Five Masochist Girlfriends — Could They All Be Traitors?
Tsk, it doesn't look like we can treat the leg here—
Clearly a psychological factor—
Are you in any pain?
In that case, rather than painkillers, you should get a prescription from psychiatry—
Even if you say that…
No, I don't know.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!"
Thud!
Crash!
In the center of the club room, blonde hair whipped through the air as Cash's howl rang out and a desk went flying. The rest of us watched the spectacle with expressions of every shade. Yuna looked especially bleak. Harin had a vein throbbing on her forehead, and right beside her Euna was already down in a full dogeza.
My head was spinning.
Only Hyeon sat there as if nothing were wrong, reading a book—except if you looked closely she wasn't restrained the way she usually was, and she was holding the book upside down. I considered pointing it out, but with Cash and everyone else already off the rails, if Hyeon snapped too there would be no containing it. So I left her alone, planted my crutches, and stood.
"Cash. Hey. Hey, Cash."
"Uuuuughhh~! What is it, what's this about psychiatry~?! Dragging me into depression talk with that nonsense~! I don't need any of those drugs!!"
"Hey, hold on—"
Clang!
"Don't throw that. Look over here."
"Yuna! You're just as bad! You were right there next to him and this is what happens?! First the eyes, then the arm, and now the leg?! H-he can barely even walk anymore! The bare minimum of dignity—his legs—ended up like this!"
"Sorry…"
"You can't just end it with 'sorry'! Master's body is being carved up piece by piece! If this keeps going, what's next?! The other arm? The other leg? Or something even worse…… uuuuugh~?!"
"I'm really sorry…"
Neither Cash nor Yuna seemed willing to meet my eyes. So I looked toward Harin and Euna instead. Our tribute masochist and exhibitionist masochist had never gotten along well, yet today it was Euna doing the dogeza.
"So like I said, I didn't do it. You get it now?"
"Yeah. I watched you from behind all day yesterday… sorry for suspecting you… Harin definitely isn't the one…"
"No wonder my back felt so creepy."
"Uuu…"
"I already took the blame for kidnapping Juwon and taking him out, but I never thought I'd get stalked again like this… Did you really distrust me that much? Even though I was the one who reached out first and tried to make peace, calling us all friends?"
"I'm sorry… sorry… I won't suspect you anymore…"
"Hmph. Whatever."
"Eunaaa… uuuuh~!"
"Begging won't get you forgiveness! You creepy stalker bitch! Get away from me!"
"Hiiiing~!! Forgive meeeeee~!"
So they were in the middle of an apology.
Euna had been suspecting Harin the whole time…
Harin, fed up with Euna's stalking, was grinding her foot into Euna's cheek while Euna clung to her in dogeza.
"Then for this incident, Harin and Euna are off the suspect list, right?"
"—That is not the case, Master."
I muttered it without thinking at the scene in front of me, and Hyeon coolly answered instead of the still-raging Cash. Only then did she seem to come back to herself; she turned the book right-side up and cleared her throat. Even this usually tight-lipped girl knew how to feel embarrassment, huh. A tiny flicker of humanity showed through, and it was funny.
"What are you talking about? Euna marked her all day yesterday."
"And what if even that statement is a lie?"
"…What?"
"It happens all the time in deduction games and novels. The person vouching for a suspect's identity turns out to be an accomplice, or the alibi was meaningless to begin with. Harin never even saw Euna, who is the one guaranteeing her alibi. That means Euna could be the culprit, and Harin could be the culprit too."
"Th-that's not true~! I know what Harin did yesterday~!"
"Heh. Then you can tell us what it was, right?"
"That's—"
Harin cut in right then.
"Hey, don't say it!"
"I know it's embarrassing… but still…"
"I said don't say it~! It's mortifying!!"
"Uu…"
Euna looked at me.
"It's fine. Just say it."
"Um… yesterday Harin took a photo of Juwon into a specialty shop and came back with a custom dakimakura."
"Ah shit, Euna you fucking crazy bitch!! You could've left out the first part!!!"
"That way it's more solid proof…"
"Uiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiik~?!!"
