Bread Butt Normalization
If I could return to the past, what would I do? What if I could go back to before my legs got crushed? Hehehe—just thinking about it sent a thrill racing through my lower body.
“Of course there are moments I want to return to. But before I answer that question, I have a favor to ask. Take off your shoes. Are those outdoor shoes? You’re not supposed to wear shoes inside the house.”
Even if the world ended, some things had to be protected. At my words, Seo Gaeul hesitated for a moment before slipping off her heels.
“Ugh, why is the floor so damp? My stockings are getting soaked.”
Slipping them off with a smooth rustle, Seo Gaeul eventually removed her stockings too, revealing her pale feet. This was the first time I had ever watched a beautiful young woman take off her stockings, and my heart slammed against my ribs. Were human feet really supposed to be that white and lovely? It was insanely stimulating.
Seo Gaeul lifted the discarded stockings with elegant grace, as if handling a snake’s shed skin, and lightly tossed them into a container.
“This is the trash can, right?”
“No, that’s my cooking pot.”
“Is it? Anyway, you. Do you know that all abilities are born from powerful desire? It’s especially true for the last ability I awakened. But I don’t have time to use it. Because I’m going to die soon.”
Die? She looked perfectly fine. I was busy thinking she was a genuinely strange woman when Seo Gaeul continued.
“If it’s someone who can tame even that ferocious monster like family, then it makes sense to entrust you with my final ability and opportunity. In gambling terms, it’s going all-in on a dog hand.”
“Entrust me? With what?”
“If you return to the past, find me. And train me. But it won’t be easy. Even when I think about the me from back then, I know I was no pushover. So kidnap me if you have to and train me thoroughly.”
Kidnap? She was a truly insane woman. If I had to summarize all the absolute nonsense I’d heard today, was this it?
“So you’re saying you can send me to the past, and if I do go back, I have to kidnap you no matter what. Right? And force some training on you too?”
“It’s not that kind of training! It’s proper training!”
Same difference. Man, this was the kind of bluff that wouldn’t fool even an idiot. Still, the calculating part of my brain flashed that since she had a pretty face, playing along might improve our relationship. As expected, I’m a genius.
Seo Gaeul actually nodded with an impressed “Oh,” as if she were genuinely surprised by me.
“That’s nice. You understand faster than I expected. I heard you only finished middle school. I looked into you a bit.”
“Among middle school graduates, I’m the smartest. But why kidnap? Whatever it is, can’t I just be honest with the past version of you and ask for cooperation?”
“Cooperation? Absolutely impossible. I know myself too well. And it’s best to keep this a secret from everyone. There was a traitor among humanity. I couldn’t figure out who it was, and that’s how I ended up like this.”
Seo Gaeul lifted the hem of her damp clothes. Only then did I see the deep scar on her slender abdomen, as if something had stabbed straight through.
“Ugh, that looks fucking painful. A traitor? What a terrible bastard, doing this to a person.”
“I think so too. If I hadn’t neglected my training, maybe things would have turned out differently. That’s why you need to work hard.”
“I’m all for effort. But weren’t you the daughter of some insanely rich and famous family? Even if I go back to the past, how would a bottom-tier commoner like me ever meet you, let alone kidnap you?”
“That’s for you to figure out. Still, I’ll give you a hint… On nights when the full moon rises, I become unusually weak. It’s a secret I’ve never told anyone.”
I had created a secret with a woman! Was it all thanks to that fan I picked up from the scrap heap? That thing had definitely been a lucky charm.
“Fine. Let’s say everything you told me is true. What about payment? Can you really give me whatever I want?”
My heart pounded. If I got a ton of money, I could buy mountains of ramen. Ketchup too. Sausages! I was happily lost in those thoughts when Seo Gaeul cut in.
“I’ll be honest. I don’t have any money right now.”
“What? You said you wanted to make a request but you have no money? Are you kidding me? Don’t you have anything to eat? If you have no money, at least give me some food!”
“I don’t have food either. I used up everything sneaking out of the city while avoiding the watchers’ eyes. It took a lot to reach you.”
“So you’re completely broke!”
No matter how pretty her face was, this was too much. Did she take me for a sucker?
“The men I’ve met until now might have done everything for free, but I’m not that easy.”
“Not that easy?”
Seo Gaeul narrowed her eyes and glanced around the room. I casually slid the swimsuit photobook that had been hanging on the wall behind my back. The motion was so flawless she didn’t seem to notice.
“Ha Namjin, you don’t have a girlfriend, do you? Never even dated anyone?”
“What are you talking about? I was popular.”
“Sure, let’s go with that. The payment for this job will be two rounds of Malang-malang. How about it?”
“What?”
Malang-malang? What the hell was that? Whatever it was, the word made my brain feel like it was frying. Was it something they taught in high school or college? As a middle school graduate, I couldn’t even begin to guess what this “Malang-malang” meant!
“Then I’ll send you to the past now. For reference, I can transfer my abilities to others. This is another secret no one knows. I’ll give you the Appraisal that helped me the most.”
Flash—!
The moment Seo Gaeul placed her hand on my shoulder, my vision exploded with blinding light. Whatever was happening, it was clearly no ordinary event.
“Wait, hold on! Hey! I only accept payment in advance!”
Whatever Malang-malang was, I had to receive it upfront—. I shouted desperately with that thought, but when I regained my senses, I was standing in the middle of an eight-lane crosswalk.
“What the hell is this?”
