Still, a Dirty World (1)
Disciplinary committee.
I had never attended such a gathering, nor was I the one going there to receive punishment, yet the mere word felt like a lead weight settling into my chest.
It carried a completely different ring from something like “freshman welcome party,” after all.
Suddenly the events of a few days ago rose again in my mind. That psychopath who had approached as if to recruit us for the representative team, only to draw her blade the instant she was refused and try to sever my horn.
Her name had been Min Yukyung, I think.
The thought of facing that senior again made my heart shrink to the size of a pea, but—
Why am I getting scared? Did I do something wrong?
I steeled myself and tightly bound my hair. What had once barely brushed my shoulders now spilled past them, yet it never quite felt neat, so the days I tied it up had grown more frequent.
After finishing my hairstyle and starting to pull on my uniform, I suddenly checked the time.
Why isn’t he here?
It was about time to leave, yet Junhyuk still hadn’t shown. The guy who always arrived early—had he overslept today?
Wondering if he might have been sulking over yesterday’s events, downing soju alone until a hangover claimed him, I dialed his number.
“Hello?”
His voice was so clean and clear that I was a little taken aback.
“…Where are you?”
“Me? On my way to the Academy.”
“You’re not coming?”
At that, Junhyuk seemed to choose his words carefully for a moment before answering in a slightly flustered voice.
“You told me not to come, remember?”
I let out a short “Ah” of realization. I had told him not to come…
Junhyuk carefully asked me,
“Did you wait for me?”
“What nonsense. Don’t get the wrong idea.”
“If not, then never mind. Hurry up and come.”
Even after saying that he didn’t hang up for several seconds, so I ended the call first.
With a vague sense of emptiness I let the hand holding my phone droop, heaved a deep sigh, and muttered words no one would hear and that I didn’t even want anyone to hear.
“Then why did you walk me home yesterday?”
Of course I knew better than anyone that yesterday had been because of the alcohol.
Still, I felt a little… disappointed.
When I entered the classroom, Junhyuk, who had been fiddling with his phone, raised a hand in greeting.
“Good morning.”
“Mm.”
“Did you sleep well last night?”
“Just… whatever.”
I was about to answer without much thought when a sudden chill ran down my spine, and I quickly scanned the classroom.
Thankfully Lim Sowon wasn’t there. Looking at Junhyuk, I put a finger to my lips in a shushing gesture and typed out a message on my phone.
Junhyuk merely read the messages as if they displeased him and set his phone down on the table.
Exchanging texts like this somehow made it feel as though we were actually having an affair, which disgusted me. No—even before an affair, being a couple? I refused any such ridiculous misunderstanding.
Just then Sowon burst into the classroom. Seeing her scan the room with a stiff expression, and because of the thoughts I had just entertained, I instinctively averted my gaze like someone caught cheating and hastily hid my phone under the desk.
Spotting me and Junhyuk, Sowon called out to us in a subdued voice.
“Preparations are finished, so follow me.”
At those words my heart began to race again. It was about the disciplinary committee.
As expected, Junhyuk must have received the message as well; he rose without any particular surprise. I followed behind him out of the classroom.
While we were descending the stairs, Sowon said “Wait a moment” and stopped, looking back and forth between the two of us.
We had sparred a few times before, but she had never worn such a murderous look in her eyes. For a second I thought Maybe… and felt a twinge of guilt, yet her anger was not directed at me.
“Is everything I know true?”
“How much do you know?”
“That that woman used her ability on Junhyuk and harmed him.”
I considered adding that my horn had nearly been severed as well, but she probably wasn’t curious about that, so I simply nodded in silence.
Sowon’s expression twisted.
“Even with such clear charges…”
Watching her growl like that, a vague uncomfortable feeling slowly rose.
I had a bad premonition.
The disciplinary committee was held in the career counseling room on the fourth floor of the Justice Building. I had heard it was a place where not every Academy enrollee became a hero, and those without the ability to fight on the front lines received counseling so they could find employment using their own talents.
A place that would normally be warm and full of hope had an utterly frigid atmosphere today. Nearly ten professors sat at tables arranged in a U-shape.
Their gazes were all fixed on the defendant’s seat in the center.
“…It’s intense.”
“It’s not a party, after all.”
