In the Back Alley (1)
Stress.
They call it the root of all disease — this affliction can sicken even people hailed as superhumans.
But managed well, it can stimulate everyday life, motivate a person, and become the foundation for growth.
Which is just a fancy way of saying it can be turned into a weapon — easier said than done, of course.
Life throws all manner of bizarre things at you, after all. How is anyone supposed to anticipate every one of them and soldier through?
I was no exception.
There were times it got so hard that I honestly considered dying.
And every time, I solved the problem my own way.
What way, you ask?
Simple. Erase the painful memories with something enjoyable.
"Here you go."
I handed Yupi a vial small enough to close her fingers around.
She took it limply, turning the thing I'd given her over with a weary expression.
"What is this?"
"An item that can lift the curse on the armor you're wearing, Yupi."
The instant her shoulders — slumped like a drowned rat's — straightened up.
She sank back into gloom soon enough, but I caught a faint light kindling in her eyes.
"I picked it up by chance while passing through a dungeon. Go on, try it."
"...How do I use it?"
"Simple. Just drink the liquid inside the vial."
At my urging she hesitated a moment, then sipped the contents in short little laps, like a cat drinking water.
Shaaah!
"How does it feel?"
"I couldn't say. I don't notice anything particularly different."
"Then let's go find out."
"Wait—!"
I took the hand of the hunched-over woman and pulled her up.
She dug her heels in, clearly unwilling to go, but when I tugged her along anyway, she let herself be dragged without resistance.
Watching her hang limp as a puppet with its strings cut, I clicked my tongue inwardly.
All this despondency, just because I'd given her a sharp little lecture to knock some sense into her little sister.
If using force was the sin, then fine, I sinned — but I moderated my strength so she wouldn't be left with scars.
She hadn't even done anything that terrible, and this was the result. Honestly, it was pitiful to look at.
Still, helping a listless girlfriend find her spark again is part of a lover's job description.
"Headmaster Pallad, please open a portal to the city!"
I shouted at the top of my lungs at empty air.
We were the only two in the reflection chamber, but she saw everything that happened inside the Academy down to the smallest detail, so naturally I assumed she'd hear me.
Vwoom!
Just as expected, a teleportation spell anchored in front of me, and a portal to the city yawned open.
When the door opened, I stepped through without a moment's hesitation.
"A department store?"
"It's also where we stopped on our very first date, remember."
With that, I pointed a finger at one of the shops inside.
"As it happens, that place we visited last time is right up ahead. Let's pick something there."
"..."
Yupi gave a small nod at my words.
Normally, this was the point where a person would fly into a rage — who do you think you are, ordering me around like that?
A kind of self-defense mechanism that people under psychological pressure reflexively deploy.
Not that I had any intention of indulging such tantrums, since I was bulldozing ahead on purpose.
"Fine. Let's give it a try."
But Yupi chose, instead, to go along with what I said.
She walked into the shop wearing a carefully arranged smile, and I followed her in.
"Welcome, miss! What sort of outfit are you looking for today?"
"I'll take this one."
Yupi brushed past the clerk's cheerful greeting and snatched up the clothes.
She'd picked long jeans that reached her ankles and a short-sleeved black sweater, then carried them over to the mirror beside the fitting room.
"What about this one? Does it look good?"
"It really suits you, but you're settling on that already? Come on, let's browse some more."
"I've wanted to wear exactly this combination since forever. Other things are nice too, but I'm starting with this one."
"Well, if that's what you say, nunim, I've got no reason to argue."
"I'll go change, so wait for me."
Yupi held the clothes up against herself for a rough estimate, then disappeared into the fitting room.
I waited for her to change, drinking canned coffee from the vending machine beside the shop.
Rustle!
"All done."
"You changed that fast?"
"Clothes are quick, dear."
According to the Writer's notes, she'd been living in that armor without ever taking it off for decades, so I'd expected the change to take longer.
"It's been so long since I wore anything but armor over this body — what do you think?"
"Wow, that's a total model look. You could walk onto a billboard for a famous brand right this second and not miss a beat."
I applauded, carving Yupi's new look into my memory.
If the fallout with Ter hadn't soured her mood, I'd have showered her with every wild bit of flattery in the book.
"Seeing you like this, that armor was practically a shackle. Casual clothes suit you far better, nunim."
"I just picked something easy to move around in, that's all."
Yupi blushed at my flattery.
Like a caterpillar shedding its skin to become a butterfly, flowers of laughter bloomed across the face of the woman in her new clothes.
As if no amount of careful composure could hide that pure, unguarded happiness.
Yupi really is hopeless too, in the end.
