Bamboo Forest Manager

First Love Stories

“F-first love?”

The first to speak up in the silence was Choi Jina. She seemed flustered, perhaps thinking it was sudden and unexpected, but her gaze remained fixed on me.

“Yeah! Those stories are fun. They’re all past things anyway. Just add a little seasoning to make them nostalgic to listen to.”

Add seasoning, huh?

Is she outright saying she wants to trivialize others’ first love stories for fun?

I never expected that from my sister-in-law…!

“Of course, I’ll share my story too! I’ve never talked about it on air before!”

The first love story of a popular internet broadcaster?

Some might be curious just hearing that, but to be honest, I wasn’t particularly interested in hearing my sister-in-law’s story.

But she had already started.

“Actually, my first love was someone I met while broadcasting!”

‘So you wanted to talk about yourself, huh?’

It turns out you wanted to make your own story a source of amusement, not ours.

This person is naturally a broadcaster.

“At first, I thought he was a strange person. He really seemed desperate to meet me.”

“Normally, he doesn’t meet viewers separately. But that person came to the fan meeting, and it was the first time I saw him—!”

“Wait a minute.”

I usually try to listen to the stories, but I can’t hold back any longer and interrupt.

“Please tell me that the person in question isn’t our little brother?”

“If it weren’t, I wouldn’t be talking about it in front of the young master.”

Oh, really.

“If it weren’t about our little brother, I might have been able to listen a bit more.”

Honestly, I can’t believe that our little brother’s first love is our little brother.

I asked for a little seasoning, but it’s like completely distorting the roots.

Is that why he can be a broadcaster, I wonder?

“Then, if you don’t want to hear my story, young master, why don’t you tell yours?”

Our little brother’s wife, who is grumbling because she can’t talk about herself.

Usually, other people’s love stories are the least interesting, so I wonder why she’s so obsessed with it.

“Do you really want to hear it? It’s about someone I met in college—.”

“……You’re not talking about Yoon-ji, are you?”

“You didn’t ask knowing, did you?”

As I cross my arms, ready to give a sharp retort, our little brother’s wife awkwardly scratches her neck.

There’s no way that person wouldn’t know about me and Yoon-ji.

“But can a guy really have his first love in college?”

Our little brother’s wife looks at me suspiciously, as if she’s heard something on an internet broadcast.

“Usually, wouldn’t they have it much earlier? Especially someone like the young master, who seems like he’d be quite quick in that regard.”

At those words, Choi Jin-ah flinches.

Then she quietly chimes in.

“Y-yeah, that’s right. Usually, boys have their first love experience in elementary school, don’t they?”

“I didn’t.”

I don’t know what kind of answer she’s looking for, but I wasn’t particularly interested in girls when I was young.

“Honestly, to be a bit straightforward, I didn’t see the girls around me as women back then.”

“Indeed…”

I stared intently at Senior Juhui, who seemed to understand. I really wanted to ask why she understood so well, but I barely managed to hold back.

“Still, it feels like university is too slow. When I was broadcasting, I looked into this, and in such cases, it’s usually because—”

I clearly sat down with the intention of playing a game. Before I knew it, a deep discussion about first love was unfolding.

“Back in high school or middle school, did you think of them as kids, so it wasn’t real love? Something like that is how some people think.”

She says something a bit cringeworthy without a second thought.

It seemed that Choi Jina didn’t quite agree with that opinion, and Senior Juhui looked uncertain.

‘Well, Senior Juhui probably spent her middle and high school years just beating up boys.’

When would she have had the chance to feel that?

“Anyway. You must have felt a fluttering heart before university, right? Hmm?”

It seems that even if I said it was Oh Yoonji, she had no intention of letting go until I answered.

I let out a short sigh and recalled the past.

When did I first feel my heart race upon seeing a girl?

When could that have been?

Surprisingly, and I mean surprisingly, the answer popped into my head quickly. But I wondered if it was okay to say it out loud.

“Are you really going to say it?”

“Yeah!”

“I’m, I’m curious.”

“……”

Under the pressure of the three of them, I clicked my tongue. It felt a bit wrong to just brush it off after saying this much.

After all, it’s a natural course of things.

“It was Uxhara.”

“……”

The only one who figured out who I was talking about was my younger sister-in-law.

She was momentarily at a loss for words, looking at me with a tilted posture.

The other two had quite fresh reactions.

“She was Japanese?”

“Did you study abroad?”

There was an unexpected commonality between the two.

It must be due to Choi Jin-ah’s shackles from her patriarchal and oppressive family.

On the contrary, it was probably because Senior Joo-hee had no time to divert her gaze from such things.

Both of them understand.

“I’m an AV actress.”

But I wish they could tolerate looking at me like I’m garbage.

Why do they understand each other, yet refuse to understand me?

“No, I asked. If you’re going to ask a girl when she first felt fluttered, it can only be that time. So what?”

Is this my fault?

Everyone around is just kids, so what’s there to feel fluttered about?

Of course, I was a kid back then too.

“Then Woo-jin—”

Senior Joo-hee cleared her throat and summarized simply.

“So the first woman you saw naked was your first love.”

Senior Joo-hee seemed to find that understandable once again.

“No, if you put it that way…”

I tried to deny it, but since it wasn’t entirely wrong, I decided to let it slide.

There was no point in saying more; the cold stares from Choi Jin-ah and Senior Joo-hee wouldn’t change.

