What kind of bitch is she? (1)
What kind of bitch is she? (1)
Act after imagining she exists...
I walked, chewing over the receptionist's words.
I had always thought it would be nice to have a girlfriend, but I had never imagined what she would look like.
I had just thought it would be nice to meet a good person.
However, the receptionist's words made sense.
To get this kind of break without getting caught in a lie, I needed to be a bit more meticulous.
In response, I tried imagining a girlfriend.
What would she look like?
Her inner self?
Her outer appearance?
Realistically, could I make a girlfriend more beautiful than Lily-noona, Vien, and Rus?
I tilted my head.
... It would probably be hard.
Even objectively speaking, it was hard to find anyone prettier than them.
I had even heard people ask if I picked my party members based on their faces so often.
I definitely didn't do that.
If I had, I wouldn't be cruising along like this now.
Anyway, if I imagined a girlfriend's appearance... I should picture her as a bit more plain and modest than them.
Hair color... Pink? I like pink.
Yeah. Pink hair and pink eyes. Let's go with that.
And her heart...
I remembered a dream I had while riding back in a carriage with Vien a few days ago.
A dream of having a girlfriend who understood me, comforted me, and made me feel at ease just by being by my side.
Right. I just needed to imagine someone like that for her inner self.
I couldn't compromise on her inner self, at least.
I should think of her as the kindest person in the world.
It was still crude, but I had the framework down.
Now I felt confident that I could answer a bit even if they suddenly asked me questions.
Well... how much would they really ask, anyway?
Returning to the inn, I called out to the innkeeper.
"Excuse me! Ajumma!"
The first floor of the inn was a restaurant, and the second and third floors were lodgings.
My room was on the second floor. I was planning to eat something before going in.
A common, middle-aged inn ajumma whom you could see anywhere in any neighborhood appeared.
"Ah, chonggak. It's been a while. It's so hard to see your face, you know? Are you even living upstairs?"
She walked over and patted my arm.
"I was a bit busy. Now I've got some breathing room, so you'll be seeing me often. Anyway, I'm trying to get some grub, what's good today?"
Her eyes widened.
"Wait, you want to eat here? Oh my god... What kind of miracle is this?"
"Why are you acting like that?"
"Of course I'm surprised when someone who always ate outside or in his room says he'll eat down here!"
She said with a loud laugh.
"I was already worried if you were eating properly, so I'll make you a hearty meal this time! Today's roasted pork hind leg is good."
Caught up in her uniquely good-natured vibe, my mood lifted as well.
"Ah, then please give me that! And a glass of beer, too!"
I was getting more and more excited.
Everything that should be natural felt so unfamiliar.
It had been so long since I ate a meal without minding other people's eyes.
To think there was no one bothering or annoying me while I ate.
Feeling pleasantly and softly buzzed, I carried my bulging belly and entered the room.
Tik
As the magic lamp turned on, the messy interior of the room came into view.
I was just about to get used to this messy room.
I had been too exhausted to look closely until now, but it was even more of a wreck than I thought.
Clothes hanging everywhere, discarded trash.
Looking closely, bugs crawling around, spiderwebs stuck to the ceiling.
I should clean this up tomorrow, too.
Because I had no schedule tomorrow.
I chewed over those resonant words.
Because I had no schedule tomorrow.
With a smile plastered on my lips, I threw my body onto the bed.
Even inside this messy room, I felt peace.
Today, of all days, the blanket felt softer and cozier.
So... having no schedule meant... I didn't need to wake up early, right?
Laughter kept leaking out.
I couldn't believe it.
It was a long-awaited rest.
Please. I hoped no one would interfere with this happy feeling.
I clapped my hands to turn off the magic lamp and slowly, deeply fell asleep.
Kuuugh...ha.
How long had I slept? I didn't know for sure, but I slept for a long time.
I stretched and raised my body.
The bed's magnetism was gone.
As expected, something like a magnetic bed was just my imagination.
I felt so refreshed. The heavy weight that had been pressing down on my body was gone.
It felt as if I had taken a tonic or herbal medicine.
I wondered if my body had originally been this healthy.
The sun was high in the sky.
It was awkward.
