Aftermath – 4

I took off my coat and draped it over Cordelia’s head. She looked like a young lady from the Joseon era going out. This way, she wouldn’t catch a cold or have her face exposed to embarrassment.

Taking off my coat didn’t make me particularly cold. Carrying a tall, athletic woman from the shopping district to the dormitory turned out to be more strenuous than I had imagined. By the time we reached the dormitory entrance, I was already sweating profusely.

I grabbed a random maid and asked her to take Cordelia to her room. Male students are prohibited from entering the female dormitory according to school rules. The maids seemed quite accustomed to this kind of situation and naturally took over. I waved goodbye to Cordelia, who was practically being dragged away.

On my way back to the tavern, the streets were overflowing with drunk people. It really felt like seeing a university area right after exams ended, giving me mixed feelings.

“You’re back quickly?”

Hestia was completely passed out on the table, and Seol-ah was calmly picking at the remaining food and drinks beside her. Hestia’s eyes were so swollen from crying that she was barely recognizable. I gently wiped away the tear stains on her cheeks.

“Has she been sleeping the whole time?”

“Yeah, she passed out right after kissing you and has been sleeping ever since.”

I blushed as I recalled Hestia’s lips. Seol-ah looked at me as if I were disgusting.

“Seriously, you’re not a 17-year-old high school girl.”

“Give me a break. Before meeting Hestia, I was a pure person who had only held hands during my 23 years.”

“What a waste.”

“What is?”

“That such a pure person lost his first kiss.”

I instantly flung my body backward. What is she saying? I get goosebumps whenever she makes comments like this. What does she mean by “lost”? It’s not like I had entrusted it to her.

Seol-ah glanced at me with a slightly hurt expression.

“Even I feel hurt by that kind of reaction.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But was it really your first kiss?”

“Is there such a thing as a fake first kiss?”

Seol-ah made a “hmm” sound and stroked her chin.

“No, you looked normal enough, so why?”

Is she asking why I hadn’t dated anyone until age 23 despite looking normal? That’s actually what I want to ask her.

“What about you, Seol-ah? You’re pretty, so why hadn’t you dated anyone until age 25? You had two more years than me, and you didn’t even have to go to the military.”

Seol-ah blushed and protested.

“I went to all-girls middle and high schools, and there weren’t any guys that caught my eye in college!”

“My situation is roughly similar. I had something like crushes a few times during school, but they all fell through… And when I entered college, I wasn’t particularly interested in dating. Then after military service, I didn’t even attend classes in person because of COVID.”

Seol-ah made a dumbfounded expression at my words.

“What? COVID?”

“You don’t know?”

Could it be that the Earth she knows is different from the one I know?

“No, I know about it… but that ended several years ago.”

Our eyes met, and we simultaneously raised question marks above our heads. Ended ten years ago? What is she talking about? I clearly remember wearing a mask to the convenience store the day before coming to this world.

“You, when exactly did you come here from?”

“2021.”

“2021?!”

Seol-ah shouted loudly. She rolled her eyes around as if she couldn’t believe it. I asked her:

“When was it for you, Seol-ah?”

“2029…”

“29?!”

This time, I was the one who shouted. 2029? Is she saying she came from a future relative to me? Wait a minute. Doesn’t that mean I’m her oppa? I had a completely unproductive thought that would have earned me a bucketful of curses if she had heard it.

“How could we both not know such basic and important information until now?”

“We hardly ever talked about Earth.”

She grimaced and clutched her temple as if her head was throbbing.

“Doesn’t this mean we need to first resolve the question of whether we can return to the original Earth?”

“That’s right. I came here before you, but you were actually ahead of me on Earth. I can’t even begin to understand how this got so tangled.”

While she was holding her head and pondering, I was still focused on that nutritionally void thought. I was 23 in 2021, and she was 25 in 2029. So she must have been born in 2004. I was born in 1999, so technically, aren’t I her oppa? She’s six years younger? When I was taking the college entrance exam, she was in sixth grade. Wow, thinking about it this way makes it smell like a crime.

“Seol-ah. No, Seol-ah-ya.”

“Seol-ah-ya?”

“I’m your oppa.”

She looked at me with an incredulous expression, seemingly taken aback by my sudden informal speech. I carefully explained to her why I was her oppa.

“I was 23 in 2021, so I was born in 1999. You were 25 in 2029, so you were born in 2004. I’m six years older than you, which makes me your oppa.”

“That’s nonsense. I’m 25, you’re 23! That doesn’t change!”

“When I was learning logarithms and exponents, you were learning about improper fractions and mixed numbers.”

“Mental age is what matters!”

“Wow, so people were born in 2004 too. Your ID number must start with a 4?”

Seol-ah suddenly frowned and backed away.

“What?”

“Wow, that just now was really like an old man. It reminds me of the returning students from military service during my freshman year.”

Returning students from military service? That’s not wrong. I didn’t understand why she was so averse to treating me as her elder.

“Besides, you hated it when people treated you as older. Isn’t this better? You can just call me oppa.”

“That’s a separate issue. I absolutely cannot accept this. I can understand you not calling me noona, but I will never call you oppa.”

Seol-ah was quite stubborn. I gave up trying to convince her and decided to focus on getting Hestia back to the dormitory first. And the reason I said what I just did was to tease her a bit, not because I particularly wanted to be called oppa or anything. Seol-ah’s point has some validity to it.