“You’re quite something, Young Master.”

Moreover, even the younger sister-in-law regretted telling the strong one something bad.

“What kind of amazing first love do they think they have?”

As I snapped in annoyance, the younger sister-in-law’s gaze shifted to the two of them this time.

“Right, we’ve all talked! Now it’s your turn!”

As the younger sister-in-law aimed her cannon at them, the two exchanged glances.

The first to speak was Choi Jin-ah. Perhaps feeling awkward in this situation, her words came out a bit fast and seemed urgent.

“I think it was when I was in elementary school.”

“Oh, right. Now that’s a first love story.”

I had said I wanted to hear it out of irritation, but now that Choi Jin-ah started talking, it felt uncomfortable to listen.

Even if I wanted to get up from my seat, it would look even weirder, so I was stuck in an awkward situation.

‘If it was going to be like this, I should have just gone back to my room.’

Regretful, but it’s already too late.

“Well, that kid was a bit of a troublemaker. So, the other kids found it hard to get along with him.”

I see.

“But he did play a central role in the class. Even if he didn’t lead, he had a tendency to guide the flow itself.”

Hmm?

‘This doesn’t sound like me.’

I had naturally thought that Choi Jin-ah’s first love in elementary school was me.

But listening to the story, it doesn’t particularly feel like it was me.

Did I misunderstand?

‘This is so embarrassing.’

Feeling like I’ve made a fool of myself for no reason, I just want to hide somewhere.

“He was often the one getting scolded. You know, during the sports day, he even set up a betting pool on whether the white team or the blue team would win. He put some money on it.”

“Wow, the kid was really bold!”

My younger sister-in-law responded, and soon, Senior Joo-hee was also focused on the story.

Damn, that’s pretty audacious.

But is there really a kid who would do something like that?

‘No, wait…’

While I was lost in thought, trying to recall with a blank expression, Choi Jin-ah glanced at me, gauging my reaction, and continued speaking.

“He got caught by the teacher, and originally, he was supposed to get in big trouble. I heard that… the stakes got way bigger than expected.”

It wasn’t an ordinary elementary school.

It was a wealthy elementary school where most of the kids came from well-off families.

2,552,300 won.

Thanks to the kids who received excessively generous allowances for elementary schoolers, that amount, surpassing a million won, was etched in my mind.

From first grade to sixth grade.

He went around with a piggy bank, persuading the kids.

What was it back then?

Was it when Diablo came out and I was messing around trying to buy that? No, I was trying to buy something really expensive.

“All the teachers found out, and normally, it would have had to be reported to the parents, but it got buried naturally.”

“How did that get buried?”

“That’s interesting.”

“Right, I don’t know either. The kid went to the teacher’s office and then returned all the money, but it got buried.”

He didn’t return it.

To be exact, he only returned it to the other kids he had bet with in the white team. He lied that he got caught by the teacher and that the whole thing fell apart, just returning the principal.

He kept the money from the kids in the blue team.

‘He was a crazy b*stard, now that I think about it.’

And why did the teachers ask about that?

I had said just one thing when I went to the teacher’s office.

“I just followed what the teachers did?”

The teachers knew that the white and blue teams were playing with money, so they clung to that.

If the parents found out about this mess, it would be like confessing to playing with students’ money, so it naturally fizzled out.

“Anyway, that part seemed pretty impressive. Unlike me, that kid took the lead in everything all by himself.”

It really was me.

“He was a kid full of personality.”

“There are bold kids even from elementary school, huh.”

My little sister-in-law and senior Juhui said it was fascinating and shared that they found Choi Jina’s story interesting.

“Elementary school kids can be a bit immature. That’s understandable. I guess they had an overwhelming cuteness that could overlook everything.”

I tried to defend my elementary school self while brushing over the story.

“……”

Choi Jina looked at me with disdain, as if to say what nonsense I was talking.

Next was senior Juhui.

I really wanted to get up now, but senior Juhui unfolded her story much more calmly than I expected.

“She’s a junior I met in college. But she has a girlfriend, so I gave up.”

“You met your first love in college? That’s interesting.”

“Yeah. I don’t really have the chance to meet anyone in college, so I don’t know what it feels like.”

What is this?

When I said earlier that Yoonji, whom I met in college, was my first love, no one believed me.

But now everyone believes it.

Is there a bias against people?

“But what was it about her that made you fall for her?”

Choi Jina, seemingly very interested in college romance, digs a little deeper.

“Cough, um— well….”

Juhui, who had no intention of speaking further, hesitated for a moment.

“A manly appearance?”

Her face slightly flushed, she glanced at me.

“A manly appearance?”

“If Juhui felt that way, then it must have been really manly. I’m curious.”

“Me too! I want to know in what situation you felt that way.”

Choi Jina and my little brother’s wife continued to press on. I was racking my brain again.

‘A manly appearance?’

Was there ever a situation where Juhui would think of me as manly?

If I’m manly, then Juhui is just at a macho level—what the hell.

‘Ah.’

Once again, I stumbled upon a memory.

The moment when she started to take an interest in me.

‘It was when we were three at Gold One.’

The monumental first threesome with Seo Yerin and Yoo Arin.

I remember calming down Seo Yerin, who was whining beneath me, while spanking Yoo Arin’s backside to hurry her along.

“Hmm.”

With a satisfied smile, I nodded.

“That was really manly.”

“Oh dear.”

Seeing my reaction, Juhui let out a deep sigh.