Why Already? (3)
“…Hello?”
At the slightly hoarse voice, Junhyuk answered with a heavy sigh. A deep anguish could be felt in it, as if he had softened the countless words he had prepared in his mind.
“Does it hurt a lot?”
That was Junhyuk’s first line.
Right. I had made the excuse that I wasn’t feeling well.
“It’s a little better now.”
“Then can you come out for a bit?”
“Why?”
At that abrupt question, Junhyuk went “Uh, um…” and carefully chose his words for a moment.
It felt as if he hadn’t even expected the question “why” itself.
“I bought some porridge.”
“Porridge?”
“I figured you probably hadn’t eaten anything properly…”
To Junhyuk, who was mumbling in that shrinking voice, I simply couldn’t bring myself to say “Just leave it there and go.”
I knew. I had seen everything he did to the countless heroines, and I had confirmed firsthand by playing how he schemed to conquer those high-nosed heroines.
I even knew that Philin had been among those conquered heroines.
But still, I thought this was just too harsh.
Anyway, it was true that I hadn’t eaten a single thing all day, and I wasn’t cold-hearted enough to slam the door on someone who had prepared something for me like that.
“Wait just a moment.”
Saying that, I hung up the phone.
Is it really right to open the door? Can I trust this guy?
What if all of this is the buildup to a violent service scene? Do I have any certainty that it couldn’t be?
My heart pounded. In this strange feeling where guilt and fear coexisted, I was at a complete loss as to which side I should take.
“Philin.”
As I approached the door, Junhyuk spoke.
“…What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
What is he suddenly talking about. Is he starting by saying he’s sorry? Not knowing the circumstances, I asked “for what” in a truly pure sense.
“Yesterday, when I asked if I could touch your horns…”
Fuck.
The guilt in my heart vanished completely, and fear filled that empty space at high speed.
Nothing had changed. The “what if” assumption had been wrong from the start.
“When you hesitated yesterday, I should have just said it was fine. I insisted unnecessarily…”
I was dumbfounded. Because it was exactly according to the Philin conquest route I knew.
The first day of dating. In other words, the last choice given in the Philin route is “whether to ask if you can touch the horns or not.” Once you’ve met this choice, a general service scene is confirmed, but whether you see the horn event or not is decided here, so it’s a fairly important fork.
According to the conquest route, you ask first, get rejected by Philin, and then the next evening… eventually get conquered by the protagonist’s persistent demands.
And the reality I was in now was the same: I had asked yesterday, yesterday’s Philin had refused, but he had been persistently clinging until now…
Even if the detailed developments differed slightly, it was clear that it was heading toward the event scene.
“Hey.”
“W-why all of a sudden?”
As the door didn’t open and my tone turned cold, a clear note of fluster appeared in Junhyuk’s voice.
But there was no need to feel sorry. If I showed unnecessary sympathy, I would just end up as a handle.
“Leave the porridge there and go.”
“Philin, just for a moment, even your face…”
“If you don’t like it, take it with you. I don’t need to eat it.”
I’d rather starve.
After spitting it out coldly, I whirled around right there. I didn’t know what expression Junhyuk beyond the door was making.
What do I care about that.
In the end, it was all just window dressing, and it was just saying he would finish what he couldn’t do yesterday.
It was utterly infuriating.
But then.
With a thud, the house shook slightly.
I reflexively looked toward the door. At the same time, another thud.
“This is going too far no matter how you look at it.”
It wasn’t the sound of something huge taking a step. It definitely wasn’t an earthquake either.
It was just the sound of knocking on the door.
The only problem was that the person knocking on that door was the martial artist who boasted the strongest physical strength among the Academy students.
“Do you really have to go this far?”
His knock, filled with anger from being ignored all day.
“What did I do so wrong!”
With a bang,
he punched a fist-shaped hole in the iron door.
The iron door that looked quite thick at a glance was cleanly penetrated as if punching a hole in Styrofoam.
I could only stand there blankly watching as Junhyuk casually thrust his fist through and fumbled around inside the door.
I was just so flabbergasted that no thoughts came to mind.
Because I didn’t open the door, he punched a hole in it?
From the start, there had been no choice for me to do anything about it.
“…Fuck.”
Fumbling. With perverted hand gestures, he groped the wall here and there until he finally found the lock button.
Beep-beep. Creeeak.
He opened the door.
Meeting the eyes of Junhyuk, who was full of anger, my legs trembled and cold sweat broke out all over my body.
“Y-Yeom Junhyuk. Calm down…”
“Shut up about calming down!”
“Uwaaah!”
When Junhyuk shouted, I turned pale and spun around to run away.
Even if running was useless, I had no choice but to run.
