I Was Blackmailed Into Accepting Bullying Using My Childhood Friend as Leverage, But When I Found Out My Friend and Bully Were Together, I Abandoned All Compassion and Swore to Take Revenge with Everything I Had - Chapter 16: Scum File - Kotone Komada - Disgust and Rejection

Chapter 16: Scum File – Kotone Komada – Disgust and Rejection

Note: This work contains depictions of violence and sexual content, but it does not promote any of these actions.

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Kotone Komada – Disgust and Rejection Arc

When I was in elementary school, my mom remarried, so I ended up with a stepfather and a stepbrother. At first, I couldn’t get used to my new family and didn’t speak much. My stepfather worked in sales and was often away on long business trips, so he wasn’t home much.

However, my stepbrother, Ken-nii, was very cheerful and active. He patiently talked to me and included me in activities with his friends, helping me gradually become friends with the neighborhood kids and start playing with them.

Ken-nii was always at the top of his class academically, and he excelled in sports. Whatever sport he played, he was a star. He was like a hero straight out of a picture book—my role model and also my first love.

I realized my feelings one day when I was playing in the sandbox at a nearby park with my friends. A group of older boys, middle schoolers, showed up and started bothering us, being mean and ruining our play. My friends and I were terrified, huddling in the corner of the sandbox, crying, when suddenly, Ken-nii appeared out of nowhere and took down all the middle school boys.

My friends and I clung to Ken-nii, crying, and he smiled at us with a bashful grin, saying,

“I’ll always protect you, Kotone!”

Even as a child, my heart skipped a beat at that moment.

The Ken-nii I admired and loved so much began to change when he entered middle school. His bright personality gradually faded, and instead of studying, he spent all his time on the computer. His grades plummeted, and he no longer excelled in sports. He had, as they say, turned into an introverted “otaku.”

“Ken-nii, be more cheerful!” “Ken-nii, stop playing games all the time and go outside to exercise!”

I desperately tried to get him to return to the cool older brother I once loved, but he never went back to being that person.

By the time I entered middle school, I realized that my stepbrother was being called a “creepy nerd” behind his back at school. I started to fear others finding out that he was my family, so at home, I began to refer to him as “you” or “that guy,” even calling him a “gross otaku.” I warned him, “Don’t you dare tell anyone at school that we’re related! If you do, I’ll kill you!” I completely cut off our relationship outside of the house, treating him like trash. Even at home, I stopped talking to him and avoided any interaction.

When it came time for me to go to high school, I didn’t want to attend the same school as my stepbrother, but after failing to get into my first-choice school, I had no choice but to attend the same high school as him. Shortly after the new school year began, I heard that a senior with the same last name as me was being bullied by the boys in his class. It became a joke among the first-year students.

I immediately realized they were talking about my stepbrother, but I told my classmates that I didn’t have any siblings and that the person with the same last name was just a stranger. I made sure to avoid the topic as much as possible.

Sometimes, during lunch break, I would catch a glimpse of my stepbrother rushing down the hallway, arms full of canned drinks, hurrying back to class. Whenever I saw him, I would click my tongue in disgust. Thankfully, no one seemed to have realized that we were related.

Because of him, I couldn’t even invite friends over to my house, let alone get a boyfriend—I was too scared that people would find out about him.

That guy is seriously a curse. It feels like my precious youth is being ruined because of that loser, and every day, my resentment towards him only grows.

Even on my way home, I deliberately took a longer route to avoid being seen entering the same house as that trash. It made me angry. Why do I have to go through this…?

At home, he was the ultimate introvert, always holed up in his room, staring at his computer. He was probably playing one of those games where you get close to girls in some 2D fantasy world.

Next to his PC, there was a framed photo of him, me, and his childhood friend Shizuku-chan from when we were younger. Back then, he was dependable—how did things end up like this…?

Today, we ran into each other in front of his room. He looked gloomier than usual, so I ignored him and went downstairs.

“Tch, not even a word in return? Pathetic!”

I muttered quietly, but as usual, there was no response from him.

After getting out of the bath, my mom asked me to go call my stepbrother for dinner, but I refused and locked myself in my room instead.

Later, when my stepbrother still hadn’t come downstairs, my mom peeked into his room. I heard her footsteps returning quickly, and she mentioned that he seemed to be asleep.

