Yandere Warning Signs Beginning From the Talking Stage (2)
It may seem like I've forgotten, but for what it's worth, I'm currently quitting smoking and on a diet.
After three straight days of drinking recently, I should probably consider it pretty much reset—but I still wanted to get back to my old physique as soon as possible. If I returned to that weight, my waist would shrink by several inches.
Until I became a working adult, I'd lived with a decent amount of exercise built into my life. My face might have been nothing special, but I looked good in a suit; clothes suited me well. Especially the suit fit—people who'd seen me had complimented it a lot.
Including that person.
But the suit—the formal wear that person had once praised—I planned not to wear if I could help it. That was exactly why I'd taken a job at a company with a free dress code.
"I want Oppa to look handsome only for me."
I was on my way back after buying toiletries and shower supplies for Riyeon, who'd decided she was staying the night. When I said I was going to run for at least thirty minutes for my diet, she looked thoroughly displeased.
"How am I supposed to look handsome only for you? Everyone has the same eyesight. If I look fine to you, I look fine to other people too."
"You don't get it. 'Handsome' and 'fine' are completely different concepts."
Riyeon was giving me a lecture?!
But she wasn't wrong.
"Oppa is already handsome enough."
"Those love goggles of yours are on tight."
"They're love goggles only I get to wear. If some other bitch puts them on, I'll tear them off along with her eyelids."
"Haha."
I handed her the convenience-store bag and laughed lightly.
"I'd like to see you try."
"Oppa."
Riyeon demurely took both of my hands in hers.
"Listen carefully. If you go around leaking that charm to other women and I catch you, I can't guarantee your autonomy after that."
"…We are still in the talking stage, right?"
It had only been a few days since we'd properly started spending time together. Whether that mattered or not, Riyeon just chuckled and took the bag. The sweat seeping from her palms left my hands damp.
"It's not like I'm the only person in the world with a good eye for people."
"So you're saying you have to really focus to see that someone's worthwhile?"
"Oh my, you didn't know?"
Riyeon turned her back first, smiling, and started walking toward my place.
"In games, do you look at a boss or a rare-item chest from the outside and decide you've already gotten good loot?"
She waved her hand lightly and headed for my apartment—a route she'd already walked back and forth several times. Infuriatingly enough, Riyeon even knew the front-door password. She hadn't even been there a full day.
"You only know if you've gotten good gear after you kill the boss and see what drops, or after you open the chest and look inside."
"…You've got a point."
I had to give credit where it was due. When it came to reading people, Riyeon was far ahead of me. I had no idea what she'd been through—in middle school, or whenever it was, as a kid—to develop that razor-sharp eye for people. If I'd pushed the question further earlier, she definitely would have turned it back on me.
It was true we were getting close at breakneck speed, but each of our pasts was a Pandora's box. If we could leave them shut, and if we were going to draw the future together, then the past didn't have to matter. Especially since we were both lifelong singles, clean on the romance front—that made it possible.
She was a Sim-Gi-Che Virgin, after all.
I was pretty much the same.
Pretty much, anyway.
…Was I?
Since Riyeon had already turned her back on me, I figured I could jog with peace of mind. To already be watching my talking-stage girlfriend's mood before I did anything—I was well on my way to becoming thoroughly henpecked.
Wait. Was I already thinking about marriage? Or was marriage just a done deal at this point?
Either way, divorce didn't seem like it would even be an option.
I loosened up with some light stretching and got ready to run. There was a park nearby with a short course, so my plan was to do interval sprints for exactly thirty minutes, then head back and shower.
Bzzzzzt.
A call. The caller was Riyeon.
I figured as much.
"Weren't you going to shower first and wait for me?"
"I can do all of that while we're on the phone."
"Shower while talking to me?"
"You don't want to?"
"Isn't the situation a little… lewd?"
"Oh, please. It's not like you're the one showering while we talk."
This girl had no concept of putting herself in someone else's shoes. I found myself wondering if I could take back how I'd ranked her above me on reading people earlier. The blind intensity of her affection was moving, sure—but it also seemed to come with a corresponding drop in social sense. I was going to need a proper plan for how to raise her.
Alright. Time to run.
"Oppa."
"What? If you say you're masturbating again, you're getting scolded."
"I am not! But why can't I?"
She'd been thinking about it the whole time, hadn't she!
"That's the only blanket. If you do it there again, there'll be nothing left to sleep under."
"Oppa, you're so cruel. You plaster the whole house with your scent and then tell me not to."
"By that logic, you'd have to spend the entire time we're together completely out of it and reeling."
"……."
"Don't tell me."
"…Was it that obvious?"
I found myself reflecting that maybe the very attempt to understand and figure out a woman named Yu Riyeon had been pretty arrogant of me from the start. I was attracted to her, and she hadn't crossed any real lines yet, so things were smooth for now—but I was starting to get even a little of why people were so terrified of stalkers, looks be damned.
