Chapter 1 Part 4 "What are you doing, Giha."
Rustle.
Hearing a familiar sound from somewhere, I lifted my head.
My older sister was standing in the doorway watching me, potato chip bags in hand.
I kept stuffing things into the box amid a room that looked like it had been through an exercise in total chaos. A small doll from a school trip, a sports brand T-shirt I liked, a watch, a game console.
"Purging ill-fated ties."
"There you go again. That's your sickness."
"What sickness is this?"
"You know, your whole 'cutting off bad ties' thing. Every so often you start shouting about cutting off bad ties, but then you leave it alone and the very next day you go right back to clinging to it and making a fuss." My older sister snorted.
Since when had I ever—
Well, of course there had been times when Yeo Saebyeok and I fought like we were trying to kill each other, then went out to hang around together the very next day.
But that was only because Yeo Saebyeok came over and asked me to go do something with him, and there was nothing I could do because nobody else in the neighborhood played mid lane well.
There were other times too when I had reasons I couldn't avoid going out with him the very next day. Like when the basketball team was short on players, or when he used the telecom discount that happened to apply to a movie.
This time was different from before. Back then, he hadn't stolen my girlfriend.
No matter what, this time was different. This time.
"This time it's really over. I'm never even speaking to that bastard again."
"Sure, sure. Wow, Saebyeok already had fully formed features even back then." My older sister let out a word of admiration while holding up a childhood photo of me and Yeo Saebyeok. "There's a reason he always got cast as the prince in kindergarten. He was a beautiful boy."
"What about me?"
"You? You were just Giha." My older sister grinned and pointed at me in the photo.
Standing next to Yeo Saebyeok in his prince costume, I was dressed as a tree. When Yeo Saebyeok played the prince, I was in the background, Tree Number One.
"Noona, are you really my sister?"
"Sadly, yes. But why are your eyes so puffy?"
"...I watched a sad movie."
"What movie? Hey, did you use my laptop again?"
"Is your laptop more important than me?"
"Who said that? That's why you still look like a baby. When you were little, you really looked like a steamed bun."
"What kind of steamed bread? Mom said I was pretty."
"Ugly steamed bread."
"If I'm ugly steamed bread, then Yeo Saebyeok is—"
"Saebyeok? He was just Saebyeok."
That was exactly the problem, how there could be this much difference between plain Giha and plain Saebyeok. Yeo Saebyeok was a prince, while I was Tree Number One.
Another big problem was that that bastard was such an ignorantly dense prince that he had no idea how grateful he should be.
Irritated, I snatched the photo back from my older sister and immediately flung it into the box. "From now on, in my life, there is no such name as 'Saebyeok.'"
"Oh, really? Mom's going to the market at dawn tomorrow."
"Don't say that name."
"Who said Saebyeok? I meant dawn. When Mom goes to the market, should I tell her to take your key too?"
(Translator's Note: Saebyeok (새벽) — A Korean given name that literally means "dawn" or "daybreak.")
"Are you seriously doing this? Since when do you wake up at dawn? You sleep through the morning."
"What's wrong with dawn? I like dawn. It's quiet, it has atmosphere, and it's handsome."
"Noona! You're saying that because you don't know, but I wasn't crying because of the movie. It was because of Saebyeok, okay? That bastard made your little brother cry."
"Did he make you cry?" My older sister said it with mock gravity, then soon grinned and crouched down in front of me. "All right, let's hear it. What did he do this time?"
"That bastard was in the wrong."
"What did he do wrong?"
"He stole my love."
For the first time, my older sister, who had only been fooling around until now, looked genuinely serious. Still, she was my older sister. She was taking my side.
"...You two, was it like that? No wonder."
"That's not what I mean. Am I gay?"
"So what if you are? South Korea's gender ratio is falling apart anyway. The more possibilities, the better."
"Even if I were gay, I still wouldn't date Saebyeok!"
"Really? Think about it carefully. Honestly, there are probably a lot of boys at your school who'd want to date Saebyeok, right?"
I was about to laugh off my older sister's words, then stopped.
Maybe that was why. The joke I sometimes heard while hanging out with the guys suddenly came back to me: If it's Saebyeok, then maybe.
"Whether other people do or not, I'm not dating Saebyeok. Absolutely not."
"Absolutely not? You've really thought that through?"
"Yeah. I shouldn't have gotten involved with him in the first place."
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