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[ Warning~! Very extreme narcissistic shit up ahead. You have been warned... ]
[ First POV: Cassius. ]
Five minutes under a showerhead that sounded like an asthmatic tractor was about all I could stomach.
The water pressure in this apartment was less of a stream and more of a half-hearted suggestion.
Pathetic. But at least it was enough to wash the alleyway grime from between my ball bags, and scrub the sweat off a physique that genuinely belonged in a museum.
Or, failing that, a highly classified, government-funded breeding program.
I stepped out onto the cheap bathmat with a wet slap of my soils, wrapping a frayed towel around my waist just long enough to dry off.
I aggressively threw on the fresh clothes I had snagged from my bedroom, a minute after my tactical retreat: a black tank top, standard black gym shorts, and a pair of beat-up slides.
Status of the fit was casual, breathable, and a added; 'hotdog, hotdog, hot~diggity~dog!'
If you know what I mean, 'wink, wink'.
Before doing anything else, I reached for my phone and the poor JBL speaker sitting on the toilet tank.
Tapping the name of the speaker, hearing the women signal my connection, I opened up my music and scrolled.
Few seconds went by and I found the song I wanted.
I tapped the screen. Tap~!
A piano, and a mixture of a bouncy beat instantly flooded the cramped bathroom, rattling the cheap plastic soap dish.
["Party Girl." By StaySolid Rocky]
A certified classic. One of the many 'one-hit wonder' songs out there. Very out of place in a country like this.
I turned back to the sink and swiped a hand across the fogged-up glass of the medicine cabinet.
Okay, now. Let's be brutally honest for a second: the meat suit I had inherited was disgustingly good-looking. It was an outright hazard to women with low blood pressure. Literally.
I leaned in, observing the sharp jawline that could probably slice a tomato, and the broad shoulders tapering down into a v-taper.
This right here? This is the face and body of a guy who ruins lives for the fuck of it.
The kind of guy who steals your girl, blows her back out so thoroughly she needs crutches, drinks your most expensive top-shelf liquor straight from the bottle, and keys your dad's leased Mercedes on the way out.
All while looking like a sexy cunt.
Hell, let's be entirely fuckin' real. Even after all of that property damage and irreversible emotional trauma, the girl would still probably sneak me right back through the window for round two.
Would I decline? Nope. I'm superman flying right through that window, and getting busy.
And look, not to sound gay or anything, but damn. Like, goddamn!
If I were a woman? I would totally ride my own face....
Yeap. You heard right.
I ain't joking, either. Hesitations will not be made. I'd be doing Olympic-level gymnastics on it.
Tricks, flips, twist, man you name it. I'm doing it.
And if that god-tier bone structure wasn't enough of a violent slap to the collective faces of the general male population, there were my eyes.
Two piercing, icy sea-blue irises that looked entirely out of place in this demographic. And in this world? Blue eyes were very, very rare.
See? Even the damn world sees me as rare.
Staring into them was like looking at a calm ocean right before a shark dragged you under.
If weaponized sex appeal were a prosecutable felony, I'd be serving back-to-back life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Even prison will be my bitch. Double points if the warden is a women. Because even she, and the many other female officers, will not be safe.
However. Do you know what the craziest part of all this is? The detail that actually makes me want to pop a bottle of champagne just to pour it on myself?
I made this.
Me.
I, motherfuckin' Cassius, made this walking, talking body. I created this. Not anyone else.
Fuckin' me. And only me.
Honestly, just thinking about some random, foolish loser trying to insult me almost makes my blood boil.
It actually fucks me off.
Just the sheer audacity of some ugly bastard thinking his vocal cords have the right to belittle this level of perfection.
And speaking of Insults...
Bro, insults have zero meaning to me. They literally bounce off my flawless self. I am way, way too fucking handsome to care about the opinions of mongrel.
Though, if anyone actually tries to step up and talk shit about my looks?
I'm just gonna laugh.
