Oppa, Have You Ever Given That Unnie A Peck?

“I said — what kind of relationship is it?”

Blood-chilling.

What exactly was my relationship with Yuna-noona? As of right now, I could state flatly that there was no relationship at all. Yuna-noona and I had only known each other until I was eight, and after that she emigrated, so I’d had no way of hearing any news of her. I’d forgotten she even existed until today, and it had never once crossed my mind that we’d meet again like this. In other words, nothing had ever happened between us that Sia needed to worry about. And yet.

Why, though.

Why did I have such an ominous feeling? I couldn’t say. My instincts were simply sounding a warning: whether I’d done anything wrong or not, I had to choose my words carefully here. The early-autumn air was cool, but for some reason cold sweat was trickling down my back.

“Uhh, Sia.”

Was this how a man felt when his girlfriend caught him out drinking alone with a girl-friend? I hadn’t done anything wrong, so why was I this nervous?

“…It’s exactly the story you heard just now.”

Yuna-noona’s mother and mine were friends in the neighborhood, so back in kindergarten the two of us had been close, her as the noona and me as the little one. Naturally we’d been far too young for anything between boys and girls, so to me Yuna-noona was just Close Noona No. 1, someone I played with, nothing more and nothing less.

Why on earth did I have to explain myself to this extent?

“Ohhh, reeeally?”

Having heard me out, Sia only wore a meaningful look. Was the explanation still not enough?

“Mm. And on top of that, Noona emigrated to America when I was eight. We never once got in touch after that. I didn’t even know what she was doing. I honestly had no idea I’d run into her here like this.”
“Then, Oppa. Let me ask you just one thing.”

Sia pressed herself close against me and looked up into my face.

“Have you ever given her a peck or anything?”
“…Huh?”
“I’m asking whether you’ve ever given her a peck. That unnie.”
“Well, that…”

What would snotty-nosed kids playing house in kindergarten know about putting their lips on each other? Little brats like that didn’t even have a firm grasp of what physical affection was, so what kind of peck could they possibly…

Huh?

…There had been one, hadn’t there?

It had happened a good twenty-odd years ago, so I had every excuse for not remembering. Strangely, though, the memory surfaced, hazy as it was: Yuna-noona pressing her lips to my cheek, and me shoving her away because it was gross.

“….”
“Oppa, why aren’t you saying anything?”

Was it right to tell her the truth? It was from my kindergarten days, and anyway I hadn’t done the kissing; I’d been on the receiving end. But if I made a clumsy job of hiding it, there was a good chance Sia would find out later. Better to just turn myself in voluntarily.

“…She’s given me one.”

I studied Sia’s reaction. If anything, the way her expression didn’t change in the slightest frightened me more. Surely not, I thought. It was an episode from my snotty-nosed days… Did it really bother her that much?

Maybe she was jealous that the woman who’d given me my first peck wasn’t her. That was cute, but the way to settle that kind of jealousy was obvious, of course: give Sia certainty about how I felt.

“But family aside, I’ve never been the one to put my lips to any woman other than you. And I never will.”

But.

“…That’s not true. You’re going to peck other women too.”

Sia’s expression had set hard. What? Why? The question of what made her think that was on the tip of my tongue when she went on.

“You’re going to do it with our daughter, aren’t you. Pecks.”

Somewhere along the way, Sia’s icy expression had turned into one brimming with mischief.

“Sia, you….”

That took ten years off my life. …I’m not exaggerating; my heart really did almost stop.

“I hate even imagining you giving a peck to a woman other than me, Oppa, but of course you have to give our daughter pecks. How cute will a daughter who takes after our Oppa be?”
“Haa….”

Once my startled heart had calmed down, I handed Yuna-noona’s business card over to Sia, a sign that I wouldn’t be contacting her privately.

“Anyway, nothing like what you’re worried about ever happened, and it won’t happen in future either, so put your mind at ease.”
“Mm! Then Oppa, in that spirit….”

