Help! I'm Surrounded by Tentacles! - Chapter 3

Maybe I was imagining it, but after that day, the little jellyfish seemed even clingier than usual.

Before, if I left it on the sofa, it would wait there quietly until I finished whatever I was doing, then bounce back into my palm with a little “Bop.”

But not over the next few days. The moment I tried to put it down, its tentacles wound stubbornly around my fingers. Its bell darkened from cherry-blossom pink to a deeper petal shade, the edges faintly wrinkled, as though someone had hurt its feelings.

“What’s wrong?”

I lifted it to eye level and rubbed its bell with my thumb.

It gave a muffled little “Bop.”

Life went on like that. Every day, I was too absorbed in the joy of squeezing my jellyfish to think anything was wrong.

Until one day, when I was curled up on the sofa watching a show as usual. The little jellyfish lay in my right palm, and I kneaded it while a melodramatic romance played on-screen.

As I rubbed it, I noticed faint golden-red threads near the rim of its bell. Like veins, they radiated outward from the center, gleaming slightly under the light.

The next second, a stream of comments floated before my eyes.

[Still asking for it? This side character is about to squish the male lead into a puddle!]

[That’s a highly venomous glow jellyfish. The brighter the color, the deadlier it is. Pink means juvenile; red means it’s mature. Those golden-red threads mean its venom sac is nearly developed.]

[Fun fact: once a glow jellyfish’s venom sac matures, its tentacle tips secrete a neurotoxin that penetrates on skin contact. Paralysis in three seconds. Cardiac arrest in ten.]

[She’s not long for this world.]

The hairs on my back stood on end.

The translucent comments kept floating upward, line after line, crowding my entire field of vision.

[Should be tomorrow. Its venom sac will finish maturing tomorrow.]

[LMAO. All that squeezing, and she squeezes herself straight into a grave.]

[In the original plot, the first thing the male lead does after taking human form is use his venom to kill the side character who kept squeezing him. Hahahaha.]

[I mean, who wouldn’t be pissed after being kneaded like a stress toy for two weeks?]

What?!

I’d only squeezed him a little!

Was that really worth killing me over?!

I looked down at the little jellyfish lounging in my palm.

Still so tiny. So cute.

But my eyes stayed fixed on the golden-red threads around its bell.

[The brighter the color, the deadlier it is.]

The comment drifted past.

I jerked my hand back. The jellyfish lost its grip, slipped from my fingertips, and landed on the sofa cushion with a soft plop.

It seemed stunned by the fall. Its bell contracted, its tentacles waved wildly, and it let out a rapid string of “Bop, bop, bop!” as if asking, What’s wrong? What’s wrong?

My mind went blank. My gaze landed on the delivery box in the corner, which I hadn’t thrown away yet.

I hurried over and trapped the jellyfish under the box.

“Bop?!”

It bounced inside, tentacles flailing frantically, its bell straining upward. In an instant it turned a deep red I’d never seen before. The golden-red threads shone painfully bright inside the dark box.

I snapped the lid shut.

The box shook.

Muffled bopping sounds came from within, fast and frantic, like someone pounding on a door.

I held the lid down with all my strength, terrified it would push its way out.

Then I freed one hand to reach for the communicator on the coffee table.

My fingers jabbed all over the screen until I found the call history and dialed the number again.

It rang. “Hello, how may—”

“Hello, my ass! Are you trying to get me killed?!”

“Sending me something that wasn’t a slime was bad enough, but a venomous jellyfish?!”

“I want to return it!”

“Return it!”

“Give me back my slime!”

So intent was I on demanding a return that I didn’t notice the box had stopped shaking.

It seemed to have gone quiet the moment I said I wanted to send it back.