The Supporter in My Head, Part 2

The moment he tried to leave through the lobby of the hospital's first floor, a familiar voice drifted into his ears.

'My, oh my. To think I'd be right in front of you. What a strange feeling~.'

She was even narrating the fact that her voice was currently echoing inside his skull.

Last night.

"Oh. Might ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as well test this out right now."

Nagaza decided to try out one of the functions of Real Person Gacha.

Nagaza moved Kang Sook-hye from Slot 1 over to Support. The moment he did, she dissolved into motes of light and vanished.

'Whoa.'

"!"

And then her voice rang out inside his head.

'I can feel the Creator's thoughts...!'

'All I can feel is whatever you're saying.'

'I can feel the entire flow of your thoughts, Creator-niiim. I believe I'm fully capable of providing perfect support~.'

Kang Sook-hye continued with a soft smile in her voice.

'...It's a rather one-sided arrangement, having my mind read according to the Creator's will, but I have absolutely no intention of using it against you. After all, I am the Creator's character (summon).'

"...So you really do read everything. Well, you're the only one I've summoned so far, so I suppose that's to be expected."

'Hehe. Yes~! I think it's best to be selective about which characters you place in Support, Creator-niim!'

Nagaza stuffed the junk cluttering his room into his inventory. Only items drawn through his gacha could go in.

"Hey. The points you drew—"

'Yes~! As for the mucus I produced, as long as it isn't the toxic variety, I can reabsorb it. Even the toxic kind can be reabsorbed—provided it hasn't killed anyone yet~.'

"...From now on, if I want a fast answer, that's how I'll be thinking, so don't cut me off."

'I-I'm so sorryyy!! I got carried away because this is my first time too... Please kill me right now!!'

Nagaza mused that a woman drunk on devotion to him wasn't entirely convenient after all.

Kang Sook-hye, of course, read that thought as well—but true to his intent, she did not respond to it.

Back in the present. Nagaza had followed Vuletena's invitation to a café near the hospital.

Bronze Vuletena. She was what people commonly called a cougar—an older beauty without children, but with plenty of years on her.

Soft eyes, a gentle way of speaking—yet her fashion could only be described as an open invitation to seduce a man.

Seated across the table from him, she spoke in a voice dripping with concern.

"Are you feeling okay, sweetie~? Aigoo, I'm so sorry. That accident happened because of me. I'm truly relieved you're alright."

"Haha. Accidents happen, right?"

"Thank you, honey~."

Her laughter wasn't the distant kind, like an idol's. It was within arm's reach, sitting just on the other side of a small fence called "family."

'You're not a woman who should be rotting away in a place that small.''Just a little more and I could have you.''I want to steal you away.'

Hers was the kind of demeanor designed to stir such male desire.

Not long ago, Nagaza had genuinely felt exactly that way about her.

But now...

'Ahh. Seeing it from the outside, she really is this pathetic. How disgraceful...'

Inside his head sat a copy of Vuletena herself.

'Ha. Weren't you just saying how amazing it was to have yourself standing right in front of you?'

'Aww~ that was simply me relaying my senses to you, Creator, without any filter~. Honestly, I genuinely think of that woman—the real me—as a wicked, scheming old crone~.'

She was even condemning the woman she herself was, all in loyal service to him.

"Pfft."

Misreading the laughter that escaped him reflexively, she smiled back all the same.

"Take good care of yourself, okay~? If you need anything, I can bring you side dishes."

"Yes, yes. Thank you very much."

"So then... about your arm treatment—can I assume you've accepted what I offered? I did bring the paperwork, you see. Just sign the lease agreement for me, right here~."

As Nagaza listened to her, he thought: 'Translate that for me.'

'You little insect. Scrambling just to survive. Sign the contract already and hand it over, will you.'

That was, quite literally, her actual thought. Kang Sook-hye translated it complete with the emotion attached.

"...Ha. Ah, the lease agreement, you mean? But are you sure that's all right? Causing you all this trouble because of me."

Nagaza looked at the contract laid out on the table and smiled.

"Gaja, honey! What are you saying~. I'm the one who feels awful... As it happens, I have an acquaintance who's looking for a place anyway."

'Stop being a bother and hand over the contract already. That's where my lover is moving in.'

The one-to-one translation of her hidden meaning made Nagaza's skin crawl. Noticing it, Kang Sook-hye grew anxious and asked,

'Sh-Shall I act it out without the emotion...?'

He didn't bother answering the question.

Instead, he picked up the coffee she'd bought him and downed it in one long pull.

'Gulp gulp gulp.'

Vuletena's face crumpled at the display of zero table manners.

'Ugh. Having to sit in a café with this piece of trash.'

Nagaza set the cup down with a clack, wiped his mouth, and spoke.

"Oh, but don't worry about it. I'll pay you back in cash instead. I'm keeping the apartment."

"...........What?"

'...........What?'

Nagaza wondered why she'd even bothered translating that, but carried on with a sly smirk anyway.

"I mean it. I like the place I'm living in now. So I'll take the money instead. I'm staying put."

"No, no. Wait. Wait a moment. What on earth are you saying right now...!"

Vuletena had forgotten her usual sweet register without even realizing it. Nagaza didn't miss that reaction for a second.

"What's wrong? Is there some reason you need my apartment specifically?"

"...! W-well of course not~. We're not exactly rolling in it ourselves, but we do have more saved up than you do, and I feel guilty, that's all. Right?"

