Someone Who Wants to Escape
"Huff, huff."
I'd been running my ass off for what felt like forever, and for some reason I'd turned into the green dinosaur from Bubble Bobble. I knew it the moment I saw that vacant face staring back at me from the stream.
Tiny, adorable footsteps went pitter-patter under me, so cute it didn't even feel like I was running. My legs had gone stubby too.
So why was I running?
"Where do you think you're going? We're playing this next."
"Get lost! Get lost! For fuck's sake!"
Because of the pink dinosaur right behind me, chasing me down with an armful of bizarre games.
"If you stop now, I'll let you off with three forehead flicks. No — two."
"Fuck! I'll die either way, so just don't! Huff!"
A dead end, sealed off by a massive boulder. I'd become a dinosaur barely as tall as a Smurf's shorts, so climbing it was out of the question. Could there be a more clichéd, half-assed way to go? This was a genuinely lazy ending.
I have to die looking like this big-headed dinosaur?!
Then someone called down to me from atop the boulder.
"Dongha! Catch this!"
It was Nine. She stretched her blouse out toward me — meaning I should grab it and climb.
Even a colleague with a rotten personality comes around at the last moment. That's just how these stories go, huh. The bitterness in my chest melted away like snow.
Sorry I used to hope you'd die of ALS.
A slip, then a thud. Nine wasn't grabbing me to pull me up. She just threw it.
"Have this washed by tomorrow."
"You fucking bitch."
Tap, tap. I turned around to find the pink dinosaur wearing a wicked expression, patting my shoulder.
"N-no."
"Yes!"
The pink dinosaur lunged, jaws stretched wide enough to split.
"Fuuuuck!"
"Huff, huff."
I looked around. It was the room the Demon King had lent me.
"Hah. Hah."
A dream. It was a dream.
"Whew."
I collapsed back onto the bed. Sweat that had been cascading down my back like a waterfall clung to my skin.
God. My first real sleep in days, and I get a shitty dream like that.
How badly had I been put through the wringer to dream something like that. I felt endlessly pathetic.
How many days has it been now...
Quite some time had passed since I'd been locked up here. I'd gotten familiar enough with the place that the layout felt like second nature. The party members I'd shared that long journey with were fading from my memory. In contrast, the Demon King's face and voice were burned vividly into my mind.
There were a few locked rooms I still couldn't get into, but I'd more or less figured out where everything was. I'd mapped it all out during the bathroom breaks she gave me every six hours while we were playing Bubble Bobble.
That bitch.
She doesn't seem like she'll kill me right now... but I never know when she might snap.
Right now I looked like someone the Demon King needed. She needed someone to play games with — someone who was actually decent at them.
There's probably nobody else quite like me.
Not that I was bragging, but I'd spent my childhood taking apart and finishing pretty much every game I ever picked up.
Fuck... I should've listened to Mom.
Dongha. If you play games every day, life's going to get hard later, you know?
I didn't know it'd get hard like this...
If I'd known the Demon King had that kind of personality, should I have pretended I sucked at games from the start?
No. That wasn't a given either. If I'd had no use, she might've just swatted me dead like a bug. There was no point dissecting the past based solely on how things had turned out.
Anyway. I can't drag this out. I have to get out of here.
That was the Demon King. King of the demon race, the devil who swallowed half the continent... according to the lore.
She's the type who could change her mind and tear me to pieces, and it wouldn't even be out of character.
Even if the Demon King had a pretty face, cooked well, peeled apples well, and had enough innocence to hug someone out of sheer joy when she cleared a game — her fundamental nature didn't change.
Isn't there some way?
Maybe right now was when her guard had crumbled the most. The games so far had ended with her pretty satisfied. If I slipped up later with other games, her grip might only get tighter.
Now's the time. I need to find a way, and fast...
Pad, pad.
The sound of the Demon King's bare feet in the hallway. On reflex I yanked the blanket over my head, turned my back to the door, and played dead.
The door clicked and creaked open.
"...Still asleep?"
I held my breath. Wait — should I pretend to breathe? Should I snore? Just breathe softly, like I was out cold? Trying to fake sleep with any real commitment made my head spin, so I just kept my eyes shut and stayed still.
"...I made this so we could play..."
Get lost! Fuck! I don't know what it is, but you go play with it yourself! You're gonna grab me and torment me for days again!
She wouldn't wake me the way she had last time, with that jolt of electricity. She'd said it herself before I fell asleep.
We beat Bubble Bobble, so get some good rest.
She was weirdly scrupulous about match penalties and promises. She'd just leave without waking me, right?
"..."
...
The door clicked and creaked.
...Okay. She left...
Then something in my chest dropped like a stone.
HUUUH!!!!
I genuinely thought my heart was going to punch through my ribcage and split into twelve pieces. I'd cracked my eyes open thinking she was gone, but her reflection in the wall window was still in the room.
Stay calm. Don't panic.
"...You."
Pad, pad.
Why are you coming over, you crazy bitch! Leave! You already confirmed I'm sleeping!
A thump. She perched on the edge of the bed.
Should I just get up?
She might've already noticed I was awake. With the Demon King's bottomless magic, it somehow seemed possible.
