44. What's Your Problem?
44. What's Your Problem?
44. What's Your Problem?
My return to academy classes after a long break went more smoothly than I'd expected.
First period: Combat Training.
Second period: Introduction to Magic Beasts.
Third period: Hero's Mindset.
Fourth period: Basic Villain Response.
The curriculum was designed to cultivate heroes, and it showed. I'd already absorbed all the book material countless times in V. AGE, so even falling behind didn't hold me back.
The practical combat subjects, however, were a different story.
In Combat Training, Kang Su-ho used my missed classes as an excuse to work me to the bone.
'Your body's gotten faster, but your technique is weak, Han Si-jun.'
He praised my improved ability scores, but since I had no skills to speak of, I couldn't land a single meaningful hit on him.
Kang Su-ho was a former A-rank hero. Aside from Yu Ha-yeon and Na Yu-na, none of the other students could scratch him either, so my failure was hardly unique.
The theory-based Introduction to Magic Beasts gave me no trouble at all thanks to my V. AGE knowledge. Even after three weeks away, the textbook contained nothing I didn't already know.
Ban Ha-na, on the other hand, stared at the textbook like it was a picture book of animals. She didn't seem to be studying in the slightest.
And then there was third period—the class on cultivating a hero's mindset.
That one turned out to be the most useful session of all for Ban Ha-na, who was, after all, a villain.
"What is a hero, everyone? Is a hero simply someone who helps people? Or should we define a hero as someone who eliminates Magic Beasts?"
In V. AGE, heroes handled a wide range of duties.
Patrol work—responding to villain appearances and restraining them before civilians got hurt.
Rescue operations—closing gates and clearing them out when Magic Beasts emerged.
And public service—using their abilities to resolve accidents and crises in society.
The actions heroes took, the financial compensation they received, the recognition from the public.
It was a class period dedicated to explaining what heroes did and what kind of existence they were.
For me and Ban Ha-na, and for the other students as well, it left a strong impression.
That was daily life at Hero Academy—absorbing the fundamentals of what it meant to be a hero.
After fourth period, when lunchtime arrived, Yu Ha-yeon, Ban Ha-na, and I headed for the cafeteria.
Ban Ha-na hugged my arm and announced,
"The academy is so fun! I think I've got a talent for being a student!"
"If you had fun, then that's a relief..."
Ban Ha-na sat at the desk directly in front of mine.
Which meant she was always squarely in my line of sight.
Whenever theory classes rolled around, Ban Ha-na would plant her head on her desk—maybe as a courtesy to me, maybe not. I couldn't tell.
From her direction, I'd occasionally catch the sound of breathing and sleep-talking.
The teachers noticed her. But they never once called her out. They must have heard something from Shin Si-hwa.
'Should've told her to start from elementary school.'
Ban Ha-na only came alive during the hands-on training sessions.
Yu Ha-yeon clearly didn't approve of her behavior. With a knife-hand strike, she knocked Ban Ha-na's grip right off my arm.
"Ow...!"
Ban Ha-na yelped in pain, and Yu Ha-yeon wedged herself into the empty space.
She defended the position like a wall, cutting Ban Ha-na off entirely.
"Wh-what the heck! Move! Si-jun's arm is mine!"
"Si-jun is mine, actually. He's not someone you can just touch whenever you feel like it. Don't follow us."
"My body belongs to me, you two...?"
Are you even hearing me?
Yu Ha-yeon spoke to Ban Ha-na in a frigid tone.
Ban Ha-na flinched, looking genuinely intimidated.
She must have decided that Yu Ha-yeon's wall was impenetrable, because she gave up, circled around to my other side, and grabbed my free arm.
"I-I'm not letting go of this arm!"
"Why would I? I don't want to! Hehe...!"
Why are they even fighting?
Yu Ha-yeon looked at me with pleading eyes, tugging at my sleeve as if to ask, 'Can I tell her we're dating?'
'Absolutely not. That would kill me.'
If Yu Ha-yeon and Ban Ha-na sensed something off and the two of them had a candid conversation...
