Yeonmae (2)

Maybe it was because I'd burned through all my energy during the first two periods.

The third and fourth periods were absolute torture. Forget whether the lectures were interesting or not — the real struggle was simply staying awake.

"Seriously, who designed this schedule?"

Sticking Military Ethics and Korean History right after the stamina-draining Live Combat course. Kim To-eun had a point; I wanted to see the face of whoever came up with this timetable.

"Hey, hey. Hwi, can you show me your notes later?"

"They weren't that hard, but... I was half asleep while writing them, so I don't know how useful they'll be."

"I'll take anything. I was completely out cold..."

Anyway. It was finally lunchtime.

The cadets crammed their textbooks into their bags and trickled out of the lecture hall one by one.

Some of them headed off to pick up Phantasms that couldn't be brought into the classroom due to size or other quirks. In other words, they were heading to the Phantasm waiting rooms set up in every building.

"I wonder what's for lunch today?"

"Don't know, don't care — I just want it fast. I'm starving to death."

"Sorry for the wait. Brought Saminseongho out with me."

"Sorry my ass. Let's go already!"

During lunch, Seong Gwon didn't enforce group movement. So the cadets broke off into little clusters and made their own way around.

Mostly by squad, or by the friends they'd bonded with over the past few days, or by links like being roommates.

"The Muincheol stop is packed with people. Should we just walk?"

"Doesn't matter to me."

"Me neither."

"I'm fine with walking too."

"Alright."

I belonged to the first category. Somehow, that's just how it worked out.

We walked in a line: Lee Hoe-uk, me, Kim To-eun, Sa Seo-yeon, then Seong Gwon. The path was wide enough that five people walking abreast didn't block anything. It helped even more that the Phantasms followed behind us.

Why wasn't Pyo Do-hyeok, our own squadmate, with us? Naturally, that was Pyo Do-hyeok's own choice.

Unless the situation absolutely demanded group participation, Pyo Do-hyeok always chose to move alone. He'd slip away before we even had a chance to call out to him, or ignore our summons entirely and sit by himself in a corner.

"Oh, it's Pyo Do-hyeok."

"Where?"

"Over there. Looks like he's eating alone again today. I thought he'd eat with his twin."

"Leave him be. Guess he wants to escape the world."

The funny thing was that Pyo Do-hyeok ignored his own twin too. He moved alone and only alone — never once with his brother.

'Huh, so it's not just me he's like that with?'

Pyo Do-seok, who loved picking fights with me, never actually touched Pyo Do-hyeok when you looked closely. And it wasn't even a matter of cutting his twin some slack.

The two of them treated each other like complete strangers the moment they laid eyes on one another. Coming from someone who had once wished for a sibling, I found the whole dynamic a little curious.

"Ah, here he comes again..."

"Ugh."

That was when Kim To-eun and Lee Hoe-uk screwed up their faces.

Understandably so. The moment we sat down with our trays, Pyo Do-seok was making a beeline straight for us.

"Lots of empty seats. Mind if I sit next to you?"

Pyo Do-seok wasn't the loner type like his brother.

He sat down beside us with his own little crowd in tow. The long table with plenty of vacancies was our fatal mistake. In an instant, all sixteen seats filled up.

"There's just one thing I'm suuuper curious about. Can I ask you a question?"

Pyo Do-seok had commandeered the seat right next to mine. I couldn't understand it — he made his dislike of me so obvious, yet he clung to me like this. Why?

With this many seats open, why on earth would anyone want to sit next to a person they hate?

"Hm? Hm? Hmm??"

Separately, he seemed ready to keep asking until I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠answered.

I turned to look at Pyo Do-seok as I shoveled stir-fried pork into my mouth. He was grinning ear to ear, but I could see his eyes had gone cold and sunken.

"What is it."

By this point I was genuinely starting to wonder why he hated me so much. Had my self-introduction really given him that much to despise?

"How does it feel, being born with every ounce of specialness there is?"

Oh. Specialness? Am I special?

Well, I was supposedly the only person the Twin Dragon Swords had chosen, so maybe "special" was technically accurate. My talent had undeniably surpassed the ordinary range, too.

But I had no idea what I was supposed to feel beyond that. If anything, this excessive talent often felt more like a burden to me.

"I don't think anything of it."

"Really?"

Of course, from the perspective of people without talent, my honest take ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would probably have sounded like pure gloating.

