18. Behind Each Other's Backs

I was rather fond of the rain.

More precisely, it wasn't the damp or the muggy cling of rainwater I liked, but the rain itself. Nothing grand lay behind it. Back when I was still eating cafeteria lunches, staring out the window instead of calculating spatial vectors, the rain had simply been a great help.

You know how it is. Better to count the streaks of a dreary drizzle than to sit there blankly watching a sky so blue it was boring, wasn't it? Not that my head ever held anything but thoughts like which hero would get me hardest if I grabbed her by the hair and raped her in a back alley on a rainy day. Still, having something to fix your eyes on is a good thing.

...Or so I thought.

I was deep in the throes of adolescence then. Pride and swagger were swimming through my veins, so what can you do. In any case, that was the full measure of my fondness for rain and rainclouds. Until this morning, before I woke, the feeling had sat unmistakably on the side of fond.

"...What time is it."

The sound of pattering rain dragged me out of a deep sleep. Water ticking off the air conditioner's outdoor unit had a decent rhythm to it. That did not mean it was a pleasant sound. It was a noisy sound, the kind that ruins good sleep.

Snow a few days ago, rain today. The indecisive temperature of March was probably to blame. And the chance of precipitation I'd seen on the forecast hadn't even reached a full thirty percent, if I remembered right.

Fortunately, the view outside the window wasn't particularly gloomy, so this was likely just a sunshower passing through. Not a hard rain, either. At that level, it wouldn't interfere with my plans.

I stretched roughly and shifted where I lay. Peering through eyelids squeezed nearly shut at the phone charging by my pillow, I made out a clock that read 8:57.

Oddly enough, that was a mere three minutes before the alarm I'd set.

...I'd only woken three minutes early. Why did I feel so much more tired than usual?

My favorability toward the rain took a small hit right there. If this had been a game, I would have watched a heart tagged with a minus pop lightly into the air. The idle nonsense my sleep-drunk mind could manage ended there.

With a groan, I pushed myself up, raking a hand through the bird's nest my hair had become. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, pressing the heels of my palms into my tired eyes, when the phone gave a light buzz.

Had to be the alarm. About three minutes had passed since I got up, after all.

Crack. I turned my head, a pop sounding from my stiff neck, and the phone screen came into view.

A single emoticon. A ridiculously lame-looking white dog, waving for all it was worth. (On second thought, not a hand. A front paw.)

Wondering who'd sent it, I realized it was from Lee Hayun. The white dog looked so much like a ball of fluff—so much like her—that a short laugh escaped me before I knew it. She must have figured I'd be up around now and sent a message. Hard to say whether to call her psychic, or just say she has a dog's nose for these things....

Instead of going to wash up, I flopped back onto the bed. Then I opened KakaoTalk for a moment and cleared the unread 1 stuck to the emoticon.

And then.

For a girl who sent a puppy emoticon, she was a large breed. Messages tumbled in one after another, like a big dog whirring its tail, and a smile pulled at my mouth on its own. I wished Lee Jiyoon would pick up a little of this cute side from her sister.

Adult circumstances, my ass. She meant she was still too embarrassed to tell her friends. Whatever. It didn't matter. As I'd said more than once, whether or not you had someone you were seeing, all you had to do was carry yourself differently to match.

The moment I sent it, Hayun machine-gunned back an emoticon of someone clutching a pillow with Yes scrawled across it. Grinning at the barrage, I left one last message and headed for the bathroom.

Now I knew for certain.

Clothes were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠something you bought online, whenever you could. If you were someone like me, with no particular thoughts about fashion, that went double. This was no different from being tortured alive.

"The design and the price aren't bad, but the fabric here is really awful. Even accounting for it being no-brand."

"......"

"......"

"No-brand's been pretty decent lately, though. Hmm... They're spring clothes, so I won't wear them for long. Maybe cheap and pretty is enough..."

She'd smiled so pleasantly in front of the employee earlier and said she'd look around a little more and be back—and that had been a flat-out lie. The thought was already on its seventh pass. I'd caught on around the third time that this was drifting somewhere strange, but I never imagined it would run all the way to here.

...Ha. I did not come here with the two of you just to innocently pick out clothes.

I let out a light sigh so Lee Hayun wouldn't hear, and at the same time a sigh came from beside me, the kind that openly drains the strength out of a person. It was Lee Jiyoon's. More precisely, it was Jiyoon sunk under her own low-pressure front, because someone had trespassed on her golden weekend gaming hours.

"...Just buy it here, unni. It's a pain to keep looking around."

