Chapter Text
Ik-sun likes to think she knows her brother well.
She’d even dare to say she knows him the best, after all. She’s had to handle him and all his idiosyncrasies almost every day for seventeen years now, so, to say she’s surprised when she sees how her brother looks at his new friend would be an understatement.
He’s had girlfriends before, she knows. Even if she hadn’t met all of them, she’s heard enough stories from gossipy classmates. Ik-jun had been one of the most popular boys at their school after all, and there had been no shortage of girls willing to date him if he asked… but he never did. Girls tended to chase him, not the other way around. Ik-sun never thought she’d see the day when her darling brother would fall for a girl first, but the sparkle in his eyes convinces her otherwise.
“Ik-sun-ah,” he says, “this is my friend Song-hwa.”
The first things that Ik-sun notices about Song-hwa are that she’s pretty, incredibly pretty, and surprisingly well put-together for someone who she guesses has just come out of a three-hour anatomy lab session, considering she had been leaving the class building when she crossed Ik-sun and her brother in the courtyard.
“Hi!” Song-hwa exclaims with a smile “It’s lovely to meet you. You’re Ik-jun little sister, right?”
“I am, unfortunately.” she answers, and seizes the opportunity to tease her brother “Has he been talking about me? I suppose he’s only told you the bad things, so I guess I can do the same. You see, my brother always…”
Ik-sun doesn’t get to finish her sentence however, because Ik-jun’s hand covers her mouth and grabs her shoulder as he shoots Song-hwa a bashful smile and she sees his cheeks grow embarrassingly red: “Sorry. My sister can be a bit much.”
Song-hwa’s answer is her second surprise that day: a boisterous laugh and a reassurance of “No, no. Let her continue. I’d love to hear your embarrassing stories, Ik-jun-ah.” After that, Ik-sun decides she likes Song-hwa. If the girl her brother likes is as willing as she is to tease him, then she decides she’s going to cheerfully support the unavoidable start of their relationship, whenever that may be, because, for the love of God, with every second that passes she becomes more convinced that her brother’s half in love with this girl already, and, by the looks she’s returning, it also seems his love isn’t unrequited.
She almost wishes Jun-wan-oppa was here right now. For one, because she wants to know what he thinks about these two (even though Ik-sun knows he’s not really that perceptive at all, and the thought crosses her mind that he might not have even noticed), but, most importantly, because one of his witty sarcastic comments would have probably pushed Ik-jun into letting her go to punch him in the shoulder instead.
Without removing his hand from her mouth, and with the sweetest, most pleading look in his eyes Ik-sun’s ever seen him bear, he asks: “Song-hwa-yah, I was just going to take her to get some tteokbokki. Do you wanna come with us? I know your next class isn’t until four.”
“Sure, I’ll come with you guys. I’m horribly hungry, to be honest.”
The second she feels her brother is distracted enough by being smitten with Song-hwa’s answer, Ik-sun slips away from his grasp and sticks out her tongue when he looks at her accusatorily.
After they get to the pojangmacha, and after Ik-jun’s ordered their food (extra spicy tteokbokki for her, and possibly the biggest portion of anything she’s ever seen for Song-hwa), Ik-sun realises something else: her brother’s purposefully trying to make Song-hwa laugh.
He’s regaling them with a story about something or the other (a party he went to with one of his new buddies, she thinks), but Ik-sun notices he’s ending every sentence with some sort of joke, reference or pun, anything to put a smile on her face, and the girl in front of him laughs every single time. She would consider it sweet if her brother’s jokes weren’t so lame, honestly.
“Oppa,” she interrups him on impulse “your jokes are terrible.”
“I don’t think they’re that terrible, your brother’s funny.” Song-hwa jumps to his defense, still holding onto a giggly smile, and Ik-sun can see Ik-jun’s tell-tale blush from the corner of her eye.
Wanting to tease him further, she puts on her best fake-worried look and says: “Unnie, I think you might have a problem with your hearing.”
This makes Song-hwa chuckle, and her brother punch her in the arm, so Ik-sun thinks “Ah. Worth it.”
On their walk back to campus, they cross paths with the remaining two members of Ik-jun’s new close friend group she hasn’t met, Jeong-won and Seok-hyung.
They seem perfectly nice, if not a bit shy and dauntingly metropolitan (their posh Seoul accents are a bit intimidating, she admits in her head), but the main thing Ik-sun notes about them is that Song-hwa doesn’t look at either of them the way she does Ik-jun. There’s no smitten sparkle in her eyes with the others, which is a point she’ll bring up to her brother later when they’re alone and she can tease him about his crush all she wants.
The newcomers make their polite introductions but bow out quickly because they’re late for a class somewhere else. However, their parting words (“See you at band practice!”) strike an interest within Ik-sun.
“The band? What did he mean by that?” she asks curiously.
Excitedly, Song-hwa starts explaining that the five of them have formed a band as hobby, that she’s been chosen as the vocalist (a statement Ik-jun looks slightly troubled by, she wonders why) and that Ik-jun’s said he’d teach her how to play the bass as well. Her brother never wanted to teach her how to play any instruments, but Ik-sun doesn’t have to wonder why he’s chosen to do it now.
After Song-hwa’s finished with her hyped-up retelling of the band’s formation, Ik-jun excuses himself to go to the bathroom for a moment, and Ik-sun sees her opportunity to strike. She turns to her newest unnie and asks, in her most innocent and non-chalant voice possible: “Well, now that he’s gone… what do you think of my brother?”