Could You Leave Her to Me?
Even after passing the second round, Park Jae-hyun still hadn't overcome his social anxiety, so he left well ahead of me.
I rode the subway alone and stepped off in a quiet mood.
That was when it happened — completely out of nowhere.
"Let gooo—!"
A sharp, ringing voice cut cleanly through the noisy station. Crowded as the place was, the cry rang out so clearly that not only I but nearly everyone nearby turned to look.
Curious, I craned my neck toward the knot of people and saw two girls who looked about my age locked in a scuffle.
A fight in a subway station? That was my first thought — until my eyes snagged on one of the girls' clothes.
An Academy uniform…?
Judging by the ribbon color, she was a first-year. Long black hair pulled up into a neat ponytail. I had no idea what was going on, but the ponytail girl looked strong, and an Academy student in uniform wouldn't be causing a scene in a place this packed for no reason.
Having decided that much, I turned to go on my way.
"Ah…!"
A thin scream came from behind me.
Whoosh—!
Something shot past, kicking up a gust of wind nearby.
The problem was—
Grab.
"Huh…?"
—that I reflexively caught whatever — no, whoever — had just brushed past me.
I wasn't the only one startled. The person whose wrist I'd seized stared up at me with a blank face, then—
"Let go..!"
—immediately swung a fist at me.
But.
Thud!
"Ah… damn."
Faced with a sudden attack, I reflexively pinned her to the ground.
"Hey… sorry. You okay?"
"Ugh… let go!"
"No, but you tried to hit me first, so this is mutual, right?"
"I said let go!"
"Ah, right. Just a second."
"And where do you think you're going."
I still had no idea what was happening, but the moment I moved to release the girl I'd subdued, a cold voice cut in from behind.
I turned toward the sound.
Standing there was the Academy-uniformed ponytail girl who'd been scuffling with the one under my hand.
She stepped up in front of me, suddenly bowed her head, and launched into a thank-you.
"Thank you for your assistance. She was a pickpocket operating in the station — I had her, but she slipped away mid—"
Then her gaze dropped to my clothes.
Her mouth slowly closed.
She must have noticed the uniform and the color of my tie and realized I was a fellow first-year freshman.
"Ah, you don't have to speak formally. Same year, right?"
At my words, the ponytail girl gave a small nod.
"Let go!"
The girl pinned under my hand kept thrashing without the slightest sign of tiring.
"Haa…"
I'd meant to just walk away, but I was already involved. Pretending I hadn't seen anything wasn't an option anymore.
"Mind explaining?"
I had no choice but to hear the story.
It went like this.
A speed-type Awakened girl had tried to pickpocket someone. The moment she slipped the wallet free and tried to run, the ponytail girl had caught her. She'd meant to haul the girl straight to the police as a flagrant offender, but the resistance had been fierce enough to turn into a scuffle right there in the station.
That aside—
Even accounting for her being a speed type, she's seriously fast.
Fast enough that I'd registered her as a threat and reached out on pure reflex.
After a brief moment of thought, I approached the girl still firmly held by the ponytail girl and spoke.
"You. What's your name?"
"……"
"Depending on how you answer, I might be able to help you."
That seemed to work. Her tightly shut mouth slowly opened.
"…Jeong, Min-yeong."
"Age?"
"Six…teen."
To wield power at this level at sixteen… she'd probably Awakened a year or two ago already.
I pulled my wallet from my bag, took out some bills and a business card, and pressed them into Jeong Min-yeong's hand.
"This should hold you for a while. When the money runs out, go to the address on the card, do whatever they tell you, and get paid for it."
Jeong Min-yeong's eyes went round at the sudden cash in her palm.
"Who the hell are you?"
Of course, from the ponytail girl's perspective — still holding Jeong Min-yeong so she couldn't bolt — none of this made any sense.
"She might be connected to someone I owe a debt to. Could you leave her to me?"
It was a lie, of course. But while the ponytail girl hesitated, I turned back to Jeong Min-yeong.
"The choice is yours. Still, I'd really prefer you go and get the help. Explain your situation and show them that card — they'll cut you some slack."
