A Female Best Friend Is Just a Friend
Love is,
sweet like chocolate.
Looking at chocolate's dull, murky color, who would ever think it was sweet?
But those who've tasted it know.
They know that moment of sweetness so intense it could rot your teeth.
So you have to taste it.
That tooth-rotting sweetness — romance.
And so I decided to confess to the girls closest to me.
Leonhart. Let's be together.
— Are you insane? You want to date me? Hah, I'm so speechless….
A tragic romance fantasy novel, forced into an indefinite hiatus by the author's death.
Lee Hyun, a devoted reader of that novel, scrolled down and finally lost his temper.
"Crazy bitch. She was throwing a tantrum yesterday asking for a hug, and now this."
Silvia. I want to promise you my whole life.
— No. Don't say such disgusting things.
"Fuck, stop bullshitting! You two did it last week, didn't you!"
Lee Hyun couldn't hold back again.
Let's be toge…
I…
I want to date…
After that, the novel never revealed who the male lead, Sion Behmut, had been rejected by.
But no long explanation was needed.
The situation could be summed up in exactly two sentences.
Sion Behmut, who had been enjoying his happiness with his female best friend, fed on her quasi-romantic feelings and grew into a pongpong-i.
And that's the end of the story.
Of course, the novel didn't actually describe it that way — but that's exactly how it looked to my eyes.
"Wow, wow. Oh man. I'm so pissed. Those damn bitches. Turning a sucker into a pongpong-i."
Especially that last bitch — Leonhart's follow-up response was truly memorable.
— You think someone like you could… Don't you have any conscience? You're just an attachment doll. A disposable item I use and discard when I get a little lonely. Nothing more, nothing less. You'd better wake up from that dream soon~
"You — if I were Sion, I'd kill you. Right in front of your face, I'd just —"
"Huh, yeah! If I could become Sion, it wouldn't just be this bitch — the rest of them too…"
"…Wait a second. Where the hell is this voice coming from?"
Zzzzt—
And that sentence was the last thing he said while still himself — the Korean man Lee Hyun.
"So? Why did you call me, Sion?"
While his brain still buzzed with the ringing of a mind not yet recovered, the girl before him registered as an image in his vision.
Her features carried a childlike youthfulness, yet her eyes, brows, nose, and lips were sharply defined.
Platinum hair bloomed like a flower, and a butterfly seemed to rest on the slight upward curve of her lips.
People say there's a fox spirit that bewitches men. Here she was.
"Leonhart?"
When Sion called her name, the platinum-haired beauty Leonhart flinched and shivered.
But soon, her eyes swept up and down his body with a burning intensity, and her current mood reflected in a sharp, brittle voice.
"Yeah, why did you call me? Don't tell me you're delusional again just because I met with you yesterday? I was just…"
"No, what the hell are you muttering about the second I see you? My head's already killing me."
"Wha— what do you mean? M-muttering? Are you crazy? You're actually crazy?"
Leonhart trembled all over, startled by Sion's rough words and behavior, so different from before.
It was part shame, part proof of the fear that had taken deep root in her heart.
"Ah, fuck. Is this a dream? My head hurts so bad I can't think straight. Anyway, whether it's a dream or whatever, this works out. Let's have a real talk while we're at it."
"Wha— what's going on… what are you doing…"
Leonhart couldn't hide her flustered expression, her face turning crimson as she urged him on.
"You. From now on, don't meet with Sion privately. Especially one-on-one."
"What do you m— what are you suddenly saying, and Sion, you're acting weird, why are you referring to yourself in the third person…"
"Shut up. You've been doing all sorts of things with Sion this whole time, haven't you? And you never even planned to confess back, did you? Get the fuck out of here, you bitch!"
"……!"
At Sion's words, which pierced straight through her thoughts, she froze completely.
She could only open and close her mouth, trying to find some excuse — but there was no ground for a rebuttal.
And so she became pathetic.
People always become endlessly despicable in the face of truth.
"Y-you enjoyed it too, didn't you? Was I the only one? You liked me too…"
"Don't give me that shit. Sion genuinely wanted to date you. In fact, you were his first. Got that?"
Struck at the most tender spot, right at the very end, she became a scarecrow.
She just stood there like a scarecrow, listening silently to what Sion said. Her mouth was too ashamed to utter a single word.
But the pride buried deep at the bottom of her heart was terrifying.
It clung to her more stubbornly than ever, gnawing at her from the inside — the exact opposite of what her heart wanted.
"So what, what are you going to do! You want to stop meeting? Great! I never planned to date you anyway, I…"
"Ah, right, that's not something you get to say. That's my line. Watch your mouth."
