Rule 8: The Disciplinary Committee Leader Maintains Dignity Even at Exchange Events (1)
"The Student Council President is going to make us hold an exchange event with Mahyeon High's Disciplinary Committee."
I was in the middle of eating an egg mayo sandwich that Oh Baek-seo had made for me.
My friend from the Student Council, the general secretary, had barged in out of nowhere carrying this bizarre agenda item.
"An exchange event with Mahyeon High's Disciplinary Committee?"
"Yep."
Mahyeon High School.
Wasn't that the number one school to avoid, the one that had clashed with Ahseong High over every conceivable grievance since time immemorial? And now an exchange event, of all things.
If they were a business client, I might have had to grovel a little, but there was zero reason to suck up to these people. In fact, my plan was to avoid entangling myself with them for as long as I held the Disciplinary Committee Leader's seat. There was no reason to go out of your way to step on a pile of dung lying in the road.
"Are you insane? Why?"
"Beats me. That's just how it was agreed."
"Honestly, 'go make friends with the street rats' would be more realistic. Mahyeon and Ahseong are practically in a cold war as it is."
"Look, whatever I say, you're not going to be able to refuse this one. The Student Council's in a positive mood about it."
Why this, of all things?
"Why?"
"Our school district and Mahyeon's are the most tightly interlocked of any in the city, right? If we keep fighting, it'll just spiral into a game of chicken. And if we shoot down the exchange event on top of everything else, things are obviously going to get way frostier. So the idea is to patch things up on the surface at least, build a moderately peaceful relationship. Moderately."
If it had been any other school, I'd have welcomed them with open arms.
But not Mahyeon.
Historically speaking, they'd fought with Ahseong dirty and often, and the two schools had spent years snarling at each other's throats.
So naturally, I felt nothing but revulsion at the idea.
"Why do we have to, though? Can't we just keep being awkward neighbors from a distance?"
So I pressed the point, and got this in return:
"Because our Student Council President wants the achievement."
"Ah…."
My mouth snapped shut.
Improved relations with Mahyeon High.
Imagine, while serving as Student Council President, having that kind of accomplishment recorded on your school record.
That credential would carry devastating weight.
"I have no idea what their Student Council President's angle is, but it's not like we lose anything, right? If anything, even a superficial friendship could end up benefiting both sides. And hey, there's been no conflict lately—so the President's saying let's take this chance to play nice, for her own future and the school's. What are we supposed to do about it?"
It was an extremely convenient line of reasoning.
"…But the exchange event is between the Disciplinary Committees, not the Student Councils, isn't it?"
Meaning I was the one stepping on the dung.
"Every fight between the schools ultimately traces back to the Disciplinary Committee. The Presidents will meet face to face too, but hey—just put up with it. If this goes smoothly, you rack up achievements of your own. Everyone wins. And if the Mahyeon kids act weird, you just shake them off. Easy."
"……"
I let out a sigh.
Disciplinary Committee Leader or not, I couldn't exactly ignore an instruction from the Student Council President.
"By the way, who proposed this?"
"Mahyeon's Student Council President."
"?"
They reached out first?
'Oh, right.'
A piece of game information I'd recorded came back to me. Something I'd dismissed as unimportant and promptly forgotten.
The current Student Council President of Mahyeon High had been a fresh-faced girl whose head seemed like an entire flower garden in bloom.
She lived with the words 'Peace forever, peace!' practically glued to her lips.
She was the type to prioritize peace and camaraderie above all else, considering her school's interests only afterward. You might call her an altruist by nature.
I remembered being fond of her—she was one of the genuinely kind characters in the game.
Granted, she was a little oblivious.
'If it's her, there's probably nothing sinister behind it.'
Which meant the Mahyeon President was most likely pushing this exchange event for exactly what she claimed: a sincere wish for her school's Disciplinary Committee to make peace with Ahseong's.
'The problem is the Disciplinary Committee thugs on her side.'
A student council president's kindness had no correlation whatsoever with her Disciplinary Committee's decency.
So the street filth I'd been disparaging wasn't the President—it was Mahyeon's Disciplinary Committee.
"Anyway, I've said my piece. Sorry, but you're up. And I'll say it again—this goes well, and you come out ahead too."
My Student Council friend gave my shoulder a couple of pats and left.
As if I had any say in the matter.
When the higher-ups say jump, you jump.
Truthfully, if it was a chance to accumulate achievements, I was the one who stood to gain.
"…And that's how it happened."
I briefed Vice Leader Oh Baek-seo and Executive Ha Ye-song about the exchange event with Mahyeon High's Disciplinary Committee.
Since it came down from the Student Council President herself, the proposal blazed through to final approval like a flash of lightning.
There is no harbor that shelters you from a storm.
One way or another, the Disciplinary Committee had no choice but to go through with this exchange event.
"Oh nooo, we're gonna have sooo much work to do…."
Ye-song let out a long whine.
She was worrying about the preparation process, not about facing Mahyeon's Disciplinary Committee itself.
She had zero interest in the long history of warfare between Ahseong and Mahyeon, so her reaction was only natural.
"When is it?"
