A Woman with a Car, Yet Younger Than Me

Riyeon got her wallet back from the taxi driver.

Knowing she had zero grasp of give-and-take, I told her that in cases like this it was common sense to offer a tip. She shot back that it was entirely up to her. When I insisted that gratitude ought to be expressed in material form, she admitted she was grateful and said she would handle it appropriately—then went down to the building entrance and came back up.

You fought me earlier about whether you even needed to tip in the first place. I burned the entire morning talking you into it. Barely got any work done. Honestly, I wish you’d lost your phone instead of your wallet. Answering the nonstop flood of texts had completely drained me. If I hadn’t eaten ramen that morning, the whole first half of the day would’ve been pure hell.

For the record, Riyeon ordered a single bowl of ramen and then stole more than half of my kimbap. I wasn’t going to scold her over it, but the sheer social-floor of my brand-new little sister was so unfathomable it actually scared me.

“…….”

Calling her my little sister had rewritten huge chunks of reality in just three days. The cool beauty with the murderous glare had turned out to be a manga otaku with catastrophic deficits in human connection—basically a feral cat that only pretended to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be domesticated. The moment you brought up anime she seemed to know everything, so her coverage was probably broader than she let on, but almost every topic she volunteered circled back to Even After Knowing Everything of You.

Side note: that bastard ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Jeonhannan had gone and locked his SNS. We found out while eating ramen, so Riyeon and I got equally furious and took it out on the food with rage-powered snacking.

Oh. Right. It was lunchtime. Why was it already lunchtime? I hadn’t done a single useful thing. And why did the word “why” keep following me around like a curse? At this point it was healthier just to accept it. Fine. I would stop thinking. For the time being I would simply observe the specimen known as Yu Riyeon.

Hmm. Fair point, actually.

Incredible defense. She refused to deny her own looks while simultaneously claiming moral purity—an advanced-level rebuttal. It was pure sophistry, but the earnest way she argued made me like it.

After that, Riyeon stopped texting. Not because she was ignoring me—more like my message had frozen her in place. The lively clatter of her keyboard went completely silent.

“Pfft.”

In the end Riyeon laughed out loud. Mocking someone’s looks? That required immediate correction.

“Riyeon-nim, you seem to be in a good mood today.”

“Me?”

Handsome Team Leader had drifted over to her desk. Riyeon’s voice turned ice-cold. Her eyes had probably snapped back into murder mode. She never relaxed the force behind her gaze except when she was facing me. Which meant she only smiled for me. Feeling special made my heart skip. Or, more accurately, the total unpredictability of what chaos she might cause next—Shin-chan levels of danger—was what made it skip.

“Want to grab lunch?”

“No. I’m just going to rest.”

“Ah… okay. Then when can you handle that thing I asked about yesterday?”

“I’ll head to the district office after lunch.”

“Great. Appreciate it.”

That was Handsome Team Leader’s whole problem. With female staff and superiors he used that face to win people over and keep things smooth. But with male subordinates like me, or someone like Riyeon who kept a wall up, the second his charm bounced off he just dumped work on them or started nagging. And if he found even the tiniest opening for a nitpick, he would smile while twisting the knife. Riyeon and I usually dodged him pretty well, but we were still human; we made ordinary human mistakes and got chewed out a few times.

I’d said this before, but the team leader came from marketing and knew almost nothing about back-office or management support. He just hunted for typos so he could grill people. Even so, that trustworthy-looking face kept his relationship with upper management solid. Hmm. Riyeon was right. Handsome people cash in on their faces. But was it really okay to do your job with nothing but a face?

There were plenty of Team Leader episodes, but I had no hobby of self-harm by replaying rage-inducing memories. The Mizuki Drug Bulgogi Incident from Even After Knowing Everything of You was already more than enough.

More like a doomed community, but if that counted as romance then sure, romance it was.

Except Riyeon still wasn’t getting up for lunch.

Thanks to you I got nothing done all morning.

What kind of nonsense was that. I glanced sideways and found her staring at me with pure expectation. Sigh. I was doing the “caring older brother” bit, so I needed to refuse kindly.

“I’ve got more than enough of my own work right now.”

“It’s Friday. Take it easy.”

“Then you don’t go to the district office either.”

“I don’t want to get written up. I’m going to do the job properly.”

“Good attitude. I’ll take notes.”

“Oppa, you’re really not coming? If I leave I’m just going straight home after.”

