Eroge Should Be Eroge

Chapter 13

『As you wish.』

『Optimal Progression is being applied.』

Kwaaang!

When my uppercut struck Ha-rin's face guard, the air twisted into a vortex around my fist.

I didn't understand what had happened. Right now, I didn't care.

Ha-rin had tried to kill Hayase. Rage crowded out every other thought until my head felt ready to burst.

The impact lifted Ha-rin clear off her feet and sent her flying.

Ordinarily, she would have righted herself in midair and landed without difficulty, however defenseless she'd seemed.

Instead, Ha-rin stared at my injured fist. My blood splashed across her face and into her eyes, leaving her frozen in shock.

She struck the floor without making any effort to break her fall.

Thud!

"Ah...?"

Her head hit the floor hard enough to send her face guard and towel flying. Her neatly braided silver hair came loose and spilled across the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠boards.

Silence fell over the dojo.

"Huff, huff...."

I struggled to catch my breath and unclench my fist. I'd punched her with my injured hand. The bamboo fragments embedded in my palm had splintered further, and blood streamed from the wound.

Even so, I couldn't bring myself to regret striking her. She'd tried to kill Hayase, and she'd needed to be stopped.

Ha-rin lay staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Ha, ha, ah, ah, aah, ah..."

She made small, broken sounds, unable to form a single word.

Seeing her like that made my chest tighten. The imperious, impeccably composed Ha-rin I'd known seemed to have vanished, leaving someone I couldn't help but pity.

"Sniff... haa..."

I watched her sob as the heat of my anger faded. An unexpected sorrow took its place. Perhaps these feelings belonged to the original Park Si-hyun, still alive somewhere inside me.

I looked down at her with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a bitter ache in my chest.

"Haa, sniff..."

Had she been shattered by the shock of being hit by the brother who'd never defied her? Or by the realization that she'd hurt him herself? Whatever the reason, Ha-rin could only sob.

"Hi, hi... ha, ah..."

Maybe that was why I spoke.

"...Sis."

My throat tightened around the word.

"Uh, uh...."

Her gaze wavered, struggling to focus. Yet she tried desperately to move closer. For once, there was no trace of the cold, terrifying woman I'd known.

"Uh... ah..."

She looked like a frightened child trapped in an adult's body. The sight stirred something in me.

Behind the cruelty was the face of a woman who'd gone to terrible lengths to win her younger brother's attention and love.

"..."

My eyes stung. I told myself it was dust, knelt beside her, and spoke.

"...I don't want to hate you."

At those words, Park Ha-rin's eyes trembled greatly.

"So please, don't do this again. If you stop hurting people, you're still my family. I want us to stay that way. Please stop doing these things."

The words came out before I could fully think them through.

My own feelings toward the shaken woman in front of me had mingled with those of the original Si-hyun, whom I'd spent so long resenting.

But I didn't mind.

"I want you to keep being my family."

At least, that was the truth left in the original protagonist's heart.

At that moment.

"Ah, uh, ah... aaah..."

Tears spilled down Ha-rin's cheeks. I couldn't know everything she felt, but fear and guilt were plain on her face.

There was more there than I could put into words.

She looked like a child bracing for punishment.

Then her gaze found mine. Her expression crumpled, and for an instant she seemed relieved.

"Sor..."

Her sobs broke the word apart. The tears wouldn't stop.

I wrapped my arms around her and waited, saying nothing, until her sobs began to quiet.

"S-s-sor... ry."

My sister bowed her head and tried to apologize, but she could scarcely get the words out.

"S-sor..."

She buried her face against my chest and carefully took my injured hand between her trembling fingers.

"I, I was wrong..."

I met her eyes, my own heart aching.

Grief, guilt, regret, confusion, anxiety—each emotion seemed to crowd out the last.

I could see almost nothing else in her gaze.

"...."

And yet I found myself thinking that I owed her an apology too.

I'd judged my sister before ever trying to understand her.

The Ha-rin I'd met was even more frightening than I'd imagined, so I'd thought of her only as the person destined to bring about the game's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bad ending.

But that future belonged to the Ha-rin in the game.

The woman sitting in front of me was here, now.

"S-s-sorry..."

I'd never tried to see her as a person. I'd stayed trapped in the game's logic, treating her as a character I had no choice but to reject.

I'd decided she was beyond saving without even trying to reach her.

'There's no way Park Ha-rin could change.'

Ha-rin terrified me. Even in Si-hyun's childhood memories, she'd been an unsettling presence. I'd assumed she'd eventually kill me—or keep my corpse with her.

"It's okay."

But none of that had happened yet. Our story hadn't reached its ending.

