My Younger Sister Was My First Love

19. What’s Normal Among Family

[Is school okay?]

My mom asked, and I kept nodding towards the camera on my phone.

[What’s not okay? It’s only been a week.]

[Is it fun? Have you made a lot of friends?]

[No, Mom. Am I an elementary school student?]

[Are you doing well, son? I’m just asking because I’m curious… Does it bother you when I ask you things like this? Should I not ask?]

It’s clear that disappointment is written all over my face in real-time.

How can I tell you not to ask me here?

If I tell you to stop asking, Mom will sulk and complain to Dad.

[Sigh… No, it’s okay. Ask away. There’s nothing special to tell, anyway.]

[Do you have a lot of pretty girlfriends? You’re in the English department, so there must be more girls, right?]

[That’s true. The ratio is about 7:3, with three guys.]

[It must be nice, being in a flower garden like that?]

The number of girls around me has no correlation with my happiness index.

It’s been like that since high school and prep school.

[Oh, right.]

As I was thinking about what interesting story to tell Mom, I managed to come up with a pretty good topic.

[Do you remember Park Min-joo, Mom? The one who lived downstairs from us?]

[Of course, I remember. We haven’t been in touch with her mom for a while, though.]

[Is Park Min-joo a senior of mine?]

[Huh?]

[She’s a senior, one year ahead of me, in the English department at Korea University.]

[Oh my goodness!]

As expected, Mom started going on and on about Min-joo’s old stories, getting all excited.

[Oh, you don’t know, but that mom used to brag about her daughter studying hard all the time.]

[In the end, you and I went to the same university, so Mom got to brag about it too.]

My joke made Mom burst out laughing.

[Yeah, Mom will brag about it to the American ajummas here.]

[Do people at Korea University know about it?]

[Don’t they know it’s the number one university in Korea?]

After chatting about Min-joo for a while, the regular sibling report began.

[Is Jihee doing okay?]

[Yeah, she’s doing well. She’s eating well and studying hard.]

[Good. It’s a relief to see you guys doing well.]

Ah…

I’ll have to take my concerns about Jihee to my grave.

I can never open up about my occasional feelings of reality-check to Mom.

I can’t even talk about it with family, let alone with others.

[I’ll go now. Jihee’s study time is almost over.]

[Yeah, give Jihee a call too.]

[Okay.]

[Have fun!]

The call ended with a wave from Mom.

I put down my phone and headed back to the living room.

“Did you finish your call?”

“Yes.”

I knew Jihee would be in the living room since study time was over.

Is the room feeling stuffy?

She always comes out to the living room whenever she takes a break.

Come to think of it, I used to take a walk outside during my break from studying too.

So, it’s not that strange when I think about it.

“Is Aunt doing well?”

“She’s doing okay. She’ll contact you soon.”

“Okay. I’ll do that soon.”

“How’s your studying going?”

“But can you help me with a few math problems later?”

“I’ll do it now. It’s better to do it right away so it sticks in your memory.”

As I approached Jihee, who was playing with her phone, she patted the couch beside her, as if telling me to sit down.

“Oppa, do you want to play a phone game?”

“Suddenly?”

“I want to try it out, and you can play with me too, Oppa.”

The game Jihee showed me was a town management game that was popular a while back.

“Hmm…”

“Let’s do it! We can invite friends and get bonuses too.”

“Can’t you just play with your friends?”

As I turned down her offer, Jihee’s lips automatically pouted.

“My friends are all busy with college, drinking, and clubbing.”

What about me, who comes home every day at 5 pm?

“They don’t go clubbing during the day, do they?”

“I study during the day, so I can play with you, Oppa.”

It’s not like we’re playing a game that requires simultaneous connection or anything.

Jihee’s persistence, begging me to play, made me get up and take out my phone from the room.

“…I’ll install it.”

“Yes!”

“Just don’t secretly play phone games in your room during study time.”

“I’ll keep an eye on you since you’re always connected, Oppa.”

Jihee giggled and sat closer to me.

“What nickname will you use, Oppa?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Then I’ll decide for you.”

Since I wasn’t going to show it to anyone else anyway, I handed over my phone to her.

“Wow!”

The nickname was floating on the notification window.

[ Jihee Oppa ]

“What’s up?”

“It feels like I’ve become a YouTuber. There are many channels like XX Dad XX Mom.”

“Hey! Then I’ll create a YouTube channel with this name too!”

“What’s the point of creating one if I don’t have anything to upload?”

“How about ’24-hour observation diary of a re-taker younger sister’ or something like that?”

“It’s not that great.”

To be honest, I said it wasn’t that great, but I also thought it might be a hit.

Jihee was pretty, after all.

In modern society, superior looks are a huge advantage.

Even if I did the same thing, if I uploaded it alongside Jihee’s, hers would undoubtedly get more views.

“I’ll split the profits with you 50/50!”

“No way. I’m not doing it.”

When I bickered with Jihee, I suddenly felt like I was being dragged down.

Moreover, my opinions were often dismissed.

“No way. The problem isn’t gaming, but when are you going to study for your math problems?”

“I just took a break from studying a little while ago. Let’s take a short rest.”

“How many problems do you have?”

“Not many. Just four.”

With that many, I thought we could finish them within 30 minutes.

Jihee’s math skills were better than expected.

