Chapter 29: Little Things
Yeon Soohi had decided to take this chance to stay over at Han Yohan’s place.
Very little chances as such came across her where she could be alone with Yohan without her stupid older brother butting in.
"Oppa, can I stay over tonight?" Soohi asked inching closer to Yohan on the couch as they played video games together. "Hmm? Can I?"
"Yeon Soohi." Yohan said sternly. "Get your ass back to the safe zone, damn it! It’s a ranked match! You brat!!"
"Huh? When did the map turn red?"
The two then became completely serious about the ranked match and didn’t even notice when three hours passed away.
He still didn’t answer me!!
Soohi decided that Yohan not answering her was all the other team’s fault and started annihilating everyone. And as such with the next twenty minutes, the ranked match was won by the Aquaria (their team name) with a whopping 700 point difference.
"Sweet! You should’ve played like that since the beginning!!" Yohan yelled as he checked out the rewards of the ranked match.
"Come on, oppa. I always get us wins. Don’t you know that by now?" Soohi pouted as he observed Yohan excitedly trying the new reward skin.
"So? Can I stay over toni...?"
"Hey!!! Check this out! This skin has double wings! I can fly up higher with this!"
Soohi became and looked at the screen where Yohan’s character, Goldfish, a cute girl, ran around with the new wings. Soohi’s character, Cuttlefish, a knight, followed after it.
They were probably the only ranked team with only two members but Yohan and Soohi liked it when it was just the two of them.
"Oppa, can you quit avoiding it and just tell me."
[ Cuttlefish has caged Goldfish]
[Goldfish cannot move for the next 10 minutes]
The screen was covered with two pop up messages.
"Yeon Soohi, no you cannot stay over. I have a dat.."
"I’m not talking about that! Answer me about the conf... huh? You have a what?"
"I have a date tonight."
"..."
"..."
Yeon Soohi had an indescribable look on her face. The happiness that came over her when she had heard that Yohan had broken up with his new fling now came crashing down as her heart dropped into her stomach.
I feel like crying but why aren’t the tears coming out.
Yeon Soohi remembered something that her older brother had told her when he was discharged from the hospital after going through his first rut.
He wasn’t much reliable as an older brother but at least he was trying.
Their mother was still in the hospital and Soohi had to handle most of the housework after school as Doha worked at the time.
Waking up early to finish cleaning, then going to school, then the tutoring his brother had forced her to join because she had shitty grades, coming back home, cooking dinner, cleaning up and then studying again, Yeon Soohi had started to feel awfully constricted in her life.
After all, it was a bit much for a middle school student.
Doha was never around and their mother was hospitalised. Yeon Soohi had thought she couldn’t possibly burden them anymore than they already were.
Then one day, Doha came home early and said he would cook for her. He started humming and singing as he cooked, it was a strange sight.
Apparently he had just managed to pay off half of their billions worth of debt. And he had taken a day off to celebrate with Soohi.
"Just a little bit more, Soohi, then we too can live a free life," Doha told her as he served her the food.
She didn’t even know he could cook or if he was actually paying off the debt too along with paying for her tuition.
She felt so useless with herself that she couldn’t even handle a little housework when her brother was doing everything in his ability to provide for her.
She accidentally dropped a glass in thought and it shattered.
Just how much more useless can you be...?
Soohi began picking it up and Doha scrambled over there with a plate to put the glass fragments on.
Soohi cut her finger with a shard and blood started flowing out.
Doha panicked.
And now I just had to make him worry on top of it.
"Yeon Soohi," Doha asked her. "Why aren’t you crying?"
"Huh?" Soohi snapped out of those thoughts.
"You were crying a lot when I was in the hospital so how are you not when you’ve been hurt yourself?"
Soohi thought and thought about what Doha said.
It did hurt but why couldn’t she cry?
"When you keep holding back tears from things that hurt, they eventually dry up," Doha said as he put a bandaid on her finger.
"So cry when things get hard and hurt, okay? Isn’t that why we made the ’no-secret’ rule?"
Yeon Soohi bawled her eyes out that day. And that was the day, Yeon Doha became Oppa.
