The Interview (2): Kill Your Parents
Hey, look at that. The chancellor’s hanging his head so low he might as well be planting it in the dirt.
“The chairman’s standing right beside him, isn’t he?”
“Guess both of them are getting bent over.”
“Seems that way.”
Cartesia and I traded idle chatter while staring at the news feed. We were both raw as exposed nerves right now. The nightmare we’d lived through during the practical exam, the sudden postponement of the schedule, the interrogations while we were detained—everything had crashed over us like a tidal wave of stress.
The situation was bad. A thick fog had settled over the entire admissions timeline; we couldn’t see a single step ahead. On top of that, the monster attack had planted a very real seed of dread in everyone’s hearts.
The only bright spot was that Cartesia and I had grown a little closer. Everything else was a question mark.
On the screen the chancellor and chairman stood shoulder to shoulder, delivering the new admissions plan with grave expressions.
…For these reasons, Stellarium has decided to urgently revise this year’s admissions process.
The weighting of the written exam will remain unchanged.
However, the practical evaluation will be eliminated entirely, and far greater emphasis will be placed on the interview assessment.
It had come to this. Exactly as I’d predicted.
Cartesia clapped her hands the moment she heard the announcement. “Wow. I had zero confidence in the practicals—this is a straight-up win.”
I nodded along, echoing her relief. I felt bad for the other applicants, but there was nothing to be done. My sister and I were hopeless when it came to anything physical. Losing the one part of the exam that would have dragged our scores down was pure profit.
Still…
“Haa.”
“Why the sigh?”
“What about Rustilla?”
At the single name, Cartesia’s face froze. “Ah… right. Sis…”
Students who passed into Stellarium generally fell into one of two groups: the well-rounded all-rounders, or those who possessed overwhelming talent in a single field. Rustilla belonged firmly in the second category. Despite her parents’ fierce opposition and relentless pressure, she had stubbornly trained her swordsmanship.
Had she been allowed to demonstrate that skill in the practical exam, she would have earned a massive bonus. But now that practical component had vanished. Her hidden ace had been swept away. Even I would have been mentally shattered. For someone as gentle and pure-hearted as Rustilla, the blow had to be devastating.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, a polite knock sounded at the door. While Cartesia tilted her head in confusion, I rose from the bed without hesitation.
“Hey, at least check who it is before you—”
I had the door open before she could finish the sentence.
There stood Rustilla, gazing up at me with a face heavy with despair. Behind her, three android bodyguards stood in perfect formation—escort and surveillance combined.
The interview will begin three days from today. Detailed information can be found on the admissions office homepage…
The instant those words drifted from the television, Rustilla’s voice cracked.
“P-please… just help me this once…”
Moisture gathered in her crescent-moon eyes.
“What? Who—” Cartesia poked her head out and gasped. “Sis!”
Rustilla looked one breath away from tears. My sister and I made a split-second decision and pulled her inside.
“What on earth happened?”
While Cartesia tried to calm her, I slipped into the kitchen. Sonia trailed after me with quick, obedient steps.
“She appears to be under considerable stress.”
“This Sonia recommends chamomile tea for such occasions.”
“Then that’s what we’ll go with.”
“This Sonia will brew it. Please wait elsewhere.”
I gently pushed Sonia’s hand aside. The moment I reached for the kettle she pushed me back again.
“It is more appropriate for this Sonia to handle such tasks.”
“I can manage.”
“Young master, you should be preparing for your interview instead.”
“It’s just tea. I’m fine.”
“However—”
I let out a long sigh. “Sonia, you’re my personal attendant, aren’t you? When you make tea on normal days, you only need to make it for me. And in a situation like this, it should be a person comforting another person.”
“…If the young master insists.”
Sonia retreated reluctantly, though I caught her subtly licking her lips. Was that a quirk of being a fifth-generation model so close to human? The tiny detail lingered in my mind.
Anyway, I boiled the water, dropped in a tea bag, and carried the cup back. When I offered it to Rustilla she flinched in surprise but accepted it with both hands and drank. Cartesia, on the other hand, simply stared at me with a stupid expression.
“…Who are you? Since when do you do nice things? Did an Outer God possess you?”
I pressed a hand to my forehead. Well, technically an Outer God had possessed me, but I was still somehow keeping my sanity. It really was bizarre—an ordinary guy like me managing to handle Cartesia.
Rustilla took another sip. Some color returned to her face.
“I was planning to prepare thoroughly once the practical was over. But now all hope is gone. No matter how well I do in the interview, I’m going to fail. The bet I made with my parents will be completely off the table…”
“Bet?” My ears perked up.
“Yes. We made a wager. If I proved I had the skill to enter Stellarium, they would allow me to carry only a single android with me. That was the bet.”
Rustilla’s complexion darkened. At the word “android,” Sonia’s face stiffened as well.
Rustilla had been attacked by a monster as a child. Ever since, her parents had protected her—though “protected” was closer to “imprisoned.” And it wasn’t just surveillance. The Kersil couple interfered with every aspect of her future.
“I’m confident in interviews… but only if I can speak on topics I choose.”