I'd probably end up half-dead.
One of them would make sure of it. That wasn't a suspicion—it was practically a guarantee.
Under the gaze of students who recognized me, I made my way to the cafeteria with my two bickering companions in tow.
'Still the same as ever.'
Since it was lunchtime, the cafeteria was packed, and since I was apparently classified as something of a celebrity, I drew countless stares.
'This is a little uncomfortable.'
Our homeroom, Class 1-A, Yu Ha-yeon had already silenced. I barely felt any friction there.
But the cafeteria was a shared space for the entire student body.
Yu Ha-yeon couldn't gag the other classes or the upper years.
"Well, some days are just like this. Let's just eat."
Feigning nonchalance, I walked toward the kiosk.
Beside me, Ban Ha-na murmured in a serious tone, 'Si-jun is a celebrity, huh...'
'Curry for me... Seolleongtang for Yu Ha-yeon... And Ban Ha-na is...?'
The three of us had settled into fixed menu habits.
I liked spicy food, so curry. Yu Ha-yeon preferred clean, mild flavors, so seolleongtang.
After living with Ban Ha-na, the only thing I'd learned was that she claimed to enjoy everything. Her actual preferences remained a mystery.
So what was she going to pick?
"Hmm..."
Ban Ha-na stood in front of the kiosk, agonizing.
The line behind us grew. Discontent simmered, ready to boil over.
And then, Ban Ha-na made her choice with total confidence.
"Curry...?"
The same thing I was having. Curry.
Why did Ban Ha-na pick curry?
She declared, loud and proud,
"Because Si-jun is eating it! I'll eat it too!"
"...!!"
So that was it. She just wanted to eat the same thing.
Yu Ha-yeon reacted with sudden urgency.
"I-I'll have curry too...!!"
"Why all of a sudden? You can't handle spicy food."
"I just... I just felt like it."
I honestly could not understand.
Yu Ha-yeon couldn't eat anything spicy—she used to rinse her kimchi in water. And now she was ordering spicy curry?
Why go out of her way to suffer?
I genuinely couldn't make sense of it.
After that whole ordeal, we returned to our seats and waited for the food.
'Would've been nice if Na Yu-na came too.'
Unfortunately, Na Yu-na was still tied up dealing with the fallout from the theft incident we'd caused. She'd told us she had to use her lunch period for meetings.
The look she'd given us—full of resentment—had stirred a faint twinge of guilt.
"Han Si-jun."
Yu Ha-yeon, seated beside me, spoke up out of nowhere.
"What?"
"You're going to that thing, right?"
'That thing.'
She was asking because I'd fallen behind and she wasn't sure if I'd attend.
The event where participation was left entirely to the student.
I answered Yu Ha-yeon.
"Of course I'm going. If you're a student, you have to go on the school trip at least once."
The school trip.
The highlight of student life—and a break for everyone worn down by Hero Academy's pace.
We hadn't even been enrolled that long, but the trip was scheduled early to reward students who'd been working hard.
No matter what happened there, I planned to participate.
Yu Ha-yeon asked me, careful with her words.
"Th-then... you don't have any plans, right? Like, a promise to go around with someone..."
"No, I do have plans."
"Who? Is it her...?"
Yu Ha-yeon's eyes shifted the moment I said I had plans.
When she glared at Ban Ha-na, Ban Ha-na timidly shot back, 'Wh-what are you looking at!'
Under pressure from Yu Ha-yeon to reveal who I'd made plans with, I told her.
"With you, obviously. Without you, who'd keep me entertained?"
Truthfully, there were no plans at all.
I just felt like teasing Yu Ha-yeon.
At my response, her expression immediately relaxed into a bright, bubbly grin.
"R-right? See? I told you—you can't manage without me..."
Yu Ha-yeon's face flushed red, as if embarrassed by her own words.
Meanwhile, Ban Ha-na shot me a look that said, 'What's a school trip?' so I explained it to her.
And added one more thing.
"Ha-na, you probably can't go on the trip this year."
