Third-Year Debut (2)
I was heading for the cafeteria with the popular kids from my class when the stares came pouring in from every direction. Again.
"That's him, right?"
"Oh—that senior? That's the senior?"
"I heard his girlfriend is that person."
"Seriously. Flipped his whole life in one shot."
Ahem. Attention like this was a bit much for a kid who'd spent his school life quietly frozen out.
Worse, the trio planted right beside me and the crowd multiplying by the second had driven Franc far off to the side, and that only made me more anxious.
And why were Han Go-eun and the class president still latched onto my arms? Let go.
I gave my arms a timid little shake, the coward's version of let go, and neither of them so much as twitched an eyebrow. Let go already!
The school cafeteria could be reached through the corridors linking the first and third floors of the main building, with orders taken at each entrance. As a rule, the first and second floors used the first-floor corridor and the third and fourth used the third-floor one, so even when the entrances got a little crowded the passages themselves stayed roomy. Today, for some reason, the third-floor corridor was packed to bursting.
The building was modern and immaculately kept, and the skybridge leading to the cafeteria was wide enough for seven people to walk abreast. So why were there so many humans?!
"Ugh! Why are there so many people?!"
"Uuuugh~ I-I think everybody flooded up to the third floor."
Shoved by the crowd, Han Go-eun plastered herself against me mid-grumble, and the class president pressed in tight against my side with a tearful face. The fresh, youthful scent of girls my own age came rushing up my nose. Both of them were about five-foot-three, a good four inches shorter than me, so their hair brushed my nose, and against my arm and my chest there was a subtle, unmistakable volume...
Ah. Padding.
Anyway, I dragged my attention off whatever shampoo or perfume was tickling my nose and looked for Kim Chang-hyun and Cho Min-ho, who'd come with us—only to find them already gone, swallowed by the crowd.
The jam had felt wrong for a while. The cafeteria was enormous; there was no reason for a corridor to fill up like this. So why was it blocked? Curious, I pushed Spatial Perception past the corridor and saw the kids at the entrance dawdling like cholesterol caked inside a vein, narrowing the path on purpose.
It might have been pure self-consciousness, but the ones causing this traffic jam up ahead seemed to be loitering instead of going in, just to get a look at me. Better to force my way through than stay wedged in this crowd. And this had absolutely nothing to do with Han Go-eun and the class president clinging to me, or with my dick starting to stir at their scent. Absolutely nothing.
"Han Go-eun. Class president."
"Hm?"
"Whaaat?"
"Hold on tight."
"Huh? Eeeek?!"
"Kyaa."
Mana Mode
Careful not to let anyone fall and get hurt, I set my forearm against the back of the kid in front of me and started to push, feeding in the force a little at a time. Screams burst from up ahead.
"Aaah! Who's pushing?!"
"Stop shoving!"
"I-I'm getting squished flaaat!"
Don't worry. The jam will clear any second.
I kept Spatial Perception sweeping for anyone about to topple and pushed in a steady rhythm, like a tug-of-war, until the kids poured into the cafeteria in a rush. The blockage cleared in an instant, like a clogged drain finally giving way, and the relief went all the way down.
Kids were sprawled here and there, and every last one of them had been a ringleader of the entrance jam. Even as their friends hauled them up, they couldn't take their eyes off me. Ugh, these little bastards. Walking public nuisances, the lot of them.
Ignoring the flinches as they caught sight of my eyes glowing a vivid blue, I took Han Go-eun and the class president—both half-dangling off me—by the arms and set them properly on their feet.
"You okay?"
"Auuu. I'm fiiine. But Seoha, you're really strong?"
"Suri, you're stating the obvious. Seoha's an ability user."
"Oh riiight~ That's true, isn't it?"
No. Even an ability user shouldn't be able to put out this kind of strength if all they had was a detection type.
At Han Go-eun's jab, Su Yu-ri went ehehe, stuck her tongue out a little, and lightly smacked her own head with her palm—a gesture that somehow called a puppy to mind. Suri, though. A nickname?
