The Stepdad Who Lied About Taking His Daughter's Virginity — Park A-young's Kiss of Punishment
Out of all those people… not a single Awakened among them????
That was why Geum Tae-yang's eyes went wide.
Awakener Scan
He had triggered it, and among the roughly twenty people in the building-tenant group, there was not a single Awakened.
They made it all the way here armed like that… without a single Awakened????
Does that even make sense???? From the shelter to here, they'd have to cross several blocks…
Mind remains perfectly calm and analytical. Emotional turbulence suppressed.
The trait kicked in, so he didn't let the shock show past those widened eyes — but his head was spinning.
Even at a glance, the tenant group's armament was nothing special. Clubs. Iron pipes. That was about it. And across those clubs and pipes, there was barely any sign of real combat wear.
That was why Tae-yang had estimated there had to be at least two Awakened among them. That was the only way a group like this could have punched through the zombie hordes without serious trouble. But contrary to every expectation, there wasn't a single one.
Even with numbers on their side, the idea that they had crossed a zombie apocalypse with ordinary weapons and zero Awakened still refused to sit right with him.
"Hey, that guy — that's Geum Tae-yang! The kid who rents from Park Do-chul's warehouse place."
"Geum Tae-yang? That tall free-meal kid? The one who used to trail after Park A-young?"
"He's not a free-meal kid anymore, is he? He started university last year."
In that moment, the building tenants also realized the figure standing on the stairs beyond Park Do-chul's front gate was Geum Tae-yang.
Back in middle and high school, Tae-yang's walk home after class always took him down the road lined with Park Do-chul's commercial buildings. He had crossed that street with Park A-young every single day, so even the ordinary tenants remembered his face well enough.
"Hey, Geum Tae-yang! You know me, right? Gang Chun-jae? We've run into each other a few times. You were pretty close with Uncle Chan-woo, too."
"I heard you even talked to Uncle Chan-woo on the phone in the early days of the apocalypse, yeah?"
A man named Gang Chun-jae called out to him.
Kim Chan-woo ran Gimbap Paradise in Park Do-chul's commercial building. Tae-yang had worked a short part-time stint there during school breaks, and that had made him and Chan-woo fairly close. Gang Chun-jae had run the shop right next door.
"Yeah. I think I've seen you a few times."
Tae-yang's head was still a mess, but the situation in front of him demanded a response. Under the protection of Combat Mental Master, he kept his face blank and answered Gang Chun-jae.
"But… none of the info those people passed us mentioned anything about Geum Tae-yang being here, did it?"
"Right… maybe some other message went to Chun-jae's side that we never heard…?"
Murmur… murmur… murmur… murmur…
While Gang Chun-jae and Tae-yang talked, several of the surrounding tenants started whispering among themselves.
"…."
Tae-yang watched them in silence.
"Kim Min-jung and Park A-young are inside, right? Don't tell me you've already worked both of them?"
The man who had pretended to know him finally showed his true colors.
"Worked them? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Tae-yang understood perfectly well. He just put on a deliberately puzzled look, wanting a clearer read on the other side.
"Fuck, you've been under Park Do-chul's thumb for years — you know damn well. The world's gone to shit, and we're just supposed to leave a bastard like him alone? Of course we take revenge!"
"So I'm asking if you've already worked those two bitches!"
Gang Chun-jae turned aggressive, eyes bulging as he lifted the baseball bat in his hand. The tenants had come here to get their revenge on Park Do-chul.
"The way you went straight for Auntie Min-jung and A-young, it looks like you already knew Park Do-chul wasn't here. That doesn't make sense. If you've got a grudge against Park Do-chul, you go find him and kill him. You don't dump that shit on those two!"
The moment the tenant side bared its teeth, Tae-yang laid his own intent bare as well. His demeanor stayed remarkably calm, and through that calm he drove a sharp blade of logic straight into their psychology and peeled it open.
They don't just know Park Do-chul is gone. They know the defensive setup here pretty damn well, too.
If their goal had been dealing with zombies — and especially if they had accounted for the possibility of Park Do-chul still being around — they should have come far better armed. Park Do-chul was a pathetic man, but he was still the CEO of a security company. That fact alone was another reason Tae-yang had found it so hard to accept that none of the tenants storming in were Awakened.
But the way they mentioned Kim Min-jung and Park A-young first, before Park Do-chul, made him certain. The tenant group had come with a rough grasp of the situation at Park Do-chul's house.
"You little shit! The best revenge you can take on a bastard like that is wrecking his family too — that's why! What else would it be?!"
"College boy talking like some pure little saint, you fucking piece of shit."
"Hasn't that bastard already been screwing those two bitches? It's not like the apocalypse started yesterday or the day before. Plenty of time for that."
"So he wants both of them all to himself, that son of a bitch!"
Tae-yang had spoken carefully, but the meaning was clear: the tenant group hadn't come for revenge on Park Do-chul so much as to rape two stunning women — Kim Min-jung and Park A-young. The tenants, caught with their hands in the cookie jar, reacted with raw sensitivity. Their filthy true motives, which they had tried to justify under the excuse of Park Do-chul, had been exposed, and they flared up.
"Like I said earlier — some of you know me by face, so I'll say this straight. Honestly, if you're Park Do-chul's tenants, you shouldn't even be thinking that way about the lady of this house, should you?"
As the atmosphere heated further, Tae-yang dug even deeper into their filthy psychology.
"When Park Do-chul was squeezing you people, who mediated and even slipped you financial help sometimes? Wasn't it Auntie Min-jung?"
"She deliberately spent only at your shops just to boost your sales."
