I'm In Favor
I'm in favor.
Little kids can't lie. Unlike adults weathered by the storms of the world, they still carry an unspoiled purity inside them.
There's a reason people talk about pure evil, after all. Children have clear likes and dislikes, and they feel no hesitation about expressing what's in their hearts. The concept of considering other people's feelings simply doesn't exist for them — or rather, more often than not, they don't even realize that the things they say can hurt someone.
If something tastes good, they say it tastes good. If it tastes bad, they say it tastes bad. If someone is ugly, they say they're ugly. You don't need a lie detector. Nothing comes out of their mouths but the truth, every single time.
And so, when I arrived at the elementary school classroom where Sihyeon spent her days, I felt my face grow more than a little warm under the weight of all those stares.
I wasn't a parent there for observation day, and I wasn't the teacher currently conducting class from the front of the room either.
They, too, looked rather startled by my appearance — but before long they went back to focusing on what they were supposed to be doing.
The problem was the kids.
"Whoa, whoa — she's prettier than the noonas I saw on TV the other day."
"Whose mom is that? Whose mom is she?"
"What do you mean your noona, Jang Junhyeok? You only have an older brother. Stop lying."
I didn't even need Camilla's transcendent hearing for those words to lodge themselves deep in my ears.
And the eyes that came with them were brazenly direct.
Even when our gazes met, they didn't look away — if anything, curiosity only pulled them closer. Unlike adults, who feel embarrassed when they lock eyes or realize they've been staring too hard and then sneak glances from the corner of their vision, kids don't have those kinds of social conventions rattling around in their heads. They simply had no intention of looking away.
In the end, I was the one who broke eye contact first. Losing a staring contest to elementary schoolers — how pathetic could I get?
But there was someone else I actually wanted to lock eyes with. A child who was concentrating on the teacher like a model student, yet somehow still looked like she had her ears pricked.
Our very own Han Sihyeon. Every time the kids whispered, she gave a little flinch. Anyone could tell she desperately wanted to turn around and look, and a small laugh slipped out of me.
At the same time, I found myself genuinely impressed by Sihyeon's self-restraint as she tried to stay focused on class. That wasn't the kind of self-control a kid her age usually had. Jaejun hadn't been fretting for nothing when he said she'd grown up too fast.
But no matter how exceptional her self-control was, a child was still a child. Eventually, Sihyeon turned around.
"…?"
The two eyes that met mine went wide.
"Unnie, why are you here?"
During the short break after observation class ended, Sihyeon toddled over and asked. Behind her, the kids were still murmuring. Whether they had a parent with them or not, every single one of them made a point of looking our way at least once.
"Why am I here? I came for observation day, obviously. You were listening so hard in class, Sihyeon. Total model student."
"That's not what I was asking…"
When I teased her, she scrunched up her eyes a little, looking sulky. Jaejun, standing beside her, added a word of his own.
"Uncle was bored coming alone, so he asked her to come with him."
"Uncle did? But how did you even know there was an observation day? I didn't say anything."
"Uncle knows everything."
Sihyeon may have deliberately kept it to herself, but once we were actually here, she didn't seem to mind. If anything, she looked like she was happy about it. What a dishonest little thing. Even while she pretended otherwise, her shoulders seemed to lift a little every time her friends snuck glances in our direction.
We were chatting like that for a moment when someone approached from the side, looking hesitant.
It was a small girl — shorter and smaller than Sihyeon, with a timid air about her.
She looked back and forth between Sihyeon, Jaejun, and me, then launched straight into an introduction.
"I-I'm… Sihyeon's desk partner, Lee Hyeji…"
She was so nervous she even gulped mid-sentence. There was really no need to greet us while trembling that hard.
Still, when a kid mustered up that much courage to introduce herself, you couldn't exactly say you hadn't asked or just stand there staring blankly. Only the absolute worst people would do that — people like the viewers in my stream chat, maybe.
I was a little flustered, but I smiled and answered with a warm, "Oh, right, right — so you're Sihyeon's desk partner Hyeji," and she lit up with a bright smile and started chattering away. Her own parents were too busy to come today, and Sihyeon had said nobody was coming for her either, so Sihyeon had been lying, and on and on and on…
Scratch the timid part. This kid talked a lot…
I'd heard that even a high-energy puppy begging its owner to play all day had nothing on an elementary schooler, and sure enough, that was true. Just listening was enough to drain the life right out of me.
