The Villainess Who Crushed My Phone
I wasn’t trying to run away. I really just needed the bathroom.
“You were in that much of a hurry to bolt for the toilet?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Ahaha…”
Bang!
I really didn’t think I’d swung that hard.
But the girl’s casual left-handed swipe had literally pulverized the table.
“Who the hell do you take me for, an idiot?”
“I’m sorry.”
The girl stared down at me in silence.
“Um.”
“What.”
“Your arm bandage is…”
Maybe because she’d moved so suddenly, the makeshift wrap on her right arm had completely unraveled.
“I’ll handle it. Lie down and don’t try anything stupid.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She sat on the sofa, planted her foot on my chest to keep me pinned, and struggled to rewrap her right arm with one hand.
But there was no way she could tie it properly like that.
“Can’t you stay still?”
She clearly wasn’t the type to listen no matter what I said.
In that case, I only had one thing to do.
“You little—fine, I’ll do it for you.”
Thud.
She kicked my shoulder hard enough to sting when I tried to get up, but my feelings weren’t important right now.
“You, you perverted bastard—ngh…!”
She had enough raw power to overpower a grown man with her bare hands, so why was she shrinking back now?
I silently finished wrapping the bandage around her right arm. I wasn’t exactly skilled at it, but I made sure it was tight enough not to slip while still loose enough not to hurt.
“……”
“All done.”
“Perverted bastard.”
“I just rewrapped your bandage properly and I’m still a pervert?”
“You jumped me.”
“If we’re being technical, you were the one who pinned me down first…”
“Don’t get technical.”
What a troublesome magical girl. Or rather… villain girl?
“Bring me something to eat. I’m hungry.”
I hadn’t expected any gratitude, but the way she kicked my back while barking orders was something else.
The snacks I’d bought at the convenience store earlier had mostly been devoured by Han Yeeun.
‘If anything dangerous happens, call me. I’ll come running first.’
I remembered the bright smile that had accompanied those words. She probably hadn’t said it just to be polite, but I still felt bad about imposing. Even though I hadn’t deleted her number, I never thought I’d actually have to call her this soon.
Well, dealing with villains was a magical girl’s job anyway, so I shouldn’t feel too guilty, right?
I grabbed some cookies from the kitchen while pretending to look for my phone, then glanced around the living room.
If you only looked at her right now, she seemed exactly like a bored high-school girl spending summer break sprawled on the sofa.
Just a cold, hard-to-approach version of a moody younger sister.
‘Even with that ordinary pretty face, she’s still a villain.’
“Can I go to the bathroom for real this time? I swear it’s actually the bathroom.”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
Luckily she was too absorbed in the snacks and the TV to even glance my way.
My phone was on the shelf.
The distance from the sofa to the shelf was about three meters.
Since the shelf was right on the way to the bathroom, I could hide the phone with my body while grabbing it.
‘Perfect. Flawless.’
I ran the simulation in my head several times, then stood up with a satisfied smile.
“Hand over the smartphone before you go.”
“Huh?”
“The phone on that shelf. Give it to me before you go. Unless you want to watch me smash it into some old man’s skull.”
“……”
My perfect plan had collapsed in three seconds flat.
Damn damn damn damn damn.
I hadn’t actually needed the bathroom in the first place.
I wanted to calmly come up with an escape plan, but staying in there too long would look suspicious.
So I ended up becoming just another guy who went to the bathroom for no reason and came back out.
“That startled me.”
The girl was standing right outside the bathroom door, looking up at me with those crimson eyes.
“Are you some kind of fairy, mister? You went to the bathroom but I didn’t hear a single sound.”
“My main diet is Chamisul, you see.”
“Oh, really?”
She smiled sweetly, then lifted my smartphone to show me.
Crunch. Crack.
With her bare hand, she crushed the phone like it was a soft sponge.
“Answer me.”
“Yes?”
“I’m in a shit mood, so say something.”
“I’m sorry. I won’t do anything stupid again.”
“Next time you’re dead.”
Back to the same situation as before.
I sat on the floor in front of the sofa while the girl lounged on it, resting both legs on my shoulders and watching TV.
“So… how long are you planning to stay here?”
“You don’t want me here?”
“Of course I don’t want a criminal in my house. What, should I throw you a welcome party instead?”
Clink.
I barely swallowed the words that had risen all the way to my throat.
“No, it’s not that I don’t want you here. I was just asking, that’s all.”
“Isn’t this more like a reward for a perverted old man? Having a beautiful high-school girl staying in your house.”
“I feel like housing a minor is the kind of thing that gets you sent straight to the police station.”
“Well, I’m not the one getting arrested. All I have to do is not report you, right? Perfect. I was wondering how to keep your mouth shut if you tried to snitch. If people come to catch me, I’ll scream that you tried to buy me—a minor—with money. So you’d better behave yourself.”
She spoke indifferently while wiggling her toes on my shoulder.
She’s crazy. Absolutely insane.
When I glanced at her, her gaze was fixed solely on the magical girl parade playing on the TV.
That was when it happened.
Ding-dong.
The discordant sound of the doorbell cut through the noise of the television.
