The Bully and First Love
A thin, piercing whine split the air.
"Strength Boost, Agility Boost, Mental Boost!"
The bat-type monster's claws slammed into the ground. Its prey had vanished in an instant, and while the creature reeled in confusion, a sharp scrape of friction hissed up from behind it. The corpse burst and dropped in a boneless heap. Red blood fountained across the floor, and the stench of it stabbed through my skull.
"Thanks, Jinhwan! Your buffs really are the best!"
She threw her arms around me.
"Khhk... A-Ara? I can't breathe..."
Ara's enormous breasts were crushing the air out of my lungs. My dead parents were starting to call me home. If this was how I died, I could accept it a hundred times over.
I was standing there slack-jawed and spellbound, mouth hanging open without even knowing it, when a kick like lightning cracked into my ass.
"Gah?!"
"Hey, Kkoo-jin! Why do you keep buffing only Ara? Did I tell you to look at me, or didn't I?"
Black hair. Black eyes. Just looking at him set my whole body shaking.
"Khh— J-Jinho... I-I'm sorry. I... I couldn't do it right..."
Ma Jinho hooked an arm around my neck. Habit carved into my body dragged my head down on its own.
"Kheh—khek... J-Jinho, I'm really gonna die..."
A miserable dog's death like this, I wanted no part of. If Ara's soft breasts a moment ago had been heaven, Ma Jinho's sweat-soured armpit was hell and nothing else. The crush of his arm I could endure. The stench, I could not. Out of a blurred memory rose the time I had pinched my nose without thinking and been punched until the bone caved in.
"Hey, Ma Jinho! Will you cut it out?!"
Ara's slap cracked across his forearm.
"...Class Prez. You lay off taking this pathetic loser's side, too."
How many years had it been since graduation, and he was still on that Class Prez crap. Ma Jinho glared at Ara as if he meant to kill her.
That bastard... how dare he... my Ara...!
Every part of me wanted to swing on him right then, but the man in front of me was a rising S-Rank Awakened. A wretched B-Rank buffer's pillow fists wouldn't even tickle him the way an ant would.
"And you—how long are you going to keep tormenting our Jinhwan? How about you quit the childish bully act?"
Ara didn't flinch. She glared straight back at him. Ma Jinho turned eyes full of rage my way, and the instant they met mine my shoulders hunched on reflex.
"Hey, Kkoo-jin! Am I bullying you?"
Ara was looking at me, desperate.
For Ara's sake...!
"N-no. It's thanks to you being S-Rank that I even get to come to a high-rank Gate like this..."
As if. A hunting dog conditioned for years—no, a pet dog—could never go against its master's will. Ma Jinho turned a satisfied, swaggering look on Joo Ara.
"There. I'm not bullying him, am I?"
He brushed past her side and dropped the warning as he went.
"You watch how far you push it, too. Being a woman won't get you a pass."
"Ugh..."
Ara chewed her lip, plainly furious.
"Hey! Kkoo-jin! From now on you stick right on my back and buff me. No exceptions."
"Yeah... got it."
"Tch. Seriously, I have to spell out even this shit. Useless bastard."
His broad shoulder clipped me, and I staggered. Ara rushed in and caught me. Watching Ma Jinho walk off, she turned her anger on me instead.
"Gu Jinhwan! How long are you actually going to live like this, huh?!"
Whoa... her breasts... so close.
"Ara, I don't have a choice. If a non-combatant like me wants to survive in this age, I need a combat Awakened like Jinho."
It was true. Years ago, Gates had appeared all over the world, and with the new age came the Awakened. With overwhelming power, the Awakened became the shield that guarded humanity. On the very day the Gates first manifested, I became one of them too. I still couldn't forget that day—the moment I awakened, and my heart soared.
The joy didn't last. Maybe it was because I had spent my whole life at the bottom, running other people's errands. I awakened as a non-combatant, and not just any non-combatant: my ability was buffing, support for the ones who actually fought. Even that had been all right. I had been chosen. It was still enough to console myself with.
What came after tasted of a far deeper despair.
"Kyaaaa!"
Buildings shattered and burned. In that collapsing school, able to do nothing more than heal and buff the people around me, I watched him appear.
"Hey, Kkoo-jin. What are you doing here? Get lost. You're in the way."
Ma Jinho. The bully assigned to me. He had trained in martial arts, and he tore through the enemy with terrifying force. When the chaos finally settled, that rotten bastard, of all people, became the youngest S-Rank Awakened in South Korea. Combat power peerless even among S-Ranks. The Ultimate Weapon, an epithet that needed no other modifier. That was the new strength Ma Jinho had gained.
And now, grown as we were, I was still living as his shuttle. The only difference was that the bread shuttle—the errand boy who used to fetch his snacks—had become his Buff Shuttle.
But my life had hope in it, too. My childhood friend, walking beside me even now: Joo Ara. Ara had always protected me. A pretty face, a sharp mind, and enough regard among our peers to be elected student council president. Ara was my pride, and my light.
"...so from now on, you too— hey, Gu Jinhwan! Are you even listening to me?"
"Huh? Yeah... I'm listening."
Ara let out a long sigh.
"Haa... honestly. If it weren't for you, I never would have joined that insufferable Ma Jinho's party."
She shook her head.
