Before she knew it, the sky had grown dark.
Creak—
When Yuri opened the front door and stepped inside, affectionate nagging came flying at her.
“You’re way too late. Can’t you see it’s pitch-dark outside?”
“Jieun, the streetlights in our neighborhood aren’t even on yet. I’m twenty-two. Why does it feel like I have a curfew?”
“The streetlights aren’t on because our neighborhood is old and they won’t fix them. And yes, you do have a curfew, so for the sake of your twenty-year-old little sister who’s home alone, I’d appreciate it if you came home earlier.”
At Jieun’s words, Yuri shook her head with an exasperated look and stepped into the house.
In the kitchen, Jieun had her hair roughly twisted up with a giant claw clip and was stirring a ladle around.
“What’s for dinner today?”
“Fried egg, soy sauce, and rice.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yeah, I made kimchi stew and put tuna in it too. Let’s eat it with seaweed.”
“Yahoo! Awesome!”
Yuri ran into the kitchen and threw her arms around Jieun’s slender waist from behind, clinging to her.
“Ah, unnie! I almost dropped the ladle!”
“Sorry…”
“Ahem. Don’t try to sneak your butt into a chair. Hurry up and wash up. And stop bothering Mari unnie so much at night. When you think about it, heroes are workers who use their bodies, aren’t they? Just how tired do you think she must be?”
Jieun stirred the pot as she poured out nagging without pause.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it…”
How had she ended up becoming such a nag?
Yuri pouted, but obediently went into the bathroom, washed quickly, came back out, and waved her chopsticks in front of the table.
“Food, food! I’m hungry.”
“It’s almost done. Try waiting with a little patience. You’re not a baby, seriously.”
“You’re the one who trained me like this. Now you have to take responsibility. I’m a body that can’t live without Jieun.”
Before long, kimchi stew and fried eggs were laid out on the table.
Sitting across from her, Jieun popped the runny yolk with her chopsticks and said,
“Are you going out again today?”
“Mm, I’m not sure yet.”
“While you’re out, check if there’s any money fallen on the ground. We’re seriously about to starve to death.”
“Mm-hmm, okay.”
Were they that broke? Well, of course they were. All she did was run around chasing Mari unnie and play; as a villain, she didn’t steal money, threaten people, or rob banks.
Yuri, who had been wrapping rice in seaweed, muttered with a serious face. Now that she thought about it, it was a realistic problem.
“Right, this is bad. Where are we supposed to get money? I guess there’s no choice but that again. For now, Jieun, don’t worry about it and just study. Don’t even think about getting a part-time job.”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to study hard and get a job as an office worker at the Association too. Once I get in there, I’ll support Mari unnie from behind.”
“I approve! Then it’ll feel like we’re playing every day.”
The two of them looked at each other and giggled.
Just then, Yuri’s smartphone on the table vibrated noisily. When she unlocked it and turned on the screen, there was a real-time danger alert saying that a new villain had appeared in the nearby downtown area.
“Oh. It’s a villain.”
The fact that a villain had appeared meant there was a chance she could secretly see Mari unnie.
Just as Yuri was about to spring up from her chair in excitement, Jieun pointed at Yuri’s rice bowl and said,
“Where do you think you’re going? You haven’t finished your food. Eat it all before you go.”
“But I’m full… really.”
“That’s why you stopped growing! Stop talking back and at least finish what’s left.”
Jieun looked down at Yuri, who was a full handspan shorter than her, with eyes full of concern. Yuri already had a thin frame and a small build, ate like an ant, and on top of that, she was quite active.
Did she even know how Jieun always worried anxiously that she might suddenly collapse from anemia one day?
“Haa…”
When Jieun tapped the rice bowl with her chopsticks and sighed, Yuri shrank back, rounding her shoulders, and, watching Jieun’s mood, quietly picked up her chopsticks and began pecking at her food.
Truly, peck. Peck.
Just when it seemed even a bird eating feed would show more sincerity—
Tap!
Jieun, who had endured and endured until her patience finally reached its limit, irritably slammed her chopsticks down with a tap! Yuri’s narrow shoulders flinched and jumped.
“If you don’t want to eat, don’t force yourself! What are you even doing right now?”
Jieun glared back and forth between Yuri and the rice bowl. There was only one spoonful of rice left, and she was taking all day to swallow it as if counting the years. It was enough to make her blood boil.
“N-no! I can eat it. It’s the tastiest thing in the world because Jieun made it, you know?”
Afraid her rice bowl might be taken away and that she might be forbidden from going out altogether, Yuri hurriedly curved her eyes and gave a hehe laugh.
Then she roughly divided the remaining rice into two lumps, stuffed them into her mouth, and gulped down water, swallowing it all at once like pills.
“Hey!! Who told you to swallow it so stupidly? What are you going to do if you get indigestion, seriously!”
“Urgh, I probably won’t…?”
“Ugh, seriously!”
Yuri carefully pushed back her chair and stood, placing her empty bowl in the sink and filling it with water.
Then she turned on her smartphone and checked the villain’s grade, but it was only a B-rank villain appearance. At this level, Mari unnie wouldn’t be dispatched and would be at home. Well, I can just go out.
“I’ll go play for a bit and digest!”
“Be careful. Don’t stay out too late, and go easy on bothering unnie.”