Whether a person’s age can truly be measured solely by their physical age is a debatable issue. To take an extreme example, if a 5-year-old baby spent 100 years as a cryogenically frozen human and woke up 100 years later, you couldn’t treat the baby as 105 years old.

With Seol-ah’s help, I carried Hestia on my back. I supported her thighs with both hands. She was lighter than I had expected, which contradicted the heavy sensation pressing against my back. Seol-ah’s eyes narrowed, possibly noticing my grin widening.

“You’re not touching any inappropriate places, are you?”

“What do you take me for.”

“Someone who pretends to be innocent but is secretly lecherous?”

“Don’t slander me.”

“Honestly, you could have avoided that kiss earlier if you wanted to. You managed to avoid mine just fine.”

Hmm. On this point, I honestly have nothing to say. It’s true that I was taken aback, but if you ask if I really couldn’t have avoided it, that’s not entirely true either. She widened her eyes after seeing my reaction.

“Wow, you really could have avoided it but didn’t? You put up a wall and avoided me in that atmosphere, but you accepted Hestia’s drunken advance?”

“No, well, you know. Hestia is my fiancée after all, and someone I like…”

An excuse slipped out without me realizing it. Seol-ah looked at my flustered expression and burst out laughing.

“Tease you a little bit and you crawl into a hole, and then what’s all this about being an oppa? It’s okay. As I’ve said before, I’m the kind of person who’s much happier giving love.”

“Are you really okay with that?”

“If I’m not, well, let me tell you in advance – don’t be nice to me out of pity. That’s more miserable and unpleasant.”

I felt like she had hit the nail on the head. If someone I liked couldn’t reciprocate and showed kindness out of pity, that would be quite a terrible feeling. It would be unspeakably miserable. My meager considerateness would actually cause her more pain.

“Besides, should you really be worrying about me?”

“What do you mean?”

“The bet we made. Don’t you remember what we agreed would happen if you started having feelings for me?”

Of course I remember. If I graduated without developing any feelings for her, we agreed to live our separate lives without interfering with each other. But if anything, things have been quieter since we made that bet.

“But things have been even quieter since we made that bet.”

She smiled confidently, as if she had nothing to worry about.

“Have you heard the saying, ‘The cheetah is smiling’?”

“I have heard of it.”

It roughly means that no matter how fast racing dogs are, they’re no match for a cheetah. The cheetah is currently at rest only because it’s conserving energy—something along those lines.

“That’s exactly it. I’m currently smiling.”

She curled up the corners of her mouth into a grin. But among all the people who claimed to be smiling cheetahs, I’ve never seen a case where someone was actually a cheetah. I decided not to speak up and ruin her mood.

“I’m looking forward to it. I’ll make sure you can’t help but waver.”

“Let’s just go in quickly. Isn’t it quite late already? Even though they don’t do roll call during exam week, you need to file a separate application for overnight stays if the date changes.”

I quickly changed the subject. In truth, I still don’t know how to treat her. This is also applicable to Cordelia. I feel quite confused when I think that my indecisiveness might be hurting them. Seeing how they persist, saying they’d be fine even as concubines, it honestly doesn’t seem like they’ll give up no matter how much I push them away.

I took off my coat and draped it over Hestia.

“Oho, such a sweet man.”

“That’s right. I am pretty sweet.”

“Hearing you say it yourself really kills the vibe.”

She laughed loudly. Even though it was my second time carrying someone, it felt definitely more comfortable than when I carried Cordelia. There was someone to talk to, and she was a bit lighter.

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. I was originally planning to meet Hestia for lunch, but as you can see, she’s in this state. It’s probably not going to happen.”

“You stick together every day and still want to see each other tomorrow? Don’t you get tired of each other?”

“No. I like seeing her every day. It’s thrilling. Always fresh.”

“That’s so cheesy.”

Hestia groaned “ugh” from my back. A strong smell of beer wafted from her face resting on my shoulder. I must be seriously ill to even find this endearing.

This time too, I left her with the maids and returned. I would have liked to put her down on the bed myself and even help her brush her teeth, but that’s impossible in the male-restricted area.

I handed over a note saying she should rest well tomorrow as she would probably be very tired. After handing Hestia over and coming outside, Seol-ah was waiting. Leaning against the wall, she said:

“I think we need to have a new conversation about our future.”

“Our future?”

Seol-ah brought up a headache-inducing topic. As she said, it does seem necessary to have a completely new conversation.

She flew to this world two years ago. That was 2029. I flew to this world just three months ago, and it was 2021 on Earth. An eight-year gap. Anyone would find it suspicious. To begin with, if someone were to point out how strange it is to be transmigrated from Earth to this world, I would have nothing to say, but simply accepting it without any concern doesn’t match my temperament either.

“We don’t have a choice today because it’s too late, but we need to have a deeper conversation as soon as tomorrow. It’s not even a huge secret, how is it possible that we’re only now learning such a simple fact?”

It’s true that I consciously avoided talking about Earth when conversing with her. She wants to return to Earth, while I want to stay here. Knowing that the conclusion would not be pleasant, I deliberately avoided bringing it up.

Now, it seems I can no longer avoid thinking about why I don’t want to return to Earth. I don’t expect that talking with her will completely resolve this feeling that even I can’t explain, but at least I can’t use this feeling as an excuse to avoid conversations with Seol-ah.

“Let’s meet tomorrow. Early. You said you’ve postponed your appointment with Hestia anyway.”

I nodded.