I ignored the kids already seated, who'd frozen mid-bite to stare at me, and walked to the ticket machine for a meal ticket. Cho Min-ho and Kim Chang-hyun caught up a step behind.
"Whoa, I've been at this school forever and I've never seen the corridor jam up like today! Homin, you okay?"
Kim Chang-hyun fussed at full volume while straightening his slightly twisted uniform, and behind him Cho Min-ho let out a deep sigh and fixed his own clothes. Homin had to be a nickname.
"I-I thought I was gonna suffocate. Why was it so packed?"
"Well~ there's really only one reason, don't you think?"
Kim Chang-hyun grinned like it was obvious and looked at me.
Cho Min-ho seemed quiet and introverted; Kim Chang-hyun, a lively mood-maker. More than that, Kim Chang-hyun stood a solid six feet, while Cho Min-ho beside him was about the class president's height, so somehow—from personality all the way to appearance—they fit together in a strange way. Completely different in looks and temperament, and that was exactly why they matched. Just like Han Go-eun and the class president.
Come to think of it, Kim Chang-hyun called Cho Min-ho by a nickname, and Han Go-eun did the same with the class president.
"You two friends?"
"Yeah. Ball-buddies, from elementary straight through to now!"
"Auu, seriously! Stop using embarrassing words like that!"
"Huh? We're ball-buddies, so I say ball-buddies. If I don't call ball-buddies ball-buddies, what am I supposed to call them?"
Told to stop, Kim Chang-hyun only doubled down, and Han Go-eun lit up with fury.
"There's a word for that! Bosom friends!"
"Bosom... gah, that's cringe!"
Kim Chang-hyun wore an imp's grin and made a show of brushing the goosebumps off his arm, while a flushed Han Go-eun smacked his shoulder. Cho Min-ho and the class president laughed at his theatrical dying act. A popular-kid group, in the most literal sense.
Having delivered a tidy bit of justice, Han Go-eun studied the menu at the ticket machine.
"Seoha, what are you getting? They say this month's crab-sauce spaghetti is really good."
"The Sicilian pasta's getting rave reviews too! And the garlic-ginger sirloin steak is supposed to be delicious, even if the smell's a bit much!"
"I'll..."
I was about to answer the class president when Kim Chang-hyun cut in with a grin.
"Hey, hey. Seoha's Team Recommended Menu."
"And how would you know that?"
"Because I've watched him eat nothing but the recommended menu, every single time. For the record, we're Team Recommended Menu too."
With that, he wedged himself between Han Go-eun and the class president and tapped the recommended menu three times.
"Then we'll head in first."
"H-hey? Wait, wait a second!"
"Don't leave us behiiind~."
Still undecided, the two of them jabbed frantically at the menu screen, chased after us, and glared at Kim Chang-hyun with wounded faces.
"Why the heated stares?"
"We hadn't even picked yet, and you just left!"
"Just order whatever you want. What's there to agonize over?"
"Because there's only so much room in a stomach! You think we're pigs like you?! And if you two go off on your own, our seats disappear!"
"Huuuh? What are you talking about."
"Don't you see the kids behind us? The second the seats beside Seoha and across from him open up, they'll pounce!"
I turned at Han Go-eun's quiet, glaring hiss and found, just as she'd said, unfamiliar faces loitering around me. Kim Chang-hyun saw them too, grinned, and said it.
"Heh, didn't see that one coming!"
"Aaah~ okay, okay, sorry, sorry."
The utter lack of apology must have set her off, because Han Go-eun launched into a machine-gun interrogation. Under the barrage of words Kim Chang-hyun waved both hands with a fed-up look, but there was no stopping her once she'd gotten going.
Bickering like that, the two of them looked good together—like a couple. Objectively, someone taller than me, better-looking, and easygoing suited the spot beside Han Go-eun far better than I did. She'd confessed and gotten rejected, and he didn't even seem to care. Why had she confessed to me in the first place? Just testing the waters?
Today's recommended menu was a single round rice ball, herbal five-color gimbap, and tempura udon. I carried the neatly plated food to an empty seat, and the kids from other classes who'd been trailing us like ducklings immediately piled into the seats around us. Then they started leaning in to listen, or stealing glances.
