Night Has Fallen (3)
Isn't this heavy?
Being held in Junhyuk's arms for so long, the thought suddenly crossed my mind.
But with every last scrap of strength drained from my body, hanging limp as I was, asking him to put me down now would hardly have been convincing.
He showed no sign of being out of breath—just occasionally hoisted my slipping body higher, never once letting on that it was a burden. Strong martial artists really did have a different kind of physique.
I'd pushed myself so hard that my body felt as limp and drained as right after a grueling workout.
I'm sleepy. I want to sleep.
Just as my consciousness was about to slip away—
"...Hup."
No. No. I slapped myself awake in my mind and forced myself to stay sharp.
If I fall asleep here, it's truly over.
Caught in a repeating battle between drowsiness and alertness—
"Philin. We're here."
We finally arrived home.
The spot where Junhyuk had punched a hole through with his fist still bore clear signs of repair. The work order must have just been finished today.
"...Put me down now."
"Open it."
"I can go in by myself."
"I said open it."
Judging by that firm tone and the look in his eyes, he looked ready to punch another hole through the door if he had to.
If we racked up more repair costs, that'd be a waste...
"Tch."
In the end, I punched in the password.
With a clunk, the door opened. Still holding me, Junhyuk roughly kicked off his shoes, tossed them carelessly by the entrance, and strode straight into the master bedroom.
It's over. Fuck.
With no strength left in my body and the alcohol that had briefly faded flooding back in, I was practically in a state of resignation. Having already been carried all the way into the master bedroom, I had no energy left to resist whatever Junhyuk might do.
"Up we go."
The moment he stepped into the dark master bedroom, Junhyuk tossed me onto the bed like a delivery package.
Thud. My body bounced once on the unnecessarily plush mattress, and my already short skirt rode up perilously. I struggled to lower my arm and press the skirt down—
"...Hic, huuh..."
For some reason, tears came.
I'd thought I was living a decent life—well, not perfect, but at least without causing trouble for others. What had I done wrong to deserve this? Not only had I suddenly become a girl, but now I was on the verge of being violated by the vicious club of the male protagonist from the game. What kind of life was this?
I was terrified.
It was so much more frightening than needles, bungee jumping, or chemical warfare drills that my whole body trembled. Maybe the characters I'd snickered at while playing the game had been this scared too. I heard it hurts like hell. And there's tons of blood...
The more I thought about it, the greater the fear grew, until the trembling became so severe I could barely keep myself together.
"Ugh, hic..."
Fuck, what a pathetic sight.
Junhyuk, who had been staring down at me, slowly approached and sat on the bed. His eyes gleaming in the darkness looked sharper and more chilling than usual.
To think I'd tried to put a collar on a guy like this and control him. I should have just chucked the Academy, the dedicated healer position, all of it—I have plenty of money—and fled to some remote island.
As I cursed my foolish self, tears kept streaming from my tightly shut eyes.
"...Just get it over with."
I muttered low, as if spitting on the floor. At those words, Junhyuk slowly reached out and grasped my horn.
At the same time, an unpleasant sensation spread through my entire body.
"Hnn, nngh..."
Is this the start? I steeled myself and bit my lip—
Suddenly, a soft peck on my forehead. He pressed his lips there.
Before I could even ask what he was doing, the strength drained from my body. The body that had been wound tight with fear gradually settled into calm. The intense stimulation that flowed when he grabbed my horn had, ironically, eased the tension binding my whole body and steadied the trembling.
"See you tomorrow."
With those words, Junhyuk locked the master bedroom door with a click. Rattle-rattle. He shook the handle to confirm it was locked, then closed the door and left.
Silence settled over the dark room.
Tick-tock. The clock was this loud? Already 11:30. Late, I guess. I want to wash up, but I don't have the energy to get up. I think I'm still wearing my shoes.
As those useless thoughts floated through my mind, the question that lodged itself in my head was—
Why isn't he doing anything?
Wasn't he desperate to conquer Philin?
Whatever. Anyway...
I survived another day.
I had a dream.
The reason I knew it was a dream was because Philin was right in front of me. And standing before Philin was Junhyuk.
Facing each other in a field of reeds, the modest difference in their heights gave off a strange sense of stability. A gentle breeze blew, tousling Philin's dark crimson bob and the hem of her ivory dress. Philin tucked the wind-tossed hair behind her ear, lowered her head, and smiled shyly.
Then Junhyuk said something, and Philin smiled as if happy and nestled into his arms.
But something was strange. A scene this warm and happy—didn't exist in the game I knew.
The gentle breeze transformed into a fierce gale, and everything before my eyes scattered like sand and vanished.
What remained before me was—
The ceiling of the master bedroom.
