Episode 69: Stay still Dick Jitae (3)
– “Count Edward. Jealousy is the most honest of the emotions.”
Reading shoujo manga made her feel upset just as much as it made her smile. Especially when it was about the villainess, the rival of the female lead.
‘T, that freaking bi*ch? Trying damn hard to wag her tail.’
‘Like, how can you like an idiot like that? Looks so weak that I can crush her head with a punch.’
‘If this stupid male lead goes to her, I’m killing the author with my hands…’
Yeorum corrected her choice of words. The problem wasn’t the rivals but the villainesses that made the female leads upset, also causing herself who was cheering for the female lead to feel upset.
These villainesses tended to linger around the male lead and wag their stupid tail to make the onlookers mad. Whenever that happened, the female lead would act in a frustrating way or get mad… whatever it was, she would get emotional and act accordingly.
‘If I were her, I would grab a hammer at night and go to her bedroom. Why the f*ck are you crying by yourself?!’
‘Aht, wait. This isn’t what I should be doing…’
In any case, she was now going to try and drag out the most honest of human emotions, jealousy, to discern whether Bom was in love with Yu Jitae or not. Thinking that it was the role of villainesses made her feel trash but it did intrigue her a little when she was the one that had to pull it off.
“Here you go.”
So during breakfast when they were having sandwiches, Yeorum gave a wide smile towards Yu Jitae.
“Darling♥”
Without saying anything in response, Yu Jitae simply frowned while Yeorum stealthily glanced at Bom’s face. Bom was simply chewing on the sandwich without even looking at the two of them. As if she was feeling thirsty, she raised a cup of milk and drank it before licking the milk off her lips.
She looked way too uninterested.
Yeorum realised that she needed a plan. A strategy of acting like a fox.
A situation being formed would be better than her doing it all by herself so Yeorum gathered her two younger sisters and informed them of the strategy.
“Got that?”
After listening to her plan, Kaeul and Gyeoul stared directly into her eyes.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Whyy? Have you finally gone mad?”
In that instant, Yeorum had to resist the urge to test if Kaeul’s cheeks could stretch like cheese or not.
“Are you doing it or what.”
“Hmm…”
“…”
Looking at each other, Kaeul and Gyeoul pondered.
Since she was saying that it was very important, they decided to obediently listen to this short-tempered unni’s request.
Like that, Kaeul and Gyeoul went outside with the baby chicken for food leaving only Yu Jitae, Bom and Yeorum inside the house for lunch.
Closing her eyes, Yeorum reflected on the countless images she had seen till now. It was now time to show off her polished months of experience of reading shoujo manga.
***
Yu Jitae gazed at the empty kitchen.
Today was a Saturday. Both Kaeul and Gyeoul should be inside the house and neither of them being at home during lunch time was an extremely rare sight.
“Nn?”
Blinking her eyes, Bom touched her watch.
“Where did these kids go without even saying a word…”
“Oh yeah, they said they were going outside to play.” Yeorum replied.
Because of that, it was just the three of them having lunch that day.
The menu was an assorted array of sushi bought from a nearby restaurant. Right when he was about to open the bag and take out the box of sushi, he realised that Yeorum was staring directly at Bom.
When Bom lifted her head up after feeling a gaze, Yeorum nonchalantly looked away as if she hadn’t been staring at her. For some reason, it reminded Yu Jitae of the gaze he saw in the morning.
During the meal, she was even more strange.
The dining room was quieter than usual without Kaeul. Yu Jitae and Bom, who were originally of few words, were quietly focused on having sushi.
That was when Yeorum slightly lifted her butt up and moved across one seat to sit next to Yu Jitae. She then used her chopsticks to dip the sushi in soy sauce before bringing it to his mouth.
“Oppa.”
“……?”
His hands that were about to lift the sushi up came to a stop.
He wasn’t hearing things. The usual sharp voice and gaze was long gone and with gentle eyes, Yeorum spoke to him once again with a voice ever so delicate.
“Here. Eat this.”
