Chapter 90
Chapter 90
I felt deeply unsettled.
I had suspected it, honestly. Unless you were especially terrifying, there was no reason for kids from wealthy families to grovel quite that hard.
But still, making someone disappear, setting a building on fire.
Those were things that could happen, I guess.
Right. Even in the reality I came from, insane situations that would put fiction to shame happened from time to time. And isn't it a cliché in this sort of story for rich people to physically torment those without money?
Besides, the original Ye Sa-ra had genuinely wanted to do anything she could to Yu Ha-neul.
...And that was what made it so much more unsettling.
So much so that when I considered how my actions might cause something like that to happen to a friend, I wondered if I should cut ties right now.
The only reason I was still hesitating was that it was all still just rumors.
If there was actual evidence that Choi Na-kyung had behaved that way, I would have put distance between myself and my friends at once. I didn't want them getting hurt on my account.
And if they ever tried to use violence against me... there were too many terrible things to imagine.
I didn't think anyone could do something to Lee Su-a, a daughter from a family you'd recognize just by name, no matter how I looked at it. But Ha-neul and So-hee were a different story. And So-hee had her little sister So-ri to think about, too.
No matter how much I tried to keep myself from thinking the worst, thoughts like that kept creeping in.
...Should I just move their whole families into the mansion?
I had the means, if I wanted to. But I didn't think they'd accept. Even if I tried to force it on them, they wouldn't much like it.
And a method like that is no different from what Choi Na-kyung does.
....
I guess the priority for now is finding that boy Ye Sa-ra talked to when she was younger. I couldn't know what became of him, but at least by tracing the details, I could definitively confirm whether or not the things Choi Na-kyung did were real.
"Sara."
As we walked without speaking for a while, Ha-neul poked my arm from beside me.
"Eep."
Ambushed out of nowhere, I let out a bizarre noise before I could stop myself.
...Why on earth am I like this, though? I never made a noise like that back when I was a guy. It's not that I was never startled, but I never let out a weird sound like this.
Could this be some kind of instinct imprinted on Ye Sa-ra's body?
I don't recall the original story showing her this goofy and absentminded, though.
Maybe it was because the original point of view was entirely Yu Ha-neul's, and she was being bullied by Ye Sa-ra. Even the developers wouldn't have gone out of their way to craft moments where Ye Sa-ra looked sympathetic.
...Or all of this was setting they put in later for the Ye Sa-ra Route.
Right. This game definitely had a Ye Sa-ra Route. I'd only watched the Yoon Da-ho Route and the Shin So-hee Route, where the backstory never came up, so I hadn't known Ye Sa-ra was a character in this kind of position. But once a player got onto the Ye Sa-ra Route, they'd need a story that made you feel for the 'villainess' Ye Sa-ra.
The part where she did evil deeds might've been a genuine outburst of despair, or a misunderstanding. Or a mix of both. I could hypothesize along those lines.
...But if that's the case, doesn't that make Yoon Da-ho a way worse bastard than I thought?
I get why he hated Ye Sa-ra, and I also get that his engagement to her wasn't something he wanted. But if Yoon Da-ho ends up with Yu Ha-neul, that basically means he shrugged Ye Sa-ra off while knowing full well the kind of situation she was in.
And I had already seen the Yoon Da-ho Route. Not the whole thing, of course, but I watched it in the streamer's highlight compilation.
Yoon Da-ho never once brings up Ye Sa-ra's backstory.
And in the end, he breaks off the engagement and ends up with Yu Ha-neul.
...Did he really end up with her because he liked Yu Ha-neul?
Maybe he was just trying to use Yu Ha-neul to peel Ye Sa-ra off of himself.
I remembered the expression Yoon Da-ho wore when he'd looked at me last time. Not his usual expression of looking at something disgusting, but a somewhat relieved one. As if to say, 'do your best with me.'
"...Sara."
"Ah, yes."
When I spaced out again even after responding once, Ha-neul tugged at my arm a second time. I finally answered properly.
"Don't worry too much about the stuff we heard today."
Ha-neul looked into my face and spoke, as if she were worried.
"...."
I couldn't bring myself to answer.
What could I say? I know the future—no, because I knew it, I'd drawn in the heroines, saying I was trying to dodge my own ruin. Truthfully, if I hadn't deliberately approached them or let them approach me, these three people would have been outside the story entirely. Even Yu Ha-neul would've just dated around and wound up with her Happy Ending if I'd left things alone.
"...Okay."
I answered like that, because it seemed like she'd worry if I didn't. But how could I not be worried?
I was the one who brought them in. Protecting them was my responsibility.
...Ultimately, because of that thought, I couldn't focus properly on studying that day.
Not that I ever thought concentrating would've changed anything, really.
*
If she had her way, she wanted to sleep over at Sara's place.
