Chapter 5
I insert a 100-won coin into the coin slot on the shopping cart handle.
Click—
When I hear the lock release, I pull the cart backward to take it out.
“When we were little, I used to climb in here and ride around.”
“Then you tipped the cart over with yourself in it and Mom scolded you.”
“Th-that… I deserved to get yelled at. Mm, mm.”
I slowly push the cart into the grocery section at the very front.
I've occasionally come to the supermarket alone, but this is my first time grocery shopping with just Sis.
“What do you usually eat?”
“I made do with something simple! Or ordered delivery. Busy modern people have to get their meals over with quickly.”
“Not anymore.”
“True. So I do want to try making and eating various things, but…”
Sis looks around, then stops in front of the frozen foods section.
I wonder what she's looking at, and it's a bag of chicken tenders in various shapes.
“This! What do you think? You used to like these, honey.”
“You’re talking about when I was in elementary school…”
“You don’t like them anymore?”
“…I do like them, but pick what you want to eat, not what I do.”
“If it’s something my husband likes, I have to put one in the cart!”
Before I can stop her, she tosses a bag of chicken tenders into the cart.
Now that it’s in the cart, taking it back out… let’s just give up.
“Ah! Over there, over there. Let’s check the discount section.”
“Let’s buy what we need first.”
“No! What if someone else grabs it first?”
At big supermarkets, some foods are marked down in the evening.
I know that, of course, since I sometimes come grocery shopping by myself,
but shopping like this with Sis is kind of… fun.
“All right. Let’s go.”
“Oh! Wait… I want to try this.”
No sooner has she said that than she grabs a large plastic tub of Greek yogurt from the dairy section beside us.
It’s big enough that it’d probably take her a week to finish it all by herself.
“Wouldn’t you eat this with something mixed in?”
“Then we’ll buy something to mix in. Let’s go!”
Maybe this is better than someone who spends ages agonizing over a simple decision.
This breezy personality is definitely like Mom.
Next, we head toward the discount section we’d just been talking about.
Sushi, fried foods, dairy… mostly things that would be difficult to sell the next day.
“You like sushi… what?”
I speak to Sis, who I thought would be right beside me, but there’s no one there.
I assume she’s gotten distracted by another sudden urge to shop, but—
Sis is still in front of the dairy section.
Bent forward, hands on her knees, like someone who’d run for a long time and had only just managed to catch her breath.
Sis’s back and shoulders, rising and falling sharply, tell me everything.
This isn’t a joke.
“Sis?”
There’s no time to think about anything else.
I leave the shopping cart behind and run straight to her.
I don’t care what the people around us think.
I crouch beside Sis and check on her.
“Ha… haa, huff…”
Sis has her eyes closed, making faint breathing sounds that don’t match her rapid, deep breaths.
“Are you okay? Hey… hey. Answer me… Lee Hyuna.”
“J-just a moment… If it’s just a moment, I’ll be okay…”
Sis answers in a faint voice, then slowly takes five or six deep breaths in a row.
Then she slowly straightens up.
“Phew… I’m okay. Let’s go!”
“……”
Go where? The hospital? The ER?
Sis’s complexion is as bright as usual, but I can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong.
Like she’s forcing herself to act like, ‘I’m fine, you know?’
“I’m fine! This happens sometimes.”
“What’s fine?”
“You might be surprised since it’s your first time seeing it, but your big sis is used to it.”
Sis’s right hand touches my left.
Our fingers lace together naturally, just like at the movie theater. Her hand is warm and a little damp.
This time, it doesn’t seem to be because of my sweat.
“Why are you holding my hand?”
“Hmm… because I’m scared?”
“You just said you’re used to it.”
Instead of answering, Sis grins and dodges the question.
Her smile is as bright as ever, but I can still hear her unsteady breathing beneath it.
“Let’s go. We still have groceries to get, right?”
“Order them online. Let’s go home.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Don’t be stubborn.”
“Nooo. Hm? Hmm? Hoooney.”
As if acting like a spoiled child weren’t enough, she even puts on an utterly ridiculous cooing voice.
Siblings being cute with each other would only earn them a smack, but—
We’re siblings and a married couple.
“…We’ll finish quickly.”
“Hehe, good.”
“So, what was that just now?”
“Hm? What was what?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Honey. You didn’t even know what was wrong with your wife?”
“Quit joking around.”
I know vaguely that there’s something wrong with her heart.
Ever since she was little, Sis needed a little more rest than other people after walking for a long time or exercising.
But what just happened was nothing like the way I’ve seen her catch her breath before.
“Hmm… To put it simply, her heart works so hard that it gets tired and goes on strike.”
“Don’t put it simply. Explain it in detail.”
