That Word Is Absolutely Forbidden
“Hey!!!”
Yoona was furious to the tips of her hair.
Ajumma.
The instant she first heard that word, she doubted her own ears.
She was the eldest daughter of the Gangsan Group. She was locked in a rivalry with that eldest-son bastard, but in the end the victor would be her. She had the beautiful looks befitting that station, and she had dressed herself in the latest, most extravagant high-end designer pieces to make that beauty shine even brighter!
And they dared call her ajumma!
Yoona trembled from head to toe with humiliation. Because more than anything else, she was still—
“I’m still a long way from thirty!!!”
If she were at least thirty, it would have been a little less unfair. She was still in her twenties! And they called her ajumma!
As she raged, laughter spilled into her ears.
“Puhahaha!!”
“Puhup… Hahahahat!!”
Yuri and Seonye’s laughter. They kept cackling at the sight of Yoona, red-faced and thrashing, as if it were the funniest thing in the world.
“Yeah, still a long way. You’ve got about two years left.”
“No, no. More accurately, you don’t even have two years left.”
“Puhat! Yeah, you’re right!”
Yuri and Seonye, who only moments earlier had been ready to tear each other apart, were now perfectly in sync, cheerfully ganging up on Yoona. Her face flushed even redder, ready to burst.
Watching the scene, Sihyun thought to himself, Ah… maybe I went too far.
It had been a line he’d spat out without thinking, furious at Yoona’s full-throttle psycho performance—he just hadn’t expected it to cut this deep.
Yoona pointed at Sihyun and shouted.
“Hey! Compared to this kid, you two are ajummas too!!!”
How many years difference was there really! Well, there was a bit of a gap, but still… compared to that kid who looked like he’d just become an adult—
You’re the same!
But Yuri and Seonye brushed her off with easy, leisurely smiles.
“Sure~ We’ll go with that. Puhuhup!”
“Right, we’ll say so. Unnie Yoona~”
“She called her unnie! Puhahahat!”
They deliberately made it even more infuriating, dragging out a title they had never once used before—unnie—just to needle her further.
“It’s not ‘we’ll go with that’—it is that, you bitches!”
Having shouted that, Yoona hurriedly whipped her head around.
“R-right? My puppy?”
She asked Sihyun in a trembling voice.
“…What?”
Suddenly tossed the ball, Sihyun barely had time to be flustered. Because the denial didn’t come out of his mouth at once, Yuri and Seonye both snapped their heads toward him and pressed in.
“Hey… You’re not going to say no, are you?”
“Right, Sihyun. There’s no way I’m the same as that ajumma, right?”
Ziii—
“Uh, well…”
Under their murderous stares, Sihyun broke into a cold sweat without realizing it.
“Hey! Why can’t you answer right away!”
“Sihyun! Are you seriously doing this!?”
Suddenly cornered, Sihyun tried to escape by redirecting the arrow at Yoona.
“No, ajumma! Just stop it already and leave!”
That word again, out of Sihyun’s mouth. The moment ajumma drove into her ears—
Snap—!
Yoona felt something snap inside her head.
“AAAAAH—!!!”
Her eyes rolled. She shoved a hand into the handbag hanging from her arm and pulled something out. The three of them went pale.
“She brought another one of those!?”
“What is this, some kind of Doraemon pocket!!”
What Yoona held was another stun gun—the same kind Sihyun had kicked to the floor!
“Shut up!!!”
Beyond reason, Yoona started spraying stun-gun fire.
Ziiiiing—!!
Zzzt-zzzt-zzzt—!!
“Kyaaah! You crazy bitch!”
The three of them scrambled for cover behind tables and chairs that were already wrecked beyond recognition, ducking the electric barrage. Which meant the ones who took the brunt of Yoona’s spray fire were, naturally…
Zzzt-zzzt—!!
“Gueeeek!!”
“Gurgh!!”
…the bodyguards already downed by Sihyun’s hand. And the one forced to absorb the fullest measure of Yoona’s rage—
“Uwaaaah!!”
—was Jinwoo, collapsed at her feet.
Ziiiiing—!!
Zzzt-zzzt—!!
“Kyahahaha!!!!”
Inside the café that had become little more than a ruin, Yoona’s manic laughter rang out.
“Stop it! You crazy bitch!”
Yuri screamed herself hoarse from behind cover. But Yoona only laughed harder and kept spraying the stun gun.
“Shut up!!! Kyahahahaha!!!”
Ziiiiing—!!
Zzzt-zzzt—!!
“N-noona! Stop! You’re really going to kill me— Guaaaaah—!”
The chaos finally ended only after—
Wee-woo wee-woo! Wee-woo wee-woo!
—the blaring of sirens rose from outside.