My heart nearly stopped. I couldn’t even turn to look at the girl; my eyes just rolled around in their sockets.
The girl must have been tense too—her foot on my shoulder suddenly pressed down harder.
Was it that magical girl from earlier? People from the Management Bureau? Or had someone reported the noise from when the table broke?
“You bastard.”
“I-I swear it wasn’t me! I sent the person away earlier and I never touched the phone!”
Her voice had gone ice-cold.
Among the sharp fragments of the broken table, several jagged pieces were now spinning and dancing above her palm.
“Oppa, it’s me! Magical Keraunos! Open the door~”
The energetic—borderline noisy—voice from outside flooded into the living room.
She left so nicely earlier—why did she have to come back right now!
Wait, actually… maybe it’s better that she came?
“Don’t open it.”
A sharp table shard pressed against my throat.
“Oppa! I felt bad for drinking all your beer earlier, so I bought more beer and snacks! Open the door, this bag is heavy~”
A girl who can throw around massive weapons is complaining that a grocery bag is heavy?
Cold sweat ran down my back as I barely managed to speak.
“Just a second. I’ll get rid of her, so please stay right here. If you fight here right now, you won’t be able to protect that injured arm, will you?”
Not to mention my house wouldn’t survive it either.
“And I’m supposed to trust you why?”
I took the shard she was holding to my neck and lightly pressed it against my own stomach.
“You don’t have to trust me.”
“…Go. But.”
She moved the shard away from my body, then leaned in until her lips brushed my ear and whispered.
“If you say one wrong word, it won’t just be you. That woman will be going to the afterlife with you.”
With my clothes soaked in cold sweat, I opened the chain-locked door just a crack.
“What the— I thought you collapsed again because of what happened earlier. Why are you only opening the door a tiny bit? You’re not watching something dirty in the middle of the day, are you? And why are you sweating so much?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s just… the weather’s a bit…”
The girl was pressed tightly against my back, hiding outside of Han Yeeun’s line of sight.
“Huh? Who’s that behind you?”
What?
I finally noticed the girl’s reflection in the large mirror hanging on the shoe cabinet.
Argh, why didn’t she just hide in the room? She couldn’t trust me so she followed me all the way here and got caught?
The girl pinched my side hard through my shirt.
It was a silent threat to get rid of her quickly.
“Ah? Oh! She’s my cousin! It’s summer break, so my aunt asked me to hang out with her for a bit.”
“…In a house with no parents?”
“I’ve always been really good at entertaining kids! I played with you too, didn’t I, Han Yeeun?”
“Hmm…”
She usually seems so carefree—why is she so suspicious at times like this?
“Thanks so much for the beer and snacks. But I’m really sorry—my cousin’s really shy around strangers.”
“Really? Hi there, little one.”
Whether Han Yeeun had zero tact or her magical-girl intuition was broken, she smiled brightly and greeted the girl’s reflection in the mirror.
“I owe your oppa a pretty ‘deep’ favor, you know.”
Deep is right. One of us saved a life, and the other stopped an attack that almost killed someone.
“A deep… favor?”
“Yep. We only met a day ago, but we already have a very deep relationship.”
“Oppa’s tastes are pretty cheap. Falling for a girl in just one day?”
“Huh? I wonder whose tone is the cheap one here?”
What the hell are these two crazy women doing, using me as the rope in their little tug-of-war?
“Sorry, Yeeun. She’s going through a really late puberty. I’ll scold her properly later.”
“It’s fine. She’s going to be my future sister-in-law, so I should make a good impression. Next time we meet, I hope you’ll be a lot more polite, okay, little one?”
Thump.
“Haa… ugh.”
The moment Han Yeeun’s footsteps faded, the girl grabbed my collar, slammed me to the floor, and mounted me.
“Cousin? Don’t you think that’s way too obvious a lie, mister?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Why did you hide me?”
“Sorry?”
“That woman earlier was a magical girl. If you’d told her I was a villain, you could’ve gotten a reward and gotten rid of me. So why did you cover for me with such a stupid lie?”
“You were trembling when those Management Bureau people showed up earlier.”
“W-what? When did I—!”
“And I can’t just hand over a hurt kid I treated to someone else. I won’t do it.”
The hand gripping my collar slowly lost strength.
“Are you an idiot, mister? Or are you actually a pervert?”
With a hollow expression, she got off me, returned to the sofa, and sat back down.
“What are you doing? Where are the snacks? I’m hungry.”
To be honest, I didn’t know either—why I had protected her.
Was it the magical girls who killed her family, or the villains?
Was it the magical girl who had deflected a villain’s attack meant for somewhere else and wiped out her entire family?
Or was it the villain who had fired the laser in the first place?
I couldn’t tell whether my hatred for magical girls had become the shield that hid her, or if it was simply sympathy for an injured girl.
“Mister, massage my feet. That woman ruined my mood.”
I sighed at her command and moved in front of her.
“Isn’t this a reward? Getting to touch a high-school girl’s feet. Where else would you get an opportunity like this?”
She stretched out her bare foot toward me in a seductive pose.
…Is it?