#na-ri

We were all currently sitting in the gym's storage room which was surrounded by zombies. Everyone was hungry, dehydrated and made me wish I couldn't breathe. It was actually quiet for a while until Dae-su got up and went in front of my girlfriend.

“I… I think you're the perfect girl” he starts to talk and everyone looks up at him like he was crazy and Wu-jin was vocal about it “What? You freak.” but that didn't stop him from going on about what he was talking about.”I watched you when you were shooting your arrows, I saw you train every morning. I went to every tournament and cheered for you, caught myself calling you ‘copper beauty’ a few times. I really liked you for a few years” Yea, that was my breaking point.

I got up and started walking to Dae-su “Now.. I wanna be a man not a-” “Hey Dae-su, are you okay with dying?” I asked, making him turn around “huh, what do you me-” he didn't get to finish because i started hitting him. People started faintly telling me to stop while others were cheering for me.

He went behind the basket holding the balls so I couldn't get to him, so instead I picked up the volleyballs and basketballs and threw them at him while he tried to cover himself with the basket. I felt a pair of hands wrap around my waist pulling me back, I turned my head around seeing my girlfriend laughing a little bit and then everyone looked at us confused but also amused.

I felt her leaning in to whisper something in my ear “You didn't have to hit him gorgeous” I could feel her smirk without even having to look at her. “But I did, he was confessing his love to my girlfriend” I said, pouting a bit. “No one knows we're dating it's not his fault” I guess she was right but she gets jealous a lot and shows it all the time?

“So… what's going on here?” Su-hyeok asks. “Nothing much honestly just my girlfriend being jealous” Ha-ri says, making the others' expressions change and a bunch of them were smiling “You're dating a junior? She's basically a kid” Mi-jin says scoffing. I look up at her “You literally were just flirting with me yesterday”.

Joon-Seong got stabbed but nobody knows why and how because he won’t tell and just keeps screaming saying that he’s going to die. So I just decided to tend to his aid.

I cleaned out his wound and placed some cloth on it while I got the bandages, but I couldn't find them. “Here you go,” Mi-jin says, grabbing the bandages and handing them to me.

I looked up at her “Thanks, can you hold this while I put the bandages around it?” She nodded her head. I thought she would just go to the side and hold it, but no, she went behind me draping her arms on my shoulder to hold it.

I shifted slightly but started to wrap the bandage around him, while doing so I felt a death stare right on me. I didn’t look up because I knew what it would be.

“Okay..There now stop whining” I tell Joon-Seong while he continues to cry. Mi-jin let’s her hands fall from my shoulders and while doing so she puts her hands under my shirt a bit on my waist, feeling her cold fingertips but then she gets up and walks away.

I also get up to walk over to Ha-ri and she immediately hugs me, lowering her hands to my ass and moving closer to the crotch of my neck. “You look sexy in your volleyball uniform, gorgeous, but only I get to see and feel what’s under it”. After she says that she lets go of me and walks away.

I knew this was her trying to be subtle due to the situation outside of the building, but this was my warning.

——

I was sitting down talking to Min-jae untilI heard someone say my name. I look up seeing Mi-jin waving at me to come over.

I get up and walk over to the two seniors. “What’s up?” I ask, crossing my arms. “Try this so little miss i’m gonna get into college, can see it’s not that easy” Mi-jin says handing me the archery bow.

“I never said it was easy you’re just being fucking immature and annoying” My girlfriend says while the short hair girl just shrugs her arm.

I position myself by putting the bow in front of me and closing one eye “Don’t poke your chest out too much” She says. I relax my chest but then I feel someone, Mi-jin, come behind me.

“This is sexy, like you” She whispers, moving some of my hair behind my ear. That was it she wasn’t taking anymore of her bullshit. I feel a rough grab on my arm making me collide with a familiar pair of lips.

I feel her hands naturally move to ass and she squeezes it making me moan into the kiss and she takes the chance to stick her tongue into my mouth, claiming her dominance. Then she grabs my hair pulling me away from my mouth.

Ever since she was a little kid, Delphinium had the same lucid dream. When she sleeps, she goes into a green meadow with a beautiful blue lake in the middle, surrounded by thick redwood trees. In the distance, there are large white pillars in every direction. Delphinium herself is completely nude, but without nipples or genitals, presumably to protect the innocence of any children watching. We see her sitting quietly by the pond, looking at her reflection in the rippling water. She examines her completely normal hand, and stands up to take a walk.

“Is she okay?”

Na-ri crouches next to the bed that her best friend is lying on, thick metal tubes reaching into her open chest and the back of her head. Delphinium has been cleaned up, but her burnt flesh remains black. Her bones are shining silver metal, revealing to the audience that she is, in fact, a robot.

“Yeah, her brain suffered a little shock but nothing that she can’t handle.” An older rabbit woman, with the same fur and hair color as Delph explains. “I wasn’t expecting her to fight that hard. Not until your parents asked me to open up her strength.”

Na-ri nods, her eyes still on her best friend. “I think that’s going to happen sooner than we thought.”

The older woman’s face is somber. “I was… I was hoping we never would have to. But we don’t really have a choice now, do we?”

The door to the hospital room, larger than you’d expect and with multiple key locks around it, slides open. A larger hospital bed with a thick frame and a gantry frame slides into the room, pushed by several nurses. “Dr. Spur? The frame you requested has arrived.”

Delphinium’s mother nods, and gently nudges Na-ri to the side. “Excuse me, madam.” She waves the nurses over, and moves Delph slightly. “Alright, move the frame closer and we can transfer her over.”

