An Unexpected Encounter
Unexpected encounters were always this sudden — and, by extension, this mortifying.
My gaze and Yoonha's collided in midair and hung there for a long moment.
A customer…… I presume?
There was no good way to break the silence that followed, and in the end it was Yoonha who spoke first.
Apparently she hadn't recognized me. Or maybe she was playing dumb on purpose, saving the chewing-out for later.
The Hunter Academy project had launched with plenty of ambition, but even so, they hadn't exactly drafted the school rules from scratch. More likely they'd taken the rulebooks already in circulation, dusted them off, and called it a day. And according to my memory, the Academy — like any other high school — flatly prohibited students from holding private part-time jobs.
Which was only natural. Time hadn't rotted the clause away, and no one had bothered to amend that particular section. Frankly, no institution charged with training the next generation of hunters could afford to openly sanction such a thing, no matter how toothless the rule might be in practice.
Of course, as long as it didn't interfere with their growth as hunters, a certain amount of turning a blind eye was possible — but having walked straight into it like this, I couldn't very well let it slide. Especially not when Yoonha was so obviously failing to do her job properly. Hence her flailing attempt at a cover story, no doubt.
Are you serious, oppa?
Hayeon fired that off at me while I was still busy rationalizing.
Ah. Right. I was still in my spacesuit, wasn't I?
Brilliant. My foresight is sheer genius. At least this way, nobody would be whispering anything about compensated dating.
Having constructed my optimistic worldview and settled into my seat, I watched Yoonha grudgingly mumble her way through the rest of her welcome. As customer service went, it bordered on disqualifying.
In my humble opinion, this one has gone completely mad, has she not?
…Still, there's an upside.
At Yoonha's attitude, the two of them started whispering among themselves. From the sound of it, Tiamat was getting an explanation of who Yoonha was.
By then we'd more or less settled on a menu. As Hayeon firmly blocked my attempt to stand and place the order, seating me back down and heading for the counter in my stead, I quietly studied Yoonha's figure.
It wasn't that she looked older than her years — it was the whole atmosphere around her. Even facing down a spaceman, she'd wrapped up the customer interaction without a hint of panic, and there was a polish to her that went beyond any ordinary part-timer.
She looked less like the eldest of three siblings and more like the head of a three-person household.
Even the way she stood at the counter said as much. Her long black hair, normally worn loose down to her waist, was twisted up and pinned out of the way today, and she processed orders with an unbroken rhythm that felt closer to a working adult's than a student's.
Everything else matched. Those green eyes that usually darted around, restless and busy, weren't scouting the room like some street thug — they were simply glazed over with exhaustion, wandering aimlessly. And that athlete's frame of hers didn't feel like the product of dedicated training, but of the lean, functional muscle built up from grinding through shifts at work.
Seen like this, I could more or less guess why she'd been skipping school.
That girl of yours, she is your student, yes?
Gah — don't sneak up on me like that!
I nearly flipped the table.
Fighting down the jolt and turning my head, I found the goddess watching my reaction with an amused smile. And then it hit me — with Hayeon gone from the table, this had inevitably become a one-on-one between me and her, and a chill ran straight down my spine.
How unexpected. I'll admit I was surprised when I heard you'd entered the teaching profession, but to think you were actually performing your duties with such diligence.
Did you come here looking for a fight?
Heavens, no. I'm simply surprised, truly. How should I put it…… I never took you for the type to run with a crowd.
What, so I look like I'll die friendless? Real flattering.
"Not the type to run with a crowd" — well, that's one way with words. Isn't that just a roundabout way of calling me a loner?
In my own defense, I'd had friends. Once. A telepath, actually — we'd drifted into each other's orbits by chance and even hunted together a few times.
Not that I could reach him anymore. Same with the others.
I couldn't remember a single falling-out, so how had it come to this? Maybe there really was something to the old saying about treasuring your friends.
Nay, this one merely heard the tale secondhand, nothing more. Teenage rebellion, by the sound of it?
Not wrong.
Children that age are all like that.
At the goddess's knowing, head-tilting remark, I found myself shaking my head side to side before I could stop.