We weren't simply following a predetermined scenario. This was a world in which people lived, breathed, and made choices.

If this was reality rather than a game, perhaps even someone like Ha-rin could change.

"Ah."

That thought had scarcely formed when—

[Protagonist Synchronization Rate - 142% → 147%]

It felt as though a veil had lifted. Ha-rin's face came sharply into focus.

"Ugh... Ugh, ugh..."

She was breathtakingly beautiful.

Yet I could finally see the torment beneath that beauty, the instability I hadn't wanted to acknowledge—and which she herself seemed unable to control.

Her eyes darted about as though something were hunting her. Her hands clawed at her carefully arranged silver hair.

One moment her face contorted in fury; the next, she looked like a terrified child. Watching her change so violently was painful.

Most people would have turned away.

Beauty couldn't make those sudden shifts any less frightening.

But I wasn't looking at her as a game character anymore.

I was looking at my sister.

"You don't have to worry anymore."

Nothing could excuse what Ha-rin had done to Si-hyun and Se-eun.

That was exactly why something had to change, starting now.

Before it was too late.

Before Ha-rin committed even greater sins—

"...We're family, aren't we?"

I wanted us to have the chance to become an ordinary family.

I wanted to save Se-eun, the other heroines—and Ha-rin too.

Only then did I notice the tears of relief rolling down her cheeks.

A few words wouldn't change her overnight. I knew that. But they might be the beginning of something better.

"Sniff......."

I never expected Ha-rin to cry like this. She was twenty-one, yet she was sobbing like a child. Maybe I'd finally seen how vulnerable she could be. Or perhaps the tears were a performance.

But.

[Park Ha-rin's Suspicion Level - 0.8%]

Naive or not, I wanted to believe her. I couldn't tell where my feelings ended and the original Si-hyun's began, but right now that distinction didn't matter.

"Ah... A-are, y-you, o-okay...?"

Ha-rin stared anxiously at my trembling hand in her grasp.

Blood seeped from the wound in my palm. Of course she looked worried; the blade had gone straight through my hand.

Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the pain made my eyes water. I smiled anyway.

"This? Pfft! Doesn't hurt at all. For a man, this is like... chewing gum?"

I pulled the knife handle out of my palm with a flourish. Then—

Splurt!

"?"

...Wait. Had I really lost that much blood?

Only now did I notice that my uniform was soaked red from top to bottom.

And fresh blood was still pouring from my palm.

In other words, I'd already lost far too much blood, and I was losing even more.

'W-wait—?'

I grabbed my wrist in a panic, but it did nothing to stop the bleeding.

'Ah, fck—?'*

My vision blurred as the blood loss caught up with me.

As I swayed sideways, I could almost hear Death whispering, "Come here."

But then, I felt something soft embrace me. It was a warmth I hadn't known since I was a baby—something even more comforting than a mother's arms.

Heaven was right here.

"...Si... hyeon..."

"O...ppa?!"

The voices grew distant, barely audible. But I could still clearly feel the softness pressing against my face.

Ah. Park Ha-rin wasn't wearing a single thread under her uniform.

'Now reality's finally acting like a porn game.'

I might just survive after all.

With that final thought, my consciousness faded.

The smile on my lips remained until the very end.

Then everything went black.

* * *

Two days after the incident with Ha-rin, I was recovering from surgery on my left hand in the hospital's most luxurious VVVVIP room.

'VVVVIP? The best hospital in Korea, and they've put me in its best room?'

I was excused from school and had nothing to do but rest while my hand healed.

"Do you have some kind of hobby where you snap wooden swords, plant them in the ground, and then land palm-first from three stories up?"

Lee Jeong-don, the short, stocky doctor who'd operated on me, appeared at my bedside and delivered that accusation without preamble.

He was the hospital director and had been my parents' attending physician. Their long friendship meant he looked after us, though he grumbled like an irritated grandfather whenever he did.

I gave him a dry laugh. What kind of question was that?

"Grandpa. Who the hell would do something that insane?"

"Right. Even if it wasn't you, I've got someone just like that sitting right in front of me."

"..."

Well. That was awkward.

I knew having a bamboo sword driven through my hand wasn't a minor injury. I hadn't realized it had pulverized the bone.

If the damage had been a little worse, I might have needed an artificial bone implant.

"At this point, I'm starting to think your family's got some kind of cursed genetics."

"Come on, Grandpa. If it turned out lucky, then that's lucky, isn't it? Why's your tongue so caustic?! And what's with this 'curse' nonsense! You say things to me that you wouldn't dare say to my big sister!"

At least I hadn't needed a bone graft.

