Can I Call You Unnie?
Namgung Yurin had an older sister.
Unlike seventeen-year-old Yurin, she was already out in the world working as a hunter — a sister with quite the age gap between them.
The next ace of the Aegis Guild. An Aegis Guild hunter — Namgung Ye-rin.
A young genius who had climbed to top-prospect status with no powerful backing to speak of, armed with nothing but physical reinforcement — one of the most generic awakening abilities there was.
Namgung Yurin respected that sister of hers quite a bit, in her own way.
She, too, had become an awakener like her sister and enrolled at the Academy, but....
Never once had she thought of it as walking a similar path out of admiration for her.
It wasn't for lack of skill or talent — Namgung Yurin was not the type to be threatening in looks alone.
Perhaps her sister's talent ran in the blood; among the students, she belonged firmly in the ranks of the genuinely powerful.
Without ever intending to, she had settled into the role of a fearsome delinquent everyone else gave a wide berth.
But that was beside the point....
Whenever she thought about her future, she often concluded that following her sister down the hunter's road, Namgung Ye-rin–style, would be... difficult.
Because —
"I hate─! Muriiiiim!!!"
"Ah, damn it! I am NOT with that Namgung clan!"
"I'm not 'Namgung-hyung,' ya little punks!"
"It's called training, not cultivation! Working out, not martial arts!"
"I don't use a sword! I'm not a swordswoman! Ugh... and wearing gauntlets doesn't mean lightning shoots out of my fists, seriously! Does this look like fist-arts to you? Huh? These perfectly ordinary punches?"
"Yurin, do you know what my dream is? To wipe out every last Martial Arts Awakener in our Aegis Guild... hwe-heh-heh!"
Namgung Yurin thought:
'THIS is my older sister...?'
Wretched, unhinged madness.
Every time something happened, her sister would seize her like this and pour everything out, laughing and sobbing by turns, until Yurin nearly gagged....
A sister speeding down the highway of success at a young age.
Person to person, she respected the venom and the guts — but this, really... this was a bit much, wasn't it...?
Rawer by the day, her sister's madness now tripped its own seizure button at the mere sight of the words 'Namgung' or 'murim' — and honestly, it was pitiful to watch.
'So the name's Namgung. And? Why obsess over it like that?'
That was the full extent of Namgung Yurin's sympathy.
Not that anyone had ever teased her on that front, given her endlessly thuggish face — and she wasn't built to care much about surname-based ribbing anyway.
Most of all —
every time she watched Namgung Ye-rin have one of her fits, she thought, exasperated:
'If you're a grown-up, shouldn't you have a little composure and just let it slide?'
Namgung Yurin lost her mind over small, cute things. And in exactly the opposite direction, she nurtured a quiet little fantasy about adults.
A fantasy she could only nurse because she wasn't an adult yet — because all she could do was dimly imagine what being one might feel like.
By Namgung Yurin's yardstick, Namgung Ye-rin was... well, how to put it. Somewhat short of full adulthood.
And it didn't stop there.
Whenever her sister caught her younger sister enjoying her hobbies and tastes to the very fullest —
"Wow... Yurin, honestly, you're kinda a pervert. Seriously, every time you lose your mind like that, you should take a good look in the mirror.... Ugh. Creepy."
Namgung Ye-rin — a grown adult, and unable to understand her own little sister's hobbies or tastes...!
Their bond as sisters wasn't bad, exactly, but calling it good would be a stretch.
With a rift that fundamental between them, the being called 'older sister' amounted, for Namgung Yurin, to exactly half irritation and half respect.
And yet — that day.
The great Unicorn–Bicorn Chaos.
The helplessness of watching Bukgung Seol — one of the precious few friends she had, the little thing she doted on — be carried off, unable to do anything to stop it.
The helplessness of learning that titles like 'student of the Awakener Academy' or 'little sister of a promising hunter' were worth nothing at all.
And in the depths of that helplessness, a single ray of dawn light.
A girl's calm voice — warm, and gently soaking into her chest.
"Namgung Yurin."
