Third-Year Debut (3)

When I got back to the classroom, the noise cut off dead, and every kid turned to look at me at once.

Heh. A reaction I still can't get used to.

Su Yu-ri, the class president, had been talking with Han Go-eun and the others. The moment she saw me she came darting over, eyes glittering.

"Hey, hey. What was the favor? Was it the student council president inviting you to join?"

"Yeah."

"For real!? Wow, lucky you~. I'm so jealous~."

"And I turned it down."

"Huh?!"

I left the stunned Su Yu-ri where she was and went back to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my seat. She came running after me in a fluster, with Han Go-eun and Kim Chang-hyun close behind. Even Kang So-ra, who'd been sprawled face-down on her desk, lifted her head and started staring at me like none of it made sense.

Before long Su Yu-ri crouched in front of my desk, chin propped on the edge.

"Why'd you turn it down? It's the student council. Coming out of our school's student council is a line on your résumé that even the big corporations respect."

I knew that. That was why I'd turned it down.

"It's personal, so I can't say. Sorry."

"Aww~."

She wanted the reason, and she showed no sign of backing off. It would have been convenient if someone with a good eye guessed it was because my girlfriend was the boss of Time River.

"You joined Time River, so that's why, riiight~?"

...Whoa. Kang So-ra's got an eye for this too? Han Go-eun backed her up.

"Since Yoo Hwayeon unni is Seoha's lover, he doesn't really need a student council officer title. And Seoha's an ability user himself."

Cho Min-ho, sitting quietly in the seat behind me, spoke up.

"Well, they say student council work isn't easy enough to do alongside school. And once you're a member, there's a minimum grade they require... Seoha's an ability user, so I figured it'd be hard to juggle council work, ability-user work, and school."

Han Go-eun cut him off, sharp.

"Idiot. Even if Seoha's an ability user, he's a minor. He can't go to the Phase World."

"R-right. Sorry. I forgot..."

I glanced at Cho Min-ho fidgeting in embarrassment, then spoke to Su Yu-ri.

"Honestly, the reason Min-ho gave is a big part of it. Sometimes I have to head straight to Time River the moment school ends, and like Go-eun said, I don't particularly need a student council officer title. More than anything, my grades aren't great."

For some reason Han Go-eun flushed at that and looked away, and Cho Min-ho went red too, smiling at me.

...I don't know about Han Go-eun, but a guy grinning at me like that makes the violence want to come out.

"Oh, wait, thinking about it, this is actually so unfair? Did this bastard Seoha save the country in a past life or what? A detection ability the government and the Alliance are both drooling over, a mom who's insanely pretty, an older sister who's a straight-up goddess, and he's dating the woman ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠they say is the prettiest in the country — and that beauty is a physical reinforcement ability user ranked third in Korea? Whew~. Jealous. I'm jealous."

The kids around us laughed and chimed in at Kim Chang-hyun laying his greed and his honesty bare.

"Heh. Jealous?"

Remembering how bragging like that in Japanese anime always gets you heckled, I swept my hair back at the temple and gave them a smug little heh. The guys' faces curdled.

Heh heh. This is fun.

Meanwhile Han Go-eun, the class president, and the other girls were blushing again... Not that I'd been aiming for that reaction.

After class, on the way to catch the subway, I spoke to Franc.

"The girls at our school are seriously weird."

"What? What's strange about them?"

"What's there to like about me that makes them blush? You saw it too, Franc. I laughed like I was showing off on purpose, and they still went red."

If they were only coming at me for my ability, that reaction wouldn't be normal. They ought to be puffing me up with the fakest faces they could manage. That was what I'd meant by asking, but Franc...

"Seoha is simply that wonderful. Of course the girls fall for you."

...and left me stunned.

Right. Franc had the rose-colored glasses welded on. I'd forgotten. Since we were on the subject, I got curious how I looked to her and asked.

"Where exactly am I so wonderful? Even my sister said I've got an ordinary face."

"She did? Lady Siha said that?"

Still putting a title on my sister. Was yesterday that much of a shock? I'd been a little shaken too, but I hadn't thought it was that frightening.

A train pulled in just then. I boarded, took an empty seat, and Franc settled onto my lap, caught my shoulders, and started studying my face.

"Hmm."

I let my own eyes drift down, stealing glances at Franc's nipples and the cleft of her breasts. She blushed a little, but she didn't cover herself. Bit by bit, she seemed to be entering the stage of enjoying my gaze.