Sowon still could not hide her discomfort, yet perhaps conscious of the professors she did not cross her legs. Sitting in the temporary witness seats prepared beside the professors’ places, we observed the surroundings without exchanging a single word.
And then the door opened.
“Hello, everyone.”
Today’s defendant, Min Yukyung, appeared with an absurdly cheerful greeting.
She even raised a hand toward us in greeting, but I pretended not to see. What a freak, I thought.
In front of people, an Academy student—moreover, toward a fellow Academy student—had pointed a sword and put them in the hospital. Considering the charges against her, she should not have been able to smile.
Yet she was far too relaxed.
While I was still wondering about that, another person entered. The senior with purple hair and a hairpin who had stopped Yukyung back then. Choi Minji. She approached the witness seats with steps as lifeless as her dead expression and sat down.
Seeing that, the plump professor seated in the middle among the ten gestured toward the door. Someone gently pushed it closed. Confirming the door was shut, the professor—
“We will now begin the disciplinary committee.”
—declared the opening in a voice as thick as his build.
The main issue was just one. Whether harm had been inflicted or not. Regardless of the circumstances before and after, that was what ultimately mattered. Junhyuk and I detailed the situation at the time, and the professors listened, nodding with “Hmm.”
Anyone could see a severe punishment was clear. Yet Min Yukyung remained confident. She even boldly crossed her legs in front of nearly ten professors.
“Student Min Yukyung. Do you have any rebuttal to the account so far?”
The plump professor who had announced the opening asked Yukyung.
Yukyung smiled brightly, switched her crossed legs, shrugged her shoulders, and spoke casually.
“That wasn’t harm. It was simply a test to confirm whether they possessed the qualifications to become members of the representative team.”
She spun lies without so much as a furrowed brow. Not stopping there, Yukyung smiled like a snake, looked our way, and—
“I also brought a witness. Could you explain the atmosphere at the time a little?”
—passed the baton to Choi Minji, who had been sitting quietly.
My gaze, Junhyuk’s, and Sowon’s all focused on her. She kept clutching the hem of her skirt with her head bowed, then opened her mouth with difficulty and spoke in a barely audible voice.
“I don’t… remember well.”
Then I saw it.
For the first time, displeasure spread across Yukyung’s face, which had been smiling the entire time.
But only for a moment. Yukyung regained her leisurely smile and appealed her innocence to the faculty.
“I apologize for damaging the Academy’s honor by causing a fight in a place with many people. However.”
Yukyung rose from her chair and began pouring out her defense toward the professors.
“Just because the location was outdoors, I do not believe an attempt to recruit for the representative team should be twisted into ‘harm.’”
Yukyung’s words flowed smoothly. As if this kind of place was not her first or second time, she showed not the slightest sign of tension.
“And I would like to raise one question.”
“What is it?”
At the plump professor’s question, Yukyung glared at the witness seats, pointed a finger, and raised her voice.
“Where is the evidence that I unilaterally inflicted harm at the time?”
“That’s from the doctor’s opinion…!”
“Did you receive a diagnosis of injury by ability—that is, ‘supernatural injury’?”
I shot up from my seat to refute her, but Yukyung shot back as if she would not yield.
As if asking: Sitting there so high and mighty in the witness seat, do you have evidence to show whether what you are testifying is truth or nonsense?
That was the leisurely expression she wore.
Of course this was sophistry. One way or another, the fact that Junhyuk had been injured and admitted to the emergency room was true.
Yet it was Yukyung’s side that demanded the diagnosis.
“If you’re so confident, bring the diagnosis. Oh—have you already brought it?”
At Yukyung’s words Sowon checked the envelope she had prepared in advance; her face turned ashen and she began to tremble. I too could not help being flustered upon seeing the opinion.
Laceration. It simply meant cut by a long blade.
“I did not use any ability. I merely injured them slightly during the test.”
A medical opinion cannot be forged. Junhyuk’s wound was clearly not a “supernatural injury” but a cut from a sword. Then what had we seen?
…No way.
She had known. That her attack method itself was not magic, but merely lengthening and shortening the sword, with the attack subject being the blade.
A diagnosis of supernatural injury could never come out.
But even granting a hundred steps and calling it a laceration instead of a supernatural injury, should we consider that no harm had been inflicted?
Anger surged through me until I finally stood and shouted at Yukyung.