Hmm. Was this what celebrities dealt with every time they stepped outside?
I ate quietly, without saying much. Beside me Kim Chang-hyun drove the conversation, Han Go-eun needled him, and the class president and Cho Min-ho giggled at the pair of them. Just a simple meal, and yet this atmosphere—was this a different world from the one I'd been living in?
When was the last time I'd eaten in a mood like this? Thinking back, the end of it had been middle school, talking anime and games with the kids I'd called friends. From third year of middle school on, my sister's Spartan cram-drilling had sent me straight home the moment school ended, and even on holidays I'd been shut in the house for her private lessons. After I entered high school, my sister was so outstanding that I'd volunteered for quiet ostracism and become a loner. Nearly three years, then.
I was snickering at Han Go-eun and Kim Chang-hyun, still bickering over their food, when someone came up and stood behind me.
"Senior Jung Seoha?"
"Yeah?"
Senior. In all the time since I'd enrolled, not once had anyone called me senior...!
Moved by the young female voice, I turned and found a second-year in a student council epaulette—the student council president. Behind her stood a first-year boy and girl, vice presidents, wearing the same insignia.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your meal. I came because I have a request for you, Senior."
The president smiled brightly as she spoke, and somewhere along the way Han Go-eun and Kim Chang-hyun had stopped talking to watch the two of us. They hadn't finished eating. I ought to give up the seat.
The moment I stood, every eye in the surrounding seats swung onto me. Something about it was straight-up horror.
"Finish up. I'll head out first."
"Ah... okay."
Pretending not to notice the oddly disappointed looks from Han Go-eun and the class president, I followed the now-beaming student council president out of the cafeteria.
"I'll show you to the student council room."
I already knew where it was, but she took the lead on purpose, stepping lightly toward the second-floor office, and she was cute enough that I followed without a word.
The president was barely five feet tall, and slender—no, genuinely frail. Add waist-length twintails, a uniform tailored to her frame, and black over-knee socks with a cat's face drawn at the knee. If you took the little sister of one's imagination and made her real, wouldn't she look exactly like this? A girl cute enough to bring Jung So-hee to mind.
The two vice presidents behind her were just ordinary boys and girls. Which is to say, ordinary pretty boys and pretty girls. At our school, ordinary was a synonym for beautiful. Except for me.
Anyway, when we reached the student council room, the president opened an old-fashioned door carved with a pine—the school tree—and smiled, gesturing me inside.
I stepped in as invited. The room was the size of a regular classroom: one wall entirely taken up by bookshelves, and a U-shaped conference table in the center. The shelves were packed with neatly organized files and books, working documents lay spread across the table, and the floor was a messy scatter of papers of every kind.
And ten student council officers. Ten people in council epaulettes sat working with hollow eyes, and among them was the previous president. Gaunt, with an invalid's complexion and a faint smile, he looked as if he might fade out of the room at any moment.
Was he really all right? I'd heard the president before last had worked himself into the hospital on the workflow system my sister had built, and this one didn't look healthy either. The other officers weren't much better.
"Senior Jung Seoha. Please don't just stand there—come over here and sit."
I'd been looking over the officers, four boys and six girls, when the current president took my hand and guided me to an empty seat that looked like the place of honor. The moment I sat, the officers stopped what they were doing and stared.
The president and her officers regarded me in silence for a moment. I thought about why they'd called me. Honestly, I could guess what they meant to ask, but I pretended I couldn't. I could barely handle my own affairs as it was; I had no interest in taking on a nuisance.
Franc, who'd followed me out of the cafeteria, was poking around every corner of the room, and I was perfectly content to pass the time admiring that moon-round ass of hers and the pink triangle nestled between her thighs—until the current president, skittish as a kitten, started to fidget. She clearly wanted me to open my mouth and break the ice. I hate troublesome things. And the ones in a hurry were them, not me.
Getting to the cafeteria had eaten some time, and watching the others chatter over lunch had eaten more; nearly thirty minutes were already gone. Lunch was fifty minutes. Ten left until the warning bell. If they didn't get to the point soon, lunch would be over.
