First Meeting (3)
"Hmm… I feel like I've seen you somewhere, but I can't quite place it. Is this someone every student at Hanyoung High School is supposed to know no matter what?"
"Whoa… whoa! No way! I've never seen a move like this before."
"Excuse me? A move?"
When I shot back, letting my bewilderment show plainly, the girl seemed to realize she'd said something a little off and frantically waved both hands.
"Ah, sorry! I'm being chased so hard right now I can barely think straight, so the words just came out wrong."
She stretched out the legs she'd been curling up and rose to her feet, then opened her mouth in a much calmer voice.
"First off, my name's Choi Sua. Nineteen years old, third year! What's your name?"
The sudden self-introduction made me hesitate for a moment. It felt like unwanted noise kept interfering with my plan to quietly work some clay.
Still, she went out of her way to talk to me… I should play along.
Once Lee Hyunwoo and the heroines started getting properly entangled, I'd have a hard enough time putting up with the jealousy from the sidelines. Might as well enjoy a little luxury while I had the chance.
"I'm Kim Sihun. I'm… a year younger than you, seonbae."
"Whoa, you're a junior? You give off such a mature vibe I figured we were the same age!"
The moment my introduction ended, Senior Choi Sua launched into her own story like a fish in water. From how she'd started as a children's clothing model thanks to her outstanding looks from a young age, to the fact that she was currently an influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, all the way to how she was leading the charge promoting Hanyoung High School as the school's promotional model. Unsolicited TMI filled the multipurpose room to the brim.
And as I quietly listened to explanations I hadn't been the least bit curious about, I was finally able to perfectly dredge up one hazy memory from the depths of my mind.
Ahh, so she was that Choi Sua from the original.
She was a supporting character who never even got involved with the protagonist, Lee Hyunwoo. Of course, her overwhelming looks and backstory were so impressive that early on, countless users had clamored for her to please be made a heroine—but in the end, she had quietly exited the stage of the romantic comedy without a sound. The original never really went into detail about why Choi Sua had suddenly vanished from the story.
Probably related to those stalkers she mentioned earlier or something.
Around the time I finished sorting out my thoughts, Choi Sua, who had been chattering nonstop, suddenly clamped her mouth shut. Then she began shooting me an intensely burdensome look. It was such an obvious expression it might as well have been written on her face: Please ask me why I got chased all the way here!
After a brief moment of deliberation, I tossed her the question she'd so desperately wanted.
"You really are an incredible senior. So how did you end up running all the way here?"
"Yes! Perfect question! There are these kids who claim to be fans and follow me around filming secret cameras, and this guy who records videos without my permission and uploads them to YouTube! And then there are the ones who keep pestering me to grab a meal together even though I clearly said no—and today, for the first time in forever, they ALL showed up at once!"
Choi Sua spat the words out without even pausing for breath, then plopped down heavily onto a dusty wooden chair sitting in the corner.
"My ankle was hurting a bit today too, and it was just too hard to shake them off, so I just took off running and somehow ended up here."
"…I see."
The glamorous influencer who'd been boasting about herself moments ago was nowhere to be found. Slumped in the old chair with her shoulders drooping, she even looked rather pitiful.
I fiddled with the lump of clay in my hand and fell into brief thought. I didn't particularly want to get deeply involved in someone else's messy personal problems. But I also didn't want to make that indifference too obvious.
"It's your personal business, seonbae, so it's a little awkward for me to offer any words of comfort."
"……Yeah?"
Even so, the rather blunt reply that came out contrary to my intentions made the corners of her eyes droop slightly. I turned my body toward the workbench and continued evenly.
"Instead, like I said earlier, you're welcome to rest here comfortably before you go. And… if it wouldn't make you uncomfortable, seonbae, you're welcome to come find me again if something like that happens."
"…Really?"
Senior Choi Sua's eyes, which had been leaning against the chair, went round.
"As long as you don't interrupt my work."
She blinked a few times as if genuinely surprised, then a bright smile spread across her lips.
"Thanks."
She slipped off the crossbody bag she'd been wearing and carefully set it down in a corner of the empty desk. Then she folded both arms on the empty space on the desk and buried her face in them.
"Ahh, how long has it been since I last flopped face-down on a desk like this."
The afternoon sunlight streaming through the window illuminated her messy two-tone hair. Not long after, I quietly watched the crown of Choi Sua's head as she rested, letting out regular soft snoring breaths.
No matter how I look at it, the reason Choi Sua suddenly left the stage was probably because she dropped out over those stalker and extreme fan problems…
Well, it wasn't a problem that would yield an answer just from thinking hard about it right now. I discarded my interest without lingering and picked up the thick wire lying on the table. Then I took the pliers from the toolbox and began bending the center of the armature that would become the shoulders and neck of the Agrippa bust into shape.
I firmly fixed the wire armature to the center of the wooden board, then tore off small pieces of the oil-based clay I'd kneaded earlier and pressed them firmly onto the armature one by one.
The next morning.
As always, I was the first to arrive at the Class 4, Year 2 classroom at 7:30 a.m., the moment the school gates opened. Truly the behavior of a voluntary loner even the principal would acknowledge.