Stellarium interviews always asked the same things:
What do you want to do once you enter our school?
What is your dream?
How will you achieve that dream?
If you couldn’t answer, you were finished. Cartesia and I had prepared accordingly. But Rustilla…
“During the character interview, my parents made me promise to answer ‘lawyer’ if they asked about my dream. I can’t change that.”
This was messy.
“That’s fucked up,” I muttered without thinking. Cartesia immediately smacked the back of my head.
“There it is again. No matter what, you don’t badmouth someone else’s parents.”
“I’m not badmouthing them. It really is fucked up.”
“Again!” Cartesia was always cautious about this sort of thing. Maybe she felt the need to defend the parents of the person she was closest to. Still, even she looked uncomfortable.
Rustilla drained the rest of the tea in one go and continued.
“They also said that if I say anything strange during the interview, they won’t pay my tuition even if I pass.”
That was serious. I remembered the novel describing the parents’ interference as “excessive,” but I had never imagined it was this bad.
“No one knows what questions will be asked in the interview room anyway, right? They inspect for listening devices and everything.”
“They said they would send a sound-sensitive android to the waiting area to eavesdrop.”
“Wow…”
“But the thing is… I don’t want to lie in front of the interviewers.” Rustilla’s eyes trembled violently.
Of course the interviewers weren’t idiots. A student who clearly didn’t want the path her parents forced on her would be filtered out immediately.
Silence fell. Cartesia said nothing. Sonia delivered the cold truth.
“There is no solution here.”
Even while listening, I felt something strange. It seemed the disaster that had occurred during the practical exam was somehow my fault. Originally, wouldn’t Rustilla have passed the interview even if she followed her parents’ script? Stellarium had an eye for real talent. Until the incident in the practical, I had assumed she would pass comfortably and hadn’t paid much attention.
But because of me (probably), things had turned out like this. I felt I had to take responsibility.
“It’s better to think about what happens after you pass than to worry about failing.”
Rustilla shook her head. “I can’t go against my parents.”
She had been thoroughly gaslit. But that didn’t matter. The person who could shatter her warped worldview was standing right in front of her.
“I committed filial impiety and still lived just fine.”
Cartesia’s eyes spun in disbelief, as if to say, This bastard?
But this wasn’t only my story. My relationship with my own parents had never been good either.
Go to medical school.
I’m going to Seolmul Stream. Vroom vroom.
Jinsoo, you baaaaastard!!!
Thinking back, my situation back then and Rustilla’s now were almost identical. As her six-year senior, I had to give her advice.
“A person should live doing what they want to do. If you let yourself be swayed by everyone around you, you’ll end up pounding the ground in regret later.”
It was the most ordinary advice in the world. Yet the weight of the words changed depending on who spoke them and who listened.
“There’s a saying: when you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. When you meet the master, kill the master. The same goes for parents—when you meet them, kill them too.”
Cartesia’s eyes widened in disbelief, but a spark of understanding lit up in Rustilla’s gaze. I raised the intensity.
“If you can’t even do that, you’re not human. You have no free will. You’re no different from a puppet controlled by an Outer God.”
Maybe it was rich coming from someone coexisting with an Outer God, but anyway.
“I’ll take care of that listening robot or whatever it is, so go in there and say exactly what you want to say. Understand?”
I simply encouraged her. Eventually Rustilla nodded. By then a faint blue light shimmered in her eyes.
Interview day.
Rustilla arrived at the interview venue after spending the past three days polishing every word she might need. Did I come too early? The area around the interview rooms was completely empty.
She felt a little nervous, but it was all right.
Go in there and say exactly what you want to say.
Eidel’s single sentence kept circling inside her head. Rustilla clenched her fists tightly.
I’ll say what I want to say and come back. Whether I pass or fail, I’ll think about it after it’s over.
Rustilla and Eidel had not known each other long. Yet every time she recalled the precious words he had given her, strength surged through her body. He was the only one. The only person who had ever spoken to her so deeply.
Contrary to the public image of him as a good-for-nothing, Eidel possessed his own—albeit somewhat radical—philosophy of life.
When you meet your parents, kill them.
He clearly hadn’t meant literal murder. He meant not to lose yourself by being deceived by the false authority of the title “parent,” but to live an active life. A profound truth that a sixteen-year-old like Seti or any other peer would struggle to understand. Only Rustilla, who had suffered excessive parental interference, could grasp its true meaning.
Maybe that’s why Eidel had such a bad reputation inside his family.
Given his personality, he must have clashed with his parents countless times. Still, Rustilla decided not to dwell on it any further.
What bothered her more was the location of the “listening robot” her parents had supposedly sent. Where is it? No matter how she looked around, she couldn’t spot anything like that.
She also remembered what Eidel had said. He told me not to worry about the eavesdropping. Honestly it sounded like something meant to reassure me, but…
Just then, a person wearing oddly shaped sunglasses approached from the distance.
“All right, let’s go in.”
A boy dressed in a blazer tailored like a suit. In his left hand he carried the same calipers he had used when fighting the monster last time.