A Yankee Kind Only to the Gloomy Girl
“……”
Daseul was still frozen like a broken robot. The words that had slipped from my mouth—“I’ll go wherever you want to go”—were so blatantly suggestive they bypassed every filter in her brain. By now she had probably already chosen the wallpaper for our honeymoon house and moved on to the furniture.
“Hey, Im Daseul. You just gonna stand there spacing out? I’m really about to head to karaoke with my friends, you know?”
“H-hiik! N-no! I-I have a place! I have somewhere I want to go!”
Daseul frantically grabbed my sleeve. I could feel her fingertips trembling. Chuckling, I lightly tousled her hair.
“All right, all right. Then lead the way, my dear seat partner.”
We walked out the school gates under the stunned stares of the popular crowd. Daseul kept her eyes on the ground as usual, but the occasional glances she stole at me carried a strange, hopeful gleam.
Wherever she wanted to take me, I had decided to follow. If it turned out to be somewhere dirty… well, it was still a little early, so I’d have to scold her a bit.
That was what I was thinking as we rounded the school wall and stepped into the bustling streets.
Vroooom—!
From among the motorcycles lined along the curb, a group appeared—flashy dyed hair, piercings dangling everywhere. They weren’t from our school, but any idiot could tell they were delinquent girls radiating pure “party big-sister” energy.
I instinctively moved in front of Daseul. She ducked behind my back on pure reflex, clutching my shirt in a death grip.
“Oh my, who do we have here? If it isn’t Kang Siwoo?”
The tanned gyaru at the center of the pack sauntered over, smacking her gum. Her eyes immediately locked onto Daseul hiding behind me.
“But… what’s that next to you? Why are you dragging a trash bag around?”
“Puhaha! Damn, Siwoo, your tastes have gotten seriously weird. Hanging out with a gloomy bitch like that—isn’t the smell gonna rub off on you?”
Cruel laughter rippled through the group.
I felt Daseul’s grip tighten. Her shoulders were shaking faintly. The old her would have already apologized and fled, but the fact that she was behind me seemed to be the only thing keeping her upright.
I simply watched them.
This was a gender-reversed world. A world where women were stronger than men and men were expected to fear them. But inside me lived the mind of a discharged South Korean army sergeant. The guts it took to handle paperwork without flinching in front of boar-sized senior soldiers hadn’t gone anywhere.
“……”
I stared straight into the gyaru leader’s eyes without a word. I didn’t yell. I didn’t point fingers. Sure, they were kids, and this body still had a temper, but even so.
“W-what the hell? Why are you looking at me like that?”
She was getting pissed, all right. The gyaru’s expression stiffened. In this world any normal guy facing a group like this would have looked away or started shaking. I saw no reason to.
My alien attitude threw the girls—who had been holding all the momentum—into confusion.
“Hey, Kang Siwoo, you—”
“Don’t insult my friend.”
I cut her off with a low voice.
“That’s the same as insulting me.”
I took one more step forward. The gyaru instinctively tried to retreat but planted her feet out of pride, glaring. Her pupils, however, were already quivering.
“……Ha, seriously. Kang Siwoo, you really have changed. I heard you washed away your mad-dog days, but now you’re playing bodyguard for some loser girl?”
Mad dog days?
Fragments I had forgotten stirred in the back of my mind. The original Kang Siwoo before I possessed him. Despite his pretty face, he had been a ruthless bastard who charged anyone who messed with him—girl or not. A male with strength greater than women in a gender-reversed world. Apparently the rumors still lingered.
“Never washed them away.”
I gave a bright smile. My eyes weren’t smiling at all.
“I’m just living moderately these days. Fighting doesn’t leave anything good behind. Only bad memories, like the ones you’re making right now.”
“……What? This bastard’s for real!”
One of the girls raised her hand in fury, but the leader caught her arm.
“Stop. We can’t win.”
She looked ready to spit, swallowed it instead, and gave me a long, lingering glare.
“You… really have changed without us noticing. Sigh… Anyway, sorry. To you and to your friend. Let’s go, girls.”
Vroooom—!
They roared off on their motorcycles. I let out a short sigh as I watched them disappear.
“Man, what a headache.”
I turned around. Daseul was still clutching my shirt with both hands, staring up at me with a blank face. The look in her eyes was on a completely different level from before—bordering on religious awe.
What’s with that rescued-heroine expression? This is a gender-reversed world, so aren’t you the one who’s supposed to make me look at you like that?
The noisy engines faded and normal street noise returned, but the air around us stayed thick and sticky.
I scratched the back of my neck.
“Hey, Im Daseul. They’re gone. You can let go now.”
“……”
“Daseul?”
“S-Siwoo… You, earlier…”
“Ah, it was nothing. They were just acquaintances, so I talked them down. I’m surprisingly a pacifist.”
I smiled slyly and peeled her hand off my shirt, then naturally took her wrist again.
“Now, shall we continue training? I’m very much looking forward to where my dear seat partner is going to lead me.”
“Ah… yes! L-let’s go!”
“Poop, let’s go? You need the bathroom? Want me to wait?”
