Childhood Friend
What do I do? What on earth should I do?
Her face drained of all color, trembling uncontrollably, Lee Se-ah began to murmur frantically inside her head.
Sh-should I pretend I'm not home? That's best, right? It has to be.
For reasons she couldn't comprehend, the future Lumia would turn against her and attack. In every foreseeable branch of fate, that was the outcome carrying the highest probability.
Sh-she might attack me right this second...
The terror gnawing at her soul stemmed from one agonizing limitation: she did not know the exact timing. The glimpses of the future granted by her foresight were confined solely to decisive, climactic moments. How events led to that point, or precisely when the hammer would fall, was entirely beyond her sight.
Right. For now, just stay quiet...
Resolving to play dead, she took a cautious, agonizingly slow step backward.
Ring-a-ling♩
"...!"
At that exact, unforgiving second, the smartphone clutched in her hand began to chime.
"Sounds like you're inside."
Gasping in horror, Se-ah frantically scrambled to mute the device, but the bright melody had already echoed straight through the front door and out into the hallway.
"Did something happen to you?"
Lumia, having dialed the number herself, was waving her smartphone toward the intercom lens, tilting her head with a look of innocent concern.
Calm down. Keep it together.
Every fiber of Lee Se-ah's being screamed at her to turn and run, but she forced herself to swallow her rising panic. The door was deadbolted, and there was no guarantee Lumia intended to kill her right this moment. Because she had forced her foresight activation while her ability was still on cooldown, all she had managed to glimpse was Lumia clad in her school uniform, lunging at her in an attack. It was entirely possible she was misinterpreting the context.
"Lumia? Isn't it time for you to head to the Academy? What brings you by?"
Se-ah drew a slow, deliberate breath, pasting on a gentle smile as she spoke through the intercom speaker. Her presence by the entrance was already compromised. The only viable path forward was to avoid stoking any suspicion.
"Well, I just missed you, Se-ah-ssi. I wanted to drop in for a second."
"You shouldn't skip out like that. Before you're late, hurry on to the Academy..."
Se-ah tried to seize on the opening, hoping to coax Lumia away under the guise of scolding her, but—
Beep, boop. Beep-beep...!
The electronic lock on her door suddenly chimed, its keypad registering rapid keystrokes.
"Wh-what—what are you doing?!"
Struck with pure horror, Se-ah lunged forward and slammed her finger onto the manual lock override button.
Beep, beep-beep-beep...
The manual deadbolt required a continuous three-second hold to engage. Judging by the cadence of tones from the exterior keypad, Lumia had almost entered the full sequence.
Please, please, please...
In that razor-thin fraction of a second, Se-ah pressed down on the button until the blood drained from her fingertips, praying with every shred of her soul.
Be-beep—clack!
Whether her desperate plea had reached the heavens or not, the lock sounded an error chime, its internal bolts snapping securely into place.
"Lu-Lumia. Do you... do you know my passcode?"
With the tension snapping all at once, Se-ah sank onto the cold entryway floor, wiping the cold sweat drenching her brow as her voice shook.
"Of course not."
"What?"
"I just pressed the number zero eight times."
Lumia's response was absurdly casual.
"Well, there was no way that'd actually be the code, right?"
"I-is that so? I thought you actually knew..."
"Though I don't suppose it's one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight, is it?"
Se-ah, who had just begun to breathe a faint sigh of relief, froze solid at the chill underpinning Lumia's voice.
"Prophets being surprisingly airheaded is a pretty classic cliché, after all."
"...Ha, haha."
Se-ah squeezed out a hollow laugh, her mind racing in a dozen directions at once.
If Lumia forced her way in right now, could she possibly survive?
Though her specialization lay outside of direct combat, Lee Se-ah was still an officially recognized Rank 17 Hero. The lax security she maintained around her residence was largely intentional—a trap designed to bait overconfident villains and criminals so she could preemptively neutralize them with foresight. In other words, she had the skill and confidence to turn the tables on ordinary threats.
I can't... There's no way I can win.
Lumia, however, was in an entirely different realm from those petty criminals.
