Let's Recover Those Memories with the Brainwashing & Hypnosis App!
"You awake?"
"Ungh."
"You okay?"
"Ungh."
"Quit screwing around."
"A little dizzy."
I rubbed my eyes and looked ahead.
…Sunset.
My girlfriends were sitting there in order from Number One to Number Five, arranged in the exact same composition as when Harin had first led me into this club room by the hand — but I could tell a great deal of time had passed since then. The complete absence of any alcohol buzz and the clean, refreshed state of my body were proof that what felt like mere moments ago to me had, in reality, been nothing of the sort.
Hyeon was leisurely reading a book. Yuna stood holding cosplay gear with a bright smile. Cash was up on a chair in her bare feet, both hands raised overhead in punishment. Euna was twitching and squirming with a liquor bottle somehow jammed up her ass. And finally, Harin shoved her face right up into mine and stared straight at me.
"Harin. You… you did this, didn't you?"
"Yep."
This idiot answered with genuine cheerfulness. No intention of hiding a thing, apparently.
"How much of it was hypnosis? From where to where?"
"I put it on you right after we finished introductions once you walked into the club room. So from then on. About five days, give or take…"
…Five days.
So everything — the sex at Cash's house, the torment, the meals, that whole disgraceful spectacle at the drinking party — all of it had unfolded under Harin's production. That persistent sense of wrongness, like the entire world had gone insane, finally had a name.
"Why?"
"I figured having you live it firsthand would bring the memories back faster than just explaining our relationships with words. So? How was it? Those days 'recreating high school'?"
"…High school. Then — Cash's parents and her sisters. Were they always like that?"
"Cash's parents and older sisters? They've been that way ever since we first awakened our powers. Don't get the wrong idea. I didn't touch them."
I turned my gaze toward Cash. The idiot blonde mixed-race girl — naked, her face covered in scribbled writing, both hands still held high — answered with a piggish little laugh.
"Th-that was me… My ability… I used my personality-expulsion power to purge all their hostility toward Master…"
"Since when?"
"Since elementary school… O-our parents and family, they liked Master at first, but… o-one day I confessed that I liked Juwon, and they started trying to pull us apart… So after I expelled those personalities, they ended up like that. Master came over for sleepovers, and we went at it all night long — pang-pang♡ aang-aang♡ …I was truly happy, you know?"
Even as she said it, those memories didn't exist in my head. But thanks to Harin's hypnosis, I'd lived a version of that life — so I at least understood what this blonde pig was so nostalgic for.
"I totally get why Cash reminisces about those days~! My house and Euna's never let boys in! Plus my older brother is seriously gross! Ahaha!"
"My dad's like that, so… it's hard for me… He's calmer these days, but… uu…"
Yuna the cosplay maniac and Euna the exhibitionist both agreed. Yuna swayed her gray-dyed hair and fondled some thoroughly indecent outfit, while the expanded exhibitionist over there — liquor bottle still buried in her ass, pussy dripping — looked more depressed than the situation strictly required.
Seems like everyone's got their circumstances.
I'd rescued Harin from bullying. I'd saved Cash when she was being kidnapped. Both of those relationships had started from something special — so the remaining three probably had their own stories too.
"Hyeon… was it like that for you? What's your deal?"
"About my household, you mean."
Still blunt, still boyish in appearance, even her name sounding masculine — and yet when Hyeon looked at me, her mouth loosened as if she were running a fever.
"My house is always open the way Harin's and Cash's are. But back then the Lord wasn't particularly fond of it, so the number of visits I can count on one hand."
"Any particular reason?"
"Because my family is a cult. We live reasonably well — not on Cash's level, but comfortably enough. The problem is the stares. Inviting someone who knows us is a bit of a burden. Dragging the Lord all the way over only for the family to start pushing their religion without reading the room… I don't imagine you'd want to meet them."
Yeah, that tracked…
Strong circumstances all around, I supposed. None of them were just strong personalities for nothing.
"You get it now, right? Everyone's got their stuff. And hobbies too — hearing about them is one thing, but experiencing them firsthand is how you really understand, 'Ah, so this girl is this kind of masochist.' That's why I made sure you lived it. Figured the stimulation might jolt your brain into remembering. I talked the others into setting this whole thing up before I even brought you to the club."
"I get that part. But Euna — you didn't trust Harin, did you? How'd you end up greenlighting something like this?"
