Chapter 38
* * *
Lee Seungah's gaze did not waver. Her eyes were bold, as though she wasn't joking.
Those eyes were staring straight at her.
Lee Sol swallowed.
“Uh···.”
Her hands had nowhere to go, so they moved restlessly before she lightly clutched the hem of her skirt.
In her confusion, she went over what Lee Seungah had just said again.
···Don't confess to my brother.
Don't confess.
Don't confess?
“Uh, uhh···.”
Her lips slowly parted, and a dazed expression gradually spread across Lee Sol's face.
Had I done something wrong to her?
That was the only thought that kept circling her mind.
Surely, she wouldn't have said something like that otherwise.
“Uh, um···.”
Lee Sol's lips opened and closed uncertainly, and her eyes drooped.
She hates me.
She looked sullen, becoming a little depressed.
“No, no···!”
Seeing that, Lee Seungah panicked and waved both hands.
“I meant that you shouldn't confess yet···!”
“···Yet?”
Lee Sol's eyes lit up again.
···But.
Confessing was something you did if you wanted to.
And if you didn't want to, you simply didn't.
So what exactly did it mean not to do it yet?
“What do you mean by ‘yet’···?”
“It's just···.”
Lee Seungah rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly.
She fidgeted, her gaze fixed on the floor.
“Phew—”
Lee Seungah half-closed her eyes and stuck out her lips.
She muttered in a dissatisfied tone, as though asking herself why she was doing this.
“···It might sound a little strange. I'll just say it quickly, okay?”
Frowning deeply, Lee Seungah planted one hand against the wall.
“Mm-hmm.”
Lee Sol nodded as though she were being pulled along by Lee Seungah's momentum.
“A few years ago, my brother was seriously ill, you know?”
Lee Seungah recalled that time.
It must have been when Lee Seungho was in his second year of middle school.
He had suffered from a high fever with no known cause and had once been rushed to the emergency room in the middle of the night.
Fortunately, the fever came down quickly, but······.
“It was probably around then.”
Lee Seungah lowered her eyes slightly.
“Since then, I don't think my brother has been able to feel romantic feelings, almost at all.”
At Lee Seungah's words,
“···Huh?”
Lee Sol's movements stopped completely.
She had prepared herself not to be surprised by ordinary things, but this was something she simply couldn't help being shocked by.
More precisely, she wasn't so much shocked as she was dazed, having lost all sense of reality.
···.
···.
The two of them met each other's eyes in silence for a moment.
Even Lee Seungah looked incredulous as she said it. But her tone was serious.
At least, she didn't have the expression of someone telling a lie.
“···Really?”
···.
Lee Seungah nodded without a word.
“A girl he had been seeing in middle school confessed to him, and he rejected her outright. The two of them had been really close··· Anyway, that's what happened.”
The testimony continued.
Lee Sol's shoulders flinched.
It was a topic that bothered her, if only a little.
···For now, she would set it aside.
“···Did something go wrong while he was sick?”
“No, the hospital said it wasn't anything like that.”
Lee Seungah shook her head with an odd expression.
“Everything else is fine. He gets angry when he's angry, and he gets happy when he eats something delicious.”
His emotions themselves weren't particularly problematic.
“It's just··· Should I say his emotional threshold got higher··· or became blurred···? I'm not really sure about that part either. Anyway, that's the situation.”
It felt as though his entire disposition had changed after that.
Someone who used to watch dramas filled with romance without a problem began preferring movies after that day, saying they weren't fun anymore.
His grades, which had been average at best, suddenly rose, and he even started exercising, something he had never done before.
It was almost like some kind of equivalent exchange from a comic book.
As though, in exchange for gaining something, one part of his emotions had become blurred.
That was how he changed.
“So even if you confess rashly, you won't get a good answer.”
Lee Seungah folded her arms.
In the end, that was what it came down to.
“It would take something pretty extraordinary to move him, you know?”
···.
“If it were anyone else, they would've made a huge fuss from the moment they arranged to meet you alone. But that guy didn't even twitch.”
Lee Sol lightly bit her lip.
That was true.
Lee Seungho had taken out his study worksheets the moment he arrived home.
“That's why I'm telling you not to confess.”
It wouldn't get through to him anyway.
···.
Lee Sol didn't answer.
The topic had come up so suddenly that she was still trying to sort out her thoughts.
“I don't recommend my brother as someone to date.”
Lee Seungah offered that advice.
“There's no guarantee he'll return your feelings. And if you only have a crush on him, you'd be better off finding someone else while you still can—”
“Seungah.”
Lee Sol called her name softly, drowning out Lee Seungah's voice.
···.
Lee Sol slowly raised her head, her gaze calm and settled.
She slowly parted her lips.
