The Unintended Performance
Perhaps worried about me collapsing yesterday, the class representative handed me a whole handful of chocolates first thing in the morning. Does she think chocolate is a cure-all for every ailment? She kept pulling them out of her bag—it was like watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As she gave them to me, she spoke with a slightly angry expression.
"You should have told me if you were sick."
Well, it’s not like I knew I was going to black out like that. Not knowing what to say, I just lowered my head in a gesture of contrition and stayed silent. The class representative closed her mouth, looking slightly sulky, and began to clean. I quietly joined in on the cleaning, too. That was the least I could do as an act of atonement.
After we finished cleaning, I stuffed all the chocolates she’d given me into my bag. Lately, it had been comfortable because Yoon Siwoo hadn't been trying to get close to me. If we accidentally made eye contact, his face would turn bright red and he’d run off somewhere else. I should have been the one being careful and avoiding him, but since he was doing it himself, I had fewer things to worry about, allowing me to pour all my attention into Sylvia.
Today, too, I confirmed that Sylvia’s ears were twitching, and as soon as class ended, I ran to the school store and bought a macaron. I handed it to her with a smile, just like always, but her reaction was a little different today.
"......Thank you."
Sylvia, who usually accepted the macarons with quite a bit of playfulness, was receiving it with a face that looked a little shy. It was a reaction that could only be described as a bullish signal! I could tell that the time until my "Sylvia Coin" skyrocketed wasn't far off. My emotions surged even more violently than yesterday. Because of that, I had to work hard to suppress the flames that were threatening to erupt. I can't go around burning my clothes!
I was so busy suppressing the flames for fear of burning my clothes that school was over before I knew it. Since I had a part-time job in the evening, I hurried home. I had some time left before the job, so I decided to wash up first. If it was a superpower demonstration, I’d be using my abilities in front of people, so I figured it was only polite to at least look clean since I was getting paid.
I opened the refrigerator to get dinner, but I was almost out of bean sprouts. It was a bit of an awkward amount to split. Normally, I would have divided even that much in half to last until tomorrow morning, but I was going to be rich today! I took out all the remaining sprouts and stir-fried them. Thanks to that, the fridge was completely empty.
The part-time job would end after 10:00 PM. The discount mart would be closed by then, but I could just buy some simple breakfast items at a 24-hour convenience store. If I had money, I could even afford the luxury of buying food at a convenience store. I could just go grocery shopping on my way back from school tomorrow.
After eating dinner, I spent some time blankly, and it was soon time to leave. I wondered what I should wear, but then I remembered the ad saying "Academy Student Discount," so I decided to just wear my uniform. For a student, a uniform is as good as a suit.
I arrived at the park, the meeting place. Just as I was taking out my phone to send a text saying I had arrived, someone spoke to me.
"You're Scarlet Evande, the one who sent the email, right?"
A man with a portly build addressed me. He didn't look that old, but his crown was already almost completely bald. My heart felt a sense of solemnity... I sympathized with him in my heart for already suffering from one of the things men fear most, and I nodded.
"I didn't think you'd be such a cute young lady. I'm lucky today."
I felt a bit sad at being called a "cute young lady." Yes, that’s how I look on the outside. A girl on the outside! But the inside is just an ordinary middle-aged man! The reality, which is far more terrifying than that of a detective who just became a child, is sad......
He said the demonstration site was a little way away from the park. As we walked there together, we adjusted the terms of our agreement. He asked if it would be okay to draw some blood if possible.
"Actually, I only said it was a demonstration, so you can refuse if you don't want to, but could you still find a way?"
The mention of drawing blood brought back old memories. I once went to donate blood, and the nurse poked the needle in the wrong place several times, leaving my arm looking like a rag. The next day, the entire arm where the needle had been was bruised blue, and when I went to school, the kids teased me as the "Devil of the Left Arm." Ever since then, I’ve had a bit of an aversion to having my blood drawn.
"Um, I don't really like things going into my body......"
"Hmm, if you don't want to, it can't be helped. Then, is it okay to touch your hands or take pictures?"
He must have been talking about my ability. Since it was a demonstration, I thought that much was doable, so I nodded. But it was a bit scary that he wanted to touch my hands when my ability was fire. It wouldn't matter if I used the Level 1 flame instead of the Level 2 flame that could burn things, though.
Following the man who was happy with my permission, we soon arrived at our destination. It was a motel. And one with a rather suggestive atmosphere, at that. I turned back with an "Eh?", and the man was scratching his head and smiling sheepishly.
"Ahaha, this was just the closest place, you see."
No matter how I looked at it, it seemed like a place a girl in a uniform shouldn't be entering with a bald, pot-bellied man. However, thinking that since I was a superpower user, I would never be forced into doing anything strange by an ordinary person, I just followed him inside. Should I be thankful it was an unmanned counter? If there had been people watching, I probably would have been reported immediately.
