142) Chapter 21. ……Huh? (1)

When I was very young, there were times when I slept together with Auntie Yujin and Uncle Dohyun.

Of course, since I was someone who was afraid of being held in people’s arms, it wasn’t like I slept while embraced by them. It was more that the four of us slept lined up together.

When we all went camping together, or when we went somewhere for fun and slept together.

Now that I think about it, in this life I don’t think I’ve ever really slept alone. When I was very little, I lived at the orphanage, so naturally I slept together with the other children, and even after I started living with Soi, we continued sharing a room the entire time.

I have no memories of sleeping by myself.

That was how much love I was raised with. Honestly, to the point where I couldn’t even complain here about not having parents or anything like that.

If anything, wouldn’t my wounds have been far deeper if I had stayed with my original parents?

“Are you really okay?”

“……Yes, I’m okay.”

My voice answering the worry-filled question was thoroughly cowed.

Auntie Yujin had almost never gotten angry at me. No, maybe not even once.

I did try my best in my own way to behave well, but even aside from that, she was someone who took care of me that attentively.

Because the two of them always treated Soi and me equally.

“Really? It doesn’t hurt when you breathe or anything?”

“Well……”

“Mom, is it okay to keep talking that much to someone who has trouble breathing?”

“Ah, I see. I’m sorry.”

Soi snapped at Auntie Yujin, who kept checking on my condition, and Auntie Yujin lowered the ends of her eyebrows as if she truly felt sorry.

She didn’t need to apologize.

If anyone was at fault, it was me.

Of course, I never imagined villains would suddenly appear.

But if I had acted just a little more calmly there. If I had looked at the situation just a little more properly, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

I shouldn’t think, “It’s okay if I get hurt.”

Well, maybe if I truly were all alone in this world, someone genuinely unloved by anyone, then it might be different.

But this world wasn’t like that.

……Right, love. It was love.

“But if even one little thing hurts, you have to tell us, okay? Don’t endure it just because you don’t want to make us worry.”

“……Yes.”

“I know very well how much it hurts.”

At my answer, Uncle Dohyun, who had been silently standing there listening, spoke with a stiff expression.

“And I also know there are aftereffects. For a while, you really need to be careful. Don’t recklessly move around.”

“……Yees.”

Both Auntie Yujin and Uncle Dohyun.

They treated me exactly the same as Soi.

And I didn’t mean some mechanical equality like buying us the same presents on anniversaries, or taking us somewhere and buying the same snacks.

They genuinely, sincerely raised me as though loving the child they had brought home was only natural.

As though it was only natural that they raise me as their own daughter, they poured in every ounce of devotion they possibly could.

If the “heart” contained in the gifts they gave Soi was the same, then surely the “heart” directed toward me was also the same.

If they “loved” Soi as their daughter, then Auntie Yujin and Uncle Dohyun would “love” me as their daughter too.

Because that was the kind of people they were.

Honestly, I had reached the point where I couldn’t even overlay the image from the original story onto those two anymore.

Unlike in the original story, Uncle Dohyun had survived and continued protecting us all this time, and Auntie Yujin had never become sharp-tempered or thrown herself into work so obsessively that she neglected taking care of us.

A world completely different from the one I knew.

……A world where only my own situation had improved, while perhaps everything else had gone completely off course.

“Rua.”

Auntie Yujin, still tightly holding my hand, called me again.

Sitting close beside my bed and looking directly into my eyes, Auntie Yujin spoke.

“None of this is your fault.”

“……Yes.”

I answered like that because I didn’t know what else to say.

I really didn’t know.

Was none of it really my fault?

In the original story, the villain called the “Witch” never appeared. Maybe she existed in the setting, in the worldbuilding itself, but even so, at least in the parts I had read, she had never shown herself.

Why was that?

Even back when she didn’t know about my ability, that woman had still come looking for me. If so, then the Witch must have sought out Seo Rua in the novel too.

One could think Seo Rua’s personality became twisted after that—

But then why was the Witch in this world constantly making her presence known again and again?

There was only one thing that had changed.

Me.

She must have looked at me and thought something.

Perhaps the Seo Rua of that world had been someone the Witch didn’t particularly need to possess. Seo Rua’s ability had only been enough to move flowerpots around.

