270. Han Serin
270. Han Serin
***
After that, dinner, which Seoyun had prepared, went on in a warm, friendly atmosphere.
Clink, clatter.
Once they'd both finished a satisfying meal and Seoyun began clearing the dishes, Serin reached out to help, but Seoyun suddenly grabbed her hand.
Serin looked at her, wondering what was going on.
"You don't do anything, Sis."
With those deliberately firm words, Seoyun pushed Serin's hand back down.
"Why?"
As Serin, her hand pushed away, looked flustered, Seoyun swiftly cleared the emptied dishes.
"So, was dinner good?"
At the question, which came back like an answer to something else entirely, Serin nodded, and Seoyun smiled as if satisfied.
"If it was good for you, that's all I need. You worked hard today, so just rest, okay?"
After that, Seoyun finished cleaning up before Serin could even try to do anything, then left the room.
"Do I really look that bad...?"
Serin muttered blankly. On one hand, she felt cared for, but at the same time, she wondered if she really looked that unwell.
So she ran a hand through her hair for no reason, and the feeling was strange.
Because Seoyun tried to take care of everything from start to finish, it felt strange even from the receiving end.
'I'm not some one- or two-year-old baby.'
With her younger sister acting like that, she even wondered if their roles had been reversed.
A little while later, Seoyun came back with peeled fruit.
Plunk.
Looking at the fruit placed on the living room table, Serin thought it was peeled so prettily, and it was comfortable, in a way.
I thought that, but since Seoyun was actually doing all this for me, I found myself accepting it without realizing.
"Here, Sis."
Seoyun handed her a fork with a piece of apple cut into a cute rabbit shape, and Serin took it before she knew it.
Crunch.
She bit into the apple, then turned her head at the gaze fixed on her and saw Seoyun burst into a little laugh.
"What?"
Seoyun shook her head, bit into her own apple, and spoke casually.
"I just thought, my sister's really lucky, you know? Where else in the world is there a little sister who does all this for her?"
At the playful remark, Serin laughed despite herself.
"Didn't you tell me not to do anything?"
"Well, that's because I wanted you to rest a bit. And watching you just eat whatever I give you is kind of funny, right? Maybe because you eat so well compared to before? It's just really nice to see."
Seoyun said that, bit into her apple with a crunch, and smiled brightly.
Serin knew she was being teased, but it was cute anyway, so it made her laugh for no reason.
'Nice to see, huh.'
Still, the comment about eating well oddly stuck with her.
Especially since today she'd been tired from the scrim and had actually eaten less than usual, yet Seoyun said even that looked like she was eating well.
She wondered just how little the original "me" had eaten.
"Well, I've had a lot on my mind lately. And these days I'm making a conscious effort to eat more."
When she spoke as if testing the waters, Seoyun nodded as if it were fascinating.
"Is that what it was? No wonder you've been eating so well lately. You've got a lot to worry about with streaming these days, and the scrim with the pro team today looked really tiring too."
"...Right?"
When Serin played along, Seoyun nodded repeatedly.
"Yeah. Really... before, you had no appetite and could barely manage half a bowl of rice. Do you know how worried I was back then?"
Seoyun said it with a deliberately worried expression, and as I looked at her, I found myself looking down at my own hand.
She saw a hand white beyond belief and a thin wrist.
She'd been exercising and had increased how much she ate, but the body she saw now was still frail beyond words.
And if it was the same as "Rin," she'd probably be tall, at least in the early 170s.
'She said I only ate half a bowl of rice.'
It was enough to make her wonder how daily life was even possible with that build and that amount of food.
"I was really weak back then, wasn't I...?"
She carefully brought it up, using Seoyun's words as a basis.
"Is that even a question?"
Seoyun looked at me like I was strange, then laughed in disbelief.
"I just thought that's how it was back then."
"God, really... look at this sister of mine, talking about it like it's someone else's business. Seriously, just thinking about you back then still makes me sigh, you know? You were sick all the time and couldn't even go to school properly. And then weird people kept showing up around you whenever they got bored. How could I not worry about you?"
The few things she then heard from Seoyun were even a little shocking.
The part about being too sick to go to school was one thing, but she couldn't understand what the weird people were supposed to mean.
'What kind of life did you even live?'
Now, living as if this current self were another "me," I couldn't help but question those words.
The more I heard from Seoyun, the less ordinary my past seemed.
"...Sis, you're okay now, right?"
Then Seoyun suddenly said something she couldn't understand. Without knowing what it meant, Serin nodded for now.