The plan — mending Yupi's heartbreak over her fight with Ter by drowning the sorrow in the joy of breaking the curse on her bound item — had worked beautifully.
Seeing her like this, I thought I'd been right to ask Daon's spirit how to lift the curse.
Yupi's armor had belonged to Aspa, Daon's younger sister.
In the original story, Eva found the things Aspa had hidden away and used them to break Yupi's curse — but I twisted that route and asked her twin brother Daon instead.
A footnote the Writer had scribbled in her setting guide: Aspa and Daon were twins, soul-bound companions.
The line had said that whatever she could do, he could do as well — so I'd asked him on a hunch, and it worked out.
"Ah, yes, of course."
And besides, I'd double-checked with the Helper — someone as intimately familiar with this world's lore as the Writer herself.
The plan was proceeding smoothly, but it wasn't enough.
I was riding this momentum, just about to unveil a masterstroke that would dissolve all the pent-up knots inside her in one stroke.
Almost time.
I gazed past the department store window at the darkening sky.
With the stage set and the mood ripening, I took Yupi's hand.
"You've bought your clothes, so now come somewhere with me."
"Go where? Where exactly?"
"Somewhere I scouted out in advance, just for you, nunim."
Where else could adults trade gossip and pour their hearts out, if not there?
Clink!
"Cheers!"
We clinked cold glasses filled with ice.
The wavering chime of glass on glass filled the room, and a mellow song drifted from the speakers in time with the rhythm.
"So the place you had in mind was a bar."
"You don't like it?"
"Like it? I've never once imagined a life without alcohol, dear."
Yupi downed the alcohol in her glass in a single gulp.
Every time she raised her glass, it was a one-shot — she drained them all in a row.
She's already thirty bottles in?
Her tolerance left me slack-jawed with awe.
It was almost a miracle she stayed sober drinking like that.
Twenty bottles is my limit, for the record.
I'd taken her to bars now and then, but this was the first time we'd properly sat down to drink.
At this side of her the novel had never shown, I found my gaze helplessly captured.
"Aren't you the one drinking far too little?"
"My eyes kept drifting to this new side of you, nunim. I've been so busy staring that the alcohol's having trouble reaching my mouth."
"A new side of me, hmm."
Yupi swirled her empty glass and sank into thought.
She looked just like an old man reminiscing over his memories, reflecting back on his own life.
"Solis. Do you know who I am?"
"An instructor at Purity Academy. And my lover."
"And to everyone else, I'm the Blood-Red Thunder. The Usurper who seized the family head's seat by force. The unfilial daughter."
"..."
"And now I've laid hands on my own little sister, too. I'm disqualified as an instructor, and as an older sister."
The alcohol warming her blood, she let out a short sigh of self-reproach.
Compared to other people's drunken rambling, it was almost cute — but there was a great deal packed inside it.
She had shoved her true feelings — ones she couldn't confess even to the person she treasured most in the world — into a corner of her chest,
and suffered through them all alone.
"Everyone's human. Mistakes happen."
"Haha. Even if that's just flattery, thank you."
"I mean every word of it."
At my defense, Yupi's expression softened, if only a little.
But instead of laughing it off with her, I pressed on seriously.
"I know you're not a bad person, nunim. I think there were reasons behind the things about you I'd only ever heard as rumors."
I stood up for Yupi because I'd already read about the Citrine family's atrocities in the novel.
For the sins they'd committed, those people had gotten off with gentle deaths, frankly.
"...No matter the reason, killing people is an unforgivable act."
"I know. But still, I want to believe in you."
I set down my half-drunk glass and took her shoulders, gently drawing her toward me.
Wobbling with drink, she had nowhere to lean — so I became her support.
By wrapping her in my arms, I shared my warmth with a body gone cold in the biting wind of loneliness.
"So just for this moment, nunim — smile. So that even if it hurts again next time, you can endure it."
"...Thank you."
And so we leaned our bodies against each other's shoulders in silence for a long while.
"Let's head home. I'll walk you there."
Having talked our hearts out and finished the rest of our drinks, we left the bar and turned into the alley.
I planned to take the quickest shortcut and carry the tipsy Yupi home to the house she lived in.
"Wait just a moment."
"Hm?"
She stopped me in my tracks.
As I tilted my head wondering what was up, a deep, rich kiss landed on my lips.
"Mmmh, mwah."
A kiss so hot it snapped my hazy mind wide awake.
Tongue and saliva tangled together, and my already flushed body burned even hotter.
"How about one round, right here?"
"Out in the open? Are you sure about that?"
"Are you scared someone might come?"
At that brazen provocation, the corner of my mouth curled up.
Instead of launching into a long-winded reply, I grabbed her chest firmly in my hand.
"Not in the slightest."