I knew that as well as anyone, which is why I deflected instead of spitting out my genuine feelings. Pyo Do-seok's lips twisted.

"Wow, that's... actually annoying."

"If it annoys you, don't talk to me and get lost. You get on our nerves just as much."

Lee Hoe-uk couldn't hold back and fired off a shot. Pyo Do-seok kept smiling sweetly through it, but the crowd he'd brought along was a different story.

A current of tension began to ripple across the table.

"Can I ask you something too?"

This is about to turn into a fight.

I scraped my tray clean as the thought crossed my mind. One thing I loved about the academy, unlike the hospital: the food was genuinely delicious.

"You already asked one, though."

"So? Ask. I'll answer."

"Then I won't hold back."

I popped the last bite into my mouth and chewed it thoroughly. You have to chew well or you'll get an upset stomach. Gulp. The finely chewed food slid down my esophagus.

"Could it be... you want to get close to me?"

I asked because I was wondering if Pyo Do-seok fell into the so-called "tsundere" category. But one look at the expression he'd made told me that was definitely not it.

"Never mind then."

Thank God it's no.

I stood up with my empty tray.

"I'm going to get seconds."

"Ah, ah... me, me too! I want more!"

"Same here. That was a little light anyway."

"M-me too. Seong Gwon, you wanted more too, right?"

"I'm fin—"

"Come on, come on! Let's go get seconds!"

Somehow our whole squad ended up rising en masse too. Anyway, the food was delicious.

* * *

Watching them leave, Pyo Do-seok was struck speechless with disbelief.

What? Asked if I want to get close to him? Is that brat out of his mind?

'Either he has zero social awareness, or his brain works too fast.'

It was, truly, repulsive beyond words.

A repulsive bastard, through and through...

His lips curled at the flash of that past moment. His hand, meanwhile, had already found the die in his pocket and was rolling it between his fingers.

Repulsive. Utterly repulsive.

"S-So-seok. What should we do?"

The lackeys beside him spoke up, fidgeting. All of them were vermin who'd come crawling to Pyo Do-seok solely because of the light he carried.

Trash that, ordinarily, wouldn't have been worth associating with — and yet, precisely because of that, trash he had chosen to associate with.

"Should we crush him?"

One of the trash piped up. Instead of answering, Pyo Do-seok drew the die out of his pocket.

"Crushing him is a given."

The real question was never whether to crush him.

It was how that mattered.

"Let's just see how great this so-called genius really is."

The die — white-faced, black-eyed — tumbled across the ground.

* * *

From that day on, Pyo Do-seok grew noticeably quieter. He still ran with his pack, but the frequency of his provocations toward me dropped dramatically.

"I heard that if he talks to you, it counts as wanting to get close, so obviously he's not coming near you."

"Huh? Who said that?"

"...Hwi, you are disturbingly good at painting people into corners with a totally innocent face."

"Me???"

The frame Lee Hoe-uk and Kim To-eun were hanging on me felt deeply unfair, but anyway.

Every single day felt like a dream. All the more so because this school life was something I'd never even gotten to dream of in my past life. Every mundane little moment of daily life was fun and delightful.

"Hey, hey. What's everyone doing this weekend?"

"Burrowing into the dorm and resting."

"Aww, boring."

"It's not like the weekend is more than one Sunday. What's the point of going out?"

Hwadam Army Special Military Academy ran classes on odd-numbered Saturdays just like any weekday. That was why Lee Hoe-uk said there was only one Sunday.

"But it's still our first weekend!"

Kim To-eun shot Lee Hoe-uk a look brimming with betrayal. Then her gaze swung toward us. It was a slightly demanding look.

"What about you guys? You guys!!?"

"Uh, um. We're going to study."

"Yep. Studying."

"What?"

"Haha... we agreed to review this week's lectures. There's just so much material, you see."

Seong Gwon had said she was going to study, I'd chimed in, and Sa Seo-yeon — overhearing that conversation — had carefully chimed in after me. That was how the study group was born.

My apologies to Kim To-eun, who had been hoping otherwise.

"You, you honor students!!"

But Kim To-eun had good grades too — that's why she was in 1st Platoon in the first place — so why the outrage? As I recalled, she dozed off in class often enough, but she scored over seventy on pretty much every quiz.

"Agh, whatever, whatever! Forget studying and come play with me! Plaaay with meee!!"

