With My Sister's Boyfriend (4)
"Unni."
"Mm."
"When'd you have your first kiss?"
Pfft.
A few grains of rice shot out of Lee Hayun's mouth mid-breakfast. Jiyoon had seen it coming, so it wasn't particularly surprising—which was why she'd waited for a gap when her sister wasn't spooning stew. She peeled a clump of rice off Hayun's cheek, stuck it to the table, and went on, unruffled.
"You're not a kid. Why are you losing it over a kiss?"
"A k-kiss? What kiss... Me? With who? Woojin? No way?"
"You two are dating. Anyway. When?"
"...We haven't."
"For real?"
"......"
"Want me to text Seo Woojin and ask?"
"...W-we did...! A few days ago..."
"A few days ago, huh."
"Why are you suddenly asking that? Like you said, I'm not a kid. People can kiss..."
Hayun scrubbed at her lips for no reason at all as she asked. Jiyoon watched those faintly reddening ears, flicked a glance at the big lunchbox container by the sink, and sank into thought.
Unni was hopeless at this. Nearly twenty years of watching had settled it. An extrovert from childhood—MBTI E, no question—so she had friends in every direction, and that was all. She'd spectated other people's love lives. Actually dating a man was, this time, a first. Hayun herself had never particularly wanted to casually see anyone in the first place. Busy as she was with part-time shifts, the odds she'd dated someone in secret behind Jiyoon's back? Not a chance.
Well. That much, she could grant. More men liked a girl who flailed around with no experience than a woman who was smooth at everything. ...Probably.
But Seo Woojin wasn't as slick as Jiyoon had expected, and that was the worry. He couldn't—what was the word. He couldn't grab the leash and yank. Right. He couldn't take the lead. Asking her, the little sister, what Unni liked, instead of asking the woman herself. And yesterday at the karaoke room, when she'd only climbed onto his thigh for a second, he'd gone stiff. Yeah. He had that in him.
At this rate the two of them would just waver, flaunt the whole thing at everyone nearby, and let any real progress crawl like a turtle. She'd shoved Woojin forward yesterday. Shouldn't she do something for Unni, too? So that on some secluded night, even if he pounced the way she'd told him to, Unni could go kyaa~ and meekly let it happen...
"Hmm."
All of the above was the firm assertion of a Lee Jiyoon whose knowledge had grown decidedly biased, thanks to the romance novel she had coincidentally read after her game with Woojin ended last night.
The tip of her chopsticks swung toward Lee Hayun's face.
"So the sex. What, a love motel when you hit a hundred days? Or the one-year anniversary?"
Pfft.
This time it was spit, not rice, that sprayed out and speckled the table. Her precious spam mayo took a little damage, but Jiyoon pressed on, doing her best not to care.
"Plenty of people have sex first and start dating after, these days. Waiting that long feels a bit late, don't you think?"
"......"
"That Woojin kid is twenty. Fresh out of a school uniform, packed to the brim with sex drive. You think one kiss is gonna take care of that?"
"I-I'll handle it... You've never even dated anyone either..."
Hayun wiped her mouth again, eyes squeezed shut, and answered while nomming on stir-fried fish cake. She seemed to be chewing with a certain irritability.
It was early, so Jiyoon let out a light yawn and poked at the side dishes with her chopsticks.
"I've gotten pretty close to him, playing games lately. I could ask for you."
"A-ask what?"
"His type."
"......"
"You know. That stuff. A maid fetish. Uniforms. Swimsuits."
"...O-oh. That kind of type."
"Porn's full of cosplay like that. Tons of otaku-character stuff, too."
"Enough. ...I said I'll handle it."
Handle it. Sure. If she were going to handle it, she'd have lost her virginity ages ago.
For a moment Jiyoon watched her sister's eyes dart this way and that, for no reason she could name. Then she ladled piping-hot soybean paste stew over her rice, mixed it in rough strokes with a fried egg, and ate. Getting up to get ready for her shift, she quietly asked her sister, who was still flushed, still picking at the meal.
"Then should I just drop a hint to Woojin?"
"About what?"
"Was it your second year of high school? That time I caught you watching rape-play porn..."
Clang. Clang.
The chopsticks and spoon hurled at Jiyoon bounced off the wall and rolled across the floor. A bowl would have shattered, so she apparently couldn't bring herself to throw one.
"Lee Jiyoon, you crazy bitch!!"
Under that roar, she ducked into the bathroom, humming a little tune as she picked up her toothbrush. Not once, all the way to the end, had Hayun said it wasn't true. So the preference was still alive and well.
"......"
A little better now. This restless, unsettled feeling—paying it back like this was enough.
Under the bright sound of brushing, a quiet sigh slipped away beneath the sink, gurgling as it went.
Inside the bustling cafe, in the middle of a short breather, Lee Jiyoon fiddled with her phone. She was staring at the texts from Seo Woojin, turning them over.
Late February. Not even a week left before the term began. She meant to keep the cafe job only until then, and no longer. The worry was this: the infirmary would never be this empty again. Before the students came flooding in, shouldn't something a little indecent happen in there? A chance to make a special memory other people couldn't easily come by. Once this winter break ended, they'd have to wait until summer, wouldn't they?
She'd ended up, in her own way, cast as Cupid between Woojin and Unni, and it seemed a waste to let a chance like this slip past.
Therefore.
Without particularly thinking about it, she sent this.
A ribbon of sweet vanilla latte curled over her tongue.
Well, sure. If you were hurt, or someone in your family was hurt badly, a single touch from a Healing Type Transcendent settled just about anything.
A shame. So infirmary sex was off the table. As for what to try next...
Oh, right. Lock this down first.
Hearing it laid out like that, maybe he'd decided this one really didn't work. The reply was taking its time. A customer had just come in, anyway, so she made the drink and kept an eye on her phone.
She looked at Woojin's docile reply and smiled, faintly.
"...Hmm."
At the same time, another thought grazed the edge of her mind. The guy wasn't very much of a man. The type Unni liked would pin a woman's head down hard into the pillow, haul nothing but her hips into the air, and pound into her to the root, slap after heavy slap. A beast of a man. Face and body, he'd scraped a pass. As for whatever was inside his pants, unknown. What remained was the personality. And for acting out the porn Unni watched—wasn't he a little too nice?
The replies stopped again. Probably typing one answer, deleting it, typing another. She sipped at the vanilla latte she'd made herself and watched the screen, and then a single line dropped in.
Yeah. Figured.
I'll handle it, he says. The same words as Unni. Watching that, they almost seemed made for each other. And watching both of them want sex on the inside while hesitating on the outside was suffocating, too.
Jiyoon snorted before she could stop herself, lifted the phone in both hands, and started hammering the screen.
Do some work? And how hard had she just been working?
Jiyoon set the empty cup in the sink and sent a text.
"......"
More precisely, she had been about to. Right up until she read the text from Woojin that arrived a moment late.
"......"
Practice? He wanted help? What kind of practice?
......
...Ah. That practice?
She'd already given him a hands-on demonstration at the karaoke room yesterday. That ought to be enough. There was no need to do any more than that...
"......"
...Right. It's not like it's cheating. I'm just teaching Unni what to do, aren't I? Dating advice, if you break it down. Nothing but instructions. Do it like this. Woojin was dating her sister, so that had to be the spirit he'd sent it in. It wasn't anything strange. The strange one was her, getting self-conscious for no reason.
And like that, thirty seconds evaporated off her like cold sweat.
Hunched small behind the counter, Lee Jiyoon slowly tapped the screen.