132) Chapter 20. Because I Hate Villains! (1)

The last time Hyeonji came over to our house, she slept on the floor.

She was a guest, after all, so naturally I tried to give her the bed, but after seeing Soi and Chae-yi occupy both sides of me as though it were the most natural thing in the world, Hyeonji looked completely fed up and said she’d just sleep on the floor instead.

So I asked whether she’d rather sleep in my room instead, but she said it felt weird to come over to hang out and then sleep alone separately.

Honestly, it sounded reasonable, so even though I felt a little uncomfortable about it, Hyeonji ended up sleeping on the floor.

……Thinking back on it now, shouldn’t the three of us have insisted until the end that we’d sleep on the floor instead? Isn’t it way more normal for the one sleeping alone to use the bed? Rather than squeezing three people onto a narrow bed, wouldn’t it make more sense to just lie side by side on the floor?

So this time, I said to the other two:

“Considering the sleeping arrangements, wouldn’t it make sense for Hyeonji and Jinwoo to sleep on the bed?”

“……Huh?”

Hyeonji looked extremely flustered, like the possibility had never even crossed her mind.

Honestly, at this point she was usually so expressionless that it almost felt like she saw the three of us as idiots who floated through life with empty heads, but apparently my words had genuinely caught her off guard.

“Uwaaa???”

And Jinwoo’s reaction was pretty dramatic too. Normally there’s no reason to put multiple question marks after someone’s words, but if I had to express it in writing, it was the kind of question that deserved at least three of them.

“W-well, the floor definitely has a lot more space. If the three of us lie side by side, there’s plenty of room. And if you squeeze together on the bed? Two people can fit on it?”

As I spoke, I suddenly realized I was saying something really weird.

Why would two people deliberately sleep together on such a narrow bed?

And besides, Hyeonji and Jinwoo weren’t exactly extremely close. At least, not close enough like me and Soi to casually sleep together on a cramped bed.

But then I was trying to make those two sleep in the same bed? Wasn’t that weird?

“……I’ll just sleep on the floor.”

“Uh, yeah, me too.”

Right. If the two of them were sleeping together, that made more sense. If they lay side by side on the floor, they wouldn’t need to press against each other or touch.

“Hmm, then Soi, Chae-yi, and I will sleep on the bed.”

“Uwaaa???”

But at my words, Jinwoo tilted her head again.

“Why?”

This time, I genuinely didn’t understand Jinwoo’s reaction, so I asked back, and she tilted her head in the opposite direction.

“B-but, there are three of you?”

she asked.

“Yeah. There are three of us.”

Since it was Soi, me, and Chae-yi sitting side by side on the bed.

You could clearly see there were three people, right?

“B-but isn’t that bed for one person? It’s only a little wider than a dormitory bed…… no matter how you look at it, shouldn’t it only fit at most two people……?”

Ah.

Only after hearing Jinwoo’s question did I finally understand why she was confused.

I see.

I seeee!!!

Having spent almost my entire life sharing a bed with Soi, and then later sharing one with Chae-yi at the Academy—

Those two everyday habits had completely shattered my common sense into pieces.

A bed this size was originally meant for one person. Even in this house, Soi and I had separate rooms. It was only because of Soi’s stubbornness since childhood that I’d always shared her room.

If we were still single-digit children, or maybe even in our early teens, it would’ve still been manageable for two people to sleep there together. But now that we were full-fledged high school students, things were completely different.

Soi, Chae-yi, and I were all slightly taller than average girls our age too.

“…….”

Hyeonji rubbed her face.

She was the only one among us who at least noticed our behavior was strange, but it seemed she’d gotten so used to it that she’d forgotten.

“It’s just…… um, Soi and I have always shared a room…….”

“The same room?”

“Yeah. Rua and I shared a room. Since we were veeery little. Of course we shared the bed too.”

“B-but doesn’t Rua have her own room……?”

“She does, but it gets way too lonely and boring if we’re apart. Because Rua always gets lonely without her big sister around!”

Was that true?

If anything, I remembered Soi being the one who got incredibly lonely without me.

Ever since I first came to this house, she’d acted like she’d received the greatest gift in the world.

“So that’s why we’re always together. Because we’ve always been together until now.”

…….

Um, Soi.

Is that right? Is that really how sisters express affection?

Are you planning not to get married later? Are you planning to live with me forever?

But I couldn’t bring myself to ask. Somehow, it felt like there was actually a chance Soi would answer yes.