We found ourselves quite cornered by Kim To-eun's whining. None of us knew how to placate her.

"Play with meee—"

KWAAA-AAAANG!

Then, from somewhere off in the distance, a colossal explosion ripped through the air along with a rumbling of the earth.

Not just us — everyone scattered around the area instinctively dropped low and began assessing the situation.

"What was that? What??"

An attack from outside... was unlikely. This world's South Korea was still a divided nation under armistice like any other, but at least the situation wasn't sliding toward the brink of war.

Which made the most likely culprit an internal problem — and more specifically, something Phantasm-related.

"That explosion just now. Was it from the direction of the Phantasm Management Facility?"

"Probably, yeah."

"I'm certain of it."

The academy had a zone dedicated to managing uncontracted Phantasms.

This was on an entirely different level from the little Phantasm waiting rooms in each building. The Management Facility was a sector that recreated a Phantasm's natural habitat — the Rear World itself — in its entirety.

"Could the upperclassmen have caused some kind of accident?"

"That seems most likely, doesn't it?"

Access to that zone required special clearance. And that clearance was not granted to first-years. At best, we'd entered it during the Selection Rite, under everyone's watchful eyes.

So if something had happened, the cause had to be either a keeper's failure of management or a mistake by a cleared upperclassman.

We rose from our crouched positions just in case. Saminseongho, which had been pressed tight against Seong Gwon, let out an uneasy growl, its form flickering.

"We inform you that the explosion just now..."

"Oh, an announcement."

Right on cue, a broadcast crackled out of the speakers installed around the grounds. As expected, it confirmed that an incident had occurred in the Phantasm Management Facility.

It went on to tell us to carry on with our business and pay it no mind. With that, even the lingering unease that had remained under the banner of "just in case" was snuffed out entirely.

"Hey, hey. What on earth do you think happened?"

"Who knows, for us."

"Hmm. Could someone have provoked a high-grade Phantasm, perhaps?"

Naturally, we resumed walking our separate ways.

Afternoon classes were over, and since I hadn't joined a club yet, we were free until dinner.

"See you all later."

"See you, Hwi."

"Good work!" ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ With that, we parted ways at the Muincheol stop. Some headed to the dorms, some to the library. Everyone spent their free time differently.

'So the school headquarters was over this way, huh.'

Except I couldn't enjoy my freedom just yet. I'd been summoned today over the business of frightening a Phantasm, and the matter still wasn't wrapped up as dinner time wound down. In the end, I got my dinner at the Cadet Hall cafeteria.

'They did say I could eat at the officers' mess, though...'

Unlike the cadet mess hall, which closed promptly at 7:30, the officers' mess stayed open well into the night.

Since the delay in my mealtime hadn't been my fault, I'd been granted one-day-only permission to enter the officers' mess as well.

But who wants to go to the officers' mess as a lowly cadet? That's a place crawling not just with instructors but every senior officer imaginable.

I settled, quite contentedly, for the assortment of food sold at the cafeteria. Five sandwiches, four tortillas, french fries, three boxes of sweet fried chicken, a pork cutlet, and two bowls of ramyeon — honestly, a perfectly reasonable amount.

"So. Which. Way. Shall. I. Go."

It was after demolishing my dinner and stepping out of the cafeteria that I hesitated over which direction to run. East led to my quarters; west, to the cadet dormitory.

'Since I'm already out, might as well get some exercise in before turning in? Kill two birds and pass the news to Hoe-uk while I'm at it.'

He'd texted me earlier saying he didn't think he'd seen me at the mess hall — asked if something was up.

At this hour, Lee Hoe-uk was always out on the walking trail behind the dormitories, so I figured I could jog over, meet him, and explain.

I set my course for the cadet dormitory and ran. Tap-tap-tap. My sneakers pounded down the packed trail.

"You came."

"...?"

But today, someone other than Lee Hoe-uk was waiting for me.

A cadet from a different platoon — I didn't know his name, but he was one who often ran with Pyo Do-seok.

"So. Enjoying the special treatment?"

And he wasn't alone, either.

The cadet blocking the path forced me to a half-stop, and at that moment several more cadets closed in from the sides, boxing me in.

"Acting all high and mighty because you've got talent."

"Freaking insufferable."

The lines, the entrance, all of it — a textbook-perfect rendition of the delinquent gang routine straight out of a manga.

Against my better judgment, I found myself impressed.