There's a Traitor Among My Masochist Girlfriends
After Juwon figured he'd put Harin's suspicions to rest—
Night was beginning to settle over the streets of the university district.
"Heh, hehehe— I made contact with Juwon! Contact! Finally, finally, finally—! He changed so much I almost freaked out, but somehow I pulled it off…!!"
Unlike that morning, Euna was properly dressed under her coat now—and still she bounced down the street with such abandon that she drew every eye around her. Her fluffy egg-perm bobbed in the breeze, and that absurdly wide childbearing-hip of hers, completely out of proportion with her height, swayed and jiggled in her tight clothes, snaring the attention of every man who passed. Euna herself only had eyes for one man, though, and she made no effort to hide the grin stretching her lips.
"The others said it was impossible, but I was right all along! The one holding onto Juwon is Harin! The way his memories got wiped clean, the way his daily routine works—she's been slipping in brainwashing little by little so he never notices…! Everything everyone was afraid of was already happening…!"
And with that, she had her justification.
A justification to move the three girls who had refused to help her and chosen, for their own reasons, to sit back and watch. In fact, Euna had already arranged to meet one of those three. Ordinarily she could have talked it over at the base they'd secured—the Club Room—but she knew she'd get chewed out if they found out she'd gone off on her own. So her plan was to meet the one among the three with the tightest lips, the one whose help would matter most, one-on-one, spill everything, and ask for her cooperation.
She's got that space-cadet side, so I can't be sure… but if she does help me, someone like Harin would go down in one hit. One hit…!
Feeling like a knight on a white horse, she couldn't keep the corners of her mouth from climbing as she slipped into one of the darker corners of the university streets. The meeting place her contact had named was a bar somewhere around here, so she kept checking her phone against the surrounding streets, praying hard that this would all work out.
"This way… maybe…?"
And so, of course, she got lost.
Her head was full of Juwon, her heart full of worry for Juwon—she'd gone completely stupid over one man—and in that state she was wandering the alleys of a neighborhood she'd never been to. The result was inevitable.
"Ugh, I'm gonna be late~! She doesn't get mad over stuff like this, but asking for help and then showing up super late is still kinda bad! Ugh, ugh, I gotta hurry!"
She puffed out her cheeks and stamped her feet, muttering about who designs a neighborhood like this. Her heart was already racing from the scale of what she was trying to pull off—getting stonewalled by something this petty just made her more irritated. But no amount of irritation would make her power useful here, so she shoved Juwon out of her mind, forced herself calm, and carefully rechecked the map on her phone. Only then did she realize the alley she was standing in was on the opposite side of the meeting place.
"I went a whole block too far…! Am I actually an idiot…!"
Now that she knew her mistake, all that remained was getting to the destination.
Assuming, of course, that no one showed up to stop her.
"Huh?"
"…………"
Halfway down the alley, she came face-to-face with a woman standing stock-still, chest out, staring blankly into space.
"Um, excuse me~? Hey, can I get past, please~?"
Her speech was already a little airheaded on a good day; right now it was worse. She waved a hand in front of the dazed woman's face, asking her to clear the way because she was in a hurry—but the woman didn't so much as twitch.
"…Eh."
The same chill Juwon had felt that morning hit Euna now.
Cold. Blunt. A chill that squeezed her heart in a fist.
She whipped around.
"Eh… ueh… eeh…… Hyaaaaaaaaiii~?!"
There were people behind her too.
Five unknown women at her back. Five more when she looked forward again. They had sealed the alley front and rear so she couldn't slip past, standing there vacant-eyed. Their clothes were all different—no shared uniform, no shared job.
A zombie horde.
No one spoke. Breathing was kept to the bare minimum. They simply blocked the path and stared into nothing, and Euna trembled at the sight of them.
"Eh, uh, th-that's… th-this is… maybe…… that thing…! You all got hit with that thing…!"
She didn't need to guess.
"You all… got done by Harin… didn't you…?!"
She knew better than anyone that she didn't need to say it out loud—and still it burst out of her. It was the same as a moviegoer screaming at a jump scare they already knew was coming. And the moment she realized she'd failed, the path ahead opened, and the ringleader of this little performance art piece stepped into view.
"Hik?!"
"You really are a pain in the ass. Not that I hate you—it's more like the type where seeing you every once in a while just dumps stress on me… Like some animal that would've gone extinct if it weren't cute."
She must have stopped home; her eye makeup was heavier than usual, the kind of look that screamed bitch. The fur coat she wore was thick and flashy, and with her brainwashed followers arrayed around her she looked exactly like the villainess out of some drama.
"Ha—Ha—Harin! Chae Harin, youuuu~?!"
"Don't scream like you just saw a ghost. This alley's empty, but people outside can still hear you just fine."
"You're one to talk! You—what the hell are you scheming?! How did you even know?!"
"That reaction… so it was you. You're the one who fed Juwon all that crap and sent him over to warm my bed today, right?"
"Uueh?!"
"When I let him go that morning, it just felt like that. Like, ah, this isn't my pussy—he borrowed someone else's for a bit and came back. I've always thought this about you, but you really, really, really are an idiot. We know each other's quirks that well, and you just send him back like that?"
"Th-that's—that's a lie…! Who figures it out from that?!"
