Chapter 1: A Futile Farewell (1).

[Mecha Hero~! Deploy!]

During my kindergarten days, I was completely absorbed in hero squadron shows.

In moments of crisis, they would appear with a flourish and rescue the girl from the forces of evil.

Defeating the villains in style and earning the respect of the people looked so cool to me.

That was why I always played squadron games with the other boys at kindergarten.

[Future Hope: Mecha Hero]

A hero wearing a mask drawn in my sketchbook.

Looking at that picture, my kindergarten teacher said this to me.

“Huhu. So our Geonyul’s future hope is to become a Mecha Hero?”

“Yes. I’m going to become a Mecha Hero and punish the bad villains who bully people!”

So maybe that was just the natural course of things.

The fact that I tried to save a girl who was being bullied at kindergarten.

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It was outdoor playtime at the kindergarten.

The kindergarten I attended was a fairly good one, so it had a playground inside the grounds.

“Take this! Mechanic Gun!”

“Uwaaagh!”

My kindergarten friends pretended to fall over from the finger-gun I made.

After a few minutes of that, they came up to me with bored looks on their faces.

“This is boring. Now I want to be the Mecha Hero. You be the villain.”

But a righteous Mecha Hero could never take on the role of a villain.

To them it was just a game, but to me it was never just a game.

“I don’t wanna. That…”

“Hey! Where are you going all of a sudden!”

I bolted away from that spot without looking back.

I shook off the friends chasing me and wandered around by myself, humming the theme song of the hero show.

“Mecha Hero~! Deploy~!”

And in that far corner of the kindergarten playground.

Three boys surrounded a girl who was playing in the sandpit.

They were the ones who often got scolded by the teacher for their mean pranks.

“S-stop it… I worked hard to make this…”

The girl was desperately trying to protect the sandcastle she had built.

Messy hair and glasses that looked a little unfashionable.

And even a timid, stuttering way of speaking.

She was exactly the type of girl who was easy to pick on at kindergarten because her reactions when bullied were amusing.

“Wow~ you made it so badly. Should we smash it?”

“Why do you stutter? My mom told me not to play with kids who stutter.”

“She’s a dummy. A dummy. Stupid kids stutter, you know.”

They snickered as they surrounded her and kept bullying her.

Watching the girl’s face start to crumple as if she was about to cry, I felt a surge of justice rise up inside me.

This was exactly the situation I had dreamed of.

Wasn’t this a weak person suffering under the bullying of villains?

The hero button inside me was pressed, and I charged straight toward them.

“Hey! You guys. Stop bullying her! Unless you want me to punish you.”

In every fight, but especially in fights between little kids, size was everything.

I was big for a six-year-old, so if a fight broke out with me, there were only a handful of kids in the whole kindergarten who could beat me.

“Hey… it’s Geonyul…”

So it was only natural that those kids started glancing around warily.

At that age, the idea of ganging up on someone didn’t even occur to them.

Of course, there were still kids who tried to talk back.

“Who do you think you are? Geonyul, do you like her?”

“Yeah. It’s not even like that, so why are you taking her side!”

“No way, right? This stuttering dummy?”

The boys tried to turn the flow of conversation into more teasing right away.

Most boys would have backed down there because they didn’t want to get teased themselves.

But I was completely immersed in being a champion of justice, so I couldn’t have cared less about something like that.

“I’m a Mecha Hero! When people like you bully the weak, I have to punish you.”

I held out the Mecha Sword toy I always carried in my bag and said that.

The boys looked at me with strange expressions, then grumbled and left.

It seemed they didn’t have the confidence to fight me after all.

“Are you okay? You can relax now. The villains have gone away.”

I recited a line I had picked up from somewhere.

Then the girl with the messy hair lifted her head and looked up at me.

Obsidian-like beautiful eyes peeked out from between the strands of hair covering her face.

And there was even a tear mole beneath them.

It was an impressive face that made me think she would be really pretty if she took off her glasses.

“Th-thank you… for helping me.”

“No. It’s only natural. Helping the weak is what a hero does. Well then, I’ll be going.”

Feeling satisfied with the thanks I had received, I was about to swing my sword coolly and disappear just like the heroes in the shows.

The girl, who seemed relieved now that her sandcastle was safe, called out toward my back.

“I’m Seo Hayeon… W-what’s your name?”

At the time I didn’t know why she was asking for my name, but since there was no reason to hide it, I simply answered.

“My name is Yoon Geonyul. I’m a champion of justice who protects the world.”

