An Empty Seat Beside Her
In those few short seconds, cold sweat poured down Go Chungshin's face and his pupils looked ready to burst like a supernova. Yoon Jia fidgeted restlessly beside him, just as rattled.
I asked again.
"What are you two… doing here?"
"Ah… th-that's…"
Just as Go Chungshin scrambled for an excuse, Yoon Jia hastily cut in.
"Th-that's—! I-I dropped something, and this gentleman was helping me look for it!"
"Hmm… Really?"
When I turned the question on Go Chungshin, he immediately launched into a flustered stream of nonsense.
"Y-yes! Sh-she said she dropped something, so I was helping her look—y-yes, I was!"
"Ah! F-found it! Thank you, then!"
Yoon Jia hurriedly mimed scooping something off the ground, offered Go Chungshin an awkward smile and a quick bow, then fled the scene.
Anyone watching would have found the whole thing suspicious.
And Go Chungshin, left behind, had to know exactly how strange this looked. Guys like him always bolted the second they got the chance…
"Th-then I'll be going too!"
"Hold on…"
"Kh! Yes…"
I called him back, stepped in close, and fixed him with a half-lidded stare. After studying him a moment, I asked quietly enough for only him to hear.
"You weren't hitting on the instructor, were you?"
"W-why would I ever do that?!"
"Hmm… Right."
I clapped him on the shoulder, a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.
"Don't get caught doing anything weird… You know what I mean? If you get caught harassing an instructor, it won't end with just getting fired."
"…Yes."
"Good. Let's go."
On the way to the front gate, I filled Go Chungshin's ears with repeated warnings mixed into lectures, hoping they'd make them bleed. They didn't bleed—but still.
When we reached the front gate, the six cadets traveling with me, Yoon Jia, and two security guards were already waiting. Vehicles stood ready to move each group.
Yoon Jia kept glancing nervously between Go Chungshin and me, fidgeting the whole time.
I ignored her and listened to the various explanations from the Church representative who'd come to receive us.
"We weren't able to prepare vehicles in time for the sudden increase in personnel."
The cars for me, Yoon Jia, and the six cadets were two luxury SUVs. But they explained that there hadn't been time to arrange vehicles for the security detail as well, so they'd prepared an ordinary van instead.
"Understood. All right, everyone—hop in."
"Yes~"
The cadets took my word for it and freely boarded whichever SUV they preferred. Friendship seemed to decide the split—four piled into one, two into the other. Naturally, Yoon Jia and I ended up in the same SUV.
"Whoa…"
The moment I stepped inside and saw the interior, I let out a breath of pure admiration. This was a completely different class of SUV from anything I'd ever known. The passenger cabin was fully sealed off from the driver's seat, and every convenience imaginable had been installed for the occupants. Most striking of all, snacks of every kind were laid out like a high-end limousine. There was even alcohol…
They're just taking some kids over. Why go this far…?
Oh… So there's a reason the Heroes aren't exactly lining up to come work at the Hero Academy.
Schoolteacher treatment versus VIP state-guest treatment. No matter how much affection someone held for the Academy, a gap that wide would kill anyone's motivation. Of course, this was the Church—so this level of hospitality made a certain amount of sense…
Once we were settled, a soft announcement came over the cabin speakers.
"We will now depart."
Quiet classical music began to play as the vehicle rolled into motion.
…
…
I sat back against the seat, staring out the window, and muttered to myself.
…I want to be a Hero too.
Can't a guy even say he wants something…?
I'd only briefly envied the Heroes' lifestyle, and already my brain was running useless calculations.
What if I just joined the Church myself and dug up their schemes from the inside?
Ah… Right. I'm affiliated with a villain organization.
I never expected that sneaking in with Zodiac's help would come back to bite me like this. It wasn't as if I'd personally contacted any villains or had direct ties to their organization—but the only reason I'd been able to infiltrate the Hero Academy at all was because of a villain-group route.
And that brought up another question.
Who was the one who got us planted here in the first place?
In other words: if it helped the mission, they'd tell me. If not, just let it go.
Well… No point sticking my nose where it doesn't belong.
Still, the other party knew who I was, and I had no idea who they were. That alone was enough to leave a bad taste.
And the person sitting next to me was radiating a different kind of unease entirely.
All that fidgeting beside me is more distracting than I expected…
Yoon Jia kept stealing glances at me, clearly still rattled by what had happened earlier. But with the cadets riding in the back, she didn't dare bring it up out loud.
So the awkward silence between us stretched on, unbroken, all the way to the Church. We never exchanged a single word.
"Instructor…"
"…"
"Instructor Cho Seohyun!"
"Huh? What?"
Arms still crossed, Cho Seohyun turned toward the source of the voice. A male cadet stood in front of her, sweating profusely.