I always woke up before the sun rose and watched it come up.
Opening my eyes to sunlight hanging as high as it could go.
Up until now, it was a perfectly wonderful day.
If there was only one catch, it was that I was extremely hungry?
But that wasn't a problem.
Because I was free.
I could just eat.
When I went down to eat, the inn ajumma was visible.
"Ajumma, please make me some food!"
She looked at me and gave a refreshing laugh.
"Auw, chonggak! Just like you said. I'm definitely seeing you often now."
"Didn't I tell you? I've got some breathing room."
I grabbed a seat anywhere and sat down.
Several people were eating.
The inn ajumma approached carrying water.
"By the way, where did you go yesterday? You weren't in sight again, so I thought you got busy again."
Huh? I looked at her with puzzlement.
"We chatted yesterday."
"Eeing? What are you talking about?"
The conversation somehow wasn't connecting.
"I told you yesterday that I had some breathing room and would be seeing you often from now on."
"That was the day before yesterday, chonggak!"
Ah.
Now that I thought about it, I must have slept straight for two days.
"Ah... Was that the day before yesterday? I guess I slept straight for two days... That's why I didn't know."
Hearing my words, the inn ajumma burst out laughing, going Ohonghonghoh.
"Ayu~ You really got some breathing room, didn't you! You were sleeping for that long? I didn't hear a peep, so I thought you went out early in the morning again. Aigo. You must be starving then. I'll prepare a hearty meal, so hang tight!"
"Haha, yeah, thank you."
With those words, the inn ajumma ran into the kitchen.
She was a person full of human warmth.
Truly, it was a perfectly wonderful day so far.
Not a single thing that could ruin my mood happened.
It was already lunchtime.
"Oh right, what should I make you?"
The ajumma poked her head out from the kitchen.
"Anything is fine. Whatever you make is delicious."
Giving a simple answer, I started planning how to spend my day.
How long had it been since I planned my own schedule with my own hands?
It finally felt real that I was resting.
First of all.
Like I thought yesterday—no, the day before yesterday—I should clean up the room a bit.
It's too messy.
Now that I have some breathing room, let's quickly knock out what I wanted to do.
I want to live in a room fit for a human being now, too.
Next is...
I should go visit hyung.
A smile formed at the thought of hyung.
I received help again.
To think I actually got free time.
It's safe to think that hyung gave me all this current free time.
Should I buy him a gift or something?
Singgeul-beonggeul. It was a joyful time.
Rus had been sprawled across her bed for days, doing nothing but crying.
Not taking care of her meals, unable to sleep.
She just cried.
Even when she cried out loud with peong-peong sounds, if her throat grew hoarse she would whimper, and when she didn't even have the energy for that, tears just silently streamed from her eyes.
Now she had to admit it.
This was reality.
Even beating her own head until a lump formed to wake up from the dream, and pouring cold water over her body, there was no change in Rus's world.
Stachys had gotten a lover, and it wasn't her.
They say all pain becomes familiar and dulls over time, but not this pain.
It was unbearably agonizing.
"... Ugh... Uuuk..."
When her mind went blank and the pain grew slightly faint, imagining the things Stachys would do with his girlfriend in the future tore her heart to shreds.
Rus was experiencing the feeling of the dreams she had cherished so dearly being ripped apart and torn out of her grasp.
Everything she wanted to do with Stachys.
Stachys was going to do all those things with someone who wasn't her.
All of Stachys's first experiences wouldn't belong to her.
"... No!!... I'm telling you, no...!!"
Rus beat the bed with peok-peok sounds.
Whenever she heard affectionate love stories, she had always projected herself and Stachys into them.
Even when making the Stachys Treaty, it was a treaty made out of fear that someone else would take him, but she had believed that in the end, magically, as if by fate, she and Stachys would end up together.
However, it was all an illusion.
Reality wasn't a love story she had stepped into.
She was only now realizing that there was a huge difference.
He had told her with his own mouth that his fate was someone else.
".. Ugh... Whew... Whew..."
She tried to endure the pain through deep breaths.
She clutched her chest.
Desperate to escape this pain somehow, she struggled and thrashed.
'Right. Let's think of things that always make me feel good when I think about them.'