I could see exactly what Sia was about to say, so I kissed her deeply before she’d even finished.

“You wanted a peck, right?”
“Mm!”

Satisfaction colored Sia’s face at the kiss.

After the meal, we had about an hour and a half left. That was an awkward amount of time to do anything with, so in the end we settled on some light shopping at the department store nearby. Part of the aim was to have one or two more couple T-shirts made besides the ones we were wearing, and Sia also wanted to buy a few more clothes. For that short hour and a half we dashed around the department store, picking out clothes for each other: two couple T-shirts, one outfit for me, and five for Sia. A very full haul for a very short time.

Even then we had time to spare, so we used it to take photos at a photo booth nearby.

“Now… it’s time to part.”

Once the shopping was done, we had less than five minutes left.

“What a shame.”
“Mm. Today felt like the time went fast. Such a shame.”

The moment of parting had come round again. Sia must have found it terribly disappointing, because she stuck out her lips in a pout. Loving each other this much and only being able to be together three hours a week hurt far too much.

I have to get stronger than I am now. So we can meet more often, and for longer.

The more I felt that, the more I craved the ‘power’ said to be sleeping inside me. For me to be with Sia, my own growth mattered more than anything else.

We promised to meet again in a week and held each other close one last time. I was just about to head home.

“Oppa, before you go — here.”

Sia handed me a phone keyring. I had no idea when she’d made it; it held a photo of the two of us posing happily together, making hearts with our hands.

“A present. I made it yesterday.”

She didn’t say it outright, but she’d probably given me the keyring so it would be blindingly obvious to everyone that we were a couple.

“Thank you. I’ll keep it on me always.”

Still, the keyring on its own felt a little bare. We’d used a photo booth together for the first time in ages, so I slipped the photo we’d just taken into my phone case. The case was clear, and the picture of the two of us showed plainly through it. Seeing that, Sia broke into a satisfied smile.

Then she surprised me with a peck on the cheek, teleported me home, and, with a word about seeing me in a week, went back to her own place.

And then I was alone.

“…Back to reality.”

Just like last time, the end of a date always left me feeling empty. How was I supposed to wait out a whole week from here? It already felt hopeless. But if there was anything to be done now…

There’s nothing but training.

I always reached the same conclusion. I had to learn to handle a dragon’s power completely, as soon as I possibly could, so that nothing would go wrong even if I stuck to Sia all day long.

With that motivation in hand, I started scouting out the Gates I’d go to next. I was busy going through the list of Gates when a KakaoTalk came in from Junhwi.

“Hyungnim, do you have any thoughts about joining a Guild?”
“Yuna-noona said she’d look into a Guild for you”

…Out of nowhere?

“It’s bugging me after all.”

Back in the lair, Sia, having sorted out the clothes she’d shopped for, murmured as she thought back over today’s date.

Contrary to Sia’s worries, Jiyun, Junhwi’s older sister, harbored nothing like romantic feelings toward Minjun. She had treated him purely as the benefactor who had saved her younger brother’s life, and Sia had concluded as much as well. Jiyun was not the problem now.

…Why did a coincidence like this have to happen.

As Sia saw it, the far bigger problem was Go Yuna, the woman who had spent Minjun’s childhood at his side like a friend. It hadn’t shown much on the surface, but as a fellow woman Sia could tell from Yuna’s expression, her tone, and her behavior. Go Yuna might have thought none of it showed, yet in every last one of her gestures Sia had read the desire to get entangled with Minjun again somehow. On top of which, hadn’t she gone so far as to give him a peck on the cheek back in childhood?

There was no solid proof, but putting all the circumstances together, Yuna would most likely try to keep in touch with Minjun somehow from here on. The step after that would be to disguise herself as a girl-friend and hover around him, wagging her tail at him like a fox all the while.

“It really looks like I’ll have to dig into her background.”

