This World is too Cruel to Men – Chapter 339

When a person becomes excessively flustered, their words can get stuck, or so they say.

Right now, that was exactly my state.

What?

Someone who has never done this before?

Although it has become a thing of the past now, for the past month I had been pushing myself hard under the pretext of preparing for exams, and perhaps the side effects were finally manifesting.

So I ended up losing my sanity?

Or was I just drunk?

I couldn’t tell you which of those was the truth, but anyway, I was likely in a state of shock, feeling as if I had just been hit hard from behind.

“Ahem…”

I could hear the sound of awkward coughs coming from all directions.

As I glanced towards the source of the noise, I saw the slightly reddened faces of my Senior and Chae-rim, even more flustered than when I’d last checked.

And as for their fingers? They were just as unwavering as Yoonseo’s questions.

Both Yoonseo and those two were ridiculously splayed out their fingers, but it was Bora who was truly flustered by how the situation unfolded.

“Uh, um…?”

Did she really think she was the only one among us who hadn’t experienced that yet?

“When, when did everyone…?”

With expressions plastered across their faces that screamed disbelief, I turned to Chae-rim, my Senior, and Yoonseo one after the other, and as a result, their already flushed faces turned an even deeper shade of red.

“Well, um…”

“K-Kiss or something…?”

“It’s just that it’s a bit awkward to say when…”

With my mind half-gone, I watched the scene unfold and suddenly had a thought.

‘Could Bora possibly…’

Was she unable to remember the disaster that took place on the day she first visited my house?

It certainly seemed so.

Unless that was the case, her reaction didn’t make any sense.

Or maybe, to her, what happened back then didn’t qualify as a ‘kiss’?

But indeed, one could argue that a kiss isn’t a kiss unless tongues are involved.

Anyway, I wasn’t the only one shocked by Bora’s reaction.

After a moment of stumbling over words in embarrassment, Yoonseo’s face lit up with a look of utter disbelief.

“Wait, who would think you’ve never done it before?”

“Huh? Me…?”

“Right, you don’t remember?”

It was just after that that Bora, facing what was almost an interrogation from Yoonseo, turned to me for help.

To be honest, I had my own vivid memories of the plight from that day, so I’d rather not bring it up… but if I just let it be, it looked like Bora might get grabbed by Yoonseo.

So I decided to speak up carefully.

“Uh… remember that day you first came to our house…?”

“…Ah.”

As soon as those words left my mouth, it seemed like they had acted as a trigger, summoning a memory that had been erased from her mind.

Bora’s already rosy face became alarmingly pale, and as if the liquor had suddenly turned her lips into a slick sheen, a hiccup escaped her.

Thanks to Bora’s reaction, it dawned on me.

That incident was essentially her black history too.

‘Well…’

What a shameful thing for anyone in their right mind to do.

Who knows what I was thinking to suddenly commit such an act, but I probably kicked the blankets off me multiple times later because of it.

“Well, um… that… I mean…”

Bora was at a complete loss for words upon the sudden resurfacing of her dark past.

And as I was curiously watching her face for a clue about what she was thinking, Yoonseo suddenly picked up the 500ml water bottle before her and started chugging it down, making quite the noise.

The problem came immediately after.

With a loud crack, the now-empty bottle clashed roughly against the table.

“…Now that I think about it, this is a bit ridiculous.”

Almost simultaneously, a voice that was as cold as ice slipped out from Yoonseo’s lips.

“I thought someone would be shocked and pass out back then…”

The moment I witnessed that icy glare, I sensed it.

If there was going to be a break, it had to be right now.

“If you’re not even going to remember it, why—”

“Hey! This has been Five Fingers up until now! Let’s switch to the next game!”

Saying this, I grabbed the ‘penalty’ that had taken center stage on the table and downed it in one swift motion, leaving not a single drop behind.

“Eh? Why? This is fun!”

“Come on, if we always do the same thing, it’ll get boring. We should try different things at times like this.”

“It’s true! That’s right!”

Had I not gotten any agreement, the atmosphere could have turned incredibly awkward, but luckily, the one who had suggested the drinking game first, Chae-rim, went along with it, allowing us to pass that moment uneventfully.

Though it was hardly a perfect solution, merely a temporary fix.

“So, what game should we play this time?”

“That’s the question… what would be good…?”

I thought there was no way we could properly proceed with a game in this kind of atmosphere, so I hesitated to answer, but perhaps then Chae-rim, who was already swimming in alcohol, had a different perspective.

