The Protagonist's Party is Too Diligent

There are many kinds of silence.

Generally, silence is awkward and uncomfortable. Humans are, more or less, social creatures—so even those who don’t enjoy talking to others tend to feel uneasy when sitting alone with someone in complete silence. They might wish not to speak, but only breathe a sigh of relief once they’ve left ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) the situation.

There’s a reason why people pull out their phones or stare at the changing numbers when they get into elevators.

Well, someone who’s completely given up on social interaction might find silence natural, but I don’t think I’m that far gone.

If the silence isn’t awkward or tense, then it usually means everyone has something they want to say but is trying very hard to hold it in.

And in this case, the kind of silence filling our room was exactly that.

To be more precise, it was the kind of silence where everyone is holding back laughter—and the person who is the cause of that laughter isn’t exactly enjoying themselves.

That’s right. I was the cause.

More specifically, the posts I wrote in the past were.

"Ahem!"

Claire barely stifled her laugh with a cough.

She’d made it clear that unless I read the post aloud, she’d keep it in my face for the rest of our internet-using days in this world.

For a split second, I considered calling the provider and canceling our internet plan altogether, but honestly, that just felt even more pathetic.

Besides, what kind of streamer cuts their own internet?

So I braced myself, metaphorically glued steel to my face, and started to read—but the weight of that post was enough to bend even the steel I’d armored myself with.

I forced myself to the end, right up to the part that declared Claire the purest and most noble character in the entire Azerna series, and then I collapsed onto the bed.

Kneeling, head down, blanket over me.

But even peeking through the blanket, I could see that not a single person had left the room.

"Don’t worry so much, sis."

Claire patted me gently on the back.

"Even if it’s embarrassing, we’re the only ones who know. As long as you don’t bring it up on stream, no one else will ever find out."

"...The fact that everyone here knows is exactly the problem."

Honestly, if the girls in this room didn’t know, I wouldn’t care who else did—excluding, of course, the family I must have had in my previous life here.

Come on. To the rest of the world, Claire is still just a video game character. Whether I argued for or against her virginity, it would be seen as dumb fan chatter. I’d had debates with friends like that before.

It might even become a selling point. Outwardly, I looked like a "foreign beauty fluent in Korean and deeply immersed in otaku culture."

But still. Still.

Imagine your little sister found out. And her friends too.

Wouldn’t you want to die? At that moment, I really, truly wanted to disappear.

I wanted to go straight to the goddess and beg—do whatever you want to me, just give me back the power to turn back time.

"Yeah, Sylvia, don’t worry so muhahaha—"

Alice didn’t finish her sentence. She cut herself off, but it definitely started out sounding like "don’t worry."

Seriously... is this really that funny? Even if we haven’t firmly decided who’s the older sister, we do act like sisters, right?

"By the way, since things have turned out like this, I guess I must be the older sister between us."

"..."

I pulled down the blanket and showed my face.

"What do you mean by that?"

I’d been on the fence about that whole ‘who’s older’ thing, but hearing it stated outright like that? No way I was letting it slide.

"Oh, she’s out."

"How could I not respond to something like that?"

I sat up on the bed with my legs crossed. Claire was sitting on the floor next to the bed, looking up at me, and Mia was beside her.

Alice and Charlotte were perched on the bed across from me.

"If we’re going by age, I’m older than you."

"Yeah, but we’ve never used age to set hierarchy here, have we?"

"That’s because I was being considerate by not bringing it up."

"...Sis, I don’t think it really works for you to play the seniority card after reading that post."

Claire’s comment hit me right in the chest, but I forced myself to hold firm.

"Claire, this is a serious matter. If I accept being Alice’s younger sister, then that means you’d be Alice’s younger sister too. The youngest, in fact."

"..."

Claire’s face instantly stiffened.

"S-So you’re saying you deliberately avoided mentioning this until now just to assert your dominance and erase your own embarrassment by pulling rank?"

"That’s exactly what it looks like," Charlotte added, sounding thoroughly amused from the sidelines.

Claire stood and took a seat next to me on the bed. Mia watched us both like she was spectating a ping-pong match.

"Fine, fine. I’ll go along with you being the older sister. Age doesn’t lie, after all. And you’ve acted like one too... technically, that post was even defending me."

"Then what about the part you wrote about my chest?"

I nearly coughed up blood.

"Clearly you were going through... a phase."

A phase called post-puberty, and long past it at that.

"And you literally saved her once, didn’t you? You took care of her during childhood, right?"

"Yes. When Alice was little—"

"Stop."

Alice raised a hand, her expression dead serious.

"Okay, fine. Let’s just leave things the way they’ve been."

"What kind of childhood did you have that one sentence has you this flustered?"

"Nothing dramatic. Just... not that interesting. At least not compared to Sylvia’s—"

"Then you can tell us, right? Like, for example, when Alice first met you—"

"Nope. Stop. Stop right there. Sylvia. I’m sorry, okay?"

It wasn’t even a story from long ago—just last year—and Alice broke instantly.

That’s right.

I had already exposed all of my own skeletons. Sure, thinking about it still made me feel like coughing up blood, but there was nothing left to uncover.

But Alice? She still had weak points.

"What is it? What is it?! You said it was related to me—how can you stop right there? Now I’m dying to know!"

"It’s nothing."

"If it’s nothing, then just say it!"

"I said I’m sorry!"

"Then what kind of story would make you react like that?!"

Claire watched the argument unfold with a face that said this is absurd. Mia’s mouth hung open as she looked back and forth between us.

This utterly pointless back-and-forth continued for several more minutes.

*

In the end, we all agreed to never bring up each other’s pasts again.

Technically, Charlotte and Claire weren’t really bound by that—Charlotte because I had no idea if she even had any weaknesses, and Claire because we’d never lived together before and I didn’t know her past.

...And as for Mia, any time she mentioned her “weaknesses,” they turned out to be deep traumas that hit harder than anything we could joke about.

So, yes—it was a rather unstable truce.

But I knew none of them were the type to talk about my past behind my back.

Still—

"Hmhm~"

Seeing Claire happily tapping away on her phone made me nervous.

That meant she might bring up my past in front of me, not just behind my back.

And every time she did, it would take a little more of my soul with it.

...I’d have to treat Claire really, really well from now on.

"..."

Once again, the room fell into silence.

...

Come to think of it, we’d been cooped up in here all day.

"Everyone, how about we watch a movie? There should still be some popcorn and soda in the kitchen."

"Ooh, yes! Let’s watch something!"

Claire sprang to her feet immediately.

"Feels like you’re changing the subject... but fine, I’ll let it slide for today."

Charlotte stood up too.

Alice looked pleased, though it probably wasn’t because of the movie.

"Popcorn!"

...Mia was clearly more interested in the food than the film.

Still, it seemed like the worst had passed.

With a long sigh of relief, I stood up as well.