A welcome development.

If Franc ever found a way to put clothes on, this particular pleasure would disappear. Then again, with Spatial Perception, it probably wouldn't matter.

Anyway, after examining my face for a long while, Franc smiled, soft and bright, and began.

"Bangs grown long enough to reach just beneath your eyebrows, and straight hair falling all the way to your neck. Your eyebrows are about as thick as a little finger — straight brows, just dark enough, and nicely shaped. Those sharp, distinct eyes have a blue light spilling from them, which makes them feel mysterious. Your nose sits neither too low nor too high, pleasant to look at, and your lips are just full enough, cute in a good way. Your skin is clean without a single blemish, and there's nowhere the shading sits too heavy. Flawless skin, an oval face — taken all together, you look cute!"

I don't think Franc had ever spoken at that length except when she was telling me about the past. Looking oddly satisfied, she smiled a small pleased smile, sat down beside me, and hugged my arm.

More to the point, isn't that the trap? Each part looks fine on its own, but put them together and you get a busted face.

Whatever. Even if my sister and everyone else call me ordinary and ugly, as long as Hwayeon and Franc think I'm wonderful, I don't care.

Anyway, I'd boarded the subway without thinking, and it was taking far too long. Twenty minutes gone, and I was only about halfway?

People getting on and off kept things busy, and Franc, apparently uneasy about being naked on the train, kept pressing herself against me, which was a little... inconvenient. Mostly the crotch.

Should I get off now and take a taxi?

There'd already been a commotion earlier, on the way down into the station.

I'd come down with Mana Vision on, and people passing by flinched at my eyes and stopped dead. One person halted to look at me, and the person beside them stopped with a puzzled face to look at my eyes, and the one beside them, and the one beside them... The freezing spread like a contagion until the passage was blocked and people started yelling at one another.

Good thing I'd killed Mana Vision at once and jumped onto a train that arrived just then. Otherwise I'd have been trapped in the crowd with no way out. Taking that many stares from strangers is pretty exhausting. A few of them had even raised their phone cameras.

Maybe I should just keep Mana Vision off where there are a lot of people. Whether they take me for an ability user or not, it doesn't seem to matter anymore.

Some people boast about being ability users, but in eighteen years I'd never once seen one with my own eyes. In a Korea of over fifty million there are only about a hundred and forty thousand ability users, so you don't run into one easily. Put that way, I could see why the kids at school were so interested.

Just then Franc let out a small gasp. I looked ahead and saw a neatly dressed young mother boarding, a baby held to her chest in a carrier.

"Oh. How cute!"

Franc followed her to the seat in front of me and stared at the baby in a helpless daze. It really was cute.

Dad's hospital is small, but it's a general hospital, so it has an obstetrics ward. I remember thinking the newborns there looked genuinely strange. Like ugly little monkeys, maybe? And yet this baby, wrapped in a blanket, wasn't crying — just babbling and rubbing her face, cute enough that the thought came on its own.

"Eunji~. A handsome oppa is watching you~."

A handsome oppa? This mother knows how to look at a person. The baby called Eunji squealed and broke into a bright smile at her mother's words, genuinely cu— huh?

"Cough, cough."

Afraid her spit might land on the baby, the mother quickly pulled out a handkerchief and covered her mouth. The cough stopped soon enough. She tucked the handkerchief away and went back to stroking the baby, playing with her.

Hmm. Something about the mother felt wrong.

Franc was smiling brightly beside her, watching the baby, and showed no sign of having caught what I sensed.

Hmm... Ma'am, excuse me for a second.

I apologized only in my head, then swept her from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet with Spatial Perception.

"Ah."

"...? What's wrong?"

Franc came over and asked — my expression must have hardened — but I didn't answer. I stared straight through the young woman's lungs.

"Cancer."

"What?"

"I think that baby's mother has lung cancer."

"Ah!"

It was pointless, but I turned Mana Vision back on and compared my lungs to hers. Sure enough, a small lump sat in her left lung.

The mother — the baby's mother — must have caught my eyes. She flinched, and her body went rigid.

Should I tell her or not...? She doesn't seem to know. Better to tell her, right?

The announcement said we'd soon arrive at Yeouido Station. I stood and approached her, and she startled further, pulling the baby in as if to shield her.

Hey... react like that and I look like the bad guy...

