Despair, Fear, and Anger (2)
Despair, Fear, and Anger (2)
Maybe it was because I saw those horrible game thumbnails during the day. I couldn't fall asleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, naked orcs and tentacles flickered before me, making my stomach churn.
'...Let's get some fresh air.'
To clear my thoughts and cleanse my polluted eyes. I grabbed a mask and stepped out the front door. Just in case, I also pulled my cap down low over my eyebrows.
It was past 1 AM. Maybe because it was a university district, the streets were still blazing with neon lights as if it were daytime.
People stumbling drunk, people sitting on the ground crying, people shouting loudly... It was the start of the semester, so the streets were occupied by energetic youths.
Of course, 99% of those youths were female.
"Hey! Let's get wasted! I'm not dying today!"
"Ah, noona! Seriously, stop drinking!"
Gruff voices split the night air.
I moved along paths that were as deserted as possible. There was no benefit in getting involved with some drunkard.
Trudge, trudge.
My shadow stretched long under the streetlight. Then, a group sitting under a convenience store umbrella, smoking cigarettes, glanced at me.
"Hey, look at that person walking by."
"Huh? Who?"
"That one in the hoodie. Isn't that a guy?"
Whispers came from behind my back.
I pulled my hat lower and quickened my pace.
"Aish, you can't see the face, how would you know?"
"No, can't you tell at a glance? The shoulder width and hips are different. That's definitely a guy."
"Bullshit. Would a guy be crazy enough to walk around alone at this hour? It's not like he's asking to be kidnapped."
I heard a chiiik sound of spitting.
"Probably just a woman with a big build from working out. Maybe a PE major."
"You think? Yeah, that's a bit weird."
Fortunately, they drew their own conclusion and lost interest.
As expected, in this world, a 'man walking alone at dawn' was practically a unicorn, so it seemed they wouldn't even suspect it under normal circumstances. That was actually a relief.
'A woman with a big build...'
A snicker escaped me.
Well, in a world with a 1:9 gender ratio, if a sturdy being with broad shoulders passed by, it would be more comfortable to think of it as 'a woman built like a general' rather than a man.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept walking.
The cool night air gradually cooled my heated head.
As I walked mindlessly, a familiar sign caught my eye. It was the gym I had registered at before.
'Huh? The lights are on.'
It was past 2 AM. Was the Gwanjang-nim still here? Maybe he was meditating like last time, or maybe he forgot to turn off the switch when he left.
'...I registered days ago and haven't shown my face even once.'
From Gwanjang-nim's perspective, that must be a bit frustrating.
He had been all excited, saying I was a precious male member, a talent that appears once in a millennium, but that raw gem was just at home picking his teeth and lying around.
'Sigh... but honestly, I don't feel like going unless the mood strikes.'
Well, there are times when I want to beat up a sandbag and sweat it out. But the decisive problem is that what I'm learning is a 'combat sport.'
Inevitably, bodies get tangled up, and grappling situations come up where sweat and smell mix.
'...What if my junior wakes up tactlessly at that moment?'
Someone might ask this:
"But hey, isn't that a gender-reversed world? It's a world where women are dying to get their hands on men. If you get a little tent, who would complain? Wouldn't that be a reward?"
Absolutely not.
No matter how much I've adapted to life in this world, deep in my soul, the DNA of 21st-century Korea is imprinted.
What kind of place is that?
It's a place where if you misplace your hand on a crowded subway, you get off the train of life. A spectacular country where a mere brush becomes not fate but a criminal record.
A generation raised on news like the Gomtangjip incident or whether someone's butt was brushed or not, like a lullaby.
In that place, the Fence Rule wasn't just social skills; it was a pathetic survival instinct for staying alive in the wild.
So imagine this.
During sparring, while trying to apply an Armbar, you get tangled up, and your precious item touches the opponent woman's body? And if you pitch a tent in that state?
The women in this world might lick their lips and drool, saying, "Ooh, our Jin-hyeok-ssi is healthy, huh?"
But my brain immediately issues 'Alert One.'
[Lack of Gender Sensitivity → Sexual Crime Established → Electronic Anklet Edition Installed → Social Burial]
That horrific algorithm runs at full speed in 0.1 seconds.
This is not an area that reason can control.
Like Pavlov's dog salivating at the sound of a bell, I am designed to break out in cold sweat at physical contact with an unfamiliar woman.
'...Fuck, thinking about it makes me scared again.'
I clicked my tongue bitterly and passed by the gym. For the time being, I'd better behave and just do squats at home.
Anyway, unless my body is so stiff I'm about to go crazy, I plan to avoid going to the gym as much as possible.
It's not like I wanted to register in the first place.
Gwanjang-nim grabbed my pant leg and begged me to please exercise, said he wouldn't take a single won of membership fees, just begged me to come—so I just signed the papers impulsively.
But still, if—if by some chance I do go to exercise...
'Should I take some impotence pills or something before going?'
A normal 20-something guy looking for drugs to make himself a eunuch just to exercise. There's nothing like black comedy.
I don't know if pharmacies sell that sort of thing... if not, I'll have to down some sedatives to forcibly put my mind and body in a sage mode before exercising.
I'm too scared to spar sober.
Of course, since it's exercise, people in this world and the original world would understand with sportsmanship. But fuck, the fear my body remembers is a separate issue from reason.
A pitiful self-defense of a man who carries the memory of the principle of presumption of innocence shattered.
I walked for a long time, lost in those idle thoughts. Maybe I breathed in too much of the dawn air; my eyelids were getting heavy.
'I'm getting a bit sleepy now...'
My head was somewhat cleared, and my stomach was appropriately empty.