“Your big sis isn’t a doctor, you know~”
Sis avoids giving me a specific answer.
Instead, she eyes the sushi I’d noticed earlier.
“Oh, sushi! Your big sis likes supermarket sushi, too. Remember that?”
“You used to hate it because of the wasabi.”
“I’m old enough to enjoy that level of bitterness now… Hehe.”
“What else? If that’s all, let’s go. We still have a lot to buy.”
“Hmm… How about beer?”
“You turn red after one sip. You take after Mom.”
“That was a long time ago!”
She grabs a pack of beer beside her and tosses it straight into the shopping cart.
It seems like letting her do what she wants is the fastest way to finish shopping, rather than trying to stop her every step of the way.
***
We’d bought so much that the shopping cart had gotten quite heavy.
Sis watched me struggle with the refrigerator with a satisfied expression.
“Hey… It won’t all fit in here.”
“You can do it! You got this, honey!”
“No, I mean it’s physically impossible.”
“You can do it!!”
Surprisingly, just as Sis said, I managed to cram it all in.
Despite having already had two drinks and popcorn, Sis still found room for late-night sushi.
Leaving Sis to it, I went into my room for a moment.
I close the door, take out my phone, and search ‘IPAH’.
Idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension.
The pressure in the pulmonary arteries rises, making the heart pump harder, and the heart walls thicken in response.
When the heart muscle enlarges beyond what it can handle, its pumping weakens, eventually leading to heart failure.
…I’m kind of pathetic for taking someone like her to the movie theater and then the supermarket.
Should I force her to spend less time outside from now on?
Knock, knock—
“What?”
“What are you doing, honey~?”
“You already did that earlier.”
“Twice is twice as nice.”
“So, what is it?”
I turn off my phone screen.
There’s no way Sis doesn’t know about her own illness, but she tried to vaguely skirt around it in front of me.
She doesn’t want me to take an interest in it.
People want others to acknowledge small, trivial illnesses, but when it’s a grave, serious illness, they want to hide it. That’s human nature.
Not everyone is like that, but at least Sis is.
“Come out! I saved some sushi for you, honey.”
“Isn’t it just leftovers you’re dumping on me?”
“N-no! I saved the ones you like.”
I follow Sis to the table, and there’s salmon sushi and eel sushi left on the plate.
It’s true I like salmon. Though, honestly, not many people dislike salmon.
…But not eel.
“I never said I liked eel, did I?”
“The husband has to eat the eel!”
“That’s kind of a lewd reason.”
“Eh, I heard men like wives who are a little sexy.”
“I guess. But I’m your younger sibling.”
Still, she went to the trouble of saving it for me, so I won’t refuse.
I sit at the table and reach for the chopsticks, but Sis’s hand, a little faster than mine, snatches them away.
Then she picks up a piece of salmon sushi.
“Can I feed you?”
“No.”
There are lines siblings have to respect.
Unless one of them has trouble getting around, feeding each other is clearly crossing one of those lines.
“Come on, just—here! Say ah~”
“If you eat it like that, you’re going to choke…”
“Aaaah!!!”
“A-ah.”
At this close range, there’s no way to dodge even a feeble kick from my sister.
In the end, I reluctantly open my mouth, and the salmon sushi slips right in.
It’s perfectly ordinary, delicious supermarket sushi.
Fortunately, Sis was satisfied with feeding me just one piece of sushi.
Humming softly, she puts down the chopsticks, turns around, and reaches toward the corner of the table.
Then she tears open one of the medicine packets from a pile that could last for several days.
Seeing the colorful pills through the translucent packet makes my stomach turn a little.
“You’re working tomorrow, right? What time do you leave and when do you finish?”
“I have to be there by nine in the morning… If it’s busy, seven. If not, five.”
“Then should your big sis make you breakfast?”
“No.”
Starting the day with Sis’s disastrous cooking still makes me nervous.
And I don’t want to make her busy first thing in the morning just because she’s making breakfast for me.
“You sleep in. I’ll just wash up and head out.”
“No! Of course I have to see my husband off to work in the morning.”
“You’re the one who loves sleeping in.”
“Oh… I like that attention to detail. Those little things add up and make you a husband your wife loves.”
“Anyway, don’t worry about me and go to sleep.”
I finish off the sushi and stand up.
I’ll get ready for bed, then look up a little more about Sis’s illness before I sleep.
“W-wait! There’s one last thing.”
“What?”
“You have to tell me good night.”
“Good night.”
“Like a married couple!”
How do you say good night like a married couple… I’ve never been a husband before, but—
I have a pretty good idea what kind of goodnight would satisfy Sis.
With some reluctance, I tack on the still-unfamiliar term of endearment and say goodnight to her once more.
“Good night… honey.”
“Hehe, good night! My hubby.”