However, her hands weren’t so delicate. He slightly pulled his head away but the sushi came flying in like a missile and collided with his lips before eventually falling from the chopsticks.
“Oi. What are you doing.” He asked.
“Ah, what a waste.”
“What, are you doing.”
“Trying to give you sushi, what else? Why are you avoiding my sushi?”
Yeorum instead stared at him resentfully before picking up the sushi that was on the ground.
Something was slightly off.
While raising her head back up, Yeorum looked at him and mumbled something with her lips. Her shoulder-length hair flowed down and covered her side so only Yu Jitae saw her mumble.
But the thing was that he couldn’t understand what she was saying.
“Oppa. Say ‘Ah’. Ah–”
Once again she tried to feed him sushi.
“Why are you doing this.”
“Just eat it. It’s nice you know.”
Although he had no idea why, it wasn’t like this was the first time Yeorum was doing something strange. Despite feeling doubtful, he ate the sushi off her chopsticks.
After the first one, the second one was easier. Cuddling right next to him, Yeorum fed him sushi and looked into his eyes while blinking her crimson eyes.
In between those quirky acts, Yeorum occasionally – very occasionally threw glances at Bom.
Soon, she found Bom staring back at her with circular eyes.
Did she take the bait?
“I can’t believe my eyes… What are you doing?”
“Huh? Well, just giving sushi to my oppa. That’s all.”
“Ah, I see. Is today a day where we take care of ahjussi instead?”
Saying that, Bom naturally dipped the sushi into the soy sauce before bringing it towards Yu Jitae.
“Yeorum’s doing that because you always eat so little, ahjussi.”
“…”
“Here. Say ‘Ah’.”
Yu Jitae hesitated slightly before eating her sushi as well.
Meanwhile, Yeorum realised that her plan had somehow failed.
What was it? Was Bom being jealous right now? But for that to be the case, her expression and gestures were too calm.
Let alone that, even the situation was strange. It was different from before but Yeorum wasn’t entirely sure about the nature of the change.
The ‘situation where Bom might feel jealous’ because she was feeding him sushi was immediately changed by Bom by putting on a frame that ‘today was a day where they were taking care of ahjussi’ but Yeorum couldn’t wrap her head around it.
As a result, it would just be a part of today’s concept no matter who fed him sushi at this point.
Although Yeorum didn’t know the exact reason for the change, she still knew that her first strategy had failed. Later, it was Bom who instead fed Yu Jitae more sushi.
“…”
Yeorum slightly glared at Bom but she merely blinked her eyes and tilted her head in response. That was the end of lunch and Yu Jitae couldn’t figure anything out aside from the fact that there was something wrong with the two kids.
That day, Yeorum acted in a strange manner throughout their daily lives, evident from how she cut her hand while playing around with a knife next to him.
“Ah–”
He turned his head and found Yeorum bleeding from her fingers. Bom and Yu Jitae both stared at Yeorum while she groaned and rubbed her finger.
“Ah f*ck. It hurts.”
“…?”
She wasn’t a human nor was she a young kid who had never once held onto a knife. A red dragon cutting their finger while playing with a knife? Yu Jitae couldn’t understand what was happening.
Yeorum stared at him like a wounded puppy.
“Oppa. It hurts…”
But Yeorum saying ‘It hurts’ touched a not-so-good memory of his. Towards the very end of the 5th iteration, Yeorum was in tremendous pain but she had never once mentioned it until the very last second of her life.
– My heart hurts…
And she said that with her last breath.
Reflecting on that weighed his mood down for some reason. With no other choice, Yu Jitae stood up and walked towards her. Walking up, he grabbed her by the wrist and observed the wound.
It wasn’t a big problem and should therefore be healed very soon.
“Nn? How did you get hurt?”
It was then. Bom indifferently walked towards Yu Jitae and Yeorum as if curious. “How did this happen, Yeorum?” she said before pouring the mana of mother nature to heal her wound. The wound closed in the blink of an eye.
“All done. It’s healed now.”
“…”
“Be careful. What kind of red dragon gets hurt while playing with a knife?”
Bom giggled while Yeorum was silent.