“Guess I have no choice. Leaving right now?”

“Yeah. Coming with?”

“Can’t. Work’s actually piled up.”

“Hnnngh.”

Riyeon crossed her arms and glared at me, dissatisfied. I spun my monitor around and showed her the task checklist. No brilliant strategy sessions on the list—just a mountain of pure physical busywork. At any other company I would’ve dumped half of it on a junior; here I was the entire HR department, so it all landed on me.

“Fine. If you get hungry, duck into a convenience store and grab a sandwich quick. Don’t work on an empty stomach.”

“I’m dieting, so one meal a day is fine. Intermittent fasting.”

“You’re dieting, Oppa?”

“I got fat. Gotta lose it.”

I wanted the weight I’d packed on from quitting smoking gone as soon as possible. The love handles, belly, and double chin I saw in the shower mirror were deeply offensive. If I at least stayed slim, didn’t smell, and kept myself tidy, I could pass for a human being. For all my flaws I was extremely good at self-objectification. That was probably why I couldn’t date… though I also couldn’t date back when I was terrible at self-objectification. Dating was just that hazardous to your health. Anyway, that had to be the explanation.

“You drank the night before last and last night.”

“That was because of Everything of You. Mood was wrecked.”

“Because my mood looked wrecked?”

Riyeon had an uncanny talent for hearing only what she wanted to hear. The only workable response to that brand of my-way-or-the-highway was to feed her the line she wanted.

“It’s getting cold. Dress warm.”

“Eut…!”

“What?”

“That was flirting just now, right?”

She only made a tiny sound, so I looked over. Her face had gone red. Years of social isolation had left her completely defenseless against ordinary kindness.

“It’s just concern. Don’t catch a cold.”

“…Okay. Oppa should dress warm for the commute home too.”

“Five and a half hours until quitting time.”

“I’ll be back.”

“Take care.”

I waved her off on reflex. Heading into winter and she was still dressed pretty lightly. Not obese like me—maybe her body just ran hot? Wait. Breasts were fat tissue, right? So the bigger they were, the more heat they generated? I approached it from a biological angle, using the convenient shield of our brother-sister relationship to claim the privilege of thinking about Riyeon’s body. But she really was beautiful from face to figure, so the whole mental exercise left me feeling guilty. What kind of thoughts was I having about my little sister?

She was out on field work, so for the rest of the day—at least during work hours—no texts would come. Time to actually work. Nothing was blocked; I just needed to clear as much of the annoying stuff as possible while I had the chance. If a Riyeon-text storm hit mid-task I wouldn’t get anything done, so as a preventive measure I decided to push through next week’s work too. At first the chats had felt like a nuisance, but talking with her was pretty fun. It even kept the Mizuki Drug Bulgogi thoughts away.

“…….”

Ah, damn it. I just thought about the Mizuki NTR manga again.

I finished my work with almost suspicious smoothness. I’d actually done so much that I could coast through every morning next week if I wanted. The complete absence of texts from Riyeon had made it possible. Even so—clearing nearly every task? How competent was I? My name literally meant “talent,” after all. Once I entered the workforce people started teasing me that the name suited an HR guy, but right now I felt genuine pride in it.

“Have a good weekend.”

One of the few upsides of this company: if you finished your work, nobody said a word about clocking out on time. I usually left right at five, but for some reason most of the other management-support people leaned toward overtime. Was Riyeon doing overtime today? If so, teasing her was my duty as her Oppa.

The “1” vanished instantly. Either perfect timing or she wasn’t working late.

My brain went blank.

She had straight-up stolen her salary. Was she insane, Yu Riyeon?

Every time I started to forget, she had a gift for making a person go dead serious.

If she was nearby I was going to catch her and lecture her properly.

While I was staring at the screen the phone vibrated. Incoming call from Riyeon.

Following her instruction, I turned my head left without thinking. Riyeon was sitting in the driver’s seat of a Genesis sedan, passenger window rolled down, looking straight at me.

“Get in, Oppa. I’ll take you home.”

I knew how dangerous and inconvenient it was to stop on the shoulder, so I hopped in without delay.

“You didn’t go home?”

“Nope.”

“Then what have you been doing this whole time?”

“Waiting for Oppa.”

Riyeon eased the car smoothly into the eight-lane road and asked,

“What’s your home address, Oppa? I’ll drop you off.”