Of course, hearing that answer would make me incredibly happy. It would mean no other man would ever get to touch Soi’s body.

But I didn’t want Soi to end up lonely for the rest of her life just because of my feelings.

“I’m the same way.”

As though refusing to lose to Soi, who had tightly wrapped herself around my arm beside me, Chae-yi grabbed my other arm and said:

“Because we came from the same orph…… kindergarten.”

She hurriedly changed her words midway through saying orphanage. Maybe she thought it might hurt me.

I’m fine with it, but well, yeah, it’s still not exactly something you casually say out loud.

“We’ve been together since we were veeery veeery veeery little, from before Soi and Rua even met~. We were tied together by fate from then on. Because Rua was always glued tightly to my side back then.”

Was that really how it happened?

Thinking back on my faint memories, rather than me dragging her around, it felt more like Chae-yi was the one who followed me everywhere.

The teachers couldn’t completely become proper parents for us. That was unavoidable. People had limits. The best they could do was try their hardest to become “good teachers.”

So no matter how well the children at the orphanage were treated, they all suffered from some kind of emptiness. Maybe Chae-yi had felt something like maternal affection toward me because I’d been slightly more mature than the other children back then.

“Hmph, though there was a reeally reeally reeally reeally long time where we couldn’t meet in between.”

“But Rua and I are practically tied together by family bonds, and those bonds were sooo sooo sooo sooo sooo strong that we eventually met again like this, right? Even when I pushed her away, Rua never gave up on me.”

“If you pushed her away, doesn’t that mean the bond technically broke once?”

“Nope~. It just proves our bond is so strong that human strength could never possibly sever it!”

“If it’s really uncomfortable, just say so. I can personally cut it for you.”

“No way, Rua would hate that, right Rua?”

“Isn’t it way too unfair to suddenly drag Rua into this? Rua’s way too nice to reject something like that.”

“Maybe she only endured being unable to use her own room and getting trapped in her sister’s room because she’s too nice.”

Mm.

I think I’m dying.

I know they don’t mean it that way, but experiencing these unbelievably beautiful girls fighting over me right in front of me is overwhelmingly embarrassing in multiple ways.

At least if it were just us here, maybe. But Hyeonji and Jinwoo were sitting right in front of us.

Hyeonji had gone past looking blank and now looked genuinely serious instead. More specifically, she looked like she was deeply contemplating where she should even begin objecting.

Meanwhile, Jinwoo’s face had gone blank from overloading her brain trying to keep up with the conversation.

“U-um……!”

Then, as if her brain had finally managed to produce some kind of conclusion, she suddenly shouted.

Soi and Chae-yi immediately stopped talking. Their heads slowly turned toward Jinwoo.

“Hik.”

The aggressive gazes that had been fiercely clashing with each other just moments ago now landed directly on Jinwoo, making her shoulders flinch.

“S-so, um.”

Even so, she still voiced her opinion.

You’ve grown, Jinwoo.

Yeah, after spraying blood from your nose onto your friend’s chest and fainting without dying from shame, maybe it makes sense you’d grow. Honestly, the fact that she didn’t immediately run away back to school took a fair amount of courage.

“S-so you’re saying…… the two of you can stay that close because you’re close friends……?”

Soi’s eyes narrowed.

“So?”

“T-then what about Hyeonji? I-is Hyeonji the same?”

“……I’m not.”

“W-why not?”

At Jinwoo’s words, Hyeonji blinked.

“Hyeonji’s a friend too. A close friend. You bury your face in her chest and hug her tightly too.”

“That’s.”

Hyeonji hurriedly opened her mouth as if trying to deny it, but her face quickly turned red.

In the end, though, she closed her mouth without saying anything.

If she really disliked it and was only going along with it because everyone else was doing it, I had no intention of forcing Hyeonji to hug me.

Maybe she knew that if she said something like that, she’d get left out from then on.

Hyeonji had that cat-like tendency where she drifted away if you gave her attention, but hovered nearby for no reason if you ignored her.

“S-so thenn.”

Jinwoo twisted her body awkwardly as she spoke.

“M-me too—”

But the rest of her words were cut off by the stares from Soi and Chae-yi, who had both glued themselves tightly to me while glaring at Jinwoo.

Yeah, well, that made sense.

Hugging was one thing, but—

How should I put it.

Letting yet another girl onto the bed beyond this point feels a bit too much to handle psychologically.

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Pub: 20 May 2026 09:08 UTC

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