"Riyeon. Turn on the boiler before you go in."
"Where is it?"
"Under the light switch."
"Found it. Do I press it?"
"Yeah. Press it and check that the hot-water indicator is on."
"See?"
"See what?"
"I'm nervous you'd do this for some other bitch too."
She was showering alone in my house. Wasn't it obvious I should tell her how things worked?
"You're the only woman who's ever going to shower in my place. Don't worry."
"…Mean."
"How is that mean?!"
I kept my voice casual, but I was running. From Riyeon's end I heard the rustle of fabric, then the sound of water turning on, then the water hitting the wall. When she went quiet—probably brushing her teeth—I focused on the run.
Until my breath started to catch, every kind of life worry floated up. Then, once my carefully paced breathing got ragged and short, there was only inertia—my two legs moving, clinging to each breath. By then the worries from a moment ago vanished, and all that remained was breathing, being alive, running to the finish. Just that. The desperate wish to arrive and end the suffering as soon as possible.
It hurt like I was going to die, but I could endure it because there was an endpoint—which meant the suffering would end too.
I'd started quitting smoking in that same spirit. But this damn quitting had no end in sight. I was just holding out, continuously.
Riyeon wouldn't be like that. Riyeon wouldn't do that. If it was Riyeon, it would be different.
Even as I thought it, my head was packed full of that person. When the hell did this suffering end? The suffocation of it stirred a craving for a cigarette. Strange. Back when I was a smoker, people said sweating made the nicotine leave your system and made you want a smoke—but I'd already been quit for half a year. Where was this misery coming from? Where was this craving coming from?
That person.
You did something unforgivable to me. You left me without even a proper ending—
"Oppa."
A voice like frost snapped me awake.
"Hah—!"
I'd been running without breathing. Jaw locked, just charging toward the destination. It was alright now. I'd just reached the endpoint I'd set for the run. The suffering was over, and I started breathing fresh again.
"Oppa. What did I say I'd do if you thought about some other bitch?"
"And the evidence that I was doing that is…?"
"Premonition. Instinct."
"How about… trying to reason it out?"
"At some point your breathing changed in a subtle way. Then it stopped."
"And the evidence that thinking about a woman caused that is?"
"The fact that you're demanding evidence is the evidence."
Sharp as a knife.
I looked up at the night sky and drew a long breath. Riyeon's animal sense was something I simply couldn't beat.
"I'm sorry."
What else could I say but apologize?
"It's fine. No wonder I could feel a wall even in the talking stage."
To my surprise, Riyeon forgave me easily.
"I get that Oppa has impurities stuck to him."
"Uh… so you're just letting this go?"
"Oppa. Remember who you're on the phone with right now, and who's waiting for you when you get back."
It was a warning aimed at me, and yet her voice was bright with excitement.
"As long as it's not some huge stain, impurities like that can be cleaned off with a few sprays of air freshener. Lately Oppa's only been talking to me, only spending time with me, and that's how it's going to keep being—and today is the same."
"That's some serious confidence."
"Well, Oppa said he likes me too, didn't he?"
"Be honest."
I pulled out my wireless earbud and pressed the phone directly to my ear. Riyeon's voice came through clearer.
"It's because the whole house is full of my scent, so you're calm right now—isn't it?"
"……."
"……."
"Was it that obvious?"
"I know now."
"Yeah, that's right. You should know by now."
Riyeon giggled and rubbed her hair with a towel. I could hear her shaking it out pretty hard.
"Ah, why do I like talking to Oppa so much? In person, on the phone, over text—I just like all of it."
"Yeah?"
"Do you like it too?"
"I like it too."
No hesitation. Riyeon, for her part, seemed to enjoy appealing to me more than she felt embarrassed about it. And yet the reason neither of us pushed things further was probably whatever was inside each of our Pandora's boxes. Hmm. If we opened them, I was the one more likely to come out looking worse, wasn't I?
"Come straight home."
"I'm on my way."
"How long?"
"About ten minutes?"
"You said you were going to run for thirty."
"It's a loop course, so once I start walking it doesn't take long."
"Hurry up."
"I still have to shower when I get there."
"Of course you do. I want to smell just-washed Oppa too, so you absolutely have to."
Just-washed me. That was a concept I'd never heard of in my life.
We chatted the whole way back. Before long I arrived, hung up, and hurried inside to shower. A quick rinse, body wash, shampoo, brushed my teeth—and when I stepped out, Riyeon's eyes went round.
"That was insanely fast?!"
"A guy's shower is usually on the quick side."
"Is that so?"
Lying there, Riyeon flashed a distinctly ominous little smile.
"Well then."
While I was toweling my hair, she flipped the blanket open and showed me her body in nothing but sleepwear.
"Come in here."
Ah. Great.
That was a line that made me feel like I needed to be extremely careful with my backside. Or my arms. Or the lower pockets. Nowhere was going to be easy.