Chapter 114
Chapter 114
"......."
I opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw was a girl with wide eyes staring right at me.
......Someone I'd never actually spoken to.
Her mouth was hanging open, eyes huge. She looked completely stunned.
Was she that shocked because of me?
My head wasn't working right yet, still foggy, like waking up from a deep sleep. I blinked a few times to take in my surroundings, and everyone else I saw wore more or less the same expression.
......What the hell kind of situation was this?
There was something soft under my chin. My left ear tickled, and I could smell something nice.
"......."
Oh.
We were in a classroom.
And...... my whole body, especially my front, was pressed against something soft and yielding. There was something solid wrapped gently around my back, like the safety bar that comes down on an amusement park ride. Whatever I was touching, it was very warm.
"......Ah!"
The moment I got that far, the situation clicked. I scrambled backward.
Squish.
......And in the process, my hand landed on something it really shouldn't have.
Alarm bells went off in my head. I tried to stand, but my legs were spread wide to either side with my feet dangling off the ground, so I couldn't move properly.
More than that, whoever had their arms wrapped around my back showed no sign of letting me go.
I only managed to lean my upper body back far enough to finally get a look at Ha-neul's face.
And my own hand, planted in a very strange spot.
"Uh, uhe......!"
I yanked my hand back and immediately checked Ha-neul's expression.
Her face was bright red, eyes brimming with tears.
"S-sorry......!"
I apologized, but her expression didn't change.
To be fair, if someone climbed onto your lap without permission and grabbed your chest, that expression was perfectly justified.
Ha-neul stared at me with that same look for a while. Then—
"Sara......?"
She asked it carefully.
She didn't seem to care at all that I was on her lap, or that I'd just flailed and put my hand on her chest. None of that mattered.
"......."
Ah. Right. I see.
Just moments ago, I'd been dreaming.
Not an ordinary dream. I'd been slowly tracing back through the memories of this body's original owner—Sara.
And my last clear memory was definitely of meeting Choi Na-kyung. Not being here at school.
So...... I guess it's safe to assume the real Sara came and went.
I still had no idea why I was in this position, though.
......But wait. Wasn't I supposed to be getting ignored right now?
"You two——!"
The moment the thought crossed my mind, the teacher's scolding voice rang out from behind me.
But he couldn't manage to say anything beyond that, and I could sort of understand why. What exactly is a teacher supposed to say when two students are tangled up on top of each other right in the middle of the classroom?
If I were the teacher, I wouldn't have known what to say either.
......Not that I had the slightest interest in empathizing with every last teacher at this school.
"Sara, right......?"
Ha-neul clearly felt the same way, ignoring the teacher's outburst completely and asking again.
"......Yeah."
Right. I came back.
I don't know how, but 'Sara' had found a way.
She'd followed me all the way to the deepest part of her memories, taken my hand, and pulled me back up here.
When I nodded, Ha-neul's face looked for a second like the tears in her eyes were about to spill over—
Then she suddenly tightened her arms around my back.
"Huhe......!"
Startled, I let out another bizarre noise.
She pulled me against her, a little roughly.
Which meant my arms ended up pressing right into Ha-neul's...... well, her upper body. But she didn't seem to mind at all.
My chin came to rest on her shoulder again.
My left cheek tickled, then pressed against something soft and warm. She must have hugged me tight enough that our faces were touching.
"......."
I felt like I should say something, but nothing came out.
I felt guilty for thinking it, but the whole situation was incredibly embarrassing.
If this hadn't been in the middle of class, or if we'd just been hugging standing up instead of me being draped all over her like this, it wouldn't have been nearly so mortifying.
My eyes met the girl in the seat behind us, still staring with wide eyes.
Tock.
She dropped the mechanical pencil she'd been holding. She didn't even seem to notice it slip from her fingers, too busy burning the image of the two of us into her brain.
"......."
Well. Guess I earned this.
I'd thought I was doing the right thing, but it was still true that I'd made Ha-neul anxious.
I heard a sniffle right by my ear. My cheek felt a little damp.
"......."
I closed my eyes.
If only my arms weren't folded between us, I'd have hugged her back and patted her on the back.
Instead, I just spoke while staying in her arms.
"I'm sorry."
"......."
Ha-neul didn't say anything.
"I'm okay now."
......Yeah.
Now the original Sara—
I'm right here, you know.
—Right. She was still with me.
"......."
Were you watching the whole time?
Of course I was. I'm the one who started this.
.......
Huh?
Why?
......Because I wanted to bring you back.
......I see.
So she'd meant every word of what we talked about in that dream.
I suppose there were a few things still left unresolved.
