215. Cat Fight (1)
215. Cat Fight (1)
The clock ticks back two days.
The moment Jin Yu-ha and Baek Seol-hee had just departed for Jeju Island.
After confirming the two of them had vanished through the spatial movement formation linked to Jeju.
Shin Se-hee summoned every party member.
"What's going on?"
"Did something happen?"
"Where's hoobae?"
"······."
"······."
Each had been doing personal maintenance or individual training after classes ended; now the party members gathered in one place.
Among them, Sofia and Ichika merely glared at each other and didn't open their mouths separately.
Shin Se-hee knew about it too but opened her mouth pretending not to.
"Everyone's gathered, I see."
With her arms crossed, she swept her cold gaze across the faces of each party member.
"First, starting today, for three days, Jin Yu-ha will not be at the academy."
"······What?"
"What? Yellow Dog's not here?"
"Where did hoobae go?"
"?"
"!"
Even just the news of a mere three-day absence, and they all came rushing in like it's a major catastrophe.
As expected, this was bound to explode sooner or later.
Originally, it was a bomb set to go off after a considerably long time, but that artifact measuring affection lit the fuse.
「Ring of Affection and Obsession」
An artifact that numerically displays the affection Jin Yu-ha holds for his party members.
Before that thing appeared, even the ones who managed to get along amicably on the surface were now visibly on guard against each other.
It blew up worst when we were preparing for the U.S. Monster Subjugation Request.
In Shin Se-hee's eyes, the current Utopia looked like a precarious piece of pottery.
A pottery full of cracks, ready to shatter into pieces the moment someone tapped it.
Afraid of Instructor Baek Seol-hee's Hell Training and of disappointing Jin Yu-ha, in the U.S. they had forcibly stitched it back together,
but even that was nothing more than a temporary patch job.
Look—hadn't that forcibly glued-together thing started splitting apart again today, with Sofia and Ichika's clash?
Probably, even if it hadn't been Ichika, a similar problem would have blown up soon.
And I'm no exception to that either.
Jin Yu-ha's affection.
Just hearing the phrase itself is sweet.
If it meant obtaining that, then other people—no matter how many of them there were.......
Throb—
Even feeling the sound of her own heart racing, Shin Se-hee managed her expression, feigning nonchalance.
"So, I asked where Yellow Dog went!"
When Shin Se-hee announced Jin Yu-ha's absence, then shut her mouth and just stared blankly,
Kang Do-hee, her patience run out, shouted at her.
"Noisy, Kang Do-hee. Jin Yu-ha received a Personal Request and left to carry it out. Together with Instructor Baek Seol-hee. The two of them."
Shin Se-hee spat it out irritably as if annoyed.
Since she was genuinely annoyed about sending those two off, it was 100 percent sincere.
"···What, a Personal Request? And that too, just Jin Yu-ha and the Instructor, the two of them?"
"Ha, that shameless instructor. As I thought, Yellow Dog is···."
"Se-hee hoobae, uh, could you possibly know where Yu-ha hoobae left for?"
Im Ga-eul asked, but Shin Se-hee shook her head.
"No. I can't tell you. There's something we need to sort out among ourselves here."
"······Sort out?"
"I originally intended to do it alone, but I thought informing you all first would be a courtesy, so I gathered you here."
What on earth was she about to say to make her this heavy and serious?
The party members tilted their heads as if they had no idea.
Grin—
Shin Se-hee formed a cold smile and then opened her mouth.
"I, am planning to confess this time."
"······Confess?"
"Yes. As soon as Jin Yu-ha returns from this Personal Request, I'm thinking of confessing to him the amorous feelings I hold for him."
At Shin Se-hee's sudden bombshell declaration,
the entire party's eyes flew wide open as if they'd tear apart.
"······!!!??"
*
"W-wait! S-Se-hee hoobae, what on earth do you mean! Ahaha, a-a confession to Yu-ha hoobae!? Th-that's a lie, right???"
After a moment's silence, the first mouth to open was Im Ga-eul's.
Her voice was disbelieving, as though Shin Se-hee couldn't possibly do something like that.
However, Shin Se-hee firmly shook her head.
"No. I mean it. I've reached my limit now."
"······A, a limit?"
Shin Se-hee's coldly settled eyes turned toward Lee Yu-ri.
"Lee Yu-ri. This time you reserved a personal training room separately under the pretext of adapting to a newly fitted shield, didn't you?"
With even the '-ssi' honorific she always tacked on gone, Shin Se-hee's voice was chilling to the extreme.
"···Uh, y-yeah, th-that's right."
"And you booked Jin Yu-ha's name under the same reservation there too. So, you intended to train alone, just the two of you, I suppose."
