I Want to Fuck a Hero (2)

"February, huh..."

Right after I stepped out of the familiar conference room—the one they used for meetings most days, maybe because they had nowhere else to hold an interview—I pulled the phone from my pocket, checked the date, and let out a sigh packed tight with dread.

Ten years and three months, give or take. What was I even supposed to call it? A time warp? A regression to the past? The word hardly mattered. Something strange had happened. Strange, and stranger, and stranger still.

My ability was nothing like this. Nothing to do with time. I was only a Healing-type Transcendent—rare enough, in its way, and that was the whole of it. Put your hand on the wound, work it this way and that, and poof—it healed, for the price of a little fatigue. That was all I was.

So why had this happened? I'd turned it over again and again, and no answer came. I'd slapped my own cheek, then bitten into my own flesh and healed the damage afterward, enough to confirm that this, at least, was no dream. And I'd never even heard of a time-type Transcendent among heroes.

And just now—the hero who would come looking for this hideout ten years and three months from now—was, as far as I knew, a Mutation-type Transcendent. Heroes who fought with weapons were usually Evolution-type or Mutation-type. Even if she weren't, she was famous enough that I knew her the moment I saw her.

Code name: Reaper. Mutation-type. Base form, a snake. A woman who, hero or not, looked gloomier and more sinister than any actual villain—face, hairstyle, figure and all. I knew her without a doubt.

Anyway. A Mutation-type Transcendent had no way to send me back to the past. And even if she did, she had no reason to. Rehabilitation? A gentle hint to live kindly from now on? Not a chance. There was always the other method—train under a vow that in ten years you'd beat her, and fuck her for it.

Something's wrong...

Something. Something...

"...Oh. It's raining."

Maybe because it was warm, for February. Clear drops traced the stairs and trickled steadily down. That was the trouble with an underground hideout. It stamped every middle-school fantasy button you had, sure, but leave the drainage half-dug and you got this exact mess. I'd nearly wiped out on those stairs more than once, so quitting even now was a relief. I took a pitch-black umbrella from the stand, opened it, and walked out without a backward glance.

I was clicking my tongue, stepping around a puddle slicked with a rainbow film of oil beside a parked car, when a ringtone cut in.

"..."

Back then I'd saved it that way, convinced it was romantic. And I'd only seen his face once. Ah—not the gorilla from earlier. There was a middle-aged man who looked even meaner than that. Thinking about it now, The Company had been running a circus with its faces. Everyone but me.

"Hmm..."

I almost let it ring out, then dug the earphones from my pocket. I was still a student with no real power to my name, and I didn't feel like making my life any harder than it had to be. New ideas—Awakening, abilities—wouldn't spread among the public for at least another five years. I adjusted my grip on the umbrella and tapped the green button.

Through the earphones came a voice raspy enough to suggest he lived with three cigarettes in his mouth around the clock. If he hadn't looked so mean, I might have taken him to karaoke at least once.

At least he got to the point. I liked that. I answered offhand and, out of habit, patted my front pocket. All my fingers found was damp air. The pants pockets, the back pocket—same thing. Why wasn't it there? I stared stupidly at my empty hand, then came back to myself and scratched the nape of my neck. Cigarettes. This was before I smoked.

Afraid I might get snatched mid-call, I hurried out onto the main road and buried my face deep behind the rim of the umbrella.

Looking back, I never should have gone on those tours at all. Maybe it was because I'd only just become an adult—grown in the body, and not much else. A villain alliance committing every kind of crime behind the city's back. Honestly, my heart had raced a little. I'd assumed, of course, that I'd be tying up heroine after heroine and doing whatever I pleased with them. Who would have thought that for ten solid years I'd diligently commit every crime except rape—murder, intimidation, terrorism, the works...

I kept it pleasant, in case a sour word sent him after me with a steel pipe. The figure on that contract really had been enough to turn a major conglomerate's starting salary into chump change. It wasn't a proper contract, so the so-called annual pay had performance bonuses folded in—but in the ten years that followed, I was paid that much or more. Never less. Not once that I could remember.

Jonghyuk. That was the gorilla's name. Fun stuff, I couldn't say—the only thing I remembered was him boiling me a pack of instant ramen. He was good at it. That was the end of the tour.

I wanted to spend the night fucking a few heroes everyone admired, behind their fans' backs, and break them in to my taste. I couldn't exactly say that. I circled around it with whatever came to mind, and through the earphones came the sound of a slow breath leaving him. Could have been a sigh. Could have been a drag on a cigarette.

That was the last of it. The line clicked dead. When I pulled the earphones free, the bright patter of rain—gone for a moment—tickled at my eardrums again.

"Hmm..."

But something about it... how was I supposed to put this? He'd let me go far more easily than I'd expected. Was that the way to say it? I knew where the most important hideout was. Not a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠decoy, either. The real one. Shouldn't they have taken some minimal step to shut me up? If it had been me, I would have tried to kill him ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠first. If killing was inconvenient, I would have planted fear in him some other way. That was why I'd offered the finger up front. The man would grow fond of you the moment you stepped inside his "us," but he was not the sort to be this kind to an outsider.

