Night Has Fallen (2)
I took the glass without hesitation, but it was heavier than I expected, so I set it down once. Looks like my strength has really dropped a lot.
"If you want to back out now…."
"No way."
I didn't even want to deal with her using formal speech. Her soft, polite tone only made me more competitive.
"Oh…."
I decided to lift the cup with both hands and knock it back in one shot.
The high soju ratio meant it lacked the usual smoothness of a soju-beer mix, so it was a little rough going down.
Clang!
I set the empty glass down on the table almost like I was slamming it.
I let out a long breath, and applause and cheers erupted from all around.
"Oh~ Philin!"
"Acting like she couldn't drink, but she was a real contender!"
Contender, my ass. I was already dizzy.
But I still had to say what needed saying.
"I didn't finish it because I had something to hide. I drank it because you said you wouldn't ask any more questions."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"No."
I tried to wave my hand dismissively, but there was barely any strength left in my fingertips.
This was bad. A girl's body had far worse alcohol tolerance than I'd expected.
Still, I clung to my senses as best I could and warned Sowon.
"We're nothing. He's just a teammate, that's all."
"Hmm. Is that so?"
"And you should take better care of yourself. …Hah. Instead of worrying about me."
Confusion flickered across Sowon's face as she trailed off with a soft What do you mean…
Of course she wouldn't get it, but I had cleared Lim Sowon's route first of all, and I knew every last one of her sexual preferences in vivid detail.
For example….
"Stop using those weird, filthy toys every single day."
At those words, Sowon's face flushed so hard it was obvious even under the dim lighting.
"Toys? What toys?"
"Sowon, what is she talking about?"
"Philin seems a little drunk."
Amid the murmuring students, she managed to force a composed smile back onto her face, but she couldn't hide the faint tremor in her voice. Her lips quivered as she scrambled to wrap things up.
"Th-that's right! Miss Philin. You seem a bit tipsy. Um…. I just wanted to get closer! I got greedy about becoming friends quickly and ended up pushing you past your limit. I'll apologize."
She rattled off her excuses like a machine gun, looking so frantic that—
"Ha…."
—I couldn't help laughing.
If you're going to try and mess someone up, shouldn't you be ready to get messed up yourself?
I pushed the glass I'd just emptied in front of Sowon, then mixed it exactly the way she'd mixed mine for me.
Or rather, strictly speaking, I made it a little more vicious—a six-to-four soju-to-beer ratio.
"Drink. One shot."
"This…?"
"Can't handle it?"
Then I'll just keep talking.
Someone really ought to have stepped in to stop us, but everyone was a little drunk already and seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. All they did was throw in little cheers like, "Ooh, this is getting savage!"
Sowon clenched her mouth shut for a moment, deliberating.
In the end she lifted the glass with both hands and drained the six-to-four mix in one go.
She set the glass down with a showy "Khh," and the girls burst into applause again with a chorus of "Ooh!"
A drinking party among twenty-year-olds felt pretty much the same whether it was guys or girls.
The alcohol was already hitting Sowon too; her eyes had gone a little unfocused as she declared to me,
"Don't make weird jokes."
"Whether it's a weird joke or not…."
"Wasn't the deal that if I finished it, you wouldn't bring it up again?"
Sowon glared at me with a murderous look.
But I was already stressed out every single day because of one horn-obsessed bastard.
When someone who clearly had a weakness came at me, I wasn't nice enough to play along with that too.
"I never made that promise."
"What…?"
"You just took it and drank it, didn't you?"
I smirked as I shot that back at her. Even I thought I looked like trash.
But I had to go this far so she wouldn't come at me again next time.
"You like that stuff too, though."
"Stop it."
"The eye-covering thing…."
"Stop!"
With a sharp scream, Sowon finally lost her composure and slammed the table.
The mood at the table went ice-cold in an instant.
After gauging the atmosphere for a moment, I too—
"…Ah, I'm dizzy."
—took a sip of water, then stood up while deliberately staggering like I was completely wasted.
"I'm gonna get some air."
I gave a light wave and started to head outside.
I hadn't even taken a few steps when the world suddenly started spinning. I'd only been pretending to be drunk so I could leave, but I was far dizzier and more nauseous than expected; even walking a few steps was hard.
Guess slamming five hundred milliliters of soju-beer mix in one go without testing my tolerance first had been a mistake. Back when I was a freshman in peak form, I used to mix two thousand and still handle it….
"Huu…."
I kept exhaling hot breaths, trying to clear my head. And right then—
Thud—a sound came from behind me.
I thought for a second that I'd fallen because I was too drunk.
"Ow…."
But for some reason, it was Sowon, who had been following me, who had twisted her ankle and gone down.
