Gugu/Plot

## Plot

### Gugu's past

He ponders about his identity, wondering why he is who he is and why he wasn't born into a rich family. His older brother, Shin, says that he often thinks about that as well, but reminds Gugu of their promise to work hard, earn money, and build a big house in which they'll live in. The next day, Gugu eagerly goes to work selling materials and other items in the marketplace. There, he often sees a wealthy girl walking past his stand. Afterward, he'll return home, and the process will repeat.

One day, he comes home to his brother talking to a group of men. Gugu asks who they are, to which Shin responds that they're his friends. Gugu digs out the box with their savings to put his salary for the day inside and discovers that some money is missing from the box. Gugu asks Shin if his friends saw the box, but he tells Gugu not to doubt his friends. Shin then says that if some money was stolen, they can just work harder to earn it back. Gugu decides to hide the box up in the tree instead of in their tent.

While eating dinner, a small dog walks up to him. Gugu decides to share his food with it. The next day, he sees the same dog at the market and eventually finds out that the dog belongs to the wealthy girl as he hears her call its name, Meer. She rewards Gugu with a ring and says that if he sells it, he'll never have to sell vegetables again. Gugu returns home to tell his brother the good news, but finds all the money is gone and a note left by Shin.

Gugu mindlessly continues to work, until one day, he notices a cart with logs and thinks about how easily he would die if that cart crashed. One of the logs falls off and almost crushes him, but it misses and the cart driver goes to get help to move the log. The log starts rolling down the hill just as Gugu notices a girl at the bottom. He runs to rescue her and, although he can save her, his head ends up being crushed by the log.

### Gugu meets Fushi

Miraculously, he survives this accident thanks to Booze Man and starts working in his liquor store as a clerk, tends to the field outside the store and cooks for the two of them. When Pioran and Fushi arrive, Gugu isn't put off by Fushi's abilities and instead soon begins to see him as a younger brother. He teaches him about the chores around the store and asks him all sorts of questions about his past.

One day, the wealthy girl from the market visits the store and Gugu is more than happy to see her. He tries his best to help her find something to treat a wound on her arm that hasn't healed yet, but the girl, who introduces herself as Rean, is only interested in Fushi. She visits again the next day just to talk to Fushi and completely ignores Gugu's attempts to separate them. Gugu is later seen sulking in his room. Booze Man encourages him to try to become a "good man", a person worth being attracted to, instead of sulking which leads Gugu to start honing his physical strength.

The next day, Rean announces that she wants to move in with Booze Man and co. Gugu isn't sure how to feel about this and, after eating dinner, he lets out the frustration and anger he started feeling towards Fushi by cutting and burning him. Even if it's just for the sake of testing the conditions of Fushi's reproduction ability, Fushi feels hurt and decides to spend the night outside.

The next morning, Rean comes in again and explains that her wound still hasn't healed. Gugu is worried and asks Booze Man for help, who tells him to sit down and proceeds to extract alcohol from an extra organ in his stomach cavity. Gugu is shocked and angry that the old man would experiment on his body in this way and runs away into the nearby forest. After a while he stops to see if anyone's following him, but is faced with the harsh reality that no one seems to be looking for him. He finds his old tent in the forest and spends the night there. The next day, he goes to visit his former employer and asks to work for him again. The man even offers to accept Gugu into his family, but his son protests. Gugu decides to show them his face to see if they could love him and accept him as family, but instead, everyone stares at him in shock and the youngest child even starts crying.

On the way back to the forest, a group of men steal Gugu's mask and throw it into a rice field. Gugu decides to accept his identity as a "monster" and leaves the mask there. He spends the next day working on the fields, but the morning afterwards, he wakes up to the farmer's son standing outside his tent. He tells him to stop coming to work so he wouldn't cause his father any more trouble. Gugu spends the rest of the day asking other people for work, but without success. He thinks about selling the ring Rean gave him, but ultimately decides against it and instead gives it to his older brother, whom he finds laying unconcious and malnourished in an alleyway by coincidence. Shin seems to recognize Gugu as he calls out to him, but Gugu denies having a brother.

At night, Gugu is captured by two men, but they don't get far. Having realized that he cannot "grow up" without Gugu's help, Fushi left to search for him despite his fear of the forest. After he rescues Gugu, the pair stay in the forest nearby the town a little bit longer to play pranks on the people living there. However, Gugu still refuses to return to Booze Man's place and it's not until Rean comes along that he learns to come to terms with his situation. They have a long conversation about their circumstances and families until Gugu finally agrees to return to Booze Man's home with her. On the way back, a maid working for Rean's parents catches them. As Gugu and Rean run away, Fushi is tasked with distracting her. While his guard is down, he's attacked by the tree-like beings later to be named Nokkers. The maid's scream alerts Gugu and he decides to help Fushi, who has already lost his first vessel by the time Gugu finds him. The Nokker aims for Gugu, but Fushi manages to deflect its attacks. He shouts at Gugu to leave, but he refuses. Because of his worry for him, Fushi can't focus on the battle. The Nokker grabs Gugu and flings him far away, the trauma causing him to throw up the alcohol stored in his body. Here, Gugu discovers that he could use the highly flammable alcohol as a weapon. He rushes back to Booze Man's store, and although he's starting to feel the effects of the alcohol, he manages to get his "tank" refilled and defeat the Nokker by burning them, combining the alcohol in his stomach cavity with the fire of a torch to "breathe fire".

