Chapter 47
* * *
“I’m homeee….”
In the evening, beneath an orange-red sunset, Shin Ayoung returned home from school.
She took off her shoes and entered the living room.
“You’re home?”
“Huh?”
Her mother, sitting on the living-room sofa and munching on peanuts, greeted her. Startled by the unexpected encounter, Shin Ayoung raised her voice.
“You’re home early?”
“I came home early because I wanted to see my daughter’s face for once.”
“Ah, Mom~”
Shin Ayoung narrowed her eyes in dismay. Her mother occasionally said embarrassing things without a care.
“···Hmm?”
Her mother examined Shin Ayoung quizzically.
“Did something good happen at school?”
“What?”
Good grief.
It was a sudden question.
“Uh… nothing happened…?”
“Really?”
Her mother tilted her head as if puzzled, then soon lost interest and turned her eyes back to her phone.
“Wash your hands. I cut up some fruit and left it on the table.”
“Okaaay—”
Shin Ayoung answered and headed for the bathroom.
‘···Something good?’
Shin Ayoung unconsciously thought of Lee Seungho’s face.
If this counted, then perhaps it did.
It must. It could be called something good.
After all.
It was practically the same as gaining a friend she could relax around.
If her expression was different from usual, it was probably because of that······
“···.”
Shin Ayoung’s steps came to an abrupt halt. Her gaze focused on one spot.
“···.”
A small breath escaped between her lips. She looked at herself in the mirror.
A faint, vivid-red blush stood out on her cheeks.
The corners of her mouth had risen of their own accord.
It wasn’t an expression she had put on, but one that had revealed itself.
This wasn’t like the acting expression she usually put on.
There was no way she could make an expression like this without even realizing it.
Shin Ayoung could only realize the truth.
“······Ah.”
This was.
······I’m screwed.
*
“···Hmm.”
Shin Ayoung looked around the living room.
She went out onto the balcony, then looked up at the shelf.
She even stood in front of the mirror.
Then she stopped again.
“Hmm···.”
Shin Ayoung could hardly keep still.
The situation felt awkward.
“···What’s wrong with her? She’s making me dizzy.”
Her mother glanced at her while crunching noisily on nuts.
“Are you looking for something?”
“No··· it’s just···.”
Shin Ayoung flinched, then turned around awkwardly.
She hadn’t realized she had been pacing around so much.
She let out an awkward laugh.
“···Have you seen my chocolate? I thought I left it here···.”
She concocted an excuse. She didn’t want to be questioned for no reason.
“It’s up there.”
“Aha···?”
Shin Ayoung picked it up and hurried to her room.
“···Nothing really happened, right?”
“Nothing happened—.”
“If it’s something like that, you have to tell me right away, okay?”
“Okaaay···!”
Click.
She closed her bedroom door, hugged the box of chocolates, and leaned her back against the door.
‘Calm down. Calm down.’
Shin Ayoung slowly closed her eyes.
Crunch—
Feeling that she should eat something, she sat on the bed and bit into a chocolate.
‘I have feelings for him? Me, for him?’
Her fingers fidgeted.
‘Not as a friend? As a man?’
As she thought about it,
Shin Ayoung felt heat rise to her head and began to sweat profusely.
‘Could I be mistaken···?’
Lee Seungho’s face came to her mind in an instant. His features took shape.
Telling her to make herself comfortable,
the bold tone of his voice was still vivid in her mind.
A faint heat rose to her ears.
“Mmmmm······.”
She flopped backward onto the bed and pulled a pillow over her face.
“Hnnngh······.”
She rolled around and around.
She didn’t know what to do with this unfamiliar emotion she was experiencing for the first time.
“Phew···!”
Her face red, she pulled the pillow away.
She must have buried her face in it too hard; she could barely breathe.
“···.”
After lying there blankly for a while··· Shin Ayoung abruptly sat up.
No.
‘···What do I do now?’
Shin Ayoung opened her eyes wide and sharp.
‘Sol···.’
This was the problem that concerned her most.
Her head was already starting to ache over how she should treat Lee Sol.
“Ah, seriously—”
Shin Ayoung buried her face in the pillow again and spat out the knot in her chest.
Why did I really do that?
Why did I go and say I’d help Lee Sol?
“···.”
But···.
Shin Ayoung stroked the area around her chest. Something there kept churning.
It felt ticklish, as if something strange had gotten inside.
Lee Sol was on her mind.
But she didn’t want to pretend she didn’t feel this way and push it aside.
“······.”
Shin Ayoung slowly opened her closed eyes.
“Ha···.”
Her deep black eyes held a subtle emotion.
Right.
“······Seungho gave me permission, too.”
Shin Ayoung muttered as if making an excuse, then lay on her stomach and tapped at her phone.
He had given her permission to be a little selfish.
So.
This time.
···I’ll let a little of my true feelings show.
* * *
“Whew···.”
After returning home, Lee Sol lay on her bed and let out a deep breath.
It contained relief more than it did a sigh.
She had worked hard in many ways today.
‘I did stumble a little at the end···.’
She had dozed off for a moment, but
hadn’t she resolved everything well in the end?
Lee Sol congratulated herself. She had done well.
And she had gained something, too.
“···Ahem.”
Lee Sol recalled Lee Seungho waking her up.
“Hehe.”
A giggle escaped her as an involuntary hum.
“Ahem-ahem.”
Lee Sol forcibly held back her laughter.
She still couldn’t let her guard down.
It wasn’t over yet. She needed to drive the point home. After all, she had decided to seduce him···!
