Confession
Black flames writhed and surged.
Where am I?
A girl stood vacant-eyed amid the flickering fire. Jet-black hair cut short, a fierce cast to her features — she lingered there for a long while, staring blankly into the blaze. The black fire gorged itself on everything around her, swelling greedily on either side, and yet, strangely, it only circled near the girl, never swallowing her whole.
"Ah."
A sound escaped her, as if something had just broken the surface of her mind. She couldn't remember a thing — not even who she was — and yet, strangely, a man came to her. A man who had always smiled at her. Who had always believed in her.
The moment his face took shape, his name seeped into her thoughts as if it had always been waiting there.
"Jeong... Jojun..."
She stumbled over the three syllables, and a smile found her lips before she even knew it.
The flames flared, then flared again — as if jealous of that smile. The black fire that had been circling her suddenly leapt onto her arm.
"Aagh!"
She screamed and tried to beat the flames off with her other hand, but they clung with a vicious patience, climbing her arm, beginning to eat her away. And in that same instant, the man's face taking shape in her mind started to fade.
"N-no..."
She clung to him with everything she had. The curve of his smiling mouth was being erased. The gentle slant of his eyes was dissolving, bit by bit.
"Jeong Jojun. Jeong Jojun. Jeong Jojun...!"
She called his name again and again, desperate not to lose it. The flames crawled past her hands and up her throat, but she only cried the name louder, half sobbing it now.
"Jeong Jojun!"
A sharp crackle — and the writhing flames tore themselves from her body. She crumpled to the ground, strength gone, collapsing as if every last drop of her had been wrung out.
"Ahh..."
In a field of vision drowned in black fire, the air shimmered and licked like a living tongue.
"Jojun."
Boneless, spent, she called his name one more time. Tears spilled over and cut warm tracks down her face. She didn't understand the feeling well enough to name it — why this man's name, of all things, was the one she kept reaching for. She only knew that if she kept carrying this heart around, this mess of emotions clinging and churning inside her, it was going to kill her.
So she said his name. Over and over.
"Jojun... Jojun."
A man so radiant he was almost frightening. A man who kept showing her kindness for no reason at all, who believed in her anyway.
"Ahh..."
And then she understood. This feeling — sticky and terrifying and thrilling and almost filthy —
It was love.
The black flames surged without warning and swallowed her whole.
Please.
She wished it with everything she had left. That she could tell him, before she disappeared.
Please.
That she could see him just once more, before she disappeared.
The black flames closed over her, and the girl vanished without a trace.
A warm sensation.
Through a consciousness adrift and hazy, she registered something warm against her skin. Awareness gathered around it of its own accord; every nerve seemed to lean toward that heat. She was bathed in warmth — and the moment the thought completed itself, her eyes flew open.
"Uh..."
An unfamiliar ceiling. She stared at it blankly, then felt again the sunlight laid across her whole body. Soft, gentle warmth — she turned her head to find where it was coming from, and she saw him.
A man dozing against the windowsill, his head dipping. The sword at his hip rocked slowly in time with his pulse. His features, steeped in amber sunlight, were so gentle that the shout left her before she could stop it.
"Hey! Jeong Jojun!"
"Mm?"
Jojun cracked one eye open and looked at Cheonghwa. He squeezed both eyes shut, opened them wide, and smiled.
"You up?"
Cheonghwa said nothing. She just looked at that smile. Tears surged up in her throat, stupid and unstoppable.
"You bastard!"
The tears rolled down and dripped from her cheeks, but she forced the corners of her mouth up as if she could hide how wrecked she felt, and she called his name again. Jojun smiled at her, soft as anything, then came over and settled into the chair beside her bed.
"Looks like you're doing better."
That was what he said. But his eyes were traveling over her with open worry, checking every inch of her, and whatever had been jammed in Cheonghwa's chest finally gave way.
"Hey."
She called to him.
"Mm?"
He tipped his head, giving her his full attention, and Cheonghwa said it.
Crimson sunlight caught in the window frame and in the raw red rims of her eyes as Cheonghwa confessed. Jojun's breath snagged in his throat. She was crying, tears falling freely, and the smile she turned on him as she said it — utterly without pretense — was so beautiful it undid him. Cheonghwa, who had always been nothing but wounds, had unfurled like a single rose opening its petals. He could only stare.
"Hey. The hell, you spacing out? I said I fucking love you... say something."
He sat there, dazed, looking at the strangely unburdened smile on her face — then seemed to come back to himself, a crooked grin tugging at his mouth.
"I told you. I'm not into girls who swear."
"Ah."
The disappointment slipped out of her before she could catch it. Right. She'd known. There were girls at his side prettier than her, more charming than her. She had already expected him not to take the confession. She'd expected it — and his answer still hurt more than she was ready for.
"But you know what."
He added something more. She had already given up, and still her ears pricked toward him of their own accord.
"Cheonghwa. You're charming enough to make me change my type."
"You— you—!"
She jabbed a finger at him, looking thoroughly wronged. Jojun just grinned that slippery grin of his, and Cheonghwa, burning with embarrassment, swung a fist at him.
"Heh."