As I rode the elevator up with him, I started to wonder if I had volunteered for a very suspicious part-time job. I followed him into a room with a large bed. Without much thought, I drank the beverage from the cup he offered. Before long, for some reason, my mind started to get hazy, and as my vision blurred slightly, the man placed a tripod on the floor and set up a camera on it. And he would probably say, while filming me as I felt dizzy, "Shall we start with a self-introduction?"
"This is the room."
I was startled by the man's words and snapped out of my delusions. Because of what I had been imagining, the door in front of me looked like the entrance to hell. If anything happened, I’d have to land a Fire Punch and run away immediately. I gulped and followed the man as he opened the door and went inside.
"Oh, is that the young lady? She's totally cute!"
"Man, we're going to have a blast today!"
"That uniform, she's really an Aegis Academy student!"
Inside the room, five men were having a drinking party. Not just one, but several? I slowly turned my stiff neck in confusion to look at the man who had brought me. The man who had let me in and was standing by the door had already closed it and was grinning at me. He clicked the lock on the doorknob.
Click-
Some of the men were excited and started kneading my body. The other men were watching the spectacle with heated gazes. It was a scene that didn't feel very real. I just stared at their actions with hollow eyes.
"A flame that doesn't burn, what on earth is the principle behind it!"
"The state of the flame changes according to the emotional state, it's a type of superpower I've never seen before."
"Take pictures, take pictures! A mysterious ability like this needs to be captured and kept!"
I couldn't understand these men, who weren't even afraid to touch the flames coming from my body, or who were grabbing my hands to knead them and feel the difference compared to other parts, trying to figure out exactly where the flames were flowing from. I had breathed out flames as a threat because I thought I was being subjected to something terrible, and it had been like this ever since.
What the heck is this? I asked the bald man who had brought me, who seemed the least excited among the men, feeling bewildered.
"Um, excuse me, but who are you people?"
Their behavior, which couldn't be understood by the sensibilities of an ordinary person, made me curious about their identities. If this was the average for people in this world, I didn't have the confidence to live a normal life......
"Us? We used to work at a superpower research institute. We're just unemployed bums now."
"There was a fire at the institute, so we're enjoying a forced, long vacation until it's rebuilt."
"Everyone here is crazy about superpowers, but since we can't go to the institute, we never get a chance to see them. We're just satisfying our pent-up desires by calling in superpower users like this to watch their abilities. Academy students have stronger abilities than most people, so we wanted to see one at least once. But everyone here has plenty of money, so no one ever comes even when we call, so we're really happy that you came today, young lady."
To the man's question of "Everyone's like that, right?", the others laughed and chimed in, thanking me. At their request to see if I could show them a flame that didn't just "not burn," I told them to step back for a moment and let out a small Level 2 flame from my hand. I felt like I could control the intensity now that I’d been using it. If it were like the beginning, the sprinklers would have gone off as soon as I breathed fire.
Even though it was small, their eyes lit up at the heat they could feel. Someone took a picture, and someone else took out a piece of paper and wrote something down. When one of them asked if he could touch it once, I retorted by asking if he’d lost his mind, and they all giggled and teased him. Their faces were flushed from the alcohol. But it didn't feel like they were just drunk; it felt like they were drunk on the atmosphere. I felt like I was enjoying myself along with them in that atmosphere where everyone was savoring the moment. A smile naturally appeared on my lips, just like when I used to enjoy drinking with my friends. And a calm flame burned from my body.
Huh? I tried to control it, but for some reason, the flame wouldn't go out. It was similar to the Level 1 flame in that it didn't burn anything, but it felt different from the flame that burned with anger, which I could control so that it wouldn't appear. Maybe it was similar to the flame that came out slightly when I was excited when I first met Sylvia. But unlike then, this flame was coming out solely due to positive emotions. Perhaps I was feeling the emotion of "fun" for the first time since coming to this world.
"What's wrong, young lady, is there something making you angry?"
Perhaps because of what I’d said earlier about flames reacting to anger, the men looked at me in confusion. I shook my head with a smile. And I shouted with a laugh.
"This is a flame that comes out when I'm in a good mood!"
At my words, the men were slightly surprised, then burst into loud laughter together.
"Everyone, the young lady says she's in a good mood!"
"Hahaha, that's an honor."
"Since you're in a good mood, we'll give you a blowout service!"
I shouted that, and drunk on the atmosphere, I played around by striking various poses in front of the men. The superpower demonstration had turned into a talent show at some point. Everyone cheered as if the tricks I showed off while wrapped in flames looked quite impressive. I felt like the random thoughts that had been filling my head had disappeared, at least a little bit.
*
Perhaps because we played for so long, my whole body was soaked in sweat. The "uncles" (they told me to call them that) said they would play more, so I received the promised money and left the room. As I stepped outside the building, the cool night air chilled my sweat, and my body shivered. I was stretching and enjoying the coolness when I saw someone standing in front of the building. A man with white hair, who stood out at a glance. Yoon Siwoo was looking at me with cold eyes.