Since entering this world, I had rarely been treated like a woman. Aside from washing my hair and feeding me, Inna had never particularly forced anything on me; the President, who unexpectedly found me burdensome, had never come near either; and as for Kim Haneul, I had been the one wary of her.
Thus, paradoxically, the only person who properly treated me like a woman was Kim Sora, whose face I could not even see.
“Well? How is it? Isn’t it pretty? Don’t you suddenly feel so lovely?”
“It’s heavy.”
My hair felt far heavier than before, likely because of the dazzling ornaments now piled atop my head, and I frowned; but Sora, holding a mirror out in front of me while preoccupied solely with my hair, had no reason to care about my mood.
Her large chest was nearly brushing against my back, which made for an ambiguous feeling. This was an act possible only because she did not see me as a man—rather, because she did not see herself as a sexual object. Besides, since she did this every break, there was no way I could review my studies here even if I had wanted to.
Had the leader of the group Sora belonged to been present, she would certainly have been able to restrain Sora, but...
“Hmhmm~. Pretty.”
Inna was merely smiling happily, seemingly pleased with my appearance as Sora dressed me up.
Both Sora and Inna were girls by my standards, but because they were physically stronger than me, I could not run away. I could accept Inna being strong because she was a superhuman, but as for Sora, I was unable to resist with my blessing turned off—whether her physical abilities were simply naturally that strong. Still, I had come to understand why Sora, who had supposedly been ignored by me, kept approaching.
“Right?! Isn’t it pretty?! I think this is the first time I’ve seen such a lovely creature just sitting still without running away or refusing!”
It was simply because this body was incredibly cute.
My looks must have suited her tastes perfectly.
I glared at Inna, whom I branded a traitor, as she nodded as if agreeing with Sora’s words. She had said she would protect me and whatnot, so I had begun to trust her somewhat, yet rather than protecting me, she was merely standing idly by.
“...Don’t you think you should stop now?”
Rather, a helping hand was extended from a direction I had never expected. Should I call her a tall woman?
She was clearly around the same age as the people around me, but whether because she was tall or much taller than us, she looked like an adult.
Since this was a dating sim game where Koreans were mostly the main cast and which even featured 19+ battles, I had not asked about people’s ages separately, but I had heard that expected lifespans were 160 years—perhaps because superpowers affected genes or disease treatment—and that both middle school and elementary school were longer than what I knew, so I had heard that all the kids currently attending high school were adults.
What I had thought was a school uniform was actually just Inna misspeaking; she had merely told me that the clothes I wore when going to school were called a uniform.
In other words, just as the children beside me were adults even if I called them boys and girls, that tall woman too would clearly not be very different in age from those around me, but height carried with it a certain sense of intimidation.
“Honestly, it’s true that she used to act obnoxious toward us, so isn’t it strange that you’re letting her into our circle so easily? No, if it’s something you would say, you’d probably say it’s not strange, so let me speak from my position. I really think it’s strange.”
The woman who had not given me so much as a single glance now stared straight at me. Even if everything appeared black, if you focused on shading and the like, differences naturally became visible—such as her eyes, twisted with anger toward me.
“And you—do you know how disgusting it is that you ignored us all this time, and now, just because things didn’t work out with the guy you liked, you’re immediately trying to cling to us?”
“Hey! Song Gain! What kind of slander are you spewing in front of her!”
Sora, who seemed close to Song Gain, immediately got angry, but honestly, her anger sounded justified. There was no reason for her to burst into groundless rage and hate me when her friends found me cute.
I did not know what I had done, but I must have done something to make her angry.
So I stayed still without any thought of making excuses.
...In my most honest heart, I felt that the one likely to put an end to acts like piling ornaments on my hair every break time was not Yoo Inna but Song Gain.
‘I wanted this to stop already.’
I had been looking to Song Gain as my savior, but perhaps thinking she would not stand by this time, the girl sitting beside me rose from her seat.
“Gain-ah, shall we talk?”
Because they were words spoken to a friend, they sounded gentle, yet simultaneously chilling. Inna, whom I had thought was quite good to her friends, now seemed a bit annoyed.
Something like black teardrops seemed to flow down the face of the woman with the strong voice, but the woman called Gain shook her head about, steeled her resolve, and spoke.
“Yeah, let’s go out and talk.”
She must have resolved to ask that my treatment be reconsidered. Praying that Gain’s resolve to cast me out of this group would succeed, I watched the two leave for the hallway with desperate eyes.
“Hm, may I ask from my side too? Even though I approached you today thinking you somehow didn’t seem like you would push me away, your actions until now can’t suddenly make sense, right? Could you perhaps tell us something so we can be convinced?”
While half the students were still watching us, Sora cautiously asked me. Rather than thinking Song Gain’s words were wrong, she probably wanted to hear my position, even just a little, in order to persuade Song Gain.
What was I supposed to talk about? I did not want to spread word of my memory loss in front of others, and since she seemed the type of meddlesome woman who would say, “You lost your memory?” and fuss over me even more, I had no desire to tell that story either.
Coldly pushing away those around me, as the original owner had done, would be easy, but I was honestly reluctant to completely sever any possibility of the original owner connecting with others when she returned. And to find the true heroine I needed in order to get out of this body, I could not afford to be completely isolated from those around me.
There was no telling when I might need their help. So here, I had to say something that made it seem as though I had opened my heart to them appropriately, but——.
“I just suddenly felt like doing it. Even if you don’t believe me and distance yourselves, it’s just the karma for what I’ve done until now, so I don’t mind.”
Since I was the type who was bad at lying, only vague words came out. Having too soft a heart had been my undoing.
I had thought such words would never convince her, yet she was blinking back tears of emotion at those simple words.
“Don’t worry too much. Even if Gain speaks like that, unlike herself, she has a tendency to adore people with cute appearances. If you convey your feelings clearly, they’ll get through.”
If only they wouldn’t get through so well that you’d stop acting this friendly toward me. As though impressed by my kindness in not saying things the other party would not want to hear, the girl who had seated me on her lap hugged me just like that.
“Inna likes you a lot too, so she’ll persuade Gain to not hate you and come back. Don’t worry too much and just wait.”
Sora, who seemed to have an incredibly good heart, seemed to trust her friend Inna deeply, but because of the window floating before me, I could not trust her.
[Yoo Inna’s Capture Strategy: She prefers methods that make others distance themselves from you so that you have nowhere to rely on but her, but currently that method is not working due to your changed-yet-unchanged state. Because you remember the name of someone you absolutely should not know, she suspects that even your claim of having lost your memory may have been a lie. Though she tried to gauge your reactions by not stopping Sora from playing around while decorating your hair, your reactions were ambiguous and not very different from before you lost your memory.]
[If you did not lose your memory but lied pretending you had in order to gradually distance yourself from her, then it is only right that a liar be punished. The fact that she bestowed a blessing upon you means she intended that you not be mistreated by others, but conversely, to those she permits, the blessing placed upon you will not function.]
[Be careful of those close to Yoo Inna. To you, who cannot see extras, extras may be more dangerous than those with special abilities. The closer they are to Yoo Inna, the deeper they would have been affected by her influence, and that influence would have further strengthened their bodies. In other words, Yoo Inna may have her close associates infiltrate deep into your heart, and only when they seem to be breaking you will she pretend to be your savior and rescue you.]
Listening to the system, it felt like Inna taking Gain away now was not for my sake, but to break me...
Since I did not want to alienate Sora, who deeply trusted Inna, I said nothing else and surrendered myself to her hand as it stroked my hair.
Just what would Inna do to me?
As I wondered whether I could trust her.