"Jjin...?"
Behind the girl with her long black hair streaming, a vast lake stretched out beneath sunlight in splendid bloom.
The backlight washed out Yurin's vision — and in that moment, only that crimson face burned sharp and vivid.
Swish, swish—
Warmth seeped into the crown of her head.
"It's okay. Just wait for me. We're... definitely eating lunch together."
Slowly, gently — the way an oppa might pat his little sister's head. The way an unnie might.
The girl, stroking her hair.
Until now, Yurin had thought of her as a little kid — a friend who was simply small and cute, an adorable little critter that would fit snugly in your arms.
But no. That was only the outside.
The hand was undeniably small — far smaller than her own — and yet it felt like a grown-up's hand ruffling a child's head without a care in the world.
Feeling the warmth of that hand, something lurched deep in her chest, and a fierce swell of emotion came rushing up from the very bottom of it.
And then the crimson-faced girl turned her back and walked away, into the light.
'Ah....'
For some reason, that retreating back looked impossibly big.
'So this... is the strength to embrace.'
Namgung Yurin couldn't stop the tear that welled up in one eye.
The fantasy she held about adults — a fantasy she could hold only because she was Namgung Yurin, a girl who'd had to spend her childhood with nowhere to lean after the first Gate disaster tore her world apart.
The embracing strength of a grown-up.
Her actual older sister, Namgung Ye-rin, had a slightly bigger problem than embracing strength: an obsessive, all-consuming madness where the Namgung surname was concerned.
Though in the end she never did keep her promise to come back and share that lunch.
The crimson-faced girl — Cheon Yujin.
As if to wash away every last drop of Yurin's helplessness, she had gone and saved Bukgung Seol after all.
She'd vanished from school for over ten days without a word of news, which had scared Yurin half to death.
But then she came strolling back, perfectly, infuriatingly fine — and just as Yurin had never once been able to resist anything cute,
this time, in a slightly different direction,
she couldn't hold back the feeling that came surging up.
"Hey, so, uh... this might sound kinda weird, but...."
"......?"
"Can I... try callin' you Unnie...?"
A pure, unfiltered outpouring of the heart.
Namgung Yurin could no longer see Cheon Yujin as just a cute little critter — that was why the question slipped out before she knew it.
But she had overlooked exactly one thing.
The very thing Namgung Ye-rin had once teased her about.
If she looked in a mirror right now, she would find there the unmistakable figure of a pervert demanding the title of 'unnie' from a girl younger than herself....
Bonjwa — that is to say, Blood Demon Cheon Yujin.
"Come on, say ahh... what are you doing? Open up."
"A-ahh... om nom nom."
"Good, right? ...Then it's my turn now?"
"Eh?"
"What's the matter? I opened my mouth, didn't I?"
"Eep...."
He wanted to go home.
He genuinely, desperately wanted to go home.
He had been in the middle of understanding, firsthand, what it must feel like to be a head of household too afraid to set foot in his own home because his little sister Se-ah had grown terrifying of late.
And judging by how the barrier was still standing even now, Se-ah had surely escorted him to school and was waiting somewhere close by, keeping watch.
He was so far gone that he actually caught himself wanting to go home — home, of all places, where he'd be glued to that very same Se-ah around the clock...!
This situation was madness. Madness, pure and simple...!
"………."
Bonjwa lowered his gaze and stole a glance at the lunchbox sitting in front of him.
Right. The lunchbox.
Just like that first day, when Namgung Yurin had hauled him off to the cafeteria by the hand, meals at the Awakener Academy were normally a cafeteria affair.
Which meant that until today, Namgung Yurin had never once... not a single time... packed a lunch.
And it wasn't as though Bonjwa had given any advance notice that he would be showing up at school today, either.
Which left only one conclusion: ever since the field-trip incident, Namgung Yurin had been bringing a homemade lunch with her. Every single day, without fail.
"A-ahh...."
Yes, he had promised to eat lunch together.
But a promise to have her pick up side dishes with her chopsticks and pop them straight into his mouth? However many times he turned it over in his head, he had never agreed to anything of the sort...!