Kim Min-jung was a compassionate woman. That compassion had never been reserved for Geum Tae-yang alone. After her miscarriage, she had regularly gone to orphanages to volunteer. She had carefully looked into struggling students and given them scholarships. And she had quietly helped the tenants Park Do-chul tormented. For a woman like that, any claim that she should pay for the shit Park Do-chul had left behind was pure garbage.
"Fuck, that was all a fixed game of Go-Stop! You little shit, don't you know the good-cop, bad-cop strategy? That's how Park Do-chul trained his tenants!!"
"That's right!! Exactly! What would a green little brat like him even know?!"
"That bastard's already in bed with the lady of the house! That's why he's talking like this!"
Exposing the truth was never going to make this pack of tenants come to their senses. Their eyes had already rolled back with the urge to rape Kim Min-jung and Park A-young. They gaslit themselves and rationalized with desperate force.
"Fuck! More than anything, that bitch — that daughter bitch — I can't stand her!!"
In the end, the one they latched onto was Park A-young.
"…."
The voice was loud enough that Park A-young, still leaning against the main pillar of the landlord's house because Tae-yang had not yet given the signal, heard every word of that shout.
"The way she looked down on people with her arms crossed — I fucking hated it. Just because she got lucky and was born under a rich daddy, she strutted around like she owned the place."
"That fucking bitch, when she came to our shop with her mom, she picked at the food like it was garbage. Made it real obvious she thought it was trash."
"That dog of a bitch. She never even glanced at our merchandise! Probably only buys the most expensive shit, right?"
Once one of them opened the floodgates, they all piled on, cursing Park A-young one after another.
These fucking bastards… what the hell do they even know about A-young to spew that kind of bullshit…
Tae-yang had been holding his expression and answering with logic. Now his face hardened at high speed. Everything the tenant group was spitting about Park A-young was pure hearsay — or pure prejudice.
She didn't do it on purpose, you assholes — that's just how Park A-young is built!
That was the truth. Park A-young simply looked like she was eating without enjoyment no matter what she ate. She didn't buy expensive things — she just used the things she already used. And even when she was looking at someone with no particular thought in her head, her face was so naturally haughty that it read as contempt.
"Don't fucking talk shit, you bastards! A-young isn't a bad kid, you pieces of shit! She just looks like she's eating without tasting anything no matter what she eats, she uses cheap stuff but only the stuff she's always used, and her face just looks like a cat so it seems like she's glaring. In reality she's ridiculously kind and soft-hearted!!"
Tae-yang did not keep that truth locked in his chest. The old Geum Tae-yang might have swallowed it. But after sharing love with Kim Min-jung, he no longer held himself down.
"Bullshit from that crazy bastard!! That party-girl bitch is kind?"
"The bitch who's been dyeing her hair yellow since middle school?"
"A total slut bitch???"
Once Tae-yang lit the fire, the mouth-fighting between both sides only grew fiercer. And finally, the rumor that Park A-young was a delinquent burst out.
"Park A-young is a complete virgin, what the hell are you talking about?! Don't talk that kind of shit about a girl who's never even been kissed!!"
Honestly, Tae-yang didn't have much of a comeback for the delinquent rumor itself. On his side, he had always seen Park A-young as a half-delinquent. So for maximum verbal impact, he ignored that part and latched onto the claim that she wasn't a virgin.
"Never been kissed, my ass — she's already been heated up every which way, you lunatic. How the fuck would you know, you idiot?! I saw those delinquent friends of hers coming in and out of our shop with my own eyes, you bastard!"
Tae-yang's words were the truth. But on the surface of the situation, they could only spark a fiercer argument. A big man who looked like a host-bar owner attacked by bringing up A-young's delinquent friends.
"Of course I know!! Because I took Park A-young's first virginity! I'm Park A-young's boyfriend, you fucking bastards!!!"
And so, in the end, Geum Tae-yang threw out a lie he wasn't even good at telling. Protecting Kim Min-jung and Park A-young mattered more than his own principles. This was not a debate — it was a shouting match. The goal was not careful logical dismantling. It was to shut the other side's mouths. With that purpose, Tae-yang declared that he was Park A-young's boyfriend, and that he was the male who had taken the first kiss and virginity of one of Hanseong Metropolitan City's Three Great Goddesses.
"……?????"
Park A-young had been listening to the war of words between the two camps about her with a blank expression. The moment she heard Tae-yang's false confession, her eyes went round.
"Bullshit!! That high-and-mighty Park A-young fell for a tenant brat like you? Where the fuck are you getting off lying, you son of a bitch!!"
"You fucking bastard, you think if you guard the landlord's house Park Do-chul will come back and give you a seat? Before that happens, we'll storm in, cripple your ass, and fuck both those bitches."
Tae-yang's courage was admirable, but the lie was far too thin on realism. All it did was provoke fierce pushback from the tenant side.
In that moment—
"He's right. Geum Tae-yang is my boyfriend. The man who claimed this Park A-young — the one the likes of you aren't even fit to look at."
Step. Step. Step. Step.
Park A-young walked out with her arms crossed, every inch the haughty beauty. And she layered a persuasive force on Tae-yang's flimsy claim that no army of reinforcements could have matched.
"Ah! A-young!"
Whoosh—
Tae-yang had been so worked up he had briefly forgotten about her. The moment her voice reached him, he remembered the signal they had agreed on and turned to look behind him.
And just as Geum Tae-yang looked at Park A-young walking up from behind him—
Chuuuuaaap!♥
Park A-young, who had come right up beside him, slammed a kiss onto Geum Tae-yang's lips.