When the police walked into the café, Sihyun couldn’t help but panic. The number of guys he’d beaten down alone already exceeded twenty.
Th-this is completely red-handed, isn’t it!?
Sihyun clutched his head in belated regret.
I should never have gotten mixed up with these crazy women! I should’ve just gone home!
Yuri smirked as she watched him fidget and flounder.
“Hey, don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen.”
“How am I supposed not to worry!”
Sihyun snapped.
“Can’t you see? None of the cops are even talking to you.”
“Huh…?”
At Yuri’s words, Sihyun turned his head with a dazed look—and sure enough, there were already people dealing with the police separately. Seonye and Yoona.
“We’ll settle this among ourselves, so you can head back.”
“Don’t you know who I am? What’s your jurisdiction!?”
Looking at the two of them, Yuri smirked and added,
“They’re not quite on my level, but they still come from pretty well-off families, so you don’t need to worry.”
“….”
Sihyun said nothing, his expression hardening.
So this was the wealth gap. They’d gone this completely wild and torn the place apart, and it was just going to slide without any consequences?
The responding officers seemed to recognize their identities. Instead of making arrests, they kept bowing their heads—Sihyun took it all in. Before long they went through the motions of an investigation, then climbed into their patrol cars and left.
Ha…
Sihyun laughed hollowly to himself. For a moment, a past he’d wanted to forget flickered up.
If these people had been around when I was in high school… No. Don’t even think about it.
Sihyun shook his head to forcibly erase the rising memory. Yuri, mistaking the gesture as being about her, shrugged and said,
“This whole thing started because you were trying to save me, so you really don’t need to worry at all.”
“Hey! Watch your mouth! Sihyun came here to save me!”
Seonye butted in, snapping as she stepped closer.
“Bullshit.”
“Hey!!!”
Yuri and Seonye started snarling at each other all over again. The sight of them made Sihyun’s head throb.
Just stop already… you crazy women…
And the other crazy woman, who’d been off to the side, slowly approached as well.
“Puppy.”
“…!”
Sihyun flinched, eyeing Yoona with wary caution. Yuri and Seonye stopped fighting and turned sharp glares on her.
“Kang Yoona, you…”
Yuri’s expression said, You’re not about to do it again, are you? as she addressed her. Yoona smacked her lips as if disappointed.
“Hmm~ I’d love to keep going, but I’m a little tired too…”
Roughly smoothing her mussed hair, she looked down at Yuri and Seonye with a contemptuous gaze and added,
“Unlike certain people who ran away making excuses about being busy, I’m extremely busy every single day.”
At her sarcasm—
“Ha…!”
“Oh, come on…!”
—Yuri and Seonye looked utterly speechless. Satisfied with their reaction, Yoona turned and locked eyes with Sihyun again.
“Puppy, next time we meet, you have to call me Master, okay? Got it?”
“….”
Sihyun naturally avoided her gaze. Watching him, Yoona flicked her tongue out to lick her lips and thought,
Playing hard to get just makes him cuter.
Seeing him refuse to answer to the end only excited her in a strange way.
Wow, this is actually dangerous~
The sadistic urge to torment him again started to rise, but—
Today ends here.
She barely held it back.
“See you next time, puppy~ Next time I’ll have a pretty present ready to put around your neck, so look forward to it~”
With that, Yoona turned, waved, and walked away. Behind her—
“N-noona, wait for me!”
—Jinwoo, who had somehow managed to pull himself together, and his underlings staggered after her as fast as their battered bodies would allow.
Sihyun watched their retreating figures, thinking this time it was finally over…
Then, to his ear—
“Hey.”
—Yuri’s low, cold voice. Followed by—
“Sihyun.”
—Seonye’s outwardly gentle voice as well. A bad feeling hit him, so—
“Yes?”
—he turned toward them with a tense expression, swallowing dryly.
“We still need to finish what we were talking about earlier.”
“Right, Sihyun. You can’t just quietly skip past it.”
Gooo—
Suddenly the air felt heavy, sinking down. Sihyun asked back with a clueless look.
“What are you talking about…?”
To his question—
“Do we look the same as that bitch…”
“the same as her!!”
—Yuri and Seonye shouted at the same time.
“Do we look like ajummas too!?”
Only then did Sihyun understand. Ah. They’d gotten scratched by that word too.
Unable to say yes even as a joke, Sihyun answered urgently, voice slightly trembling.
“O-of course not!”
But his face was the type that showed when he was lying.
“Hey!!!”
“Sihyun!!!”
The two women glared wide-eyed and yelled at him. Sihyun squeezed his eyes shut and thought.
Never again.
That word—ajumma—
he would never, ever let it leave his mouth again.