···.
···I only realized this recently.
I don't seem to like other people interfering with choices I've already made.
It was the same during midterms, and at the aquarium during the school trip.
So.
“I'll handle it myself···.”
Lee Sol inhaled sharply, then corrected what she had been about to say.
If, as Lee Seungah said, a confession from her side wouldn't work.
Then she simply had to do the opposite.
She would make Lee Seungho confess to her.
“···I'll make him fall for me.”
Lee Sol twisted the tip of her hair around her finger. Now that she had said it, heat rose to her face.
···In other words.
She didn't need to worry about anything beyond that.
Because she wanted to have a gradual romance.
* * *
Left alone in the room, Lee Seungah sat down on the floor and wiped her face with both hands.
Her eyes blinked between her fingers, and her toes curled tightly.
“Wow···.”
Lee Seungah's face flushed faintly with embarrassment.
Seriously, she was so startled by what she had just witnessed.
It felt like she had swallowed a spoonful of sugar whole. She wanted to watch a romance drama so badly that it had been a long time since she'd felt that way.
“Ha, seriously···.”
The scene from just moments ago replayed in her mind.
Grayish hair falling slightly downward, with youthful emotions visible in the pupils between the strands.
A subtle, dark moodiness poking out here and there.
Every bit of it was more than enough to stir the heart of a teenage girl.
It was a complete romance story in itself.
···.
Then.
The front door suddenly swung open with a series of beeps.
“I'm back.”
Lee Seungho walked in with a calm expression. A white bag hung from one hand.
“Ah.”
Lee Seungah's expression instantly became composed.
It was like having her parents walk in while she was watching anime alone.
She stared at him with a straight face.
“···You lucky bastard. I'm cutting your allowance in half.”
Looking at him, she couldn't help muttering that.
“···?”
Lee Seungho looked incredulous, a question mark appearing on his face. He scratched his forehead with his fingertip. It was his middle finger.
He placed the bag he had bought on the table.
“Ah.”
Lee Seungah's eyes lit up when she saw it.
Right, that had been there.
“Ahem~”
Humming to herself, Lee Seungah eagerly tore it open.
There were all kinds of snacks in the bag. After rummaging around, she pulled out the spicy potato chips.
At least he had bought them with some tact.
“···Where's Lee Sol?”
Lee Seungho asked as he looked around the house.
“She said she wouldn't be able to concentrate on studying, so she was going home first.”
Lee Seungah smiled bitterly as she thought of Lee Sol.
Where had that bold attitude she had shown just moments ago gone?
She had returned to her cute little self and then dashed home as though fleeing.
“Did you happen to run into her on your way out?”
At Lee Seungah's question,
“I didn't see her.”
Lee Seungho replied as he arranged the snacks on the shelf.
Then she must have deliberately taken another route.
What a shy unnie, she thought.
···.
As he quietly organized the shelf, Lee Seungho asked as though testing the waters.
“···Did you tell her?”
His gaze remained fixed on the shelf.
“I did.”
Lee Seungah answered without meeting his eyes for no reason.
Because···.
Rather than telling her later,
“It was better for me to tell her now.”
About his mental state.
Rather than having Lee Seungho awkwardly explain everything and reject her when she confessed, it was better for someone else to tell her.
It would be more credible coming from someone else, after all.
And it wouldn't hurt her again.
···.
Lee Seungho remained silent as though he agreed. It was an unspoken affirmation.
···.
Lee Seungah rested her chin on her hand and let out a hollow laugh.
Even now, she couldn't believe it.
Only his romantic feelings were blurred among all his emotions.
It was almost enough to make her wonder whether he had traded them away in exchange for that unnaturally sharp perceptiveness he had developed at some point.
“···Hey. Where are you going?”
Lee Seungah stopped Lee Seungho as he tried to enter his room.
? Why.
“No, I mean, why are you just walking past me so confidently?”
Lee Seungah questioned him with a frown, boldly extending one hand.
“If something goes out, something has to come in. I helped you, so you have to help me too.”
“······What do you want?”
Lee Seungho was silent for a moment, then slowly turned around and asked.
“It's nothing too difficult.”
Lee Seungah tapped on her phone.
“Look at this.”
She held out the screen.
Lee Seungho's eyes narrowed when he saw it.
“···A comic convention?”
“Yeah, I was planning to open a booth here next weekend.”
The Comic Festival was an offline event for all otaku, held at regular intervals.
It was an event venue where people could buy and sell fan-made works or watch cosplayers.
Wasn't it the kind of event that made your heart race just hearing about it?
As someone who hoped to become an illustrator, Lee Seungah regularly took part in it.
“Someone was supposed to come with me, but they were suddenly hospitalized.”
So,
“Help me work the event this time.”