The Lighthouse
"A dream?"
"Yeah. What do you want to do when you grow up? What kind of person do you want to become?"
"...I don't know. Let me think about it."
While she waited for Ryuzaki's answer, Alice took another small taste of the ramen, turning it over on her tongue. No matter how many times she tried it, the stuff was still punishingly, ridiculously hot.
She didn't stop eating.
If she kept going, she thought, maybe she could glimpse even a sliver of the life he lived.
"...Honestly, I don't really know right now. What I want to be when I grow up."
"Yeah?"
"But... right now."
Alice's eyes went wide.
"Right now... I just like studying."
That dark feeling that had been pressing down on the corner of his mouth—an emotion so deep she hadn't even been able to see the bottom of it—vanished in a single instant, gone as if it had never been there at all.
"That's enough to make me happy."
Ah.
This idiot is just a fool.
"What kind of answer is that."
A fool who loved studying far too much.
In that instant, Ryuzaki seemed to shine. So brightly she almost had to look away.
"Why can't you do this? Your sister gets it the second I teach her!"
For Alice, studying had always been a means of proof.
Proof that she was no lesser than her sister. Proof that her sister's sacrifice had not been in vain.
So she had to do it. Whether she liked it or not. She had to cut her sleep short and grind through problems she never wanted to solve.
She had run like that for well over a decade, eyes locked on nothing but the road ahead. And just as her sister had, she reached the very top.
What remained afterward was nothing but a hollow quiet.
"Alice is so bright, I'm sure you could do anything. What's your dream for the future?"
At the start of the school year, when Yukio had asked her that, she had never managed to answer.
She hadn't known. To her, studying had only ever been a tool for proving herself—never a path toward becoming something.
What do I actually want to become?
That question had sat in her chest for a long, long time.
And today, Alice had met someone who resembled her.
A boy who might even surpass her sister. He, too, had no idea what he wanted to become.
"......"
But Ryuzaki was different. He didn't treat studying as a means to an end. He loved the very thing she had regarded as nothing more than a tool—and that love alone was what carried him through each day.
...I think I understand now.
Every time Alice looked at Ryuzaki, she had felt a wall she couldn't explain. She had turned it over and over in her mind, wondering what it was.
She understood it now.
She had been staring at the destination. He had fallen in love with the journey.
Like this... there's no way I can win.
A single hot tear traced its way down the corner of her eye.
"...Alice? Why are you crying all of a sudden. Was it that spicy?"
Ryuzaki blinked at her, then fumbled the question out in a fluster. She couldn't bring herself to look at him straight.
"No... it's just."
Her throat tightened.
"I'm jealous of you, Ryuzaki."
She was jealous. She wanted to like something too. She wanted to become someone like that too.
The sobs didn't stop easily.
Then a soft touch brushed across the corner of her eye.
"You really will envy anything, won't you."
It was Ryuzaki. He was carefully wiping her tears with a tissue he'd torn off from somewhere, and then, as if determined to lift the sunken mood, he pointed at his own face and grinned.
"What's there to envy about a guy with a face this nasty?"
An awkward smile that was obviously forced. It was a face that, depending on how you looked at it, could even have seemed frightening.
"...There just is."
For some reason, a laugh slipped out of her. And with the laugh, the tangle in her chest began, little by little, to find its proper place.
I want to be like him. Someone who knows how to love a thing with his whole heart.
That single thought filled her mind to the brim.
So she would watch him, and learn. How a person came to love something that much. How he studied, how he took joy in things, how he loved. If she observed from his side, imitated him, followed along—then someday, she too might learn how to love something.
"Ryuzaki."
"What."
"I just felt like saying it."
"What's that supposed to mean. Oh, and I'm thinking of joining a club. Any recommendations you'd..."
Hiragi Alice. First-year high school student.
Today, in a life where she couldn't see even an inch ahead, a single lighthouse caught fire.
A dazzling lighthouse, ready to light the path before her.
The next day, at school.
I was thinking about joining a club.
My goal in high school was to get into a good university. And for that, it wasn't enough to simply rack up grades—I needed to tend to my student record just as carefully. From what I'd looked up, club activities carried a fair amount of weight on a Japanese student record.
A club? Of course you should join one. It helps a lot with college admissions, and you get to enjoy your youth while you're at it.
Yukio, my homeroom teacher, had told me as much at some point.
And true to form, our Ryuzaki had yet to join a single club. That part, honestly, wasn't so bad. If he'd gone and signed up for some athletic team, just getting him out of it would have been a headache.