Time to return to my cozy fortress, my studio apartment.
Trudge, trudge.
Walking down a dark alley with sparse streetlights, I saw someone coming from the opposite direction, making heavy thump, thump, thump footsteps. A woman wearing a black long-padded coat down to her ankles, a black mask, and even sunglasses in the middle of the night.
Her build... was quite large. No, to be honest, it was enormous.
'...What the hell is that? A bear?'
Even though the weather was chilly, a long-padded coat was a bit much. Was she going on an Antarctic expedition? Or was she wearing a sweat suit on a diet?
Her outfit reeked of suspicion, but none of my business.
I tried to ignore her and pass by. Just as our distances closed—
Tuck.
Suddenly, the woman heavily blocked my path.
"......?"
I tried to go around, but she twisted her massive body again to block my way. What? Was she picking a fight? Trying to shake me down?
As I frowned and looked at her, I felt her gaze from behind the sunglasses slither over my face.
"Student."
A gruff voice, like phlegm rattling. The woman smirked behind her mask and said,
"How about... noona shows you something good?"
"Excuse me...?"
Before I could even respond—
Chwaaak—!
The woman grabbed the zipper of her long-padded coat with both hands and flung it wide open, like a peacock spreading its feathers.
"......!"
For a moment, I couldn't believe my eyes. My visual information refused to transmit to my brain.
Inside the long-padded coat... there was nothing. Literally, completely naked without a single thread.
The problem was the state of that nakedness.
'......!!'
F... fuck...
It was enormous. Not just fat, but layers of fat hanging down, proving the law of gravity with its whole body—a mass of super-morbid obesity.
Her bulging belly fat hung down to her knees, and her thighs were thicker than two telephone poles combined. The skin had split, revealing fissure-like scars under the streetlight.
Between them, something dark and dirty... no, buried in fat and invisible...
"How about it? Isn't it killer?"
The woman grinned and jiggled her belly fat.
"......"
I was speechless.
During the day, my optic nerves were raped by the monster dick on the monitor. And now at dawn, I was being terrorized by a live 4D mass of flesh.
'Fuck... my eyes...!!'
My stomach felt like it was twisting. Vomit rose to my throat. I had been randomly attacked.
"Kyaaah! Fuck!"
I screamed involuntarily, like a girl.
"KYAAAAAAH!!"
"Oh my, why are you like that, student? Is noona's body too dazzling? Are you moved?"
The crazy bitch approached, flapping the flaps of her coat.
Jiggle, jiggle.
With every wave of heavy fat, my mental state was ground away.
"Don't come near! Don't come near, you crazy pig!"
I started running without looking back.
"KYAAAH! FUCK! HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP ME! MINNA TASUKETE...!!"
A scream of mixed nationalities burst out. Fuck, 112! Call 112! No, call 119! I need to wash my eyes!
I glanced back and saw that enormous mass of flesh chasing after me, causing earthquakes.
Thump, thump, thump!
How can that body run so fast? Is that not fat but compressed muscle? Crazy, she looks like she'll chase me all the way home.
"Huff, huff...!"
It was dawn, so there wasn't a single ant in sight. No one to help.
"You son of a bitch! Stop chasing me, you pig bastard!!!"
I screamed and turned into an alley. Please lose her, please.
"...What?"
What appeared before my eyes was a gray wall.
Dead end.
"Fuck, I'm screwed..."
No, why the hell is there a dead end in this neighborhood? Crazy... what kind of bastard planned this city! Demolish this wall right now, you fucking asshole!
I frantically looked around, but there was only the rising wall and a firmly shut iron gate. No escape. Like a rat in a trap.
Thump, thump, thump.
Heavy footsteps stopped behind me. A rough breath touched the back of my neck.
"Hoo... hoo... student... caught you..."
Trembling, I turned around.
That 'monster' with her coat wide open, her sweat-glistening flesh jiggling, licked her lips. An overwhelming mass that filled the alley. No way to escape.
My legs trembled. It was physiological fear.
"I'm sorry... please..."
A pathetic voice came out of my mouth.
But that patheticness didn't last long.
'Fuck... why the hell is this happening to me...'
The more I thought, the more absurd it felt.
The events of the entire day flashed before my eyes like a lantern.
During the day, I was terrorized by a hideous genital in the monitor. At night, I was chased by this lump-of-flesh monster and cornered in a dead-end alley.
What did I do so wrong?
Is it a crime to play some games with excitement after starting to live alone, and to go for a walk because I couldn't sleep? Did I sell my country in a past life?
To be honest, if it had been a slim, well-maintained body, I might have just been surprised and thought, "Is she a crazy bitch?" No, I might have even mentally won by saying I got to feast my eyes.
But looking at that hideous lump of fat that neglected its own care, beyond fear, a physiological disgust rose up with stomach acid.
'My eyes... my precious eyes...'
Injustice welled up. And that injustice soon turned into boiling irritation.
'No, you fucking bitch.'
My teeth ground together.
Fear turned to injustice. Injustice turned to irritation. And irritation soon turned into reason-paralyzing anger.
I slowly raised my head. My eyes, which had been trembling with fear, suddenly turned cold and calm.
"Hey."
A low voice.
"...Huh?"
The woman flinched and stepped back. My gaze was so intense that even that massive body trembled.
I clenched my fist. The more I thought, the hotter I got.
I just went out for a short walk. Just to get some air and cool my head.
How can a person get hit with this kind of shitty situation back-to-back in a single day? Eye terror during the day, encountering a sex offender at night. Why me? Why the hell does this only happen to me?
As the injustice passed its threshold, the thread of reason snapped.