Looking back on it now, I said something incredibly cringey.

*

After that, the relationship between Hayeon and me developed rapidly.

It was a speed that was only possible because we were young children approaching each other purely, without any ulterior motives.

“G-Geonyul. Do you like yogurt?”

“Yeah! I really love yogurt.”

“…Then do you want mine too?”

“Really?”

Hayeon shared her own food with me without any hesitation.

“Why are you following me?”

“…I-I just want to be with you.”

“Are those guys bullying you again?”

“No… it’s not that…”

“Okay. If you stay next to me, I’ll protect you!”

She trailed after me everywhere like that.

Having a friend who liked me wasn’t such a bad feeling, so I didn’t try to push her away.

“W-where’s your house?”

“I live in Seonghwa Apartment up ahead.”

“Seonghwa Apartment? I-I live there too…”

“Really?”

Once we found out we lived in the same apartment complex, we grew even closer.

While talking with her, I realized Hayeon and I had a lot more in common than just where we lived.

First, we were both only children from single-parent homes with only our mothers, so we were always alone and lonely.

And since our mothers left for work early and the kindergarten was less than a five-minute walk from home, we both walked to school by ourselves.

“Then should we walk to kindergarten together?”

“…Huh? Okay… I’d like that.”

Especially after we started walking to kindergarten together, we became friends much faster.

It wasn’t a long walk, but even I got bored going alone.

“Hey. Those two walk together every day. They must be dating.”

“Look at that. Seo Hayeon and Yoon Geonyul are dating~!”

We became close enough that the other kids at kindergarten started misunderstanding us.

Since we were always stuck together like a set menu, maybe it was only natural.

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That day, too, we were on our usual way home together.

I was passionately explaining Mecha Hero to Hayeon, but she always looked uninterested, which frustrated me a little.

“That’s not it~ You have to shoot the Mecha Gun and take them down with a bang.”

“R-really? Not the Mecha Sword… the Mecha Gun?”

After all, Hayeon’s interests were more focused on dolls and pretty decorations, like a typical girl, rather than guns and swords.

But she always listened carefully to what I said, and I was satisfied with that.

We were almost home, and I was just starting to feel reluctant to part ways with her when we turned the corner of the alley and both of us froze in shock.

“Grrrr… Woof! Woof woof!”

A dog we had never seen before was standing in the familiar alleyway.

And it wasn’t even a small one. It was a large dog about the same size as a six-year-old kid like me.

Maybe its owner had lost the leash. The dog that had been left alone growled at the two of us, who were clearly scared.

I wished it would just leave, but it kept watching us warily.

‘People… people…’

I looked around for help, but as luck would have it, there wasn’t a single person in sight.

“Eek!… G-Geonyul.”

The timid Hayeon shrank back and pressed herself tightly against my back.

Of course I was scared of that big black dog too.

Its sharp teeth and fierce-looking face made it seem like it could bite me at any second.

But when I thought about Hayeon hiding behind me, I couldn’t run away.

[Even when you’re scared, a hero bravely steps forward for the sake of justice!]

The line that Red, the main character of Mecha Hero, always said echoed in my head.

I wanted to abandon Hayeon and run away right then, but that would mean I was disqualified as a Mecha Hero.

I don’t know where the courage came from, but I glared at the dog that refused to back down.

“I-it’s okay. Just stay behind me. Go away! Get out of here! You bad dog!”

“Grrrr… Woof!”

I swung my bag around, trying to drive the dog off, but the black dog seemed provoked by my actions and charged at me instead.

It was incredibly fast.

Too fast for a six-year-old like me to react to.

“Kyaaaaah!”

Hayeon screamed, and that only excited the dog even more.

As the dog lunged, I squeezed my eyes shut and shielded Hayeon behind me.

And then.

– Crunch!

A strange sound rang out, and pain shot through my leg.

“Ugh.”

In an instant, the dog bit me and then fled.

It disappeared around the corner of the alley at a speed so fast that no one would be able to chase it.

I stared blankly at the black dog’s hindquarters as it ran away, then collapsed onto the ground.

My legs were still trembling.

“G-Geonyul… Blood… blood…”

Following the direction of Hayeon’s pointing finger, I looked down at my own leg.

On my young, pale, thin leg, there was a small hole and blood was welling up.

Seeing that made the pain feel even stronger.

“Blood… Hic… Mommyyyy!”

“I-I’m sorry… Geonyul… Because of me… Hwaaaang!”

All the two of us could do was break down crying right there on the spot.