Behind Each Other's Back (2)
The clothing store I'd walked into, praying it would be the last, boasted an interior even more chaotic than the shops we'd already suffered through. More precisely, the problem wasn't the interior so much as the merchandise — piled from the entrance clear through the floor, up the stairs to the next level, all the way out to the hangers bolted along the walls. Who lays clothes out like a street market and calls it a store?
Argue it all you like and you'd still only land on the same conclusion: none of it actually hurt the quality of the clothes. Personally, though, I could barely breathe. The mirror was too far off for me to check my own face, but I had a feeling it matched Lee Jiyoon's, standing right beside me. Exaggerate a little, and we both looked like pufferfish in a sulk. I kind of wanted to poke that cheek. Maybe, looking at me, she was thinking the same thing.
"......"
"......"
Hayun's voice cut across the racks.
"Hey, Jiyoon. Come here."
"What. Why. What."
"Try this cardigan on."
"No, I— I'll pick something myself..."
"I'm calling you over because you won't pick anything yourself."
"......"
Unlike the two of us, Lee Hayun moved through the store like she belonged there, jet-black ponytail swaying as she trotted from rack to rack. I'd been conserving energy near the entrance, pretending to browse where she wouldn't notice, when Jiyoon got dragged off by force. In front of her little sister she didn't feel like an older sister so much as a mother. With me, though, calling her noona would have been embarrassing.
The look she flicked back at me carried a flicker of hatred. This is your fault. If it weren't for you, she seemed to say, I wouldn't be spending my weekend like this.
So what. I stuck the tip of my tongue out at her behind Hayun's back, just to tease, and she worked her lips like she was chewing on a retort before finally turning her head away. She gets cuter by the day. Blood really will tell, won't it. These days I could hardly even picture the biting cold of the Jiyoon from before the regression.
...Well. From what I'd heard, she was still that same Jiyoon once she was in class. I liked it that way far better than if she were kind to everyone. It meant she'd bite any other hand that reached for her, and lick mine — carefully, thoroughly, into every last corner. A woman who turned gentle only in front of me. What man wouldn't like that? Any ordinary one would be thrilled out of his mind. The opposite probably had its own market, of course.
"Take that jumper off. ...Come to think of it, haven't you been wearing that since your first year of high school? Or am I wrong?"
"...Dunno..."
"Anyway, hat off too. Oh — did you even wash your hair?"
"I— I washed it...!"
The last part seemed whispered, but I heard every word. Even the employee standing quietly at the counter a ways off was clearly holding in a laugh as he watched them, so there was no doubt.
...Hmm.
Maybe it was because the employee was a man. It rubbed me the wrong way for no good reason. They were both my women; I wished he'd stop looking. Hayun especially — that plaid skirt was leaving her thighs completely bare. If he had any sense, he'd look his fill and leave it at that. Let him jerk off to it. I'd be the one dressing them up later and fucking them all night on their beds. Or putting them in hero costumes and fucking them that way.
I spent a moment fingering a T-shirt I couldn't have cared less about, eyes on the employee. When I looked back toward Hayun, she was holding a pure white cardigan up against a deadpan Jiyoon. She had an eye for it, at least. It suited her quite well.
"Whites suit you. Cool colors, too. Better than that gloomy khaki you always wear."
"...I don't even like that my hair turned white. Why would I want white..."
"Your hat's pitch-black, your clothes are drab, and underneath it's always jeans or— what even..."
"Yeah, I get it.... I just don't want to.... So be quiet..."
"Your big sister's asking, so just go over there and try this on once. Oh — it's all right if she tries it on, right?"
"I said I don't waaant to..."
The employee, who'd been looking on with a thoroughly pleased expression, nodded enthusiastically. Looking closer, he might actually have been the owner. People wearing that title tended to be awfully young these days. Anyway, Jiyoon took the cardigan from her sister whether she wanted it or not and headed for the fitting room, hesitating the whole way. I wondered if she really needed a fitting room just to change one outer layer, but I didn't say so.
Her figure vanished behind the curtain. I was in the middle of recommending cute little-sister outfits to Hayun instead of anything a noona would wear — and getting my forearm pinched for it, over and over — when the curtain rasped aside.
"...What are you looking at. Shit..."
I let the blunt curse slide the moment our eyes met, and together with Hayun — nodding, letting out a long ooh — I stared at Jiyoon in silence.
A loose cardigan on a girl has a particular flavor. It stirs something protective, I suppose. Leave the sleeves down and they swallow the backs of her hands, only the fingers poking out, which makes her look a little more delicate than usual. That kind of flavor. Jiyoon spent her time on Discord and everywhere else busy meowing and growling, but dress her in something like that and she definitely looked quieter, more composed. It was only a thin cardigan, of course. A bit light for a chilly March.
...Anyway. I was buying it. That outfit.
