Night Has Fallen (1)
That was my reply to the text Junhyuk had sent first thing in the morning. Then I headed for the bathroom.
Because of my horns, washing my hair was such a hassle that even after showering at night, I'd developed the habit of showering again every morning. Nearly a week had passed since my body changed, so you'd think I'd have gotten used to it by now—but I still kept snagging the showerhead on my horns.
I wiped the fog from the bathroom mirror and looked at myself. Eyes the same dark crimson as my hair stared steadily back at me. Features a touch sharp and fierce, befitting a Demon. And yet the thought that inevitably came to mind was—
Beautiful.
A beauty that called to mind a rose studded with thorns. Junhyuk's looks were already the very picture of narrative convenience, but I was beautiful enough that it made sense for a guy like him to drop everything and trail after me.
And yet.
"...It's uncomfortable."
His goodwill still made me uncomfortable. For a whole week since that day, we'd been repeating more or less the same routine, but Junhyuk had never once gotten angry, nor had he insisted on seeing me into the evening. An obedient puppy. That was exactly what he looked like.
But knowing that puppy was hiding a vicious nature—and that it might bare its fangs at any moment—made simply being around him thoroughly uncomfortable. If it weren't for that dedicated-healer system or whatever, I'd have cut him off on the spot. But if I did, that sly little fraud would just go and do something insane like risking his life dealing damage in a dungeon again.
Since I already had him on a leash, I resolved to grip it even tighter.
I put on my uniform, stood before the mirror one last time to compose my expression, then opened the front door.
"Good morning!"
"Carry this."
"Ah— okay."
I handed my bag to Junhyuk, who'd already been waiting out front for some time, and walked on without so much as a glance at him. To Junhyuk, who quickly fell into step behind me, I tossed the next command.
"I want coffee."
"What kind?"
"The usual."
"That mint one?"
"You already know, so why ask?"
Not bad for an AI assistant. I shot a sidelong glance at Junhyuk as he pulled out his phone and placed the order without missing a beat, then allowed myself a faint smile.
Uncomfortable as it was—I had no intention of just going along quietly, either.
Monster extermination practice was usually organized by teams, but Junhyuk didn't really fit into any of them. And for good reason.
"Philin. Stay here a second."
Even trolls, said to be several times stronger than goblins, he kicked around until they were reduced to absolute wrecks. At the first-year level, Yeom Junhyuk alone was as good as an entire team's combat power. Watching him rain down attacks so relentless even a troll's terrifying regeneration couldn't keep up, he almost looked like he was enjoying himself.
Is he working off stress?
The thought made me a little afraid.
A short while later, after clearing out every last troll, Junhyuk came over to me, breathing hard. He hadn't even said anything, yet I found myself holding my breath. Junhyuk, his face a little flushed from unleashing so much energy—
"You okay? It's all over now."
—reached out and stroked my hair. And the hand stroking my hair brushed lightly against my horn—
"Hngh…!"
Another strange little sound slipped out of me, and the strength went out of my legs.
"Ph-Philin! Are you okay?"
Seeing me nearly topple over, Junhyuk grabbed my shoulders in a panic.
"I told you not to touch my horns!"
"Did I touch them?"
"You brushed them!"
When I bristled and hissed at him like an angry cat, Junhyuk scratched his head with the look of a scolded puppy again.
"Sorry."
Fortunately I calmed down quickly. I cleared my throat, fussing needlessly with my clothes.
"...Let's go."
"Okay."
I headed for the dungeon exit ahead of him, lost in various worries. This is bad. Being this sensitive...
Honestly, I knew Junhyuk hadn't meant to touch my horn. Last time he'd grabbed it pretty hard, so that was one thing—but for my body to go haywire from just a light brush like this? It was a complete weak point.
But... something's weird.
Come to think of it, Serena often played around by grabbing my horns, and even when she seized them pretty firmly, the stimulation never got this intense. Just in case, I casually raised a hand, pretending to ruffle my hair, and tapped my own horn. I even gave it a firm squeeze—
Nothing. No sensation at all.
Could the sensitivity really change depending on who was touching them?
"...Hmm."
"What's wrong?"
As my fretting deepened and a faint sound escaped me, Junhyuk must have heard it—he came closer, checking my face.
"It's nothing."
I whipped my head away and tossed the words out.
When we came out of the dungeon, quite a few students had finished practice early today and gathered in the gymnasium. A strange excitement mixed into the murmuring atmosphere. What's going on? Why isn't everyone going home?
A girl stepped out in front of the chattering students. With model-like slender limbs and a dazzling wave of silver hair, she was—the first-year representative, Lim Sowon. The heroine with the longest route in this game.
"Alright, everyone. With the professors' permission, we're holding a 'Safe Return Party' today!"
