Chapter 5: Younger sister.

[Guys. I think I’m getting a cold. My head hurts a little?]

The sacred time of finishing the day together after school ended and I came home.

I had set cup ramen and a triangular gimbap on the table and was watching Uni’s stream.

The game she was playing today was Legend of League.

Uni was in the mid-to-upper Master rank so the queue times were usually quite long.

That’s why she usually filled the sound with talk while the queue was running.

[Building up to end stream the moment she turns it on ㄷㄷ]

[Old sick Uni ㅠㅠ]

[Don’t get sick, streamer. ㅠㅠㅠㅠ]

[Uni-nim. Health is important but you know the stream is more important, right?]

I kept opening and closing the lid of the cup ramen that was giving off steam to check if it was ready.

But my ears stayed focused on Uni’s talk.

[No~. What’s with the end-stream buildup the moment I turn it on. I’m not that kind of person!]

[I left the window open last night because it was a bit hot, maybe that’s why.]

Uni’s voice coming through the speaker had something that made me feel at ease.

She didn’t even say anything special yet it felt like ASMR itself.

It wasn’t for no reason that the Uniz kept praying for ASMR.

[ㅇㅇ-nim donated 1000 won!]

[They say even dogs don’t catch summer colds… Streamer, by any chance…?]

She brushed off even this brain-dead donation and kept the bit alive.

[By any chance what? What are you trying to say. You.]

[I can’t take it. To commemorate catching a summer cold that even dogs don’t get, I’m going Nautilus marksman today~!]

…Nautilus marksman?

Even so, that was crossing the line hard.

[…?]

[??????????]

[Nautilus marksman? She’s finally lost it. This person.]

[Weird food on]

[Here it is. Uni-style marksman forcing it.]

She was a real hook collector.

Under the endless flood of question marks, Uni quickly took the words back.

[Ehe~. Joke~ joke~. People are scary. Can’t I even joke?]

[More than that everyone. I’m going to eat with my older brother but I don’t really know what guys like? Can you tell me a bit. What should we eat?]

So Uni has an older brother.

She rarely talked about family on stream so I didn’t know.

[How about maesaengi oyster soup rice?]

[Guys usually enjoy skate samhap]

[I often eat kimchi pizza tangsuyuk with friends.]

[Malatang. With a ton of cilantro.]

Uni let out a small laugh as if the flood of comments was absurd.

[Maesaengi oyster soup rice~? No. Stop joking. For real. If I eat that with my older brother we might not be siblings anymore.]

[Isn’t there something more normal? Something a human can actually eat.]

[Chicken or pizza is too cliché. Is it just me?]

Food that guys like…

I’d never particularly thought about it since I was a guy myself.

[ㅇㅇ-nim donated 1000 won!]

[If it’s been a while since you saw each other, a Japanese place isn’t bad, right? Tonkatsu or sushi, rice bowls and stuff.]

Oh. It’s fully cooked.

I opened the lid of the cup ramen that gave off a spicy smell and slurped the noodles into my mouth.

Even when eating ramen, the person next to you was what mattered, wasn’t it.

If I ate with Uni I was confident I could eat mud cookies.

[Japanese place? Not bad. Thinking is annoying so I’ll go with that. Bam bam bam.]

But I only found out after the stream ended.

About the true identity of the older brother.

.

.

.

.

[Lee Yuna : Woohyuk-ssi, do you like Japanese food by any chance?]

…Yuna. Were you calling me your older brother without me knowing?

It seemed I’d gained a little sister without even realizing it.

*

The meal appointment with Yuna didn’t take that long to set.

Maybe because Yuna had good drive.

Or maybe because she wanted to clear the debt quickly.

I couldn’t know her inner thoughts, but the appointment was set within that week.

“…Did I come too early?”

Out of anticipation I’d come out about twenty minutes early.

I checked my appearance in the phone’s selfie mode to see if anything looked off.

I wasn’t the type to go out to meet people much, but today I still tried to look clean.

Not wanting to show an ugly side was part of fan feelings.

A Japanese restaurant near school that was said to have good value and atmosphere.

The sunlight was a bit strong so I was looking at my phone under the eaves when.

“What are you doing? Why did you come so early?”

Yuna was already standing next to me.

Ah. She startled me. At least make some presence known when you walk around.

When she asked if I’d come early I checked the time on my phone. Ten minutes before the appointment.

“It just ended up that way?”

“Ah. I was planning to come early and wait.”

Should I call her diligent, or say her competitive spirit is strong.

