SOS! I’m Being Forced to Be a Villain - Chapter 15

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 15

While Kwon Tae-min was also the type you couldn’t reason with, his nature was slightly different from Seo Jung-hoo’s.

No matter what words were exchanged with Kwon Tae-min, he would continue conversations by constantly bringing up off-topic subjects. Though this was considerably outside the bounds of common sense, it wasn’t as if he completely ignored the conventional standards of common sense, so if you tried to understand it, you could somehow make sense of it.

But Seo Jung-hoo was different. He seemed like a person who had absolutely, not even a little, truly not even 1% of what could be called common sense.

I stared blankly at the cold apricot ade placed in front of me. Across from me, Seo Jung-hoo, who had taken a seat, took a sip of the same drink he had brought for himself.

“Try it. The apricot drinks here are especially delicious compared to other places.”

“…”

“This makes it seem like we came out on a date. Don’t you think?”

Ah, rather than a date, it feels more like a blind date.

Seo Jung-hoo’s shameless muttering didn’t reach my ears. I still couldn’t take my eyes off the mysterious mixture of pink and crimson colors in that drink.

I carefully brought up my hand from under the desk and brushed the surface of the cup. Cool moisture and coldness seeped into my fingertips. A stinging pain seemed to bloom.

“Why? Do you happen to have an apricot allergy?”

Lost in that cool sensation, in the pain that I couldn’t tell if it was pain or not, in the faint remnants of the past spreading through those mysterious colors, I carelessly gave an answer that didn’t pass through my brain.

“I had one. But now there’s hardly any reaction.”

“…What?”

“So it’s fine to drink.”

Just as I was about to grip the cup and bring it to my lips, Seo Jung-hoo suddenly reached out and placed his hand over mine that was wrapped around the cup’s surface.

When I startled and focused my eyes, Seo Jung-hoo raised his other hand and brushed it across his face.

“Sorry… I should have asked first.”

“What? I’m going to drink it, let go.”

“You said you have an allergic reaction. Put it down and give it here. I’ll order you something else.”

“Don’t pity me and let go. I told you, there’s barely any reaction now.”

“What do you mean by that…”

Lowering the hand that had covered his face, Seo Jung-hoo observed me through narrowed eyes and moved his lips several times. After careful hesitation, he asked a quiet question.

“Did they make you eat it?”

Just three syllables of questioning without subject, object, or any other explanation. But somehow I seemed to grasp the meaning immediately, so I suddenly drew in a breath and trembled.

“Baek-hwa.”

“…”

“Did they make you eat it?”

The heavy cup slipped smoothly from my briefly convulsing grip. The overturned cup spilled its sweet liquid before I could stop it, rolling and tumbling to the floor.

Crash, the loud shattering sound pierced my eardrums. Only then, realizing the situation a beat too late, I swatted away Seo Jung-hoo’s hand that had somehow come to cover the back of my hand.

I got up from my seat and immediately bent my knees. Being near Seo Jung-hoo was already making my body, mouth, and instincts rather than reason go wild, and with this accident happening too, my head just felt dazed.

Not caring that the knee area of my pants was getting soaked, I reached out my hand first. I tried to pick up the shattered glass fragments without hesitation, but I had to stop moving before I could. A hand reached out quite urgently, restraining me while conveying warm body temperature.

“Now I can see for certain. Baek-hwa, you’re particularly harsh to yourself.”

Slowly turning my head, I stared at Seo Jung-hoo with eyes trembling finely from confusion.

‘…Me? That can’t be.’

I am the most important person, only I am.

“Is that a habit, a mannerism, or…”

I felt like I couldn’t listen quietly anymore, so I shook off Seo Jung-hoo’s hand. Then I abruptly stood up.

My chest rose and fell rapidly. Unable to calm my rough breathing, I covered my mouth and moved, stepping on the liquid pooled on the floor, the sickeningly sweet smell that made my head throb, and the glass still floating in that spot unchanged.

While passing by Seo Jung-hoo, he didn’t grab me, and I didn’t show any particular behavior toward him either. I just moved frantically, focused only on getting out of the cafe. Behind me, I thought I heard the flustered voice of an employee who had approached in surprise, and Seo Jung-hoo’s voice telling the employee he was sorry and that he would clean it up, not to worry about it.

I flung open the cafe door. Just as I was about to go outside, a quiet call caught my ankle.