"Nine days from now."
"Good grief, what kind of insane deadline is that!?"
"I only got notified myself yesterday that this proposal came up, so I've got no sympathy to offer."
"How did it get approved in a single day, though? An event that big?"
"It was the Student Council President's directive."
"Ah. Then that checks out."
The fundamental law of society—when the higher-ups say jump, you jump—was one Ye-song understood perfectly well too.
"Ughhh…, I guess we're starting prep today, then."
"I'll need to call in the rest of the executives. An exchange event means full attendance across the board."
Baek-seo said this with her usual gentle smile in place.
The rest of the executives.
That is, the Secretary and the Treasurer.
The Mahyeon exchange event was a major occasion. Preparation had to begin today, this very minute.
Which meant I needed to assemble all five executive parts into one place for a full executive assembly.
"I'll call the Treasurer."
"I'll take Min-hyuk!"
Park Min-hyuk was the name of our Disciplinary Committee Secretary.
Ye-song and I each dialed our respective executives.
…No answer. As expected.
"He's not picking up."
"Neither's mine. Oh, a text just came in."
"What's it say?"
Ye-song held up her phone to show Baek-seo and me.
How poetically melancholic.
Our hopeless-romantic, rock-bottom-self-esteem Secretary had clearly either been dumped by another girl or spiraled into self-loathing again.
"He's probably wedged inside a trash can somewhere, so I'll go dig through the trash cans."
Ye-song deduced this with complete composure.
"Right. Vice Leader, give Ye-song a hand."
"Of course."
"I'll go look for the Treasurer."
"Text us when you find him!"
We left the clubroom and split up.
The Disciplinary Committee Treasurer of Ahseong High: Yoo Do-ha.
Among the students, Do-ha was jokingly nicknamed the 'Calculation Ghost.'
On account of her personality—she calculated everything before doing anything else.
As it happened, her class had no participatory lessons that period.
Whenever she had free time like this, she'd hole up in an empty classroom, muttering that she had this and that to prove.
And she didn't stick to one place, either. She drifted from classroom to classroom each day wherever her mood took her.
She did have one known preference, though: big blackboards.
So I could cross certain classrooms off my search list right away.
"Oh? Senior!"
As I was cutting across the schoolyard, a girl passing by called out to me.
I stopped and looked over.
"Lee Se-ah?"
Lee Se-ah, the squinting girl in the black uniform, came jogging up to me. A bright, ringing laugh hung on her lips, as though she were delighted to have found me.
"Where might you be headed?"
"Just looking for someone."
"Ooh, that sounds fun! Can I help? I'm a professional at finding people, you know."
Se-ah puffed herself up with pride.
A professional at everything, aren't we.
"Don't you have class?"
"Only BD class left on my schedule. I'm positively free."
"Hmm."
An extra pair of hands suited me just fine.
The reason I hadn't delegated the search to rank-and-file Committee members was that it would have looked bad. So if someone with no ties to the Disciplinary Committee helped out, there was no problem.
Lee Se-ah was a villain-in-waiting, destined to one day become a great evil of the Black Market—but she was not the person who would bring about the dystopia I feared.
Which was why I held no particular grudge against her.
If anything, we'd gotten fairly close from chatting often over CoconutTalk.
Besides, keeping my distance here would have looked strange, and I had no reason to distance myself in the first place.
She didn't exactly seem like the type to harm the Disciplinary Committee.
So I spoke plainly.
"I'm looking for the Committee Treasurer. This is what she looks like."
I showed her a photo of Yoo Do-ha on my smartphone.
Se-ah nodded.
"Got it, got it."
"She'll be in an empty classroom—one with a big blackboard. I'm going to sweep that side."
"Then I'll sweep this line. I'll text you if I find her."
Se-ah waggled her phone as she walked backward, then turned and headed for the classroom building.
I quickened my pace in the direction I'd been going.
Bzzz.
As I made my way down the corridor, peering into classrooms one by one, my phone vibrated.
Se-ah had secretly snapped a photo from inside the lab: the back of a girl scribbling equations across a blackboard.
The back of Treasurer Yoo Do-ha.
'She found her already?'
Fast.
Had she used some kind of method? Or just luck?
Either way, it was a big help.
My destination was the lab in Chrysanthemum Hall.
Se-ah, leaning against the corridor wall, waved me over. She cupped a hand beside her mouth and whispered softly.
"She is fully in the zone."
Se-ah pointed toward the lab's open door.
When I reached the entrance, I could see Yoo Do-ha, the girl in question, hard at work before the blackboard. Se-ah and I each braced a hand on the doorframe and poked our heads in to peek at her.
"First, I must decompose these individually…. Here, I'll apply the complex exponential function…. A beautiful relationship…! Now I must reconstitute this set…!"
Like some mad scientist, Treasurer Yoo Do-ha's eyes bulged as she flashed a wide grin and wielded her chalk.
I couldn't make heads or tails of the equations packed across the blackboard, nor of a single word she was saying.
After all, I'd been a humanities student in my past life and in this one.
Just looking at formulas made my stomach churn.
"We just take her with us, yes?"