"It suits you."
"Right?"
"......"
No need to lie when it suited her that well, so I said so honestly. Hayun, who'd been pinching my forearm to make me stop picking out cute clothes, lit up right along with me and beamed. A little ways off, Jiyoon didn't curse. She just avoided our eyes and busied herself fussing with the cardigan.
Feminine clothes like that were awkward on her, it seemed. Or maybe it was simply being told she looked pretty. Fair enough. This was a girl who didn't dress up to begin with — she walked around with a wide-brimmed ball cap hiding her whole face. It made sense.
"Th-this suits me? Seriously?"
"Yeah. Or should I ask another customer? Whether it suits you?"
"Y-you just try it...! I'll freeze your mouth shut, all the way down to your tongue...!"
Even as she hid her face behind her wrist out of embarrassment, Jiyoon managed to spit out something pretty chilling. The other customers' attention snapped to her for it, then scattered one by one.
Is she actually an idiot.
Laughing under my breath beside Hayun, I almost tossed out a joke, then let it go. Not because I was worried she'd kill me. Because Hayun was right there. The distance I ought to show between myself and Jiyoon in front of Hayun was about right at this level. Better, for now, to keep my hands on her sister than to give Jiyoon any more of my attention.
From her side — the girl who wanted to do something bad with her own sister's boyfriend — and from mine, the man who wanted to get down and filthy in bed with both of them. The thought reached me a little late. I drew Hayun's waist lightly in against my side and spoke. The weird little ngh she let out, I let slide.
"A skirt? Still not planning to wear one?"
"......"
"Jiyoon?"
"...Huh? Huh?"
"I'm asking if you're still not thinking of a skirt instead of pants. Hayun-noona and I picked out a few decent ones earlier."
"...I hate how they flutter.... The uniform skirt is enough. Why would I need anything else..."
As she said it, Jiyoon's gaze was fixed blankly on my left arm. The part resting at Hayun's waist.
"Yeah, well.... Just getting that wretched jumper off you is already a win."
"...Is it that much of one..."
"Anyway. You're buying it, right? That cardigan?"
"...Let me check the price first."
From what I'd seen browsing, even the expensive stuff only ran to around a hundred dollars. How expensive could it possibly be? At that, Jiyoon — groaning off in the distance — came walking toward me, the white cardigan fluttering around her. The small footprints her rain-soaked old sneakers had left behind caught at me and wouldn't let go.
"Here. I'll hold my hair up, so just check the tag."
"Do it yourself. Why?"
"...T-taking it off to check is a pain...!"
Making that excuse as she closed in, Jiyoon gathered her hair into a ponytail with her hands the way her sister did, and offered me the pale nape of her neck.
...She was like a cat who'd walked in on her owner busy playing with a new kitten. She could have taken it off and looked herself. With her sister standing right there, deliberately asking me to check the tag — and that ponytail, done up to look like Hayun's. It wasn't the direction I'd meant to steer things, but they seemed to be flowing well enough.
Good. We'd keep it like this.
"Fifty dollars. Not that expensive."
"...Wh-why is this fifty dollars?"
"Isn't that about what clothes cost?"
Truthfully, I had no idea. Whenever I bought clothes online, I'd never really chosen them by price. At most I knew T-shirts were cheap and parkas ran a little high.
"No. A scrap of cloth like this..."
"That's about right. Probably."
"...Fifty dollars is a month of summer electricity.... Two or three deliveries.... Five hours of zoning out behind a register..."
"......"
She only pays fifty dollars a month for electricity in the summer?
...No. Anyway. Watching her count on her fingers, fifty dollars was clearly on the expensive side by Jiyoon's sense of money. What was I supposed to do with that. Say I'd buy it outright, and she'd definitely give me an earful for throwing money around.
A way.... What way was there.
I kept turning it over — in no small part because the outfit suited her so well — when Hayun, nestled lightly in my arms, jolted back to herself with a little hah.
"...It iiis a little expensive. Yeah..."
A comment that arrived far too late.
...Haa. Forget it.
"...I'll buy it as a gift. How's that?"
"...A gift? A gift for what?"
"A gift for getting into the Academy. Or in place of last year's birthday present. If you don't want any of those, a friendship fee. Whatever."
"......"
Even the same waste of money would lose a little of its sting if you hung the word gift on it. ...Probably. That was the idea.
"So you're saying you'll buy it?"
"Yeah."
I'd been ready for the worst — an immediate refusal — but fortunately, instead of that, Jiyoon just asked back, as if quietly making sure. I nodded. She cleared her throat, and then something strange followed.
"...N-n-next time... um..."
"What?"
"Next time I'll buy you... food. Something expensive..."
In other words, she meant let's meet again.
"...Yeah. Do that, then."
"......"
Whether Hayun was included in that, I couldn't say.