Siblings Work in Business (131)
It all happened so fast.
“Hey!”
I quickly got up, grabbed the railing, and looked down.
My heart sank.
“Ha…”
I slid down the railing, clutching my chest, relieved.
I had been startled.
Truly.
Thankfully, there was a narrow drainage ditch where the cat jumped, just wide enough for a cat to fit through.
The black paw prints leading towards the neighbor’s wall seemed to confirm that’s how it escaped.
I went back inside. The night breeze and my sentimental mood no longer mattered.
“Ha, haha.”
I couldn’t help but laugh hollowly.
‘A talking cat.’
『Well, well! Finally curious, are we?』
And in a gruff, old-man voice…
The cat talked.
Thinking about it…
Something…
…was annoying.
‘And why that tone of voice?’
If this were a webtoon or a novel, it would have at least spoken in a dignified, mystical way.
I went inside, washed my hands at the sink, and splashed cold water on my face, trying to clear my head.
My head throbbed, so I went back to my room and collapsed on the mattress.
I was staring at the faded ceiling when…
「“Meow!”」
…I suddenly remembered the cat’s strange pose.
I kicked off the blanket.
A talking cat.
‘It talked.’
I had already experienced regression, so talking cats…
‘…Let’s just accept it.’
I had a lot of questions, but… I decided to let that slide for now.
My annoyance overshadowed my surprise.
I had regressed, and my sister had regained her memories from before the regression.
This was already beyond the realm of ordinary human experiences.
So, honestly, I had often imagined something like ‘this’ happening.
Waking up to realize it was all a dream…
A sudden, ‘It was all an illusion!’
That kind of bullshit.
Even now, I couldn’t sleep unless I was exhausted, afraid I would wake up back at the cemetery, before the regression.
Even after all this time…
…I was still living in fear.
The recurring nightmare.
Waking up in an empty house.
Opening Eun-ji’s door.
And finding only her abandoned desk and dust-covered keyboard.
‘That damn…’
…dream, that nightmare.
The scenery in the nightmare was too familiar to be just a ‘dream.’
The room in the dream, which used to be Eun-ji’s studio, and now her bedroom… was a place I saw every other day before the regression.
That’s why I always wished for something like this to happen.
Something to end this recurring nightmare.
An ‘answer’ to my unanswered questions.
‘If this is an illusion, then I…’
I would rather stay here, even if it meant giving up everything I had before the regression.
I wanted to yell at the being who brought me here, begging it to let me stay in this timeline.
And it finally happened.
…Or so I thought.
『Ha! I’ve been waiting!』
Ugh, seriously.
I covered my eyes with my hand.
My head spun at his ridiculous entrance.
I was speechless.
More than anything, what annoyed me the most was…
‘He talked.’
If he was going to talk, he should have at least said something useful. Leaving after just that…
‘Ah…!’
There were two ways to annoy someone: leaving a sentence unfinished, and…
‘This is the same thing, damn it.’
I clutched my head, and as I did, the sky outside brightened.
It was almost sunrise.
‘I don’t have work, but…’
…I had a schedule, so I couldn’t stay in bed.
I got up.
I had slept enough, it was time to move.
I changed into a comfortable hoodie and sweatpants, keeping the upcoming dance practice in mind, and neatly folded the clothes I was wearing and left them by the front door for Seul-gi.
As I came out of the bathroom, drying my hair with a towel, looking for the hairdryer…
♪♬♪! ♬♪♬!
An earsplitting noise erupted from Lee Eun-ji’s room.
‘Is she deaf?’
It was so loud that my ears hurt, but she didn’t seem to have any intention of turning off the alarm.
“Hey! It’s too loud!!!”
I yelled at the top of my lungs, but my voice was drowned out by the alarm.
Bang!
I opened the door to the familiar sight of her pigsty of a room.
“Wake up, hey.”
I turned off the alarm and nudged Eun-ji with my foot.
“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!”
I panicked.
As if reacting instinctively in her sleep, Eun-ji grabbed my ankle and tried to twist it.
Smack! Smack!
I slapped her hand hard.
“Ow…”
Her pain tolerance was incredible; she only seemed to come to her senses after my hand was stinging, looking at her reddened hand with a dazed expression.
“Get up.”
I said curtly and left her room as if running away. I didn’t want to lose another limb.
After escaping her pigsty, I finished drying my hair.
Meanwhile, Eun-ji’s alarms, set at 3-minute intervals, continued, each one a different, equally jarring song or sound.
“Hey! Turn off your alarms, they’re creepy!”
The most terrifying one was a witch-like cackle.
