History has a nasty habit of repeating itself, and for the cycle continued as if nothing was amiss. Having seen the signs with Mia, I should have recognized them earlier. But I guess that's hindsight talking.
It's like driving the sa route every day. You know the big landmarks: the sharp bend, the traffic lights that always turn red, the place where you once had an accident. You rember those. But the little things—the faded sign you're supposed to notice, the pothole that's crept a bit farther into the lane, the way the sun blinds you at that exact spot in the afternoon—those slip your mind until you're on top of them again.
The car swerves, you overcorrect, you spin off the road.
Every ti, a stupid mistake.
Ah, but I didn't consider my affair with Mia a mistake, just moral wrongdoing. Like I had the right to act freely and decide, to say to hell with morality and embrace the craving to experience the depraved side of human nature. So, from the perspective of a killer, who doesn't have the constraints of an ethical compass, it wasn't a mistake.
But Su Ah quietly slipping into my radar wasn't the sa kind of crash. It wasn't the sa type of impact that hit , but just the pure coincidence of fate. A sudden storm forming, an unexpected and overwhelming developnt of an unfathomably powerful weather pattern.
So, was it a mistake with Su Ah?
Yes.
No.
In the mont, no, because, obviously, I couldn't preach what I clearly didn't practice and thus was a massive hypocrite.
At the sa ti, yes, because Su Ah's involvent, on top of Mia's, could very well snowball out of hand to a massive degree. Not in the moral aspect of things; but even from my skewed perspective, I could tell how razor thin and tenuous the line was already being stretched, between us all, so one little shove, no matter how insignificant or irrelevant in my eyes, could send the fragile balance toppling over and unleash absolute chaos.
"......"
I watched her twist that strand of hair, cheeks flushed, as she idly followed around. Where? I had no idea, my feet, traitorous bastards, moved without my own conscious input.
"Jae-il..."
I told myself I was being careful.
I told myself I was the safer option.
I told myself a lot of things.
That was I was protecting her, that I had so form of control over this whole ordeal, that my participation would at least keep the potential damage to a minimum, that I could draw the line sowhere. Anywhere.
The problem was that the line I thought I could draw was already blurry. And as I watched my older sister, the quiet, cynical, thoughtful Su Ah, walk beside , her shoulders set with a feigned casualness that didn't quite hide the tremor in her hands, I realised sothing.
The line had been drawn long ago.
Mia had stepped over it first.
And now Su Ah was standing right on the edge, toes curled over the precipice, looking at not like a brother, but like a destination.
A choice.
A mistake waiting to happen.
Again.
"Jae-il..."
From a purely scientific, psychological standpoint, I was curious to know why and how the human brain can look at sothing it has always labelled forbidden and suddenly re-file it as possible.
I wanted to know at what exact second the switch flips.
At what precise mont an innocent touch of the arm turns into a firm, painful grip.
A passing glance into an obsessive, unblinking gaze.
At which point desire goes from a theoretical state to sothing tactile.
Was I doing sothing differently that suddenly made my sisters view like that? Was I giving so sort of signal to them I wasn't even aware of? When did it start? Where would it stop? Was this... permanent?
I kept walking. She kept pace. Streetlights slid over us in slow yellow pools, then left us in the dark again.
Was she also seeing the signs in Mia, with ? Was that what prompted this request of hers?
"Jae—"
I stopped. Su Ah nearly crashed against my back, skidding to an uncertain halt. I could sll the citrus-sweetness of her soap, the flower-fresh scent of her perfu.
She inhaled shakily, swallowing.
"What's with you?"
She didn't even et my eyes properly. She retreated behind that haughty, cynical mask. Arms crossed. Hair tossed over her shoulder in a perfect black cascade. Those pursed, stubborn lips, and furrowed brows. She looked, if I dare say, ridiculously pretty. Not quite objectively so, but guiltily so.
I turned fully toward her. The street was empty. Just us and the low hum of a distant vending machine, buzzing yellow, then blue, then yellow again. The light painted her profile in fleeting strokes.
Her eyes did this nervous dance, flitting up, touching mine for a split second before dropping to the ground again. A bead of sweat shimred on her temple.