But the me in this world was different.

Was that the difference?

Then maybe I should have made sure the Witch never took interest in me at all. If I had acted thoroughly incompetent, if I had never become someone worth wanting badly enough to go to such lengths for, then maybe the Witch would have simply stayed quiet.

Squeeze.

The thoughts spiraling outward stopped at the sensation in my hand.

As if she somehow knew I was thinking bad thoughts, Auntie Yujin quietly looked at me while tightly holding my hand.

But somehow that gaze only made me feel even more ashamed, so I lowered my eyes.

I hadn’t grown into such a good child. I would never become a perfect hero like Auntie Yujin or Uncle Dohyun. I was the kind of child who, if my emotions surged too strongly, might kill someone at any moment.

“Get plenty of rest.”

Auntie Yujin said that as she stood up from her seat.

“Uh, where are you going?”

“There’s work to do. We need to investigate what happened here too.”

“Ah, um, th-that.”

I hesitated awkwardly before finally opening my mouth.

“Th-that person.”

I didn’t really know her name anyway.

She was a villain, but I didn’t even know if she had some kind of alias, so I spoke vaguely.

“Ah, that person.”

Auntie Yujin’s face instantly turned cold.

“It’s okay. The injuries aren’t… life-threatening. None of this was your fault.”

“……Yes.”

“Is there something you’re curious about? If there is, I’ll ask for you.”

“Ah, yes.”

And then I hesitated again.

Auntie Yujin was the person who raised me. Uncle Dohyun too.

So if there were people in this world I could call “Mom and Dad,” and people who could proudly declare me their daughter, then it was these two.

Would it really be okay to talk about the Witch in front of them?

But even so, it was something I absolutely wanted to clarify.

“Th-that person talked to me about the W-Witch.”

“……”

Auntie Yujin fell silent, and I swallowed nervously.

“I-I was wondering why she didn’t know.”

“……So, you mean you’re wondering why she didn’t know about the relationship between the Witch and you.”

“Yes.”

Maybe she truly just had no interest. Even video streaming sites sometimes don’t show you things you normally don’t watch.

Just like when she attacked the orphanage, maybe she really was just someone who never thought about anything at all.

But even so, I wanted to confirm it for sure. I felt like that would ease my mind a little.

Auntie Yujin nodded, smiled gently as though telling me not to worry, squeezed my hand once more before letting go, and only then left the hospital room.

The room became quiet again.

Soi, Chae-yi, Hyeonji, and Jinwoo also said nothing.

Rustle.

Then suddenly Soi moved.

With unbelievable confidence, she climbed onto the hospital bed and occupied the space beside me.

As if refusing to lose to her, Chae-yi climbed onto the hospital bed too.

“S-Soi? Chae-yi?”

I called out to them in confusion, but the two girls, their expressions firm and unyielding, shoved me tightly between them without the slightest compromise.

Was this narrower than the dorm bed? Somehow it felt much tighter than usual.

My chest was being squeezed. From both sides of my chest, by, um, the two of them’s, uh, anyway, not just touching me but pressing firmly against me.

“Uh, um, I still have things to say.”

“No.”

Chae-yi cut me off midway.

“Rua is going to sleep soundly starting now. Because you need to recover quickly.”

“That’s right. Rua has to rest well. It’s time for sleepy-byes.”

No, our height difference wasn’t even that big, was it really okay to treat me this much like a baby?

Besides.

Hyeonji was used to seeing us act like this all the time, but Jinwoo—

Well, Jinwoo had seen it once when she came over to our house.

But still.

“I-I see.”

Jinwoo muttered as if realizing something anew.

“S-so at the dorms, every day, you do this……”

“Hmph.”

Apparently even at the hospital this behavior annoyed Hyeonji quite a bit, because she snorted and sat down in a chair.

It looked like those two also had no intention of leaving anytime soon.

At the dorms, Hyeonji would have gone back to her own bed, and Jinwoo wouldn’t have been there, so there usually wasn’t anyone around to keep watching us when we acted like this.

But what were they planning to do if a doctor or nurse came in?

“……”

That said, it wasn’t like I had any way to peel these two off me, so I just stayed quiet and let myself be trapped between them.

Edit

Pub: 27 May 2026 06:16 UTC

Views: 23