It was precisely this attitude that made me so uneasy around her. Call her a Constellation all you like — her essential nature was still, at the end of the day, that of a monster. She cooperated with us now, sure, but there was no telling when or how she might turn on us. And that wasn't even the whole of it.
But do keep this in mind — we did not come all this way to hold a counseling session quite so ill-timed as this, did we?
Right. You came because you were singing your hamburger-hamburger song.
…Tch, what a stiff-necked one you are. I'll share my fries with you later, so kindly let it go. In any case, we have matters yet to deal with at present, do we not?
I know.
Then hear this one out. Even granting your point, surely the work will leave you with some leisure once it's done, no?
Whether she knew what was on my mind or not, the goddess offered up yet another piece of unsolicited advice.
She wasn't wrong. Time-consuming as this whole affair was, the bottleneck had never been the gate inspections themselves. If I hurried the pace, there'd be room to spare by the end.
Rotten to the core, goddess or whatever she is.
Maybe that was a habit picked up from festering away at the top floors of the Association. Either way, the advice itself was worth hearing.
Watching her dole out guidance to someone whose obedience couldn't be described as such even as a joke, I couldn't help feeling a twinge of pity for the august worthies of the Association who laid out offerings of every kind just to earn an audience with her.
Though, granted, the advice I'd received this time was far too modest to qualify as a goddess's proverb.
It sounded more like the auntie next door gossiping over the fence.
I do wonder about that myself, from time to time. But truly, no. I am quite all right.
If you insist that hard, I hardly have grounds to argue…… Still, be careful. One look at her and anyone can tell she's a dangerous sort.
While I was busy recalibrating the plan in my head, Hayeon returned with the order and set the tray down in front of us without ceremony.
Even a funeral parlor couldn't have managed this kind of silence. The goddess who'd been chattering away moments ago was now far too busy stuffing her complimentary hamburger down her throat to ask questions or make conversation. That was the only way to describe the sheer violence of it — manners so savage that "goddess" wasn't just an overstatement, it was an outright contradiction of everything on display.
Heaven only knew what fool had decided to gift a goddess a hamburger, but the way she devoured it was almost endearing. She gave off the air of a great warlord, honestly.
Hayeon, wedged into the seat beside me, let out a quiet sigh at the spectacle. If that had been all, I'd have gladly raised a toast — finally, after two years, the kid was seeing what this girl really was. But the sidelong glance she kept shooting my way suggested otherwise, so I contented myself with quietly nibbling my own hamburger.
She's lost her mind……
It was a meal too quiet for the word "fast" to carry any meaning. The goddess single-mindedly demolishing a single hamburger, Hayeon staring at the two of us — me grunting my way out of my helmet, only to drape the gas mask back over my bare face and force a hamburger underneath it — and that muttered remark of hers was the last exchange that passed between us.
As I approached the counter, Yoonha's face tightened. I glanced around; the other part-timers were all straining every muscle to look anywhere but at me. Cornered with no one left to pass the buck to, Yoonha stepped forward and had no choice but to greet me with an awkward smile.
Is there anything you need, sir?
When does your shift end?
At my question, a strange expression flickered across her face before she answered with a smile that said, please don't do this to me.
I'm very sorry, but this establishment does not permit such behavior. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.
What a cheeky little rascal.
Excuse me?
That's not what this is about, so just answer the question. Come on.
Saying that, I pulled off my spacesuit helmet again — only for her expression to grow stranger still. Puzzled, I yanked off the gas mask I'd been wearing as a precaution as well.
Only then could Yoonha properly react. Not that I'd call it a proper reaction, exactly. She stared at me, eyes wide with shock, then simply began glancing back and forth between the helmet and the gas mask in visible confusion.
Huh? ……Huh?
It's me. Your homeroom teacher.
Even I could hear it — a voice brooking no argument.
Her face said she found the whole situation utterly bewildering and couldn't find her bearings anywhere, but when another part-timer brushed past her side and gave her a little poke, she shuddered like she'd been scorched by flame.
Frankly, the situation itself was simple enough. In short: a teacher had caught a student working a part-time job without permission. That was all.
Yoonha finally seemed to arrive at that conclusion herself. Shoulders sagging, she nodded slowly, and delivered her answer in a voice drained of all strength.
