In a daze at the entrance.
The elevator had already gone down early.
I quickly ran up the stairs.
Of course, at the ground floor entrance,
There was no sign of Woo-ah Unni.
I could only feel the chilly night air, realizing that summer had passed and autumn was already drawing near winter, as I shivered in my thin outfit.
Suddenly, I wondered if I had taken a walk at this time recently.
With no spare time lately,
It probably hadn’t happened since the activities ended, that must have been the last time.
Still, I walked aimlessly toward the company building and then ran.
I thought about what I should say if I met her,
But I had a feeling she would be there.
A quiet place.
A place that wouldn’t disturb others.
A place where Unni sometimes isolated herself since childhood.
It didn’t take long to catch up.
Before even reaching the company building, I found a park halfway along the path.
“Unni!”
At my call, she flinched in surprise and stumbled.
“Unni, just…”
“L-Let go of this.”
The visibility was low,
But the sight of Unni, with a red nose and teary eyes, after I held her shoulder and turned her head, looked like she had been about to cry.
“Look at you, Unni, you’re going to catch a cold.”
Dressed in a short-sleeved shirt with nothing else on.
“……”
With her gaze turned away and avoiding eye contact, Woo-ah Unni lightly swatted my hand away with a sniffle.
“……”
With her unusual attitude,
I didn’t know what to say.
Internally, I was struggling to find the right words.
Unni simply curled up on the bench nearby.
Then she mumbled.
“I don’t want to talk like this, in this condition…”
It felt like that awkward standoff lasted a few minutes.
It seemed like more than 10 minutes passed in silence.
The first to speak was Woo-ah Unni, glancing at my expression and burying her head in her knees.
“Do you remember when we were trainees?”
Her voice was still stuffed up.
So I just…
Sat down beside her.
“I remember everything… You have good memory after all.”
Due to her curled-up posture, Unni’s voice was more muffled and garbled.
“Did you know… there were a lot of trainees besides Han Si-a that didn’t like you?”
In the silent, nighttime park where only crickets and grasshoppers chirped,
Her words were clearly audible.
“Actually… kids are really sensitive to gazes. They might not interpret the hidden meanings well, but they can read the atmosphere faster than anyone. Even if adults pretend not to notice… it’s all obvious.”
“The atmosphere reads quicker than anyone else. Even if I pretend not to be an adult… it shows.”
So, I listened quietly with ears pricked up.
“To the trainees, teachers are everything… so they’re more sensitive.”
I had already matured mentally since I was young.
“The fact that I got paid since then…”
I might not have understood the hearts of those kids.
“I only found out today…”
“And it’d be a lie to say it doesn’t matter…”
Even if I tried to care, it might not have been enough.
“But… anyway, all the trainees knew. There wasn’t anyone who didn’t know you were confirmed for debut. Me too, me too.”
“Yeah.”
“Once, when the teacher and the director were scolding you, you acted like it was a show from the back…”
Of course, the stories my older sister confessed were all things already known.
“Everyone must have been worried about what to do later if they didn’t debut at that age. But Do-hee seemed jealous instead.”
She just ignored it.
That hasn’t changed even now.
“But looking back now, kids are kids…? They’re pure. Rather than dislike, if they became close, they’d stand out more in front of So-hyun teacher and the director. It’d be easier to get into the debut team…”
My sister smiled self-deprecatingly and glanced at me again.
“So sometimes I think, did I get into the debut team because I’m close to you?”
“Sis—”
I instinctively tried to refute, but…
“But!”
My sister was quicker to cut me off.
“Just… I’m talking apart from that…”
So I could only stay silent and listen again.
“I just really liked you. I couldn’t understand the kids who disliked you at all. Do you remember the day we first met? Hehe… asking if you remember. Your memory is good, isn’t it?”
Did she like me then, as she still does now?
Or is it just a story from the past now?
Every word, every single syllable made me overthink, and my sister kept talking.
“You… were really pretty? I thought, ‘She’s the one who will debut with me,’ and it was amazing. I bragged to Mom that day.”
Then she buried her head deeper into her knees.
“I bragged every single day.”
With a voice tinged with moisture, she spilled her words.
“My little sister is so amazing.”
“I mean, my little sister is so pretty.”
“My little sister studies really well.”
“But she also plays the piano… super duper well?”
“Her singing and dancing improved so much that she’s already awesome.”
