MLFIOH | Chapter 5

Episode 5

“Don’t come out of here no matter what. You can be heard from downstairs, so don’t make a sound either.”

“I-Is something wrong?”

Startled by Yeorae’s stern warning as she gripped his shoulders, Leandros looked flustered. The phone kept ringing impatiently in the darkness.

“If my sister finds out I’m living with some guy, it’ll be a real disaster! The whole house will be turned upside down! So no matter what you see, you absolutely, absolutely can’t come out, got it?!”

“E-Even if you hadn’t said that, I’ve never once stepped out.”

Still, Leandros nodded obediently.

Yeorae hastily slipped on her shoes without properly wearing them and rushed out of the building.

By then, Yeonju was already smoking, and the ground was littered with still-warm cigarette butts.

“Fine, you got my number. But how did you find my address?”

“Yeorae!”

Yeonju came running with her long brown hair flying and hugged Yeorae tightly.

The unpleasant mix of perfume and cigarette smoke stung Yeorae’s nose. But what really struck a nerve was something else.

Her heartbeat slowed, and her chest felt cold.

‘You even got treatment at the center, and yet you still couldn’t quit drinking……?’

She thought she couldn’t be more disappointed. But in the end, her sister once again tore at her heart.

Whether she knew Yeorae’s feelings or not, Yeonju leaned against her with unfocused eyes and a dazed smile.

“How much money do you have? Lend me some.”

“Love, plastic surgery, gambling. Which is it this time? Don’t tell me you’re asking for job-hunting money again.”

“You crazy b*tch!”

Yeonju staggered and roughly shoved Yeorae away.

Her script was always the same.

Yeorae knew exactly what would happen if she opened her mouth. And yet, she spoke coldly once again.

“Since our parents threatened to cut you off if you didn’t get a job this year, now you’ve come to your little sister and thrown a fit. You ate tofu when you got out, so maybe it’s time to grow up.”

Smack!

The moment her words ended, a rough hand came flying, turning Yeorae’s face sharply to the side.

Ah, there’s someone in the house……

When she touched her cheek, blood came away, likely scratched by a nail.

Yeorae reached out and grabbed her sister’s collar as she panted.

“Your grip’s gotten a lot weaker, hasn’t it?”

With that, she shoved her sister away and stomped back into the building. A desperate cry not to tell their mother echoed a beat too late through the alley.

Just as she expected, Leandros had been watching everything through the window.

Passing by the startled man, Yeorae grabbed some ice from the freezer and poured it roughly into a plastic bag. She then sank into a chair and pressed the ice to her cheek, staring straight ahead.

“You saw, right? That’s the second reason I don’t live with my family.”

“……”

Silence fell.

Leandros stood in place, quietly watching Yeorae for a while before slowly approaching her.

He moved the ice bag aside and gently cupped her cheek, cooled by the night air, in his hand.

“……”

The last time she cried over something like this was when she was nineteen, hiding in the bathroom with the shower running. Since then, she had sworn never to shed another tear…

Yeorae buried her face in Leandros’s broad chest.

His clothes gradually grew warm with her tears.

“The first time was when I was in my third year of middle school. Fifteen years old.”

Moonlight spilled across the shoulders of the two, who sat back against the bed with their legs stretched out.

The ice bag in Yeorae’s hand had melted into a limp mess, dripping water onto the floor.

“They say the first time is the hardest, but after that first slap, it became a regular thing.”

“……What about your parents?”

“They knew. That’s why I deliberately applied to a distant college and left home. If I had stayed, the conflict between me and my sister would’ve just escalated into a full-blown family war. I’m not resentful. Our parents really did try hard to fix things between us.”

Leandros held her hand tightly. The warmth in his touch said more than a hundred words of comfort.

“It’s pathetic, and yet, it’s sad too. She wasn’t always like this. No matter how much I think about it, I can’t figure out where things went wrong……”

Tears welled up in Yeorae’s eyes again, and she quickly wiped them away.

