The sensation was... strange. Displaced. Like wearing an expensive suit that wasn't made for your body. Having a father. The word echoed in my mind, hollow of emotional meaning but heavy with practical implications. My last "father," the one whose memory was more a toxic stain than a recollection, had abandoned me in a pile of garbage with advice that was more a curse: "Try to Live."
'I hope he's in hell.' I thought, without a shred of bitterness, only with the cold certainty that it was the most fitting place for him.
But that was the past. A past from another life. Now, I was Jun Kumohari. And Jun Kumohari's life was a whirlwind deliberately orchestrated by me.
Coming back from the dead wasn't a simple return; it was a bomb dropped into the heart of the Kumohari family. For the faction loyal to my father, Seiji, it was a miracle, an absolute triumph. The legitimate heir—by blood, if not by social law—was back, breathing and walking. Hope was reborn, stronger and more determined than ever.
For the other faction, led by Yoko Kusanagi, my lovely stepmother, it was a nightmare made flesh and blood. "A bit more unfortunate" was the understatement of the century. It was a strategic catastrophe, a social checkmate she never saw coming. Being the son of the mistress for whom Seiji genuinely fell in love was already an unforgivable crime in her eyes. Being the natural heir to the Kumohari empire, the one who overshadowed her own "legitimate" children, Yuki and Yuri, was an affront that demanded vengeance.
She underestimated Seiji's devotion. She underestimated the stubbornness of blood. And above all, she underestimated the resilience of the boy she tried to kill through neglect.
'That makes me happy.' I admitted to myself, a cold, inner smile shining like a sharp blade. Her despair and rage were a delicious perfume.
The previous owner of this body may have been a victim, but his mere existence, and now my triumphant return, were the push that toppled the house of cards Yoko and her clan had built within the mansion. In one stroke, I assumed the position of absolute number one priority in Seiji Kumohari's life. It was an... interesting entrance. To say the least.
My footsteps echoed silently in the wide hallway, leading me back to my room—not a boy's room, but the suite of a crown prince. I stopped before the full-length mirror, framed in gold.
I looked at myself. Really looked.
'I must admit, this body has style.' I concluded, not without a hint of critical approval. The hair, once a black mass caked with dirt, was now clean, flowing like black silk, cut with a precision that spoke of an expensive hairstylist. The face was clean, the pallor giving way to a healthier tone, accentuating deep brown eyes that now held the secrets of two lives. The clothes were simple—a luxurious, well-fitted suit—but the fabric screamed wealth.
[Image]
The image in the mirror wasn't that of a frightened teenager. It was that of a young lord. A Kumohari.
It was then that a discreet presence announced itself at the door. Dunn, the head butler. A man whose name I had taken the trouble to remember—not out of courtesy, but because information is power. He was the embodiment of silent efficiency, a direct channel to the inner workings of the house.
"Young Master Jun, your presence is requested in the dining hall." His voice was a respectful whisper, perfect in its intonation, neither too subservient nor too familiar. It was the voice of someone who served the family, not an individual. And at that moment, he served me.
The message, however, was a more potent reminder than any mirror. It wasn't an invitation. It was a request. A ritual of domestic royalty. That simple summons carried the weight of centuries of protocol, wealth, and power.
I remembered I was rich in this life. A snobbish rich, actually.
The irony didn't escape me. I, who had bet my life for scraps, was now being "requested" for dinner.
I turned from the mirror, the silk robe swaying gently.
"I'm on my way," I replied, my voice as smooth and controlled as his, but carrying a spark of authority that hadn't been there before.
The grandeur of the hallways was an obvious, failed attempt to impress. Carpets so thick they completely muffled my footsteps, paintings by old masters in heavy gold frames, marble sculptures that probably cost more than the entire slum I was born in. It was a silent excess, screaming in its opulence, and profoundly boring. Luxury, in itself, never was and never will be a big deal. It's just a backdrop. The real drama—the real bet—always happens between people. So, I didn't even bother looking at the trinkets around me. My focus was ahead, in the dining hall.
The name, however, echoed in my mind like a scratch on a record. Dining Hall. It sounded bureaucratic, pretentious, and utterly devoid of class. I would call it the Dining Room, a name that carried weight, history, a certain glamour. I'm sure my father, a man of refined taste despite his recent marital missteps, would do the same. Only one person could be behind such a ridiculously bland and uninspired name.