The baby seemed to pick up something strange in her mother's behavior and started to fuss, so I made my voice as gentle as I could.

"Ajum... noona."

"Y-yes?"

She looked to be in her mid-twenties. Ajumma — ma'am, auntie — would have annoyed her. Noona was safer.

"Please go to a general hospital and get examined as soon as you can."

"Yes?"

"You understand, right? If you want to see the baby — Eunji — grow up, get married, and hold a grandchild, you have to live a long time."

"Yes...?"

She kept repeating "yes?" like a parrot, so I shut off Mana Sieve and spoke again.

"You really do have to go. All right?"

"Ah."

I watched the doors open as the train stopped, took one last look at the cute baby named Eunji, and stepped off.

The train soon began to move. When I looked back, the mother was staring at me through the window, eyes wide.

The subway left the station and vanished from sight, but Spatial Perception told me she was still looking my way, murmuring to herself.

Convenient, being able to read the shape of a mouth. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠turned my eyes from the train, already shot out beyond my detection range, and spoke.

"Luckily, she says she's going to the hospital."

Franc, who'd been gazing after the vanished train beside me, broke into a bright smile and threw her arms around my neck.

"Seoha, that was wonderful!"

"Huh? So I wasn't wonderful before?"

"You were wonderful before too, but just now you were especially wonderful!"

Franc's praise was about to send my cheekbones straight to heaven.

"To that baby, and to the mother's family, you're a benefactor, aren't you? The mother is going to be terribly grateful to you."

Feeling awkward, I headed for Exit 4, waving a hand.

"Enough. I didn't do it hoping for that."

But I felt good. I'd told her without much thought, and hearing Franc say it made me feel as if I'd protected a whole household.

Then a woman in a suit passing by flinched at me suddenly waving and eyed me with open wariness, and the mood sank again.

Stepping into the Time River Building, I noticed the passes hanging from people's necks and belatedly remembered I hadn't gotten one from Hwayeon.

What now? The only number I had for anyone at the Time River Building was Hwayeon's, and she wasn't inside. Neither was Cha Soyoung. My sister didn't seem to have come today either. The only person I knew in the building was Director Lee Hyeryeong.

Through Spatial Perception I watched Director Lee Hyeryeong on the eighteenth floor, buried under a mountain of paperwork, and scratched my head. Was it all right to drag someone that busy away from her work?

Call Hwayeon instead? I didn't even know where she was, and a phone going off in the middle of work would only be a nuisance...

I paced at the entrance, turning it over, then decided to go in anyway.

Yesterday my sister had told me not to make Hwayeon lose face, so I ought to handle it myself. Calling her and summoning her would feel nice for me, but it would make a wreck of Hwayeon's dignity, wouldn't it?

I turned Mana Vision back on... Ugh, what a pain. Leave it on and it simply stays on, but switching it off and on kept nagging at me. From now on I'd skip public transit and take taxis.

The moment I stepped inside, people began to look my way, one after another. A glance that started as what's a student doing here alone? caught on my eyes and couldn't leave them, and whoever noticed that person looked at me too — and so on. I'll spare you the rest.

This was a raid team headquarters. They must have seen plenty of ability users, so I couldn't understand why they kept staring. Oh. Was it the uniform? Like I was walking in declaring, I am Yoo Hwayeon's young boyfriend!

Approaching the information desk, I spotted the receptionist from yesterday, the noona named Kim Ji-soo, and headed her way.

"Welco— oh! Mr. Jung Seoha? Welcome. How may I help you?"

Good thing she remembered me. But the moment she said my name, everyone turned to look at me at once!

Oh, come on, why?! Stop looking! Just— agh!

"Hello. I still haven't received a pass. What should I do?"

I tuned in to the murmuring around me.

"Is that so? One moment, please. I'll issue a temporary pass. If you stop by General Affairs on the eighteenth floor, you can have the official one made."

Smiling wide and being excessively kind, the receptionist noona snapped my face with a Polaroid and, in under a minute, whipped up a temporary ID and handed it over.

Fast.

"It's a one-time pass, so once you receive the official one, please put this in the shredder kept in each office!"

"Okay. Thank you."

"Receptionist Kim Ji-soo, at your service!"

I flinched at her suddenly announcing herself at full volume, then hung the disposable ID around my neck and walked to the elevator.

Good. I'd go see Director Lee Hyeryeong, pester her for anything useful, and kill time that way. Hwayeon would turn up eventually.

