It was like I had a baby duckling.

Kang Jiesu followed me like a shadow, and it quickly got on my nerves. My classmate seemed fascinated in virtually everything that I did, and he hovered in front of my face constantly. When I changed the mana crystal in a bathroom lamp, my childhood friend transformed into an excited kid who had come to watch a wizard perform a magic show on Christmas.

However, there really wasn't anything exciting to see.

...It was literally exactly the same as a light bulb.

...You take out the old battery.

...You put in the new battery.

Kang wanted to touch the spent mana crystals and toy around with them, which put me into a slight panic.

They're explosive!

Mana crystals were essentially highly compact jewels of energy, so you had to be delicate with them. In terms of energy density, they could be very efficient, and a small amount of mass could hold a lot of power. While it certainly wasn't on the scale of an atomic bomb, high grade mana crystals were used to power airships, cannons, and large-scale magical spells.

The mana crystals used in household appliances were low quality, so they typically didn't contain very much energy. If one of them accidentally combusted, it would probably cause as much damage as an exploding microwave. It probably wasn't lethal, but it could be seriously frightening, and there were plenty of horror stories of children getting seriously injured after using crystals as toys.

I quickly snatched the crystals away from my classmate and gave him a quick glare.

No touch! Bad!

Couldn't he stay out of trouble for just one minute??

+ + +

I couldn't stop Kang Jiesu from following me.

I tried to get him to stay in the bedroom when I walked out to drop off the spent mana crystals in the stock room, but he insisted on coming along. My arms were preoccupied (I was carrying quite a lot — his laundry included), so there was very little I could do to stop him. Moreover, he attempted to help me carry the load, but I snapped at him to keep him away.

If people spotted a guest doing chores, obviously, I would end up in severe trouble.

Throughout the morning, I eventually figured out that the only effective way to communicate 'no' was to snap angrily at Kang.

I had to raise my voice like an angry asian tiger mother reprimanding her child. This was a troubling discovery, in large part because this type of behavior was extremely impolite by Galuterican standards. I couldn't do it very often, because it would probably be construed as insubordination by anyone who saw it. It was a double-edged sword, and for some inexplicable reason, Kang Jiesu seemed to grow increasingly comfortable and relaxed the more that I blew my lid at him.

...I think that sadistic bastard probably liked to annoy me. He probably found it amusing to bully the maid.

He was constantly pushing boundaries, testing limits, and experimenting.

Or perhaps he viewed it as a sense of trust.

A tiger mother's anger can be construed as a type of love. You wouldn't get angry at someone you're totally indifferent about, and likewise only true friends would flip out over your stupid behavior. Kang Jiesu could probably sense that I had his own best interests in mind, and as such he immediately listened to me if I actually got angry at him.

The only problem was that he wouldn't listen to me at all if I didn't make a dramatic scene.

This type of black-and-white situation was obviously a nightmare.

Kang Jiesu was the absolute worst.

Periodically, he would apologetically clap his hands together with an sweet look on his innocent eyes:

"Gomenasai!" He would say (in Japanese). "Mistake! Accident! Sorry!" (in English)

Obviously, I didn't know why he was saying it in random languages. I think Kang Jiesu assumed that I wouldn't understand him regardless of which language he used, so he resorted to the Dao of Oblivious-American-Weaboo-Tourist. However, because of my particular isekai circumstances... the cringe was painfully apparent. I could tell that Kang was being sarcastic from a hundred miles away.

In truth, my childhood friend wasn't sorry at all.

He was very intentionally pretending to be an oblivious idiot who 'accidentally' grabbed a few mana crystals when he thought I wasn't looking. They're just toys after all, and there's no way he was sneakily attempting to collect them in his pockets.

He totally wasn't being suspicious at all...

Nope. I didn't see anything. What are you even talking about?

I'm just an ordinary NPC.

∎