First Meetings Are So Hard (1)
It was late spring when I first met Ban Soyeong.
"Alright, come on out and say hello."
Having moved house constantly since I was little, I'd barely finished adjusting to one school before another transfer came crashing down on me.
Ban Soyeong was a transfer student, same as me.
"...My name is Ban Soyeong."
Just as the awkwardness of the new semester had finally begun to fade, she appeared without any warning and stirred up an enormous commotion.
"Where are you from?"
"Is your hair naturally blonde? Are you mixed?"
"Wow, her eyelashes are so long. Are those fake?"
Among kids in the thick of those storm-and-stress years, her presence couldn't help but stand apart.
Brilliant blonde hair spilling down to her back, and eyes the vivid green of emerald. Porcelain skin without a single blemish to be found, set in a tiny, delicate face. A high, sharp nose bridge beneath features arranged in perfect proportion. And on top of it all, a tall, slender figure that could hold its own against most boys her age.
All of it wove together into an aura that made her seem somehow untouchable, the kind of person you hesitated to approach — but to children at an age when they feared nothing, she was simply a pretty transfer student, nothing more.
"Where'd you come from?"
"Why'd you transfer here?"
"Hey, she can't answer if you all pile on at once. Right?"
But to Ban Soyeong, all of that attention was nothing more than noise.
"......"
She sat in silence for a while amid the kids clustered around her desk, and then, without a word, quietly took out her earphones and plugged up her ears.
In that instant, a hush fell over the children watching her.
Before long, the crowd that had swarmed her began to scatter one by one, and I — paying no mind to the awkward glances around me — looked at Ban Soyeong, still sitting perfectly upright, and thought:
'No ordinary gijonsse, that one.'
I was on friendly terms with most of the kids in my class.
It wasn't my natural disposition, but at some point I had started making an effort to be that way. How sad would it make my mother, I realized, to learn that her only son drifted from school to school without a single friend? From the moment that thought struck me, I had gone out of my way to keep my relationships smooth and easy.
...Looking back, maybe that was the problem.
"Teacher? You wanted to see me?"
"Oh, Daehyun, there you are! Just a moment."
Summoned by my homeroom teacher, I followed her into a small counseling room.
"Want a snack?"
"I wouldn't say no."
She even slipped me one of the juices that were always stacked in a corner of the teachers' office.
"Have this too."
"Oh. Thank you."
Being on the younger side, my homeroom teacher had a habit of handing out little treats whenever she sent students on errands. In the depths of my perpetually hungry years, I would accept like it was a windfall from heaven and only remember that fact afterward.
Seated across the table, watching me with an amused smile, the teacher spoke up.
"Daehyun. How are things with the kids these days?"
"Me?"
There was something oddly pointed in her tone, but I couldn't make out her intent, so I answered obediently.
"Hmm... I'd say we get along about the same as anyone."
The teacher had looked out for me in all sorts of ways since the beginning of the semester. A transfer student appearing in the middle of an already troublesome age — no wonder she'd kept a special eye on me. Fortunately, I'd grown close to the other kids quickly enough that she'd barely needed a sit-down with me lately, so I assumed this was more of the same transfer-student housekeeping.
"Then... how about with Soyeong?"
"...?"
"Ban Soyeong?"
"Yes. Are you maybe friendly with her too?"
It didn't take any deep thought.
I wasn't close with Ban Soyeong. I had no intention of getting close, either. No — come to think of it, I had never once seen anyone who was close with her. Whenever someone worked up the nerve to speak to her, she ignored them or fobbed them off with a clipped word or two.
It was precisely the sort of attitude that invites ostracism, yet not a single kid dared to torment her. If anything, you'd have to say she was the one giving the whole world the cold shoulder. That was the kind of girl Ban Soyeong was.
'Why Ban Soyeong, all of a sudden?'
The out-of-nowhere topic left me with a strange discomfort, and I answered flatly.
"No. I'm not close with her."
"Oh... is that so...?"
Embarrassment flickered across the teacher's face. I didn't need to guess what came next — she was about to ask me to get along with Ban Soyeong. Having been asked before, transfer student that I was, to reach out to kids who drifted at the edges of the class, I could see it coming a mile away.
'Not a chance.'
Just as predicted, disappointment settled over the teacher's features, and she broached the subject with care.
"No, no, it's nothing like that... It's just, there's something I'd like to ask of you, Daehyun."
I quietly set my half-finished juice down on the desk.
"Could you, well... maybe try spending some time with Soyeong?"
My prediction hadn't missed by a single inch.
"Me?"
"Mm-hm. You see, the truth is, I don't think Soyeong has settled into the class yet... Would it be all right to ask that much of you?"
Honestly, I doubted that was the reason. If anything, it seemed more like she'd adjusted too well. Not that I could say so to her face — there was nothing to gain from being written off as a brat.
'How do I talk my way out of this one?'
Just as I was racking my brain for a graceful refusal, the teacher, who had been carefully reading my expression, spoke up as if she'd run out of options.
"If you promise to help me out... I'll lend a hand with that scholarship you applied for."
"...I'm sorry — what?"
For a moment, I was sure I'd misheard.
"The Titan Foundation Scholarship. I'll do what I can to make sure you get it. How about it?"
"Whoa... seriously...?"
The scholarship she meant was a program that paid out several hundred thousand won a month, plus school supplies, all the way through high school graduation. I had applied a while back on her recommendation, but the competition was so fierce that I'd long since shelved any expectations. Which was why the question came out before anything else.
"How, though...?"
The teacher, for her part, sounded like she had an ace up her sleeve.
"There are ways. So? Can you help your teacher out with this?"