The problem was which club to choose. My career path wasn't clear, so I had no real sense of what would even help.
I'd floated the dilemma to Alice last night, and she'd come back with:
Let's join the baking club together! We can eat delicious bread every day!
A very her answer. I'd let it go in one ear and out the other. A small laugh slipped out of me just thinking about it.
Still, getting someone else's advice had to be better than chewing on it alone, so I went to find my homeroom teacher.
"So... you came because you don't know which club to join. Is that it?"
"Yes."
"I'm genuinely moved. The only time you ever talk to me one-on-one is when I have to ask who you were fighting and why. I never thought we'd end up discussing something this wholesome."
Yukio put on a thoroughly satisfied look and dabbed at a tiny tear with his index finger. It was the kind of reaction you'd only ever see in a romantic comedy manga, and it left me feeling oddly unsettled.
"Go on, then. What kind of club do you want to join?"
"One that helps with college admissions."
"Not even going to pretend otherwise, huh... Well, any club will help to some degree. What kind of path are you thinking about?"
"It's embarrassing to admit, but I haven't found my bearings yet."
"Hmm. Feeling lost, then."
Yukio folded his arms, hummed under his breath, and threw himself into the problem as if it were his own.
"The library club... it'd help in a lot of ways, but maybe not as much as you'd want..."
He treated a student's worry with the same seriousness he'd give his own. He could easily have brushed it off as a nuisance.
Was it because this was a world inside a romantic comedy? Or was Yukio simply that kind of person?
Either way, this man was nothing like the teachers from my previous life.
"Hmm... appealing to your diligence through something athletic wouldn't be bad either. What do you think?"
"If possible, I'd also prefer not to have any emotional interaction with the other members."
"You're awfully picky. You think that's realistic? Clubs exist so kids can help each other and work together."
"That's true enough."
My extra conditions sent Yukio sinking back into thought.
Rattle.
The faculty office door opened, and a girl stepped in. She walked up to Yukio as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world and held out a document envelope.
"These are the student council documents scheduled for submission this week."
"Ah, right. You've been working hard, Sae-ah."
"Yes. If you'll excuse me."
She offered the teacher a small bow and turned to leave—and that was when her eyes met mine.
A reply as sharp as a blade, without a trace of emotion. Eyes so keen they looked like they could cut. An atmosphere that ran cold.
I knew who she was.
One of the losing heroines from the original story. The student council president of Asahi High School, and the only Korean in the cast.
Lee Sae-ah.
The gaze she turned down on me held a faint wariness.
But that wasn't what mattered. I had just found a very appealing option.
The moment Lee Sae-ah left the faculty office, I turned to Yukio.
"Sir."
"What is it?"
"If I joined the student council, would that help with college admissions?"
"I'd imagine so. It'd do you a lot more good than most clubs."
Handle only the assigned work, and the rest was free time. Any leftover hours I could use however I wanted in the quiet of the student council room. It would help with admissions. And above all, the president was Lee Sae-ah.
Meaning I won't have to deal with people wearing me down.
I'd read the original. I knew what she was. Someone who had grown exhausted from expecting anything of other people.
"...I won't allow you to join with impure motives."
"It's nothing like that."
Just like me.
After school, Lee Sae-ah finally finished her long, grinding battle with the paperwork.
"...Nngh."
She let out a small sound and stretched.
"It's already this late."
Thankfully it was a day with nothing on her schedule. Any other day, she would have been late with no excuse in the world.
Was it because she was slow?
Hardly. Her work speed could hold its own against any elite professional. And yet there was a reason she was always buried in documents alone, late into the day.
"...Is it time I stopped being so stubborn?"
The student council of Asahi High School had no secretary and no treasurer. The president was covering every role herself. She was shouldering most of the student council's work—no, nearly all of it—alone.
She could have appointed a secretary or treasurer and lightened the load. She hadn't. It was a matter of pride.
But honestly, she was reaching her limit. There was simply too much work.
Was there even anyone suitable?
She scrolled through her contacts. There was no one she could call.
"......"
So I just have to endure it alone, then.
Knock, knock, knock.
A knock sounded at the door.
"Who is it?"
"I've come on business."
"You may come in."
There shouldn't have been anyone who would visit at this hour. She was still tilting her head at the thought when the student council room door opened.
"What business do you have?"
Tanned skin. A menacing dragon tattoo on full display. The kind of student you could sum up in a single word: delinquent.
That unmistakable problem student opened his mouth.
"I've come because I wish to join the student council."
Lee Sae-ah answered at once.
"Denied."