Thanks to that, I could leave with my mind at ease. There was still a reasonable margin before the time she'd mentioned. A dozen-odd gates remained — easily enough ground to cover.
From there, it went like clockwork. The task had always been simple: check for anything suspicious at each site, one after another. And even that was little more than poking around a needle-in-a-haystack search across open ground. If something like Hayeon's peculiar constitution happened to trigger, who knew — and I'll admit I was half hoping it would. Fortunately or unfortunately, nothing of the sort occurred.
And so the sun went down, and night arrived.
Eight p.m. I was waiting in a seat with a view of the shop's front entrance when Yoonha emerged, just finished changing.
Yoonha! Over here!
I raised a hand to catch her attention, and she turned toward me — then promptly screwed her face up tight and started striding straight over.
I have about a hundred questions, but…… why on earth are you still in uniform? Where's your change of clothes?
Well, seeing as the goddess in question is still glued to my side, that's why.
Which is how the two of us ended up chattering away in the nearest café.
But I couldn't exactly explain the goddess's existence, or the protective surveillance hanging over Hayeon. So I had no choice but to declare, in the firmest tone I could manage:
It was necessary.
……Necessary? Showing up at your student's part-time job dressed as an astronaut?
Yes.
When I said it with a perfectly straight face, Yoonha was the one who faltered. She'd clearly meant the remark as a barb, but faced with my unapologetic confidence, she looked genuinely flustered.
Anyway, it's not important. And what exactly is wrong with me wearing a spacesuit? Worst case, a rumor spreads that people saw me chatting with an alien at your workplace. That's it.
In other words: nothing. Not compared to what's happening right now.
At last, Yoonha surrendered with a gesture that said both hands and both feet were up, leaning back against a nearby fence with one leg propped. Her attitude was as insolent as ever, but for a high school girl whose homeroom teacher had just materialized at her place of work, it was practically diplomatic — so I let it go.
So. What brings you here?
What do you think it would be?
Well, obviously the part-time job, right? Though I honestly didn't expect you to drag along a classmate for something like this…… your girlfriend, no less.
That's not it.
Strictly speaking, I hadn't been combing the city looking for her — I'd simply stumbled into her. But still.
At Yoonha's frankly impossible assumption, I corrected the error with all due gravity, and she just shrugged like it made no difference to her.
Sorry for working without saying anything. If I need to write a reflection letter, I'll come by the teachers' office.
You don't even show up to school in the first place.
Hwang Yoonha shut her mouth with a sullen face. Apparently this was a topic she found genuinely uncomfortable.
But I couldn't let it pass. At worst, if it were only the part-time job, it wouldn't be much of an issue. Considering her family circumstances, the odds of a work permit being rejected were slim to none.
And yet, no matter how I looked at it, something about her attitude right now was off.
I understood needing money. Fine — work a part-time job. But skipping class without so much as a single word of notice to the school was a completely separate matter. Leave it like this, and even the teachers who'd approved her work permit would have to think twice.
She was almost certainly hopping from one job site to another right through the hours she should've been in class. Looking at the exhaustion written all over her, it was impossible not to draw that conclusion. In truth, finding a part-timer willing to take the morning rush was like plucking stars from the sky — the demand was endless.
The question was what I'd just said: why did it have to come to this?
Debt collectors breathing down your neck? Or something else?
Either way, suddenly skipping school and grinding through shifts wasn't something I could look on kindly.
So — what is it? Talk to me. I might be able to help.
For the record, I meant it. It wasn't just a matter of sanding the words down until they sounded nice.
She needed cash, urgently — so urgently that even the time spent walking to school felt like a waste. Whatever her circumstances were, they were almost certainly that kind of story.
Fortunately for her, I happened to possess power enough to solve problems of exactly that scale.
Namely, the two most important things in this democracy of ours.
In other words: money and influence.
More money than we knew what to do with! And the name value of Lee Joongoo himself!
With power like this in the palm of my hand, there was precious little I couldn't do.
Pressing her for an answer with that conviction burning in me, she eventually had no choice but to open her mouth in a tone that made it plain she wasn't happy about it.
But the words that came out of her sour, reluctant face were nothing like what I'd expected.
I don't like class.
Come again?