"This is it, young master." Dunn's neutral voice cut through my thoughts. He stopped before a pair of double doors made of solid wood, carved with intricate motifs. With a fluid motion, he opened them, revealing the chamber beyond.
And there she was. Seated at the head of the long table, like a spider at the center of her golden web. The woman in the red dress. Her eyes of the same color, which once glittered with fury and ambition, now fixed on me with a hatred so pure I could almost taste its metallic tang in the air. Her chestnut hair was impeccable, but her expression was that of a rabid dog, tense and ready to attack.
Of course it had to be her, I thought, without a drop of surprise. Only an imbecile would come up with such an unusual and horrible name. How did my father approve this? The question was rhetorical. He didn't approve. He capitulated. Another concession in a marriage that was clearly a battlefield.
"Leave." Yoko's order was delivered like a whip, aimed at Dunn. It wasn't a request. It was an expulsion. I felt a slight vibration in the air, a nearly imperceptible wave of pressure that accompanied her words. It wasn't supernatural power—just the raw force of a twisted authority accustomed to being obeyed. Dunn, the stoic butler, seemed to shrink slightly. He gave a minimal bow, his eyes avoiding mine, and retreated, closing the doors behind him with a final click that sounded like the fall of an executioner's axe.
We were alone. The vastness of the dining hall seemed to amplify the hostile silence between us. The table could seat thirty. There were only two.
I didn't move. I stood where I was, my smile not fading, merely transforming. It became sharper, more deliberate, an expression blending genuine amusement with cutting mockery.
"I must admit," I began, my voice echoing softly in the silent room. "You are persistent. I fall into a grave and you still come after me."
The analogy was perfect. Brutal. She hadn't dug the grave, but she'd certainly ordered it. And now, here I was, mocking her from within her own house.
The reaction was instantaneous. Her scowl—already ugly with hatred—twisted, becoming truly grotesque. Her thin lips pulled back, baring a hint of teeth. Her ruby eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. She said nothing, but every muscle in her face screamed offense.
She got offended by that? The observation surfaced in my mind with a mix of fascination and disdain. How pathetic.
It was the anger of someone who believed their position insulated them from the consequences of their actions. The fury of one who cannot bear to be reminded of their failures, especially by those who were meant to be their victims.
The silence in the hall was broken by Yoko's voice, a hiss laden with a hatred so visceral it seemed to poison the air between us.
"You talk too much for a corpse."
The words were a desperate attempt to reassert power, to put me back in the place she believed I belonged: under the earth. But I had already bet against death and won. Such a pathetic insult was just... amusing.
My smile didn't falter. Instead, it grew sharper, crueler, like the edge of a blade finding the exact point to cut.
"And you think too highly of yourself for a woman who dresses like a harlot."
The reply came out smooth, almost casual, but every syllable was chosen to strike like a stiletto. It wasn't about the dress being red; it was about the arrogance it represented, the crude attempt to use ostentation as a weapon. I had hit something deep, something that went far beyond a simple matter of fashion.
The effect was instant and visceral. Yoko's face, already twisted with rage, contorted in an almost inhuman way. The mask of cruel elegance completely crumbled, revealing the wounded beast beneath. Her ruby eyes widened, no longer with calculated hatred, but with a blind, humiliated fury. I had touched the open wound of her position, her insecurity about her place in this family, everything she needed to compensate for with crudeness and ostentation.
The humiliation was so intense, so unbearable, that she didn't scream. She spat the next words like poison, in a low tone laden with a power that wasn't hers, but which she invoked as a last, desperate resort.
"Hang yourself!"
It wasn't a scream. It was a command. An absolute decree that echoed through the hall not as a sound, but as a tangible force. I felt the words enter my ears and seep directly into my mind, bypassing all logic, all reason. It was a pure, primordial order, and my body—Jun's body—responded before I could even think.
My hands—my own hands—rose as if belonging to a ghost. Spasmodic, irrational movements. They went straight for my neck, fingers curling to close around my throat. I tried to stop. I tried. I ordered my arms to lower, my fingers to open. But there was an antagonistic force, an autopilot of obedience that had been activated by her words. It was visceral, primal. My muscles locked, rebelling against my own command. Panic—a rare and despicable feeling—began to sprout, not from fear of death, but from the violation of my own control.
