Chapter 7
Wedding dresses usually have to be reserved two months before the ceremony.
I can understand wanting to wear something that suits you perfectly on such an important day, but…
The problem is, our wedding is only two days away.
“You don’t think they’ll say no?”
“It’s fine… Hehe. Your big sis has a plan! Wait here for a second.”
Actually, I’d followed her here without even knowing that wedding dresses had to be reserved in advance.
What if the shop said it was too difficult, or that they couldn’t do it?
Unlike me, who was quietly worrying about that, there wasn’t even a hint of anxiety on my sister’s face.
Instead, she confidently opened the wedding dress shop’s door and went inside.
“I’ll be right back!”
But couldn’t I go in with her?
She hadn’t even told me why I had to wait here… but for now, I’d just wait and see.
I could see my sister through the glass door.
She walked up to an employee, greeted them briefly, and started explaining something with great enthusiasm.
I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but from the way things looked… was she trying to persuade them? Pleading with them?
“……”
“……”
She pointed at me standing over here and made the saddest face she could as she said something.
The employee looked at her with a deeply sympathetic expression and nodded.
Finally, they exchanged smiles and said goodbye, and my sister came back over.
“It’s settled! Come on in.”
“It’s settled? What did you say to them?”
“Th-that… I’ll tell you later.”
What was that about?
I followed my sister into the shop for now.
I exchanged a quick greeting with the employee, but the way they looked at me was… kind of pitying?
“Then we’ll start by choosing a dress for the bride. This way…”
“Let’s go, honey.”
“O-oh, yeah.”
I was a little flustered, but anyway, we’d start with my sister’s dress.
I followed the employee farther into the shop.
“The bride can have her makeup done and try on dresses in this room.”
“Okay! See you in a bit, honey~”
Before I could even respond, my sister slipped into the room the employee had led her to.
Just from her expression and tone, I could tell she was incredibly excited.
“Then what about me…?”
“The groom can wait in this room.”
“Oh, okay.”
Following the employee’s directions, I went into the room opposite the one my sister had entered.
A screen-like partition hung from the wall. It looked like they could move it aside to show me once my sister had put on a dress.
But seriously… what had she said to get them to let her try dresses on without a reservation?
“Are you okay?”
“Pardon?”
The employee, who’d been standing quietly beside me, suddenly spoke. Without a subject, it was hard to understand what they meant.
I couldn’t just ignore them, so I gave a vague answer.
“Uh, well…”
Why… why were they nodding at me with such a sympathetic look?
At a loss for words, I picked up a booklet beside me that looked like a magazine.
When I opened it, every page was filled with photos of models wearing wedding dresses and tuxedos.
It was hard to imagine myself wearing a tuxedo.
The same went for picturing my sister in a wedding dress.
“Honey! You’re still there, right?”
“Huh? Yeah.”
Suddenly, I heard my sister’s voice from the room across from mine.
I’d been hearing rustling sounds over there even before I picked up the magazine.
Was she already ready?
Rrrr—
The partition between the rooms slid smoothly to the side.
And beyond it, a bride appeared, wearing a wedding dress.
“How do I look? Hm? How do I look, how do I look?”
“…You look pretty.”
She was pretty.
It was a hard and awkward thing to say between siblings.
Part of it was that it made me embarrassed and self-conscious, but it was incredibly difficult to see someone who’d been beside me since birth as beautiful.
But my older sister, standing before me now in a pure white dress…
She really was pretty.
“Hehe… More! Compliment me more.”
Excited like a kid at an amusement park, my sister took hold of the hem of her dress and gave a little twirl.
The soft, swaying dress shimmered as it moved with her.
You know how they say you shouldn’t meet someone of the opposite sex at dusk?
The dreamy colors of the sky make you get caught up in the mood, and your heart starts pounding.
This wasn’t so different.
A bride in a wedding dress… Even if she was my actual older sister, she looked beautiful.
“Wait a little! There are still lots of dresses I want to try on.”
“There are more?”
“Of course! I’ve only tried on one so far.”
Just go with that one.
It wasn’t because I was tired of looking.
The first time I’d seen my sister in a wedding dress.
The dress she wore then, the way she looked…
I hoped it would carry straight through to the wedding ceremony.
“I’ll be right back, honey.”
“Uh… take your time.”
But she was so excited that there was no need to stop her.
She’d probably try on dresses until she was satisfied, then look at me at the end and ask,
‘How was it? Which one do you think looked best?’
And I’d answer,
‘The first one you tried on.’
***
It took quite a while to choose my sister’s dress.
But picking my tuxedo was quicker than I expected.
They said the tuxedos usually came as a set with the dresses, and I just had to choose one from the styles that matched.
I picked a plain black tuxedo that didn’t have any big decorations.
“You could try on a few more before deciding.”
“I like this one.”
“Really? Then that’s settled.”
The rental fee was far from cheap, but my sister paid for it.
She must have saved up a lot from working, because she paid without batting an eye. It was pretty… impressive.
So this is the spending power of an adult?
“Let’s go!”
“So, what exactly did you say to the employee?”
“Huh? Oh… th-that?”
“What was it? The employee looked at me kind of strangely.”
Back in the car, I asked about the part I’d been curious about.
“I-I didn’t say anything much! Just that you were a little, juuust a little… sick.”
“…Me?”
“Mm-hmm. And that your wish was to take wedding photos before you got hospitalized…”
“……”
I couldn’t believe it.
My sister was the one who was sick, so why was she using me as an excuse?
