Where Am I?
Where am I?
When I finally came to my senses, I was trapped inside a dim, narrow iron cage.
What the hell. I was sure I—
Panicking, I moved my body, only for my arms and legs to slip right through the bars as if the cage didn’t exist at all.
That was when I realized it was a dream.
Jesus. For a second there, I thought everything that had happened up till now was just some delusion I’d had while trapped in the lab.
Maybe I was really that startled, because a dry laugh escaped me for no good reason. Honestly, me. It’s been ages since I got out, and I’m still dreaming about that damn lab.
Pitiful. Absolutely pathetic. I let out a deep sigh as if it meant nothing, then walked through the bars and looked around the isolation room.
The more closely I examined it, the clearer it became that this was a dream.
The faces of the experimental subjects locked up with me were all blurred and indistinct except for one, and even without looking at the others, I could tell my own body was bigger now than it had been back then.
Right. So there was nothing to be afraid of.
Not the researchers with their bizarrely elongated limbs, either. Not the strange tools they carried around—things that looked like syringes fused with saws.
Not the experimental subjects writhing grotesquely with electrodes stuck in their heads.
...Not even that face that looked like mine.
Still, yes, after staring at it for long enough, it wasn’t exactly pleasant. And since there was no reason to keep dreaming, I might as well wake up now.
Even though it was a dream, my mind was unnervingly clear, so forcing myself awake with my ability was easy enough.
After synthesizing a stimulant and dragging myself out of sleep, the first thing I heard was the hospital’s usual beeping and someone’s breathing.
Why the hell was the room so dark? Even with the morning light seeping weakly through the curtains, it was still pitch-black.
I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus, lifting a hand—and saw the IV line stuck into the back of it.
And then I saw the other kids, all bunched together asleep in the chairs right beside the bed.
Yeonhwa, Jinhyun, Minho, Lapis, Agyeha... yeah, everyone I had any connection to was here.
Come to think of it, that made sense. To them, I really would be a close friend.
But to me, seeing them all gathered like this felt awkward. Unfamiliar.
I had never really thought of them as my friends.
I’d expected Yustitia to be waiting here, of course... so seeing these unexpected faces made my thoughts feel strangely scattered.
Not that it was a bad thing. If anything, it was proof that I was playing the part of their friend well enough. Still... how was I supposed to put this?
...Gratitude, maybe?
As ridiculous as it sounded, somehow I really was grateful that they’d stayed by my side until I woke up.
“Th-thank... potato... h-he, hot... uh... huh?! Guys, Blanc... Blanca’s up!”
Yeonhwa, who had mumbled nonsense in her sleep after hearing me mutter to myself, jolted awake and, without even wiping the saliva from her mouth, rushed to wake the others.
“B-Blanca?! Are you okay?! I-I mean, do you remember who I am?!”
“Lapis, I understand how you feel, but could you keep it down for now? They said she needs absolute rest...!”
“Your voice is the loudest of all, Minho-kun. Well, still, I’ll let it slide. I’m happy too.”
Once one of them woke up, the rest followed quickly, filling the room with a noisy fuss.
“Whoa, whoa. Hold on. Everybody calm down. I’m fine.”
“T-thank goodness...!”
After shushing the crowd and telling them to calm down, I reassured them not to make such a scene when I was clearly okay.
Then I spotted Lapis looking so tearful she seemed about to start sobbing, and figured it was time to step in, so I pointed at her.
“You didn’t forget me, so knock off the crying face, Lapis.”
“...Waaah!!”
Ah. I told her not to cry, and now she’s crying. What exactly was she supposed to do with that?
With an exasperated look, I patted Lapis on the head, and only then did the others seem to truly believe I was all right, all of them letting out visible sighs of relief.
“You’re fine. That’s the usual Blanca. Thank goodness.”
“Just thinking about what might have happened if things had gone wrong is enough to make me dizzy.”
“Yeah, whew. It was such a big operation that I was worried, but you don’t seem to have any problems at all. That’s a relief, Blanca!”
Yeonhwa kept yawning sleepily, but she still said she was glad and squeezed my hand—the one without the IV.
“It worked out... right. Yeah, I’m glad it worked out...”
Minho agreed with her, though his expression was complicated, almost strange.
I could see why he’d be rattled.
After all, people strong enough to be facing second-years had attacked us, and yet the injuries we’d actually taken were lighter than what we’d originally been meant to face.
In the original original, the version Minho had seen, the whole class had gotten absolutely wrecked.
So of course he’d be confused. Everything had changed so much from the route he knew.
He probably had a lot on his mind. Like where the hell the people who were supposed to attack us had gone.
“...Sorry, Blanca. If I’d been a little braver, you wouldn’t have been hurt like that.”
While I was thinking about Minho, Jinhyun, who had been keeping his mouth shut the whole time, suddenly spoke up and apologized to me.
