Chapter 6
“…Ah.”
This isn’t my studio apartment.
The ceiling I saw when I opened my eyes was unfamiliar, and for a moment I was confused.
I slowly sat up in bed and waited for my brain to finish booting up.
“……”
Right… I married my older sister.
This is Sis’s place, she’s asleep right now, and I have to go to work.
Okay. Boot-up complete.
“Haa…”
Just because my brain’s booted up doesn’t mean I can start the day full of energy.
How did I end up marrying my older sister, anyway?
A sudden, overwhelming sense of uncertainty about the whole thing came over me, and I let out a long sigh without meaning to.
‘Honey!’
Sis, smiling brightly at me and calling me honey without hesitation.
The reason she could smile so freely even during this kind of role-play… must be that she’d always had such big romantic dreams about marriage.
I know this relationship might look strange to other people.
Still, before it’s too late, I need to get a little used to everyday life as a married couple.
…Of course, changing overnight starting today won’t be easy.
“Phew. Now… time to get ready for work.”
As I got out of bed and headed for the bathroom to wash up, I stopped in front of Sis’s room.
She’s still asleep.
I could’ve just left it at that, but the events at the supermarket yesterday suddenly came back to me.
So, for no particular reason, I quieted my steps and leaned toward her door to listen,
“……”
I couldn’t hear anything.
Not even the sound of snoring or breathing. Nothing at all.
Didn’t she say she had about a year left?
But surely nothing could’ve happened overnight…
“…I’ll just check. Just check… You never know.”
It should be okay to just check whether she’s breathing.
Even if this is all pretend, I’m her husband.
Whether I’m worried about my wife or my sister, it’s only natural.
Creak-
I carefully opened the door.
The room was dark, and on the bed Sis was lying there with the blanket over her… no, she’d kicked it all the way off.
Slowly… I crept toward the bed as quietly as I could so I wouldn’t wake her.
People often say someone’s sleeping like they’re dead, but it feels different when you say it about someone who’s actually sick.
“Sis…?”
I tilted my head and bent down.
I leaned over her and listened again.
“…Fyu-huu.”
What was that?
Was that really a person breathing?
“…Koh-hoo.”
Yep.
“…Fyu-huu.”
Maybe her breathing was so quiet that I just hadn’t heard it.
Maybe because I’d confirmed she was alive and well, her completely motionless face seemed rather peaceful.
As I turned to leave the room, I found myself saying something… for no particular reason.
“…Sleep well.”
***
Among the restaurants inside the department store, the handmade burger place where I work is surprisingly popular.
This is where I work part-time.
Maybe because it’s inside a department store, there are hardly any troublesome customers, and the facilities are clean.
All in all, it’s about as cushy a part-time job as you can get.
I meant to keep at it until I found a proper job, but it’s already been almost a year.
“Good morning, Manager.”
“Hyunjun, you’re here? Junyoung can’t make it today. If the kitchen gets busy this afternoon, give us a hand.”
“Yes, sir.”
My job is at the register, but I’ve worked in the kitchen plenty of times too, so I’m used to it.
There are four of us working at the restaurant on my shifts.
Me, the manager, and two other part-timers.
One of them is Junyoung, whose name just came up.
And the other is Jiwoo, sitting next to me and having a burger for breakfast.
“What’s up, Hyunjun oppa?”
“What?”
“Are you dating someone?”
“……”
No, I’m married. I already am.
But how did she know?
“Manager~ Hyunjun oppa’s dating someone.”
“What? What was that?”
“W-wait a second.”
The manager, who’d been portioning out patties in the kitchen, came rushing into the dining area.
This is… going to be a pain.
“Who is it? Bring them by sometime. You don’t even have to pay. I just want to see their face.”
“No, I’m not dating anyone.”
“Then what’s that? The ring on your hand.”
Ah.
The ring on my left ring finger.
It was the wedding ring I’d been more or less forced to put on after the proposal yesterday.
I’d put it on without thinking because I was worried Sis might get sulky if I left it at home and she found it.
“This… is just a fashion ring.”
“What are you talking about? Who wears a fashion ring on their ring finger?”
“Hyunjun, come on… Got a picture?”
This is awkward.
What excuse can I make to get out of this?
Ding-
The clear chime rang as the restaurant door opened.
Normally, I’d grumble about who eats a burger this early in the morning, but right now, the customer was practically my savior.
“Welcome.”
I hurried to the register, as if declaring I wouldn’t continue the conversation.
The manager headed back to the kitchen, but as they passed me, they quietly left me with one comment.
“Don’t get married.”
I’m sorry, Manager.
I already did.
To my own older sister, no less.
***
As soon as my shift ended, I left the restaurant.
Even while I was working, they kept firing questions at me to find out who I was seeing, but I pretended not to hear and brushed them all off.
‘Who is it? Pretty? Cute? Younger? Older? How long have you been together? Who confessed?’
My older sister. Pretty enough, cute enough, older than me, and we’d been together for a day. No one confessed—I proposed to her.
I couldn’t exactly answer like that.
Bzzzz-
As I waited for the elevator, the phone in my pocket vibrated to let me know I had a call.
I checked and saw it was Sis.
“Hello?”
