My Childhood Friend Turned Yandere in the Apocalypse

’Where am I? The bed is too soft to be mine. Wait... I spent last night in Shelly’s room. I should not have done that.’

It was one thing for Rin to comfort Shelly but it was another for him to spend the night in her room. Shelly needed her privacy, so Rin decided to leave her room.

He had a perfectly nice bed to return to—and—

Smack

"What the hell? My leg is not moving."

Rin tried to tug his leg a few times before he fully processed it and he realized what had happened to him.

His leg was bound with strips of cloth, making it difficult to move.

Rin immediately threw the covers aside to check what had been used. It was a piece of an old sheet he didn’t even remember owning. It was tied tightly around his leg but it was not hard to take off.

"Who tied me to the bed...? Was it Shelly?"

Somehow, Rin couldn’t imagine gentle Shelly tying him to the bed. But she had been scared last night and had even shown her negative emotions. It was rare for her to get like that, so she might have acted on impulse.

Sigh

"I’ll need to talk to her and reassure her again. It’d be bad if she got this anxious during future battles."

[User, I will be nice to you this time, but I need to answer one question—are you slow? How can you look at the situation and still consider that everything is alright?]

[Please, get yourself together and bring back the sharp version of you I initially contracted with. Otherwise, my promotion will be at risk.]

"Well, what do you want me to say? That Shelly bound me to the bed for some shady reason? Do you really think someone like her would do that?"

[User, please pull yourself away from the story and look at reality. Do you still believe that you are in a novel and the characters are the same?]

That question shook Rin to the core.

He had regained his memory at the age of 5 and ever since then, he had firmly believed that this world was one from the novel he had read. But was the system trying to hint that it was not really the case?

"What do you want to say? That this is the real world? Then, what about the story in my mind? Is that also a coincidence? Or did I gain the power to see the future? I-"

[User, let’s not be overly angry. A happy user is a happy system. Even if you want to be angry at the system, you don’t have the clearance to know the answers. The system cannot help you. But the system will still try.]

[Actually, beep-****-shhhhh.....BEEPPPPPPPP]

"Alright, stop it. You got your point across just fine."

Rin clutched his head. The loud noises from the system were ringing in his ears even after the system stopped. He helplessly looked at the blurred screen before reaching for his foot to free himself.

The system had added a possibility that this world might not be a novel and it changed nothing for Rin. He was still stuck in the apocalypse, trying to survive it all.

As for Shelly...well, she had never given Rin a reason to suspect her behaviour. So he did not want to point the finger too soon and make her uncomfortable.

Hopefully, being tied up was a one-time thing.

"Ugh, this knot is too strong. Is there anything sharp to help me get out?"

[User, I have decided to raise the white flag in front of your stubbornness. My chances of promotion are fading away with your limited brain cells.]

The system got frustrated with Rin and decided to stop talking.

’Hey, you can’t just drop so much information on me and expect me to ’get over it.’. I need time to gather my thoughts as well.’

This felt unfair.

But just like other unfair things in his life, Rin had no choice but to let it go.

"Rin, how are you feeling now?"

Shelly opened the door softly and walked inside. She had a tray of food in her hands which she quickly put it down on the side table.

She did not address the elephant in the room that was Rin’s bound leg and instead handed him the glass of water.

"Why am I bound to the bed?"

Rin opened his mouth to greet Shelly, but this question escaped him before he could stop himself. He expected Shelly to look uncomfortable but she simply picked up the tray and offered him a bite.

She waited to see if he’d drop the topic before realizing that he was not backing down.

"I’m sorry. This is my fault. I got anxious because of yesterday and overreacted. I did not even realize what I was doing until I was out of the room and packing food for you."

That apology did not sound sincere.

Because of the system’s warning, Rin decided to try and separate Shelly from the image of her from the novel. And the more he saw, the more he felt like he was looking at a stranger.

"Rin, are you alright? S-Should I not have done that? I-"

"It’s fine. I understand that you were nervous and you did what you thought you should. But I am not comfortable tied down with cloth. Can you untie me so that I can move around?"

’What the hell am I saying? I need to be firm with Shelly so that she would not do something like this again.’

But Rin had cultivated a habit of being soft on Shelly and it was hard to break a habit like that. Just one look at Shelly, and Rin’s mouth worked without his input to reassure her.

Still, he had been firm in telling her that he did not like being bound, so as long as his message got across, it should be fine.

Of course, he did not realize how messed up Shelly’s mind was. When he said he did not like to be ’tied down with the cloth’ she took it as ’I don’t like cloth, find something else that I would like.’

The system was the only one who felt disappointed in Rin.

[User, maybe you should change the way you speak. Otherwise, people will continue to twist your words in a way that benefits them.]

[Ah, but you never listen to this helpful system, so I am sure this message will be ignored as well.]

The system was right. It did get ignored.