The Crime of Telling the Truth

If a second life ever came around, what was I supposed to do with it?

Should've at least memorized the lottery numbers from my last one. Crypto's already completely wrecked...

That was the thought that showed up, late, once my memories finally stirred awake. Maybe I should try writing web novels?

In my previous life I'd worked at a decently major corporation, and even then I hated going in. The commute swallowed five hours round trip, and overseas business trips came attached like an unlimited-refill side dish. But a web novelist works from home, don't they? The sweetest deal imaginable. No schoolyard bullying, no office bullying—none of it.

The choice didn't take long. I'd already lived one life. I was ex-corporate. I could do anything. Let's go.

And why, of every option available, did I pick heroine novels?

Being able to do anything was not the same as succeeding at any of it. The anime I'd watched as a kid were full of heroine stories, so that was what I wrote, and reality was bleak. It felt like I'd closed my fist on the wrong object at my first-birthday grab. With no other choice I wrote other things. I even sold off my soul and wrote gender-bender novels. Naturally, every last one of them flopped. The market had already turned into a red ocean.

"Fuck."

By the time I understood that life is timing, my brain had melted. Break the circuitry and nonsense starts sounding like logic. My first run had been a success, more or less. Did I really need to live that hard the second time too? Fuck that. I'd drink, and I'd smoke. I didn't want a life spent running a hamster wheel. I am not a cog in society.

And just like that, my life fell apart.

"Heh. Heheheh."

I regret dodging the college entrance exam. Or, failing that, memorizing my coworkers' numbers back when I still belonged to a company.

"If you think it's too late, it's already too late!"

The year was 2026. Right about when the industry people—my acquaintances from the first life—would have ripened into their prime. While those folks were soaring, what was I doing? Reading web novels in my room. Steeped in cigarette smoke like a character out of a catgirl comic, rotting on the galleries.

"A cigarette smoked at home? Absolute bliss!"

Esse Change Everest. I bit down on my favorite smoke and stared at my phone.

"A heroine novel? Why would anyone write this? In the Korean market, does an idea this far behind the times really still sell..."

Second life. Current age: seventeen. (Not really.) I had become a web-novel critic. The bedroom kind.

"You should take a loss."

Whenever I found a web novel I actually liked on a platform, there was a procedure to follow. The truth is, I like heroine novels. I just don't want that author ending up unemployed like me.

Novel Gallery—the GOAT of GOAT galleries, the one that never fails to leave its calling card on the real-time board. Posts crash in there every thirty seconds. I left one of my own.

The reason I hadn't torn the work itself apart was simple. Even if I didn't, somebody in the comments was bound to supply the abuse.

"Another lost soul saved today. Never write a heroine novel. Ever."

I rolled around on the mattress, steeped in a hollow sense of satisfaction. The springs were so old that comfort was out of the question, and somewhere along the way the sun beyond the window had begun to sink.

"Ah. I should clean up the butts."

Emergency ventilation hour had arrived. I threw every window open. The autumn wind was cold, but I turned the fan on anyway, and when even that didn't seem like enough, I seized a hand fan printed with my little sister's school—Hanbyeol University, the single greatest GOAT university in the country—and fanned for my life.

Click, click, click. Then the doorbell.

I was more nervous than I'd been sitting the entrance exam.

"Doona~ You home?"

I went out to the entryway to meet her, voice warm as I could make it. A tall, slender figure in a suit. Jet-black hair, the exact opposite of mine. She stepped out of her shoes and looked me in the eye.

"Unnie? Were you smoking?"

That was the first thing out of her mouth.

"Hm? No way."

"Then why does it reek of cigarettes?"

"I really didn't, Doona! Your unnie spent the whole day diligently touring social networks in the name of social rehabilitation..."

"Lurking the galleries, badmouthing people, and smoking, I bet. I'm cutting your allowance."

"Hweeeeng."

The benefactor standing before me, imposing at a glance, was my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠little sister. Patent attorney Lee Doona. She's Doona. I'm Hana. Our late parents had clearly taken whatever sense they had for names, poured it over rice, and eaten it.

"Unnie, come here."

"...Yes, ma'am."

Doona sat on the sofa. I knelt neatly in front of her.

"You know you did wrong, don't you?"

"I am reflecting upon it at all times."

"And yet the same thing keeps happening?"

"That's... well..."

I had nothing to offer as an excuse. I planted my forehead on the floor in a dogeza.

"Sumimasen!"

Regrettably, dogeza is not a common custom in Korea. Doona is a Muggle. Even so, the fact that I was apologizing seemed to get through.

"Enough. Come here."

She beckoned, and I launched myself onto the sofa, settling with my head in her lap. She brushed the hair back from my temple. Maybe it was the softness of her legs, so unlike my bony ones, but my heart eased.

"It would be so nice if you'd at least quit smoking."

"But fifty percent of my blood is made of nicotine."

"...Should we go to a quit-smoking clinic?"

There isn't a single person in this world you can trust. No—there is one. I don't mean the one in my name. I mean Doona.

"Doona, do we have any snacks?"

"You are reflecting, right?"

White hair, red eyes. I'd had the rotten luck to be born a frail woman, something congenital, they said. Thanks to that, the head of our household was Doona, even though the rest of the family consisted of me and nobody else. Even so, our Doona grew up working so hard.

"And became the wonderful patent attorney, Lee Doona~"

"Unnie, what's wrong with you...? You didn't smoke weed, did you?"