She closed her eyes and imagined Stachys.
Because thinking of him always brought a soft, silly smile to her face.
-'Rus, we really click well.'
-'Rus, are you having troubles?'
-'Rus, there's no one else but you, my friend.'
It backfired.
The memories that had always given her happiness now gave her pain.
Instead, the agony intensified.
"Aaaaah... It hurts...!!"
No matter what she did, this agony wouldn't disappear.
"... Don't leave me... Heuuk..."
She curled her body up.
It felt like her heart was chilling and freezing over.
And at that moment, she realized there was one part of her drained body where she could feel warmth.
....?
Through her swollen eyes, she looked at the place where the warmth was felt.
It was the friendship ring worn on her left index finger.
A link to him, custom-made mere days ago.
The next step taken mere days ago.
A ring made not even of silver, but cheap metal.
Yet, a ring more precious than anything else.
"Ugh... Ugh..."
She clenched her fist and brought the ring to her lips.
Warmth was transmitted.
She calmed down a little.
It felt like she was connected to Stachys.
Then, in an instant, something exploded in her chest with a peong, and rage engulfed her entire body.
"Aaaaah Aaaaah!!!!"
Rus's emotions swung wildly back and forth.
She tore at her hair.
"The one connected-"
She irritably pulled the ring off her index finger.
"-isn't me!!"
And then she raised her body, tried to throw it against the wall, but stopped.
Tuduk tuduk.
Tears fell onto her thighs.
"Heuueuk... Heuuk..."
This time, depression enveloped her.
She simply couldn't throw the ring away.
Because if even this fell away from her body, it felt like it would truly feel as though he had left her.
"......"
She flopped back down limply onto the bed.
She clutched the ring like that for a long time.
She cried for a long time again, and screamed for a long time again.
"Haa... Haa..."
Then, a thought struck Rus, who had been driven to her limit.
'Stachys hasn't gotten matching rings with her yet, right?'
Just imagining the two of them getting couple rings made tears well up, but she tried to face reality now.
She had to stop crying and find something she could do.
'They haven't gotten couple rings yet, right...?'
The painkiller-like thought that she was still the only one who had gotten matching rings with him comforted her.
The ring shop owner's voice echoed in her head.
-'Rings are all the same anyway. It just depends on how you assign meaning to them.'
Stachys had agreed with that, too.
'Right... I'm the one who assigns the meaning.'
She slowly opened her fist and looked at the ring inside.
A cheap ring with a simple design.
A precious friendship ring with Stachys.
She carefully grabbed the ring with her right index finger and thumb.
And slowly brought her right hand over to her left hand.
The ring headed toward her finger.
The finger reaching out to greet it from her left hand wasn't her index finger... but her ring finger.
"Haa... Haa..."
A new, hard-to-describe emotion was felt by her, who had tasted nothing but despair for days.
It was nothing much, but this faint emotion was like a lifeline to her, who had hit rock bottom.
Index finger for friendship. Ring finger for lovers.
'Stachys must be wearing his ring right now, too, right?'
As the ring touched her ring finger, a murky, dark pleasure washed over her.
"Hreet!!"
Stachys's warmth, which she had taken for granted, was felt in an amplified way.
It felt so precious.
Along with a cool breeze, it felt like her airways were opening up.
The ring continued further down her finger, further and further...
'I'll get the couple ring firs-'
-Kwang-kwang-kwang-kwang!!!
Startled, Rus quickly pulled the ring off her ring finger and put it back on her index finger.
She calmed her pounding heart.
Who on earth was looking for her like this?
'No way.... Stachys? Did he come to tell me it was a lie?'
Clinging to a flashing hope, she dashed toward the door like an arrow.
"Just a second!!"
And rubbing her eyes with ssuk-ssuk motions, she neatened her black bangs, cleared her throat, and readied her voice.
Her voice had gone a bit hoarse, but it couldn't be helped.
Rus opened her room door.
"Stachys...."
In front of the door stood not a man, but two women.
It was Lily and Vien, whose eyes were as swollen as hers.
Lily's face was a mess, and Vien was crying.
Lily spoke.
"Rus, I think we have something to talk about."