The Resolve to Poke Sixteen Times a Second
I was sprawled across the bed in my room, hugging a big teddy bear and rolling around. It was the exact same kind of doll I had given Se-ah as a travel gift before.
After roughly a month in the hospital for treatment and psychological counseling, I came home to find school already on break. Of course, since I had decided not to attend school until I turned twelve, the fact that classes were out might not have mattered much.
But with school on vacation, and Seol-hee noona and Seol-hwa heading off to the Erosion Control Center with Mother for training and only returning at night, there was simply nothing for me to do at home.
I had finished every book I could read and wanted to visit the library, yet Father absolutely refused to let me set foot outside the house.
There was a game console, but I had no desire to play and clear the games I had been working through with Se-ah alone before she left on her trip. I considered asking for a new one, but since I did not even know what titles were available, I gave up on the idea.
The news of my kidnapping seemed to have hit Father especially hard. When I was in the living room, he would not even allow me near the window that opened onto the small yard.
Some might call it excessive, but after living through the kidnapping myself I understood that his actions and worries were no exaggeration. So I spent as much time as possible in my room, trying to keep his fretting to a minimum.
In a world where superpowered people could carry someone through walls, and others could pinpoint those locations and smash through buildings to appear…
In a world where every last one of those superpowered people was a woman, this incident drove home just how weak and careful a man had to be. Of course, that did not mean I could keep living like this, cooped up in my room forever.
What I realized this time was that I was far too frail to make full use of my knowledge. Separate from the absence of mana and magic, my body itself was simply too delicate.
Yet when it came to training and exercise, the only methods I knew were the ones from the other world—running laps on the practice grounds or constant sparring.
I asked Father several times whether I could go to the Erosion Control Center with Mother, but he flatly refused. It was not only him; Mother, Seol-hee noona, and even Seol-hwa all put their foot down and forbade it.
So there I was, lying on the bed doing nothing. Unlike the hospital days, after tasting an active life outside once, being stuck in a room like this was unbearably dull.
Knock. Knock.
“Harang, are you asleep?”
“No, I’m awake. Father.”
Father opened the door carrying a small box. Inside were nutritional supplements, fatigue recovery drinks, along with snacks and candy.
He still wore a slightly awkward expression as he handed the box over. According to him, someone left these at our front door, but…
Both Father and I knew they were from Ryu-yeong. Not merely because the packaging and contents were luxurious, but because of the quiet wish for my health that filled them.
In truth, the first time Father found one of these boxes he immediately called Mother, fretting that a stalker might be involved. Only after she saw the photos of the contents and packaging and told him it was from Ryu-yeong did he understand.
Honestly, I had expected him to throw the boxes away or return them later. Instead, every time Ryu-yeong left one in secret, Father brought it straight to me.
His awkward face mixed lingering resentment that she had been the cause of his son’s major accident with a grudging appreciation for the way she kept looking after me and trying to apologize. Little by little the resentment was fading.
I took a candy from the box, popped it into my mouth, and beamed up at him. Father saw the bright smile, gave a bitter little grin of his own, ruffled my hair, and left the room.
I could not ask him outright to forgive Ryu-yeong, but I could express it this way.
Like the bungeoppang party before, I hoped a day would come when we could invite her to our house again.
Eventually even lying in bed grew tiresome, so I began helping Father with the housework and learning to cook from him. When I asked to learn, he smiled brightly and agreed at once.
He tied an apron around me and declared in an excited voice that cooking together with his son had always been a dream of his—which only made me a little embarrassed.
Mother, hearing that I was cooking with Father, insisted the moment had to be photographed and came out with a camera to snap pictures of him.
Seol-hee noona and Seol-hwa got excited that I had helped make the meal and polished off more than usual, leaving Father slightly sulky.
Ryu-yeong and her mother came to visit as well. Ryu-yeong’s mother had already stopped by a few times while I was in the hospital, stepping outside the room with my parents to talk.
