Watching her face draw closer and closer, Joey felt a strange numbness creep over him.
Come to think of it… how many years do you usually get in Kansas for getting involved with a minor?
"This isn't right, Laurie."
Joey lightly brushed away Laurie's hands, which carried overwhelming strength, then quickly turned his head aside, no longer looking at her.
It wasn't that he was some monk immune to temptation. Joey was sixteen, after all. Even if he was Kryptonian, puberty and physical urges still applied.
Sometimes, he did think about doing the things men were supposed to do.
This body of his really was a genuine Superman body. Aside from unmatched strength, it also possessed all the abilities of a Kryptonian—super vision included—though at the moment, that vision was anything but well controlled.
His eyes were involuntarily cycling through layers of perception. One second he saw the world as a normal human would; the next, it shifted into something like an MRI scan; then into an even more exaggerated microscopic view.
He could clearly see the mites crawling on the girl's face in front of him, the flakes of dead skin and bacteria packed into every pore and hair follicle. It perfectly matched a saying he'd once heard in his previous life: rosy flesh is but a skeleton, white bones wrapped in skin—form is emptiness, all is illusion.
At that moment, Joey finally understood why Superman with super perception could still fall victim to seemingly inexplicable sneak attacks.
Like most humans, Superman chose to see only what he wanted to see, hear only what he wanted to hear. Otherwise, he would never be able to preserve his sense of self—a simple Kansas farm boy.
"Why?! Why does nobody care about me?! The others at school shut me out, and now even you are rejecting me!"
The overflowing affection in Laurie's eyes instantly ignited into blazing fury.
She flung her arm backward, and the window she touched caved inward with a dent. Joey could feel the pickup truck beneath him begin to shake, the entire frame creaking and groaning, his body briefly lifting as if gravity itself had loosened its grip.
Telekinesis? Or something like it?
Looks like I'll have to take a risk.
Thinking quickly, Joey controlled himself—again and again—then reached out, carefully holding back his strength, and flicked Laurie on the forehead.
Bang!
The effect was immediate. Laurie slumped over and fell unconscious.
Joey stared at the small bruise forming on her forehead, waited for his super vision to cycle again to confirm she was fine, then let out a long breath. And then came the real problem—
What now?
There were plenty of superhumans in this world. If he didn't play the hero, someone else would. But he was, after all, a traveler from another world. All he wanted was a peaceful life.
Whatever.
Joey switched seats, started the truck—still warm from nearly taking flight—and turned it around.
That peaceful life probably didn't have many good days left anyway.
Was he really Krypton's Kal-El?
If so, was he truly the only surviving Kryptonian?
The possibility of future Kryptonian visitors hung over him like the Sword of Damocles, often jolting him awake from sleep.
Joey didn't believe he had Clark Kent's plot armor—the kind that let someone defeat an entire squad of trained Kryptonian soldiers with no training and pure instinct.
Going by what he remembered from his past life, it wouldn't be surprising if some Kryptonian compatriot showed up tomorrow in a ship capable of destroying Earth's ecosystem, ready to use Joey's DNA to ignite the entire planet.
Superhumans…
On the drive back, Joey couldn't help but imagine—what if Laurie had just awakened these powers for the first time, and he were an ordinary human who had rejected her? What would have happened then?
And why did he just so happen to end up with a superhuman neighbor who had a crush on him? What was this—Stand users being drawn to each other?
To be honest, he wasn't blind to Laurie's feelings. This country girl seemed cheerful and uninhibited, but she came from a single-parent household and received little positive reinforcement at school.
Very few town kids wanted to hear her talk about rats pouring out of the fields like floodwaters, roaming boars that could chew through dozens of acres in a single day, or enraged cows that could send a person flying two meters with a headbutt. Someone like that longing for love—and to be loved—was only natural.
But Joey had only ever listened and responded passively. He had even fewer friends than Laurie did, and he had no desire to get tangled up in the emotional chaos of high school life.
Anyone who's been through adolescence knows this, most teenagers are in the most peculiar phase of their lives—at peak energy, bursting with passion, acting on impulse, and possibly at their intellectual prime.
But when you factor in hormones and lack of life experience, the end result is one giant idiot.
Joey almost instinctively avoided developing any relationships with his classmates, Laurie included. He had more important things to worry about—like his Kryptonian origins.
"Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No—it's Homelander!"
The music on the car radio was interrupted by a movie promo advertisement. Joey sighed and casually changed the station.
"The world faces an unimaginable crisis. Even the mighty Homelander cannot face it alone. But heroes are never alone—this summer, The Seven: A New Era brings you:
Black Noir, Queen Maeve, Lamplighter, A-Train, Translucent, The Deep—
the greatest heroes in history unite to fight side by side. Stay tuned…"
Joey considered himself fairly well-read in Marvel and DC comics in his previous life, but even so, listening to that roll call made his head hurt. This world was nothing like the Superman universe he knew, and even now he still didn't understand where all these superheroes came from.
There was The Seven, plus things like Payback and G-Men—maybe parallel-universe variants of the Justice League, Avengers, and X-Men?
If that were the case, maybe he really wouldn't need to worry about the Kryptonians at all. With a lineup like that, what in the world couldn't be stopped?
Just as Joey was imagining the remaining Kryptonian forces being wiped out without him lifting a finger—while he quietly grinded GPA in high school, got into a state university, became a journalist, and lived a peaceful life—he realized he'd already driven back to Laurie's house.
Old man Arthur was sitting on a recliner at the front door, clutching the rifle, dozing off. He looked up and saw Joey in the driver's seat and Laurie asleep in the passenger seat.
"What the hell happened, kid?"
Not wanting his head to catch a bullet for no reason, Joey got out of the car and explained everything from beginning to end. Laurie would wake up sooner or later—there was no hiding the details.
Joey had expected Arthur to reject such an absurd story outright, but instead, Arthur grew unexpectedly calm. He lowered his head, tugged at his messy, graying hair, and when he looked up again, the bloodshot eyes dulled by years of drinking were no longer unfocused.
Arthur slung the rifle behind his back, sighed, opened the car door, and lifted Laurie into his arms. He gestured to Joey.
"Kid, help me with the door."
…
After carrying Laurie upstairs, Arthur collapsed onto the sofa. He struck a match and lit a cigarette. Joey hadn't left yet. Joey watched the ember glow and fade. The two sat in silence for a long time.
"Do you think your parents love you?"
Arthur finally broke the silence with a question that caught Joey completely off guard.
Weren't we supposed to be talking about your daughter awakening superpowers?
"Behind every superpowered child," Arthur said quietly, "there's a pair of irresponsible parents."
He continued on his own:
"I mean all of them. Me included. Your parents included. Superpowers are never a gift—they're a bargain struck with the devil. For Laurie's sake, and for yours, kid… don't tell anyone about what happened tonight. Not even your parents."
"…Alright," Joey said. "Mutual secrecy, then."
He stood up and opened the door. The sun was already sinking low, spilling blood-red light across the wheat fields outside.