"Woooo!"
Watching the cheering students, I didn't need to ask anyone what a "Safe Return Party" was. A free drinking party with a nice excuse slapped on it. Even if they were heroes who fought monsters and saved the world, they were still twenty-year-old freshmen—right at the age when free booze hits best. I could understand them getting so excited.
But I wanted to rest at home. This kind of raucous atmosphere was hard for me to get used to. And more than anything...
"Let's not drink too late, okay~?"
—that was a promise that would absolutely never be kept.
I tried to slip away, quietly hiding myself among the students already drunk on the atmosphere and running around. But the silver-haired beauty, Lim Sowon, had already approached and lightly caught my arm.
"Philin! Do you have to go home?"
She asked with a bright, sparkling smile worthy of a class representative. I frantically scrambled for an appropriate excuse. Say I have a part-time job? No, Philin's circumstances don't allow for that. A curfew? What good would that do—she'd just tell me to stay until then.
So the excuse that tumbled out of my mouth was—
"Ah, I can't drink, so..."
Of course it was a lie. But it must have been within the range of expected answers, because Sowon smiled even more brightly and pulled me by the arm.
"Don't worry! It's not the kind of gathering where anyone forces you to drink."
"But if I can't even drink, why should I..."
"It's for building camaraderie. Just think of it as filling a seat for us."
Being class representative is tough. She probably wasn't gathering students like this just because she wanted to. The professors had their own reasons for throwing a drinking party even using department operating funds, and to achieve those goals, the representative had to run around diligently rounding up students. I didn't want to flat-out refuse her efforts and make her look awkward, so—
"I can leave a little early, right?"
"Of course!"
In the end, that was the compromise we settled on.
A girls' drinking party wasn't all that different from the guys'. Talk about who was handsome, who had done what with whom. And the snack that got mentioned most often among them was—
"Did you see Yeom Junhyuk?"
"He's so cool. And handsome!"
"He looks so gentle, but his class is Martial Artist. What a twist!"
"He's a gentleman by day, but a total beast at night, right?"
"Oh my god, hey!"
The atmosphere of squealing and stomping feet was hard to adapt to, so I just smiled vaguely and picked at some fruit. Just like you all said—he's the classic Submissive by Day, Dominant by Night type. And in the actual game, there were a few heroines sitting right here who'd gotten thoroughly wrecked by him, just as the saying went. Their steamy photos and voices flickered through my mind, making it hard to keep my expression under control. Thank goodness the lighting was a bit dim. My face was probably bright red, for all I knew.
"Philin! You're Junhyuk's dedicated healer, right?"
"Huh?"
Why is the conversation suddenly zeroing in on me?
"Anything interesting happen?"
"What's it like watching him fight? Does it get you all worked up?"
"Don't tell me... are you two already dating?"
Even as I reeled under the barrage of questions, one fact became clear: even though it had only been for a day, none of the students knew that Junhyuk and Philin had dated. That was a real relief. Not wanting to give the impression we were close, I deflected appropriately.
"It's just... nothing special. We're not dating or anything."
"Liar!"
"You're always stuck together just the two of you during practice with a guy that handsome!"
The squealing made my head spin. Why are you screaming at a time like this? Keeping a reasonably friendly smile, I continued, trying to calm the uproar.
"I'm not really interested in him. We just go looking for monsters together, that's all."
"A business relationship, then?"
"Something like that."
"No way!"
More accurately, it was a relationship I was desperately trying to escape from.
But then—
"For that, the two of you look awfully close."
Lim Sowon. That silver-haired beauty suddenly struck at my weak point with a tone that was kind but carried a subtle undercurrent of meaning.
"When did I ever..."
"You go to and from school together every day. And you drink coffee together a lot."
A chill ran down my spine, as if someone had grabbed the back of my neck. How did she know?
"Sometimes you even go to the supermarket together, don't you?"
Amid the girls raising their voices with "Oh my god, what?!", I couldn't manage a smile this time. Has she been watching us? This whole time?
Seeing the flustered look on my face, Sowon poured soju and beer into a 500ml beer glass with a glug-glug. One-to-one. Mixing the alcohol at a merciless ratio, she held it out to me.
"If you drink all of this, I won't ask any more questions."
You said this wasn't a place that forces people to drink, you fox. I poured unfiltered harsh words into my gaze and fired lasers at her without mercy, but Sowon paid it no mind and kept up the offer.
"Or you could just tell us what kind of relationship the two of you have."
So this is why she sat me down. She hadn't called me over just to hear "we're nothing," and she wouldn't believe it anyway. She was a little—no, a lot—annoying, but I'd never been one to say I couldn't hold my liquor, so—
"Give it here."
I took the glass and downed the brutally mixed somaek in one go.
Fine. Let's do this.