're the, um..."
"What's that supposed to mean? I'm the teacher and you're the student—did you get those mixed up?"
"Ugh..."
"Is it embarrassing, getting petted by someone younger?"
"Wouldn't you be embarrassed if it were you...?!"
"Hard to say. I've never been with anyone younger."
"...So you've only ever been with noonas. You perv..."
"It's not like that... Anyway, you like it better when I do this during sex, so why the fuss?"
"Wh-wh-what..."
"Am I wrong?"
"......"
"I asked if I was wrong."
I said it teasingly, and those deep green eyes—identical to Lee Jiyoon's—trembled. For a moment I considered whether we ought to just spend a pleasant twenty minutes like this.
"No! I'm not! That is absolutely not it...!"
"Ugh..."
The chopsticks in her fist jabbed at my chest. Not once or twice—poke, poke, poke, poke, poke. It didn't stop. It hurt more than I'd expected.
"I'm accommodating you in my own way, you know?! I'm not even particularly interested in that stuff, I just thought you liked it, so...!"
"Ah. Right."
"Even yesterday, when you made me brace my hands on the wall and pounded me from behind until my legs gave out, and the day before, when we had sex on the new infirmary bed with my hips up in that embarrassing position, and when you ordered me to move my own hips and I buried my face in the pillow and swallowed you all the way to the root, and even when you kept rudely calling my name without a shred of respect and I didn't get angry—that wasn't because I wanted to! I did it because I thought you liked that sort of thing...!"
"Right."
"I, um, rather than being treated like a little sister, as a noona, that mature..."
"Noona."
"......?"
"There isn't much lunch left. Should I lock the door?"
"......"
"Ah, I'll clear the bento away. Just lock the door and come back. So no one interrupts."
"......"
"...You don't want to?"
"......"
Click.
Several hours before the infirmary filled with that loud, rhythmic creak, creak—it was opening time at the cafe.
"Sales have picked up a little lately, haven't they? Just a bit?"
"...Ah. Now that you mention it, maybe they have."
Handed a share of the owner's happy little problem, Lee Jiyoon paused her work in the stockroom and listened.
"Why, though? We didn't change the interior. We didn't change the part-timers... It's not like customers are coming to see my face..."
"Hmm..."
It was true that there'd been more people than usual lately. Not a conclusion drawn from any real numbers—just a feeling. Customers lingering in the shop, and the takeout crowd too, had been growing for days. Regulars she only ever saw in the morning had started dropping by at lunch as well.
What was it? YouTube, or some drama—was coffee trending somewhere? Or was work so brutal that people couldn't hold together unless they slammed themselves full of caffeine...?
"Opening and midday especially. Must be because you're pretty, Jiyoon."
"No. It's because you're the pretty one, Boss."
Flustered, she blurted out a line fit for surviving a workplace and immediately tugged her mask up tighter.
Because I'm pretty? No way. I started this job over winter break in my last year of high school, and it's been nearly two months. Sales going up only now, and it's because of me? That's ridiculous.
She was counting the milk left in the shop when the owner's fingertip poked her cheek.
"You can't just say things like that. Pretty girls especially need to watch their mouths."
"Huh?"
"Unless it's ugly girls being cringey at each other, it just kills your self-esteem. You start thinking, 'Is this bitch trying to one-up me?'"
"...Ah, no. That's not what I meant... You really are pretty, though..."
"Stop. I'm not."
"...Okay."
"Anyway, even if that were true, I'm only here for a bit at opening."
"Even so. You're here until lunch."
"Come on, nobody's coming in to look at some thirty-something ajumma's face. So it's probably... Ah. Maybe it's because your expressions have gotten a little more varied lately, Jiyoon."
"My expressions?"
Lee Jiyoon tilted her head.
"Yeah. You always took orders with a face like you'd just bitten into shit. You're pretty, so I didn't say anything."
"......"
"What? You didn't know? That you're expressionless all the time?"
"...No. I've known that forever..."
"You've been smiling a bit lately. You didn't even notice?"
"...No."
Had I smiled? I didn't remember that. Just like usual...
......
Uh. Well. I wasn't sure, but thinking about gaming with Woojin in the evening, maybe I'd grinned a little...
"Ohhh..."
"......?"
The owner had suddenly broken into a sly, knowing smile.
"Did you get a boyfriend?"
"No."
Lee Jiyoon shut the question down at once and hardened her expression.
If she had to pin a label on him, he was a guy friend. At most. Stated accurately, he was her sister's boyfriend. Guy friend, or her sister's boyfriend—drop a few letters from either and you were left with the same word. She couldn't let that happen by accident. ...Because then it really would be something awful.
"Then why did your face suddenly get brighter?"
"......"
"In my experience, it's always a man."
"......"
Tossed out without much thought, the remark landed clean, right where she had no guard up. The truth was, she had a pretty good idea why she'd brightened, so she stayed quiet.
"Win the lottery or something?"
"Th-there's no way."
She shot the playfully prying owner a small glare and moved off to finish opening.
Right. A little short on milk and green tea. The cardboard trash needed taking out. Expiration dates, too. And... and also...
"......"
Did I really smile? While thinking about Seo Woojin? While thinking about... my sister's boyfriend? Was I grinning away like an idiot while I worked? Really?
"......"
...F-fine. So I smiled. So what. He's my sister's boyfriend, but he's my friend, too. And my commendable little student, at the same time. I'm allowed to smile because I like gaming with a friend. I'm allowed to smile watching Seo Woojin get a little better, bit by bit. What's weird about smiling because a friend's skills are improving? Isn't that obvious? It only keeps turning weird because I insist on thinking of him as my sister's boyfriend.
I smiled because gaming with my sister's boyfriend felt good.
No.
I smiled because gaming with my friend felt good. That's the end of it. Don't go swapping the words around for no reason. This is the right one.
Why did she have to go and ask if I'd gotten a boyfriend... He's just a friend I made recently...
Having closed out the argument she was having with herself, Lee Jiyoon leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
Damn it... Is my head like this because I got worked up over nothing...
"...Haa..."
I should ask Seo Woojin. If he's free today.
...Ah. As for Unni...
......
Forget it. Telling her would only make it obvious I was thinking about it too much.