“Ah, my phone—”
For some reason, right in front of me was the large rear end of a female high school student bending down to pick up her phone. To the right, a truck driven by a drunk dozing at the wheel was barreling toward us at breakneck speed.
Vroooooom—.
The driver’s blood alcohol level was 0.15%. Enough for one to two years in prison or a fine of up to ten million won. How did I know that? I didn’t want to know either.
This is exactly where my legs got destroyed! Did I really return to when I was nineteen?
A scene I had replayed in dreams countless times. The only difference was this.
Name: Kim Manduk
Status:Drunk — Completely wasted. Unconscious.
Name: Baek Yeoul
Status:Suspicious — Wondering if the man standing behind her while she picks up her phone is staring at her butt.
Strange text floated before my eyes. Was this the effect of that Appraisal? Either way, through an incredibly bizarre process, I had returned to the spring day of my nineteenth year—the turning point of my life. Five seconds before the drunk-driving truck accident.
The old me had been too confident in my leg strength. I’d tried to hug the high school girl and leap to the opposite side with everything I had, but she’d gone berserk, screaming “Pervert bastard!” and thrashing around. I lost my balance, fell, and my left ankle got crushed under the truck’s wheel with a sickening crunch.
I had regretted that day so much. But now! My second chance had arrived!
“Get the hell out of my life, you heavy bread-butt bitch!!!”
Thwack—!
I kicked the female high school student’s rear with every ounce of strength I possessed.
“Kyaaaaaaaak!”
Baek Yeoul flew through the air like a soccer ball and landed safely on the far side of the crosswalk. Startled by the sight, the truck driver slammed on the brakes and slammed into a nearby roadside tree.
Screeeeech—CRASH—!
“…What the hell! It’s an accident! An accident!”
“Call 119! Call 119!”
“Yeoul! Are you okay? Yeoul! Hey! What the hell did you just do?! Manager Kim! What are you waiting for?! Catch that bastard!”
“Kyahaha! Yes! This is it! I finally kicked that bread butt!”
Thump-thump—! I shook my hips back and forth like a World Cup player who had just scored, then sprinted away from the scene with everything I had.
The world had been destroyed in the spring of my twentieth year. Right now it was spring at nineteen. I trembled with deep emotion as I looked at the buildings still standing tall and the cars zooming busily beneath them. The world had not yet been destroyed—.
“The cars are spewing exhaust like they’re trying to commit murder, people are walking around smoking wherever they please! The aunties are even feeding the cats without a care in the world!”
Seeing the cat moms walking around the neighborhood, I couldn’t hold back the tears of joy. They streamed down my face. What a beautiful sight! After the world ended, the cats had all been caught and eaten by starving people and disappeared!
“I love cat moms so much!”
Keep calling in more strays! So there’ll be plenty to eat later! No, wait. The one I should devote my burning love to is actually someone else.
“Seo Gaeul, my goddess! My light! From now on, any insult directed at Seo Gaeul is an insult directed at me.”
I’d thought she was just a pretty-faced psycho with a lying habit. But she had actually sent a person to the past! Thanks to her, I had protected the health of my legs and could once again smell the fresh scent of exhaust. Best of all, though, was the ‘house.’
The old countryside home my parents had left me when they passed away. Thanks to the low birth rate, the population had shrunk and this backward neighborhood had no hope of redevelopment. Even foreign workers looking for cheap rooms didn’t come here. My old house was still standing.
“And in my left pocket, the house key is always there.”
Jingle.
What kind of house in this day and age doesn’t even have a door lock? Right here!
I walked past an alley littered with trash, opened the yard gate, and stepped inside. The wooden-floor living room with the old flat-screen TV and family photos on the wall. The fan I had run all summer in place of the broken air conditioner, and the school uniform I hadn’t worn since my first year of high school, all greeted me.
Click—. Whirrrrr—.
I pulled the string on the wall-mounted fan and turned it on, but my legs gave out and I collapsed right there on the floor. All I had done was pull one string, yet such cool wind poured out!
“This is living.”
When I went to the kitchen, I found an entire box of real ramen. Would General Guan Yu, who had gone to the water park, have been as happy as I was right now?
“It’s a ramen party!”
I filled the pot with water like a man possessed and began boiling it excitedly when I suddenly felt like I had forgotten something. Had I not added enough ketchup? No. What I had forgotten was—.
“—Seo Gaeul.”
Seo Gaeul herself had asked me to kidnap her. I had run plenty of errands for money before, but a request to have herself kidnapped was among the most eccentric I had ever heard. If we were talking sheer weirdness, it was on the same level as that perpetual section chief Kim Jang-dong’s request to be tied up with rope and whipped.
Naturally, I turned on the already-running computer and searched for “Seo Gaeul.”
Even back then, Seo Gaeul had already been famous.
“We’re the same age?”
But although our ages were the same, the orphan Ha Namjin living in a rundown country house and the chaebol princess Seo Gaeul might as well have been different species. The difference between an ugly stray cat that had been euthanized and a purebred cat that even rich families would fight to adopt? Honestly, it was even greater than that.
“How am I supposed to kidnap a girl like that?”
It was a headache. Should I just ignore it?
“But this world will be destroyed someday. And to stop the world from being completely destroyed, she said Seo Gaeul has to train hard. In other words….”
If I wanted to live happily for a long, long time, I would have to kidnap Seo Gaeul and train her into a warrior.
Could I pull it off? Honestly, I felt confident that if it was me, I could. Wasn’t I the man who had tamed even that vicious monster Ing-ing?
“Before that, today is ramen party time!”