Discipline 12. The Disciplinary Committee Leader Gets the Best Grades (3)
Whoosh!
Baek-seo dodged my sword strike with ease. Then she caught my outstretched arm, hooked my leg, and took me down.
"Ghk—!"
She twisted my wrist, stripped the dagger from my grip, and pressed it against my throat. The whole sequence happened with startling speed—so fast that if I'd blinked and opened my eyes a second later, I'd have sworn it hadn't even happened yet.
My carelessness certainly played a part, but even accounting for that, it was remarkable. If we'd both been reinforcing our bodies with mana, the outcome would have been far uglier.
"Are you all right, Leader?"
"...I'm fine."
Taking the hand she offered, I got to my feet and retrieved my dagger from her.
"When did you learn that move?"
I never expected her to be this practiced with it. It was practically a reflex, wasn't it?
"I didn't learn it anywhere? I saw it in a BD and just tried it for the first time now."
"......?"
...I couldn't believe it. This had nothing to do with mana talent at all. Not in the game, and not in this world, either.
I'd always assumed Baek-seo could display such overwhelming combat ability simply because her abundant mana let her reinforce her body far beyond anyone else's reach. That wasn't it.
Baek-seo's pure hand-to-hand technique was already at a considerable level on its own.
"...Again."
My pride took a real hit. I was confident in my close combat too—I'd been through hell and back training under my master, after all.
Still, at this level, I can manage.
If I focused, I figured I could respond to her.
"Mm. Come at me again."
I swung the dagger once more.
Thwack! Thwack! Whump!
Baek-seo deflected my strikes with strikes of her own, and I, anticipating her counters, slipped past them and kept pressing the attack. Again and again.
Neither of us could cleanly subdue the other.
Baek-seo seemed surprised that I wasn't going down easily and could keep up the exchange.
What's she so surprised about?
The feeling was mutual. I hadn't expected my attacks to be so thoroughly shut down.
Wait a second.
The longer our exchange went on, the more of Baek-seo's ingrained technique revealed itself. Skills like that tend to slip out unconsciously, after all. So I became certain of it.
She's had professional training.
Talent aside, the agile, practiced precision of her movements was something she could never have pulled off without dedicated instruction. No amount of endless repetition of academy-taught martial arts could get you to that level. Anyone else might miss it, but I could tell the difference.
Still, there was nothing strange about it. Baek-seo surely had her own untold story. I'd never told anyone about the training I'd been put through until my hands nearly split open, either.
"......"
But it nagged at me all the same.
A memory of playing the game surfaced.
Oh Baek-seo. For all her strength, her role in the game hadn't been particularly large. Of course, that was true of most characters who attended academies other than the original protagonist's—but Oh Baek-seo was different in one respect. Unlike the others, she vanished without a trace in the late game, never appearing again by so much as a grain of sand.
Was it simply that the developers never gave her story any attention? Negative sentiment spread through the game community. After the epilogue, the name Oh Baek-seo could not be found anywhere on Ahseong High's graduation roster.
No map you visited had her in it. Had she dropped out? Been expelled? The game offered no answers, but one thing was certain: her whereabouts became a mystery.
I kept that fact at the front of my mind. Baek-seo was my closest confidant, someone I'd come to cherish, the person I wanted to marry. If anything threatened her, I would move heaven and earth to stop it. So if anything suspicious surfaced around her, I couldn't help but react sharply. There might be a thread connecting it to whatever made her disappear.
"!"
The timing came. Expecting her to counter with an outstretched arm, I caught it with the hand I'd already extended.
"Ah—!"
Slam! I shoved her shoulder back while sweeping her ankle with my leg, and she toppled. Thud!
Baek-seo lost her balance and fell helplessly onto her back. I climbed over her at once and pressed the dagger to her throat.
On the mat, my shadow fell across her. I pinned one of her arms with my free hand and held the other down under my knee.
Subjugation successful. I won.
"Whew..."
I let out a long breath and steadied myself. Baek-seo was catching her breath too, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
I finally landed one on her...!
My competitive spirit must have been burning hot, because a real sense of accomplishment washed over me. Sure, studying for exams had somehow turned into this... but who cared about that right now? I'd savor this small victory while it lasted.
"...You got me."
Baek-seo smiled beneath my shadow, then turned her eyes to the side and murmured quietly, "I never expected the Leader to pounce on me like this."
"Doesn't that phrasing sound a little off to you...?"
Why did her voice sound so... suggestive?
"I meant exactly what I said...? Did you imagine something strange?"
Baek-seo narrowed her eyes and let slip an impish smile, her voice soft as silk. My head twitched. She was deliberately steering my imagination into the gutter. When Baek-seo got like this, it was always a joke.
Another one of these gags...
It was a common occurrence. Whenever I got lost in thought, she'd occasionally ask if I was "thinking dirty thoughts." Of course, she only tossed those jokes because she trusted me. Still, an impulse rose up in me to answer that mischievous question with a yes and pull her into my arms.