"You started this." I said, voice low, resentfully so, because fuck. "You don't get to look away now."
A huff, half-laugh, half-scoff. "I'm not looking away."
"You are."
She lifted her chin, defiant, arms crossed. Su Ah and Mia's images juxtaposed. "Fine. I'm looking. Happy?"
No. Not happy. Sothing darker than happy.
"......"
She gulped, mindlessly wetting her lips as she looked around. A dead end, back alley. It was swathed in complete darkness, save for the vending machine providing barely adequate illumination.
Had I been a stranger, she'd have been running for her life.
"Are... are we doing it?" Su Ah asked. Her lips were parted, a shallow exhalation of air following after her words, slightly erratic and excited.
"Isn't that what you wanted, Noona?"
Her throat constricted at my words.
I watched it flex with her dry swallow, then the subtle bob of her head. She knew this wasn't appropriate. Perhaps not as much as her other older sister did, who seed to have completely thrown herself over to the abyss of depravity from the very beginning.
Still...
Still.
Despite the obvious hesitation, she stood there, not even flinching when I took her arm and led her to a darker, more concealed space in the darkest corner. It was fitting, in a sense. This shitty back alley represented where our morals went to die.
"So? How far should we go, Noona?" I asked, throwing a glance towards the main road, in case any wandering drunk idiot ca about to barge into this area.
My question seed to finally shock the girl out of her nervous spell.
"... Uhm." She played around with a lock of her hair, cheeks tinging a bit brighter. She tried to compose herself, slip back into that casual deanor. "Well, since we're outside, it should feel… stolen. Wrong place, wrong ti, wrong person. So. Yeah. I an." She exhaled. "Like the characters know soone could walk past any second and see."
"......"
I rely stared at her.
Su Ah forced the rest out before the sha got the best of her. "She keeps squirming. Not because she's scared of him, but because she's scared of how much she isn't scared. He pins her wrists to the wall, one hand is enough for both, so she feels how much stronger he is. She pretends to fight it. Tiny twists, little pushes, nothing real. Just enough to make herself believe she still has a choice."
"......"
"Then he kisses her. It isn't even close to gentle. He steals it like the jerk the reader wants him to be. And, well, it should be different from our very first ti trying it out, Jae-il. As I said, readers want that little bit of spice. So, ahem, I've heard that French people use their tongue a lot during... kisses?" She scrunched up her nose, almost as if the idea of it disgusted her.
A pathetic attempt at subterfuge.
Silence followed.
"So..."
She clicked her tongue, still unable to look directly at my eyes. "Did you understand it correctly? It's the premise, the scenario. This will be in chapter ten, I think. First kiss between the main characters."
"......"
"Will you say sothing already?!"
Her cheeks were inflad with a fierce crimson blush and yet she still, surprisingly, maintained eye contact for more than two seconds straight, no matter how uncomfortable it may have been for her. Or for . Shit.
I really didn't think this would turn out so fucking ridiculous. Perhaps I should've refused earlier. Put my foot down and insist this was the one and only boundary she shouldn't cross.
I may have done so had I not already crossed it with Mia. So deny one sister, encourage the other?
That... didn't seem fair.
Sure, Su Ah rely wanted the experience for the sake of writing and portraying a scene. As for Mia and I, we had sothing concrete, not based on re experintal basis.
Ah. This was the shit storm I got myself into, huh.
The alley had a tangy, damp sll. Our breath plud faintly. Sowhere a cat knocked over a bottle; glass rolled, clinked, stopped. My eyes flicked briefly towards the mouth of the alley, just to make extra sure, then back towards Su Ah. Her eyes trembled faintly, her fists barely visible over the sleeves of her hoodie.
"Jae-il... then..."
I nodded.
"Show ."
Her trembling pupils stilled for a mont, then settled down.
Shoes dragged against the ground.
"Like this." Su Ah took a step back, then another, until the brick wall scraped against her hoodie. I could imagine that leaning on the wall finally gave her so modicum of stability; her knees had been shaking. "Jae-il. Co closer."
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