"Um… Are we supposed to keep going?"
"What are you talking about?"
"We've been at it for two hours straight with no break. The others are about to collapse…"
Cho Seohyun blinked, then looked around in a daze. The cadets were still sparring in pairs—but every one of them looked one hit away from dropping. Even combat-specialized students couldn't spar nonstop for over two hours against opponents of equal skill without rest.
More importantly, breaks were at the instructor's discretion. If the instructor never called for one, cadets who stopped on their own risked tanking their evaluations—so no one had dared to quit.
Startled, Cho Seohyun waved both hands and shouted.
"Ah! Break! Break! Everyone rest!"
The cadets immediately dropped onto the ground and started catching their breath. Watching their exhausted faces, Cho Seohyun scratched her head.
I almost wrecked the kids on a Monday…
She felt a flicker of guilt—then her expression went blank again. The man who always stood beside her wasn't here today. It was only one day, and all he ever did was stand there watching, but the empty space felt larger than she'd expected.
Worse, there was something she'd wanted to say before he left, and she hadn't managed it. That was what really had her mind in knots.
Should I just skip mentioning the birthday and ask him to grab a meal?
Cho Seohyun's birthday was coming up. Not this week—next week. And the problem was that she was not the type to go around announcing her own birthday. There had been chances over the weekend to bring it up, but she'd never gotten a single word out. Embarrassment was part of it, but the bigger issue was that she'd already made plans with her little brother, Cho Kang-hyun.
And that brat hasn't even contacted me…
They'd agreed to meet on her birthday. Since then—nothing. Even the check-in text she'd sent a few days ago had gone unanswered.
Seong Sua… Is he just too busy hanging out with her? No… She doesn't seem to be seeing Kang-hyun much these days either…
Thinking back on Seong Sua's recent behavior and the way she talked, something didn't add up. Seong Sua and Cho Kang-hyun were engaged—that much was certain. They hadn't held a formal engagement ceremony, but the fact was well known not only to Cho Seohyun as his older sister, but to the public at large.
And yet lately, Seong Sua had been building a very public image of closeness with Sung Suho. At first Cho Seohyun had written it off as Seong Sua's natural sociability—just a colleague becoming friends. Thanks to that, the two of them had started running into each other far more often than before. And the more they did, the more the doubts crept in.
They didn't break up… or start cheating… right?
Two people publicly known as an engaged couple couldn't just walk away cleanly. And Cho Kang-hyun wasn't just a domestic name—he was a Hero recognized worldwide. News of a breakup wouldn't be a one-line article and done.
If they hadn't broken up, that raised an even bigger problem.
…No. No matter how I look at it, that can't be it. She's not the type to cheat.
Cho Seohyun disliked Seong Sua. Or rather—she just didn't care for her. She still believed Seong Sua was the reason her little brother had drifted away from her. But she never twisted that into a judgment of Seong Sua's character.
She's annoying, sure, but she's not that kind of person…
These days Seong Sua kept her distance, but looking back, nothing about the way she'd treated Cho Seohyun in the past had ever felt fake. Even Cho Seohyun had to admit that Seong Sua was diligent and genuinely kind.
Damn it… I really don't want to spend another year staring at a cake by myself looking pathetic…
While she was muttering that to herself, cadet voices drifted over from a short distance away.
"Hey… Cho Seo… Sung Suho…"
"Come on…"
"…?"
Cho Seohyun caught her own name and Sung Suho's in the conversation, then quietly edged closer to listen.
"No matter how you look at it, don't those two instructors… seem like they're dating?"
"Yeah… I kind of get that feeling too."
…Huh?
The moment she heard it, the corner of her mouth twitched and started to tremble. She and Sung Suho were not dating. But she couldn't deny that she had feelings for him. Part of her desperately hoped no one would catch on—and yet hearing other people talk about their relationship with that kind of certainty made her feel strangely light.
It lasted all of ten seconds.
"Hey… Even so, though… That can't be right, can it?"
"Huh? Why not?"
"…?"
Cho Seohyun leaned in further, needing to know why.
"I mean… Sung Suho is just an assistant instructor. If the genders were reversed, maybe. But why would Instructor Cho Seohyun go for him?"
"Ah… Yeah, that is a point…"
"…"
Instructor–assistant pairings did happen from time to time. But as the cadets said, that was almost always a male instructor and a female assistant. Cho Seohyun had never once heard of a case the other way around. And the fact that her past self would have agreed with those words filled her with a sudden, bitter self-loathing.
…This is pissing me off.
Cho Seohyun scowled, stopped eavesdropping, and walked back to her original spot. Then she gathered the cadets and shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Today we're doing a mountain hike!"
"…What?"
And so, on a Monday, the cadets finished their day thoroughly wrecked after all.