Whether she was ignoring me completely or not, hesitation flickered in Jeong Min-yeong's eyes.
That was enough.
Judging by her expression, it was only a matter of sooner or later. Jeong Min-yeong would take the card I'd given her and find the place.
"What gives you the right to just decide all this on your own."
The hesitation lasted only a moment. The ponytail girl was glaring at me again, face full of discontent.
I was still thinking how best to put it when my eyes caught the name tag hanging from her jacket.
Min… Ji-won…
Wait. The Association President's surname is definitely Min…
The thought hit me like a jolt of current through my body.
Back then, on the phone, he'd said—
—Our Ji-won, you know, she's pretty, she's smart, and the kid is just so sharp and put-together—
The Association President's daughter. In other words.
"So… your name is Min Ji-won…?"
One of the novel's main characters.
Min Ji-won shot me a look as if she had no idea what I was talking about, then promptly tucked the name tag hanging from her jacket inside.
"My name isn't exactly the important thing right now."
No, it was extremely important. If I messed this up, that man would kill me.
Still, I decided to focus on finishing what was in front of me and calmly continued the conversation with Min Ji-won.
"Anyway, she's an acquaintance — one degree removed, sure, but still. Looks like it never went past the attempt stage. I'll straighten her out properly, so I'd appreciate it if you let this one slide."
I'd said it, and it had been a nice try.
At this level, even Min Ji-won would let it go—
"No."
—except she cut me off with absolute finality and kept going.
"It isn't just this incident. There have been a lot of pickpocketing cases around here recently. I can't just let her go until the facts are confirmed at the police station."
An entirely reasonable, textbook answer.
I was essentially asking her to look the other way on a flagrant legal violation because the girl was supposedly my acquaintance. Faced with a line like that, I had nothing to say.
That aside, she really is the model answer in human form.
I'd known Min Ji-won's character was upright and hypersensitive to rules and regulations, but meeting her face-to-face made it feel like she walked around with a textbook stuffed inside her head.
I glanced sideways at Jeong Min-yeong. Sweat was beading on her forehead.
She was probably connected to the string of incidents Min Ji-won had mentioned, too.
The sight drew a sigh out of me before I could stop it.
Doing it cleanly, the way Min Ji-won wanted — taking her to the station — was one option. She was young, and it was a minor offense; she might be released before long.
But.
Multiple crimes committed using an ability. Minor offense or not, modern law applied stricter standards to Awakened. She wouldn't be walking free anytime soon.
"Including the previous incidents — if there are other victims, I'll find them, make her compensate them, and have her apologize. So—"
"No matter how many times you say it, the answer is no. I don't even know who you are. I can't just hand someone over, and nothing you've said so far has any credibility."
Another clean strike of pure reason.
She's not wrong.
Taking Awakened kids and putting them to work committing crimes was common enough, after all.
It was going to take longer, but I'd have to persuade Min Ji-won by a more roundabout route.
"What happens if she goes to the station right now?"
"What…?"
Min Ji-won frowned at the sudden question.
"If she's connected to the recent cases like you said, she won't be getting out quickly, right?"
"Obviously. Even a minor offense is still a crime."
"Right. She should be punished. So let's go back to the start and think about it. Why did she commit the crime in the first place."
"……"
It had been a little over twenty years since monsters first poured out of the Gates. Society had stabilized on the surface, but the damage hadn't fully vanished. Plenty had died doing hunter or hero work — and even more ordinary people had been caught up in Gates and killed.
The result was a worldwide surge in orphans.
Single-parent households at least still had someone looking after them. Children who'd lost both parents had nowhere to go and ended up in government-supported care facilities.
The problem was numbers. The facilities couldn't keep up, and once kids hit the mandatory care cutoff of sixteen, leaving was treated as a given. The government provided support funds, but with so many orphans the aid had hard limits. And even if they wanted to work, young Awakened carried a reputation for being unstable and causing trouble — finding even a part-time job was difficult.
It was a rising social problem worldwide, and one that everyone knew about but no one could properly fix.
Min Ji-won's expression grew complicated; she must have followed the thought that far.