Only after saying all that did my sister seem to regret a bit.
“It felt like I was about to cry.”
“Thinking about it, I guess I regarded you like an older sister. Strange, right? I’m the older one by two years…”
Eventually, she seemed to relax, the tension slipping from her shoulders.
“Whenever I see Do-hee, I just want to be with her all the time, hug her. I hope she looks for me too.”
A brief silence passed.
“But when Do-hee debuted as Seven… I got more and more scared as time went on. I was worried we wouldn’t debut together.”
In that moment, as if she was hyperventilating, the older sister took deep breaths, sighing repeatedly.
“Director So-hyun said not to worry and just to be myself, so I practiced hard as usual.”
Out of nowhere, she brought up something unexpected.
“It’s common for trainees to perform as dancers on their seniors’ stages.”
Even though my mind was a mess, I just nodded quietly.
“Once, the director told me I would be up on stage, and I thought it would just be as a dancer… but this time, it was a special stage where I acted from the VCR to the performance.”
She seemed to be referring to a company senior’s solo comeback stage from three years ago.
“But you know? It was clearly a pre-debut camera test. Anyone would be nervous if they’re a trainee, right?”
But I couldn’t reply easily.
“That thought came to mind.”
It seemed like she wasn’t looking for the common answer that everyone gets nervous.
“When Do-hee was already a music video lead in the first year of middle school, how could she not feel nervous…? I was too busy enjoying the comments… Later, during auditions, I did great and didn’t feel nervous when I came in first…”
Woo-ah Unni chuckled again.
“So, do you know what I thought then…?”
Looking truly clueless.
“It wasn’t ‘What if I don’t debut?’ It wasn’t jealousy or admiration. Just for the first time…”
Or maybe self-deprecating.
“For the first time, I thought, What if I become a burden even if I debut?”
Then she lifted her head.
Even with feelings already so intense,
It was late at night; would we disturb others?
Would we be a nuisance to anyone?
“So, I told the teacher I wanted to learn an instrument.”
Forgetting the effort to speak quietly,
She raised her head and burst out.
She had been holding it in for so long.
“I even thought I could study instruments with Chiyo and Na-eun to write songs when you weren’t around.”
“When you went to the Song Camp, I worked really hard on the guitar back then.”
“I even tried making dance routines all by myself!”
“I’m trying to make lyrics that Do-hee would like!”
“It’s me!”
But my older sister… tears were streaming down her face endlessly.
“If I become a burden… I’m afraid Do-hee will hate me.”
Wiping her tears hurriedly with the back of her hand, she said, “I didn’t even want to say this today.”
“I don’t want to put this burden on you.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you either…”
Sniffling, holding back her tears, she continued, “You look really fine when you came in.”
“Like usual.”
“You keep saying you’re not struggling at all.”
Then she finally met my eyes for the first time today.
“I really… I’m really worried that it doesn’t matter how we think about it.”
My sister was soaked in tears.
“I’m afraid you’ll think of it as just a coincidence that we became teammates—nothing more, nothing less…”
“That’s why… that’s why it’s so scary. So scary that I can’t even meet your eyes, what am I supposed to do?!”
My sister looked grown-up, but her heart felt so small.
“…Sister.”
It was just like our first meeting when she was short and adorable.
“People…”
The sounds of crying and sobbing were the same.
“People keep saying I have a strong personality… but I’m not like that! It’s just that…”
Overwhelmed with emotions, her breaths became chaotic amid the tears.
“I just don’t want to burden you.”
Her shoulders shook, her body trembled.
“All I want is to hug you like before… just want to act like a kid with you…”
In the beginning, my sister was crying out loud, but then,
“I’m afraid I’d be a burden… or you might think I’m a hassle…”
When her emotions overwhelmed her breath, she could no longer make a sound and cried like a child in my arms.
I gently patted and comforted her, but tears began to pool in my eyes as well.
“It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I… I haven’t been able to express myself well.”
“I also feel sorry for you. I’m so sorry.”
It was a complicated feeling.
It felt a little like talking to Philia.
Holding onto the passion and anxiety of adolescence.
“She probably likes you a lot.”
“More than you’d expect, she really, really…”
“More than you think.”
A pure heart wishing the best for the other.
That wish was mutual, yet the complexity of perceiving it as a two-way street in that moment.
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