‘Should I try putting on makeup···?’
To seduce a man, she had to become a fox.
The first step for him would be an appearance that captured his attention, no matter what anyone said.
What man in the world disliked pretty women?
“···All right.”
Let’s give it a try.
Lee Sol sat down in front of the vanity in the corner of the room.
“Whew—”
She blew on it.
She dusted off the small layer of dust with a few taps. Maybe she really hadn’t tidied up in far too long.
There were a lot of cosmetics set on top.
She hadn’t bought them herself; they were a few things her mother had stocked and others she’d received as gifts.
Even so, they looked like more than enough.
“Let’s see···.”
Lee Sol spread the cosmetics across the desk and looked down at them.
Hmm.
Somehow, they all looked exactly alike.
“···.”
Only then did another thought occur to her.
Come to think of it···.
‘···How do you put on makeup?’
Thinking about it, that was true.
She had never done it herself even once.
It was only natural; Lee Sol wasn’t particularly fond of wearing makeup.
It was quite a bothersome task, too.
Whenever work made it unavoidable, all she had ever done was let a makeup artist do it for her.
More than anything,
her looks were good enough that going without makeup didn’t really matter.
“Mmm···.”
Lee Sol groaned and fell into thought.
Still, it felt awkward to ask other people.
They would obviously interrogate her.
“Ah.”
Lee Sol thought of a plan. She knew just the thing.
She immediately opened Instagram.
She remembered seeing an incredible makeup tutorial video there once.
“···.”
Tap··· rat-a-tat···.
The keyword was:
Makeup techniques easy for beginners.
‘Is it this one?’
Lee Sol clicked on whichever video had the highest view count.
The woman in the video moved her hands briskly. As she explained something, her appearance began changing rapidly.
She watched the video for a little while.
“Aha? So this is how···? It’s not as hard as I thought···? At this level···.”
It seemed doable.
Lee Sol swelled with baseless confidence. She felt sure she could do it.
She reached out confidently.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Following the order shown in the video, she applied color to her face.
She diligently moved her hands while looking in the mirror.
Pat··· pat-pat···!
After applying the finishing touch, she lowered her hands.
Good. If she did this···
“···.”
Uh.
“···Uh, hmm···.”
Looking at her reflection in the mirror, Lee Sol’s expression slowly hardened.
The excessively drawn eyeliner only doubled the awkwardness, while the blush on her cheeks was downright ridiculous.
It hadn’t looked like this when the makeup artist had done it.
It had looked genuinely natural and pretty.
“···.”
Lee Sol furrowed her brow and looked down at her hands.
She felt a little wronged.
“Phew.”
Lee Sol sprang to her feet.
···This won’t do. I need to wash this off.
She must have climbed to the peak of foolishness. This definitely wasn’t it.
She opened the bedroom door at once and headed for the bathroom.
“···!?”
Her mother’s eyes, which had naturally turned in this direction, flew open in shock.
She opened and closed her mouth, hesitating to say anything.
She probably knew what Lee Sol was thinking.
Lee Sol entered the bathroom at an even faster pace.
Swoooosh——
“Phew···!”
Lee Sol turned off the faucet and exhaled the breath she had been holding.
Somehow, she wiped it all off.
Her face was back to how it had been before.
After cleaning herself up and coming out,
“Whew······.”
A sigh of relief came from the living room.
Lee Sol pretended not to know anything and returned to her room.
Swipe, swipe—
“···It’s all difficult.”
Feeling disappointed,
she browsed through other videos afterward, but found nothing particularly useful.
Apparently, there weren’t any videos easier than this one.
“Good grief···.”
Her annoyance slowly rose, and she flopped onto her back.
Right.
Maybe it would be better to go around as usual.
That was when.
“······Huh?”
She blinked blankly.
A post uploaded by Shin Ayoung caught Lee Sol’s eye.
An utterly ordinary photo of daily life.
It showed Shin Ayoung making a V with her fingers at the ice rink.
What caught Lee Sol’s eye was none other than the background.
A familiar silhouette had been captured in the back.
It was definitely Lee Seungho.
···This must be from the counseling session. She had that intuition.
“······.”
Lee Sol’s eyes went blank.
Why had she uploaded this?
The question tore through her mind.
An instinctive sense of crisis rose within her.
“···.”
Lee Sol sat back down in front of the vanity with a determined expression.
* * *
······What kind of situation is this?
I stopped moving as soon as I got home.
There was a girl inspecting herself from every angle in front of the living-room mirror.
“Oh? You’re back?”
“···What the hell?”
I narrowed my eyes slightly at Lee Seungah’s uncharacteristically different appearance.
What is that?
She had some kind of sky-blue wig pulled over her head. The unusual part was the angel-ring-like thing attached to it.
The contrast was even stranger because someone who was normally black-haired had changed so drastically.
“What I’m going to wear to the event. Looks okay, right?”
Lee Seungah pointed to her hair and looked smug.
“···You said you sell drawings. Why are you suddenly doing cosplay···?”
“Tsk.”
Lee Seungah raised her index finger to her lips, telling me to be quiet.
“You don’t get it. These days, this is a marketing strategy, too. We have to gather people first, don’t we? Might as well dress up while we’re at it.”
Ah.
So she planned to attract people with her looks.
It was a fairly strategic choice, but I wondered how it looked from a family member’s perspective.
“There’s one for you, too, Oppa.”
“···?”
“For real.”
Lee Seungah pointed at a delivery box.
Clothes came out of it.
Seeing them, I grimaced fiercely.
No, why me.