“Baek-hwa.”

I stopped abruptly before even thinking. Behind my trembling back, a suggestion with unknown intent, neither forcing nor demanding, was carefully conveyed.

“Just for today, would you like to sleep over at my house?”

Without even thinking about those words, I kicked off the ground and ran away as if escaping.

​

Before long, reaching the shaded alley, I leaned against the cool wall for support. However, unable to endure the persistent headache, I eventually sat down weakly in place. I didn’t even have time to care about the dirt and dust clinging to my pants.

I blinked at the vision that repeatedly turned red, blue, then yellow before fading, then slowly rolled my eyes. The text in the system window that filled that area steadily gnawed at my sanity.

Would you like to check the profile information of ‘Main Character Seo Jung-hoo’?

The system window, noticing my lingering gaze, disappeared for a moment, then eventually displayed new text.

Name: Seo Jung-hoo

Age: 18 years old (Seolam High School, 2nd year, Class 3)

Role: One of the main characters of the novel ‘Only Two’

Background: This character grew up in a well-off and harmonious family, developing a gentle and considerate nature… (More)

Current emotional state: Tension, regret, anxiety, shallow concern

Inner thoughts: “This is driving me crazy…”

Unlike before, the revealed ‘inner thoughts’ section caught my attention. Swallowing a tired sigh, I reread that one sentence several times, muttered, then lowered my eyes.

“Who’s really going crazy right now…”

Moreover, it was absurd that due to that frantic conversation just now, I had apparently become sufficiently ‘intimate’ with Seo Jung-hoo. That even blew away my desire to grab Seo Jung-hoo by the hair and shake him vigorously.

If that was the procedure for becoming something intimate and special, shouldn’t everyone in the world be hitting and fighting each other to confirm their mutual friendship?

I had such pointless thoughts while slowly washing my face dry.

* * *

After throwing a tantrum saying I wouldn’t go to school again and being dragged there, I holed up in the infirmary with the excuse that was half pretense and half sincere about being sick.

If it had been any other ordinary student, they would have been called to the faculty office long ago and interrogated about trying to skip school. But thanks to my brother, who acts as my guardian, calling the school to request ‘consideration for his sick and frail sibling,’ I was enjoying overflowing care.

I endured the entire morning in the innermost bed with the curtain drawn. Whether they were pretending not to see me out of pity for my efforts, or really couldn’t find me, or perhaps their interest had cooled in just one day – Seo Jung-hoo didn’t approach me.

Thanks to that, while suffering from shallow anxiety, I was able to catch up on the fatigue I hadn’t resolved the day before and fall into light sleep several times.

Then when the bell rang announcing lunchtime, the school nurse carefully pulled back the curtain. When I nodded at the question of whether I wouldn’t eat lunch, he looked at me with concern.

“Still, you should eat to have strength. Is your stomach still very upset?”

“Just, a little…”

“Should I stop by the school store on my way back from eating and buy you something?”

When I shook my head, he looked at me pitifully and told me to rest, drawing the curtain. In the private space that returned, I briefly let out the rough breath I had been holding back and pressed hard on my throbbing temples.

That’s when it happened. I heard the sound of the door opening slowly, and the school nurse, who had been about to leave the infirmary, spoke in surprise.

“Oh my, who is this? Isn’t this the famous model student who became a topic of conversation after breaking a window recently?”

‘Broke a window and became a topic of conversation.’ Those words stuck in my ears.

Unless there was another crazy bastard who had recently broken a window, the identity was probably…

“Are you here because you’re sick somewhere?”

“No. My friend hasn’t come out of the infirmary all morning.”​

Along with the familiar voice,

Would you like to check the profile information of ‘Main Character Kwon Tae-min’?

A system window with familiar content appeared, giving me more certainty.

I watched the two silhouettes beyond the thin curtain with wide eyes. Since I, the person in question, couldn’t readily step forward and say ‘Yu Baek-hwa isn’t here,’ I covered my trembling mouth with my palm and listened to their conversation.

The only person I could place any hope in was the school nurse. I didn’t expect much, just desperately hoped he would say that Yu Baek-hwa was sleeping now, or that students shouldn’t stay in the infirmary chatting with friends and should go back.

But the school nurse, unaware of my desperate feelings, completely crushed both of those wishes.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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