The silence filling the room must have struck her as strange, because Franc turned toward me and tilted her head. The fantastic shift of those enormous breasts nearly broke my composure, but I held the line with everything I had.
Faced with that unhurried picture, the previous president and the current one exchanged a look, and the previous president—illness plain on his face—spoke first.
"As expected of Senior Siha's family. You have impressed me, in more ways than one."
"...Not at all. I heard you've had a difficult time because of my sister. Are you all right?"
We were the same year. Why was he speaking to me so formally? And I'd gone and matched him without thinking.
"Hahaha. I certainly don't look all right, I'll grant you. But I have withdrawn from the front line and entered a recovery, so I expect to be well again before long."
"That's a relief. My sister surpasses ordinary people in so many ways. It must have been overwhelming to keep up with her."
"Huhu. It is the legacy of Senior Siha, the first student council president in the history of Euihan High School to serve three years in office. I consider it a valuable experience. And compared to the president before last, I am on the fortunate side."
I already knew the story, so I gave a small nod, and the previous president set his hands on the table and laced his fingers. The posture belonged on a conglomerate chairman.
"The 79th student council president, having heard of Senior Siha from her middle school days, passed the presidency to her the moment she enrolled—more a dumping than a handover—and stepped down on the spot."
So the twintail president was the 83rd. I glanced at her, and the previous president went on, wearing a smile the sickness hadn't left.
"It is only natural that the younger brother of so remarkable a president should himself be remarkable. Miss Lee Yu-mi—that matter, if you would, to Mr. Jung Seoha."
"Yes. The request I mentioned at the cafeteria is..."
She'd taken the signal and was about to launch into the request from her seat, so I raised a hand and stopped her. I had never once said I would hear her out.
"First, a request to join the student council. Second, a request for help. Third, a commission—or a solicitation."
I swept a look over the officers, eyes gone round as they sucked in a breath, and kept speaking to the president, whose dismay was written all over her face. It was an official setting. She was younger than me, but I would keep my speech polite.
"If the request falls under any of those three, I will not accept it. The first is a personal matter of mine, and as for the second and third, I believe you already know the reasons."
Sure enough, it had been one of those three. The current president closed her mouth and looked at me with a puppy's face. Before I'd become an ability user they wouldn't so much as show their faces; if they only approached after I awakened and started drawing attention, the reason was obvious.
"And more than that, if I am being honest, I have little desire to associate with people who summon someone and launch straight into a request without so much as an introduction."
At that, both presidents wore the look of people who'd just realized a mistake, and the officers around them finally stirred, flustered.
"I-I'm so sorry. I'm Lee Yu-mi, serving as the 83rd student council president. And this is Senior Moon Soo-cheon, the 82nd president, who kindly advises and consults for our council. And this is..."
I didn't need the officers' names too. I listened through the introductions of all ten officers in the room and both vice presidents, then offered a slight bow of my own.
"Jung Seoha, third year."
My manners were a little suspect, but they could chalk it up to an accidental slip. I'd been flustered in more ways than one.
Receiving the greeting, the current president spoke in an earnest tone.
"Could you at least hear us out? This isn't for the student council's own benefit. It's also for Euihan High School, and for the students enrolled here."
"I expect it will be a request I cannot grant, but if it is only a matter of listening, I will do so."
Besides—this was not how high schoolers talked.
The current president looked into my eyes, made a tearful face, and began to speak through a mouth so small I wondered if food could even fit in it. If I boiled the nearly four minutes of near-speech down to a single paragraph, it came to this.
"Please join our student council."
"I decline."
"Uuugh."
I refused without a moment's hesitation, and she braced her hands on the desk and bowed her head in defeat. The twintails swayed. Cute... Franc would suit them too, wouldn't she? A mature woman in girlish twintails—the gap would be quite alluring.
I set the stray thought aside and gave my reason.
"Receiving so much attention all at once is a little overwhelming, but unlike my sister, I am an ordinary person whose only distinction is that I awakened. The two of you must know what kind of school life I led these past two years."
"But just by joining the student council, you'd bring all sorts of good to the school!"