"...I'm sorry, Ara."
Ara had become an A-Rank Awakened. Gifted mind or not, her rapid spellcasting was already making her name. There was exactly one reason a B-Rank like me could stand in a party this dazzling, and it was, paradoxically, Ma Jinho. Buffers being rare was nothing but an excuse. He had simply wanted a flunky he could order around at his leisure. In a party built around him his influence was absolute, so I could remain even under everyone else's cold stares. I wasn't losing out, either. An S-Rank Gate meant experience and rewards I could never reach alone.
Right. A grand justification I had invented for myself, because if I didn't rationalize it this way, I wouldn't be able to endure.
"Everyone, rest. We take a short break here."
At Ma Jinho's order the party slumped to the ground. Sighs drifted up from every side.
"An S-Rank Gate really is brutal."
"We're only clearing it this well because the Ultimate Weapon's with us."
To me he was someone I wanted dead. To South Korea, right now, he was the single most indispensable man alive. That was Ma Jinho's place, and the longer I stayed at his side, the deeper that fact sank into my bones—and the hotter my anger burned.
"Ara? Where are you going?"
She had been sitting beside me. Now she rose and started toward Ma Jinho.
"I can't stand it anymore. I'm going to say something."
"A-Ara, I'm really fine."
She set her jaw, eyes hard.
"Fine, my ass! Dragging you into a dangerous S-Rank Gate wasn't enough for him—he's forcing you to play Buff Shuttle. I won't watch any more of it."
Her footsteps faded. Ara. I cast.
"Sensory Enhancement."
Far off, their voices reached me.
"Huh? What is it, Class Prez?"
Distance chewed the sound. Static crackled through it, like the pixels of a camera lens forced to zoom until the image broke apart.
"Hey, Ma Jinho. Look at me for a second."
Irritated, Ma Jinho picked at his ear, then huffed a breath in her direction.
"Seriously annoying."
He glanced around, eyed a shadowed cave, and jerked his chin.
"Too many eyes here. We'll talk over there."
South Korea's hope couldn't afford to be known as trash who hit women. My head twisted his words into that shape all on its own.
"...Fine."
Ara looked once into the damp dark of the cave and nodded.
...No. Ara, don't go.
I watched the two of them shrink with distance, and helplessness washed through me. Just the memory of Ma Jinho's fist locked my legs. I couldn't stand.
"...ch-chzzzt..."
The noise worsened until I could barely make out the words. I drew my knees in, buried my face, and the rims of my eyes burned.
"...I'm sorry, Ara. Because of me."
Then, faint through the static, Ara's voice came through.
"Ch... chzzzt... haahn... zzzt."
"...Huh?"
Ara's voice. I focused everything I had.
"Chzzzt, zzzt— haa... zzzt, that's too much..."
Something had happened to her. It had to have.
"Ma Jinho, you son of a bitch. Putting your hands on a woman after all."
Rage I had swallowed for years tore free.
"Ara, just hold on. I'm coming."
I forced my shaking legs to move. One step. Two. Toward the place where they had vanished.
"Ara... you're the only meaning my life has. If I abandon you like this, there's no reason for me to keep living."
Strength gathered in my fist. How long had it been since I had even thought of standing up to Jinho? I couldn't remember. No—more precisely, I couldn't have remembered. This was the first time. From the moment I first laid eyes on him, Jinho had been branded into me as terror. For the first time, I found the courage to face him.
"Haha. Once I make up my mind, I can do it, can't I? What was I so afraid of all this time..."
Chzzzt. As the distance closed, the noise began to thin, and their voices crept in little by little.
"...zzzt, heh heh. Kkoo-jin ought to see you like this."
".........zzzt. This stays an absolute secret from Jinhwan."
What? What the hell was he doing to her? My heart started to hammer. I shortened my stride and crept toward them. An S-Rank Awakened's senses were far sharper than mine. Any closer, and I would be caught for certain. Where had that resolve gone? My feet stuck as if someone had glued them to the stone.
"...Sensory Enhancement. Kk—"
I forced senses already dragged to their limit even higher, and my head overloaded as if it would split.
"...Mental Enhancement."
Once I grew used to the pain, the sound swelled against my ears.
"Haahn... it's really too big... chuup, chuup."
What? Ara's voice wasn't like her at all. A nasal moan threaded through rough breathing, and under it a wet, squelching noise, like a boot coming down on a dead slime.
"Class Prez. You like it that much?"
"Haa... haa... please... keep it down."
"Heh heh. Still hanging on to your pride, even now? You haven't been broken in enough. Fine. Get over here and take it."
Jinho's violent voice. Just hearing it sent my blood surging the wrong way.
...I can't take any more.
I gathered myself to lunge—and Ara's voice stopped me cold.
"Haaaaahn♡ I love your cock, I love this huge S-Rank cock so much♡♡♡"
Thud, thud, thud. Slap, slap. Wet flesh slamming into wet flesh drove into my ears as if through a loudspeaker.
"Keh heh heh. What a bitch in heat. You play so innocent in front of Kkoo-jin, but you can't forget the taste of cock—coming to bother me for it even in the middle of a Gate."
Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. A sound so blatant that even I, who had never once known a woman, could not mistake it. I dropped to my knees where I stood and screamed without making a sound.
First chapter
Latest chapter