Next Time, Tomorrow, For Sure (3)
Next Time, Tomorrow, For Sure (3) — Marin Hotel, Jung-gu, Incheon
The day after Shim Soyoung left my room, promising tomorrow would be different.
The moment morning light broke, she came looking for me, and we ended up facing each other down in the lobby. There she was, glaring at me with a sputtering snarl, and there I was, grinning brightly right back at her. The ruckus drew every one of the maids-in-training out of their rooms, and they gathered around to watch our standoff.
“Kim Jian! Get behind me, now!”
Shim Soyoung shrieked at Kim Jian, who stood behind me, like she was having a seizure. Kim Jian obeyed, shuffling slowly across the floor. I watched her back as she passed me and headed toward Soyoung—until Soyoung's body blocked my view entirely.
Bloodshot eyes, her whole frame trembling like a boiling kettle. She'd been on the verge of exploding already, and now, as if someone had struck a match against the fuse, she was gloriously in full rampage mode.
The trigger, I figured, was seeing Kim Jian sleeping beside me in bed. That look on her face when she'd witnessed Jian, bare-skinned, rubbing her eyes as she greeted her. If looks could kill, I'd have died about ten times over.
“Does it really matter who Jian stands behind?”
“...If only you were gone. If only you...”
At my needling, she repeated the words like she was hypnotizing herself. If only you were gone.
Keeeeeeeng—!
From behind her tightly pressed lips came that familiar activation hum. A thick aura of killing intent rolled off the crimson mana she unleashed at full power. Her whole body dyed red, she swiftly drew her right arm back—then, using the spring of her hips and waist, whipped it forward.
Where her empty right hand had been, a silver steel ball now swung.
“Dieeeee,―!”
With a shriek that could tear fabric, a streak of light shot out in a straight line. Her steel ball throw announced the start of the duel. I stared at the incoming ball and reached out my hand.
My telekinesis swiftly wrested control of the ball, which was packed full of an Awakened's monstrous strength. Then, right behind the ball that had frozen mid-air, an identical crack of displaced air tore through the atmosphere.
She had, of course, anticipated exactly this situation, and the throws kept coming in an unrelenting volley.
“Ha—!”
I burst out laughing and stopped even the steel balls that came surging after it.
Swheeeeak―!
She kept hurling steel balls, determined not to give me a single breath to spare. Soon, half the distance between us had filled up with them. I shook my head at the sight. Predictable didn't even begin to cover it. So this was the strategy she'd agonized over all night.
Swheeeeak―!
She flung objects around wildly, trying to scatter my telekinesis across a dozen targets. Then—
Thak―!
With the sound of a foot slamming off the floor, she leapt above the suspended balls and looked down at me.
“Haaaaat―!”
The idea, clearly, was to strike at me through the weakened telekinesis I was burning just to hold the steel balls in place. It wasn't a completely absurd plan. Using the haphazardly frozen steel balls as a screen showed genuine cleverness, too.
“Dieeeee,―!”
Shim Soyoung was faithfully executing the plan she'd drawn up. So I decided I would faithfully execute the plan I'd drawn up as well.
“Retard.”
I spat the word at her, suspended mid-air like a taxidermied specimen—complete with the contemptuous expression of a man looking at a bug.
“What's the big idea handing out free weapons to a telekinesis user, huh? Doing community service?”
With a dancer's flourish of my fingers, every steel ball suspended in the air came alive. The balls floating around her took turns—tok, tok—rapping her on the head.
“Retard— retard— retard— you retard.”
Her mouth had long since been sealed shut by telekinesis, and her face flushed scarlet. She glared at me with eyes gone blood-red, veins bursting, shaking her head violently. I toyed with her cheeks using two of the steel balls, rubbing them back and forth with a smirk. Her face, already twisting out of shape, grew redder still, like a volcano about to blow—as if all the blood in her body had drained toward it.
Having played with her like a doll, I spun her around in circles in front of the maids. Then, dragging her limply behind me like a scarecrow, I paraded her face to face with each maid in turn as I held forth.