"Of course I'm okay. If you just say it like that all of a sudden, how am I supposed to know what you mean?"
When she smiled and spoke as if it were really nothing, Seoyun's expression showed great relief.
'There must be something to it.'
She couldn't help but be concerned.
Just then, Seoyun gave a small smile.
"I just... you've always had so much going on, Sis. Your hair as white as snow, and you were pretty beyond belief, too."
"...I guess I was?"
I didn't know anything about the past, but when I gave a vague nod, Seoyun let out a soft laugh.
"Really, the more I look at you, the more I can see how much your personality's changed, I guess. You know, sometimes even I find you unfamiliar, Sis?"
Watching Seoyun speak as if greatly relieved, I could only smile faintly.
'She says the current me feels unfamiliar.'
Honestly, I didn't know how my previous self had lived, but I didn't think that life had been meaningless.
But I thought what mattered more than that was the present.
Right now, I thought of Seoyun as family and didn't feel even the slightest resistance to that.
I felt I already existed as "myself" in every way that mattered.
If I had felt any resistance toward Seoyun, I wouldn't have thought of the current me—"Han Serin"—as myself.
That was why Seoyun meant even more to me.
She was my only family, and the most important person who proved that I existed as myself.
'And even if there was an unpleasant past.'
I didn't want to make Seoyun worry.
So I smiled to reassure her.
"Still, isn't it enough if I changed for the better?"
She also learned one more certain fact.
At the very least, the current me was better than the past me.
I was certainly grateful that Seoyun worried about me and cared about me like this, but at the same time, I didn't like the previous "me" who had made Seoyun act this way.
Contrary to Serin, who was thinking that, Seoyun, having heard a completely unexpected answer, was blinking blankly.
"Ah, yeah... right..."
Seoyun, who had murmured as if shocked, soon nodded firmly and continued.
"Right, you changed for the better, Sis... I'm so relieved. Your personality seems brighter, you talk well, and come to think of it, there weren't many people who got close to Sua, but now you're really close with her too, right? Seriously, Sis, did something happen when I wasn't around?"
"Who knows?"
"Wow. What's that supposed to mean, Sis?"
"I probably just decided I needed to change."
Even as she answered, the feeling was strange.
Should she keep talking about this topic?
She was a little torn.
Because bringing up a past that wasn't very good seemed like it would make the mood heavy.
No, she also thought, did she really need to know the past now?
Because the me Seoyun knew now was the current me.
I only wanted to show her that I was changing for the better.
Crunch.
As she bit into the apple, she felt a gaze fixed on her.
"What, why are you staring at me again?"
She spoke playfully to lighten the mood, and Seoyun shook her head as if it were nothing.
"Nothing. I just thought my sister's really pretty."
"There you go with the nonsense again."
Heh.
She speared a piece of melon and brought it to her mouth without thinking.
"Seriously. I think you made the right choice becoming a streamer, Sis."
At that moment, she felt Seoyun still looking at her.
"You think so?"
She stopped just before putting the melon in her mouth and answered, and Seoyun beamed.
"Yeah. I hope you stream every day from now on, Sis."
"...What are you saying, like some viewer?"
When Seoyun said something viewers said dozens or hundreds of times a day, Serin looked at her in disbelief.
"Ah, whatever. Seriously, why is it so nice to watch my sister eat well?"
When Seoyun said something even more embarrassing, I let out a hollow laugh too.
"Be honest, Seoyun. You're saying I look like a pig right now, aren't you?"
So, as a joke, she moved the fork with the melon back toward the plate, and Seoyun hurriedly shook her head.
"No, seriously, you need to eat more and gain some weight, Sis."
When Seoyun said it as if the idea were absurd, Serin blinked for no reason.
It sounded like something she'd heard somewhere.
Then I remembered those were the same things I'd said to Sua.
-It's nice to see you eating well.
-You need to gain some weight.
I'd meant them in a good way.
But now that I was hearing those words myself, it felt strange.
'Did Sua feel like this too?'
Slip.
As I moved my hand toward the plate, Seoyun laid her hand over mine and pushed it back toward me, and I accepted it before I knew it.
"There, there~ my sister's eating so well."
She was openly teasing me now, and I let out a hollow laugh.
After Seoyun started eating fruit too, I was a little relieved that the topic seemed to have moved on naturally.
"And seeing you live even busier than I thought, I'm really proud of you, you know?"
"Proud, huh... I keep humoring you, so now there's nothing you won't say?"
......
While the two of them kept up the bright mood, teasing each other like that.
—@#$%.
Suddenly, a smartphone rang.