"Mm. Tasty."
Namgung Yurin chewed away at the mouthful, tongue peeking out.
She knew perfectly well how embarrassing this was — her face had flushed a hotter red than Bonjwa's own crimson eyes — and yet she extended her chopsticks and declared with firm resolve:
"Here. One more."
"O-one... more...?"
"I said I'd do this in exchange for not callin' you Unnie, didn't I?"
"N-no, that's...."
What was this. What on earth was this.
He could not... he absolutely could not adapt.
The moment Bonjwa stood before the delinquent Namgung Yurin, his human rights were trampled on pure instinct — like a mouse before a cat, he'd had no choice but to freeze solid.
But this — this was exactly like Cheon Se-ah in her childhood.
Like his immature little sister back then... wasn't she steamrolling him with stubbornness and spoiled whining...!
With trembling hands, Bonjwa set down his chopsticks and opened his mouth.
"Th-the promise... was that we'd eat lunch together... this wasn't part of the promise...."
"………."
Namgung Yurin jerked her head away with a sullen face.
She understood perfectly well, of course, just how mortifying this was.
She had been wearing an expression that couldn't contain its own shame from the moment it started.
And yet, a mere lackey of the Namgung clan though she was, like some Evil Sect fiend who ranked desire above humiliation or disgrace, she showed no sign whatsoever of stopping her rampage.
"Then should I just go back to callin' you Unnie? Hm?"
"N-nooo...."
That would be even worse...!!!
It was only because his little sister Se-ah still called him 'oppa' that he could just barely, on a knife's edge, endure the psychological damage.
If he were called 'Unnie,' it would only hammer home the reality that Bonjwa had become a girl — and besides,
no... to begin with... let's be honest here: on looks alone, anyone with eyes could see that Namgung Yurin was overwhelmingly the more unnie-like of the two.
If someone like THAT went around calling Bonjwa 'Unnie,' the whole scene would be far, far too suspicious...!
And above all else —
with every pass of the lunchbox back and forth, the gaze right beside him grew more and more scalding.
Every time Namgung Yurin said 'Unnie'... the stare sharpened another degree.
The silver-haired, blue-eyed girl — Bukgung Seol.
Having once crossed martial arts with each other, he had assumed the two of them shared a quiet, mutual recognition as warriors — that was the relationship he'd imagined.
"Me... to a thing like this... I, of all people...."
The look in Bukgung Seol's eyes as she muttered, staring straight at him, was almost unbearably sorrowful.
Her lake-blue eyes, draining empty into pale glass, looked as though she were beholding a pervert.
"Kh, khhhhhh...."
And the longer it went on... the less Bonjwa could bring himself to raise his head....
"Oh, right — Unnie."
"......"
"Oops, slip of the tongue. Jjin, about that field trip the other day — well, thanks to that whole incident, most of the school schedule got canceled... they said there won't be any off-campus activities at all? So, um."
"………?"
"This weekend... there's somewhere I'd kind of like to go. Together."
Namgung Yurin looked over at him, eyes wavering with hesitation.
Bonjwa's vision had been spinning in circles ever since this whole unadaptable situation began, but he still believed that the common sense required to refuse such a request... remained intact.
But of course... Namgung Yurin was fussing over him like a little sister, going on about Unnie this and Unnie that.
The old habit of quietly giving in whenever Se-ah threw a tantrum was still alive and well, and he found he simply could not turn away from those desperate, pleading eyes.
"Where is it, exactly...."
And then it hit him.
Because he'd just been thinking of his little sister Se-ah, he suddenly remembered something he had completely overlooked.
Se-ah — who these days wouldn't drift so much as a single step away from Bonjwa's side — would absolutely, without question, try to tag along no matter where he went.
Cheon Se-ah, growing stranger by the day.
And Namgung Yurin, who had blown straight past 'growing stranger' into fully, certifiably unhinged.
Bonjwa, wedged between the two.
"………."
Should he start looking for a Gate that could carry him back to Murim... even now...?