“Soyoung, this is what these people really look like. The faces of people who eat well, sleep well, and live happily. All those pretty words about pulling together, never giving up. What have you actually accomplished, huh?”
I kept whittling away at her, shredding her self-esteem piece by piece. Thak, thak—the steel ball tapped the back of her head as I made her face each maid in turn. The women looked at Shim Soyoung with troubled eyes, with pitying eyes, and I let the humiliation and disgrace come boiling up inside her chest.
When the survivor tour of shame was done, I brought her to a stop in front of me. Her whole body burned redder than it ever had, and I smirked as I took it in.
“You're too weak. Weaker than an ant, honestly. You're trash. You're a useless woman. A retard who can't make a single one of her own people happy.”
I could feel her strength resisting my telekinesis, growing stronger by the moment. Watching her turn into a serviceable grip exerciser, I kept talking.
“What's all this 'Tess' this and 'Tess' that, when you couldn't even take care of fifty-odd people? Be honest with me. You were bad at studying in school, weren't you? Huh? What's wrong, cat got your tongue? Struck a nerve?”
I snickered as I watched her strain to force her mouth open through my telekinesis.
“Why'd you strut around like that when one squeeze from me would snap your neck? Thought becoming an Awakened made you something special? Playing big boss in some tiny little hideout, shoulders all puffed up?”
I kept carving her down as I drew her in with my telekinesis. Slowly, her chest came within reach of my outstretched hand. Her eyes widened to the point of tearing, and I grinned at them as I kneaded her breast. It was firm and springy, fitting perfectly into my palm. Every bit as elastic as an Awakened's body ought to be. Toyed with it freely as I leaned close and whispered to her.
“You're so weak you're not even worth killing. You were made to be my cockwarmer, that's it. If your tits are this springy, I wonder what your pussy's like? Ah—it's a special-class onahole, isn't it.”
After bombarding her with filth, I pressed my nose against hers again. I kept kneading her chest as I met her reddened eyes.
Grrrk— grrrk—
A grotesque sound rang out from inside her mouth. Whether to hold back her fury or to fight my telekinesis, she was grinding her teeth desperately, glaring at me all the while.
“Hm? What, are you training your mouth-pussy? You don't have to grind like that—my cock would fill your mouth just fine.”
Outraged at words she'd never heard in her life, she stretched her already-huge eyes even wider. I pinched her nipple hard as she glared at me like I was a lunatic.
“Ngh―!”
That was the breaking point. Tears spilled from eyes already brimming. Watching them run in straight lines down her cheeks and drip off her chin, I kept up an unending whisper at her ear.
“It's because you're weak. All of this is because you're weak. It's because you're too weak. It's because you're too weak.”
Crimson mana had been overflowing from her trembling body for a while now, shining like something about to boil over. I gazed contentedly at the rippling, heat-gushing mana—then looked back over my shoulder.
And, exactly as yesterday, I placed Baby at the front gate.
“Behhhhhh―!”
I tossed her out there like an offering to the hotel grounds about to be flooded by a zombie wave, then took my place at the entrance myself. Standing with the maids who came swarming out behind me, I slowly rose and settled in to watch Shim Soyoung glare at me with murder in her eyes.
I bound her and threw one of her overflowing steel balls straight at her head.
Thwaaak―!
She dropped back to her hands and knees, and the zombie wave crashed down right in front of her eyes. A horde of zombies charged at her, smashing through the front gate. As she scrambled to her feet, I tossed her a single line.
Shim Soyoung clenched her trembling fists, raised her head—
“Fuuuuuck―!”
With a roar like she was coughing up blood, she unleashed her mana.
Keeeeeeeng―!
The sound of her power spinning up carried clearly even from a distance. In an instant she was among the zombies' faces, arm swinging.
KWAAANG―!
A boom far too large to be called a mere strike. A single blow made the entire wave of zombies shudder. Through the momentary gap that opened along her fist's path, she dove in.