"······!"
Lee Yu-ri flinched.
But without leaving her even a moment's space to cobble together an excuse, Shin Se-hee shifted her gun barrel.
The next target was Kang Do-hee.
"Kang Do-hee. You too this time said you'd do the training Instructor Baek Seol-hee is doing yourself, didn't you?"
"······That's right. For Yellow Dog to receive that kind of training all alone—"
"Then, shouldn't you properly request it from Instructor Baek Seol-hee, who created that program? Why are you trying to receive that training from Jin Yu-ha?"
"······."
At that question, Kang Do-hee bit her lip.
Because she had nothing in particular to retort with.
Jin Yu-ha was also a student under Instructor Baek Seol-hee.
Naturally, if she wanted the same training, speaking to the instructor was the proper thing to do.
This time, Im Ga-eul.
"Ha, Im Ga-eul. Why are you demanding Jin Yu-ha come clean your house?"
"Uuh, b-because I'm bad at it···."
"Ha, ridiculous. Honestly, our houses stay perfectly clean just by running a cleaning artifact. You were merely using tidying up as a pretext to drag him into your home. Am I wrong?"
And when the talk continued on to Sofia's candid filming of Jin Yu-ha's private life and Ichika's physical contact, Shin Se-hee's anger reached its peak.
"You all know my personality, but I'm not particularly patient. Holding back has gradually become difficult for me now. I can't stand it anymore, anxious about who Jin Yu-ha's affection will lean toward."
Shin Se-hee glared at the party members as if asking if they had anything to say.
"I'm an incredibly possessive person. Just imagining Jin Yu-ha being taken by someone else is enough to make me plan that person's ruin."
A darkness, a cloying obsession, glittered in Shin Se-hee's pupils.
"But I don't want to show him this side of me. So, I'm going to convey my feelings of adoration to Jin Yu-ha. This is a notification."
* * *
Squeak—thud!
Having thrown the bomb like that, Shin Se-hee said she had leftover work and left the room.
"······."
Everyone stared at the door Shin Se-hee had exited through, mouths agape.
Yes, they had known.
Jin Yu-ha's affection.
That every single nerve was attuned to it.
And that, because of it, they were all making various excuses to extend any time spent with Jin Yu-ha.
And the way they gazed at each other now also settled into coldness.
"···Because you got a new shield, you schedule separate training with him? Ha, if it's that kind of thing, then requesting me, the main Damage Dealer, rather than the Sub-Damage Dealer Yellow Dog, is more correct, isn't it?"
"What about you? Shin Se-hee wasn't wrong at all. If you wanted that training so badly, asking Instructor Baek Seol-hee separately would be the right way."
"······Sofia hoobae, is that really true? You installed cameras on every single path Yu-ha hoobae walks by···? That's so sleazy···."
"Sunbae, please grow up for once. Just how long do you plan on relying on your hoobae for everything you can't do your—!"
The bomb Shin Se-hee had left behind was powerful, and chain-reactive.
Actually, resenting the one who threw the bomb and left was the proper thing to do,
but she had already coolly vacated the premises.
Therefore, the arrows of accusation flew not at her, absent from this place, but at those standing nearby.
This was the moment they all realized they were each other's rivals.
"······."
Amid the increasingly raised voices, the one who had notified Shin Se-hee that Sofia had visited.
Ichika's pupils trembled.
···This is a good method?
She'd been told to report without fail if a situation arose where other party members saw her symptoms and displayed hostility, so she had done exactly that.
···Wasn't the situation spiraling uncontrollably toward the worst-case scenario.
At this rate, it might even go as far as Utopia disbanding entirely.
What on earth are you scheming···?
Ichika bit her lip, staring at the door Shin Se-hee had closed behind her.
* * *
Having entered the workroom alone like that, Shin Se-hee sat in front of her desk and covered her face with both hands.
Haaa──
A hot sigh escaped from deep within.
"This is correct. A festering wound first needs to be cut open with a knife to drain the pus."
Still, what a method this was.
She'd spat out all that nonsense about confessing her amorous feelings to Jin Yu-ha or whatever in front of others, without a shred of shame.
"This is immensely embarrassing···."
When she removed her covered hands, the face revealed was flushed apple-red.
"Ha, hmph! I-It's fine! Because this is all part of the plan!"
Yes, this was all part of the plan.
Clack clack clack—
Having completed that rationalization, Shin Se-hee gritted her lips hard against the continuing, cresting shame, yet still pounded the keyboard, forcing herself to act okay.
"Hmph! I wonder who will start making their move first?"
Looking at the monitor, Shin Se-hee's pupils gleamed.