For now Sia had only suspicion, but without question, Yuna would make a move one way or another. Minjun had handed over the business card he’d received earlier, saying he’d have no reason to contact her. Go Yuna, though, would certainly do whatever it took to reach him. A woman’s intuition told Sia so.

Meanwhile, at that same hour.

This is fate.

On a short break, Go Yuna had stepped into the staff room to catch her breath. Heart fluttering, she replayed the miracle of today’s lunch.

Their connection went back far enough for most memories to fade, yet she still clearly remembered the ones she had built with Minjun. Whatever else she might have been, where love was concerned she had been precocious even at that age, and she had fallen for him at first sight, from the very moment they met. She kept the feeling tightly hidden in her child’s heart, but even then she harbored, in all seriousness, the greedy wish to be joined with him as a lover.

Back then, Minjun and Yuna had a great many points of contact and plenty of chances to meet. They went to the same kindergarten, lived in the same block of the same apartment complex, and their mothers were close. That wasn’t all, either. Both of them had worked as child models when they were little, so they naturally had a great deal in common, and they ran into each other at shoots fairly often too. Meeting him that often, at kindergarten, at shoots and at each other’s homes, Yuna could only fall harder.

Looks already so polished you could call him a promising seedling¹, and a warm, affectionate nature. How could anyone fail to fall for a boy who had all of that?

So, shy as she was, she had signaled her feelings to Minjun in all sorts of ways. Mostly she hinted at them indirectly, and once she worked up the courage to give him a peck on the cheek. But whether he was oblivious or simply felt nothing, Minjun never accepted her heart. To him she was just a close noona from the neighborhood.

Even so, she didn’t know how to give up. Things might be like this for now, but someday Minjun would see her feelings for what they were. She meant to hold the position of close neighborhood noona and never leave his side.

However, she was far too young at the time to know that life could not always go the way she wished. When she had to leave for America because of her father’s business, she realized she could no longer be with Minjun and burst into bitter tears.

And then.

To think a miracle like this would happen.

This very day, she had been reunited with Minjun as if by a miracle. Twenty years had gone by and he’d shot up, but she had recognized him at a glance. His body had grown a great deal, yet the particular air he gave off was just the same. She’d come out to that table without much thought, as a favor to a friend, but the moment she confirmed that the man there was the Minjun of her childhood memories, feelings she had long forgotten began stirring in her chest again.

The fact that he already had a girlfriend was an obstacle, but…

I can put up with that much.

If he already had a girlfriend, then being close as girl-friend and guy-friend would do just fine. It might be hard to become as close as they’d been back then, but how wonderful it would be if she could build even something like it.

Or — there’s a chance he’ll break up with the girlfriend later.

Then she could wedge herself into the gap and seduce him. She smiled with satisfaction.

She’d given him her card, so if Minjun got in touch, she intended to let their relationship drift naturally back to what it used to be. And if he didn’t get in touch?

Then I’ll just have to move first.

An excuse to move was something you could manufacture.

She rummaged through the gallery on her phone and dug out a single photo from more than twenty years ago, showing her and Minjun as children, beaming with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

“He was so cute when he was little.”

And now he’d grown into a proper man.

She pressed her lips to little Minjun’s face on the screen. Not just Sia and Minjun but anyone who knew her would surely have been appalled to see her like this. Who would ever have imagined that a young, capable, beautiful businesswoman did something this creepy and furtive?

But in this moment, what other people thought didn’t matter to her in the least. Only one question occupied her: what excuse would give her more points of contact with Minjun.

Hunter.

She was a former A-Rank Hunter with plenty of connections in the industry, and Minjun was a D-Rank Hunter, still a rookie as Hunters went. Surely there were many things she could help him with. From what she’d gathered in passing, he didn’t seem to belong to any Guild at the moment.

How about I introduce him to a decent Guild?

Even to her own mind it made good bait for staying in contact with Minjun.

“Wait for me, Minjun.”

The girlfriend seat was already taken by another woman, but surely the girl-friend seat was still empty. That was how she saw it.