KWANG―! KWAAANG―!
Clouds of dust and thunder never stopped coming. She carved through the horde in every direction like she was venting a lifetime of rage, crushing their skulls one after another.
Grk-grk-grk―!
The long tear of asphalt splitting apart. I clicked my tongue at the mutants preparing ambushes within the gaps between zombies.
'No steroids today, huh.'
“Kieeeeee―!”
The Frogs launched themselves in powerful leaps, aiming for the gaps in Shim Soyoung's guard. She—who had been rending zombies apart with the face of a wrathful demon—swept her leg around.
Thwak― Thwak―!
Kicks like beams of light obliterated two Frogs simultaneously. As I admired the glutes flowing down from her powerful thighs, I reached my hand out again.
“Behhhhhh―!”
Baby flew through the air again, and she paid him no mind whatsoever, hammering away at the horde with fists and kicks. Compared to yesterday, when survival had been the whole game, this was a different dimension entirely. One missing steroid couldn't explain how exhilarating her massacre was.
Thwaaaak―!
The last zombie fell, and Shim Soyoung let out a long breath full of satisfaction.
“Whewwww―”
Unlike yesterday, when they'd breached the lobby, the zombies hadn't even reached the entrance—they lay strewn haphazardly all around her. At the center of them, drenched in blood, she finally registered the towel and drink hovering in front of her face.
“Th— thiii―!”
Only then did the maids step forward, seeing her turn around.
“Soyoung―!”
“Unniiiie―!”
The survivors swarmed around her, blocking the path between her and me. Kim Jian lovingly wiped Shim Soyoung's face with the towel floating in midair and marveled.
“Unnie! What happened? You were so fast I couldn't even follow you with my eyes!”
“Wow! And today the cult leader didn't even shout 'Stop!'!”
“So now we can take down that muscle-bound monster too?”
The maids-in-training chattered away nonstop in front of Shim Soyoung. And then, as if she'd finally noticed something off, she flinched. Refusing only the drink to the very end, she slowly looked around her.
The corpses of the zombies she'd smashed. The small victory she had achieved. Her dazed gaze drifted to its final destination: me.
Her eyes trembled without pause—an earthquake behind her pupils, quite literally.
I said nothing.
I didn't spell it out for her—that I'd pulled her growth trigger myself, that I'd made her grow. I wanted her to realize it on her own. People trust conclusions they reason out themselves far more than facts someone else hands them.
She would think it through. Why she'd become so much stronger so suddenly. She'd recall her skill, and everything that happened today. She'd grasp the reason for her unprecedented growth—and be struck speechless.
And wouldn't all the words I'd poured over her echo in her ears then?
'It's because you're too weak.'
She had grown through humiliation and disgrace strong enough to bring her to tears.
'It's because you're too weak.'
I didn't want to admit it, but that bastard was far stronger than me.
'It's because you're too weak.'
To beat him, she needed growth like today's.
'It's because you're too weak.'
To beat him, she needed humiliation like today's.
Because I'm too weak.
She glared at me with eyes full of turmoil—then walked through the entrance and headed back to Blue Wing.
I called out to her retreating back.
“See you tomorrow, Shim Soyoung!”
“...Next time― no, tomorrow, I swear I'll―”
Kill you.
“Right. See you tomorrow.”
I hummed as I watched her stagger away. Then I turned my head and studied Baby, still abandoned atop the high-rise building.
“Should I drag him around at night and collect some steroids or something?”
Would two steroids still be too much for Shim Soyoung?
I piled the zombie corpses stacked up against the front gate neatly onto the rooftop where Baby waited, tossing Shim Soyoung's summoned steel balls into my inventory as I went, and mulled it over.
'How far should I push tomorrow?'
“Cult Leader! Did we do well today―?”
“I'm sorry, Cult Leader. Soyoung absolutely refuses to drink anything.”
I smiled at the maids clustered around me.
“It's fine. If it doesn't work today, we just try again tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. I felt like I might go mad waiting for it.