For some reason, she looked almost desperate about it. I had no way of knowing what that desperation was really about — but then again, I had no particular reason to refuse, either.
"I'll give it a try."
Having accepted the teacher's offer, I quickly learned that getting close to Ban Soyeong was anything but easy.
"What kind of music do you listen to?"
"......"
"Oh, you're reading today? What book is that?"
"......"
"You organize your notes? Want to compare with mine?"
"......"
"Hey, you know that thing over there..."
"......"
All-time record: seven matches, eight losses. A tally so wretched it defied arithmetic.
"Hey, Kim Daehyun. Do you like Ban Soyeong?"
Thanks to that, I even picked up a false reputation among the other kids for being in love with Ban Soyeong. It was the worst.
"Says who? It's nothing like that."
"Then why do you keep going over to talk to her?"
"Yeah, you were at it again earlier."
"...I just tried talking to her once. Don't go spreading weird rumors for no reason."
"If it's not, it's not. Why are you getting so serious about..."
"Hey! I told you it wasn't true!"
"Huh? You're the one who asked me!"
I would turn my back on the squabbling kids and sneak a glance to read Ban Soyeong's mood. But as ever, she sat with flawless posture, quietly reading her book as though none of it concerned her in the slightest.
Fortunately, nobody seemed to genuinely believe the rumor that I liked Ban Soyeong... but honestly, my pride had taken a bruise, and I knew it.
'Seriously? Who's even like that?'
Of all the kids I had ever set my mind on befriending, I had never failed once. For someone who'd treated transferring schools like an annual event, it was a quiet source of pride. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to run into someone this hopeless here.
'If only it weren't for the scholarship.'
In the end, I tried approaching Ban Soyeong several more times after that...
"Um, hey..."
"......"
The results were gruesome.
'...If I eat and run with that scholarship money, that's my business.'
And so, scholarship pocketed and nothing to show for it, I was drifting through the semester without a shred of progress when—
"Kim Daehyun. You're on watering duty tomorrow."
"Isn't that Junsu's turn?"
"He hurt his foot, remember?"
"Oh. Right."
At our school, every class was assigned its own section of the campus to maintain. Ours was the small flowerbed behind the school building — a spot the elderly security guard tended with his own hands, and which we watered in turns every morning.
'I hear some schools these days don't even make their students clean anymore.'
Somehow, we seemed to be marching backward through the times.
"Sweetie, you're leaving early today?"
The next day, I had decided to leave the house earlier than usual.
"I'm going to go water the flowers."
"Flowers?"
There wasn't any special reason for it. I would water the flowerbed and, while I was at it, savor a bit of the leisure I never normally got to enjoy.
"Okaaay. Have a good day. Be careful out there."
As always, my mother came to the front door to see me off, waving a hand through a small yawn, still in her silk pajamas.
"I'm off."
My school was about a fifteen-minute walk from home. It was close enough that I always lounged my way there and strolled through the gate with seconds to spare — but today, I was the first one in.
'No one here, just as I thought.'
I lit up the darkened classroom, then made my way down the empty corridor, grabbed the watering can, and headed for the back of the school. The plants swayed gently in the drifting breeze. Summer was announcing itself early, it seemed — even with the world still green, a faint heat was already creeping into the air.
When I splashed cool water over the flowerbed, even that little bit of warmth seemed to melt away.
'Hold out just a little longer, and it's vacation.'
I loved school vacations. Not that any student doesn't, of course — but I was certain no one awaited them quite the way I did. Twice a year, and only twice: the only chances I ever had to see my father.
'...I hope we go fishing again this time.'
How long did I stand there like that, absently pouring water over nameless flower buds still too green to bloom? At some point I noticed the watering can had grown light, confirmed that the flowerbed was soaked through, and turned back toward the building.
'Oops. Forgot to flip the sign.'
Then, just as I stepped back out into the rear garden to turn the "Watered" sign the old guard was always emphasizing—
"...Huh?"
An inexplicable sense of wrongness washed over me, and I stopped mid-stride, tilting my face up toward the sky without thinking. And in that instant—
"?!"
Something fell from the sky.
Thud————.
What had dropped from the heavens at tremendous speed... no — what came hurtling in at tremendous speed and touched down lightly on school grounds was none other than a girl wearing the same uniform as me.
"Uh...?"
I stood there gaping at the sight like an idiot — and then, catching sight of that familiar face, I jolted awake all over again.
'What the—'
It was Ban Soyeong.
Ban Soyeong was a superhuman.
"To understand the writer's intent in this passage..."
It was in the middle of class.
I stole a glance at Ban Soyeong in her seat far across the room. Sure enough, she sat bolt upright, eyes fixed on the blackboard as always.
'Does she even actually listen?'
The memory of that morning flashed through my mind. She had seemed to startle when she ran into me — then, a heartbeat later, brushed right past as if nothing had happened. I'd ended up feeling like I'd turned into some kind of invisible man.
'But why did she come to our school?'
By law, superhumans were required to attend specialized educational institutions. Naturally, that meant our school was no place a superhuman could attend. So a superhuman enrolling in an ordinary school came down to one of two possibilities: their abilities had awakened only recently, or...
'They were hiding who they were. Like me.'
Going by the circumstances, Ban Soyeong didn't seem like someone who had only just discovered her powers. The flight I'd witnessed that morning had been far too practiced. And the way she'd transferred in out of nowhere at the start of the semester, too — something was clearly going on with her.
'I don't know what her story is... but still. Huh.'
To think even the great Ban Soyeong had a weakness.
'Lucky me.'
Before I knew it, a sly, scheming smile had crept across my face.