If I'd decided to take responsibility, the right thing to do was see it through to the end.
......Though I still had no idea why things had taken this particular turn.
I considered asking 'Sara'—
Do you like it?
Sara asked that in a flat, pointed tone, and I couldn't bring myself to ask anything back. I was sure that even though we shared the same body, I could feel her glaring at me from somewhere with her arms crossed.
"......."
I mean, look.
If the only two options were "I like it" or "I don't," then I'd have to say I liked it.
But I didn't have the courage to actually say that out loud, so I just stayed quiet in Ha-neul's arms.
I can hear everything.
Damn it.
*
Lunchtime.
It was definitely a good thing that people no longer made a big show of hushing each other when they talked about us, but the drawbacks turned out to be just as significant.
Back when they were ignoring us, at least we were treated like people who didn't exist, so when they talked about us, they at least pretended to hide it. They visibly made an effort not to look at us.
But now, things were different.
Gazes kept landing on us as we sat together with our trays.
On top of that, the tables around us, which used to be completely empty, now had a few students sitting at them. Still not all of them, but a fair number.
And every single one of them was clearly very interested in us.
Nobody actually came up and spoke to us, and they weren't openly staring, but they couldn't hide that they were dying to know what we were talking about.
......Pretty bold of them, honestly.
Sara had gone extremely quiet from the moment we entered the cafeteria. She'd handed control of the body over to me, but that apparently didn't mean she couldn't tell what was going on around us. I assumed she could see and hear and feel everything I did.
And it hadn't been me who sprang out of my seat during class and planted myself on Ha-neul's thighs. That had been Sara's will. She clearly knew it was embarrassing, too.
"......So I heard something."
Son A-reum, who was seated with us for lunch, spoke up slowly.
"You two were hugging and sitting on top of each other in class again this time......?"
"......."
Ha-neul and I averted our eyes. Because yes, it had actually happened.
"......Didn't you do that whole thing back then just to get people's attention?"
We did.
Back then, I'd still been treated like an invisible person, so I'd needed to draw attention.
"But you don't need to anymore."
Exactly.
Now that I was no longer being treated as invisible, there was no reason to attract unnecessary attention. Almost no one could keep ignoring me if I spoke to them now.
......There was a justification, technically. I'd lost my memories from shock, and I needed a fresh shock to get them back.
That justification existed—
But how was I supposed to say that?
Son A-reum had become someone I could call a friend now, but I couldn't begin to explain our uniquely bizarre situation, which was practically fantasy-novel material, piece by piece and expect her to understand.
The only person who knew about the two "personalities" was Ha-neul. So-hee and Su-a only knew that I'd lost part of my memory.
And the only people who knew that I wasn't just a "personality," but a "completely different person," were the two of us.
......What's that? I think I heard someone laughing from far away.
Must be my imagination.
Anyway, yeah.
If I'd told her I lost my memory, she'd have told me to go straight to a hospital.
......And the biggest hospital nearby was Hwayeong University Hospital.
How was I supposed to trust that place?
Not that I could trust other university hospitals either. Even outside the Hwayeong Academy Foundation, plenty of hospitals had received massive donations from the Yujin Group in the name of social contribution.
"And also......"
Our disciplinary committee member, who'd been trembling with what looked like righteous fury, spoke up with her face entirely red.
"Not only did you two pile on top of each other right in the middle of the classroom......"
Son A-reum hesitated for a moment as if debating whether she should even say it, then made up her mind.
"I heard you, you c-came......!"
.......
The area around us went dead quiet, like someone had thrown cold water over everything.
No, it felt like the entire cafeteria went quiet, not just the area around us.
No. It wasn't just a feeling.
"Came"? Came what? Came where?
.......
That was our innocent young lady's question.
And my own thoughts were running along almost the exact same lines.
I mean...... considering the conversation we'd just been having, the word "came" didn't mean physically relocating. It meant, you know, the, uh, the sexual kind of coming.
I was seriously trying to figure out why that kind of rumor had started when I remembered——
Sara had climbed onto Ha-neul's thighs and then been completely unconscious for a while.
......From the outside, it probably looked like.......
"N-no, that's not what happened!?"
The moment I realized where this was going, I shrieked in horror.
"I just lost consciousness for a second!"
.......
Silence rolled in like a wave.
So-hee dragged a hand down her face. Su-a's face turned bright red and she dropped her head. Ha-neul did the same.
"......."
And Son A-reum just sat there frozen, mouth hanging open.
Hey, you're the one who brought it up!
I desperately suppressed the urge to scream and tried to force out some kind of follow-up excuse.
......But really, what was I supposed to say?
......So what exactly does "came" mean......?
This is gonna drive me insane.