Carelessness (1)
When I stepped out of the shower, my mother was sitting on the sofa, sipping tea while looking at her tablet.
"Oh, you're out."
"I heard the shower running. I figured you were done lecturing your sister. Where's Hayeon?"
"She's asleep."
I walked over and sat down near my mother, speaking softly in case our voices woke Hayeon up.
"A nap? She must have been too worried about her brother to sleep last night. Bad brothers deserve to get scolded. Did she give you a hard time?"
"Yeah... well... we made up in the end, though."
A bitter taste lingered in my mouth.
"I know. That's why you only came down after making sure she was asleep."
I missed Ju-ran. I wondered if she had arrived at the shoot by now.
I sent a quick message on Kkotok first.
"Have you eaten properly? Do you want me to whip something up?" my mother asked.
Just then, a reply popped up.
"No, it's fine. I think I'll just head to my room and rest for a bit."
I politely declined and headed to my room.
Instead of waiting for a reply, she immediately started a video call.
"I'm glad. To think Ha-woon would contact me first."
"Come to think of it, this is the first time we've actually talked on the phone."
"I know. We had to be careful, after all. Since someone slapped a restraining order on me."
On the screen, the corners of her lips curled upward.
"Ah, right, that..."
"What, you weren't even thinking about it?"
Instead of dropping, her eyes narrowed sharply and playfully.
"When you go to school on Monday, lift that restraining order first."
"No... well..."
If I lifted the restraining order, Hayeon would immediately realize something had happened between us. And that would mean all my efforts to placate her—even at the cost of breaking myself—would go down the drain.
"Ah... did I act scary again?"
Perhaps thinking I was too intimidated to speak properly, Ju-ran's expression softened instantly.
It was embarrassing, but that was indeed part of the reason.
"Sorry... just think of it as me being a little sulky..."
The lion queen had suddenly turned into a pitiful, pleading kitten. My heart skipped a beat, and not in a good way. I barely swallowed the compliment that almost slipped out of my mouth.
"I'm sorry too... It's just... it's hard to lift the restraining order right now."
A shadow of disappointment crossed her face. She fell silent for a moment, then let out a small sigh as if brushing off her expectations.
"So we have to pretend we don't know each other at school."
"Yeah..."
She didn't ask any more questions and simply offered a gentle smile.
"It's fine, it's fine."
It was a lonely smile. Perhaps those words weren't meant for me, but were a way of comforting herself.
"But you'll let me have your cock after school, right?"
"Someone might see us outside, so I'll go to your place."
Her face lit up instantly. The fact that she only showed such a rich array of emotions to me made my heart flutter again.
[Staff Voice in Background: "Ju-ran, prep for the shoot is done!"]
"Ah, Ha-woon. See you Monday then."
After ending the call, I collapsed onto my bed.
"Thank you... for not asking anything..."
I muttered my gratitude to the empty room, knowing it would never reach her. It felt as though a heavy, sticky knot that had been clinging to my chest had finally been washed away.
That evening, Hayeon, who had slept in late, seemed to be in a great mood. She hummed continuously as she helped our mother prepare dinner.
"Don't forget. Our family's happiness depends entirely on how you behave, Oppa."
The words she had spoken felt heavier than ever.
The next day, I was at a PC bang with Taehyun.
"Hey, you idiot! Ha-woon! What the hell are you doing, you bastard?!"
Taehyun's indignant voice was nothing but background noise to me right now.
"I'll kill him... I'm definitely going to kill him!"
I was relentlessly hunting down a single enemy player, desperate to get even a single kill on them. Right at the start of the match, I had run into them and died immediately. And then, that bastard had teabagged my corpse.
What made me even angrier was that the female character design they were playing looked uncannily like my sister. It was the number one most popular female character in the game, famous for its great design, spawning countless fan arts and memes—but to me, it was nothing but an object of pure hatred.
With all my pent-up frustration toward Hayeon boiling over, I had completely lost my mind. But I couldn't defeat them even once, dying repeatedly until the game ended.
I had been an absolute detriment to my team.
"You absolute piece of shit!"
I was a sinner. I couldn't even lift my head, silently accepting the wrath of my teammate who had lost a ranked match because of me.
"Are you crazy? You."
This wasn't Taehyun. It was a familiar female voice.
"Su... Sua..."
"I really don't like men who yell at their friends."
Sua's expression was terrifyingly cold. I had seen her treat Taehyun harshly before, but I had never seen her look this frigid.
"I'm fine. This is pretty common between friends when gaming. I've sworn at Taehyun plenty of times too, and teased him just as much."
"Hmm... really? Maybe I was being too sensitive."