Seeing that my parents were neither furious nor particularly reluctant, it seemed things had been worked out reasonably well with her. Still, she returned once more, saying she had not been able to visit after my discharge.
While Father and Mother spoke with Ryu-yeong’s mother, I rolled an empty nutritional-supplement bottle under the feet of Ryu-yeong, who stood with her head bowed, unable to lift it.
She flinched when she noticed the bottle, then slowly raised her head. Our eyes met, and I gave her a small wave.
Thick tears began to spill down her cheeks. I started toward the crying Ryu-yeong, but Seol-hee noona and Seol-hwa, who had appeared at some point, stepped in front of me and blocked the way.
Father seemed to have forgiven her to a certain degree, yet Seol-hee noona and Seol-hwa still found it hard. I managed a bitter smile and, arms held firmly by the two of them, watched Ryu-yeong and her mother leave.
I had hoped Seol-hwa would not hate Seol-hee noona, but this was not exactly the kind of closeness I had wished for them…
Before I knew it summer vacation ended, and in the end Ryu-yeong never managed to set foot inside our house during the break. Instead of leaving gifts in secret, she now handed them to Father, who then passed them to me—so the relationship had recovered at least that far.
Once vacation was over, my daily routine began with waking up in the morning and rousing Seol-hee noona and Seol-hwa. Since I was not going to school myself, it was not particularly difficult.
“Mmm…”
“Ugh! Unnie!! Ugh!! Let go!!!”
The trouble was that once I started waking them, both Seol-hee noona and Seol-hwa began sleeping in even later than before. Whenever I came to wake her, Seol-hee noona would pull me down, wrap her arms around me, and try to drift off again.
Sometimes she was already awake yet still clung to me, rolling around on the bed until Father arrived and pried me free. Because she only hugged me in her sleep, I could usually escape by jabbing her cheek or side until she woke.
With the resolve to poke sixteen times a second, I attacked Seol-hee noona’s side mercilessly. She roughly came to, and I finally wriggled free.
Once I confirmed she was awake, I took both her hands, carefully led her out of the room to the dining table, then woke Seol-hwa the same way and brought her along.
Seol-hwa still wanted to cling and be carried a few times, but ever since the end of last year—eating more and training hard—she had shot up in height. Carrying her around was no longer easy for me.
Even the Seol-hwa who used to throw tantrums demanding to be held quieted down after I stumbled while walking with her in my arms; after that she simply held my hand and followed. The realization that carrying her had become difficult shocked me just as much.
That was how I prepared breakfast for Seol-hee noona and Seol-hwa, fixed their half-asleep hair, then straightened their clothes after they washed and changed, and finally sent them off to school and kindergarten.
They seemed to enjoy having me tidy their outfits so much that they started coming out dressed sloppily on purpose and got scolded by Mother for it.
Mother, free of morning duties because I was looking after the girls, appeared to enjoy Father’s undivided attention; she left for work smiling a little more brightly than usual.
Once all the women of the house had been taken care of, Father and I practiced cooking, ate, did the housework, and passed the time until he went out to pick Seol-hwa up at the end of her day.
The moment I confirmed he had left, I returned to my room and began bodyweight exercises. Father and Mother opposed even that, but…
With the help of a bodyweight-training book I had secured by performing five cute poses for Seol-hee noona, I exercised little by little whenever Father was out or in the early dawn hours.
When she shoved photos of unknown origin in my face and demanded the poses, I was flustered to discover a brand-new side of Seol-hee noona—neither her usual languid self nor the personality that appeared when she fought.
“Hoo… hoo…”
I followed the postures in the book as faithfully as I could, then showered just before Father’s return, opened the window, cleaned the room, and erased every trace of exercise.
Muscle would not appear overnight, yet if I kept at it steadily I believed a day would come when it would help. So I resolved to continue without fail.
I only missed the muscle-pain-removal magic I had used in the other world a little.