And then, something inside me snapped.
The humiliation of being a puppet. The rage of being controlled. The absolute contempt for that woman and her cheap trick. It all fused into a single point of rupture inside my skull.
Boom!
It wasn't an audible sound. It was a silent explosion of pure mental force that erupted from me in all directions. A wave of invisible, uncontrollable energy, born from my deepest instinct for survival and rebellion.
Everything around me was repelled. The massive dining table, the heavy chairs of noble wood, the crystal sideboards—everything flew backward as if hit by a shockwave. Wood cracked, crystal shattered into a thousand shards that rained on the floor. The tapestries on the walls billowed violently.
Yoko was thrown back like a ragdoll. Her slender body flew through the air, helpless, and slammed hard against the distant wall with a dull, bony thud. She slid to the floor, lying still for a second, gasping, her eyes wide with a terror that was now very, very real.
The command in my mind shattered. My hands released my throat and fell to my sides, trembling.
Dust began to settle over the devastation. I stood at the epicenter of the chaos, breathing deeply, my heart pounding not from fear, but from pure adrenaline.
And then, the realization came, cold and clear.
This... Psychokinesis?!
It had to be. My epic ability, [Psychokinesis]. The power to influence matter with the mind. I had activated it not with concentration, but with pure will. With rage. With the absolute refusal to be controlled.
I looked at Yoko, now a crumpled heap of red against the wall, and then at the destruction surrounding me.
A smile slowly spread across my lips.
The dust from the shattered crystal still danced in the air, catching the faint light filtering through the tall windows of the devastated hall. Amid the chaos of splintered wood and shattered furniture, Yoko tried to push herself up, her body aching with every movement. Her ruby eyes, now wide with a mixture of pain and disbelief, were fixed on me. The hatred was still there, but it was now tempered with a new and delicious ingredient: fear.
"H-how?..." she stammered, her voice failing, broken by lack of air and shock. "You... you weren't supposed to have an Individuality..."
The word "Individuality" echoed strangely in the air. It sounded like a technical term, a classifier for something she understood, but which clearly didn't apply to the Jun she knew. The weak, sickly boy she could manipulate and neglect to death possessed no such thing.
My smile, which had never truly vanished, widened. It was a smile that promised nothing good.
"I am not that boy you could step on and humiliate anymore, stepmother," I said, my voice soft, almost a whisper, but cutting through the heavy silence like the whisper of a blade being drawn. Each word was a nail in the coffin of her old perception of me.
I raised my hand, not with a dramatic motion, but with a slight, almost casual, flex of my wrist. The intention, however, was anything but casual.
Across the room, Yoko grunted in surprise and terror. Her body, barely holding itself up, was slammed against the wall as if a giant invisible hand had crushed her there. The pressure wasn't enough to shatter bones—not yet—but it was enough to immobilize her completely, pinning her torso, her arms, her legs against the cold surface of plaster and wood. She was trapped. A butterfly cruelly pinned to a display board.
"Now," I continued, my cold eyes tracing every inch of her pale, sweaty face. "I am the one who dictates."
The phrase hung in the air, an unquestionable sentence.
"You bitch."
The insult was final, disdainful. And it was then that I felt it. Through the ethereal connection of my Psychokinesis, I felt her body shudder. It wasn't a tremor of anger or pain. It was a fine, uncontrollable tremor of pure fear. It was a vibration of panic that ran through every muscle, every fiber of her being. It was a sweet taste in my mouth, music to my ears. It was exactly what I wanted.
She fought against the terror, trying to reclaim a shred of dignity, of authority. Her trembling lips parted.
"Y-you psychopath."
The accusation came out as a gasping whisper, a last, weak bark from a cornered dog.
And I... I laughed. It wasn't a contained chuckle or a simple smile. It was a manic laugh that exploded from me, echoing through the destroyed hall. It sounded strange and discordant in that scene of horror, a celebration of madness that made even the dust seem to hang with hesitation.
What a stupid woman, I thought, still laughing.
When the laughter finally subsided, leaving only a wide and dangerously serene smile on my face, I leaned forward as if to share a secret.
"I am a psychopath," I admitted, my voice now calm, almost contemplative. "But just the right amount."