Consequences

I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. Twice.

For a second, I just lay there, staring up at the ceiling, my body refusing to move. Every inch of me hurt. My ribs felt like they'd been crushed in a vice, my knuckles throbbed, and my face was a mess of dull aches and sharp stings. Even blinking too hard sent a jolt of pain through my skull.

Last night had been a fucking disaster.

I sat up slowly, hissing as a sharp pain shot through my ribs. My phone was still buzzing, but I ignored it. Instead, I let my head fall back against the pillow, exhaling a slow breath.

I won the fight, sure. But if I hadn't had the motorcycle armor, the brass knuckles, and the new attack card, I'd be dead. Manchun had been a monster. 

The buzzing stopped, and for a moment, there was silence. Then it started again.

Grimacing, I reached over and grabbed my phone, glancing at the screen.

1.24 PM 1 New Message

I sighed, unlocking the phone and opening the message.

Siyeon : I'll come over tomorrow. You owe me.

I snorted.

Yeah, I did owe her.

I turned, already bracing myself for another fight. My body screamed at me to run, but I knew there was no way I'd outrun all of them in this state.

Then, just as Jaemin and his group were about to burst through the entrance, something roared behind me.

A deep, mechanical growl.

The unmistakable sound of a motorcycle engine revving.

Before I could even register what was happening, I felt a hand grab my collar.

The next thing I knew, I was yanked backward and practically thrown onto the back of a moving bike.

I barely had time to grab onto the rider before the motorcycle surged forward, the tires screeching against the pavement as we sped off into the night.

Jaemin's enraged shouting faded into the background.

I let out a shaky breath, my arms wrapped tight around the rider's waist, my ribs screaming in protest. My mind was still struggling to catch up.

Siyeon.

Of course, it was her.

"Jesus," I groaned, my voice barely audible over the wind. "A little warning next time?"

Siyeon snorted. "You're welcome."

I wanted to argue, but I didn't have the energy. My entire body was wrecked. Every bump in the road sent another jolt of pain through me. The only thing keeping me upright was the fact that I was clinging onto her for dear life.

After a few minutes of weaving through the streets, she finally slowed down, pulling into a quiet alley. The bike came to a stop, and I practically fell off, groaning as I hit the pavement.

Siyeon shut off the engine and turned to look at me, arms crossed.

"You owe me," she said simply.

I guess after all her talk it did become her problem in the end.

I exhaled through my nose, running a hand through my hair.

No school today. Right.

That meant I couldn't meet Jihan like I originally planned. I sighed, unlocking my phone again. If I couldn't find him at school, maybe I could track him down another way.

I opened Instagram and typed in his name.

Nothing.

I frowned and tried searching for variations of it. Still nothing.

Right. That made sense. Someone like Jihan, a kid who got bullied to the point where his entire personality was shaped by it, wouldn't be on social media. He'd probably been harassed too much to even bother.

That left me with zero leads.

I groaned, sinking back into my bed. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was missing something important, something obvious.

What the hell was I supposed to do now?

For the first time since I'd woken up in this body, I had time to think. No immediate threats. No one trying to throw a punch. Just me, alone in my room with nothing but the beating of my heart and the pounding in my head.

And I didn't like it.

I'd been running on adrenaline for basically all of yesterday, fighting, grinding, barely keeping my head above water. It felt like a blur, a mess of fists and blood and blurred faces. But now that the noise had quieted, the questions had started to flood in. They weren't just about Jihan.

Who the fuck was I?

The memories of Dowan's life were there. All of them. Every single one. His childhood, his teenage years, his anger, his pain. They felt real. Too real. It was like they had always been mine, like they were part of me from the beginning. It was me who'd felt the sting of that life, who'd suffered loss, gone through one of the worst school lives.

But at the same time, there were these flickers.

Memories of another life.

A different family. A different face. A different me.

It was all hazy, fragmented. Every time I tried to focus on them, to pull the threads of my old life together, they slipped away. It was like trying to hold water in my hands, watching it pour out through my fingers no matter how hard I tried. The feeling was still there, the deep, aching sense that something important was missing. That there was more to me than just this.

I could remember bits and pieces of my past life. The faintest impressions of a mother, a father. Maybe even siblings? Faces that I couldn't quite make out, moments I couldn't place. I remembered a life, but it felt like it belonged to someone else. It was like looking through a dirty window, or trying to recall a dream I was quickly forgetting.

And then, there were the webcomics.

Questism.

Reality Quest.

I couldn't stop thinking about them. Both of them. Questism was a webcomic I'd read before. The system there was different from this one. The way things worked in Reality Quest was nothing like what I had now. My system was all about cards.

Questism had its own set of rules, a different kind of system that felt almost like a team game.

Except I didn't even have a crew at the moment. I could already think of who I'd ask to join when I eventually get that quest. Jihan, the granite guy, the rest of Boramae. 

But until then, I had only myself. Myself and the knowledge I already had on this place.

I racked my brains, trying to stretch it as far as possible but to no avail. The furthest event I could remember was Dowan beating up the candy drug dude.

Fuck, looks like foreknowledge wouldn't last too long then. 

Even then, I could still plan ahead. My next relevant fight was going to be against Granite Guy. I wasn't ashamed to say I'd completely forgotten his name. All I knew was that he was hard… pause.

Durable. That's a better word.

I groaned once more. Dowan's system had let him use skills that had so much more power. Meanwhile mine? Opening up my attack cards, I could feel my eye twitching.

Attack Card

Boxing - Jab

You are able to throw a jab, (a type of punch used in boxing).

Current skill rank: D (392/1000)

Attack Card

Boxing - Straight

You are able to throw a straight, (a type of punch used in boxing).

Current skill rank: E (79/100)

None of these cards would let me punch above my weight class. Not unless I used the same acrobatics and misdirection I'd used against that piggy bastard. Except…

[Attack card]

Maximum capacity

Increases your weight. by 220 pounds for 5 seconds. 

Can only be used once per hour.

A smile began to grow on my face. Maybe this could be the answer. A straight with that amount of force behind it… surely that had to be able to deal some sort of damage.

The smile fell. I remembered how Granite Guy had completely blocked Falcon Drop, a skill that dealt enough force to knock out Manchun in one blow, almost like my brass knuckle infused straight.

Well clearly I couldn't rely on just that.

I opened the next card.

[One-time Use card]

Grow 1.2 inches

This card will disappear once used.

Well, never was there ever a man that didn't want to grow taller.

"Use card."

As soon as the words left my lips, the card dissolved into a shower of golden sparks. It was like glitter drifting into the air, the particles fading as they vanished into nothingness.

Then came the weirdest sensation in my legs.

It felt like my bones were stretching, like rubber being pulled from both ends. My calves twitched, my knees felt an odd, almost noodly weakness, like they were being reformed from the inside out. I grimaced, trying to shake off the strange feeling, but my legs buckled slightly beneath me, like they were temporarily out of sync with my body.

And then… my stomach growled.

I blinked, trying to focus, but that weird sensation didn't stop. Was that the card doing something to my metabolism? Did it burn some of my calories to stretch me out? I could almost feel my energy being zapped, like the card was using everything it had to squeeze out that extra inch from my body.

I rubbed my stomach absentmindedly, trying to shake off the unsettling sensation in my legs.

Well, at least I was taller. 5 foot and 10.2 inches if Dowan had measured himself properly before.

Not too shabby. 

I opened my phone again, quickly clicking on the takeout app.

Fried chicken for breakfast sounded perfect.