“Yes, yes~ Jieun, go to bed early.”
When she summoned her umbrella and grabbed the handle, her ordinary outfit changed into a black dress in an instant.
Yuri waved to Jieun, and a black liquid formed beneath her feet before swallowing her body whole in an instant.
***
On the rooftop floor of an empty building in the middle of downtown, a wriggling liquid spat Yuri out.
Yuri lightly brushed off her skirt, which couldn’t possibly wrinkle, and leaned against the edge of the rooftop railing.
As she aimed the tip of her folded umbrella toward the dark night sky, Yuri suddenly checked the time.
“Ah, what time is it? It’s only eight.”
Hardly any time had passed. I wonder if unnie had dinner.
Yuri lowered her umbrella, lifted her smartphone, and sent Mari a message.
[Unnie, did you eat?]
As she stared at the screen with a pounding heart, the number disappeared in an instant not long after.
[Yeah, I ate and I’m on standby at home.]
[Ahh! On standby, our hardworking unnie! I’m always cheering for you!]
[Yeah, thanks.]
She had eaten well and was on standby.
If she was on standby, that meant she was ready to deploy, and if she was ready to deploy, didn’t that mean she could come here right away?
Yuri nodded to herself and, without hesitation, fired hundreds of fireworks into the sky from the tip of her umbrella. An affectionate, magnificent summoning spell exclusively for Mari, made solely to call the hero Jo Mari to this place.
Dududududu.
Boom—! Boom! Baaang—!
The pitch-black night sky instantly grew dazzlingly bright as multicolored fireworks bloomed like flower petals and spread wider.
Not long after she leaned against the railing and blankly admired the splendid flowers, a familiar figure landed on the rooftop.
“Pink Witch!”
A bright smile spread across Yuri’s lips. Her neatly tied-back hair, her black three-striped tracksuit, her rugged sneakers. Even that comfortable outfit was perfect to Yuri.
“Unnie!”
The moment Yuri saw Mari, she held back the urge to run over and hug her.
“I was waiting to watch a variety show, so why did you have to show up and make a fuss right now?”
Her voice was endlessly full of complaint, but to Yuri’s eyes, even the sight of her groaning while pressing hard at the space between her brows looked insanely cool and charismatic.
“…Then, would you like to watch that variety show with me?”
At Yuri’s words, silence settled over the rooftop between the two of them, and only the occasional honking of cars echoed up.
A villain suggesting to her assigned hero that they watch a variety show together was obviously strange, but Mari stared at Yuri for a moment and, in the end, accepted her proposal.
“…But there has to be snacks. And it’s a little cold up here on the roof.”
“You’ll have to buy the snacks. I don’t have money.”
“You really… Why did you have to call someone out to a cold place?”
Mari muttered, and just as she was about to jump down toward the convenience store to actually buy snacks—
“Um, peanut crackers, please.”
“You’re awfully shameless for a villain.”
Mari clicked her tongue as if she were dumbfounded, but disappeared below the rooftop without another word.
“Should I set things up while unnie’s gone?”
Yuri floated her umbrella into the air and spread it like a barrier in the shape of a giant dome tent. Over the cold cement floor, she thickly condensed soft, squishy balloons and spread them out into a mat to block the chill.
It had a fairly glamping-like feel, which wasn’t bad.
A little later, Mari came into the umbrella space with a plastic bag dangling from her hand. Though surprised by the soft floor beneath her feet, she obediently settled down.
With a single gesture from Yuri, the screen of a variety show spread wide across the dark curtain like a beam projector.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m only staying with you because I’m worried you’ll get bored again and go around painting buildings with paint and glitter everywhere.”
“Of course. I know. If we stay peacefully like this, we don’t harm each other. Isn’t that nice?”
Yuri patted the soft spot beside her. Mari strode over, hesitated, then sat down where Yuri had indicated. She rummaged through the plastic bag and suddenly held out a bag of Matdungsam.
Yuri took the bag and looked at the screen before abruptly asking Mari,
“Is this program fun? Is that why you watch it?”
“…Once you start watching, you keep watching.”
“I didn’t know you liked this kind of thing.”
“Why?”
“Just because. It’s unexpected.”
On the screen, stories of people living in the mountains were playing. Honestly, Yuri had no idea what was supposed to be fun about it, but the very situation of sitting side by side with Mari unnie made her happy enough to feel as if she had the whole world.
Crunch.
“Would you like one?”
“I don’t eat things a villain gives me.”
“Then I’ll just put it beside you. I’m not giving it to you.”
When Yuri quietly placed one snack on Mari’s side and looked up at her intently, Mari picked up the snack next to her and ate it with a displeased expression. At that blunt and cute action, Yuri smiled lightly without a sound.
The distance between the two of them was exactly one handspan.
A close yet precarious distance where their hems might brush if the wind blew.
Mari kept her face fixed on the screen and moved only her eyes, glancing at the small villain beside her. Her eyes were hidden behind a lace eye patch, so Mari couldn’t see their shape well, but there were her full red lips chewing away, her slender jawline, and the plump line of her cheeks, young and round.
Above all, each time she moved, a fresh, refreshing fruit scent drifted from her short pink bob.
At that familiar scent, Mari felt her heart give a small lurch, and before she knew it, she held her breath.