"Isn't our school motto Give your all to the duty in your charge? I believe putting my name on the student council and nothing more would go against the motto the Chairman himself proclaimed."
If I hadn't awakened and were still an ordinary person, I would have accepted without a second word. A name on the student council alone would have smoothed the road to a job. But I didn't want the attention now. I had too much to hide, and drawing eyes would do me no good at all. Half a day of it had already taught me just how troublesome being watched could be.
The current president whimpered like a small dog, then barely managed a counterargument.
"Urk. B-but helping the student council is also part of a student's duty..."
"As I understand it, that falls under a student's autonomous rights, and a request may be refused. To begin with, I understand that most of what we call a student's duty consists of rights, not obligations. So I decline."
"Uuuugh."
This time I refused without even hearing her out, and the officers began to murmur, faces troubled. She must have felt the firmness in my voice; the president was making a truly tearful face when a sharply edged voice came from beside her.
"Does Senior Jung Seoha not love his alma mater?"
...And what was that supposed to mean? I looked toward the voice and found a girl in a secretary's armband staring straight at me. The color of her tie said she was a second-year, same as the president.
"What do you mean?"
"If Senior Jung Seoha so much as places his name on the student council roster, the council's prestige rises, and with it our school's name spreads. A school that has produced a renowned, capable ability user draws attention in any number of ways. That heightened honor means outstanding students will want to enroll, and it means sponsorship will come in from many quarters. Abundant sponsorship, in turn, makes possible all sorts of support that aids the students' studies. That support is also shared with the athletic clubs, which compete in meets and spread the school's name far and wide, and with the other clubs raising the school's reputation through their many activities. Members who receive such generous support will raise our alma mater's honor even higher. And then, drawn once more by that reputation, outstanding students from across the country will wish to enroll—a virtuous cycle. All of this, I am saying, comes to pass simply by Senior Jung Seoha placing his name with the student council."
That much was true. But if attention concentrated on me and my abilities were exposed, the fallout wasn't something I could casually allow. It would not end at merely putting my name down. And more than that, I didn't have any particular attachment to this school. My sister might like it; I didn't have many good memories of going here. I didn't even have a single friend.
This was actually convenient. I stood as I said it.
"Then let's just say I hate the school."
"Pardon?"
"Pardooon?!"
"Uh—uh."
I swept a cold look over the officers gaping at me, and spoke to the president.
"I made it clear from the start that I wouldn't be able to accept the request, and then I even added the reason—personal circumstances that make it hard for me to join. If you're still going to pressure me over right and wrong after all that, then let's call it hating the school. Because at this rate, I actually will."
"Ah! S-Senior!"
The secretary who'd spoken couldn't get another word out after her eyes met mine, and the cute president wore a face that could only be described as utterly at a loss. The officers went past murmuring into an uproar—some tearful at the sight of me, some angry, some simply dumbfounded.
Still green. Not one of the Alliance's deliberation commissioners had ever put their feelings on display that openly. You all had more to learn.
Honestly, it wasn't that I disliked the title of coming from the same student council as my sister. But I was still uneasy, and I still couldn't be sure. Whether the Alliance could protect an ability user's family with precognition. Whether a bodyguard dispatched by the government could be trusted. So I wanted, as much as possible, to keep to a life that moved only between home, school, and the Time River Building.
The previous president let out a small sigh, the face of a man who knew the whole thing had gone wrong from the very first step, and I left the student council room behind that sigh.
I was walking back toward the classroom when the warning bell for class rang.
"You having trouble understanding how I handled that?"
I glanced at Franc, hovering about three feet off the ground as she flew alongside me, gave her a small smile, and spoke.
"Remember yesterday, in Hwayeon's room? That bit of talk we had about our school's student council."
"That's what this is. If I put my name down, it means I'm an ability user with an outstanding detection ability, and someone with the administrative skill to actually function in the student council. Doesn't that lock in the formula that I'm a talent they have to grab and never let go? I don't want any more eyes on me than there already are."
I said it carefully, making sure the kids heading back to their own classrooms for class wouldn't catch my muttering, and Franc nodded, understanding written across her face.