Chapter 23: Curse

Aina Saiten gripped that seemingly cursed phone tightly before finally handing it over to the professional technician behind the counter.

The technician took the phone, skillfully connecting it to the diagnostic device as data rapidly scrolled across the screen.

After frowning and checking repeatedly, the technician’s final recommendation was simple and blunt—just flash the device and restore it to factory settings.

Aina Saiten silently pondered for a moment, images of those auto-playing videos flashing incessantly through her mind, the glaring yellow App icon entangling her like a nightmare.

In order to escape this suffocating, intangible control, in order to reclaim her life’s normal rhythm, she finally nodded heavily and agreed to the plan.

She borrowed the store’s computer and hurriedly uploaded important data she treasured—like the photos and videos capturing sweet moments with Kaoru Hoshitani—to the Cloud Drive for safekeeping.

Then she handed her phone over to the technician, watching as he took it and turned into the back room.

About ten minutes later, the technician emerged, handing back the phone, now fully restored to factory settings.

Aina Saiten took a deep breath, as if she were about to uncover a great mystery, her fingers trembling slightly as she pressed the power button.

The screen lit up, the familiar brand logo appeared, and then it entered the system interface.

At the instant she saw the screen, it was as if an invisible bolt of lightning struck her, freezing her in place, her pupils contracting sharply in disbelief.

On the phone screen, only a few default apps that came with the device were arranged in lonely isolation; all the APPs Aina Saiten had downloaded before had vanished without a trace.

But what made a chill surge from the soles of her feet up to the crown of her head, every hair on her body standing on end, was this: that icon with the bright yellow background and the white clock in the center—the App—like a ghost that would not be exorcised, still appeared prominently on the empty home screen, as glaring as ever.

“Eh? That’s odd… why can’t even formatting delete this App?”

The technician nearby had clearly noticed this highly unusual situation as well, scratching his head vigorously in confusion, his face full of bewilderment.

Meanwhile, Aina Saiten’s face was pale as paper, as if she’d seen a demon crawl out of hell in broad daylight.

She stared fixedly at the App on the phone, as if it were silently mocking her, her eyes filled with fear, anger, and a deep sense of helplessness.

Her lips trembled slightly, her heart roiling with turbulent emotion, her thoughts a mystery—perhaps she was pondering what this phenomenon, so far beyond common sense, truly meant.

“Um… do you sell phones here…?”

It took all of Aina Saiten’s strength to suppress the urge to smash the cursed phone to pieces on the floor, then stomp it to dust beneath her heel.

She took a deep breath, as if trying to quell the terror in her heart, then turned to the staff, her voice carrying a faint rasp that was hard to detect as she inquired.

With a new phone in hand, no matter how much she refused to admit it to herself, her heart still pounded uncontrollably in her chest as she pressed the power button, filled with apprehension.

She feared that as soon as she turned it on, the strange, curse-like App icon would once again haunt the screen of her just-purchased device.

Logically, she knew it was impossible—but after the string of bizarre, unexplainable events of the past few days, Aina Saiten began to suspect there truly might be some supernatural force at play.

Fortunately, after booting up and carefully checking every corner of her new phone with trembling fingers, she confirmed that the terrifying App icon had not appeared.

Only then did her nerves, stretched to the breaking point, finally relax.

Once she was home, Aina Saiten placed her old phone in a corner of her bedroom closet.

After all, she was not some so-called “Red Slave” with bizarre proclivities, like the ones described in online horror stories—someone who enjoyed watching her own boyfriend with other women and derived some twisted pleasure from it.

On the contrary, just imagining such a scenario made her physically nauseous and filled her with a sharp, piercing pain in her heart.

The moment she saw the video of her boyfriend and that Yellow-haired Woman heading to a hotel, Aina Saiten had already decided in her heart that the videos must be fakes.

After all, every night she held her beloved Kaoru close as they slept, feeling his warmth and steady breathing.

How could her Kaoru possibly be in a hotel with another woman at the same time?

It was utter nonsense!

Yet, even though logic told her so, the lifelike, detailed footage in the App’s push notifications, as well as the inexplicable and steadily decreasing “One Hundred Days Countdown,” still shook Aina Saiten to her core.

It made her completely vigilant, filled with a powerful, almost obsessive sense of crisis.

She refused to allow even the slightest lapse, determined to defend against any possible rival and leave no opening for anyone to exploit.

That was why, even after a hard day’s work, Aina Saiten still insisted on picking up Kaoru Hoshitani after work every day.

She had to personally confirm his safety, to strangle any budding threats in the cradle.

At this moment, inside the Kawasaki Family Izakaya, Aina Saiten clung tightly to her boyfriend, lifting her head in a gesture of defiance, her eyes filled with obvious hostility and scrutiny as she stared unblinkingly at the Yellow-haired Woman across the way, who was casting ambiguous glances in their direction.

[Makes no sense…]

Rika Kawasaki could clearly sense the almost tangible, piercing hostility radiating from Aina Saiten.

She frowned in displeasure, heroic brows furrowing as she recalled the first time this woman had come into the shop—the look in her eyes was so filled with deep, overflowing hatred.

Those eyes were so sharp it was as if she wanted to slice her to pieces or devour her alive on the spot.

Even now, thinking back on it left Rika Kawasaki a little unsettled and faintly irritated.

She couldn’t help but look over Aina Saiten again, the woman who was Kaoru Hoshitani’s girlfriend.

She still wore an ordinary business suit, not yet changed, its quality nothing special, though her looks were at least pretty and pleasant.

Yet beneath what should have been clear, bright eyes were unmistakable dark circles.

All in all, she was just another office worker toiling away every day for a living.