The first things I pulled out after setting down my bag were a long-bladed carving knife and a hard chunk of wood a little bigger than my fist. I did my serious work in the multipurpose room, but during scraps of free time or break periods, it was my habit to clear my head with light little figure carving. Last year too, me being the one to open the classroom door had become something of a routine.
Of course, separate from that, I still hadn't decided exactly what figure to make, so I just gripped the knife and started roughly chopping away at the corners of the wood chunk.
Scritch— scritch!
Scritch!
Hmm… I heard that clack-clack sound or whatever is trending these days. Maybe I should carve it into a keyboard shape.
A wooden keyboard wouldn't make any sound, of course. But the process of expressing those fine details itself seemed like it would make for pretty fun finger practice. Overall, not a bad idea.
After roughly settling on the form in my head, I went straight to work without a sketch, refining the wood chunk into a neat rectangular shape. Large unnecessary chunks fell away to the floor, and the wood gradually began to take on the frame of a keyboard housing.
Once the broad shape was set, I switched tools to a detail knife. Then, to express the fine gaps between each keycap and the concave texture sunken inward, I pushed the knife tip in short, precise strokes.
Without stems and springs, you wouldn't actually be able to press them. But that didn't matter. I wasn't trying to make an exact replica that would produce real clack-clack sounds. The key was hollowing out the empty space beneath the keycaps so that it would have the same three-dimensional feel as if your fingers could sink right in the moment you rested them on top.
Anyway, I was completely absorbed in the work, brushing away thin wood shavings, when—
Rattle— click.
I heard the soft sound of the classroom's back door opening and closing. Someone else had come to school as early as me, it seemed.
Or has quite a bit of time passed?
Either way, I kept my gaze fixed on the knife tip and maintained my hand movements. After all, last year most of the kids who saw me like this would show a brief flicker of interest before drifting away. If it was a classmate seeing me for the first time today, they'd probably try talking a few times out of curiosity before eventually returning to their seat, so there was no need to pay it any mind.
As long as some weird guy doesn't latch onto me…
Thinking that, I was focusing the detail knife on carving out the fine crevices around the keycaps when—
"…?"
I sensed someone's presence right beside me. At the same time, that distinctive perfume scent I'd smelled yesterday wafted over, and I unconsciously lifted my head a little to check beside me.
There stood the girl whose eyes had met mine yesterday when she'd entered the classroom with Lee Hyunwoo, her long black hair cascading down, staring intently down at the miniature keyboard piece resting on my palm.
Startled by the sudden closeness, I spoke first.
"Wh-why are you looking at me like that? Do you have something to say?"
"……."
At my question, the girl withdrew her gaze from the carving and shook her head a couple of times.
"No. It's just that instead of messing around on a smartphone like everyone else, you're carving wood in the classroom first thing in the morning. It's pretty fascinating."
The girl answered in an utterly calm voice, then naturally pulled out the chair at the empty seat right next to me—Lee Hyunwoo's seat—and sat down. After hanging her bag on the desk hook, she propped her chin lightly in her hand and looked at me.
"If you don't mind, could I watch you work from the side?"
"Hmm……."
Sitting side by side carving with a girl I suspected was a main heroine first thing in the morning. For someone trying to avoid getting entangled, it was a situation that made me hesitate.
I fiddled with the knife handle and deliberated for a moment. Her eyes held no meddling or playfulness—only pure curiosity.
…Yeah, it's not like I even have a good reason to shoo her away, right? I couldn't exactly say, You're one of the romantic comedy leads, so please stop paying attention to me! either.
"Well, as long as you don't get in the way, sure."
I lowered my gaze back to the keyboard piece and asked casually.
"More importantly—I'm not trying anything here, but what's your name?"
"……."
The moment that question landed, the girl's eyes widened just a fraction. It was a reaction that felt intensely like déjà vu, similar to the expression Choi Sua had worn in the multipurpose room yesterday.
How does she not know me? Is she pretending not to know?
Yeah, a reaction that made it clear she was thinking something like that. But the difference from yesterday was that the girl in front of me didn't make a fuss like Choi Sua and quickly regained her composure.
"I'm Jeong Hyein."
After the plain answer, she added one more thing.
"I got called during roll call yesterday too. You didn't know?"
At her question, I stopped the hand holding the carving knife and awkwardly scratched my cheek.
"Uh… well, taking an open interest in other students' names from day one, especially the girls' names, would be a little weird, wouldn't it?"
"……Yeah, I guess that's true."
I stole a sidelong glance at her profile as she accepted that.
So she was Jeong Hyein.
A standing illustration buried in the far reaches of my memory surfaced. In the original game, she was the main heroine with the cold ice princess gimmick. But the Jeong Hyein sitting before my eyes was qualitatively different from those low-quality polygon lumps or 2D graphics. Aside from the common point of black hair, her real-life presence and looks were so three-dimensional and overwhelming they couldn't even be compared.
But well, that's got nothing to do with me.
No matter how stunning a beauty she was, or how high her conquest difficulty lived up to her looks, it was none of my business. My interest, which had cooled in an instant, returned to the keyboard piece on my palm.
The detail knife began moving diligently again, carving out the gaps between the arrow keys.
Scritch, scritch.
Jeong Hyein neither took offense at my indifferent attitude nor tried to strike up further conversation. She simply sat quietly and watched the process of the small wood chunk at my fingertips transforming into the precise form of a keyboard.