Chapter 257: OPPA!

I am twenty-two years old. I thought, very specifically. I have died 75+ times. I scaped a hybrid monster, adopted kids here and there, I killed a giant by dropping a building on it. I survived a snowy mountain that can kill you immediately, apocalypse city. I have seen jellyfish in the sky. And I am currently standing next to a naval vessel with scales on its hull while Jisoo holds my hand to her face and I cannot process this.

Alex grabbed my sleeve and pulled.

Jisoo's face dropped slightly as my arm left her reach. I looked back once. She was watching me go with the expression of someone who had given themselves exactly five minutes of patience and was already aware of how long five minutes was. Face Droopy.

***

We both stoof front to front at the back of one of the vine houses, far enough that the crowd noise faded to background.

Alex turned and faced me. Said nothing for a moment. Started with her hands, opening and closing them, which I was beginning to understand was what she did when she was figuring out how to say something.

"Let me come with you two," she said. "Please."

"Sure," I said.

She stared at me.

"What?"

"That's it? Sure?"

"You have all my memories, which means you know things about this trial that nobody else here knows, including some things I probably haven't figured out yet." I looked at her. "Of course you can come."

She kept staring. Then: "I had five plans."

"For what?"

She looked down.

And I could see her guilty expression arrived. "For... convincing you. If you said no." A pause. "They escalated."

"How far did they escalate."

"The last one involved..." She stopped. Pressed her lips together. "Blackmail."

"Alex."

"I know—"

"About what?"

"Your childhood." She said it fast. "I know!!! I'm sorry!!! I had it as a backup in case everything else failed and I just—"

She covered her face with both hands and made a sound into them.

Then she lunged forward and wrapped both arms around me and buried her face in my shirt. "I'm sorry!! I'm a terrible person!! I'm so sick! I'm a sick WOMAN!!!"

I stood there. Patted her head. Automatic, the way it had become automatic with basically everyone I'd spent more than an hour with in. "You didn't use it."

"I almost would have." Muffled, into fabric. "That's still bad."

"It's a little bad," I agreed.

"I have all your memories and I know you're a good person and I went immediately to 'I'll blackmail him' as plan E, I'm—" A pause. "Why are you patting me… (⁠｡⁠・⁠/⁠/⁠ε⁠/⁠/⁠・⁠｡⁠)"

"I just do that."

"You really do."

I pulled my hand back.

She looked up at me, still pressed against my chest, chin tipped up, eyes doing something thoughtful. "Because you're fucked up… what do you mean you once spent 3 days building an elaborate plan to make someone's life miserable just because they pissed you off."

I went completely still.

"I'm just saying," she said, with an expression that was 90% innocent and 10% absolutely not, "you and blackmail are not so far apart that—"

"I didn't do it," I said. "I built the plan and then didn't do it. That's a completely different thing. And I was 19. I've changed."

"Sure." She pressed her cheek back against my chest. "You've changed."

"I have."

"Completely."

"Yes."

"Very growth." She looked up at me again. "Can I ask one more thing?"

"What."

"Oppa?"

The word landed.

EXCUSE ME? Wait WHATT EH FYC(M?!

My face did nothing.

SHE JUST— OPPA? WHAT? WHY? MORNING JISOO CALLS ME HON HON, SHIORI/MIO CALLS ME AHJUSSI, IVY, THE TWINS, HANA, MIMI CALLS ME DAD, THE CHIEF CALLS ME KID, NOW ALEX IS CALLING ME— I HAVE BEEN CALLED SO MANY TITLES AND NOBODY HAS EVER— OPPA?

"Why," I said.

"I know from your memories that you like cute things," she said. Pressing her cheek harder against my chest now, looking up at me with the expression of someone performing an experiment. "And I'm being cute right now. So. I want something and I'm using the information I have available."

THAT'S Genius... THAT'S GENUINELY smart. SHE WENT THROUGH MY ENTIRE LIFE HISTORY AND EXTRACTED USABLE LEVERAGE AND IS DEPLOYING IT WITH A CHEEK PRESS. AGAINST MY CHEST. RIGHT NOW.

"I don't like cute things," I said. Calm. Even.

"Sure." She drew a small circle against my collarbone with one finger. "(｡•̀ᴗ-)"

"Okay," I said, with the energy of a man who had fully accepted his circumstances. "Let's go back."

"You didn't deny you like cute things."

"I didn't confirm it either."

"Hmm." She let go of my shirt and stepped back, and the expression she was wearing was the smuggest thing I had seen on a human face in my whole life, which was saying something because Jisoo had a very competitive smug face.

***

I walked back into the crowd with Alex behind me and found Jisoo where I'd left her— arms crossed, looking at something slightly past the nearest vine platform, the expression of someone whose five minutes had been spent thinking rather than relaxing.

When she heard me coming she looked up, and for about half a second she was just glad I'd come back, the relief of it plain on her face before anything else arrived.

Then she saw Alex.

The glad-I'm-back expression didn't leave exactly. It just got hard… I don't know how you call it, when someone's happy and suspicious off.

She walked toward us, stopped in front of me, and looked between us once. "What did you two talk about."

"She's coming with us," I said.

Alex materialized from behind my shoulder with the energy of a person who had been waiting for her cue. Peace sign, bright expression. "Yep! Oppa's right!"

Silence.

Jisoo looked at the peace sign. Then at Alex's face. Then at me.

The word oppa was sitting in the air between us doing things to her expression that I was tracking with some concern.

Her jaw had gone to a specific angle.

She reached up, took my collar in both hands, and pulled me down to her level.

Looked at my eye.