With that final cry Harin scrambled onto the sofa, curled into a ball, and hid her face.
"We all know how deep her affection runs, so why get so embarrassed……"
"The photo of Juwon she brought was of him naked."
"……Even for a girlfriend, a naked dakimakura is a little much. Especially walking into a shop and saying 'this is my naked boyfriend, please make a pillow out of him.'"
"Hwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!"
I left the screaming Harin alone and looked back at Euna.
"Anything else?"
"In the morning she dropped off the dakimakura and did her morning workout with a face full of barely-contained irritation… For lunch she fretted over balance and went to a salad bar… She picked up the dakimakura again around early evening… That time she just finished with some supplements and a simple sandwich… Then she mounted a newly bought dildo on the dakimakura and masturbated furiously while calling Juwon's name. Watching from the side was almost pitiful……"
"Why the hell are you watching me masturbate toooooooooooo!!!"
"…Well?"
"Still not enough."
I thought that should have been plenty of proof, but she was still shaking her head. The look on her face said she wouldn't trust a mere alibi. With Hyeon's academic background a blank to me, I was starting to wonder if she was actually that smart.
"What's the problem?"
"Because everything is wrapping up too neatly. By that logic, including me, there are only five suspects left."
"Excluding Euna and Harin… wait, five means you're including me and Euna too?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Judging by what was said, let's assume Harin really never left the house. Honestly, ordering a dakimakura and masturbating just to manufacture an alibi is so over-the-top it loops around into looking forced."
"Stop talking about my masturbation already!!"
"Anyway, in that situation Euna could have slipped out whenever she wanted, and Master's leg was ruined around dawn, so an alibi only good until evening is basically meaningless. If we exclude Euna on top of that, Yuna starts looking too much like the culprit. Better to keep Euna in the pool than get mocked by the real perpetrator for being dull."
Fair enough. Pointing straight at Yuna, who had been right there yesterday, would be too simple.
"Then what about me?"
"Because Master's personality was rotten. I'm even keeping the possibility open that the amnesia itself is a staged act."
"If you're saying that much, I must've been a complete piece of shit."
"…I wouldn't call you trash. Before you lost your memories, Master was the perfect boyfriend who knew exactly what each of us liked sexually and fetish-wise. You would have known we'd enjoy even this amnesia, so I'm suspecting 'that kind of staged-play scenario.' In reality Harin thoroughly enjoyed serving the memory-lost Master… Cash said the fresh start after that incident felt novel… I don't know about Euna, but Yuna enjoyed it in her own way, right? And I find the act of suspecting like this entertaining."
"Five girls with broken fetishes gather in one place and every kind of bullshit comes out of their mouths. So this is fun for you? Me flailing around with no memories while you all prop me up and serve me?"
"If this is an event Master created for our enjoyment, yes. If only the leg hadn't been ruined, we could have laughed and slowly fixed things together—but even that is impossible now, so it's half pleasure, half disgust."
"At least you're honest."
"It's one of my virtues. I never lie in front of Master. Because I truly adore you."
She tossed out an embarrassing line like it was nothing.
A staged act…
Keeping that possibility in mind, I looked over at Cash and Yuna. They had finally calmed down and were listening to our conversation.
"Hyeon's right. I'm disappointed in Yuna's actual state, but I don't think this idiot would have gone out of her way to do something like that."
"Th-that's right~! I have no reason to! I'm not Harin, and I'm not the type who enjoys serving either~!"
Reason, huh.
……My head hurt.
I felt like I almost understood, like I'd heard it somewhere before, and yet—
That's not it. If it hurts, you can't run away.
Run where?
Socially, independently—if your body hurts, it's hard to get a job… your range of movement shrinks so you're easier to watch… comparing it to hunting animals is a bit much, but that's how I see it.
—I couldn't remember who said it, when, or where.
Even so, this memory wasn't false. It lingered, hazy yet deep.
"If the point was hurting him so he'd stay by our side, the feet are fatal."
As if cutting into my recollection, Harin, still curled on the sofa, poked her face up and snapped irritably.
