Risk Level 4: Girl
"Hey... I'm talking to you."
"Y-yes."
".. Huh?"
She frowned, narrowing her eyes when I reflexively answered with honorifics. "Why are you using polite speech again? Do I look that old to you?"
"No... no, that's not it at all."
Her sharp, elegant eye shape briefly surfaced, revealing her true personality and atmosphere, but it quickly softened and lost its edge. She wasn't slurring her words yet, but her face was flushed red and her eyes had that unfocused look. She was definitely drunk. I'd felt uneasy from the moment she kept happily filling her paper cup with soju, but I never expected her to get this wasted.
"Hey..."
".. Want me to get you some water?"
"Do you... like girls with big chests?"
"?"
I had been nodding along with a sincere smile when my entire body froze. I had to roll my eyes around to figure out what was happening. Maybe I'd misspoken. If I just pretended not to hear...
"Hey... I'm asking you."
.. So I hadn't misspoken after all.
"..."
I felt like crying. If I said yes, I'd probably get hit over the head with a soju bottle. If I said no, it would be the same as admitting her chest was small, which would also get me hit. Either way, I was doomed.
"I mean... I'm not actually that small, you know? I don't think my chest is the kind that gets called 'cute' or anything..."
".. Mm-hmm."
From my perspective—having recently learned that the President, the Field Team Leader, and especially Harpy all existed in this world with their own dreams and hopes—her chest was indeed relatively modest. That was just a fact. But it wasn't so lacking that I'd call it poor. If anything, the smooth lines of her figure, combined with her small stature and the way her waist and hips curved...
Wait, why was I even thinking about this?
"Right. Want to touch them? Then you'll know for sure."
"What? Yerin... Yerin?"
She planted her hands on the table and leaned toward me with clear intent. I managed to quickly shove the bowl of chicken feet out of the way—a very appropriate reaction, considering how expensive her clothes probably were. But...
"Ah..."
The paper cup I hadn't moved tipped over, spilling soju all over her outfit.
"Stay still. I'll grab a towel right away... Eek!"
"Ugh... It's all wet..."
While I turned my head for just a second to fetch a dry towel, she started trying to take off her pants like it was the most natural thing in the world. I had no choice but to step closer to stop her.
Thud!
"..."
"..."
I'd only meant to grab her pants, but somehow my arms ended up wrapped around her waist instead. Combined with the alcohol in her system, the momentum sent her toppling over. At least we'd avoided a bigger disaster.
".. Gulp."
Her waist... was incredibly slender. Her dazed eyes looked up at me with clear annoyance for stopping her, but being this close, I couldn't help feeling something I probably shouldn't.
"Hup!"
"Huh?"
Thud!
"Urgh?"
Her hand landed lightly on my arm, and in the next instant my vision spun. When everything stopped, I was the one on the floor. She had moved with such smooth, practiced ease that it was hard to believe she was drunk. Now she was straddling me, squeezing my thighs with both legs to pin me down. The position was... a little suggestive.
"Ung, actually... I heard everything you and Harpy were talking about?"
"Hm? Uh...?"
"It's weird. I don't even particularly like you, but it still bothered me for some reason."
What did she mean by hearing me talk with Harpy? She had said something about not having the kind of chest that gets called cute... "Ah?"
It must have been when Harpy mentioned wanting a chest as cute as the Response Team Leader's, and I had tried to comfort her by praising her own generous, maternal figure. I remembered Harpy wishing she could have a "cute chest" like the team leader's. For someone like me, whose daily life wasn't particularly wild, hearing the phrase "cute chest" had been a first—and apparently a last—until now. But how had she overheard...?
"... Your face looks decent enough, but if someone asked whether you're super handsome, the answer would be no."
Yerin was now squishing my cheeks with both hands while rambling on. It was hard to tell if it was a compliment, but there didn't seem to be any malice behind it.
"Still, the height difference is kind of exciting. Your personality is stupidly kind and innocent, like a hardworking brown cow. I like that."
".. A brown cow."
"And... ngh."
"..."
Her already-red face flushed an even deeper shade as she suddenly stopped mid-sentence. I was curious what she had been about to say, but her inner voice had flared up so intensely with cute little screams that I couldn't make out the details.
"Ah... Anyway, this is annoying... I want to date someone too."
"If it's you, Yerin, I feel like you could get a boyfriend pretty easily."
"Huh? Well... yeah, I guess."
The way she agreed so readily made it even more absurd. Then just do it?
"But... I can't."
"..."
"Not gonna ask why?"
I wasn't particularly eager to ask, but the look in her eyes was clearly pressuring me to.
"Why... can't you?"
Only after I asked did she seem comfortable enough to answer. She started poking my cheek with her finger.
".. Shopping with you today was really fun, you know?"
"..."
"Actually... normally I just call in some decent-looking part-timers and hypnotize them."
Hypnosis?
"They play the role of my boyfriend until the shopping trip is over."
.. I'd heard of that kind of thing before. Like a boyfriend-for-hire service? But... "them"?
"It's fun in the moment. You know how soap bubbles look pretty and exciting right up until they pop?"
She smiled down at me, but her eyes looked lonely and a little tired. I found myself closing my mouth without saying anything.
"It's like a nice little role-play. Once the hypnosis wears off, they forget everything about me anyway. So there's no need to worry about the aftermath."
"Aftermath...?"
"Ah, maybe I chose the wrong word... I don't do anything weird! As team leader, I make sure to erase all traces of myself outside. The security camera footage from today is probably being thoroughly edited by the Response Team right now."
I remembered Harpy saying something similar during our first outing together.
".. But since you can read my thoughts, lies don't work on you... and I can't just hypnotize you either. So it felt like the first time in a long while that it wasn't just playing around."
"Then... why not just stop using hypnosis normally?"
"It's not as easy as it sounds. Hypnosis makes complicated, annoying human relationships ridiculously simple. Any attitude or behavior that bothers me can be erased with a single word. I've gotten way too used to that easy method."
I knew how convenient her ability was. If I had the same power... would I really be able to live without using it?
"That's why shopping with you today was so enjoyable."
I could tell she was being sincere because her inner voice echoed the same sentiment. That was a relief. And...
".. I had fun too. It was a pretty unique experience in a lot of ways."
"Hehe, I'm glad."
"..."
With such an incredible ability, why was she stuck doing Response Team Leader work and desperately waiting for vacation? The question suddenly occurred to me. With her power, she should have been able to live more comfortably than anyone else in the world.
"How did you... end up starting this job?"
"... Curious?"
When she asked again, I started worrying that maybe I shouldn't have brought it up. But I really was curious, so I nodded timidly. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the gesture, taking on a dangerous glint as she began to lean in with quiet pressure. Her usual sharp gaze had a rebellious, girlish charm to it, but right now...
"You know my ability has one restriction, right?"
"Restriction? Like... eye contact?"
"Mm, that's just a condition to strengthen the hypnosis."
"Oh."
.. Once someone was hypnotized, they would forget everything about her up until that moment. It wasn't that all memories of being with her disappeared completely after a few days, but rather that anything that could identify her—her name, face, voice, atmosphere—was precisely cut out and erased. But why was she suddenly bringing this up...?
"In my case... well, I caused a little incident and ended up being brought here as a containment subject."