“W-why don’t we eat out before we head back? Your big sis will buy you something delicious!”
“Forget it. We’ve been out too long today.”
“I’m still okay. I took my medicine on time today, too.”
“Why don’t you put your seat belt on?”
“You do it for me, honey.”
“Should I just start driving like this?”
“A-ah! Do it for me, okay?”
Sis, you hardly ever used to make a fuss like this when you were little.
Or had you noticed that I’d give in to most of your requests and started taking advantage of it?
Click.
“There.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Ready to go home?”
“Let’s eat out. I don’t feel like doing dishes.”
“I’ll do them.”
“No, you’ll get tired of it too.”
“What do you mean…”
“Come onnn. Please? I was so busy with work that I hardly got to go anywhere.”
She knew just what to say to make me feel bad.
Still, she probably wasn’t lying.
“Then… somewhere close to home.”
“Great!”
“Did you have somewhere in mind already?”
“I do, lots of places. Here are all the places you’re going to have to go with me, honey.”
Suddenly, my sister held her phone right in front of my face.
A regular map app was open on the screen.
There were so many markers densely scattered across the map, as if she’d bookmarked all those places.
“Well? Is your heart pounding? Are you excited?”
“……”
“Of all those places, today we’ll go to… Hmm, I’ve been here before, but this place looks good.”
Without even telling me our destination, my sister entered the address into the navigation system.
Then she stretched her hand forward and shouted.
“Let’s go!”
“Haa…”
***
It was a neat, quiet Western-style restaurant.
It had a sleek, no-frills feel, just the sort of place that seemed perfect for a couple’s first date.
“The atmosphere’s nice.”
“Right? Your big sis has been here a few times.”
“With who? A boyfriend?”
“…Honey, where did your sense of tact go?”
I nearly got my foot stepped on by my sister’s shoe.
I knew. My sister had been too busy to have time for a relationship, too.
If I’d been unable to date, my sister had more or less chosen not to.
As soon as we went inside, an employee in uniform came over and spoke to us.
“Welcome. May I have the name on your reservation…?”
“Oh, we don’t have a reservation. Do you have room for two?”
“Ah, yes. I’ll show you to your seats.”
What if there hadn’t been any tables available? Why hadn’t she made a reservation?
No. Looking at all the bookmarks on her map, she probably would’ve just taken me somewhere else.
“You can sit here. Please call an employee when you’re ready to order.”
“Okay~”
The employee led us to a two-person table by the window.
The darkening evening sky and the city lights made for quite a lovely view.
“What do you want to eat? Your big sis will pay for everything!”
“I’ll just have a simple pasta dish. Anything’s fine.”
“Come on, not something so ordinary. How about this?”
My sister casually pointed at a steak set with a terrifyingly high price tag.
At this point, I was starting to wonder about my sister’s finances.
“…Wait a second.”
“Hm? Why? It’s fine!”
“No, um… over there. That person.”
“Who?”
“Over there, at the table on the left. Isn’t she your friend?”
I hadn’t seen her recently, but I recognized her face from the times I’d run into her at our house when my sister was in high school.
Of course, it had been a few years, so I wasn’t completely sure…
“Huh…? You’re right, that’s Suyeon!”
My sister shot to her feet.
“W-wait a second. Are you really going to go say hi?”
“Of course! I’ve barely seen her since we started college.”
“She looks like she’s with her boyfriend.”
“And I’m with my husband, so what’s the problem?”
“Won’t she know I’m your younger brother?”
But before that, wouldn’t she be a little surprised if you told an old classmate you hadn’t seen in ages that you were married?
I understood that she wanted to say hello, but this was a pretty awkward situation.
I wanted to stop her if I could… but my sister’s friend and her group were starting to get up from their seats.
“Oh? They’re leaving? I’ll just go say hi for a second, okay?”
“Just say hi, okay? Don’t bring me up for no reason.”
“Of course! You don’t have to worry about that…”
“Lee Hyuna?”
Oh.
The other side had spotted us first.
My sister’s friend walked over to the table where we were sitting.
“Suyeon! It’s been forever, hasn’t it~”
“Hyuna! How’d you get so pretty? If I didn’t recognize your voice, I’d have thought you were someone else. But who’s this next to you…?”
She didn’t seem to recognize me.
Well, we’d only briefly crossed paths a few years ago, so that was understandable. Good.
If my sister could just gloss over this…
“Oh, him? He’s my husband!”
“What? H-Hyuna, you got married?”
“Oh, well… not yet, but I got a proposal recently! We’re having the ceremony soon, too.”
She had the perfectly reasonable option of introducing me as her younger brother, but she’d gone out of her way to call me her husband.
She’d even slipped in a little boast that she was the one who’d been proposed to.
This was killing me.
“Hyuna, I came with my boyfriend, so I’ll get going for now. Let’s talk on the phone sometime, okay? We have to!”
“Mm-hm! See you~”
My sister’s friend left the restaurant with her group.
The flutter I’d felt when I saw my sister in her wedding dress seemed to turn cold in an instant.
Would something like this happen again? I’d rather it didn’t.
“Next time, just say I’m your younger brother.”
“Why! Are you embarrassed to have a wife like me?”
“Yeah. A little.”
“It’s okay. There’s a saying about that.”
“What is it this time?”
“Shame is the burden of those who are left behind.”
Was she saying it didn’t matter because she’d be leaving this world soon?
Good grief… What an irresponsible older sister.
Good grief… What an irresponsible older sister.