"All that 'service' talk is just a frame to make us think that way. The more inconvenient Juwon becomes, the easier it is for him to stay with us… You could hurt him for a reason like that, right? Don't you think? If Juwon depends on us, we can freely show our fetishes without holding back."
"Harin!!! There are things you can say and things you can't!!"
"Don't get mad. All of us have said it before while trembling with anxiety. Our fetishes keep changing day by day, and we were terrified wondering how long Juwon would keep up. So what did we say back then? We talked about whether there was some way to bind Juwon to us, didn't we?"
"Even so…!"
"Yeah… that went too far…"
"No. I find everyone here suspicious. I refuse to think there's only one culprit. At least two… there's a maggot who put hands on his body because they couldn't trust Juwon."
"……Uu."
While Cash, Yuna, and Euna pursed their lips, Hyeon raised her hand.
"I agree. Honestly, eyes, arm, leg, and on top of that even the memories… the order is abnormal by any common sense. The fact that it was split up when it could have been taken all at once is also strange."
I flinched at those words.
"Didn't my arm and eyes get ruined at the same time?"
"Master's memory of that part seems fuzzy, so I'll fill you in. The arm came first, then the eyes. They broke one after another right around the start of first year of high school, and if Harin is correct, you lost your memories on graduation day."
Was that how it went?
Come to think of it, until now I'd vaguely assumed 'the arm and eyes slowly broke around first year' without any real clarity…
"Right now part of Juwon's memories are being supplemented with what Harin gave him~! Everything unrelated to us is original, but anything involving us has mostly been touched by Harin's hand, so he barely remembers anything accurately~?!"
"Saying it like that makes me look suspicious too! I only ever protected Juwon! I've told you that over and over!"
"Is there anyone here who isn't suspicious?! I-I was on Harin's side, but… now I can't trust anyone…!"
"Yuna, you…!"
Sorry to Harin, but Yuna was right.
…There wasn't a single girl here I could trust.
"Arm, eyes, memories, leg—"
"Taken one after another, or else…"
In that atmosphere Hyeon looked around at everyone and spoke with perfect calm.
"……Or maybe everyone here took one each?"
"Hey!"
"Just a joke. As if all of you would each steal one piece and then pretend to suspect each other—if that ridiculous situation were real, how shameless would you bitches have to be? Still, I won't deny that it's the worst-case scenario, so Master should keep it in mind."
"……D-don't say that! I don't want to hear stuff like that!"
"Exactly. There's no way we would do that!"
"If we're going by that logic, then you took one too, Hyeon~?!"
"Yes. You're free to suspect me. I have zero intention of wriggling out of it like a loach after saying something like this."
This girl. I thought she was the quiet type, but the second she opened her mouth she stirred up controversy.
She knew it too, and still poured oil on the fire without holding back……
"Then Master, since you've already enjoyed yourself with Cash and Yuna in your own way, who's next?"
"My leg's in this state and you still want to do it?"
"If you dislike it, you're free to refuse. However, if we're going to identify the culprit, my opinion is that we should each experience a turn."
She wasn't wrong, but…
"I-I… pass… I'll pass…"
"Then that leaves me. I was confident I could wait another turn, so it's a shame. Fetishes aside, waiting is my specialty."
She casually flashed the bondage gear she was wearing under her clothes, showing off her bare midriff. The deadpan expression made the gap especially funny no matter what she did.
"You know the max is one week, right?"
"Like Yuna, I have no intention of using the full week. I'll only do what's necessary and send you back, so don't worry."
"…Tsk. Harin!"
"Got it…"
I wanted to argue more about this, but Hyeon clearly had other thoughts, so I accepted it and called Harin over.
A phone was shoved in front of my face.
That pink screen again… my head swam.
"See you later… We'll investigate on our own too…"
"Master…"
"Darling, I'm sorry I couldn't protect you…"
"Hiiiing…"
With the remaining four seeing me off, I closed my eyes once more.
Now the hypnosis would overwrite my memories again and I'd think of Hyeon as my one and only girlfriend……
………………………
…………………
……………
……That was how it was supposed to go, but this time the hypnosis didn't take.
Ironically, the next place I opened my eyes was inside a musty building, a room lined with hanging Buddha statues.
A place I had never seen before.