I'll laugh directly into the camera lens of a high-definition video, I'm recording, in familiar bedroom, with their girlfriend wearing my oversized t-shirt in the background, throwing up a crisp, high-res middle finger aimed squarely at their crumbling egos.
Fuck it. I'll send them a attachment aswell.
Call me whatever you want. But fuck them. Fuck up. And fuck off.
Cassius: (T＿T)
...Haaa. Okay.
You know what? I need to take a step back.
I am genuinely, wholeheartedly sorry about that. To whoever the hell is watching this trainwreck of an internal monologue play out, I apologize. Truly. I am deeply ashamed.
I got a little... toooo carried away there.
Its just that... the lighting in this bathroom is just incredibly flattering, and when I lock eyes with my own reflection for more than thirty seconds, my narcissistic prick side takes the wheel.
I'm working on it. I mean, I'm not actually working on it, because I love myself, but I acknowledge that it's technically a character flaw.
I have very good emotional control, so do not worry.
Anyways.
Let's get back to the actual, tangible objective here. The mission. The grand un-dying of my scalp.
My hair going back to its factory-default blonde.
I snapped the cheap, crinkly plastic gloves onto my wrists, shaking the tiny bottle of chemical developer.
The hook, from the song I had momentarily forgotten while I was busy admiring myself, rounded back through the vibrating JBL speaker before I even knew it.
"Lil~ mama... a party girl,"
I pointed the applicator bottle at the mirror, sliding right back into the rhythm, my baritone effortlessly dimming.
"She just wanna have funn tooo~, they say you ain't wifey type but I don't care, I want~~chuu~!"
I squirted a thick, noxious line of platinum bleach directly down the center part of my dark hair, aggressively massaging it into the roots.
It burned immediately.
A sharp, chemical sting that reeked like a swimming pool on fire. I couldn't careless, though.
Pain is temporary; staggering, blonde-haired dominance is eternal.
"She like to do drugs too, she in love with guns tooo~!"
I dragged my gloved fingers through the thick strands, making sure to coat the back of my head.
The transformation was already beginning. The black dye was going to put up a fight, but this bleach was industrial grade. It didn't stand a chance against my overwhelming will to be blonde again.
"They say you, 'too piped up' but I think that I love~!"
As I sung along with the catchy, bouncy track, I outstretched my free hand toward the mirror, waiting for the exact beat drop about to happen.
When the bass hit, I aggressively snapped my hand back toward my chest right on the drop, my head bobbing to the rhythm. "Yeeeah~, she say you say you love me, but I don't know what love means~!"
This was going to look so ridiculously good.
"Anyway," I said for the third time. I think.
I must address many things. So listen up.
When I first woke up in this body, looking like a displaced Russian with a heavy affinity for blunt-force trauma, I'd panicked.
Or, well, I strategically retreated into a box of five-dollar jet-black hair dye, cause I needed to blend in.
I needed the past of Sean, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed child of the Mansion, to stay permanently buried while I figured out what the hell kind of reality I was stuck in.
Four years later? I was getting bored of blending in.
Honestly, it wasn't just boredom. There was this... itch. A quiet, persistent tug at the back of my skull whispering that the black dye had massively overstayed its welcome.
I couldn't explain the pull. Not in the slightest. And honestly, I didn't particularly care to waste my valuable time psychoanalyzing myself.
I just left it at something related to my transmigraion.
But I just knew it was time to let the gold come back home.
If the universe was subtly nudging me to embrace my roots, who was I to deny the cosmos my staggering visual presence? Besides, I missed the princely yellow anyway.
As I aggressively scrubbed the noxious, eye-watering bleach into my scalp, making sure to fill in any dark patches I might have missed around the nape of my neck, my mind drifted.
I wondered, very briefly, how Ah-Rin was going to handle this. She had only ever known me to rock dark hair, not blonde.
I don't think she knew I even had blonde hair.
So I'm quite curious as to what she'll actually do. Will she faint? Stutter? Hide me from other women?
Who knew.
