Oppa, What Exactly Is Your Relationship With That Unnie?

“Whoa.”

Minjun let out an admiring sound the moment he stepped into the restaurant. When he’d been in touch with Junhwi yesterday, he had heard it was an upmarket Chinese place, but he hadn’t expected it to be this upmarket. The luxurious interior, along with the certificates and trophies displayed where no one could miss them, spoke to the restaurant’s standing.

While Minjun stood gazing around in a daze, Jiyun sidled over.

“It’s a place a lot of famous celebrities and high-ranking Hunters come to. Even they have a hard time eating here unless they book a month in advance.”
“Then how did you manage to get a reservation?”
“A friend of mine is the owner here. I asked a favor and barely squeezed us in.”

Jiyun must have been very proud of her friend, because she looked thoroughly delighted the whole time she talked about her and the restaurant.

“Wow. Your friend’s made it at a young age.”
“Right? Even I think she’s a pretty amazing friend.”

While Minjun and Jiyun chatted away so companionably, Sia watched from right beside them. It was a perfectly ordinary conversation about nothing in particular, and yet it bothered her to see Minjun talking one-on-one with a woman who wasn’t her. Her face could easily have crumpled, but she kept her poker face and went on watching him.

As if he had read what was in her heart, Minjun turned his head toward her.

“If it’s good, let’s come again later, just the two of us.”
“Mm!”

At the words “the two of us,” Sia’s heart softened.

Once they had taken their seats and ordered the course menu, the four of them settled in and the conversation began to bloom in earnest. Given why they had gathered, it opened, as it had to, with thanks.

“Thank you again, truly.”

Emotion seemed to well up in Jiyun even as she spoke, and she drained a glass of water before going on.

“The truth is, both our parents passed away early. So the only person I could call flesh and blood was Junhwi…”

She spoke calmly enough, but Minjun could feel what lay beneath. How much the two of them, a brother and sister without parents, must have leaned on each other. If not for Minjun, Jiyun would probably have lost Junhwi, her only family, and been left alone in the world.

Listening to her story, Minjun found his thoughts drifting to Sia’s past, to the Gate incident that had taken her entire family back in her high-school days. The sight of Sia sobbing alone at the funeral hall, her whole family gone in a single moment, was still vivid before his eyes.

“I don’t think saying thank you however many times would be enough.”
“Please, don’t mention it. And it’s not as though I fought alone or anything.”
“What do you mean. You took on the Villains almost entirely by yourself, Hyungnim. Man, even looking at it as a fellow guy, you were way too cool.”

Junhwi cut in with his easy cheek, and Minjun mimed a shudder, as though the word Hyungnim gave him the shivers.

“I keep telling you to quit it with the Hyungnim.”
“The thing is, habit’s a frightening thing, Hyungnim.”

Unpleasant old memories had surfaced for a moment, and Minjun had come close to sinking into gloom, but the cheerful mood Junhwi kept up let him shake it off.

Meanwhile, Sia watched with pride as the two siblings thanked Minjun from the heart. Seeing her boyfriend recognized like this by an outsider made her happy too.

And so, as the four of them carried their warm, genial conversation along, Sia joined in just enough while she kept studying Jiyun’s reactions.

I still can’t tell.

If anything, Jiyun complimented her, asking what the secret to her looks was, and exclaimed without a trace of jealousy at how well the couple T-shirts suited them. On top of that, she had even presented Minjun and Sia with high-end slippers that she and Junhwi had prepared as a separate gift, a matching couple pair, no less. However Sia looked at it, nothing signaled that Jiyun had her eye on Minjun as a man.

Even so, Sia kept repeating it to herself to the very end: until the moment they parted from the two of them, she must never let her guard down.

At any rate, while she waged her invisible, solitary struggle, the first course finally arrived, a crab meat and crispy-rice soup in which tender crab and crispy rice came together in harmony.

As she took a spoonful, Sia studied Minjun’s reaction.

“Is it good, Oppa?”
“Mm. It’s seriously good.”
“I’ll make it for you sometime.”

She was learning to cook these days, she said, so he should just name anything he liked the taste of. Then she gazed at him lovingly and broke into a beaming smile.

“Oppa, say ahh.”

Sia scooped up a generous spoonful of soup and fed it to Minjun, as though she meant to show Jiyun just how close the two of them were.

This is a little… embarrassing.

Sure, they often fed each other when they were alone, but right now there were other people beside them. One was a younger guy he knew, and the other was that guy’s own older sister, and today was the first time he had ever met her. Still, he could hardly refuse soup his lovely girlfriend was spooning into his mouth.

When Minjun swallowed, Sia parted her own lips daintily, as if to say it was her turn now.

“Anyone watching would think you two hadn’t even hit a hundred days yet¹.”

The sight must have struck Jiyun as quite sweet, because a smile settled at the corner of her mouth.

“How many years did the two of you say you’ve been together?”
“Coming up on five years now.”

Jiyun was startled by his answer.

“Wow. And you’re still this lovey-dovey? How?”

Five years was long enough for a couple to fall into a rut, long enough for passionate love to cool into something more like a comfortable friendship.

And yet.

“Anyone in our position would end up the same way, I think.”

They had crossed a whole lifetime to be reunited by a miracle, so how could their feelings for each other be anything but tender?

As he answered, Minjun laid a hand lightly on Sia’s shoulder and drew her close, and Sia pressed against his side and smiled.

The meal went on in the same warm mood until, at last, the dessert that signaled the end of the course arrived.

Jiyun had a question for Sia.

“Oh, right. Sia, you said you’re a Hunter as well, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Though I think I’ll be taking a break for a while.”

As far as Sia was concerned, there was no reason to go to the trouble of entering a Gate unless she was going with Minjun.