Thick fingers slid between hers, interlacing them. Like that, Leandros spoke in a low voice.

“I have a sibling too. A twin brother, born just a minute before me.”

…Huh?

Yeorae’s eyes widened at the completely unexpected revelation.

“You’re a twin?”

“Identical twins. From a distance, most people can’t tell us apart. And my brother… well, he doesn’t exactly live a model life. People around him call him a ‘debauchee.’”

“D-Debauchee…”

Leandros smiled awkwardly as he looked at the surprised Yeorae.

Oh no. Yeorae quickly adjusted her expression to make it easier for him to continue and looked ahead again.

“My brother was sickly from birth. Instead of learning swordsmanship, he painted. He was so talented, people called him a genius. He handed over the heir’s position to me early on. He knew from a young age that he wasn’t meant to live tied down somewhere.”

“That’s kind of amazing. Usually people fight over the position of heir, don’t they? Maybe I’ve watched too many dramas……”

“Not necessarily.”

Leandros chuckled, remembering the intense Korean dramas Yeorae had shown him earlier.

Hearing his laughter eased some of her gloom.

“But still, ‘debauchee’? I can’t picture that at all if he looks exactly like you.”

“Well… actually, he had complicated relationships with women even back when he was at the academy. When you date that many people casually, that kind of nickname sticks. The problem is, he’s proud of that nickname. We fought a lot because of it.”

“Sounds like he’s the total opposite of you. Usually twins are similar in personality too, not just in appearance.”

Leandros held her hand more firmly but neither agreed nor disagreed. His golden eyelashes lowered softly like a fan.

“Now that I think about it, maybe his craving for women’s affection comes from our mother.”

“Your mother?”

“She hanged herself in her room on our eighth birthday.”

What?

Yeorae gasped involuntarily at the shock.

Leandros’s expression remained calm, but a slight twitch formed between the strands of his tousled blond hair.

“She was always depressed. We never once saw her smile. But my brother… he gave her far more affection than I did. While I followed our father around, he stayed inside due to his health, so it just happened naturally. Sometimes, I feel sorry for him.”

Eight years old—that’s old enough to remember something that traumatic. Yeorae tried to read Leandros’s expression.

“And you? Are you okay?”

“I was taught never to share my inner thoughts with Father.”

“Well, I’m from another world anyway, so tell me how you really feel. There’s no one here who’ll go around sharing your secrets. Even if I told anyone, they’d just think I was crazy.”

“Hmm…”

Leandros gently stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, hesitating. Then, as if pulling out a diary he’d hidden in a closet and never dared to open again, he began to speak.

“Honestly, I don’t really know. But if my twin have a secret, it’s that my brother hangs the paintings he finishes in our mother’s old bedroom. And on sunny days, I go there and look at those paintings. When I do, I feel like I’m just a small, ordinary boy again, like I used to be.”

“I know that feeling. It might sound a little silly, but for me, it’s smells. When I smell something I used to smell often as a kid, it feels like I’m back in that time.”

Yeorae smiled faintly and looked at Leandros.

At some point, he too had turned to face her.

His face, like a painted portrait, was softly and dreamily illuminated by the night.

And then, it happened too suddenly.

Yeorae felt like a magnet had pulled her—irresistibly drawn to him.

Their lips touched lightly and parted, and Leandros’s body stiffened.

Ah.

In the frozen air, Yeorae belatedly realized her mistake.

“I, uh… s-sorry.”

What did I just do? Her mind went completely blank.

She wanted to make some flimsy excuse, anything to cover for it, but the more she tried to think, the more tears threatened to fall.

Something was wrong. Her sister slapping her must’ve thrown something off. Since the moment she cried in Leandros’s arms, her emotions had been spiraling—and she didn’t understand why.

She tried to run away. She would have, if not for the large, warm hand that cupped her cheek.

“……”

Leandros sighed and gently touched her red eyes.

Then, he leaned down and kissed her.