He laughed and took the punch, then kept going.
"Ah, but I've got a bit of a problem, though..."
"What is it...?"
She wiped her tears on her sleeve and thought, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. She was already in far too deep for anything to matter.
"I actually have three girlfriends."
"What?"
The word left her before she could stop it.
"Yeah, for real. And all three of them know they're my girlfriends."
Cheonghwa raked back through her memory. Come to think of it — on the day of the inter-class tournament, there had been three girls who always ran with Jojun. The student council president. The vice president. And the vice representative from Jojun's own class.
All three of them? She turned to look at him, her face a study in disbelief, and Jojun put both hands up as if to apologize.
"You'll still like me though, right?"
The sheer nerve of it. Cheonghwa exploded.
"You crazy bastard!"
This — this two-bit player—!
She hammered both fists into his chest, blow after blow.
"Hahaha... sorry!"
He tossed the apology out like it weighed nothing. And still, Cheonghwa could not quite bring herself to say no.
The aftermath of the inter-class tournament had been cleaned up, and it was lunch on the first day back at the Great Demon Subjugation Academy. After several days off, the students were eating in a peaceful, slightly wilted haze.
There was no such peace to be found among the five people who had spread a picnic mat across the academy rooftop. And right now I was sitting smack in the middle of them, squirming.
Hoo. How the hell do I play this.
I swallowed and opened my mouth.
"So, uh..."
I was trying to get some kind of preamble out. Cheonghwa beat me to it.
"Hello! My name is Cheonghwa, and I will be serving as Jojun's fourth girlfriend! I look forward to working with you!"
She bowed her head low, greeting Bianca, Rebecca, and Alice in turn.
"Oh my~ It's a pleasure~"
"A pleasure."
Bianca's greeting was warm; Rebecca's was clipped and cool. One person, however, was having none of it. Alice — my first heroine, currently advertising her displeasure with a little toss of her reddish-brown twin-tails — pressed a finger hard against her temple and looked at me.
"Jojun."
"Yes!"
I snapped upright and arranged myself into a posture of maximum attentiveness. Alice sighed and went on.
"I told you. I said I was greedy. I said even sharing you with the president and the vice president made me jealous."
I nodded without a word.
"So why?"
Her red eyes settled on me. Looking into those scarlet, hollow pupils sent a slow crawl of goosebumps up my arms.
"Hm? So why?"
She asked it again.
"I— I— well, that's..."
I was shaking, scrambling for any excuse that would hold, when Cheonghwa dropped to her knees beside me with a thud and folded herself into a full bow aimed straight at Alice.
"I'm sorry! I was the one who made a move on Jojun first!"
"Haaah?"
Alice's eyes unfocused for a second at the sheer violence of the apology, then narrowed on Cheonghwa in pure disbelief.
"I'm sorry! If you just give me a chance, I won't get in anyone's way — I'll work my hardest to support Jojun, and I'll love him with everything I've got!"
There was something about Cheonghwa's posture that looked uncomfortably like a man shouting Please give me your daughter's hand! at his future father-in-law. Alice turned to me, a little dazed.
"She's... a little intense, isn't she?"
Yeah. Cheonghwa did tend to be on the honest side. Come to think of it, all of my girlfriends were a little unusual, each in her own way. Alice had that streak of obsession about me; Bianca was an eternal optimist; Rebecca was a blunt ice queen; and Cheonghwa was rough around the edges but warm — at least with me. Lined up like that, they all had such sharp, distinct colors. Which, frankly, was part of why I liked them.
"Please allow it!"
Cheonghwa stayed on her knees, stubbornly pleading, and Alice finally gave in with a reluctant fine.
"Haa... well. I suppose it can't be helped. Our magnificent Jeong Jojun has such a grand mission to fulfill, after all?"
She speared me with a look sharp enough to draw blood. I answered in a voice that wanted to crawl under the mat.
"I'm sooorry..."
The truth was, I had already reported to Alice the day Cheonghwa and I got together. When Alice came at me like she wanted me dead, I had held up the Savior thing like a shield and argued that in this world I had no choice but to get involved with a lot of women. Alice had beaten me even harder for that. Luckily, Bianca had been there — she switched on her Yongan and confirmed that what I was saying was the truth — so after a few more minutes of getting worked over, Alice had finally accepted it.
It might have sounded like a convenient excuse. It was the honest truth. The reason I'd changed classes in the previous second scenario was because I had seduced Bianca; in this world, the more heroines I got close to, the more my Causality increased. I had to keep expanding those relationships.
Cheonghwa, though, had never been a heroine in the original game, so none of that even applied to her. Haha.
Still. She was pretty, and she was kind.
"Thank you for allowing me to love him! I will do my very best to make this a good relationship!"
The moment she had Alice's permission, Cheonghwa sprang to her feet and shouted her resolve to the rooftop. Bianca burst into bright laughter and clapped; Rebecca, expression as flat as ever, followed along with a few claps of her own.
"Thank you! Thank you!"
Cheonghwa kept bowing, and I joined in, clapping along. Alice let out one more sigh and, reluctantly, clapped too.
And just like that, lunch got a whole lot louder.