“Anyway a laceration diagnosis came out, so stop with the wordplay! Isn’t a laceration harm?!”
At those words she slightly frowned, yet Yukyung smiled annoyingly again and shrugged. I was truly curious what she would retort with, but—
Rather, the retort came from the faculty.
“He is not an ordinary martial artist. Can a ‘laceration’ be considered harm to Yeom Junhyuk, called the strongest freshman martial artist?”
“…What?”
“And Junhyuk is Miss Philin’s dedicated martial artist. Do you believe his position allows for neutral testimony?”
“The witness selection seems incorrect. Who arranged it?”
Have these people all gone mad as a group?
As I blankly watched that scene, my eyes suddenly met Yukyung’s.
She stuck out her tongue and went “bleh.”
As if she had known it would turn out exactly like this, without a single sign of surprise.
Three days of confinement.
The disciplinary committee ended like that. Even those three days of confinement were a level I barely managed to extract by stubbornly insisting, with Sowon and the first-year homeroom professor strongly protesting.
Originally it had been no charges at all.
On a day like today we could not possibly refrain from drinking, so we gathered at a bar near the Academy. Serena, who had known nothing of this, also joined.
Sowon had gotten quite drunk early on and was shouting at the top of her lungs with a flushed face.
“How could they! How is that possible! The professors are all trash! Trash!”
I first learned that Sowon, who always lived like a lofty crane, could become this furiously angry. Even when I gently teased her about her sexual preferences she had never gotten this mad.
I gained a bit of a sense of how precious Junhyuk was to her.
“Miss Philin. Do you think this makes any sense? If it’s going to be like this, why hold a disciplinary committee and call witnesses? They could just bang bang bang among themselves!”
“Well… yeah.”
“Ah, so annoying!! Auntie, one more three-thousand and a bottle of soju here!”
Sowon ordered more drinks with the momentum of drinking herself to death. Yet already a bit off, she kept clinging to Junhyuk and making nasal sounds.
“Junhyuk. So how are your injuries? It must have hurt a lot…”
“I’m fine. This much is nothing.”
“It’s because you yourself say you’re fine that everyone looks down on it like that! How could you not say a single word earlier?”
That frustrated me too. Since the injured party said nothing, no matter how many logics you pulled in to argue, it never felt very persuasive.
In reality, given the atmosphere, even if Junhyuk had argued hard nothing would have changed.
“Students, calm down a bit. Seems like something angering happened, but the world is originally dirty.”
When the auntie shook her head with a disgusted expression, Sowon also went “Ugh!” and shook her head the same way.
Having to agree with the words “dirty world” even inside a game was truly bitter.
I silently poured out one glass’s worth from the three-thousand beer, then rolled in a whole bottle of soju. If I don’t pour out that one glass it overflows. My alcohol tolerance has seriously decreased, yet my skill at mixing remains intact.
Come to think of it, I only lasted one semester at that university too. Right after the semester ended I was shipped off to the military, and after discharge I ended up stuck in my studio apartment.
Still, it had been one of the few enjoyable moments in my life. I mixed a lot of drinks then as well.
Then it happened.
“Um… hello.”
In the noisy shop someone greeted us in a barely audible, crawling voice.
“…You.”
With unfocused eyes Sowon looked at her. Confirming the senior with purple hair and a hairpin who looked about middle-school age—
She shot up and seized her hair.
“Are you crazy, for real? Did you come to rub it in? Feeling good?!”
“Hey, hey! Lim Sowon!”
Even while flailing as if in pain, the senior named Choi Minji or whatever did not even scream and simply took all that anger. Serena and Junhyuk barely managed to pull off Sowon, who was shaking her with the force to yank out every strand, silver locks fluttering in rage.
But.
“Lim Sowon, did you touch her face too?”
“…No. I grabbed her hair because I didn’t want to hit her face.”
Hearing my words, Senior Minji hurriedly bowed her head and poured out words.
“I’m sorry. I came to say I’m sorry. You might think it’s funny… but I’ll apologize in her place. I’m sorry.”
“Wait a moment, Senior.”
I cut off Senior Minji, who was repeatedly begging forgiveness like casting a spell, and slowly placed my hand on her chin. Then I slowly lifted her face.
“…Did you get hit?”
Senior Minji hurriedly shook her head left and right, but—
Her cheek was swollen blue enough to know it was a lie at a glance.