It wasn't a new feeling—but perhaps because I was pinning her down, Baek-seo seemed so devastatingly alluring that the impulse hit harder than usual.
...God, she's beautiful.
With a bead of sweat clinging to her fringe and her hair slightly mussed, she was genuinely lovely. No doubt my romantic feelings for her were doing their part, too. But until I'd prevented the dystopia's arrival and set down the burden of the Disciplinary Committee, I needed to restrain that desire. Romance between students was forbidden by school rules, and with my responsibilities as leader, I couldn't afford the luxury of a comfortable relationship anyway.
When I'd laid every burden down—if the opportunity presented itself then—I fully intended to confess to Baek-seo. So for now, this kind of teasing was something I had to let pass.
"Spare me the weird jokes..."
"Hee hee."
My eyes darted away from her despite myself. Oblivious to how captivating she was—or to the way I was burning up inside—Baek-seo just laughed, the little tease.
"So, where did you train?"
I changed the subject immediately.
"At school."
"No extra training?"
"I just copied what they taught, and it worked?"
Playing the genius card now, are we? Unbelievable. Was she doing this because she thought I wouldn't notice it had nothing to do with talent?
"Right, you talent-monster."
"Thank you for the compliment."
Fine. If she didn't want to answer, so be it. Let it go for now. I'd simply file away the information that Baek-seo was skilled in hand-to-hand combat. I had zero intention of pressing her about it.
"What about you, Leader?"
"I learned from my master, a long time ago."
"Your master...? That sounds like something out of a martial arts novel."
"He liked being called that. Anyway, let's continue—"
Just as I moved to release the hold, something slipped from my uniform pocket, bounced off Baek-seo's shoulder, and dropped to the floor. Our eyes both locked onto it.
It was a purple peony charm.
I picked it up, got off Baek-seo, and sat on the mat. She propped herself up and stared at me.
"What's that?"
"A congratulation gift for getting into Ahseong High. Someone I know gave it to me a while back."
Baek-seo tilted her head slightly. "A congratulations?"
"Yeah. Peonies are the flower you give to celebrate something, you know."
"Must have meant a lot to you, hm? Going to the trouble of making it into a charm and carrying it around."
The peony had been quite large, so the petals and stem had been trimmed and shaped into this compact little charm. That care showed, apparently.
"I suppose it did."
The flower was one Kim Dal-bi had given me. Dal-bi was the first person in this city to take my side—the first girl with whom I'd ever imagined a future together. Whatever the fact that she was a villain, this flower couldn't help but hold precious meaning for me.
Baek-seo sat quietly with her knees folded to one side, still staring at me. "What? Do you have something to say?"
"Do you happen to know the flower language of a purple peony?"
"Peony flower language... I looked it up once, and it was 'shyness,' I think. Why?"
"Oh... no reason. Just got curious."
She wore her usual gentle smile. I still couldn't read what she was really thinking.
"If there's nothing else, let's start again."
I had no intention of whiling away the time with small talk.
"I got a little competitive back there—my bad. From now on, this is strictly exam prep."
I said it as I rose to my feet.
"Okay, got it."
Baek-seo stood up as well.
...
Before I knew it, night had fallen. To catch the last train, Baek-seo and I headed to the station together. The streetlights lit our path, and from the grass beside the sidewalk came the cozy chirring of crickets.
Baek-seo carried her bag in the hand opposite mine. Walking side by side, the backs of our hands would occasionally brush against each other. I liked that little contact, so I didn't bother putting any distance between us.
In the middle of it, Baek-seo spoke up.
"Leader, shall we make a bet?"
Out of nowhere, huh. "What kind of bet?"
"Our exam scores."
"Hm."
A bet on test scores, eh? Not a bad idea. That, too, could be a fresh bundle of firewood thrown onto the flames of my motivation. She was someone I needed to beat anyway, so I might as well face her properly.
"Sounds good. Bring it on."
When I answered without hesitation, Baek-seo hid her mouth behind a loosely clenched fist and smirked slyly.
"A modest wish would be the safest prize, then."
"Safe, for sure."
"Shall we do it that way?"
"Let's."
"Just so you know—no naughty wishes allowed~?"
"...With what face would I even wish for something like that?"
"Hee hee."
Our conversation drifted along on the crickets' song, the quiet of the night, and the scent of dry earth. What did I want to wish for from Baek-seo? Nothing special, really. Just for her to keep staying by my side. Because I genuinely loved her.
Of course, that might be a difficult wish to grant. But my goal was 'to live happily'—so naturally, I wanted to end up with the person I loved. That wasn't something a wish token would accomplish, though. Let me think of something else.
What would be good...
If I beat Baek-seo and won the right to a wish...
After midterms, when we spend our mileage on the weekend—maybe I'll ask her to come along?
It was just tedious enough an errand that a light wish would cover it. There was a legitimate reason and a clear purpose, too—so I could even hide the secret objective of it being a date.
Perfect.
Maybe I was counting my chickens before they hatched... but daydreaming about it was fun regardless.
