Chapter 198
Chapter 198
Su-a's lips brushed against my cheek.
It was incredibly soft and warm. Maybe it lingered just a moment longer. After all, Su-a was wearing lip gloss.
Normally I could never have let that slide, but I'd just taken a far stronger hit moments before, so this time I managed to keep some grip on my sanity.
Well, some grip.
Even though two beautiful girls had kissed me more than once now, that didn't mean I was getting used to it. In my previous life I'd never so much as dated a girl, let alone kissed one. My resistance to this sort of thing was painfully low.
I turned my head, face burning red, and found Su-a with her cheeks just as flushed.
"I like you."
Her expression looked ready to spill tears any second, and it stole my voice.
Su-a was bent at the waist, looking at me over my shoulder, and I'd turned to face her. We stared straight into each other's eyes.
In Su-a's clear, lake-like eyes, it was the moment just before rain.
Maybe Su-a was pushing her own embarrassment to its limit. Enough to make her cry.
She was holding it in, though. It made her look unbearably endearing.
"I don't know what answer you gave Ha-neul. But whatever you said, whatever your relationship with her is now—I like you. I think I probably liked you even before she did."
She spoke as if she already knew what Ha-neul had done after leaving the room.
Which made sense, really. Su-a had come in not long after Ha-neul. And she'd seen the "Friendship Ring" on my left hand. I could guess what she'd been imagining.
My mind was turning over at least that much.
But even if Su-a was misunderstanding, I couldn't easily clear it up.
Because my throat felt completely blocked. I couldn't make a sound.
The kiss Su-a had pressed to my cheek was less overwhelming than the lips Ha-neul had pressed onto mine over and over. That much was obvious.
Still, the fact that two girls had confessed to me in a single day was so staggering it blew past the acts themselves. In my previous life, I'd never experienced being popular with girls.
And on top of that......
What had Su-a just said?
Right. "Even before she did."
That could just be Su-a's own take, of course. Neither of us could know precisely when Ha-neul had started to like me as a romantic interest.
Maybe, as someone who liked another person herself, Su-a had simply recognized and felt that same emotion in Ha-neul.
Ha-neul had said she liked me from before she ever met "Sara." Assuming she fell for me in a very short span—no, assuming it was love at first sight—
Then that would mean Su-a did, too.
......Wouldn't that mean they'd fallen for Sara, not for me?
Sara is beautiful. Plenty of people would take one look at her face and feel drawn to her.
I was trying to set my feelings in order with that thought when—
"I felt it the first time I talked to you. You were the one who treated me without any prejudice when I first approached you. Even though you'd been treated unfairly by the people around you, and even though you knew I was among them, you accepted me like it was nothing. I admired you for that."
"Uh, wait, Su-a. Hold on."
If we went by that logic, then the one who had done all that before me wasn't me; it was Sara.
Just as Su-a had owed Sara an apology, seeing the difference between my attitude and Sara's meant Su-a had gotten the wrong idea.
But before I could get those words out—
"I know."
She cut me off.
"I know. I know that was a misunderstanding. I know now that the first feeling I had toward you was my mistake, and that the real 'Sara' was someone else."
She must have steadied herself as she spoke, because the tears that had looked seconds from falling were gone.
In their place, past those blue eyes, something like resolve had settled.
Probably the resolve to throw her heart at me without holding back. She'd finally gotten a moment alone with me, after all.
"But I don't regret it. Because I've watched everything you've done since. I've seen what kind of person the one I like really is. How kind......"
Su-a swallowed dryly.
"......And how wonderful."
"......."
My mouth had fallen open again and wouldn't close. Something in my jaw must have broken.
I stared at Su-a blankly for a long moment. Then she straightened up. She walked around, stood in front of me, and my eyes and head followed her face without thinking.
Now we were facing each other.
Normally Su-a was just a little shorter than me, but since I was sitting in the chair, I was looking up at her from quite a distance, and she was looking down at me.
"So, I like you."
Su-a smiled softly.
The expression from a moment ago, the one that looked ready to burst into tears, was gone.
As if just thinking of me made her that happy.
Su-a was beaming.
"I like you."
And then Su-a's face drew closer to mine.
This time, it wasn't my cheek. It was my lips.
*
"......."
A soft smack—a kiss so incredibly brief, even briefer than Ha-neul's or Sara's, and Su-a spun around and rushed out of the room.
I stayed in the chair a long while, then buried my face in my hands again.
I wanted to scream.
Not out of fear or anything. I wanted to scream from sheer embarrassment. Because the girls around me had been liking me this much, and I'd had no idea at all.
No, more than that—this situation made no sense. The game this world was based on definitely had Yu Ha-neul as the protagonist. The whole appeal was running around sweet-talking every pretty girl and boy with nothing but choice options, wasn't it? I'd naturally assumed this world would revolve around Yu Ha-neul, too.
So if anyone was going to end up with a harem, it would be Yu Ha-neul.
But Ha-neul's choice had been me.
Because of that, until Su-a walked in, I'd thought I was on some kind of modified Ye Sa-ra Route. I'd been seriously agonizing over how to handle it......
Was I the one on the harem route all along?
......Wait.
A sudden thought flashed through my head.
I mean, in most harem-genre stories, the protagonist doesn't realize the harem is forming until way, way later. In reality, the harem has already been assembled long before that, and once you start getting confessions, they come at you in a dizzying rush. The end result is the protagonist gets stuck in a total deadlock and can't date anyone.
So, in other words, maybe—
"......Nah, no way."
The first person who came to mind was So-hee, who was always at my side. The girl who showed me enormous goodwill and jumped in feet-first to help with anything I wanted.
......Now that I thought about it, in front of other people she was a straight-up scary punk, but whenever it was just the two of us, she practically acted like a big dog.
She'd also gotten insanely jealous when Su-a and I bathed together......
.......
Ah.
The bath.
.......
So—lately, with the excuse that "there's only one shower," Ha-neul, Su-a, So-hee, and I had been taking turns washing up together.
And if two of those three were in love with me......
Had I been bathing with girls who like me?
"Ah, aaaaah......"
I didn't actually let out a shriek.
To emphasize it once more: the party was still going on just beyond that door.
"......."
On the off chance, I stared hard at the door. Would someone else come in? Would someone else walk in with a present and confess?
.......
But even after what felt like five full minutes of staring, there was no sign of anyone.
"Hoo."
I let out a long breath and laid a hand over my chest.
My pounding heart was slowly starting to calm down.
Alright. For now, I'll deal with the fact that two people confessed to me tonight. I'll analyze rationally what happened, and why they came to like me.
......No matter what, mentally I was still a guy in my twenties.
It felt good to have such pretty girls like me, but that didn't mean I could cross any lines.
......I'd have to make myself accept that part, somehow.
I took a deep breath and was about to head back to the party when—
I realized I was still wearing Ha-neul's friendship ring on my finger.
......I can't just take it off. It's a gift filled with Ha-neul's feelings.
As a temporary measure, I moved the ring over to my pinky.
It didn't fit as snugly as it had on my ring finger, but at least it wasn't going to slip off. I deliberately made a tight fist.
I would make absolutely sure I didn't lose it.
The precious feelings she'd given me, at the very least, I couldn't let myself ignore those.