But listening to Hyeji wasn't the end of it. Just as she'd gotten a decent amount of talking done, another kid appeared.
"Hello! I'm Kim Hanbyeol from Starlight Apartments, Building 102, Unit 1303!"
A boy who delivered a vigorous bow from the waist and freely announced his full home address to the world. Behind him, a middle-aged man who looked like his father was smiling helplessly, as if to say there was no stopping this kid.
And after that, well — more of the same. What he was good at, what he and Sihyeon had done in class, and so on and so forth…
"Sihyeon's quite the social butterfly, huh."
"Yeah, haha…"
Kim Jaejun managed an awkward smile. He looked like he'd had just as much energy sucked out of him as I had. He'd only ever heard about this through Sihyeon's stories — seeing it in person was a first. All things considered, it was a good thing. He'd realized that Sihyeon's friendships at school were going smoothly.
But Sihyeon gave a small snort, as if to say that wasn't quite right.
"We're not that close. They all just came over to look at Unnie."
"Huh?"
"The kids. Normally I only hang out with Hyeji. They're just acting all friendly because they saw you, Unnie."
So that was it. I'd been wondering why the kids kept introducing themselves while staring at me.
I was gently patting the head of a huffing Sihyeon as she turned away when—
"Hello. I'm Sihyeon's homeroom teacher."
Even the teacher who'd been running class came over and introduced herself.
"Don't tell me — you too, Teacher?"
"Pardon?"
"Ah, just talking to myself."
To her credit, the teacher was an adult — she didn't dump excessive personal information the way the kids had, sticking to what was necessary.
"Sihyeon is an excellent student. She pays close attention in class, and she has real leadership — she keeps the other kids in line beautifully…"
Whether it was a side effect of hearing her own praise right in front of her, Sihyeon's ears turned red in real time.
It was possible the teacher was only saying nice things because parents were present, but looking at her reaction, it didn't sound like a lie.
We exchanged a bit of small talk with the teacher as well. Most of it centered on Sihyeon's life at school.
"I've met her uncle before… but this young lady here — if I may ask…"
The teacher turned her gaze to me and asked carefully. For a moment, I hesitated over how to answer.
Officially, I was just a neighborhood unnie she knew — and that hardly seemed like enough of a relationship to justify showing up for observation day.
While I was still hesitating, the teacher raised her voice as if she'd figured it out.
"Ah, so you're his girlfriend! That's why you came along to see his niece?"
"Excuse me?"
The teacher's voice had been loud enough that the scattered gazes gathered back on us. Girlfriend? The guy must be pretty capable, I'm jealous — this time the whispering came more from the parents than the kids.
"Ah, n-no. That's not it. This person is just… an acquaintance of mine."
"Oh my, I got ahead of myself. I'm so sorry."
Jaejun scrambled to clean up the situation a beat too late, and the teacher apologized for her misunderstanding as well.
And through all of that, Sihyeon stood with her arms crossed and a serious expression, muttering to herself.
"You never know how things might turn out between a man and a woman…"
"What was that, Sihyeon?"
When I spoke up, she nodded and answered.
"Unnie, I'm in favor."
In favor of what?
No matter how many times I asked, Sihyeon only smiled and gave me no answer at all.
"There's a post about it?"
Following my viewers' directions, I slowly read through the post in question.
It wasn't all that different from the usual sighting reports. The kind of gushing praise post that made your face burn just skimming it — me walking in, everyone present going blank with shock.
"A vlog… I'll think about it, yeah."
Yu Sia had already mentioned that, now that my face was public, it might not be a bad idea to try filming something like a vlog sometime.
If it was coming up in the live stream too, the demand was clearly there — so I'd give it some more thought before deciding.
Figuring there wouldn't be much else of note, I slowly scrolled down through the sighting post.
— But then the homeroom teacher said something strange. Something about Kayak-nim being the girlfriend of the person she came with…
"Cough — cough — hack!"
I choked so hard I nearly died. There was a landmine. A landmine had been buried in there.
I already knew exactly how chat was going to react.
"Calm down, everyone. It's all slander…"