She was beginning to feel, skin-deep, that Sion was serious.
"Y-you… if you say that, it's really over between us."
Leonhart finally began to get angry.
Like a child begging for a toy, her eyes fixed on Sion with a crazed, obsessive gleam.
Infinite love.
Infinite affection.
Someone who would just sit there like a doll no matter what she did to him.
A doll whose only purpose was to be a little more comforting — one she could discard when she wanted, hurt when she felt like it…
"I'm not your attachment doll anymore. And!"
Sion paused for a beat before continuing.
More precisely, it was Lee Hyun's soul, now inside Sion's body, that was shouting at her.
"Don't try to have a quasi-romance with me while being my female best friend. You're just a friend. We won't have much reason to see each other from now on."
Maybe exchange a greeting when we pass each other? That's about it?
Sion added with a shrug.
Then, as if he'd gone mad, he started laughing.
Heh heh heh.
"Ha, fuck, I feel so relieved. What's gotten into me, dreaming like this. Lately it's all been nightmares."
Lee Hyun, who had become Sion, didn't know.
He didn't know that this world was the actual world of the novel he'd been reading, and that this wasn't a dream — it was real.
But he didn't need to know.
Either way, whether he was the real Sion or not, he'd wanted to land a blow on Leonhart.
The result would have been the same.
"Ah, no… Sion. This isn't right. Until yesterday we were…"
Amid all this, Leonhart collapsed, sinking to the ground.
Where she sat, her tears dripped down and soaked the ground, and her face — distorted enough to hide her pretty features — looked up at him.
And above her stood Sion.
The one who had branded her as just a friend.
Her eyes, already numb from the first blow, caught sight of his gaze.
I'm… nothing to him.
Those merciless eyes, that pupil that didn't even register her existence — they drove another dagger into her heart.
It was a finishing blow.
Sion, who had been laughing for a while, now found tears pricking at his eyes for a different reason. He wiped at the corner of his eye and muttered,
"But when's this gonna end? This dream's way too long, isn't it?"
Then he dragged his cheek down like taffy, slapping his own face. He pinched his side and screamed in pain.
Leonhart, whose mental state was already cracking, found that sight growing more and more terrifying.
A demon. A demon has possessed Sion's body.
That's how she wanted to believe it — the situation was so agonizingly strange.
"Hey, hey! Wait, is this not a dream? Now that I think about it, I remember hearing some weird voice at the end…"
The demon, Sion Behmut, soon fell into a dazed expression.
He strode over to a pond by the roadside, checked his reflection, and screamed, "Ah! It's Sion!"
Then he came back and, poking at the platinum-haired beauty, said, "Then you're the real Leonhart, huh."
Leonhart, utterly bewildered, felt her mind going blank.
If this bizarre situation continued even a little longer, she looked like she'd faint right there on the spot.
Rather, Leonhart wanted to believe that all of this was a dream.
Leonhart just kept crying. An enormous amount of tears poured out like a waterfall.
"Wow, you know what."
Sion frowned at the sight.
Maybe seeing her cry stirred a bit of sympathy in him? Or maybe it was just her familiarity with handling attachment-seeking people — she turned her hope circuit on again.
But when Sion spoke, that hope was crushed mercilessly.
"I thought you were pretty, honestly. But now that you're crying, you really aren't. Don't ever cry again — that's advice from me as a friend."
Sion pressed his brows together as hard as he could, packing every word with sincerity.
At that, Leonhart — wounded even deeper — fainted right there on the spot.
She'd already been in a stunned state from the earlier situation, and she simply couldn't withstand another incantation from the demon named Sion.
"Ah, hey! What the hell! Why'd you just cry and then pass out on your own?"
Sion scratched his head.
This wasn't the picture he'd had in mind.
He'd imagined her either getting angry or crying and running away — not just collapsing in the middle of the street.
"Man, seriously. This isn't how it's supposed to go."
So Sion hoisted the fainted Leonhart over his shoulder.
He happened to remember his days doing loading and unloading work in Korea as Lee Hyun. He kept his upper body straight to avoid hurting his back, and carried the meat sack efficiently.
"Is there a hospital around here…? Or should I at least go to an infirmary."
Now that he thought about it, in this romance fantasy novel, Sion and Leonhart were from the same academy.
With that thought, something resembling a medieval school came into view in the distance.
If I go there, there should be at least an infirmary, Sion thought to himself, and walked toward the building that looked like an academy.
"Still, passing out is no good."
Leonhart dangled from the edge of Sion's shoulder, swaying like a balloon doll.
Sion glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and spoke to her with sad eyes.
"I still haven't gotten all my frustration out, you know."
The corner of Sion's mouth twitched.