“You’re being considerate for your sister, Dogun—how thoughtful of you!”

Chae-rim’s face wore an uncharacteristically goofy smile that was absolutely rare to see…

“How thoughtful, how thoughtful~!”

She reached out her hand to me and began to mess up my hair with an exaggerated grin.

‘Wait…’

She seemed totally fine just moments ago, so when did she get this drunk?

“Are you drunk right now?”

“No way, I’m not the least bit drunk~!”

“Your pronunciation just slipped, you know.”

“That’s totally not true~!”

It was thanks to Chae-rim’s behavior that I learned just how far gone she was when she drank properly.

‘Low alcohol content doesn’t mean anything…’

Even during the Five Fingers game, she was pounding back champagne as if it were water — I should have seen it coming.

And now it was my turn to have a proper conversation. Stepping in for Chae-rim to replace her was none other than my Senior, who also had a hint of rosy cheeks.

“…How about a Mafia game?”

Given that her voice hadn’t changed much from usual, it seemed my Senior was still relatively sober.

“Sounds fun!”

Nevertheless, Chae-rim, excitedly reacting to my Senior’s suggestion, gleefully exclaimed like a jolly official, “Heehee, that’s great!”

However, my thoughts were a bit different.

“Isn’t it tough to play while drinking? There are only five of us.”

“Is that so…?”

“Well, that certainly might be the case. So what might we do…?”

“Speaking of which, hasn’t our Senior often done gatherings like that? Being in the student council.”

“Huh? Ah… that is true, but…”

“What did you play back then?”

To sum it up, I really shouldn’t have asked that question.

“We? Oh, we’d play study game times or King’s Game…”

“King’s Game? That sounds fun!”

Had I not asked, I might have avoided the piercing excitement that lit up Chae-rim’s eyes upon hearing that word escape from my Senior.

Good heavens, King’s Game? Especially when everyone was already buzzing with alcohol?

Just imagining it sent shivers down my spine from sheer terror.

Who said anything about true terror coming from the unknown?

What I was feeling fit that description perfectly.

If we started a King’s Game in this state, I couldn’t even picture what would happen next, which terrified me.

To my utter disappointment, unlike me, Chae-rim seemed to be consumed by the idea of playing King’s Game.

And well… while it wasn’t quite to the same degree as Chae-rim, the others also appeared to have a degree of curiosity.

“But um… don’t you need something like a note for the King’s Game?”

“Maybe we could make one out of chopsticks?”

“I think after a few rounds, Chae-rim could tell what makes a king.”

Was it just me, or did it seem all had had their heads bent together considering how to manifest the idea of King’s Game, turning the previously awkward atmosphere into something productive?

“Ah, how about we do this? Everyone has a mobile phone, right?”

“…Why a mobile phone out of nowhere?”

“Just hear me out.”

Thus, after putting our heads together and coming up with a conclusion, we decided to use a Mafia game app that was already available in the store.

“So when we press ‘start game’ and the Mafia shows up here…”

“That person becomes the king.”

“And when you become king, you can order the others to do anything, right?”

“Yep, but only one thing.”

“Hmm…”

“Oh, and you can’t directly designate someone to carry out the command.”

When my Senior added this, Yoonseo’s face noticeably dropped.

The way Chae-rim, who was busy crafting a bird’s nest in her head, reacted was much the same.

‘Wait, what kind of command were you thinking of…?’

From my perspective, it made everything feel even more daunting.

“Why?”

“Well, that’s just the usual rule.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Basically, normally you would write down numbers on slips of paper and base commands on those, right? But since we’re using an app…”

“We can use the jobs that show up in Mafia games?”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, totally understood.”

After we established the finer details, it was time to decide the penalty for anyone who refused the king’s orders—

“Hey, everyone—”

Chae-rim raised her hand as if she had been waiting for that moment and began shaking it left and right.

As expected, all eyes turned toward her.

“Yes?”

“For a new game, don’t we need to decide on a new penalty?”

“A new penalty?”

“Yep! So, ta-dah!”

Chae-rim produced a liquor bottle that looked like it had come straight from some fruit meme, flashing a huge grin.

“How about we make the penalty to take a shot of this?”

“But um… isn’t that a bit… intense? That looks like it has some high alcohol content…”

“Oh, if you defy the king’s orders, you’re a traitor! Of course, the punishment should be something of this level!”

Oh, God.

Please, save me.