...Should I run, for now? I didn't really understand, but I tried to take it kindly. Maybe he'd judged a clean send-off, with no retaliation, to be the smarter play. After all, Healing-type Transcendents were exceedingly rare. You could stack "exceedingly" in front of "rare" as many times as you liked and still fall short. If I hadn't been walking around with thoughts like I want to fuck a hero, I never would have spared villains like these a second glance. Maybe I looked too stubborn, too hopeless, so he was letting me go quietly now and planning to bring it up again in a few days.

All right. What should I do from here? First, search the internet—why in the world I'd come back, and whether anyone else had been through something like it. And on the off chance this was genuinely a break with reality, stop by a hospital.

Hmm.

Heroes...

Giving them up would be a waste. There simply weren't that many women who fit my taste so precisely. What was I supposed to do? Quit the villain life, but find a way to stay at a hero's side. And at the same time, instead of giving off that fresh, innocent scent of pure devotion—something a little rougher. A little stickier.

I was turning it over, step by step, as I crossed the crosswalk.

Tires.

A sharp, noisy scream burst out beside me. The quiet rainwater exploded into spray. A shriek tore the air—skreee—and my shoulders jerked. The sound had come from a direction it never should have. I'd already crossed a few of the white lines. Quietly, I looked left, and swallowed.

Crunch. Crrrk. A pure-white sedan, crumpled every which way, tumbled wild across the road—

"..."

—and I watched it skim right past me and slide on, scraping.

The cause was a dump truck barreling through the downpour. I didn't know how many tons it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was, but it was the kind that could smash through a few sedans without breaking stride. I caught the plate number. Not that it would mean anything. I never saw the driver's face. The umbrella blocked my view, yes, but the truck's windows were painted pitch black.

Aha.

Was this what letting me go quietly had meant? Or just a drowsy driver? Strange. From over there, in the rain, there was no way to make out my face for certain. Was it even possible they were aiming specifically to kill me? I didn't know. It could be chance. It could be fate.

This time, unlike before, a hollow laugh came out first. What kind of dogshit ending was this? Probably because I'd already tasted death once, just minutes ago. And hadn't I already been through something that made no sense at all?

If. What if I hadn't gone on to live as a villain? Maybe someone had shown me that tiny little story, only to kill me the way fate originally intended. Whatever the reason, handing me the medicine and then the disease on top of it made this twice as fucked. This would hurt a hell of a lot more than a few ribs getting smashed to pieces. Fuck.

How bad would it hurt, really? Instant death might even be easier. Pretending to accept it. Pretending to be cool. Pretending I had no regrets. Even as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the thoughts ran on, a shameful unwillingness to let go clung to the tail of every one. The hollow laugh vanished. A heavy sigh took its place.

Then.

—SKREEEEE—!

Someone shot past me as I stood resigned on the crosswalk. A beat later the shock of displaced air tore the umbrella from my hand, and I went down where I stood. When bone meets asphalt, the asphalt wins on points nine times out of ten. My tailbone whined like something had cracked.

Before I could even think of turning my ability on that aching ass—

BOOM—! A heavy, deafening rupture shook the road. Not the sound of a car exploding, exactly. The noise was so strangely loud that I forgot the pain in my tailbone and looked toward where the truck had been coming from.

"What? What? Did you film it?"

"No. How the hell do you film that, dumbass? It's not like you can hit record the second you see it. Everyone crossing the street almost died."

"Those tire marks are insane..."

The ones who hadn't been caught in it started talking over one another however they pleased. Rain kept coming down in a steady drizzle, soaking my hair now that the umbrella was gone. Out on the road an airbag went pssh, and sirens rose in a shrill wee-oo, wee-oo.

"...I'm so fucked..."

A girl's voice, muttering small, threaded through the sound of the rain. Calm, for a girl.

"A truck's big, so it has to be crazy expensive, right...?"

Expensive, yes. Not that expensive. The white import that had just gone tumbling was probably worth a little more than the truck.

"Still, I did the right thing. Hah... They'll pay out some kind of support money, right...? First I need to figure out the weekend job, somehow..."

She hadn't used anything else. She'd stomped the truck's bumper with her own body, smashed it, and stopped the thing dead where it stood—so not Summoning-type. No flashy magic had come raining out of the air, so not Magic-type either. No wings, no tail, no horns. Not Mutation-type. Which left the one that could grow dramatically stronger with no visible change at all: Evolution-type. The foot planted on the bumper came down, and a small ripple spread across the rain-washed road.

"Ah, shit, my ankle... I think I need a hospital, too..."

A black ponytail, grown out without much care, swung wet and heavy. A small star-shaped piercing in her ear suggested she liked to decorate herself. Beneath a boring mint T-shirt that refused to go see-through even soaked, a school-uniform jacket was knotted at her waist. A student of Miren Academy, about ten blocks from here.

"...Ahem. Um, a-are you okay? Mister Truck? You're alive, right?"

"..."

"U-um, you're going to have to take responsibility..."

Which meant...

A hero-in-training.

She was.

And an injured one, at that. A hero-in-training with a wrecked ankle.

"..."

A good idea occurred to me.