"I still don't trust her… But Number Five… Hyeon's watching, so I felt okay leaving it to her…"
Time stop plus ability nullification. Fair enough…
Even as friends, they kept an eye on each other. I was nodding at that realization when Harin's face shoved itself into mine again. Everyone else was sitting quietly; she alone was up out of her seat, making a complete spectacle of herself — and yet the other girlfriends just watched with blank faces, not a single one calling her out.
"So how were those five days with Cash?"
Five days with that bitch?
………………
………Fuck.
"Honestly? Pure insanity."
"Accurate assessment."
"What kind of crazy bitch has zero sense of shame?! Doing that shit at home in front of her family and the maids is one thing! But who the hell saw that coming at a drinking party?! What the fuck is even in that head of yours that you'd host a game like that?! Putting prizes on the line for that?! How dead serious were you about flashing your pussy in front of people, you goddamn idiot?!"
"…Ahaat! How embarrassing♡"
"That wasn't a compliment, you fucking bitch! Seriously — white pig whore with nothing but mating on the brain! How the hell did you clean that up?! Wait — can you even clean that up?!"
"That? Of course~!"
"How?!"
"Well…"
My eyes met Harin's.
Ah…
"Hey, Juwon? I really went through hell, okay? Originally I was going to leave you living with Cash for a full week… I wanted you to understand what those days were like… I never expected things to blow up this big… So cleaning it up meant spending that entire night running around casting hypnosis… And then random guys started trying to hit on her, so I had to deal with them too… Those bastards getting drunk and trying to sexually harass her was the absolute worst… Ugh…"
""""……………""""
Only then did I understand why everyone kept their mouths shut even as Harin got up and demanded affection from me. I'd assumed Cash standing there with both hands raised was just another one of her usual play sessions — but she was actually being punished for real.
"Just like Harin said, at first I only planned for us to stay cooped up at my house for a week, getting all sticky and intimate! Then I thought, 'Oh? Playing only at home is too boring!' And then, 'I want Master to understand my fetish even better!' So I prepared that event! Next thing I knew, I'd completely strayed from the original purpose! Ohoho!"
"She's bragging, the fucking idiot!"
"Bweh?!"
A conveniently throwable cushion was sitting right behind me, so I put it square in her face.
…Not even funny.
"So what — you all made up, then?"
"For now~?!"
"Yeah. For now."
"I'm still keeping my guard up, though…"
"Uu… Me too. For now."
Cash lowered her hands and sat down. Harin settled her ass on the armrest of my chair and leaned her full weight against me.
"We made up, but after talking it over among ourselves, we still think the probability is high that the culprit is one of us."
"Do you really need to limit it to just you five? Who knows — it could've been someone else—"
"No. We thought that at first too, but the only people who've awakened powers are people connected to you, Juwon. Or maybe only people who harbor romantic feelings for you — some condition like that. While you and I were living together, the others went around meeting people, and outside of us there wasn't a single other esper."
"People outside of school too?"
"Yeah… Which means one of us is hiding an extra ability and did this… Honestly, I don't want to believe it."
Harin's tone suggested she still hoped there was some other explanation, and the other four nodded reluctantly along with her.
"So we decided that recovering Master's memories is priority number one. The fact that only we have powers is already an abnormal situation — so we figure that before you lost your memories, Master must have known something."
"Did I not have any powers like the rest of you?"
"Nope~!"
"Not at all."
"We even considered the possibility that Master himself staged the whole thing… Heh heh. Honestly, that might be preferable. Thinking that Master deliberately wrecked his own eyes and arm just because he wanted to mess with us… that actually puts my mind at ease."
They'd even considered that far, huh.
Well — the me from before my body broke down had apparently been utterly ruthless with women, so maybe I really had cooked up some bratty scheme like that. Deliberately wiping my own memories just to wind up my girlfriends with worry, or something.
"So? How was living with me? Did anything come back?"
"A little. I get the gist."
"For example?"
"If this were before my body went to shit — before I lost my memories — I probably would've greenlit most of what you did and played along. That's why you miss me enough to work this hard at getting my memories back, Cash."
"Heh heh… It's very, very, extremely disappointing that you can't recall it right away… but I'm glad your body still seems to remember. That alone makes me happy."