She worries over me. She looks after me so I won't fall ill.

"Your unnie is just so proud of you, Doona... urk."

If this was daily life, then it was daily life. Not every episode in the world is special.

"Haa. Unnie, I'll make dinner. Wait a little."

"...Couldn't I be the one who cooks?"

If you asked whether a little sister who can't cook counts as special—no. That isn't special either. I'd lived too hard the first time around. I was allowed to rest a little in the second, wasn't I? And so.

Munch, munch.

"Munch, munch."

In my sweats, I sat with Doona and industriously tore into rice crackers. Healthy food, of a sort.

"Hey, Doona-Doona. What show is this?"

"A Nutuber who does exposé streams. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠It's pretty fun."

"The kind that exposes scammers?"

"So you did have something resembling basic common sense."

"?"

Contacts out, glasses on. Even the illustrious patent attorney was an ordinary person at home. She put a Nutube stream up on the TV, and onto the screen walked someone in a ridiculous cat mask.

"A furry?"

"How... did your brain even get there?"

The name was Inhibitor TV. A self-proclaimed exposé broadcaster, and the case was one worth knowing: scale-tampering at a seafood market. The market was mosaicked over almost entirely, fear of a lawsuit, most likely.

Even so, I could more ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠or less tell where it was. Hambak Fish Market. The place had been infamous for rigging scales—the scam of lying about the weight of the fish and selling them dear. For a while the whole market had shut its doors over it. Were there still that many people these days? And through a gap in the mosaic, a shop name showed through: Hoho's Seafood Restaurant. It looked strangely familiar.

Something's off.

That shop. I thought I'd seen it on the news. I was sure I'd heard it had closed. It couldn't have come back to life under the same name.

"Doona~ Hold on a second!"

"Unnie? You're not putting on a gaming stream again, are you?"

"I'm not~ I just need to press one button."

I hit pause. The upload date appeared. Four years ago.

"It's an old video?"

"It's still fun, though."

"Can't we watch something from now?"

People say even those old two-night, three-day travel shows are better in the early broadcasts. I'll grant them that. I still prefer whatever's airing these days, the same way I buy the newest phone.

"That person went missing."

Ah. So of course there couldn't be any recent videos.

"Mm."

"From what I heard through a friend, they vanished off the Namhae coast."

Namhae? Completely out of nowhere.

"Then why are you watching this again?"

"It's just fun. We ended up like this because of scammers too, so watching something like that feels good. Clears the chest, you know?"

Trust Doona, patent attorney of justice, to put it that way.

"Ack, Unnie!"

"Heheh."

My lovely little sister. She says something wonderful, and I get the urge to tickle her. When she sits there all prim and proper, the correct response is to jab her in the side and torment her.

"Ack, seriously. I'm not a kid, I told you to stop—pfft!"

I let my guard down at the crisp, satisfying impact. Doona gave me a light shove.

"Cough. Cough."

Ah. A critical hit. Twenty percent chance, and of course it landed.

"Unnie...?"

To put it bluntly, I hate this body.

"...My chest is burning."

It hurts at the drop of a hat. I don't even know why. It hurts whenever the hell it feels like it, so I never properly made it on the school trip. I just got bullied. Twenty-seven years old, and still sitting here chewing on that old misery. A shabby life.

"Doona... I... water..."

My last words were the worst possible. An unnie who asks for water and then passes out.

"Aaaaagh!"

I woke up. A dream, then.

"Ugh, cold."

Shivering, I looked around. It was bright out—broad daylight—and something had been left on the dining table. A wrapping cloth.

"Ah. Right. She said she'd make breakfast."

A sticky note was stuck to the cloth. I peeled it off.

An apology a grade-schooler might have sent. You'd think a patent attorney's handwriting would be pretty. It is not. It's a disaster. How does someone in a learned profession write this badly?

Clutching my head, I tried to recall yesterday. All that came back was me asking for water and fainting.

"Haa."

Even so, breakfast was sitting on the table.

"And I'm hungry."

Might as well eat. Wrapped in the cloth was a ceramic bowl, and inside it, soy-sauce egg rice topped with a fried egg.

"Hm."

It might actually have been eggshell rice. Was this supposed to be plating? I wanted to award it a ten for artistic merit. Shards of shell were set into the rice as lavishly as stained glass in a cathedral.

"Still. Doona made it."

I chewed. Crunch, crunch. And spat it straight back out.

"...Salty."

The salt was a bigger problem than the eggshell pouring out like corn nuts. It tasted as if she'd dumped in half a liter of soy sauce. She hadn't added salt on top of that, surely.

"So very human, my little sister is. My beloved little sister."

I sent Doona a reply.

I tell the truth. That isn't a crime.

"She's not reading it, though."

The unread 1 refused to disappear. My sister reads my Kotalk like clockwork. Why? Because she never knows when a message might arrive saying I'm in the emergency room, so she watches it, always. My little sister, the helicopter parent. And today, of all days, she was late.

Hm.

"Tonight's chicken anyway."

I sat in the chair for a moment.

"Maybe I'll just sleep."

Bzzzt.

"Something always shows up the second I do this."

The phone was going off. Had my gacha stamina finally filled?

"Uh..."

A text had arrived. Spam, obviously.

...

Thud.

The phone fell. It struck the top of my foot, and it didn't hurt.