Smelling a spicy scent slowly spreading through the room where morning sunlight streamed in, I bolted upright like a spring. That was the smell of ramen. Who was cooking?
"No way..."
What "no way"? There was only one person who would be boiling ramen this early in the morning.
When I opened the door and went out—
"Perfect timing."
Yeom Junhyuk.
He was shamelessly boiling the spicy ramen I'd stocked, standing in front of the induction cooktop.
"Why are you here?"
"Because I slept here."
"What?!"
A near-scream of a question burst out.
I'd reached the point where I had to hesitate for a moment at the question Did the two of you sleep together?
The sight of him casually boiling ramen without a hint of awkwardness after spending the night in a girl's house without permission left me speechless. But as if he couldn't care less about any of that—
"Hurry up and sit. You need to cure that hangover."
He leisurely opened a drawer, took out a pot trivet and utensils, set them on the table, placed the ramen on top, then pulled bowls from the display cabinet above the sink. Movements so practiced he seemed to know exactly where everything was. This wasn't the skill of someone who'd cooked in this house only once or twice.
That sight inevitably brought last night's dream back to mind.
In the game, the two of them bickered until the very end, and Philin—her horn seized—was forced into becoming a submissive heroine. And yet, for that, Junhyuk's attitude from day one had been a little strange.
— About yesterday, when I asked if I could touch your horn...
What Junhyuk said itself seemed to be true. But maybe only the lines were the same and the atmosphere was completely different?
No... No. If that were the case.
— At night I get a bit rough... We fought over that a few times even before we started dating, and I always apologized in the morning.
That statement of Junhyuk's was a contradiction. It was true they fought often, but—
"Ugh..."
What on earth was going on? As my worries deepened, my head spun. This damn hangover. If I mix soju and beer like that again, I'm not even human.
"Hurry up. The noodles are getting soggy."
At Junhyuk's words, I walked toward the table as if reluctantly conceding, then stopped at the unfamiliar sensation under my feet and looked down.
I was still wearing my shoes.
"The floor's going to get dirty."
"I'll clean it later."
"Don't bother."
What a busybody. Sitting at the table, I lifted some ramen noodles and muttered under my breath, barely audible.
Fortunately he didn't seem to hear, slurping up some broth before asking me—
"Why were you crying yesterday?"
At that question, yesterday's emotions suddenly resurfaced and my face burned. Because I thought I was about to have all sorts of lewd things done to me by you, and my life felt so lamentable I cried...
I couldn't say that.
"I guess I was just a bit drunk."
I dodged with the universal answer.
He looked like he had more he wanted to say, but Junhyuk swallowed his words along with a slurp of noodles and buried his face in the bowl.
I had plenty of questions too. Why he hadn't done anything then was one, but more fundamentally—
Right. That.
"Hey, though."
"Hmm?"
"When you said I wasn't the Philin you knew. What did that mean?"
At that question, Junhyuk slurped some broth, stood up, filled two cups of water, handed one to me, and drank the other himself. Setting the cup down and letting out a sigh, he prefaced it with, This is just my guess, but—
"You... somehow seem like you have amnesia."
The unexpected words left me a little flustered, but Junhyuk continued as if he'd anticipated even that reaction.
"The first place we met alone outside the Academy. Do you know where it was?"
"Umm..."
Almost no one who cleared Philin's route would have remembered something that detailed, so I had to dig through my memory for a moment. But because the route was so short, I could just barely recall the first meeting place.
"The ice cream shop?"
"Wrong. It was a big stationery store."
Seeing my blank expression that seemed to ask why we'd go to a place like that, Junhyuk got up from the table and went into the master bedroom. When he came back out a moment later, what he held in his hand was—
"I bought this for you back then. Because you said you needed it."
It was the clock that had been pointing to 11:30 when I fell asleep looking at it yesterday.
"You don't remember?"
At Junhyuk's question, I could only stare blankly, unable to say a word.
I was bewildered. Because this wasn't the story from the game I knew.
Then, suddenly, the game text I'd seen right before falling into this place came to mind.
Would you like to enter the Hidden Route?
It had told me from the start. I'd been so fixated on the horns I hadn't thought of it at all.
I'd merely possessed Philin. The route I was currently on wasn't the Philin Route. There was just a bit of overlap with the Philin Route because I'd possessed her. This time period was a Hidden Route I'd never experienced even once in the game.
The one silver lining was that among all the heroines, the one Junhyuk held the most affection for was Philin.
"Then you tell me."
I should use that.
Junhyuk would probably think of it as improving his relationship with the Philin who'd gotten amnesia. But to minimize danger in the everyday life ahead—where everything was a variable—I needed to stay as close to Junhyuk as possible.
Because I have to survive.