"Yeah. But not yet."
"Why not?"
"She absolutely hates being interrupted when she's locked in like that. We have to wait a little until her focus breaks."
If I barged in while she was in that state, even if Neo Seoul itself were collapsing, she would stubbornly shove me away with a cry of 'Not now, Woo-jin, leave me be…!' Do-ha in those moments was an impenetrable fortress.
This was an empirical law established back in our first year.
I was the one tasked with retrieving the weirdo Yoo Do-ha, after all.
"Is that so?"
"Anyway, thanks for finding her. Now you can head ba— wait. What are you doing?"
Out of nowhere, Se-ah walked into the lab. With both hands clasped behind her back, she strolled up to Treasurer Yoo Do-ha.
"Ah, Fermat's Last Theorem."
"!"
The honeyed voice rang through the lab, and Do-ha flinched in surprise. She whipped her head around and fixed her gaze on Se-ah.
"And who might you be?"
Do-ha's guard went up instantly.
"Are you aware that this proof has already been completed?"
"Ha!"
Do-ha scoffed with magnificent bravado.
"You ask the obvious. As if I don't know Andrew Wiles proved it? But I want to understand the process completely…! His method of proof, the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture, and every one of those elliptic curves…."
"Wow~, so you're here to savor the beauty of the proof itself? That's remarkable."
"…What?"
Do-ha, who'd been passionately expounding, faltered in confusion.
'Oh?'
I'd never seen Do-ha react like that before.
Se-ah smirked slyly.
"How does an elliptic curve connect to the modular form? It's a fascinating topic, isn't it?"
"It is! That connection is a most intriguing subject…!"
Huh?
I couldn't follow a word of this conversation, but one thing was certain: Do-ha was warming up to her, fast.
Do-ha and Se-ah chattered away on topics completely beyond my comprehension.
Se-ah even sized up the equations on the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and started scribbling this and that.
Do-ha nodded along, wearing an expression of genuine interest.
'What is that?'
It was terrifying.
"Oh, right."
Before long, Se-ah spoke up.
"The Disciplinary Committee Leader came to see you, Treasurer. He has business with you."
"The Leader?"
"Yes. Would now be a good time?"
Astoundingly, Se-ah had just manufactured the perfect opening for me to step in.
From winning Do-ha's favor to invading her domain to creating that opening—the whole thing had taken barely two minutes.
Considering my personal record was fifteen minutes, that was a staggering speed.
"The Leader?"
Do-ha tilted her head.
Knowing this moment would come, I had been leaning against the doorframe with my arms crossed, working the atmosphere.
"Yoo Do-ha. Emergency executive assembly. Drop what you're doing and come with me."
"…What's this about, then?"
"I'll tell you on the way."
"Hm."
Do-ha's eyes flicked between Se-ah and the blackboard. Se-ah was still smirking.
"Very well. I'll come."
"Whoa, Leader! You actually pulled off the Treasurer retrieval!?"
"Obviously. Though I did get some help."
"That's gotta be a new record! That's our Leader for you!"
When I arrived at the clubroom with Treasurer Yoo Do-ha in tow, Ye-song greeted me at the door.
Do-ha growled, "Do not treat delivering this body to you as some sort of mission," but Ye-song just grinned and ignored her.
"Where's the Secretary?"
"Over there. He's working through the pain of heartbreak."
When I opened the cabinet, the boy hiding inside startled so badly he nearly jumped out of his skin. "L-Leader!"
It was Secretary Park Min-hyuk.
"Out."
"Y-yes, sir…."
At my firm command, he lowered his head and crawled out of the cabinet.
"Leader."
"Hmm?"
Baek-seo suddenly drew close to me.
Our faces were close enough that I flinched inwardly, though I didn't let it show.
"Who did you bring the Treasurer back with?"
Baek-seo asked in a voice little more than a whisper.
It was cold.
Despite the clearly gentle tone, I had the distinct illusion of a chilled blade sliding against my throat.
Why did this feeling seem familiar from another time…?
"Why do you ask?"
Baek-seo stared straight into my eyes for a long moment, then—
"…Nothing. Nothing at all."
Her face returned to its usual smile as she shook her head and wandered back toward the sofa.
What was that…?
I was trembling a little.
In the fear-induced sense.
Anyway, all five executive parts of the Disciplinary Committee had now gathered in the executive office.
The Vice Leader, Oh Baek-seo, wearing her ever-gentle smile as always.
The Secretary, Park Min-hyuk, a boy with a fallen leaf stuck in his hair, shoulders slumped, sunk in a profound sense of loss.
The Treasurer, Yoo Do-ha, arms crossed and legs crossed, sitting with supreme arrogance.
The dog, Ha Ye-song.
And me.
After explaining why I'd assembled the executives, I made my declaration.
"As of today, the Disciplinary Committee enters full preparation for the exchange event. Nine days remain. The schedule is tight, so I expect everyone to give it their all."
"Yes."
"Y-yes, sir…."
"It shall be so."
"Yessir!"
And so, nine days later.
Mahyeon High School's Disciplinary Committee came to visit Ahseong High.