Even after that Yeorum continued acting strange.
After about an hour, she suddenly fell towards Yu Jitae but he easily supported her back up. After two hours, she wore a tennis skirt and a girlish flower-patterned t-shirt bought by Kaeul and Gyeoul but Bom complimented her the most by calling her cute.
At night when they were watching a movie together, she grabbed Yu Jitae by the arm saying she was scared, but Bom who was sitting on the other side pulled and hugged her.
“Do you get scared by things like this? How cute, Yeorum.”
“…”
Leaning her head on Bom’s shoulder, Yeorum remained silent.
Yeorum was confused. She couldn’t discern whether Bom was actually doing her best for her like a mother or if she was simply being jealous. By the time she came to herself, all her strategies ended up failing.
At this point, she only had her ‘last resort’ to rely on.
***
The time when Yu Jitae and Yeorum were physically the closest would be whenever Yeorum returned after her personal training in tatters. Especially when doing the ‘standing’ and ‘walking’ training, she would return home everyday with bruises all over her body.
For some reason, Yu Jitae was able to use the mana of the red dragons. That was a doubt that remained in a corner of her mind ever since she first learned the ‘pulsations’ from Yu Jitae.
In any case, Yu Jitae would give her a massage whenever her body was depleted with mana. Since neither Yeorum nor Yu Jitae thought anything of the other party, a physical contact of that level was nothing.
“What happened.”
Yu Jitae asked curiously.
She had now reached a decent level with standing and walking, although still low, and had now begun training on how to ‘see’. No matter how hard she trained, she shouldn’t be in tatters like that.
“What happened to your body.”
“Huh? Nothing. I was just revising what I learned so that I wouldn’t forget them…”
Her entire body was full of bruises. Drenched in sweat, she staggered her way into the dormitory.
“Are you okay Yeorum?”
Bom, who was on her laptop in the living room, asked in surprise.
“Yeahh. Just a bit tired…”
This much was true. Whenever she was training like this, Yeorum had to endure the feeling of her body crumbling down. Although there was a different objective today the process was still by no means simple.
Yeorum collapsed on the sofa.
“You punk. Why do something you weren’t even told to do,” said Yu Jitae.
Instinctively, Yeorum was about to reply, ‘Am I your dog that I need to do only what I’m told to?’ but decided against it. Now was the best timing. Wasn’t Bom watching them from the side right now?
Yeorum made the most pitiful expression she could make with reference to Kaeul’s expression.
“Oppa. Please give me a massage.”
“…”
Yu Jitae wondered how a person could become so different in just one day but regardless, since it was the usual thing, he walked towards the sofa where she was lying down and crouched next to her.
Then, he placed his hands above her bruised skin. Imitating the pulsations of the red race, he began massaging Yeorum on her calves.
Meanwhile, Yeorum threw a glance at Bom.
Throughout the day, whenever things like this happened, Bom would nonchalantly turn around after glancing at them or ignore them completely. Or she would composedly step in to solve the problem in their stead.
But this was different. Yu Jitae giving a massage with the mana of the red race went beyond a simple treatment and was like a red dragon parent grooming their child. There was nothing Bom could do by intervening here.
‘Hoh’.
Bom was staring at them.
There was a bite.
For a long time, Bom didn’t look away from the two of them, unlike how she merely glanced at them during the day.
However, she soon retrieved her gaze. With an indifferent expression on her face, she stood up and began heading to her room.
Huh? Is she going back just like that?
It was still half-half. She wasn’t necessarily glaring at them and going back to her room here was hard to see as jealousy.
Hmm, it did feel like a bite though…
Yeorum couldn’t end it like this. It was the reaction she finally got after all the hard work she put in.
Thus, she let out a faint moan.
“Ahn…”
At the same time, Bom’s footsteps heading back towards her room stopped ringing. Slightly lifting her body up, Yeorum glanced at the direction Bom was heading in.
Bom had turned her body around and was looking at them.
Surprised, Yeorum hurriedly turned her face away and closed her eyes.
For a second, her eyes met with Bom’s.