Mr. Edgy Boy Is Back

"Oh. I remember now...

...I was always a piece of shit."

The bathroom became quiet.

And in that silence, a million thoughts echoed and screamed in Sungmin's head at the same time.

[Dread.]

The Demon God’s curse. Sungmin knew what it did. Everyone knew. When the Demon God killed someone, death was only the beginning. Their fear continued without them.

A leader afraid of losing his settlement would watch it burn.

A mother afraid of losing her child would hear screaming and watch her die before moving on.

A saint afraid of being forgotten would have their image bersmirched.

And Sungmin…

“S-Sungmin...? What... what did you do?”

"Hm?"

The boy who’d previously been filming was now on the floor near the urinal, completely still. Blood, foaming from his mouth.

The poor boy who’d been pushed into the toilet forgot the taste in his mouth for a moment. The pee still dripped from his hair to his chin, but he did not wipe it away.

Why did Sungmin suddenly punch his friend?

Sungmin looked at his fist. No scars, missing fingers, and the entire thing was actually there. There were calluses, yes. But seeing everything here… it was definitely from punching useless people.

"Huh."

He picked up the phone that was still recording on the wet floor. The water must’ve flipped the camera, as it was now facing him, showing his face.

He squinted for a moment, stared at his youthful face that wasn’t missing anything at all—if anything, he looked quite handsome.

“Tch…” He pushed all of those thoughts away, however, and focused on the date on the screen.

“Hm…” Sungmin stared at it, then opened the news. And immediately, what bombarded him were celebrity scandals, corruption, protests, school shootings, etc.

No news of monsters, no gates, no evacuation.

A month.

The world still had one month left before it started ending.

“Kh…”

Sungmin’s head snapped at the bullied boy, who was now holding onto his cheek while carefully wiping his face.

The boy flinched at his stare, almost backing away and slipping.

“Pathetic,” he said. “You.”

"Y-yes?" The poor boy stuttered.

"Name."

“N-name?”

“Yes. Your name, boy.”

"Kim Jinwoo!" The boy, Jinwoo, almost gasped as Sungmin slightly stepped closer to him.

Sungmin looked at Jinwoo from head to toe, and seeing him shivering and thin, Sungmin couldn’t help but shake his head.

"Check him,” he said.

Jinwoo blinked. "W-what?"

Sungmin pointed at the unconscious boy near the urinal. "Pulse. Check."

"I..."

"Today, boy."

“Y-yes!” Jinwoo limped over and crouched. His fingers touched the wrong place first, then slid around the neck until they found something.

"A-alive," Jinwoo said. This took three seconds, but Sungmin already looked incredibly impatient.

“Good. Killing him now would be a waste.”

“W-what?”

Sungmin checked the phone again, looking at the full battery and ignoring Jinwoo’s confused expression.

“Hm…” He searched his own name and found nothing important. He did have social media, but his feed was filled with… half-naked women. He switched to a browser, searching for things like regression. 

He just stared at the results for a moment before he shrugged, then put the phone in his pocket.

Jinwoo stared at him.

"T-that is..."

"Mine now."

"But… that’s not you—”

Sungmin didn’t bother to hear what Jinwoo had to say and walked to the door.

And what awaited him there was… loud.

The moment he stepped out of the lavatory, however, all the students stared. Every talk about their love life, exam, clubs, new phones, instantly stopped.

Sungmin walked through them with blood on his hand and toilet water on his sleeve, and one by one, they moved aside.

“Hm…” He didn’t heed them at all, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck to check if there was anything wrong with his body—there was none. His ribs were whole, and he could breathe without tasting iron.

He was weak, though. Even with his already muscular body, a Level 2 monster could probably fold him in half.

Well, at least he used to exercise.

"Sungmin!" A man blocked the stairwell—and seeing as though he was already balding, he was surely not a student. Sungmin doesn’t remember him… so he was probably useless.

"What happened in the bathroom?" the teacher asked.

Sungmin just stepped around him, but the teacher grabbed his shoulder. "Answer me when I'm talking to you."

Sungmin looked at the hand, then at the teacher.

"Move, boy."

The teacher's mouth tightened. 

"What… did you just call me?!" The teacher raised his hand.

Sungmin's fingers hit his throat before the slap even came down. The man dropped to his knees, both hands flying to his neck as he choked—Sungmin caught him, however, before he could fall and roll down the stairs.

He did, however, still throw him back, making him roll across the hallway.

Sungmin only spared him a glance as he hit the wall.

“...Young people.”

No one stopped him after that. The guard at the gate was reading a newspaper, and it wasn’t well until Sungmin was already in the streets did he get a radio from his colleagues.

As for Sungmin, his senses were being bombarded.

What he was expecting to see flashed before him—toppled buildings, skeletons, and a ton of monsters.

But the first thing he saw was a delivery bike cutting between lanes and almost hitting a pedestrian. The next thing was an advertisement for plastic surgery on the side of a bus—what caught him was the fried chicken someone was eating on the bus, however.

“Food…”

Sungmin started walking around—if he was right, then this direction was… home.

He was wrong.

It was the direction to an internet cafe.

“Huh…”

He continued walking, then reached a convenience store with a group of thugs smoking in front of it. As soon as they saw Sungmin, however, they all looked away… some even put out their cigarettes.

He scanned the faces for a moment, his eyes settling on a huge man with several tattoos on his neck—but even that thug looked away.

They only really sighed in relief as Sungmin left, one even coughed vehemently as he forgot to exhale the cancer smoke inside his lungs.

He continued to walk around, reaching everywhere but home.

But then, finally, there.

A small gate with faded green paint, two pots by the door with dead plants.

He entered through the gate, the loud squeal of the metal causing several images to flash in his mind. Before he could even enter the yard, however, a woman was already standing in front of the door.

She was holding a metal bat, two cigarettes in her lips. She was younger, not a single gray strand in her hair—but it was obvious, she was the old woman who had a hole in her chest.

"Kang Sungmin!" The woman whacked the wall with her bat. "What did you do this time?! Why the fuck is your school calling me and telling me you hit a teacher?!

Sungmin tilted his head, closing his eyes as a deep sigh escaped him.

"You're alive..." And when he opened them, she was still there.

"...mother."

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