"Wh-why! How come...!"
It was purely for her protection.
Given that we'd pulled her out of a villain organization, letting Ban Ha-na leave the academy grounds was close to impossible right now.
Ban Ha-na muttered, crestfallen.
"It's obvious... The academy is a villain organization..."
"Why does she keep obsessing over villains?"
"I know, right..."
We passed the time talking about the school trip—the setting for Episode 2.
Beep-beep-beep.
The food court alert chimed: our long-awaited meals were ready.
We got up from our seats, picked up the curry that looked unquestionably spicy, and sat back down.
But something was off.
'Why does it look even spicier today...?'
Had the curry's aroma always stabbed at my eyes like this?
Something must have happened while I was gone for those three weeks. Even just the smell of the curry we'd received carried a punishing kick.
'Can't exactly skip eating it. What do I do.'
After the intense physical activity in first period, my body was running on empty.
I needed food. I needed nutrients.
Breathing in the nose-prickling scent of curry, I shoveled it into my mouth without mercy.
"I-is it good...?"
"It's good. It's a little spicier today..."
As the words "a little spicy" left my mouth, a faint tingle spread across my tongue.
Spiciness registered as pain, not taste—maybe that was why.
It felt as though the essence of the food's flavor was trickling into my head.
'Not bad. Maybe I'll try something even spicier next time.'
Spicy food. The one thing I could still taste.
To reclaim some joy in life, I decided to experiment further down the line.
As I enjoyed the fiery curry without a hint of struggle, Yu Ha-yeon watched me with obvious puzzlement.
She lifted a spoonful of curry, stared at it like it was a suspect, then steeled herself and took a bite.
"It's spicy...! What do you mean, 'a little spicier'...!!"
"You say everything is spicy."
Even if it weren't this particular curry, Yu Ha-yeon would've cried out the moment anything spicy touched her tongue.
She was just someone who couldn't handle heat. Plain and simple.
Yu Ha-yeon insisted there was no way she could eat something this spicy, pushed her plate aside, and writhed in exaggerated agony.
Ban Ha-na saw this and scoffed. 'What's so spicy about it?' She loaded her spoon and swallowed.
"S-Si-jun...! Water...! I need water...!!"
The moment it hit her mouth, Ban Ha-na started screaming in distress.
Was it really that spicy?
Without working taste buds, all I felt was the faint burn transmitted straight to my brain as pain. I couldn't relate to them at all.
In the end, both Yu Ha-yeon and Ban Ha-na cried uncle, abandoned their curry, and ordered something else.
I was the only one who finished the curry.
Just as we were about to leave our empty dishes and the untouched curry at the serving area—
'Oh my, how did this get sent out?' A cafeteria lady called out to us.
"Oh dear, that one—I spilled the capsaicin in it by mistake and set it aside to throw away! It clearly looked off, didn't it? How on earth did you eat the whole thing, young man?"
...Excuse me?
The cafeteria lady explained there'd been some confusion among the kitchen staff, and the ultra-spicy curry had accidentally been served to us.
The curry loaded with capsaicin.
'How do you even make that mistake...?'
What on earth had happened in the kitchen for them to send out a failed batch as food?
My head was starting to pound from sheer incomprehension.
Yu Ha-yeon had caught on to something. She fixed me with a suspicious stare and asked,
"You like spicy food, but you've never been able to eat it that well."
"No, I handle spicy food just fine."
She wasn't buying it. I'd polished off a capsaicin-bombed curry and called it only a little spicy.
Yu Ha-yeon was my childhood friend. She knew perfectly well that I liked spicy food but couldn't actually handle much heat.
What she didn't know was that I'd lost my sense of taste while obtaining a Hidden Piece.
If my childhood friend—stricter about my health than anyone—found out about this, I'd be in serious trouble.
Yu Ha-yeon studied me with eyes full of doubt.
"You're really okay... right?"
She sounded utterly convinced that I was not okay.
My complete lack of reaction was feeding her suspicion.
And it was growing.