“But you haven’t retired, have you?”
“No. I’m just resting for now.”

It might be out of reach for the moment, but Sia dreamed of the day she and Minjun could go into a Gate together, cozy and alone.

At her answer, Jiyun clapped her hands.

“Then this is perfect timing. Actually, there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned. You know the owner here? My friend? She’s actually a former A-Rank Hunter.”
“Really?”
“No way.”

Minjun and Sia perked up at the unexpected news. Jiyun had said she was twenty-seven this year, and the owner was her friend… Not only had she made it as a Hunter, she had pulled off something enormous as a businesswoman too.

“She sounds like an amazing person.”
“She’s my friend, but I think so too. Anyway, that’s not what I was going to say. I was thinking I might introduce her to the two of you.”

Retired or not, she was an A-Rank Hunter all the same. Just learning the know-how she had built up in her Hunter days would help, Jiyun explained, all the more so once you counted the connections she had made in that life. This, too, was Jiyun’s own way of thanking the two people who had saved her younger brother’s life.

But at that moment, as though some instinct had caught wind of something, Sia asked a question.

“That friend of yours — she’s a woman, isn’t she?”

Could this woman see Minjun as a man, or couldn’t she? For Sia, nothing else mattered.

Jiyun, who had no idea what the question was driving at, answered lightly.

“Yes. She should be in the kitchen right now, so if I call her she’ll probably be out in a moment.”

Jiyun called her friend and was told she’d be right over. And so, around the time they had nearly finished their dessert, Jiyun’s friend, the owner of the place, opened the door and came in.

“Our Jiyun — how long has it been!”
“Yuna! Why are you so busy these days! You said we’d get to see each other all the time once you retired!”
“That’s just how the world works, isn’t it. I never imagined I’d be running a restaurant either.”

Once they had exchanged glad greetings, Jiyun introduced her friend to Minjun and Sia.

“This is the friend I mentioned just now, Go Yuna. And these two are the people I told you about before. Minjun, who saved our Junhwi’s life, and Minjun’s girlfriend, Sia. His girlfriend’s a Hunter as well, apparently.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Right after the greetings, Go Yuna stared fixedly at Minjun’s face, as though something about it struck her as odd.

What’s with her?

Staring that hard at someone else’s boyfriend. Just as Sia was beginning to consider letting her displeasure show on her face, Yuna tilted her head for a moment, then, wearing a baffled expression, tossed out a question.

“Don’t tell me — Uju Apartments, Saetbyeol Kindergarten, Yun Minjun?”
“…How do you know that?”

At Minjun’s reaction, the certainty on Yuna’s face began to dissolve into laughter.

“It’s me, me! Go Yuna! Don’t you remember playing house at my place? We went to the same kindergarten!”
“…Ah!”

Minjun clapped his hands, as though it had only just come back to him.

At that, the woman who called herself ‘Go Yuna’ beamed, letting Minjun see how glad she was.

“I thought I’d never see you again — it’s so good to see you, Minjun! Have you been doing well all this time?”
“Wow, it’s all coming back now. Fancy meeting like this.”

Swept up in the astonishing coincidence, Minjun traded happy greetings with her, forgetting for a moment that Sia was right beside him.

“Let’s meet up on our own sometime and get a meal or something. Wow.”
“Then…”

Minjun started to answer, faltered, and checked Sia’s expression.

…!

Nothing showed on the surface, but Minjun, who had watched her for a long time, could tell. If he nodded readily here, something would go wrong. Badly wrong.

“I’d love to, but I’m busy these days. It’ll be hard for a while.”
“Yeah? Can’t be helped, then.”

Go Yuna looked genuinely disappointed to hear he had no time, and Sia watched every moment of it.

Whether Yuna couldn’t feel the sting of Sia’s gaze or was only pretending not to, she turned to Sia with perfect composure.

“Or — it was Sia, wasn’t it? If you don’t mind, Sia, would you like to get a meal together sometime?”

On the surface it looked like pure goodwill, but Sia’s sixth sense was sounding a warning. That woman was dangerous. Without question, someday, somewhere, she would become a great obstacle standing between Sia and Minjun.

“I’d love to!”

Keeping those thoughts hidden, Sia answered brightly. For now, she needed to find out for certain what that woman was thinking.

What with this and that over the meal, before I knew it an hour and a half had passed since we’d met the two of them.

“We’ll be heading off, then.”
“Leaving already? Stay and have a cup of coffee at least.”

There was a café with a nice atmosphere nearby, Jiyun said, looking very sorry to see us go. But this hardly seemed the moment to sit around laughing over coffee without a care in the world. Feeling Sia’s burning gaze from right beside me, I wrapped things up cleanly.

“We’ve got somewhere else to be. Thank you for lunch today. Junhwi, I’ll be in touch later.”
“See you soon, Hyungnim!”

And so we saw the Junhwi siblings off, which left only Yuna-noona.

“Sia, let’s eat together soon. I’ll get in touch. Minjun, it’s such a coincidence running into each other like this, so let’s keep in touch now and then.”

Noona pressed her business card into my hand, telling me to use it to reach her.

“I’m busy, so I’ve got no choice but to head back in. Let’s talk soon.”
“Sure, Noona. Go on in.”

Yuna-noona saw us off with a smile, waving right up until the moment she went back inside.

Once she too had vanished from sight, the presence I’d been feeling beside me slowly swelled. Goosebumps rose all over my body. This was unmistakably my instincts sounding a warning.

“Oppa.”

Sia laced her fingers through mine and gazed steadily at me. Why did those eyes, which I usually found so lovely, feel so chilling today?

“You and that Yuna person — exactly…”

Her voice steadily gathered strength, and with it I could feel her mana surging violently in the hand laced with mine.

“…what, kind of relationship is it?”