"No, well... you might have been startled because it's different from how he usually acts."
Just like you are right now.
"Ugh... sorry, Taehyun. I was just surprised because you're so different from when you play with me."
"Hehehe... it's fine."
Well, yeah, because the game he plays with you is a completely different genre. I wondered what would happen if they played a shooting game together. Actually, no. If they did, it might end up destroying their relationship.
"Do you want to try playing too, Sua?"
What? Jeon Taehyeon, you idiot... you did it... you actually did it! You crazy bastard!!!
"Really? I was actually curious what kind of game makes my boyfriend so violent."
"No, Sua... me, violent?..."
"I know, I know. Jeez... I was just joking."
Sua sat down next to Taehyun and logged into a computer.
"Then let's do a 3v3 friendly match..."
Taehyun's excitement felt a bit ominous, but since it was just a friendly match, it should be fine. Fortunately, the relationship-destroying disaster I feared didn't happen.
"Oopsie♡ I died again."
"Who dared to kill my Sua... I'll avenge you!"
Instead, I was the one getting frustrated. But since Sua's uselessness wasn't much different from my own performance earlier, I held my tongue. Somehow, we managed to pull off a victory.
"Yes! We won, Sua."
Taehyun seemed to think his performance had been incredibly cool, but...
"This is boring..."
Sua wasn't even pouting; she just stared at the monitor with a completely blank face. Of course it's boring if you do nothing but die. The one who ended up looking dejected was Taehyun. He had clearly wanted to bring his girlfriend into his home turf of shooting games.
Too bad, my friend.
"Let's go."
Sua's tone left absolutely no room for objection.
"When did you even invite Sua?" I asked Taehyun as we walked out of the PC bang.
Before he could answer, Sua chimed in.
"What, am I an uninvited guest now?"
"No... it's not that. Taehyun just didn't mention he invited you."
"I didn't invite her. I just told her I was at the PC bang with you."
So you are an uninvited guest! Not that I particularly minded, though.
"Since the two of you are together, there's no way I could miss out."
"Why?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"What do you mean why! Wow... I'm hurt."
"Yeah, man! If Sua says so, then that's how it is."
"Then do me a favor and don't rub your romance in my face."
Since I had something going on with Ju-ran, it wasn't as unbearable as before, but since I wasn't in a position to date peacefully, seeing them flirt still annoyed me.
"Well... I'll try."
Besides, Sua seemed to be in a great mood today. In my experience, she tended to be extremely clingy on days like this, which would only drive my irritation levels up.
However, my intuition was completely off today. I hadn't managed a single kill against the character that looked like my sister; the couple hadn't fought at all despite playing a shooting game together; and Sua surprisingly wasn't acting overly affectionate toward Taehyun.
And there was one more thing I hadn't anticipated.
It was a Kkotok from Ju-ran. She had sent a photo from her shoot, and she was wearing a gleaming, golden micro-bikini.
Sending something like this out of the blue was practically begging to give me an erection. We were in a cafe, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the screen.
"Taehyun, look at Ha-woon's face. It's so lecherous."
Gasp!
Snapping back to reality, I hurriedly turned off my phone screen.
"What were you looking at?"
"Exactly. Who are you distracted by when you're with us?"
"Show me what you saw!" Taehyun demanded.
"What? No way. Show me too!" Sua added.
"You two. If you're a couple, go giggle with each other!"
"Ho-oh?" A strange gleam appeared in Sua's eyes. "That look. It's not just something simple and erotic, is it?"
"Ugh..."
This girl...!
"Huh?"
Turning her gaze to a bewildered Taehyun, Sua began to lay out her deduction like a detective.
"Heheh, listen. First of all, there's no way Ha-woon would go out of his way to look up dirty things with that lecherous face in a place like this, especially with other people around. Do you agree, boyfriend?"
"True. He's a coward."
"Hey, a coward? He's a man with common sense. Anyway, Ha-woon was checking a message from someone and saw something he shouldn't have."
She pointed a finger at me dramatically, mimicking a shaman from some movie. She was clearly having the time of her life.
"And the person who sent it must be a girl."
"No, wait. Why do you think it's a girl?"
"There's no way guys would share dirty things in broad daylight like this."
Because the atmosphere had felt so normal, I had completely forgotten about the common sense alteration. It just showed how comfortable I felt around them. But I still had to argue back.
"Why... we could share things."
"Oh, how bold! I guess a guy whose cock gets hard at the drop of a hat really can't behave modestly?"
I immediately regretted it. I had touched a topic I shouldn't have. At her loudly ringing voice boldly saying "cock," countless eyes in the cafe locked onto us.