"I do. There were signs he'd used a pussy, but the cum was flowing just fine—so I figured the culprit was whichever of you four has the loosest hole. Didn't take long."
"Hik… hhi…!"
Euna's face crumpled again. She trembled like a dog with its tail between its legs, reached behind her back, and slid a bat free.
"Hmm… even an idiot carries a weapon, I guess. You had it invisible? Got any other weapons on you?"
"Like I'd tell you!!"
"Fair enough… Come to think of it, Juwon said something earlier. That he'd been with the Class President for a bit—supposedly to throw me off. Did you rough up our Class President too…? I'm not fishing. I'm genuinely curious, so answer me. What happened with the Class President? You're not the type to do anything dangerous if you can help it. I never figured a girl like you would hit the Class President of all people—not even me…"
That set her off.
"—That fucking bitch slapped Juwon across the face! So I beat the shit out of her! You got a problem with that?!"
"…? The Class President did?"
"Yes! Because you weren't looking after him properly! Some clueless bitch who doesn't know her place slapped Juwon! So I punished her! What's wrong with that?!"
"Nothing. More than that—I had no idea any of that happened. Honestly, I'm surprised."
"Hnn… hhk… hnn… hn… hn…!"
Euna held the bat out in front of her, tense, braced for anything—but Harin didn't look like she intended to do much of anything. No violence like Euna's, no threats either. She seemed, for the moment, simply ready to talk.
"Maybe I overdressed for this… I came in swinging because I thought something was up, but I never imagined you'd be the one who saved Juwon…"
"Why are you surprised?! He's our Master! Our precious, beloved Master! Of course I'd save him! Smashing a bug like that over the head doesn't scare me at all!"
"Unexpected… for someone who always hated using her power for crime…"
"Unexpected? That's my line! Harin, what the hell are you even thinking?! You started prepping to disappear before graduation, then you took Juwon and vanished—and on top of that you wiped our memories, our precious memories! Traitor! You traitor!!"
"I said keep it down. People outside will hear."
"So what if they hear!!"
"You're still such a chihuahua, Euna. Especially the way you can't control your volume when you get worked up."
"Hrrgguuuuh~?!"
Harin didn't look remotely surprised—this kind of Euna meltdown had clearly happened more than once. The moment Euna tried to swing the bat, the brainwashed people moved faster, pinning her arms and legs; once some of the fight drained out of her, she was left gasping again.
"What did you even come here for…! You traitor…!"
"Calm down. I came to talk."
"To brag about your boyfriend?! Now that you've got Juwon… just like back then…! You're gonna threaten me—say I'll get hurt if I come near him…?!"
"That's not what I meant. I literally just wanted to separate you from Juwon. I was panicking back then too, so I'll admit I was hasty—but I don't think my choice was a mistake."
"What does that mean!"
"Before I get into that…"
Harin politely bowed her head to the still-agitated Euna.
It was genuinely unexpected.
"…Wh-what? Why all of a sudden?!"
"Thank you for helping Juwon while I took my eyes off him. That bitch you beat—she was furious because of how I toyed with her. I was supposed to be the target, but she took it out on Juwon instead… Cleaning that up should have been my job, and you did it for me. For that, I'm truly grateful."
"Helping Juwon is obvious…! The five of us stuck together around him, shared secrets, shared affection—we got that close…!"
"Right. It's obvious. Between us, we don't need this kind of formality. I know that too."
"…What?"
She lifted her head.
"I'm still the same. And so are you."
"I don't get what you're trying to say…"
"I mean I'm still the same person I always was. I don't know what you're misunderstanding, Euna, but I have no intention of doing anything terrible to Juwon, and I have no intention of turning against any of you. I'm just doing what I always do—fawning over him and keeping him safe."
With that, Euna's body was released.
"I'm really sorry I only gave you a short warning on graduation day and left. Looking back, there was plenty of room for misunderstanding. But I'll say it again—I had no choice if I wanted to protect Juwon. At the time I'd just taken him, found us a new nest, and was trying to figure out what to do next. Honestly, I wasn't in my right mind."
"I don't get it… Are you trying to trick me? Or is there some other reason you're doing this? You say you don't want to turn against us—then why did you do all of this…!"
"There is another reason. A very important one."
"…What is it?"
"I thought the same thing you did—that the culprit was one of us. The one who wrecked Juwon's body and stole his memories. Since it wasn't me, I concluded they had to be hiding among the rest of you."
"………? Huh? Wait—that's you!"
Harin shook her head.
The jaw that moved with that denial was heavier than before; on this point, at least, she looked prepared never to yield.
"Unfortunately, the one who took our Master's—Juwon's—eyes and arm and memories… wasn't me. It's true I brainwashed him and wiped his short-term memory. But the most important thing—his memories of us—those weren't taken by me."
"Eh… the memories? You took those too, Harin—"
"—Wrong. Right before graduation, Juwon had already forgotten me too. All I did was invent some half-assed fake memories to protect the person I love, then grab him and run on the spot."
Whether she thought Euna would believe her, or whether she thought a fool like this could be fooled—no one could read the calculation behind it as she calmly laid out her dubious story.
"I'm not the culprit. I'm protecting Juwon."
Five masochist girlfriends.
One Master.
And among them—a Judas.