“Ugh, what a useless person. He doesn’t even come down to eat the dinner Mom worked so hard to make. He’s just a waste of space. It’d be better if he just disappeared…”

I climbed into bed, and as I was drifting off, I heard rustling noises and footsteps coming from his room. He probably got hungry in the middle of the night and went to raid the kitchen. Lying in bed, I cursed him in my mind, frustrated, until I eventually fell asleep.

The next morning, when I looked around, my stepbrother was already gone. He wasn’t in his room or the living room. It seemed like, for once, he had woken up early and gone to school without eating breakfast.

As I ate the breakfast my mom had made, she asked, “Hey, do you know if Ken-chan had something to do this morning? He left without breakfast.”

“How would I know? Thanks for the meal!”

I didn’t care about that loser at all. Unable to hold back my irritation, I slammed my chopsticks down and left for school, ignoring whatever else my mom was saying.

Later that day, during lunch break, I overheard some boys in my class whispering about something.

“Hey, did you hear about the second-year loser senior?”

“Yeah! I heard it from a senior in my club. Apparently, he totally snapped and beat up a bunch of the guys who were bullying him. In just one day, he turned the whole class dynamic upside down!”

“Exactly! They said he’s crazy strong. Someone went to check on the guys in the bathroom, and they were forced to kneel on the dirty floor while he punched them. Haha!”

“What?! That’s like a real-life underdog story! I wish I’d seen it!”

(What? What’s going on? That loser did that? No way…)

Afterward, the boys who liked to act tough kept talking about the loser’s so-called heroic deeds every time they went to see what happened.

In the afternoon, while cleaning the classroom, I saw three boys running away from the schoolyard.

That day, instead of taking the long way, I decided to go straight home and find out the truth from my stepbrother. When I arrived, I saw Shizuku-chan standing in front of the gate, looking down.

I wanted to ask Shizuku-chan if what happened at school was related to her strange behavior, but she insisted on wanting to talk to and apologize to my stepbrother and wouldn’t give me any other answers.

I urged her to come inside and wait, but she stubbornly refused and said she would wait in front of the house.

“That jerk made Shizuku-chan feel like this! How dare he! I won’t forgive him!”

I couldn’t calm down without saying something to that loser, so I angrily opened the fridge, quenched my thirst with some barley tea, and waited in the living room for his return.

While waiting, I thought I heard Shizuku-chan’s voice at the entrance. Then, I saw the loser come into the house alone from the entrance.

“Hey, we need to talk. What did you do to Shizuku-chan? I can’t forgive you for this.”

I glared at the loser, but he stared back at me with a coldness I had never seen before.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Hey! Wait a minute!”

I rushed out of the living room and tried to stop him as he went upstairs, but he ignored me and went into his room.

“How dare you ignore me, you jerk! Who do you think you are!?”

I sent a message to Shizuku-chan to find out the truth, but it remained unread. So, I decided to ask a well-informed girl from class in the class chat, carefully avoiding revealing that I was related to the loser.

[Oh, that? It seems that the loser senior found out that his childhood friend was dating the guy who used to bully him. After revealing this in class, he got revenge by beating up the bullies.]

[What’s more, he even remembered the number of times he was hit and kicked, and the amount of money he was forced to spend. He reportedly declared that he would take revenge on them every day from now on.]

[Not only that, but he also called out the classmates who turned a blind eye, saying, ‘You’re just as guilty!’ lol. They say his class feels like a funeral now.]

[Payback? Impossible! Who would dare mess with a senior who can send a guy flying several meters with a single backhand punch? Lol! He’s like one of those invincible tough guys from the old days!]

Since this was gossip, I took it with a grain of salt. However, hearing that Shizuku-chan and the guy who bullied my stepbrother were dating does make sense considering Shizuku-chan’s behavior today. 

I really should hear the story from my stepbrother himself…

“Kotone, can you tell Ken-chan that dinner is ready?”

“Okay…”

“Oh my, you’re being obedient today! How mature! Good job!”

I knocked on my stepbrother’s door and said, “Dinner’s ready,” and after a moment, the door opened.

[Click]

“Yeah, I’ll be down in a minute.”

He replied but didn’t glance at me, just passing by and heading downstairs. Looking into his room, I noticed that the posters, calendar, school textbooks, and clothes were all gone. 

Most notably, the item that was supposed to be on the desk was also missing.

“That picture on your desk… what happened to it? Where did it go?”

“Yeah, I got rid of it because I don’t need it anymore, so what?”

My stepbrother replied without turning around, and it felt like all the human emotions I had sensed in him until yesterday were gone. 

I felt like I had lost something very important and was overwhelmed by a chilling sensation that made me freeze in place for a while.