Boss, Does Being a Pretty Vase Really Work? - Chapter 3

I steeled myself and pushed open the door.

In my hands was the medicine I had just brewed—a scalding, murky liquid that gave off an indescribable smell.

I forced a smile. “Time for your medicine.”

Percy did not take it.

He stared straight at me and repeated his question. “Brother, where did you go last night?”

The temperature around us seemed to drop by degrees. A chill prickled over my skin.

According to the game’s setting, the player character and Percy were not biological brothers. The player character’s foster parents had deliberately adopted him from an orphanage to care for Percy and ease the burden of running the household.

Percy’s illness, however, was unusual. He hated daylight and could not tolerate crowds. Only in the dead of night would he leave his bed, and even then, he merely stayed in his room and read.

The player character had ventured onto the streets only because he was certain his brother would never find out.

Who could have guessed Percy would catch me red-handed?

I remembered one of the clues about him: [He hates being deceived more than anything, especially by his beloved brother.]

The image of a razor-edged axe flashed through my mind.

I swallowed and tried to skirt the issue in an even voice. “I went out to earn money for your medicine. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you’d worry.”

Percy’s eyes were a pair of bottomless abysses. I looked into them, and he looked into me.

Then, suddenly, he smiled.

“Did you?”

Cold fingers crept around my wrist, the touch like a venomous snake coiling over my bones. A faint smile curved Percy’s lips, but gloom spread slowly through his eyes.

“Don’t you think I’m a burden, Brother? Don’t you want to run away with some man out there? Haven’t you wished I simply didn’t exist?”

The words were light, almost casual, yet steeped in a bone-chilling cold.

Especially when, from the corner of my eye, I saw the hand beneath his blanket closing around something.

Cold sweat broke across my forehead. Without thinking, I protested at the top of my lungs, “Of course not! You’re my only family. I’ll stay with you forever—forever!”

Percy’s eyes shifted. His lips curved gently, and the chill surrounding me seemed to recede.

Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, Percy whipped an axe from beneath the covers. Its deathly edge flashed so brightly that my vision blurred.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Percy!”

The bedroom fell deathly silent.

Percy’s hand was perfectly steady. Looking down at the apple he held, he slowly shaved away its skin in one flawless spiral.

He offered it to me with a beaming smile.

“Your favorite, Brother.”

I was still reeling from the sight of Percy peeling an apple with a huge axe when he abruptly tested me again. “Were you frightened just now, Brother?”

…Any normal person would have been terrified.

I tugged stiffly at my lips. “Thank you. You’re my dearest brother. W-why would I be afraid of you?”

Percy watched me with smiling eyes. “Brother, why are you suddenly stumbling over your words?”

He did not pursue the tremor in my voice.

“Mm. Stay and sleep with me a little longer.”

I let out an instinctive, questioning sound.

If I had a choice, I would much rather return to the player character’s bedroom and rest. But when I met Percy’s eyes, I swallowed the refusal.

…

What kind of goddamn horror game was this?!

When would I finally get to live bravely for once in my life?

This character I had to play… I really could not keep up the act much longer.

I nodded at random. “I can stay, but you have to wake me before seven. I need to receive a customer with an appointment on time.”

That was one of the rules the player character had to obey. Otherwise, the shop’s reputation would suffer and business would dwindle. Without income, the player character could not buy medicine, and an untreated Percy might well endanger his life.

All the game’s tangled rules and details knotted together in my mind until my head throbbed and the room spun.

After kicking off my shoes and climbing into bed, I thought sleep would be impossible. There was, after all, a madman beside me who threatened people with a massive axe at the slightest provocation.

Yet the instant my head touched the pillow, I drifted away.

In the soundless morning, an empty nightmare seemed to take on a hazy form, reaching slowly toward me with countless black hands.

I knitted my brows in distress, but no matter what I did, I could not open my eyes. All I could hear was someone murmuring beside my ear, each word brimming with naked, undisguised malice.

“My stupid brother let someone drag him home and f**k him into this state. It must have felt so good you soaked the pillow, didn’t it?”

“C**ming this hard… How shameless.”

“You filthy whore. How dare you sneak out to sell yourself? If the price is right, will you let anyone have you?”

I tried instinctively to argue, but my heavy eyelids refused to lift.

I heard Percy drinking water again and again beside me, while somewhere else heat slowly gathered to a frightening degree.

At last, the nightmare dragged me under, and I lost consciousness completely.