But if she slept over this time, she'd keep doing it again, and again—those thoughts would continue.
No matter what, she couldn't push it that far. Her family had already been worrying about her lately, seeing her lost in silent thought at home. They'd be concerned just from her coming home late; staying out overnight repeatedly was too much.
...And that was precisely why Yu Ha-neul was so frustrated with herself for thinking this way.
So-hee and Su-a could confidently leave their homes and live at Sara's. The fact that she couldn't bring herself to do the same infuriated her.
A day or so she could consider. But whatever the case, leaving her family to move into that house... that felt a little wrong to her.
Maybe it was because she'd been taught that way since she was young.
Lately, she felt like that was gradually crumbling, but Yu Ha-neul was the type to earnestly learn what she was taught at school and resolve to live by it.
She believed wrong things must be corrected immediately, never just let slide.
And because of that, she had always thought that she, too, must never do wrong.
But after coming to Hwayeong High School, her perspective shifted.
The people who are truly in the wrong don't even realize what they're doing is wrong. They take it for granted, and so they break the rules without a care.
And to stand up against people like that, you have to break the rules from your side, too.
Unless they take a hit, those kinds of humans have no way of realizing for themselves why they need to stop.
Yu Ha-neul had realized this in less than a single month of attending Hwayeong High School.
She wasn't particularly grateful to the people who'd made her realize it. Because if the person she liked hadn't been in there with them, Yu Ha-neul would have dropped out long ago.
...Right. The person she liked.
Up until now, she'd thought it was possessiveness over a friend. She'd concluded it was ordinary jealousy, something that flared up and then faded.
But it wasn't.
The more people gathered around Sara, the closer she got to people other than her, the more anxious Yu Ha-neul became.
What should I do?
How can I get closer than those girls?
How can I be with her and never be apart?
All through class, those thoughts had looped inside her head.
...If Sara decided to spend the rest of her life together with a certain person, and that person wasn't her, would Yu Ha-neul be able to bear it?
Yes, truthfully, she wasn't really in a position to say anything to Sara. Because she'd been just as unable to concentrate in class as Sara had been.
Not yet.
She still lacked the courage or the standing to run that far forward.
Even so, Yu Ha-neul couldn't help but think that.
"...."
After her three friends saw her off, Yu Ha-neul stood watching their retreating backs for a long while, and then she turned around and started walking. The weather was just beginning its transition from winter to spring, so it wasn't particularly cold.
It wasn't cold, but she had no intention of having a conversation outside.
The place Yu Ha-neul entered was a café tucked around a corner. She'd been here several times before. Despite its exterior, they used high-end beans and had delicious tiramisu.
She ordered a cup of coffee and sat in a corner seat of the quiet café.
And she waited.
After a long wait, the person she'd been waiting for finally walked through the door.
It was Yang Hye-in, whom she'd once seen wearing a black coat. Under that coat, she was surely wearing a maid uniform.
Unhurriedly, Yang Hye-in came inside, placed her order, and then naturally approached the corner seat where Yu Ha-neul was sitting. As if they'd arranged to meet at this very table from the start.
Then she pulled a slip of paper from her coat pocket, unfolded it, and placed it in front of Yu Ha-neul.
[After you head back, at that café we saw last time.]
The note, torn from the corner of a notebook, was written in Yu Ha-neul's handwriting.
As Yang Hye-in looked straight at her, Yu Ha-neul nodded with a stiff expression.
Yang Hye-in, with a graceful motion, sat down in the empty seat across from her.
"Might I ask for what reason you've called me out like this?"
"This."
Yu Ha-neul took out Sara's notebook, which she'd brought with her. She'd brought it out under the pretext of reading it herself and pointing out places to correct; the notebook only had a few pages written so far.
"...."
Yang Hye-in accepted the notebook and flipped lightly through a few pages, reading them.
"This notebook is—"
"A notebook Sara wrote in."
Before Yang Hye-in could finish speaking, Yu Ha-neul cut in.
"We got together to study today. That's the content Sara wrote."
"...."
Yang Hye-in looked at the notebook again. Her eyes widened slightly. Since her expression was normally almost unwaveringly fixed, that change felt more dramatic than it would from someone else.
"Can you tell something's off?"
"...."
Yang Hye-in opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Then she slowly examined the beginning of the notebook once more.
...But there was still so little written at the front of the notebook that it didn't take more than a few moments to flip through.
"By now you've noticed."
Yu Ha-neul spoke.
"If this is supposed to be Sara's handwriting."
Yang Hye-in lifted her head. She still hadn't said anything, but the slight waver in her eyes was distinctly visible.
"That suicide note you showed me, who wrote it?"
...Yu Ha-neul still lacked the standing to rush ahead like everyone else.
And if that's how it was, then what about bolting in a direction the others weren't going in?
That was what she thought.