Soohi remembered her brother’s words suddenly.
"Yohan oppa," Soohi placed the controller down and turned towards Yohan.
"I need you to listen to me and give me an answer."
"Soohi, what are you even talking about?" Yohan seemed to stand and up and about to leave. "Let’s each dinner before you go back...!"
Soohi yanked Yohan closer to her and pinned him down on the couch under her.
"Yeon Soohi! What are you doing?!" Yohan retorted as—
*plip
*plip
Two large tear drops fell over his cheek as he looked up in shock.
Soohi was crying in an awfully calm manner. As if only water was oozing out from her eyes and her face held no emotion.
"Han Yohan, I like you," Soohi began speaking as more and more tears dropped down. "I’ve like you for a while now. Will you go out with me?"
"..."
"Answer me, oppa."
"You know what I’ll say, Soohi, we don’t have to go through this..."
"I SAID ANSWER ME!!!"
A long silence followed after that.
"I can’t date you, Soohi."
Yohan avoided looking at Soohi’s face but when he finally looked, he felt as if he had killed someone.
Soohi was smiling as tears fell from her eyes. It was a bitter smile.
"If I was a guy, would you have dated me?"
"No. I wouldn’t have dated whether you were a guy, alpha or omega or as you are right now."
Soohi released Yohan from under her grasp amd stoop up from the couch. She picked the controller and pressed a few buttons.
"Can you at least do me a little favour?" Soohi asked never looking at Yohan.
"What is it?"
"Can you please not visit our apartment for the time being? It would really help if I didn’t have to see for a while."
"Sure."
Soohi then walked right away and stood in the doorway putting on her shoes.
On the screen, notifications popped up;
[Cuttlefish had left the team Aquaria]
[Notice: There cannot be single player ranked teams]
[Ranked 4 Team Aquaria has been disbanded]
Yohan kept staring at the screen without any expression. He felt strangely calm.
Yes, it had to be done one day. But it’s kind of a shame that it happened so soon...
*ring!
*ring!
*ring!
Yeon Soohi’s phone rang as she was on the doorway. It was her mother as she saw it while putting on her shoe.
She stood up and picked it up.
"Mom. What’s up?"
(....)
The voice on the phone wasn’t audible to Yohan.
Yohan looked in her direction in curiosity.
"Huh? Wait, mom, why are you crying? Tell me, what happened....?"
(....)
"What?"
Her cellphone dropped from her hands and her face paled. Soohi looked towards Yohan in horror as she stiffly inched forward.
Yohan immediately rushed to her, he held her hand and asked.
"What happened, Soohi? What did auntie say?!"
Soohi’s lips trembled as she looked at her phone which was now disconnected.
"It’s Doha oppa... mom said he’s bleeding... and that there’s a lot of blood... and that they’re on their way... to the... hospital..."
Soohi covered her face with her hands as tears gushed out at an uncontrollable pace. Wailing and snifling, she collapsed onto the ground.
"Soohi, get up, quick!" Yohan held her up as he called on Doha’s phone and put on his hear. "We need to get moving. Come get inside my car, I need to ask auntie which hospital they are going to."
Soohi felt limp at her legs.
What is happening to my brother? Is he okay? Does he have some incurable disease? It happened a few days back during breakfast. We just thought it was exhaustion. Is something really wrong? What if he... how will I handle all this alone? What do I do?
"Yeon Soohi!! Get up!"
Yohan yelled as he helped her by putting her arm around his neck.
"Hello, auntie, we are coming right away. Can you tell me which hospital it is?"
(....)
"Okay. Yes, I got it."
(....)
"No, I’m with her."
(....)
"No, no, I’ll look after her."
(....)
"Please make sure you get there safely."
*click.
Yeon Soohi looked at Yohan, who seemed so reliable and calm. As they both sat in the car and drove away to the hospital, Yeon Soohi remembered why she could never give up on Han Yohan.
This was the side of him she fell in love with.
How cruel. To show me this whe I finally found the courage to get rejected at last.
And they drove away into the setting sun.
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