"Leader—dog poop ahead."
Huh?
"Whoa—! Shi—!"
In my moment of carelessness, I nearly stepped in the dog droppings beneath the street trees. Startled, I yanked my leg up and hopped frantically in place.
"Phew."
Thank god. Didn't step in it.
"Pffht!"
"?"
Out of nowhere, Baek-seo burst out laughing. "Ahahaha! What was that just now!"
She was cracking up. Apparently my reaction had been hilarious.
Ah... that was a mistake.
I pulled down the brim of my cap to hide my eyes.
Ghhk...
My mouth clamped shut. The humiliation was crushing. To think I'd suffer such disgrace...
To show the Vice Leader such a pathetic display over nothing but dog droppings—anyone who saw it would say the dignity of the Disciplinary Committee Leader had cracked. The composed image and gravitas I'd maintained in front of her all this time crumbled away, and embarrassment flooded in like an incoming tide, leaving my whole body trembling.
Hey, cleaning robot—what do you even do all day if you can't clean up dog poop? That's dereliction of duty.
"Ahahaha!"
"......?"
But speaking of which... a strange dissonance crept into my awareness as I watched Baek-seo doubled over with laughter. I'd never seen that expression in the game. Even last year, I'd only glimpsed it once when the two of us were alone. Baek-seo always wore her gentle, saintly smile, but she wasn't the type to laugh this hard. Even at last year's Disciplinary Committee dinner, when one of the seniors put on a whole comedy routine, she never once laughed. While everyone around her roared along, Baek-seo only ever offered a quiet smile. In other words, this was a genuinely rare sight.
"Don't laugh..."
"Pffht!"
The moment my indignant voice slipped out, Baek-seo burst into laughter all over again.
In the academy city of Neo Seoul, the districts designated as residential zones had an unusually heavy presence of security robots—all to guarantee the safe daily lives of the residents. However, Oh Baek-seo's home lay somewhere apart from the residential districts. Security robots guarded that area as well, though for a non-residential zone, their numbers were considerable.
Baek-seo studied quietly at a desk lit by a standing lamp.
"Hee hee..."
When her thoughts drifted back to the time she'd spent with Ahn Woo-jin earlier, the corners of her mouth curled up on their own. Resting her chin on her hand, she doodled a simple sketch of Woo-jin's face in the corner of her textbook, like a cute little character. Beside the drawing, she added words like handsome, adorable, cool, love him, along with several little hearts.
What Baek-seo had carried in her chest all this time was a hollow emptiness—the product of that suffocating silence. Since enrolling at Ahseong High, only one person, Woo-jin and no one else, had been able to fill a part of it. Perhaps that was why simply thinking of him brought her happiness. Wasn't happiness, at its root, an emotion born from a want finally being satisfied?
And yet Baek-seo still couldn't bring herself to believe she deserved to enjoy this happiness fully. Her feelings simply refused to stay restrained. Every time she looked at Woo-jin, she wanted to tease him, to chatter with him happily, and it took everything she had to hold it in.
Then the memory of Woo-jin's charm surfaced in her mind, and her head lifted; the smile drained from her face. On her desk, in the corner, a vase already held the withered dried-flower peony. It was the precious flower she'd once held in her hand alongside a beautiful girl with pale pink hair, back in childhood. That flower had once been a lovely shade of purple. The reason she remembered its flower language so distinctly was because the girl had told her—insisting it was her honest, heartfelt feelings. Back then, Baek-seo had picked a purple peony too, and the two of them had smiled together, saying their hearts were in perfect accord.
They'd been so young that she could no longer recall the girl's face clearly.
"Purple peonies..."
Baek-seo gazed quietly at the withered flower. Peonies signified congratulations, and their flower language carried good meanings, just as Woo-jin had said. But purple was the exception. Purple peonies carried an ill meaning, so they were usually left out when celebrating with peonies. The flower language of the purple peony was—
"The flower language of the purple peony? It's anger. I read it in a book once. Now hurry up and praise how smart I am!"
"Dal-bi, there's dog poop right there..."
"Waaah! Gyaahhh...! I stepped in itttt...!"
"Pfft!"
Baek-seo remembered the words the pale-pink-haired girl had said. The girl who had shared her honest heart with her vanished without warning, leaving behind only resentment and questions in Baek-seo's heart. Her childhood friend, now one of the Six Sinners.
When she caught her, there was something Baek-seo absolutely had to ask. Depending on the answer, she would either execute her, simply throw her in prison, or help her. That was why Baek-seo had joined the Disciplinary Committee—she had concluded that tracking the girl down alone would be impossible.
"Wasting my thoughts again..."
As if crushed beneath the heavy silence, Baek-seo's eyes lowered. She pushed the stray thoughts from her mind. She had no idea to whom Woo-jin had been given a purple peony as a congratulation. The "someone he knew" had surely gifted it by mistake. That was what Baek-seo told herself, and she let it go.
...
Two weeks later, the midterm results came out.