She's the Association President's daughter, but if you asked whether she grew up like a flower in a greenhouse, the answer would be no.
She wasn't ignorant of social and practical problems. She could understand what I was saying.
"I know her situation is difficult… That doesn't mean I can condone crime."
"What about the pickpocketings around here recently?"
"What about them…"
"Did the wallets ever get returned to the police station afterward?"
"…!"
Her face told me my guess had been right.
"These days nobody carries much cash. She probably took whatever little cash was inside and returned the wallets."
Min Ji-won fell quietly silent.
She could have said something if she wanted to — it just felt like she was choosing not to.
"And you."
I lowered my eyes and called to Jeong Min-yeong. She lifted her head a fraction to look at me.
"You're not alone, are you."
"…!"
"A group of four or five. One sick person — no, two."
"How did you…"
When I'd subdued Jeong Min-yeong in the station, a pharmacy receipt had slipped out from between her pockets.
The quantity was for two people.
She could have bought medicine for one person in bulk, but the way her eyes wavered when I tested her told me it was definitely two.
And nursing two people meant at least one person had to stay behind — so including the sick, a group of four or five made sense.
"She was probably pickpocketing to cover medicine costs. I'm not trying to defend crime, but doesn't that leave room for consideration?"
I met Min Ji-won's eyes again.
She just looked at me without answering.
"There's someone trustworthy in this area. They'll take proper care of her. I'd like you to leave her with me."
"Your name… What's your name. I can't hand someone over to a person whose identity isn't even clear."
Fair enough. I could have been a criminal outfit, after all.
"You can tell from the uniform that I'm an Academy student, for starters."
I held out my first-year blue tie, fished my student ID from my pocket, and handed it to Min Ji-won.
"Park Yeon-chan. On my way to the entrance ceremony."
At that, Min Ji-won's eyes went wide as she looked back and forth between the student ID and me.
Honestly, for someone I'd written off as rigid and closed-off—
—she let Jeong Min-yeong go, just as I'd asked.
Once things were settled, we ended up walking the same direction, heading for the same destination.
"Earlier—"
I'd assumed she'd thoroughly taken a dislike to me and wouldn't speak, but to my surprise she started the conversation herself.
She cleared her throat — a slight crack in her voice — and continued.
"Situations like earlier are an everyday occurrence. I let it go because you said she was an acquaintance, but I can't respond like that every single time."
Her tone had lost some of its force.
I'd thought she was about to lecture me, but her voice and manner carried only regret. There was nothing harsh in it.
"I know. I just wanted to do what I could while I still could."
Even if a billionaire donated a fortune, poor people wouldn't simply disappear. That didn't make the donation meaningless. Because of actions like that, someone, somewhere, could still be saved.
Min Ji-won, who had been looking straight ahead, glanced at me sideways, then looked away again as she spoke.
"That girl from earlier — once things settle down, let me meet her once. I'd like to know she's doing all right, at least."
I barely managed to swallow the laugh that tried to escape.
Min Ji-won could come across as stiff in the original story, but she was a character with a lot of heart. Upright. Decent. Even when she spoke coldly and without mercy, her nature was kind — that was why she could say something like this.
"Sure. I'll get in touch."
While we talked, we arrived at the Academy before I knew it.
"I've got somewhere to stop by first. See you later."
"Okay."
I said goodbye to Min Ji-won and headed into the building instead of toward the auditorium where the entrance ceremony was being held.
Before the ceremony started, Lee Yeon-hui and I had something to discuss with Min Gyeong-ho about the top and second-ranked seats.
I made my way to the meeting place. From across the way, Lee Yeon-hui spotted me and waved.
I waved back and started toward her—
"Park Yeon-chan!"
Someone called my name from behind. I turned around.
"Choi A-rin?"
Platinum-blonde hair streaming behind her, Choi A-rin was walking toward me.
"I knew it was you…!"
Tap. Tap.
Her steps turned into a run before I could blink.
I was about to greet her warmly as she came pounding down the hallway—
"Huh?"
—when Choi A-rin, whom I'd expected to stop in front of me, barreled straight into my arms.
My brain short-circuited on the spot.