Though I could guarantee it'll be entertaini... wait... that's it...
A sudden, highly mischievous thought flickered into my mind, lighting up my brain like a neon sign.
Gambling.
Allow me to explain.
Tomorrow is Saturday. Which means I am not going to school. Which also means I have full tactical control over how, when, and where Ah-Rin discovers my massive aesthetic upgrade.
And since I am a firm believer in maximizing every single opportunity for personal gain, I was going to turn this reveal into a betting pool.
With non-other then... the two gremlins currently tearing up the living room.
Now, you might be wondering: what could two literal children possibly have to bet with?
My grandmother, that's what.
Park Jung-hee, also known as Rachel, is one of 'those' grandmother's.
The kind who fiercely spoils the youngest grandkids with ungodly amounts of material wealth, while completely ignoring the oldest child, namely, me, because I am "already a man" and "should get a job."
Didn't mean to drop the J word so casually, my bad.
Back to where I was.
So, because of this blatant, systemic favoritism, Daemon and Hazel are stacked. I'm talking god-tier fortnite loot, my friends.
I am not exaggerating, either.
Daemon literally has a fully functional Omnitrix watch from Ben 10.
The deluxe edition.
It lights up and all.
It also makes the sound effects.
I want it.
I want it so badly it hurts my damn soul.
And Hazel? Mrs. Stoic princess herself?
She somehow acquired a pair of limited-edition Nike Dunks in a grade-school size.
Limited. Edition.
That is flipping material on the secondary market for holy profit.
You know how much money a rich, emotionally vulnerable mother, who I can easily manipulate with three seconds of prolonged eye contact and a polite smile, is willing to spend to buy a set of shoes for her own kid? Heaps.
The margins are incredible.
A little sweet-talking here and there, and that suburban mother's income is directly routed into the 'Cassius Grocery Foundation'.
If I gotta get more money? Fuck it. Throw the Omnitrix in there too.
Pffft~~Hahahahahaha~!
Fuck them kids~! I need capital, I goddamn want capital. If there lunch money has to be offered? I'm snagging that fucker without a second thought!
And I put that shit ON GOD!!
Muahahahahaha~!! Don't test my bottomless greed, son. You will not survive.
For a brief, deeply unethical second, I did consider rigging the game.
I mean... it'll be like washing hands. Easy.
I could just text Ah-Rin tonight, tell her to act a specific way tomorrow morning, maybe fake a heart attack or something, without telling her about the bet, and guarantee my ultimate victory.
But no.
I am a man of honor. Mostly.
I would play fair and square.
Plus, Daemon and Hazel can, sometimes, be seen as crazy. You just have to not watch them and boom. Crazy goblins have spawned.
If they even suspected I cheated them out of their prime assets, they would absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, plot my actual assassination.
They watch too many true crime documentaries with Grandma. I'm not risking a poisoning over a pair of shoes.
Nah-uh.
I can not risk seeing their dark smirk as I flop to my death.
That leaves the reasonably question: why?
Sureeee, I could technically just go out, use the money I extorted from those alleyway idiots, plus my other 'assets', and buy the toy myself with the shoes.
But... why?
Why spend my own hard-earned, violently acquired cash when I could gamble for it and take it directly from my family?
I may be reasonably wealthy right now, but I didn't get rich by spending my own liquid assets.
Besides, what could they possibly want from me if I lose?
I own nothing of value to a ten-year-old. I have a PlayStation 5, an empty bedroom, and a wardrobe full of clothes to big.
The risk-to-reward ratio here is incredibly skewed in my favor.
I peeled one of plastic gloves off with a wet snap, tossing it into the trash bin beneath the sink.
I stared at the thick, white paste currently shellacking my hair to my skull, already feeling the chemical burn beginning to prickle my scalp.
'Just you wait, Ah-Rin,' I smirked at my reflection, picking up the JBL speaker to turn the volume up. 'You're about to fund my next grocery run~'
I'm also a fucking genius...
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END.