"How about a select shop this time, instead of no-brand?"

"Well... sure. Let's go."

Maybe I was just used to that level of whining from Jiyoon. Hayun ignored her little sister as naturally as breathing, flashed me a bright smile, and started down the stairs. Jiyoon, apparently just as used to that reaction, braced a hand on the wall, flexed her knees a few times, and trudged down after her with sigh after heavy sigh.

I'd barely managed to get the answer out, but I was thinking the same thing as Jiyoon. All I'd been going for was a sweet, heart-fluttering date, just the three of us. Why was she this dead serious about shopping? Who ducks in and out of this many places just to buy a few outfits?

Pop. Beneath a sunshower that still showed no sign of letting up, I opened my umbrella toward a sky gone hazy with white cloud. Lee Hayun, cute in a beige short coat, took the lead with a cheap umbrella from a convenience store. She easily left behind Jiyoon—a magic-type gaming shut-in, short on base stamina—and me, who simply lacked the will and had no strength to show for it.

No. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠accurate way to put it was that we were so slow, Hayun left us behind.

And so, when she had happened to draw about three steps ahead of us on her own, Jiyoon, face sullen, quietly opened her mouth. For the record, unlike Hayun, she was in the same khaki jumper and ball cap as always.

"...Your legs don't hurt?"

"Not my legs, really. I'm just a little tired."

"...Hnn..."

Jiyoon looked at me with a peculiar expression, then faced forward again before her sister could notice.

Ah. Maybe the right answer just now was to say I was hurting too, and sympathize.

I was still regretting the answer that had slipped out without a thought when Jiyoon, angling her umbrella the other way so the rain wouldn't splash me, went on, hesitant.

"...Does unni act like that when she dates you, too? Wandering all over the place?"

"Who knows. I haven't been on that many dates, so I couldn't say."

"How many have you even been on?"

"If you count today, two? Three?"

"...That's still fewer than I thought?"

"Obviously. How long has it even been since we started date ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠practice.... If anything, I've done more date practice with you."

"......"

The moment I brought up something from about a month back, Jiyoon clamped her mouth shut and fidgeted with her ball cap.

Not that hiding it does any good. Those ears are flushed hot, and I can see every bit of them. Idiot.

Funny, how this quietly cute side of her took after Hayun too.

...What if I caught that ear and gave it a good pinch while Hayun wasn't looking. Bet the reaction would be fun.

Right before I pulled the hand I'd jammed in my pocket back out—

Hayun, who had already walked on ahead to the crosswalk, looked back at us and gave a light wave.

"Ah, noona's waving."

"......"

"Looks like she's telling us to stop dawdling back here and hurry up."

"...I, I know...! Dumbass..."

"Yeah, yeah."

"...L-let's go together..."

"Shall I lower the heating a little?"

"Ngh......"

A languid afternoon. Han Sua, who had barely managed to open her eyes in a daze, only just pushed her body up from the bed and looked at the housekeeper in front of her.

What?

It really felt as if she'd shut her eyes for a second and opened them again. So why was the housekeeper right there?

The eyes that had been blinking blankly crept sideways until they reached the clock on the wall.

Two in the afternoon.

A full six hours past the time she usually woke.

Screwed.

"You seemed to have sweated quite a bit in your sleep."

"...S-sweat......"

"Yes. Your hair right now, miss, for one. Your clothes, too, and also..."

"......"

"And today, unlike usual, you were sleeping so late that I came to check..."

"......"

As her sleeping brain came online, a checklist of things she needed to confirm immediately popped up.

In other words: right now Han Sua smelled of sweat because she hadn't washed, had suspiciously draped her pajama pants over the edge of the bed, had piled towels drenched in her juices beside it, and in that exact state had ended up alone, face-to-face, with the housekeeper who looked after the house.

Bite down.

No. No.

It was still too early to bite her tongue and give up on life.

The one small mercy was that every towel sat somewhere the housekeeper, from where she stood, could not see. And judging by the question of whether she ought to lower the heating, the housekeeper was under the mistaken impression that Sua had simply gotten too warm and sweated buckets.

Meaning—if it was now, she could still get out of this somehow...!

Having reached that far, Han Sua put on a small smile and spoke.

"R-right. If you could lower it just a little, I think that would be good."

"Understood."

The housekeeper answered politely and stepped out of the bedroom. At that, Han Sua let out a sigh of relief and collapsed face-down onto the bed.

To begin with, the very fact that the woman had only come to wake her once lunchtime was long past meant she had already caught on to everything Sua had done at dawn. Working that out, however, was far too much for Han Sua.