Tired of yelling every time an alarm went off, I just gave up after 30 minutes and listened.
My head was already throbbing from that strange cat.
♪♬♪! ♬♪♬!
There it goes again.
Eun-ji’s alarms were stressing me out.
There was only one way to find peace in these moments.
「[I love both E-UNG and chicken]
Rangi-nim! Good morning!
Did you sleep well?
Where are you going today?
You know I love you, right?
‘Hot Afternoon’ is so good, why aren’t you promoting it on music shows?
ㅠㅠ I want to see you soon…
Your schedule suddenly cleared, is everything okay?
When are you coming back? ㅠㅠ?
I miss you ㅠㅠㅠㅠ」
I sat in the living room and read the messages from E% on E-FAN.
「I didn’t sleep well because I had a lot on my mind. ㅎㅎ But I hope you have a good morning, Joa-nim.
No outside schedules today. Dance practice in the morning, and a meeting at the company in the afternoon.
And about the schedule, it’s a secret for now 🙂
We’ll see each other again soon.
Thank you for the love. I love you too.」
As I diligently replied to the messages from E%…
…Eun-ji’s alarms went off at least another 20 times. An hour seemed to have passed.
Crash! Bang…
Something shattered in her room. Lee Eun-ji must have finally woken up.
‘Still causing chaos…’
‘What did she break this time?’
What was she destroying every morning? I had checked her room earlier, but there were so many potential candidates that it was hard to tell.
“Damn it…”
Eun-ji emerged from her room, looking like a ghost, brushing broken plastic pieces off her feet.
Then, she shuffled towards the bathroom like a zombie.
I couldn’t help but sigh, watching her.
Shower sounds
After the white noise of the shower, Eun-ji emerged from the bathroom, her wet hair wrapped in a towel.
“You look almost human without your hair.”
“What, why are you picking a fight first thing in the morning?”
“Oops, I said that out loud.”
“Bullshit. Why do you look like that?”
“Do I look like a rockfish again?”
“Not just a rockfish head.”
Eun-ji turned her head and looked at my clothes by the front door.
“Did you wander around all night?”
I was slightly surprised; although I wasn’t wandering, I was outside.
“How did you know?”
“Your clothes are dirty.”
I looked at the clothes I had folded earlier. They were clean, not a single stain.
‘Ah.’
I looked closer, and there were black cat hairs on the sleeves of my shirt and on my pants.
Black cat hairs.
「“Meow!”」
Damn it.
That strange pose came to mind again.
“Hey, I have something to tell you.”
“What.”
Eun-ji squeezed the water out of the towel wrapped around her head and sat down across the small table from me.
It was definitely easier having someone to share my worries with after revealing the regression.
“It’s not right to leave your older brother sleeping on the floor without even covering him with a blanket.”
I said before telling her about last night’s cat incident.
“Why should I?”
Her answer was predictable.
“Weren’t you worried I might catch a cold?”
“Did you eat something wrong this morning? Why would I worry?”
Right, what was I even expecting?
Eun-ji frowned, disgusted.
I was stupid to expect any kindness from her.
“You do the same thing.”
“I’m kinder than you, I do take care of you.”
“Wow, that almost made me throw up.”
Her thoughts were so transparent that I sighed and explained,
“Hey, we’re in a group, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What if one of us catches a cold?”
“Then we catch a cold. We don’t have any performances scheduled anyway. This is the perfect time to be sick.”
“What nonsense are you talking about? Even if our schedule is cleared, what if we get a last-minute offer? We can’t perform if we’re sick, you idiot.”
“Ah, that’s true. You’re not sick, are you?”
“Cough, cough, hack, hack!”
“Ha, seriously.”
Eun-ji burst out laughing at my exaggerated fake cough.
“Is that all you wanted to say?”
“Ah— no.”
Eun-ho finally told her about the black cat.
As expected—
“Seriously, don’t lie about stuff like this.”
“…?”
“Talking cat my ass. Don’t lie.”
“It’s not a lie… wait, you believed the regression story, but not this?!”
“I believed the regression story because I had my suspicions!”
“But…!”
“Whatever. That cat visited us like five or six times a week. I took care of it! If it was going to talk, it would have talked to me, not you!”
“Huh?”
“And that ridiculous tone of voice. If you’re going to lie, at least put some effort into it.”
“No, it really talked like that! And then it did this pose and meowed before disappearing!”
I even stood up and mimicked the ‘doodoomchit’ pose.
Then, I meowed, reenacting the scene for Eun-ji.
Eun-ji, watching me, had an expression of disbelief and horror, as if she was looking at a crazy person.