Indeed — while under hypnosis, I'd treated Cash getting humiliated by her family and pulling that stunt at the drinking party as perfectly normal. The me of that time must have been thoroughly accustomed to that kind of behavior.
And above all, that lunatic Cash… even with my memories gone, she'd still handed me her leash. Thinking of her as someone who missed me that much made her love feel almost pitiful.
"Then — do you understand our hearts now, darling~?"
Just as I was absorbing the depth of their love, Yuna approached this time. Through glittering colored contacts she gave me a foxlike smiling squint, then parked her ass on the armrest opposite Harin's.
"To us, Jeong Juwon is irreplaceable! A wonderful man who doesn't get greedy for no reason and just accepts our fetishes exactly as they are! And that doesn't change even when you lose your memories~! When you were with Cash, when you lived with Harin — even without your memories, you acted just like always, and that made it even more true!!"
Wonderful, huh. Embarrassing thing to say.
"What's your point."
"Jumping straight to the main topic is so cold~!"
"Whispering love at me when it feels like you're talking about some other guy is kind of weird, you know."
"Aha~! Right, no memories — that makes sense! Okay, I'll take the blame for being a little insensitive… So! Cash's turn is over, which means now it's my turn to have fun with you~! How about we wipe your memories again like we did with Cash, and you and I play boyfriend-girlfriend for a week while we try to bring them back?!"
I'd figured the conversation was heading that way, but…
"I get doing the boyfriend-play memory recovery in order, but normally it'd go Number Two, Number Three, Number Four, Number Five, right?"
"Number Two is Euna~! She was told not to touch darling and touched him anyway — even sucked down his cum! And she hurt people too, right?! See? She blew things way out of proportion, so she's out~!"
"Hiiing…"
…They had cleaned up after the Class President, so they had the right to say that.
"What about you, Hyeon?"
"I'm Number Five. I'm last. Besides, given my fetish, I prefer the waiting side."
…Neglect play was her main hobby, if I recalled.
Number Two Euna was skipped. Number Three Cash was already done. Number Five Hyeon passed. That automatically made me Number Four Yuna's boyfriend.
"Unlike Cash, I'm more of a practical, hands-on type! Get the body moving hard enough and you'll definitely remember me!"
"What the hell are you planning to do…"
"Did you forget? Erotic cosplay! Dating violence! Assault! Uploading proof shots to my secret account and reading the comments!"
Right. She wasn't normal either.
"My secret account's upload rate dropped off after darling disappeared, so people keep asking if I'm okay. And it doesn't stop there — they ask if I broke up with my boyfriend… Anonymous friend requests come in saying they want to date me and do cosplay or offline paid cosplay meetups, you know? Hey — if you don't grab my leash soon, I might just run off to some other guy~?! Get pinned under some random man! Get beaten to a pulp in cosplay just like Juwon used to do! And maybe upload the proof shots of getting beaten~?! I might — I might turn into a used sandbag covered in some other guy's handprints, you know~?!"
"In all my life, I never once imagined I'd get threatened with something that fucking stupid."
Getting beaten in cosplay, uploading proof shots for strangers, getting off on the comments — a truly complex and exhausting type. Fetish on the level of dragon car-sex.
"Don't worry. Yuna talks like that, but she's more sensible than Cash."
"…In what possible way?"
"At least she doesn't cause damage to other people?"
That was not comforting.
Cash aside — had I really been holding this sandbag Yuna's leash?
"This time I'll wipe the memories and overwrite them with new ones again. Just like with Cash, I'll insert the 'Juwon's personality when he's with Yuna' that I remember. That okay?"
"Is it okay?"
"It'll be fine. Because it's you, Juwon. You'll naturally start tormenting Yuna without even thinking about it, so don't tense up too much."
Words of comfort you absolutely could not say in public.
"Yuna. Hand."
"Okay~! Darling, take good care of cute little Yuna even after you wake up~!"
Harin took Yuna's hand, then pulled out her phone with the free one.
That pink screen… this again.
"Ridiculously versatile. Can even change personalities. I figured it was only good for the kind of stuff you see on Hitomi."
"It's all about how you use it. The personality is adjusted to what Yuna and I remember, so it's just a recreation — not perfect."
"Huh…"
"Alright. This time it's a full week for real."
Make good memories, she said, and shoved the thing at me.
That pink light filled my vision, and the world began to spin.
And yet.
Where the hell did that dumb bitch sandbag of mine go?