I had to delay as much as possible the terrible tragedy that had already become a foregone conclusion.
Thud.
“Ugh!”
I fell. There was nothing slippery, but my legs got tangled because I was in too much of a hurry. Thud. I tried to get up and fell again.
“Aah! Hah, hah.”
I couldn’t put strength into my legs. I headed toward the room almost crawling.
Go in and lock the door at least.
While he’s breaking the door, open the window and escape outside.
I should be able to buy that much time.
“Philin, please! Why are you going this far!”
I didn’t have the leisure to give any kind of answer. I desperately dashed toward the nearest room door, repeatedly getting up, falling, crawling, standing, and falling again.
“Please just listen to me…!”
But Junhyuk, who had caught up right behind me in an instant, roughly stretched out his hand.
And finally grabbed the horn.
At that moment.
“Hyaah…!”
An intense stimulation like electricity being shoved directly from my head down to my lower abdomen raced through me.
At the same time, a voice so lewd that it was hard to believe it came from my mouth burst out.
I collapsed to the ground.
My breathing grew ragged and my chest grew hot.
At the same time, realizing that a ticklish sensation I had never experienced before was rushing toward somewhere deep in my lower abdomen, I understood with my whole body that I was truly in danger right now.
“Ph-Philin…?”
“…Get out.”
Breath mixed with heat tried to come out from deep in my heated chest, but I barely restrained it and drove Junhyuk away.
“Are you okay?”
“Get out. Get lost!”
I shouted almost as if crying.
My body still hadn’t calmed down, so I twisted this way and that, and then “ngh,” a pained moan came out.
I had fallen so many times that my knees were scraped.
Seeing that, Junhyuk butted in with his meddling again.
“M-maybe we should go to the hospital? Should I call?”
“It’s fine. It’s fine so just go. Go quickly. I’ll take care of it myself.”
At my stubborn refusal, Junhyuk finally let out a deep sigh.
Fortunately, Junhyuk also seemed quite flustered, so he couldn’t press further and, with a dazed expression, backed out of the house.
Probably in the heat of the moment he had stretched out his hand and happened to grab the horn.
Only after the click of the door locking did the wrecked state of the house come into view.
It was a house atmosphere as if a bomb had come through rather than a storm.
There was a fist-shaped hole punched in the front door, and the iron fragments that had broken off from the front door had flown into the TV of all places, shattering the screen and rolling on the floor.
Seeing the noisy cracks, it was clear it was broken even without turning it on.
The excitement subsided. Only then did I slowly try to get up, placing my hands on my knees.
“Aah.”
My knees were blue. It hurt so much I wondered if something was broken.
But still, today had passed.
With this much, I could say I got through it “safely,” right?
The next day.
Even after sleeping all day like that, I slept as if I had fainted all night. The energy consumption last night must have been enormous.
After washing lightly and changing clothes, I suddenly saw Philin’s body reflected in the mirror and whirled my head away in shock.
“…This is my body now.”
With an extremely embarrassed feeling, I hurriedly put on clothes.
It wasn’t a glamorous body with everything sticking out and going in, but still, Philin’s body was beautiful.
And I was newly grateful for the fact that among that beautiful body, the only injured part was the knees.
There are routes that don’t appear in Philin’s route, where the process of completely subduing the heroine’s body and mind through training is described in detail.
There was no law saying that Junhyuk, who had been full of anger yesterday, wouldn’t do that.
In many ways, it was fortunate.
Since a good opportunity had also come up.
I put on my school uniform and left the house.
The Academy commute path I had seen countless times in the game. It was the first time walking it myself, but nothing around me entered my eyes.
Because something more important was filling my head to the brim.
I had already checked what the morning lecture was on my phone. The Academy structure was also thoroughly familiar since I had encountered it so much in the game. When I flung open the door of the classroom-style lecture hall, as expected.
“Ah, hello.”
Yeom Junhyuk was there.
“Follow me out. I have something to say.”
Throwing only that and slamming the door shut, murmuring sounds came from behind me.
Then the sound of the door opening followed.
After confirming Junhyuk, who had come out following me with a gloomy expression as if being dragged to a trial, I moved the location to the lawn below the lecture hall.
Junhyuk, who was quietly sticking behind me and following even though no one had ordered him to, kept bothering me, but I didn’t particularly speak to him.
Because I was afraid that if I looked at those kind eyes, my heart might waver.
Without exchanging a single word like that, we stood facing each other on the lawn below the lecture hall.
Toward Junhyuk, whose eyes looked like he would cry at any moment like the gloomy weather that seemed about to rain, I pronounced the sentence.
“Let’s break up.”
Don’t approach me any more.
These horns will never become your handle.