At this point?
No. I couldn't. It was already too late. I had no choice but to stay like this...
A heavy flop.
A distinctly different weight. The mattress sank deep. The Demon King had lain down behind me, my back still turned. I could tell from the way the bed dipped. She hadn't sat down — she'd lain down. I had no idea in what position.
"..."
...
Why? What was the purpose? To burst my terrified heart? To beat the shit out of me until I groveled and apologized for faking sleep?
How long had we been like this?
"....Hehe... ihihit."
Behind me, the Demon King was giggling in a low voice.
...Why was she doing this.
This might as well have been a horror movie. A woman who might kill me was lying behind me, snickering. I was this close to wetting the bed. And if I pissed on the mattress she'd lent me...
No!
Hold it in, Baek Dongha! Th-that's it! Recall happy memories to suppress the fear!
I flipped rapidly through the pages of my memories. Among them, the happy ones with bookmarks in them slowly soothed me, like the sound of a music box by the bedside. With each page I turned, a little more.
...Okay. I'm calming down.
Rustle, rustle.
...Getting calmer, and...
Good job! Youuu!
Out of nowhere, a bookmark was stuck in the memory of the Demon King hugging me. My heart started pounding again. Definitely because of the fear.
Why are YOU in there! You bitch! I'm in this mess because of you! Read the room and back off!
The hell. Sitting pretty in a place of honor in my beautiful memories, my personal hall of fame.
A soft slip of movement.
Had she heard my inner get lost? The Demon King, who had no way of knowing I was fighting a lonely war all by myself, smoothly got up from the bed. Pad, pad. She headed straight for the door. A click, a creak.
...She's gone.
This time she actually left. Still, I couldn't relax, so I stayed like that for what felt like another three minutes. If she came back now, I could just say I'd only just woken up.
Hah....
I felt like a man trapped in the jungle wearing nothing but a pair of underwear. The risk of death was always along for the ride...
Should I write a will...
Forget it. Who'd even read it.
This shitty world had nobody in it for me except those party-member bitches who made me do laundry and demanded piggyback rides in full plate armor.
Lying there so long made my shoulders stiff. I threw off the blanket, walked to the window, and looked down. Clouds were laid out so thick I couldn't see the ground.
If I fell, I'd die.
Obviously. Even Rebecca, our strongest tank, would die if she fell from here.
A will... falling...
A pretty decent idea occurred to me. It was basically lottery-level odds, but I needed even a sliver of hope I could hold onto.
I rummaged through every drawer in the room. Luckily, there was one old book, covered in writing in a language I didn't know.
If I just tear out a couple pages from around the middle, it won't be noticeable.
I tore them out as quietly as possible, in case the Demon King might hear from outside the door.
The problem was, there was no pen.
That was right. It wasn't a brilliant idea. I just wanted to write on a scrap of paper that there was a person being held alone in the Demon King's castle at the top of the tower, and please beat the crap out of the Demon King and come save me — then throw it down below.
The odds of anyone seeing it are slim.
But even that was enough. I needed a reason to hold on in this hopeless situation.
I've never actually done this before.
I pressed my index finger against a broken edge of the window glass. Without hesitation, I dragged it across.
"Ugh."
Blood as crimson as her eyes ran down my knuckles.
Ah, no.
It couldn't drip on the floor. Getting caught because of bloodstains was way too obvious a cliché. I quickly let the blood run out the window while scribbling on the paper, in big letters.
I am being held captive by the evil Demon King. Please save me.
Done. A short, clear sentence. I wrote the same phrase on both pages. I debated crumpling them up and throwing them versus folding them into paper airplanes, then decided on paper airplanes. This area was a sparsely populated canyon. I figured they'd be better off flying far.
Careful not to get them wet with my bleeding hand, I sent off the airplane I'd folded crease by crease with painstaking care. I immediately sent another one after it. I shut the window fast, as if someone might see.
Please... hang in there.
If only I could shrink down and ride that airplane out of here.
The door clicked and creaked open.
How long had it even been since she left, and the Demon King was coming in. A chilling thought occurred to me — had this girl been coming in and out this whole time even while I was asleep?
"You're up? This time we're playing... hm?"
The Demon King's gaze went to my bleeding fingertips. Pad, pad. As she approached, I quickly shoved the book I'd torn pages from under the bed. Luckily, she didn't seem to notice.
"Uh, I just woke up a bit ago."
How was I supposed to explain this blood...
"...Be more careful. Cure."
A warm light enveloped the wound.
Effect:Instant recovery
The Demon King cast a healing spell on my fingertip, and the throbbing wound closed in an instant.
"...Thanks."
Fortunately, she didn't press about how I'd cut my finger.
"Hungry?"
The Demon King asked quietly, a gentle smile on her face. Her wide mouth opened slightly, revealing her snaggletooth.
"Yeah."
I was fucking starving. For three days of Bubble Bobble I'd been stuffing myself with nothing but peas right there on the spot, then passed out from exhaustion the moment it ended.
"Let's eat."
She smiled prettily, her red eyes half-lidded.
...Maybe I shouldn't have written "evil" on the paper airplane.
"I've already picked what we're playing after we eat."
Evil bitch.