The bones in my hand had somehow rebuilt themselves from fragments. I didn't know whether it was a skill, a hidden power, or something in my genes awakening the way Ha-rin's had.

"Judging by how rebellious you've suddenly become, the shock must have been pretty severe. It's a sign of PTSD. When you have time later, be sure to visit a psychiatrist too, and bring that oh-so-brilliant sister of yours along."

Jeong-don clicked his tongue as he flicked through the chart on his tablet.

This old geezer treated Se-eun like his own granddaughter. So why was he so cold toward me and Ha-rin?

But.

'...Actually, now that I think about it, I can see why.'

Whatever Se-eun was like inside, she could at least read a room and behave pleasantly around adults.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Compared with her, Ha-rin's behavior was a disaster, and the original Si-hyun had been pathetic. If I were Jeong-don, I probably wouldn't have liked us much either.

"Let me go over the surgical progress again. From the moment the operation began, the bone regenerated like an amoeba, 1mm every 8 seconds, until it was fully restored. The muscle tissue moved on its own and expelled the bamboo fragments by itself. All I did was dress the leftover debris on the outside and seal the wound closed. By now, there's probably hardly any external or internal injury left."

Most doctors would have immediately tried to study the phenomenon. Jeong-don didn't bother. At his best, he was free of greed; at his worst, he simply couldn't be bothered.

Apart from Se-eun, whom he practically considered a granddaughter, he rarely went out of his way for anyone. Perhaps that indifference was why he could know Ha-rin's secret and remain alive.

"So you're finally drifting away from being human, like your sister?"

"Guess my face has gotten smart like my sister's, then."

"One hit and your head's gone haywire. Be sure to see a psychiatrist. You've become obnoxious."

"...Just a figure of speech, that's all."

That stings a little.

Jeong-don gave me a prickly look and sighed.

"You don't go poking at secrets you can't handle. Don't act like you know, either. And try not to get involved if you can help it."

"...Yeah, yeah."

"Anyway, you young'uns these days, tsk tsk, ugh. Oh, quitting time."

After a few more complaints, Jeong-don left the moment his shift ended. For an old man, he moved remarkably quickly when it was time to go home.

At six that evening, Se-eun came to visit.

She didn't bother greeting me. She dropped into a chair, crossed her legs, and tapped at her phone, her freshly painted nails flashing as they moved.

"Why are you here?"

"To visit."

She stared at the screen, looking unusually cheerful.

"Got a thing going on?"

"What're you talking about. Today was the first time I went to a karaoke room with my friends."

No wonder she seemed so pleased. Looking closer, I noticed she'd gotten a different phone.

Catching my glance, Se-eun pulled another new smartphone from her bag.

"Here. This one's yours."

"Huh? All of a sudden? No, damn it, why's it this color?"

It was an extremely pink smartphone.

"What, it's pretty. Big sister told me to pick one out and give it to you."

So that means...

'Does that mean it isn't bugged?'

What's going on?

While I'd been in the hospital, had Ha-rin lifted her curfew? Had Se-eun finally received a phone Ha-rin hadn't tampered with?

"And they tore out that room full of mirrors, too."

Things really had changed.

"And since you weren't here, I had breakfast with big sister. She said she was sorry to me."

No, seriously, so many things... have changed.

Se-eun was looking at me now as though she were seeing me for the first time.

"What?"

Something softened in her blue eyes. She shook her head almost imperceptibly.

"...Just wondering if you're really the person I knew."

I smiled faintly and turned toward the sunset pouring through the hospital window.

For a few seconds I tried to speak, then thought better of it. In the end, I brushed aside everything I wanted to say and gave her a careless smile.

"If it were someone you didn't know, you'd have kept quiet just fine, huh."

"Yeah, that's true too. Want me to peel you some fruit?"

"Why are you suddenly acting so nice?"

"What're you talking about. I've always been nice."

"What a load of crap."

"Then I'll have them all to myself."

"Leave a few for me."

"Eat the peel."

It was an exchange I couldn't have imagined before. We were siblings, so naturally our banter was hardly sweet.

But for the first time in ages, we could face each other and joke without fear.

Not once since our parents' deaths had we spent an evening like this.

We argued over nonsense and traded petty insults, and somehow I felt the weight in my chest begin to lift.

Se-eun was smiling freely.

It was the same smile the original Si-hyun remembered from their childhood.

By the time the sunset had faded from the window, Se-eun was still beside me, talking animatedly.

I looked away from the darkening sky. She hadn't run out of things to say.

"Anyway, you just don't have the basics down. The way you treat girls..."

I smiled at my younger sister and closed my eyes for a moment.

The ordinary family Si-hyun had wanted so desperately was beginning to feel possible.