Yūto Shō kissed the girl's tender lips, tracing them slowly, savoring every press. A wave of novelty crashed through his chest, like someone had just kicked open a door to a brand-new world.
A girl's little mouth is so soft, so sweet—kissing feels unreal. Damn, I can't take it, my dick's about to go full Kamehameha.
Yūto Shō couldn't rein in the surge for even a second longer. He crushed Sato Ruri against him, hungrily taking from her mouth like a man possessed.
Her lips were ravaged without restraint, and Sato Ruri's mind blanked out completely. When awareness finally crawled back in, a flicker of shame ignited in her eyes. The sheer mortification made her thrash, twisting in his arms—but that only fed Yūto Shō a sweeter, sharper pleasure. Her full chest mashed against his, and each squirm felt less like resistance and more like she was pouring gasoline on a fire only he could feel.
For a moment, Yūto Shō snapped. His hands stroked down her back, slow at first, then sliding lower along her spine until they settled on the round, perky curve below.
"Mm—" Sato Ruri let out a soft moan, her face flaring red enough to bleed. She felt those large hands behind her turn mischievous, even a little rough, but there wasn't a sliver of pain. Instead, the place being kneaded tingled with a strange, electric warmth, hypnotic in a way she couldn't name.
Sato Ruri's body locked up for half a heartbeat, then went boneless in his arms.
"BEEEEP——"
A passing dump truck blared its horn, the brutal sound yanking the tangled boy and girl out of their trance like a record scratch.
Yūto Shō shot the speeding truck an irritated glare. Sato Ruri, meanwhile, jolted awake like she'd just been hit with a flashbang, gritted her teeth, shoved him off, staggered back, scrubbed the back of her hand across her swollen, kiss-bruised lips, and glared at him with shame and fury blazing in equal measure.
Yūto Shō felt the awkwardness creep up his neck. Even though he'd done plenty worse than kiss a girl without permission, in his own internal moral hierarchy, force-kissing someone still ranked as full-blown villain arc behavior. His life as a scumbag had just barely started, and he hadn't fully sunk into the role yet, so whenever he overshot, a sliver of guilt poked through.
From Sato Ruri's side, getting force-kissed by a guy she couldn't stand—judging by how flustered she'd been—was probably her first kiss, period. Any girl would be emotionally wrecked by that, no exceptions.
Yūto Shō was even more terrified she might spiral, sink into a depression, or worse, go full yandere arc. The system had warned him from day one that being a scumbag was a high-risk profession with permadeath stakes, and he could get clipped at any moment.
Weighing all that, Yūto Shō decided the safest play was a quick, clean apology: "I'm sorry, Sato Ruri. You're just way too pretty. I lost it for a second and did something stupid. Please don't be mad."
Sato Ruri's body trembled, anger snapping tighter. He'd not only stolen her first kiss but was now pinning the blame on her. Between every word, the message was loud and clear: it wasn't his fault, it was hers for being beautiful.
Catching that she looked even more pissed, Yūto Shō audibled fast: "Okay, fine, I admit I'm a scumbag. Every time I see you in class, Sato Ruri, I want something to happen between us. Honestly, sometimes I want you to just be my girlfriend, because then I could tease you out in the open."
The hell kind of villain monologue did I just spew? Yūto Shō stared at himself internally, horrified.
The apology hadn't landed, so he'd impulsively flipped the script and gone full "yes-I'm-a-degenerate" mode. Logic being: beasts tease girls, that's what beasts do, and all Sato Ruri needed was to hate him so thoroughly she forgot to feel sad. But the second the words left his mouth, the sheer audacity of them registered—the kind of line that could spike a girl's blood pressure into orbit.
Sato Ruri froze, her gaze on him turning tangled and unreadable. Yūto Shō's words had cracked something open inside her: Yūto Shō bullied her because he liked her.
What a twisted, scheming kind of love.
Sato Ruri's chest churned with conflicting feelings, and a strange flutter rose up where the fury used to live, until the rage over losing her first kiss didn't burn nearly as hot as it had a moment ago.
Yūto Shō was bracing for her to explode, but instead watched Sato Ruri's expression cycle from shame to shock to a quiet, dawning realization. Then she looked at him with that complicated stare, and the searing hatred from earlier had evaporated.
Yūto Shō couldn't help feeling thrown. What's going on? Why isn't she nuking me right now?
After a long beat of silence, Sato Ruri said coldly, "Don't get your hopes up. I'd never agree to be your girlfriend. Hmph."
With that, she spun on her heel and bolted, disappearing into the residential complex like a side character escaping a cutscene.
Yūto Shō stood there, stunned, but didn't chase. He frowned, replayed his own words in his head, and after a long minute it finally clicked.
Wait—does Sato Ruri actually think I like her? She took that whole rant as a confession and then seriously turned me down?
As the rejected party, Yūto Shō should've felt at least a flicker of wounded pride, but he didn't—just a vague, blank kind of speechless.
She thought he liked her, when really, he didn't even like her that much. He wasn't pulling some main-character simp routine; Yūto Shō just had a thing for beautiful women in general. Drop any other knockout in front of him and he'd react the same way.
But Sato Ruri had taken it as the real deal, and because of that misread, her rage over the forced kiss had softened. This was just...
Bro, she's so naive. Painfully naive. Pure protagonist's-childhood-friend energy.
After two days of grinding through this scumbag-system run, Yūto Shō had gotten weirdly comfortable thinking like a scumbag. He was already mentally calculating whether this misunderstanding could be farmed for profit.
For example, he could "pursue" Sato Ruri, get her to willingly become his girlfriend, then yank the rug out and play with her feelings.
Peak scumbag.
Or—Yūto Shō mused—skip the courting entirely, just force her to be his girlfriend, and then tease her out in broad daylight.
Somehow even worse.
Yūto Shō shook his head and dropped the brainstorm. It was getting late, and it was time to head home.
...
Deep into the night.
Yūto Shō stretched out on his bed, watching the clock crawl toward midnight.
Before long, the familiar slideshow flickered behind his eyes, scene after scene rolling like a recap episode: humiliating Egawa Mitsuki in the principal's office, coercing Sato Ruri into a date, hand-feeding her at the restaurant, then demanding the post-meal milk tea tax.
The final frame froze beside the busy roadside, the moment he'd pulled Sato Ruri into his arms and kissed her stupid.
"Today's Scumbag Rank: Outstanding."
"Reward: 250 Scum Points."
"Comment: A rookie degenerate."
Seeing the Outstanding rank, Yūto Shō mulled it over. Today's branching choices had hit way more paths than yesterday—not only had he trained Sato Ruri, he'd also dragged Egawa Mitsuki through the mud.
Stacking all that, Outstanding made sense, though he had no idea yet if there were even higher tiers to chase.
Eyeing the 250 Scum Points payout, Yūto Shō grinned and swiped open the exchange interface, eager to see what new toys had restocked in the shop today.