The five hundred milliliters of mix must have hit her hard too; she could barely keep herself upright.
Her eyes met mine for a brief moment. Then, for whatever reason, she smiled faintly—
—and in the next instant flipped her expression completely, putting on a delicate, helpless look as she said,
"Yeom Junhyuk."
"……."
"Help me… up."
She aimed her silver-fox act straight at Yeom Junhyuk, who happened to be sitting at the table right in front of her.
Looking closer, she hadn't twisted her ankle at all. She'd deliberately gone over there and fallen in front of him.
What was she trying to pull? Trying to make me jealous? But there was one thing Sowon could never know.
I had absolutely no reason to feel jealous over Junhyuk.
Honestly, now that things had gone this far, I was secretly hoping Junhyuk would help her up. Even if I didn't care that much, it would give me a perfect excuse to accuse him of "looking elsewhere."
But—
"Why should I."
Junhyuk looked her straight in the eyes and tossed the words out with absolute coldness.
Wasn't that a bit much? Not even a flicker of fluster?
She was the de facto main heroine with the longest conquest route, after all.
And for some reason, Junhyuk strode straight over to me, grabbed my arm hard, and dragged me out of the tavern.
"Come on. We're going home."
"Hey, wait…."
Before I could do anything, I was pulled out of the tavern by Junhyuk's arm.
He was gripping so hard that my wrist stung; I didn't even dare try to shake him off. Being hauled along by that brutal strength, plus already having trouble standing because of the alcohol—
"Wai—t!"
I finally shouted it almost like a scream.
Where even was this? After being dragged so far, my sense of direction was completely shot.
It was way too late.
And of course there was almost no one around.
This was way too dangerous. A chill ran down my spine and the alcohol vanished in an instant.
"I'll go alone. I can go alone now."
"We're going together."
"Did you forget Promise Number One?"
Even at my firm words, not a trace of fluster showed on his face.
The atmosphere was definitely different from daytime.
My control should have been working.
"We don't meet at night. Right?"
It had to be obvious I was scared. Even I could feel how fast my heart was pounding and how short my breath had become.
Sure enough.
"I didn't specifically call you out at night. We've been together since daytime, haven't we?"
"Don't twist it…."
"I wasn't the one who asked to meet, either."
The moment those words left his mouth, he yanked me into a tight embrace—
"Hik…!"
—and stroked my hair, deliberately brushing against my horns with the lightest of touches.
There was one critical piece of information I had completely overlooked.
He had been drinking too.
His night self was already rough enough; with alcohol on top of that, I never should have let myself get dragged out of the tavern in the first place, even if it meant ruining the mood a little.
"No, hngh! I…. Ah! Don't…."
"Don't what?"
As he asked that, Junhyuk deliberately ruffled my hair with rough hands.
Both horns were touched one after another, sending an ominous tingle racing through my entire body.
He already knew perfectly well from earlier today just how sensitive they were when touched.
He was tormenting me on purpose. So I would break down on my own.
"……Ngh!"
I felt with my whole body just how humiliating it was that my body wouldn't listen to me.
I bit my lip and desperately tried not to make a sound.
My brain felt like it was going to burn out. The strength had already left my legs completely; I'd been hanging onto Junhyuk for a while now.
"Ah, uu…."
Around the time I was suppressing the excitement so hard that my body started twitching on its own—
"I know you're not the Philin I used to know."
"What…?"
My heart dropped at Junhyuk's words.
How much did he know? Don't tell me he even knew I used to be the player….
"Your whole vibe has changed somehow, and it's weird how you don't know things you should obviously know, but—"
With that, he squeezed.
He crushed me against him as if he might break me and whispered,
"I still like you."
Thankfully it didn't seem like he "knew everything," but—
Junhyuk was completely serious.
"No matter what it takes, I'm going to have you again."
…What the hell was that. Even if he liked me, that was basically saying he liked me as a possession.
I wanted to dump a whole bucket of curses on him, but the thought that it was night made fear hit me first.
An absolutely disadvantageous time.
I could only clench my lips shut and seethe inside.
"You pervert bastard…."
I spat it out with pure contempt, but the moment Junhyuk put distance between us, my bravado meant nothing—I collapsed right there like a puppet with its strings cut.
Absurdly, forcing myself to endure the continuous intense stimulation earlier had completely drained the strength from my legs.
Junhyuk scooped me up without any fuss as I sat there crumpled.
"Don't… treat me like a princess."
Whether he found my continued resistance amusing or felt something else entirely, I couldn't tell.
He wore a faint smile that was almost invisible and started walking.
"I'll take you home."
I'm screwed.