Nagaza gave a low chuckle.

Trying to kill him—a man who merely lived next door—that much he could wrap his head around. But going out of her way afterward to cover his medical bills? That made no sense at all.

Except the answer was already sitting in his head.

'This place was meant to become the love nest of a man named Gwak Gwak-soo. My affair partner, naturally. He's quite up there in age, but he's loaded. An executive at my husband's company, you see~.'

A perfect copy of a personality included the memories, too.

'The original plan was to kill you, Creator, and have him move into the vacant unit... but since you survived, it seems she's hastily reworked the scheme. She promised him she'd handle it if she paid you off. That must be the commitment she made to him.'

Nagaza fell silent, listening to Kang Sook-hye's commentary all over again.

"............"

"..........."

Bronze Vuletena watched him with a hint of tension. A thief's own feet go numb, after all. But she had thoroughly buried every fact connected to him—no evidence, an airtight alibi.

Unless she herself confessed, no one could ever dig it up.

And yet, why on earth—

"I have money. I'll repay you with that."

Nagaza flashed a grin and moved to rise from his chair.

"!"

Vuletena couldn't hold back—she grabbed his hand.

Her fingers trembled faintly with disgust. But she was not a woman who let emotion sabotage what needed doing.

She switched strategies.

"Now, now~. Let's have a little talk with your noona, okay? Hmm?"

Her eyes softened into crescents, her voice steeped in affection and warmth.

And in the same breath, she pressed both arms against her chest, pushing her breasts together until they swelled.

The intimacy of a mother doting on her son, blended seamlessly with the love of a woman for her lover—it all came pouring out at once.

"Hm~? Gaja, honey."

While insisting to herself that she was being perfectly innocent, she was laying the aegyo and the allure on thick.

'........Ha.'

Nagaza found it hot. It was the exact pose that hit dead center in his cougar weakness.

Had he not known her true nature—if he hadn't learned about this ability—he might have let it slide.

But...

'Support. Recommend me one sentence guaranteed to piss off the woman in front ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of me more than anything else.'

At his flippant request, Kang Sook-hye deliberately spoke in a flat, robotic tone.

'Yes~. I recommend saying, in a tone of sincere concern: "You're really showing your age. It's honestly painful to watch..."'

Nagaza chuckled darkly and delivered the line exactly as prescribed.

He got slapped across the face.

Even that was hilarious.

"K-KUAHAHAHA!"

The moment Nagaza got home, the laughter he'd been choking down all the way back exploded out of him.

At the same time, he shifted Kang Sook-hye in the formation menu from Support back to Slot 1.

Before him, light—mana—gathered and took the shape of a person.

"Whew."

Bronze Vuletena appeared in his own home. But her expression and posture were nothing like the woman he'd faced at the café.

"Oh dear... Is your cheek all right, Creator...?"

Instead of answering, Nagaza reached out and grabbed her breast. He kneaded it with the casual ease of a man fidgeting with a spinner.

"...Hehe♡ You wanted to touch them back there too, didn't youuu?"

"Ha! These tits and those tits are different beasts. Even if they look identical."

Nagaza stared into the face of Kang Sook-hye—the exact copy of the woman he was going to destroy.

"........Actually, no. You really are identical. Pisses me off."

"M-Master, your worship~."

Nagaza chuckled and gave Kang Sook-hye's iron-hard tits a slap. They rippled like the earth surging up in an earthquake. She let a moan slip out.

"I noticed it yesterday too. Were you always a masochist?"

At the blunt question, Kang Sook-hye cradled her tingling chest and answered with unnerving calm.

"Ehe~? W-well... I don't believe I was, originally. But since yesterday, perhaps I've become one..."

"Hey. You're supposed to graduate from that in your twenties."

"Hehehe~."

Nagaza swept his gaze around his apartment. He'd always thought of it as nothing more than a place to eat and sleep, but now that he'd nearly lost it, it felt precious all of a sudden.

He went and sat down on the sofa that doubled as his bed. Kang Sook-hye followed him like a properly deferential housewife, knelt on the floor, and then settled herself beneath his crotch—facing the opposite direction from before.

She stripped off her top, bared her chest, and arranged herself into a position that made ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her Creator's plaything easy to handle.

It wasn't that Kang Sook-hye had come to believe Nagaza was some magnificently exalted being.

'He is her exalted being.' That was what she had come to believe. Which meant—his greatness, his pettiness, his every flaw and grace.

Even the crudest, most despicable desires.

All of it was her meaning.

"Ah...♡ Angh..♡"

Kneading her breasts from above as he spoke, Nagaza laid it out.

"Right. So one thing is now confirmed: your original needs this apartment. Desperately, at that. If you were her—if you were in that situation, without knowing what you know now—what would you do?"

Drunk on the joy of satisfying her Creator with her chest, Kang Sook-hye answered in a voice trembling with anticipation.

"Assuming he was not the Creator at all, but merely the deadbeat next door... and assuming I had never come to know the Creator..."

The drawn-out trailing vowels annoyed Nagaza, so he pinched her nipple. She let out a single moan and answered.

"...I would try to kill him. The Creator."

Nagaza's chuckle rolled low and delighted.

And so it began.

"Now then. Let the fun part of my revenge commence."

"Hehe. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Yes♡ I may be trash like this now, but back in my Academy days, my grades were quite impressive, you know~?"

The revenge she would take on herself.