The two "brothers" return to Booze Man's tower and enjoy dinner with Pioran, Booze Man, Rean and her parents, who have come to take Rean with them. The next day, Rean leaves to go back to her original home with her parents.

### Four years later

Four years have passed in peace, Gugu and Fushi have grown older and continue to work for Booze Man. One day, Gugu has an unexpected visitor: his brother Shin. He promises to work hard so that they can start anew living in a big house, just the two of them, like they always dreamed to. Gugu didn't forgive Shin, though, and doesn't want him to take away the people he met since the day he was left behind: his "precious treasures". Shin decides to return the ring Gugu gave him four years ago and when Rean sees it, she immediately recognizes it as the ring she gifted Gugu once. She runs outside and attempts to put the ring on Gugu's finger like she did back then, but fails. Encouraged by a conversation about her upcoming engagement she had with Fushi earlier, she tells Gugu that, if he wanted to court her, now would be the time. Gugu denies ever having said that he loves her, which leaves Rean shaking with embarassment. She storms off after inviting him to her birthday party, leaving a confused Gugu behind. Booze Man overheard their conversation and explains that it was the alcohol that made him forget what he said back then. He then announces that he just finished making a new mask for Gugu, one that looks more like a dragon and is made out of metal instead instead of wood. Gugu is overjoyed by this gift.

A month later, Gugu and Fushi are preparing to attend Rean's 16th birthday party. On the way there, Gugu buys a purple flower called a Dream Bellflower as a present. It's the same flower Rean was picking when Gugu saved her life and also the only thing he can think of that she might like. When he hands the flower to Rean, everyone goes quiet. A maid of the family approaches him and explains that, because Rean held that type of flower when she had the accident on the cliff, it's now seen as a sort of threat. Rean's mother offers to throw it out, but Rean refuses. Meanwhile, Gugu is being harassed by the other guests at the party because of his mask. When they shove him, causing him to fall into a fountain, Rean immediately goes to help him before her father calls for her. Gugu later sees Rean talking to a young nobleman and tells Fushi they should head out, to which Fushi exclaims that Gugu shouldn't give up that easily.

Despite this, Gugu decides to leave the mansion, but Rean runs after him and asks him about the injury under his mask. As the two talk, Rean's hunch that Gugu might have been the one to save her that day soon turns out to be true. She's about to confess, when suddenly, the balcony on which they're standing breaks. The building soon collapses from a Nokker spreading its tendrils throughout the stone. Fushi tries his best to hold up the ceiling until everyone has escaped. Gugu is hanging on for dear life from one of the Nokker's roots, but is soon rescued by the people who harassed him before. Gugu runs inside the crumbling building out of worry for Fushi. Inside, he spots Rean's injured parents and carries them outside just before the entrance collapses. Rean tries to stop him from going back inside, but to no avail. Gugu runs back inside to help Fushi. After he pulls him out of the rubble, he tries to attack the Nokker with fire, but it's useless against its stone armour. By prying the stones apart with a spear, Gugu manages to burn its flesh, but the core flees by shooting a tendril through a wall. Fushi cuts the tendril and the stone armour collapses, but the battle is far from over. The Nokker's arm, still in the form of Oniguma, reaches through the wall and crushes Fushi. Gugu is about to suffer the same fate, when suddenly Rean pushes him out of harm's way. They try to run outside together, but it's too late. The unconcious Fushi is awakened by the stinging pain of Gugu's buried body.

While Fushi fights on top of the rubble, Gugu uses all his strength to keep the stones from crushing him and Rean. Gugu pretends to be fine, but when Rean opens his mask, blood drips out. Knowing that his end is near, Gugu confesses to Rean and they kiss.

### After his death

In his vision of Paradise, Gugu wakes up to his brother carrying him on his back. Rean and Pioran compliment him on his healed, handsome face and Gugu is about to walk away with them, when he realizes that something is off. Where is the enemy he fought, where is Fushi? When he turns around, he sees Pioran, Booze Man, Fushi and Shin mourn his death.

Before Fushi leaves Takunaha in an effort to lure the Nokkers away from the people he cares about, he transforms into Gugu to spare Rean the bad news. Instead, he tells Rean that Fushi has died. She seems to believe it at first, but due to "Gugu's" awkward behaviour and strange excuses, she quickly realizes the truth.

Gugu, along with Fushi's friends, have been following Fushi throughout all the events of its life as a spirit. He was later seen walking alongside Fushi by Bon due to his psychic abilities.

After winning the war against the Nokkers in Renril, Gugu and Cam become Fushi's "grave keepers", meaning that they take care of the building in which Fushi is sitting and expanding his roots to destroy all remaining Nokkers. He spends the rest of his days helping Cam and his friends and eventually dies after being heavily wounded in a battle with the Anti-Fushi faction. Since he is already doomed, he takes his own life by means of a euthanasia drug, just like March.

After the "time skip" into the modern day era, Gugu is revived and finds himself in a field. He gets up and soon finds a house that looks just like the Beer Gramps' tower. A boy that looks very similar to Shin is carrying a box filled with bottles is passing by outside the building. The boy notices Gugu, they make eye contact and Gugu approaches him.

In chapter 121, Gugu is transported to (former) Renril by the Tastypeach Foundation and reunites with Fushi and the others. They now all live together in Kazumitsu Aoki's house and after receiving ID cards, he started attending high school together with Hairo.