Come to think of it, it wasn’t just Minho whose plan had gone sideways. Mine had been screwed over pretty badly too.
Because this bastard decided to bring out fire.
I looked at Jinhyun in silence.
I’d like nothing better than to blame everything on you, but under the circumstances, that was impossible.
“It wasn’t your fault. If anyone’s to blame, it’s the villains. And besides, you were late, but you still found the courage to do it, didn’t you? So there’s no need to apologize.”
In the end, all I could do was praise him while subtly throwing a little shade at how late he was.
“That’s right, Jinhyun. Blanca says she’s fine, doesn’t she? So... it’s okay. I know how big a decision you made, so don’t be too hard on yourself.”
Yeonhwa shielded Jinhyun like that and comforted him.
Tsk. I couldn’t even watch. I looked away and asked Minho what had happened while I’d been out, and how long I’d been lying there in the first place.
“Ah, that. It’s been a day now. Time-wise, about eighteen hours.”
As soon as I asked for an explanation, Minho seemed to have been waiting for it and told me what had happened in that short span of time.
After I collapsed and Jinhyun put out the fire, Invictus had shown up not long after and cleaned up the scene.
“Invictus?”
“Yeah. He showed up and immediately tucked his tail between his legs and ran.”
No... he wouldn’t, would he?
He probably hadn’t even seen Jinhyun in action, so there was no way he’d take any interest.
Forcing down the ominous thought, I pressed on.
“And after that?”
“Well...”
Yustitia had been too busy interviewing, writing reports, interviewing again, and reporting to the Association to spare even a moment to stay by my side.
Class A would be on temporary suspension for the rest of the week.
And two of the people who called themselves the Executioners had been captured.
One was Alexei, subdued by Minho alone, and the other was Dumas, taken down by Lapis and the martial artists.
Fukkin had helped out here and there too, but he wasn’t really important.
“No Executioners died?”
“No. Apparently everyone except the two who were captured got away.”
“...I see.”
That bitch Eliza had somehow survived, then.
I briefly regretted that I’d needed to put my nails into her neck instead of her hand, but the feeling didn’t last long.
She was practically a walking corpse anyway.
Soon enough her entire body would rot and collapse into death, so my thoughts about Eliza didn’t linger.
“That’s about all I can tell you. Oh, and Blanca, the internet is completely full of stories about you right now.”
And then something even worse came up.
Just a little surfing on the phone Yeonhwa handed me was enough to turn up photos and videos of me, spread everywhere by God knew who from God knew where.
“The school and Teacher Gazer asked people not to spread them around, but... it looks like becoming famous is hard to avoid, huh...?”
Yeonhwa gave me a bitter smile and joked.
“Looks that way...”
I played along with her joke while holding the back of my neck.
After a little while of mutual misery, a doctor soon came into the room and, thankfully, said my condition seemed good before explaining what shape I had been in.
Broken bones, internal bleeding, concussion. I only then learned it had been far worse than I’d thought.
“...You’re lucky your body responds well to regeneration medicine, so you’ve recovered miraculously without any lingering effects. Still, I’d recommend staying another two days to monitor your prognosis. Cases like this are rare, after all.”
The doctor suggested I stay longer, but that felt too much like being turned into an experiment, so I made it clear I wanted to be discharged as soon as possible.
Apparently he had no intention of pushing the matter, because he said he’d prepare things so I could leave by tomorrow morning at the latest before heading out of the room.
“Oh, and to the patient’s friends. I’d appreciate it if you could keep things a little quieter. Both the patient and several others here need to rest.”
“Y-yes...”
Lapis, who had burst into a grand, dramatic cry earlier, answered in such a tiny voice it sounded like she was trying to crawl into a mouse hole and disappear.
Thanks to the doctor’s warning, the atmosphere had turned a little awkward.
And I was getting tired of hearing everyone keep saying how lucky I was, so I brought up something else.
“Come to think of it, we were supposed to go to the clothing store this week, right? Is that still on?”
As soon as I said it, they all bit down on the bait.
“About that... we pushed it to next week for now. We’ve all decided to rest this week. We’re all exhausted, after all.”
“I figured that was how it would go.”
“But it’s not canceled completely. I will make sure you wear clothes that suit you, no matter what...!”
Agyeha, after only a moment of disappointment, ignited with a strange sort of zeal and declared it to me as if making a vow.
“Ah, Blanca. What about your phone? I mean... you rolled around on the floor a ton, didn’t you? Want me to buy you a new one?”
“You’ll need to have your uniform repaired too. It’s dirty, and pretty worn out.”
Then the others, infected by that bizarre enthusiasm, started trying to do all sorts of things for me.
Of course I accepted without the slightest hesitation.
That’s exactly how shameless I am.
I’m not accepting their kindness.
I’m just using it.
With that thought repeating in my head, I let it be.