Love Advice? (2)
Love Advice? (2)
It was only this week that I'd experienced an impulse threatening to boil over.
For some reason, it was the first day of the spirit arts course that had been crammed into a single week.
Hong Yeon-hwa had plopped down and was idly toying with a crystal orb.
She'd already confirmed long ago that her affinity for spirits was nothing special.
The tiny sliver of affinity she did have was for a single fire spirit, and even that wasn't at a meaningful level.
Besides, it hadn't even been two months since her last detailed aptitude test. The chances of some special quality manifesting in the interim were practically zero, so she was simply indifferent.
So, without any real expectation, she was just killing time, chatting lightly with Baek A-rin and her other friends while training her mana.
Then, all of a sudden, a corner of her vision shimmered.
"What the?"
A flash of blue rippled, then yellow and light green painted themselves over it. It didn't stop there—red and dark brown joined in as well.
A sudden shift in her vision, and a presence caught by her qi sense—similar to mana or attribute power, yet distinctly different.
Spirit presences. Her affinity might be trash, but that didn't mean she couldn't sense spirits that had manifested in the world.
Curious, she turned her head. She just assumed the professor in charge had summoned some spirits.
And then.
"...Uh..."
It felt like the train of thought running through her mind had screeched to a halt.
Because the scene before her eyes felt utterly surreal.
A pristine blue lake without a single impurity, and a pale white mist settled low over the surrounding grass.
The sky stretching beyond the horizon and the procession of clouds arrayed beneath it.
The blue hues of earth and sky.
And at the center of all those colors, dyed in five distinct shades, was Lee Ha-yul.
Seated with the lake and sky at his back, spirits repeatedly alighted upon his shoulders, arms, and head before lifting off again.
Each time, one color would deepen and then fade, only for another to deepen and fade...
As if wrapped in a gentle play of colored light, his already eye-catching features were emphasized even more.
A petite frame that looked just right to hold tight in your arms.
Fine black hair with an especially sweet scent.
Neat eyelashes and soft, gentle eyes like a docile puppy's.
The dark circles beneath them evoked a sense of frailness, and the single sleeve fluttering limply amplified that vulnerability twofold.
Behind his back, a blue cloth fluttered as well, reminiscent of a celestial maiden's winged garment from an old tale, creating a dreamlike atmosphere.
Within a backdrop like a landscape painting.
The gazes of the hundred or so people present were fixed solely on one person. An atmosphere that made it impossible to look away surrounded him.
It didn't matter if you were a man or a woman. There was no need to debate personal aesthetic taste.
Beauty (美).
That single word was all that could be branded into your mind.
Whether he knew about the many stares boring into him or not, Lee Ha-yul, who had been tilting his head vacantly, suddenly raised one hand wrapped in an arm sleeve.
The black arm sleeve encasing his hand and half his forearm, and the stark contrast with the fair skin left uncovered by it.
Then, a red cluster of light settled onto his fingertip.
A fire spirit.
Fire is an element essential to human survival, but at the same time, a dangerous thing that can easily snatch life away.
Yet the fire spirit, whose origin and very essence was flame, showed no sign of danger. Instead, it merely rubbed its body against the arm it had landed on, as if acting cute.
An air of pure affection. Had he noticed? Lee Ha-yul, who had seemed somewhat dazed, suddenly wore a faint smile and carefully stroked the spirit.
"......"
The corners of Hong Yeon-hwa's eyes trembled as she stared at him, utterly entranced. From her slack-jawed mouth, it looked like drool might spill out at any moment.
- Fwoosh...
The Calamity Flame inside her flickered. It was nothing new. As long as her life didn't end, the Calamity Flame would burn on without pause.
- Fwoosh...
But this time, the flicker was different from all the others.
Normally, the Calamity Flame was intense, threatening just to look at. When it fed on violent emotions, it became ferocious and menacing enough to burn everything around it to ash.
The Calamity Flame during that hospital visit... it had been uncharacteristically silent and cold.
And now?
It wasn't intense.
It wasn't ferocious or threatening.
It wasn't silent and cold either.