She was the first applicant since Justia to achieve a perfect score on the Academy entrance examination. An unprecedented prodigy who had never tasted defeat once during her secondary hero education, she was already sparring and exchanging techniques with Top-Ranking Heroes. Facing such an anomaly in a one-on-one confrontation offered zero chance of survival, no matter how potent Se-ah's foresight might be.
"Se-ah-ssi, I really only came by because I was worried about you."
As Se-ah gnawed nervously on her bottom lip, Lumia's voice drifted through the speaker, smooth and disarmingly gentle.
"You saw the text message I sent yesterday, but you never replied."
"Uh..."
"So I couldn't help wondering if something terrible had happened. I was worried sick."
A flicker of hesitation crossed Se-ah's face, and she cautiously parted her lips.
"Th-that's because... you see, I was..."
Unable to conjure a plausible excuse on the fly, her words hitched in her throat.
"Oh?"
Lumia's flat, uninflected voice cut through the silence.
"So you did see it."
Realizing she had walked straight into a conversational trap, Se-ah squeezed her eyes shut in despair.
"How strange. The read receipt never updated, so I assumed you hadn't checked it yet."
Peeking sideways at the intercom display, Se-ah saw that Lumia's lips were still curved in an easy smile.
"You're acting strange today, Se-ah-ssi."
That smile had always seemed so bright and endearing, yet now it sent pure, crawling dread down Se-ah's spine.
"Did you perhaps foresee some kind of unpleasant future?"
As she whispered the words, Lumia set her school bag down onto the tiled floor. The unmistakable clatter of heavy metal rang sharply down the corridor.
"N-no..."
Under ordinary circumstances, Se-ah would have assumed it was merely the dagger Lumia routinely carried. Today, that metallic ring sounded like the sharpening of an executioner's blade.
"Se-ah-ssi."
"Won't you let me in so we can talk for just a minute?"
The tip of Se-ah's finger, still pinning the manual lock button down, turned an ash-white hue.
"Lumia."
Keeping her eyes clamped shut, Se-ah forced the words past her dry lips.
"I... to you, I..."
And in that breathless suspension of time, the past came flooding back.
It was around the time Kang Haneul had graduated from the Academy, on an uncharacteristically dark and dreary afternoon.
"Haneul-ah, what are you doing here?"
"...Se-ah."
She had run into him at the neighborhood playground they used to frequent as children.
"Did something happen?"
".........."
The look on Kang Haneul's face that day was etched permanently into her memory.
It was a look of utter desolation, as though everything he held dear had been stripped away. His eyes were hollow, devoid of even the faintest glimmer of hope. The playful mischief of the boy who had once been the life of any room was nowhere to be found.
He resembled a broken flower, its stem snapped by the gale, trampled into the dirt beneath unfeeling boots. In that pitiful, ruined state, Kang Haneul sat motionless upon the wooden bench.
"Himari... said she wants to break up."
"Ah..."
The reason became clear at once. A breakup with Himari. To Kang Haneul, whose mental state had already been teetering dangerously close to the brink in recent months, it had dealt a fatal blow.
"I was walking down the street earlier today, and I saw her sitting in a café, talking with that kid."
"...That kid?"
Himari had walked away to seek the one person who served as Kang Haneul's deepest, most agonizing trigger.
"You know who. The Child of Prophecy."
"Ah....."
"The girl my sister walked out on our family to dote on."
A faint, self-deprecating smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
"Himari looked so happy."
"........."
"She hasn't smiled like that for me in such a long time."
Unable to find any words of comfort, Se-ah could only gaze down at him in silence. Then, his head still lowered, Kang Haneul quietly posed a question.
"Hey, Se-ah."
"Yeah."
"You won't leave me, right?"
That single moment was the final, desperate gamble Se-ah had placed on him.
"...Of course not."
Her voice had trembled as she answered.
"I'll always be by your side."
She had prayed with everything she had that those words might alter the horrific future waiting ahead.
"...Thank you."
Upon hearing her promise, Kang Haneul smiled—a genuine, radiant smile she hadn't seen from him in what felt like an eternity.
"I don't have anyone left now besides Justia and you, Se-ah."
His trembling hand reached out and gently enclosed hers.
"So please."
"........"
"Please don't leave me."
How much time had passed after that?
Slip...