Why was she trying to win even at something like this.

“Shall we go in first?”

“Yes.”

When we went inside, the interior was mainly made of wood as expected of a Japanese restaurant.

The cherry blossom decorations molded on the ceiling and the display stand showing Japanese dishes were giving off a full Japanese feel.

The inside was also spacious and the distance between tables was wide, so it felt good for talking.

As expected, popular places are different.

I looked around the inside of the restaurant with admiration.

“Where do you want to sit?”

There were so many seats it was hard to choose.

While I was looking around in a fluster, Yuna pointed to one side and spoke.

“Is over there okay?”

A completely corner seat away from the door.

It felt like the kind of seat choice I would make.

Outcasts instinctively head for corners.

The somehow unknown sense of security when sitting with your back against the wall.

You don’t know this unless you’ve experienced it.

“Yes. It’s fine.”

We headed to the corner table and sat down.

We opened the menu that was already on the table and spread it in the middle.

“Here. The mazesoba is supposed to be really famous.”

“Ah, is that so?”

What is mazesoba.

If it’s soba then it’s soba.

It was an unfamiliar name to someone like me who just watched streams at home.

Looking at the menu, there weren’t that many options.

A few types of rice bowls and a few types of soba. And some sushi and ramen.

“Since I’m treating, eat the most expensive ones.”

“…Is that okay?”

It felt a bit strange, like I was collecting money from my favorite.

Come to think of it, wasn’t some of that money from my donations.

Thinking that made the feeling even more subtle.

“I’m treating because I feel sorry. Don’t go picking cheap things for no reason. Eat what you want.”

“Okay.”

“Instead, don’t go around talking about me after we eat?”

“I never planned to do that in the first place.”

Yuna seemed to be thinking of sealing my mouth with one meal.

But that was a big miscalculation.

I never planned to tell anyone in the first place.

In a way it was a memory only between me and Uni.

I had no desire to go around spreading it carelessly either.

“I’ll have that. Gyudon.”

“Then I’ll have the mazesoba. I’ve wanted to try this once.”

Yuna and I called the staff and finished ordering.

“But we’re going to eat together… Want to drop the formal speech, oppa? Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

Yuna seemed bothered by me continuing to use formal speech.

I was older than Yuna after all.

I was fine with either.

Formal speech from Uni felt familiar to me.

It was the way of speaking I saw every day on stream.

“I don’t really mind. If it’s uncomfortable shall we speak casually?”

“Yes. Then… What should I call you? Same year so senior feels weird. Woohyuk oppa?”

Khuh.

She called me oppa. Uni called me oppa.

Crazy. I’m going crazy.

Looking at Yuna’s eyes as she called me oppa made my reason fade into the distance.

I never knew hearing “oppa” from someone could feel this good.

[Aegyo? I can’t do that kind of thing because it’s too cringy! Ah. Don’t donate. Please.]

To hear the word oppa, the big donors had to drop hundreds of thousands of won.

I was hearing it while getting treated to a meal.

I couldn’t speak so I just nodded repeatedly.

“Just call me Yuna. Since I’m younger.”

“Okay. Yu, Yuna.”

A trembling voice slipped out without me realizing and it felt unpleasant.

The food came out faster than expected.

Yuna and I continued small talk even while eating.

Mostly stories about university.

“Oppa. Are you taking that class? Huh? I’m also taking Professor Lee Gukhwan’s class?”

“No way… The Wednesday class from twelve to three?”

“Yeah yeah. That’s the one. But why didn’t we know about each other?”

“It’s such a large lecture that you don’t really know who’s there.”

“Ah, true.”

Yuna and I had one overlapping lecture.

It was a class with eighty people in one lecture hall so we probably just didn’t notice each other.

We weren’t people who knew each other before that either.

Even if we saw each other we wouldn’t have paid attention.

“But doesn’t that professor make you ridiculously sleepy? I seriously can’t hold back sleep.”

“Agreed. If I pull an all-nighter the night before I’m confident I’ll fall asleep within five minutes of entering.”

“Kek. Exactly, it’s driving me crazy.”

Yuna and I formed a warm common ground through behind-the-back talk about the professor.

And in the end, as expected of shut-in game maniacs, the final topic drifted that way.

“Oppa. Do you play games too?”

“Yeah. A lot?”

“Ohhh. I really like games too. What games do you play, oppa?”

“Legend of League or Steam games and stuff?”

“Really? Our game tastes are completely the same?”

Of course they would be the same.

…Because I play every game you play.

Of course I couldn’t say that to Yuna.