Now... it flickered with a viscosity that clung to the floor. It was a strange flame, seemingly ready to stickily engulf and devour whatever it wrapped itself around, before it could even burn the surroundings.
A sticky impulse. Or perhaps, a craving.
The Calamity Flame... made Hong Yeon-hwa want to devour.
That thing, so clearly within her sight.
That beautiful thing cloaked in a dreamlike aura—she wanted to swallow it whole, pull it into her arms, crush it beneath her, and press it down.
That thing was warm, smelled nice, was soft, had a tender plushness, only made cute noises, would come offering crumpled candy as thanks with its tiny little hands, was always wagging its tail invitingly, yet would tilt its head innocently as if it had no idea what it was doing, would come scampering over holding a handmade gift stitched carefully when it had no time and an unwell body, that fragile thing that would come back battered and bruised from somewhere...
"...It's his fault. It's not my fault. It's all Ha-yul's fault. How much have I held back? Not knowing that, he keeps scampering over, apologizing, getting teary-eyed with that face, whining, clinging... not even knowing how dangerous the situation is, he keeps... keeps..."
"O-Okay! I get it, so you can stop talking now! I completely understand, so stop!"
The muttering continued. The voice was small, too small to fill the spacious office, but the sticky, dank desire contained within it threatened to overflow past the point of filling the room.
Unable to take it anymore, Choi Ji-yeon cut off the muttering with a horrified yelp.
At first, it had been full of that peculiar embarrassment of someone utterly love-struck, but at some point, it had gotten... weird.
She acted out of a feeling that she was about to hear something she really shouldn't, but it seemed she was already a little too late.
Steadying her ragged breathing, Choi Ji-yeon touched her own face. The skin under her fingertips was utterly cold.
Choi Ji-yeon glanced up. Her eyes met Eriel's, who was waiting behind the sofa.
"......"
Eriel always had a stiff, quiet expression, but now her face wasn't just cold—it was pale with terror...
And below that.
Hong Yeon-hwa, who had been muttering with a strangely viscous look in her eyes, finally came back to her senses.
"...Huh? Oh, what's this? Why does your face look like that? Are you sick somewhere?"
She tilted her head, apparently gradually regaining awareness. From the look of it, she didn't even realize what she'd been muttering to herself. That was what made it scarier...
'...Uh, how should I put it...'
It was an outpouring of emotions hard to summarize. If you cut out the inappropriate parts and summarized, it was just that she liked that kid, so... um... fuck.
Choi Ji-yeon shook her head. She decided to just think of it in a nice, positive light.
She did feel that way, but she hadn't acted on it. She had been patient and hadn't... forcibly assaulted anyone.
And this was Hong Yeon-hwa, whose Calamity Flame side effects were extreme. Somehow, she had managed to overcome such viscous emotions.
Choi Ji-yeon resolved to take that part of it positively.
Can't a person have a few dark thoughts? As long as you don't act on them, brain fantasies exist in a murky area of whether you can really scold someone for them.
'...Or can you? Should you be scolded for just thinking about assaulting someone? And didn't she just act out a little?'
The more she thought about it, the more her head hurt...
"Hoo..."
Letting out a deep sigh, Choi Ji-yeon took a sip of her tea. Thanks to the spell formula inscribed in the teacup, the tea water didn't cool down, maintaining its warmth.
If it had cooled, it might have soothed her insides at least. It was a shame in that regard.
Licking her lips for nothing, she set the teacup down and guzzled the cold water prepared beside it.
As the cold water rushed down her throat, her burning insides gradually cooled.
Similarly, her dizzy head settled down a little.
'...Hmm.'
Thinking about it now with a somewhat calmer mind, a good idea came to her.
"...How about I set up an engagement for you?"
"...a wh-wha-what kind of gagement?"
"An engagement. Engagement."
The feelings Hong Yeon-hwa had poured out were dark and nasty thoughts that absolutely shouldn't be unleashed on another person.
But if it's between a married couple, there's no problem, right? From the looks of it, this one seemed thoroughly love-struck, and from what she'd heard, the boy clearly had some affection for her too...