"...Se-ah?"
Stepping backward, pulling her hand free from Kang Haneul's grasp, Se-ah had silently turned her back and started walking away.
"Lee Se-ah?"
Even as Kang Haneul staggered up from the bench, she did not slacken her pace.
...I'm sorry, Haneul-ah.
She had stayed beside him until the bitter end. She had offered up everything she had to give. Yet, gazing upon the horrific future that refused to budge even a fraction of an inch, despair had overtaken her.
I'm... exhausted too.
And so, on that dreary day, Lee Se-ah had walked away from Kang Haneul.
"W-would you... want to grab dinner together? It's been so long!"
She had left him behind, ignoring the frantic, desperate shout torn from his throat as he sensed the finality in the air.
Reeling back from the memory, Lee Se-ah spoke through the speaker, her voice trembling with forced conviction.
"I... I trust you."
Lumia's brow furrowed slightly in confusion.
"The only person who ever changed that horrifying future... was you, wasn't it?"
Staring intently at the girl on the intercom screen, Se-ah pushed past the tremors in her throat.
"That's why I'll trust you. No matter what happens. Even if you end up abandoning me."
".........."
"I will follow you to the very end."
A heavy, suffocating silence descended over the corridor.
"Come on, what are you talking about?"
Breaking the stillness, Lumia's cheerful voice floated back through the monitor.
"I don't know what's got you so worked up, but don't worry about it so much."
Scratching the back of her head, Lumia hoisted her school bag back over her shoulder.
"Why would I ever abandon you, Se-ah-ssi?"
Flashing a radiant smile directly into the camera lens, she offered a polite little bow, then spun on her heel.
"Well then, I'll see you later."
Leaving those parting words behind, Lumia casually strolled away from the apartment entrance.
"...Haaah."
Only after checking the feed several times to ensure the hallway was truly empty did Se-ah collapse, sliding limply against the floor.
"Th-that was too close..."
It was a blessing they hadn't spoken face-to-face. Had they been standing in front of each other, she never could have masked the sheer terror twisting her features.
Drip, drip...
Nor could she have concealed the tears of fresh blood leaking from her eyes, the price of forcing her foresight past its absolute limit.
"I need to... I have to call for help..."
Shivering in a cold sweat, Se-ah forced her weak limbs to prop herself up, muttering incoherently.
She needed to contact someone immediately. She had to warn them of the danger Lumia posed and prepare counter-measures.
"...But who? Who can I even ask?"
Setting aside Great Order and Minamoto Himari, who were part of Lumia's inner circle, there was literally no one she could turn to. Thanks to the legendary title Se-ah herself had bestowed, the entire world stood firmly on Lumia's side. Trying to reclaim that name now would only accelerate the arrival of the prophesied slaughter.
"Who is left to help me...?"
Se-ah clutched her head as chaos unraveled her thoughts.
Truthfully, there was a single glimmer of an opening. For reasons she couldn't fathom, the vision she forced just moments ago had revealed a scene that hadn't existed at dawn. Yet that very revelation only plunged her into deeper turmoil.
"No matter how hard I tried... you always betrayed me with that horrific future."
In that newly rewritten vision, someone bearing an uncanny resemblance to Kang Haneul had appeared.
"That's why... that's why I gave up on you..."
He had been standing between her and Lumia, desperately shielding Se-ah's body with his own, holding back the onslaught with everything he had.
"...Could it really be you? Kang Haneul?"
Her hands gripped her hair, her eyes trembling in utter disbelief.
"...Haah, I'm seriously going to lose my mind."
Meanwhile, out on the street.
"Why the hell would you say you trust me there...?"
Lumia muttered in sheer exasperation as she strolled down the sidewalk.
"Hurry up and betray me so you can go help Kang Haneul sunbae, for fuck's sake! At this rate, sunbae's gonna die before I even get the chance to dye him in my colors."
Twitch...
"Seriously, what the hell did this crazy bitch do to all these people before I took over?"
Feeling the fierce, indignant will radiating from the original owner of her body, Lumia's right hand began to vibrate violently.
"...Can't we fellow misogynists help each other out a little?"
Muttering with a scowl, Lumia picked up her pace toward the Academy.