7th grade was the realm of ‘doing or not doing’, not ‘doing well or poorly’.

So, even if we did a little, we could see immediate results.

By listening to online lectures within that range, we could easily solve basic problems.

It was a remarkable achievement.

“Oppa, I sent you a friend request!”

When I checked the exclamation mark on the game loading window, a nickname named [ Junho Dongsaeng ] had sent a friend request.

“What’s up! You’re not being too awkward, are you?”

[ Junho Dongsaeng ] and [ Jihee Oppa ].

It really felt like we were filming a family sitcom.

“If you’re okay with it, that’s all that matters.”

“Now, let’s work hard and build our village together!”

It seemed like Jihee really enjoyed playing games.

Jihee’s voice, which was enthusiastically pounding on the screen, looked quite excited.

“So, what do we do now?”

“We’ll gather stones and wood, and build basic buildings.”

“Is that it?”

“Yeah. For now, let’s aim to reach level 10.”

“What do you get when you reach level 10?”

“You can get married!”

Colol! Colol!

I was pressing various buttons on the game screen when I suddenly felt a pang of anxiety.

“What’s the point of getting married?”

“Isn’t it because you get an item when you get married in the game?”

“Do you have to do it?”

“Don’t you want to get a free item that would otherwise cost money?”

“But we’re siblings, and we’re getting married in the game. It doesn’t feel right.”

“Guys can get married to each other in the game, so it’s not a big deal for siblings to get married, right…?”

Jihee’s words, which made sense but didn’t, left me deep in thought once again.

“Anyway, let’s hurry up and reach level 10!”

“…I’ll do it when I have time.”

“Hyung, you leveled up first, so can you help me out? I don’t have a lot of time to invest in the game because I have to study.”

“Why don’t you start playing the game next year if you’re really into studying?”

“I’ll cry to our mom and tell her I’m tired of living with you.”

What did I do wrong?!

The threat, which was just a hypothetical scenario, made me clench my teeth in frustration.

Seriously.

“Okay, I’ll do it. Now let’s go finish our studying.”

As soon as I agreed to Jihee’s demand, she quickly got up and went into her room.

I followed her, like a loyal servant, and sat down in the round chair without a backrest in front of the vanity.

“17, 20, 21, and this one. So, four in total.”

I folded my practice book in half, a habit of mine, and began to read the questions with my glasses on.

“Let’s start with 17. For a constant a greater than 2…”

I was reluctantly studying for the entrance exam, but I loved math the most.

Math had no ambiguities.

Either the answer was there, or it wasn’t.

If I didn’t know, then I didn’t know – it was either one or the other.

Sometimes, I wished that all the problems in the world could be solved like math.

If only the causes and effects of everything could be transparent…

At least, my feelings towards Jihee right now seemed much more complicated than a simple number or language.

“Do you understand up to this point?”

As I wrote down the solutions and explained them to Jihee, I didn’t forget to glance at her face from time to time.

I could roughly estimate whether she understood or not just by looking at her face.

“Um… yeah.”

Yeah.

I didn’t understand.

“If there’s something you don’t know, let’s start again from there. What’s the problem?”

“No. It’s just that moving on from here is…”

Even so, as I listened to Jihee’s explanation, I could tell that she hadn’t studied carelessly.

She understood the concepts and was having a bit of trouble applying them in practice.

If we went through a few trial and errors here, we could easily solve the more advanced problems.

“Done?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

After finishing the last problem, Jihee let out a sigh of relief and stretched her arms and legs.

“Ah, why are you so good at studying, oppa?”

Why was she so good?

It was all thanks to her.

“You’ll be able to solve this with your eyes closed when you take the college entrance exam again.”

“What’s this? Was it that easy?”

“Hmm… if you want to get a perfect score, you can’t afford to make mistakes on that part, right?”

“Hmm… it’s not easy.”

Jihee, who had gotten up from her chair, stumbled and fell onto the bed.

“Ugh, I hate studying.”

“You’re doing great. Honestly, you’re doing much better than I expected, it’s amazing.”

Jihee chuckled and turned her head to look at me.

“Do you like it?”

“Do you like it?”

“You’re my oppa’s dongsaeng.”

Just ask me more math questions.

Questions without model answers always make me nervous.

I carefully chose my words and managed to come up with a plausible answer.

“If you work hard, anyone will cheer you on and like you.”

“I don’t want to look good to just anyone.”

“Then?”

“Are you curious?”

Demu and Jihee, they all talk like this these days…

…it’s frustrating.

There’s no point in playing hard to get with me.

“If you don’t want to talk, then don’t.”

“Ah, why don’t you just go! Ask me! Quickly!”

It’s really annoying when you make me repeat myself.

“Who do you want to look good to?”

As I looked down at Jihee, who was lying on the bed with her arms crossed, she made a gun shape with her thumb and index finger and gave me a sly wink.

“You!”

Seriously.

Cute has surpassed lovely.

At the same time, I had a conflicting thought, wondering what I was doing.

“Ijihee.”

“Yes?”

“If you keep doing that, and I end up liking you again, what am I supposed to do?”

About 50% of that was genuine.

I thought I had warned her with a somewhat serious face.

Jihee got up from her lying position and stood straight in front of me.

“Don’t family members have to like each other, naturally?”

……I knew it all too well, yet she acted like that.