‘Yeees~ I’m your honey, aren’t I?’
“That joke’s ancient.”
‘What! I am your honey, so what!’
Sis’s sense of humor must’ve stopped developing a long time ago.
Well… maybe mine did, too?
“Anyway, what’s up?”
‘Where are you right now? Are you done with work?’
“Yeah. I’m heading out now.”
‘Then why aren’t you checking your messages!’
“It’s hard to check while I’m working. I just got off.”
It wasn’t an excuse. I try not to check my phone while I’m on the clock.
But since it’s Sis… I mean, since she has a health condition,
I might need to check in every so often from now on.
“So, what’s up? Want me to pick something up on my way home?”
‘Oh! That sounded so much like something a husband would say.’
“Quit teasing me.”
‘Hmm… Then how about strawberries? I suddenly want some.’
“Strawberries?”
It’s April now.
April is strawberry season.
‘Yeah. The baby wants strawberries, honey.’
“Could you not say something so terrifying?”
‘Anyway, get me strawberries!’
“Okay.”
Beep- beep-
When she acts this playfully, sometimes she really does feel more like a little sister than an older one.
Especially when we were kids.
…This takes me back.
***
Beep, beep, beep, beep-
Ding-dong.
I came back home.
On the way, I stopped by my studio apartment and picked up some clothes to change into, too.
“I’m home.”
“Honey!”
There was a light patter of footsteps, and then Sis came hurrying out from deeper in the living room.
It’s only a part-time job, but coming home after work to find someone waiting for me…
It’s embarrassing, but I don’t mind it.
“We really looked like a married couple just now, didn’t we?”
“What? Which part?”
“One of us says, ‘I’m home~,’ and the other comes to greet them!”
‘Is that so…?’
“Yeah. When we were little, Mom would come home before Dad was due back whenever she’d been out.”
“Ah… yeah, that’s true.”
“Even when it’s nothing special, it still feels surprisingly nice, you know?”
As I took off my shoes and stepped inside, Sis, who’d been standing in front of me, took the bag I was carrying.
Inside was the container of strawberries Sis had asked me to get.
“Anything happen?”
“Me? Uh…”
I remembered how I’d accidentally been found out wearing the ring.
“The people at work asked if I was dating someone.”
“Whaaat? Why? What did you say?”
“They spotted the ring when I wore it in. I just said I didn’t have a girlfriend.”
“Mmm…”
“I couldn’t exactly tell them I’d married my sister.”
“Just tell them you got married!”
“Why?”
“I-it’d just make me feel kind of proud.”
I don’t want to attract unnecessary attention.
It’s not that I’m embarrassed of Sis, but if I, who’d never even dated anyone, announced out of nowhere that I’d gotten married, everyone would find it suspicious.
“Maybe I should come by sometime?”
“Forget it. Let’s eat the strawberries.”
“Why~? Just say the word!”
I headed to the kitchen with Sis trailing right beside me.
I opened the plastic container of strawberries and poured them into a colander.
Rather than washing them right away, it’s better to soak them briefly in cold water to wash off the pesticides.
“Hmm…”
“What?”
“I guess my type really is a domestic man.”
“You think washing strawberries makes me domestic?”
“Yeah. Pretty sexy, aren’t you, hubby?”
“Go get some forks. And a plate.”
Sis reached toward the utensil holder, then suddenly stopped.
Then she pulled her hand back.
“Forks… do we need them?”
“How else are you going to eat them? With your hands?”
“Yeah, yeah. Feed them to me, honey. After you pull off the stems.”
Having placed her order, she ran straight to the sofa and plopped down.
Then she patted the seat beside her, as if telling me to hurry.
What could I do? I finished washing the strawberries, put them on a plate, and went over to sit beside Sis.
No forks.
“Do you remember when we were little?”
“What?”
“How Dad always gave Mom the first bite whenever he ate something?”
“Mom really loved that.”
“Right! She’d call him shameless, but she really loved it. Honestly, I used to wonder what was so great about that.”
I gently twisted off a strawberry stem with my fingers.
These are fancy, expensive strawberries from the department store. No bruises, and they smell wonderful.
“But now that I think about it… Dad was romantic.”
“That’s why Mom married him. Here.”
“Hehe. Aah-“
I slipped a strawberry into Sis’s round, open mouth.
Sis looked straight up at me as she chewed the strawberry I’d put in her mouth.
I found myself staring at her, then came back to my senses a beat later.
“…How is it?”
“Mmm.”
“Say it after you finish…”
“Romantic.”
“I meant the strawberry, not me.”
“I was talking about the strawberry.”
“……”
My face was burning.
Really badly.
“Hehe… Just kidding! My hubby’s the most romantic man in the world~”
“Eat the rest yourself.”
“Ah, aah! Don’t do that.”
Sis takes after Mom, and I take after Dad.
Seeing how happy Sis is just because I fed her a strawberry, she really does take after Mom.
And the way I’m needlessly flustered and naturally reaching for the next strawberry stem just because of that… I really do take after Dad.
“Again. Open up.”
“Aah-“
Feeding someone something turns out to be more heart-fluttering than I expected.
If she were a real girlfriend or wife instead of my older sister, would it make my heart flutter even more?
I… don’t know.