Either way, Choi Ji-yeon didn't want to see her daughter become a criminal...
* * *
Late at night, after all her personal training and studies were finished.
Unable to fall asleep, Baek A-rin lent a hand to the mountain of family business that had piled up.
Unlike many others, Baek A-rin had diligently completed and digested her successor training.
To a degree that she had previously been handling a significant portion of the family's affairs.
She was short on time in many ways after entering Siyoram, so she had her hands off it for a bit, but whenever she had a little leeway, she'd handle it bit by bit.
Of course, even that was just helping out with appropriate tasks. Truly security-sensitive work was never touched outside the main estate.
As she was rifling through the piled-up mail, Baek A-rin's hand came to an abrupt stop.
Among the mountain of business mail, there was an email from her parents.
"......"
Baek A-rin stared at it expressionlessly for a moment, then opened it with an air of reluctant resignation.
The content was nothing special.
How is life at Siyoram, how are your studies, are you controlling your unique ability well, are you taking care of your health, and so on...
It was the kind of well-being check parents would usually give their child.
Even excluding the characteristic stiffness of the font, the bluntness that seeped from the writing style itself was the same as ever.
It was almost laughable that they'd write out their worries in such a style.
Of course, she didn't find it entirely unpleasant.
Baek A-rin knew very well that her parents were inept at expressing emotions. And she also knew that their concern for her was genuine.
While expressionlessly reading through the email, she let out a hollow laugh at the engagement-related content cautiously written in the last paragraph or so.
It wasn't an active proposal for an engagement, just a cautious question asking if she might at least meet someone.
"An engagement, huh..."
Engagement proposals. Thanks to her decent appearance, she'd been sick of receiving them since childhood.
She'd rejected all of them. The Changhae Family wasn't some half-baked force that could be coerced by outside pressure. Thanks to that, she could shoot down every single engagement offer based on her own preferences.
The reason was nothing much. It wasn't even about whether there was someone she liked or not. Back then, she simply didn't have the time or energy.
That was still the case now.
Baek A-rin touched her chest area. Beyond the heavy flesh, she could faintly perceive the curse lodged within her heart.
It was cold and icy.
Because she possessed the Azure Sea, Baek A-rin's body was specialized for water energy and cold energy.
Thanks to that, she was accustomed to cold, but even now, she still couldn't adapt to the damned, frigid chill of that fucking curse.
"......"
Murmuring the word "engagement," Baek A-rin delved into her memories.
To Baek A-rin, an engagement was a form of transaction.
The sending side offers their own flesh and blood to pledge trust, and the receiving side accepts the other's flesh and blood to secure stability.
There are few methods as secure as a transaction that uses one's bloodline as both collateral and hostage.
Engagement is a deal. The engagement partner is the merchandise for that deal.
In that sense, Baek A-rin herself was an extremely expensive piece of merchandise.
Special Admission Cadet.
A cadet of unprecedented potential that the Headmaster had taken note of. A lottery ticket practically guaranteed to win.
Tower of Growth.
Calamity Flame that unleashed an output comparable to Hong Yeon-hwa's.
The Sipnaha Incident.
Traces of the Azure Sea manifestation confirmed on Lee Ha-yul when he was admitted to the healing ward.
"...Hmm."
She made a rough calculation.
Hong Yeon-hwa, who held the potential to possibly melt away the curse.
Lee Ha-yul, who held a potential recognized by the Headmaster.
Lee Ha-yul, who had manifested Calamity Flame boasting an output comparable to Hong Yeon-hwa's.
Lee Ha-yul, who had manifested Azure Sea with traces of cold energy that wouldn't lose to Baek A-rin's own...
"Sss..."
The scales tipped to one side.
But to ignore the other side, the affection and sense of debt she'd built up so far were too great.
Also, she had no certainty that she'd be valued as highly by Lee Ha-yul.
From the look of it, the other side had an overwhelming advantage in affection, and didn't Lee Ha-yul even have a strange sense of wariness towards her in the first place?
"......"
In that case.
If she intended to do this properly, she would have to raise her own value.
Late at night.
Baek A-rin's agonizing continued for a long time.