Back in Delph’s dream, she crouches next to the pond, a despondent look no her face. She’s been thinking about what’s happened in the real world for a long time, and is still having trouble processing it. Why did that guy turn to dust? Why did they try to hurt Na-ri? What happened to my body?

The sky begins to grow dark, and a gentle earthquake starts to shake the trees. This has never happened before, and Delph scrambles to her feet, confused. The towers begin to shrink, as though the distant earth is swallowing them up, and the pond grows darker, as though something swims beneath the surface. She looks over to see what it is. The water begins to boil, and with a sudden burst, splashes in her face. An enormous, towering figure looms over her, rising from the water. Then, she wakes up in the clandestine hospital room.

“Nnngh… ugh...”

Na-ri rushes to her side, and looks down on her. “Delphi! You’re awake! Can you hear me?! Are you okay?!” She fights every urge not to hug her.

“Uhh...” Her voice is strange, slightly deeper. She coughs, but it doesn’t change back to before. “Na-ri… Are you… Are you safe?”

The cat laughs, choking back tears. “Yeah, Delphi. We’re safe, don’t worry.”

Delph tries to look around, but it’s difficult. The thick metal tubes sticking out of the back of her head root it in place, but she can still see the gantry arms repairing her body. It also seems to be replacing some of her skin with a thin white substance that she can’t quite place. But she can’t really place much of anything at the moment, as she’s still shaking off her stupor.

Her mother, Dr. Lark Spur, sits down next to the bed opposite Na-ri, and begins speaking with a quiet and reassuring tone. “Sweetie? Can you hear me? I know you must be scared and confused, but you’re safe and okay.” She gently touches her shoulder. “I need you to try to not move around, okay? These little arms are repairing your body. It should be done in a few hours and you’ll be right as rain, I promise.”

Delph closes her eyes, confused. “That’s… that’s not how bodies work. I should be bleeding… right?”

Lark shakes her head. “Sweetie, do you… do you remember when you were 5? And you were in that car accident?”

Delph opens her eyes, and looks over. “Y-yes? That was a dream I had. That didn’t happen, did it? I woke up just fine the next morning.”

Dr. Spur squeezes her shoulder. “That wasn’t a dream, sweetie. And you didn’t wake up the next day, that was 13 months later. We… we had to take… some drastic measures to heal you. And it was thanks to Na-ri’s parents that we could.”

“I’m a… I’m a cyborg? That’s so… cool...” Delphinium closes her eyes.

Dr. Spur and Na-ri both look to the machine that the head tubes were connected to, which has a steady flow of green nutrients flowing in and out of it. “Yeah, sweetie. Cyborg. Cool, huh?”

The next day, Delph stands upright in front of a full-length body mirror. Dr. Spur and Na-ri watch her, holding her casual clothes. Delphinium is nude, or at least as nude as she’ll ever be now. About 40 percent of her body’s flesh was now a thin white fabric, covering her chest, groin, butt, legs and arms. It also has thin white strings stretching between the major lengths of fabric.

“You see, Delph, sweetheart, Na-ri’s family funded your new body with one request. They want you to be their daughter’s bodyguard.” Delph turns and shrugs. “Well, I mean, I’m already kind of her bodyguard anyway. She’s my best friend.”

“Yes, but you’re going to see what’s happening. Or you have, sort of. Na-ri’s family is very rich and very important, and bad people want to kidnap her. Probably for ransom, or something like that. And you know you’ve always been strong, but now you’ll be even stronger. You’ll… probably going to have to give up your dreams of forming that kickboxing club, though. It wouldn’t really be fair to your classmates.”

“And this… white stuff is…?”

“Special heat-diffusing flesh. Your energy core can only take so much before it begins to overheat, so this will dissipate the heat into the surrounding air for you. It’ll also glow red to let you know when you’re reaching the stretching point. You got lucky last time, but who knows what’ll happen if your brain get too hot.”

“Uh huh,” Delphinium says as she rubs her fingers over the flowery and lacy accents around the edges. “And, uhm… these parts?”

“Oh, haha! Those were just me wanting to give you a little bit of...” She waves her hands with a nervous look. She betrays her usual awkwardness outside of the hospital. “Feminine touch! Haha.”

Delphinium turns and holds her arms out. “And you didn’t stop to realize for a moment that it, you know… Looks like fancy lingerie?”

Dr. Lark’s face begins to glow bright red as it freezes in an expression halfway between shock and a smile. “Uh… oh.” She drops her daughters clothes and rushes over to the bedframe, tinkering with the gantry with surprising speed. “Hahahahaaaa oh god how silly of me!! Haha! Geez! I built lingerie into my daughter’s skin oh lord oh me oh my I gotta fix this I’ll just… I’ll fix this right away you’ll just have to lay down on the bed for another hour and I’ll just I’ll fix everything oh god I’m so sorry I’ll just...”

During her mother’s goofy ramblings, Delphinium gets dressed in her casual clothes, which reveal only the leggings around her feet and gloves around her hands. “Whatever, I don’t want to lay around any more, and nobody will see this anyway.” She looks down to her friend, taps her flexing bicep, and continues, “I gotta guard Na-ri, anyway! Nobody’s gonna get past me!”

Na-ri looks back up, and gives a joyful smile, and the end credits start.

Next episode! Bundroid Beauty Delphinium: Don’t look at me like that!

“Okay. That’s cool, I’m in. Start up the next episode, I’ll get some more popcorn.”