“N-no! That’s not what I meant! Why is a boy like you so—”
“Huh? Maybe I’ve been too nice and gentle, so you forgot your place. Didn’t you see how those girls got scared and ran? Want to taste something spicy?”
I gave her cheek a light pinch. Huh. Softer than I expected. Unlike a healthy yankee like me, this was the plushness of a gloomy girl with high body-fat reserves. Apparently some things couldn’t be reversed even in a gender-reversed world.
“N-no, sorry. Hehe… A-anyway, I’ll show you. The place I wanted to go.”
Strength had returned to Daseul’s voice. Her steps, which had looked like a lamb being dragged to slaughter, now carried the solemn resolve of a knight marching toward a triumphal arch.
The place she led me to was a subculture goods shop tucked in a corner of downtown, down a flight of stairs.
Ding-a-ling—.
The moment the door opened, the familiar scent of paper and figure paint washed over me. Walls covered in posters of beautiful boys and girls, rows of gacha machines. It would have been a holy land to me in my previous life, but it felt out of place for the “yankee Kang Siwoo” of this world.
“H-here it is… my favorite place.”
The second she stepped inside, Daseul’s eyes lit up like a fish returned to water. Standing in front of keychains from her favorite genre, chattering away with explanations, she was so full of life it was hard to believe she was the same gloomy girl from earlier.
Any normal yankee—or honestly any normal person—would have frowned and thought, “What the hell, how otaku.” But I was different.
“Oh, isn’t this the new limited edition? The sculpting turned out great.”
“…Huh? Siwoo, you know this?”
“Of course. The original creator started as an illustrator, so the linework is beautiful. Especially the way those eyes are drawn—it’s perfect.”
The creative works of this world weren’t identical to the ones I remembered, but the Kang Siwoo of this world was still me. While hanging out I had unconsciously absorbed this world’s subculture knowledge. Not studying for school left me with a lot of free time for that kind of thing.
Honestly, stuff like what I saw in the library earlier—I knew it was in my memories, but pulling it out was difficult. Coming to a place packed with external stimuli like this made the memories bubble up one after another.
Daseul’s eyes filled with shock again. A guy who was handsome, good at fighting (presumably), protected her, and even perfectly understood her gloomy tastes. In a dating sim with beautiful girls he would have been called a balance-breaking cheat character.
Of course… on the inside he was just a mischievous old man.
If he didn’t hurry up and corrupt her youth, he would keep playing these ambiguous pranks until he became an adult. After all, the old man inside my heart kept saying true love was a bit much.
“You… who are you really? You know everything. Seeing you make the fellow-otaku move here makes me honestly happy.”
“I told you. I’m surprisingly an intellectual guy. I just don’t bother with schoolwork!”
I winked and placed the goods she had chosen on the counter for her.
“Here, a reward for following today’s ‘training’ so well. Your seat partner is treating, so don’t hold back.”
“S-Siwoo…”
“You have a phone case, right? Hang it on there. It’s a keychain, you know what I mean?”
Daseul hugged the goods bag I handed her like it was a treasure. …Was that her face or a tomato? I had to laugh.
My heart isn’t stopping. No, it’s been in overload since earlier. That broad back that didn’t flinch even in front of those scary girls who ignored me, protecting me. The low voice that said, “Don’t insult my friend!” And now this man who stepped into my world and smiles at me from the same eye level.
……Ah, oh God.
I realized it. This isn’t simply “practice” or “training.” This is fate. The man named Kang Siwoo is definitely an angel sent down from heaven to save a gloomy girl like me. No, he’s too dangerous to call an angel and too kind to call a devil.
Absolutely… I absolutely will not let anyone take him.
I clutched the goods bag tightly and stole another glance at Siwoo’s profile as he casually browsed the gacha machines beside me. This flashy, beautiful man is by my side. He gets angry for me, spends money for me, smiles for me. Something inside me began to swirl, dark and hot. It was the sprout of a fierce possessiveness and obsession that went far beyond simple affection.
But the reason it doesn’t feel bad at all—is it because I’m a bad person?
Siwoo, you started this first.
Don’t think that after ruining me like this you can stay as just an ordinary seat partner. You belong to me now. You are the center of my world and my one and only god.
I quietly grabbed Siwoo’s sleeve again. This time it wasn’t out of fear. It was the expression of my will that I would never let go.
After shopping for goods and browsing for a long while, the sun had already dipped past early evening.
“Hey, Daseul. Shall we head back? It’s getting late—your parents will worry.”
I smiled at her with the light thought that today’s strategy had gone pretty well. But the grip on my sleeve felt just a fraction stronger than before… Must be my imagination. Women in this reversed world were strong, after all. It probably meant Daseul had more strength than she let on; she had simply been holding back out of consideration.
“Yeah… Let’s go, Siwoo. My house is nearby.”
“Whoa… Your house? Miss Im Daseul, aren’t you trying to rush the progression a little too fast?”
“Eh? Ah! T-that’s not what I meant! I was saying let’s go outside now. Since my house is close I can get home quickly… so they won’t worry! That’s what I wanted to say.”
“I know.”
“Huh?”
“I was just teasing to see how you’d react. It’s definitely fun!”
“You… You…!”
Oh, she really is a tomato. Must be spring—she’s ripened beautifully.