Hmm. Maybe I should send a text instead of just standing here. I had a feeling she'd gone to see Sophia off on an expedition, so if she checked the message she might at least call.

I stood in front of the elevator among people sneaking glances at me, typing a message to Hwayeon, when someone grabbed my shoulder from behind.

"Hey. This isn't a playground. What's a student doing— huh?"

"Huh?"

"Ugh. Earrings. On his face..."

The casual contact startled me once. The face I saw when I turned startled me twice.

Piercings in the eyebrows, the ears, the lips, and even the nose; a third of his hair braided, a third shaved, a third grown long and dyed red, blue, and yellow. Anyone would jump if they suddenly came face to face with a style that grotesque. Franc actually recoiled. Especially the makeup... was that makeup, or stage paint?

The punk-styled man was staring at my eyes in surprise too, and looking closer, his Phase Power was a full 1.01 million.

"Oho. You're an ability user too? Here for a tour of our raid team... wait. A student, with eyes giving off blue light...?"

He stuttered like he'd hit a loading screen, then his eyes flew wide as if they might pop out, and he started to shake.

"M-my apologies!!"

"Uh— uh?"

He folded at a perfect ninety degrees, as if terrified, and both Franc and I startled and stepped back.

Why is this guy doing this to me?! Now everyone's staring at me again!

"P-please don't tell the boss! My piercings might get ripped out again...!"

I grimaced at the words he spoke while covering the piercings on his face with both hands. Ripped out?

...I pictured his face bloodied, metal torn from his nose, his ears, his eyebrows, and his lips, and my mood soured fast.

He watched me standing there scowling, fidgeted, then let out a small scream and fled the building.

"Wh-what incredible fashion..."

Hearing Franc, I realized the man had been dressed in something that would only suit a member of a heavy metal band. His fingers were loaded with skull-shaped rings besides. Jagged spikes on the shoulders — and that was real steel? The cops don't haul him in? He's a walking arrest record.

Something that turned my stomach had happened, but I tried to wipe it from memory, boarded the elevator that arrived, and rode up to the eighteenth floor.

Unlike an ordinary office, the eighteenth floor had partitions made entirely of reinforced glass, so wherever you stood, the whole floor was in plain view.

With a layout like this, you couldn't get away with collecting a paycheck for doing nothing.

I looked around and found Director Lee Hyeryeong doing paperwork in the largest room at the very back. A terrifying quantity of documents was piled around her, and several people kept rotating in and out, hauling papers. Of course, massive stacks were being replenished in between.

Digital would be so much easier. Why cling to old-fashioned paper? Come to think of it, the student council had been making documents on paper too. Was there some other reason?

...More importantly, she looked incredibly busy. I probably shouldn't interrupt.

Hmm. Hm?

Then an office lady whispered something in Director Lee Hyeryeong's ear. The director lifted her head and looked straight at me.

The moment I saw her face light up at the sight of me, I felt inexplicably uneasy. Why was she that happy? Anyway, she was beckoning hard, so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I started walking over... and once again, every single person was staring only at me.

Franc, following behind, seemed burdened by the rain of stares and shot off toward Director Lee Hyeryeong.

I really don't get why they stare like this. If I packed a little more Mana Sieve into my eyes and met their gazes, would they look away?

Nah. Forget it. If they locked up like they'd been paralyzed, it'd be a scene.

Walking toward her office, I looked around and saw a good number of H Class and I-Class ability users. Were General Affairs and Business Support sharing this floor? Which one was Director Kim Pyochung?

Under curious stares I reached the director's office, and people poured out as if they'd been waiting, each of them glancing at me on the way. If you're leaving, just leave. Don't make it weird...

Once the room had emptied I went in, and Director Lee Hyeryeong welcomed me with both arms spread wide.

"...Wh-what are you saying?"

I froze at the bombshell. Director Lee Hyeryeong came over in quick little steps, took me by the shoulders, sat me on the guest sofa, mixed a coffee herself, and set the cup down in front of me.

"What do you mean, what am I saying? I hear Vice-Captain Sophia made a public declaration."

No way... she actually spread it? I mean, I did ask her to, but that was just to tease Hwayeon. And she really went and spread it?

......

This blonde airhead, I swear!!!

I was seething on the inside, and Director Lee Hyeryeong laughed a sly, foxlike hoho.