The Student Council President Thinks I'm Cute
The thoughts were coming through way too clearly.
“……Next.”
The sound of the counseling room door sliding open with a creak reached my ears, followed immediately by the heavy thump of someone dropping into the chair.
‘Phew.’
Once I finish with this kid… my quota for the day will be complete.
Of course, I don’t actually have a professional counseling license, nor did I graduate from any related department. I was just some unemployed slob who spent his days rotting in a tiny room, scratching his belly and doomscrolling every online community he could find. A pitiful, fragile soul who dumped his entire life savings into some trashy beauty stock only for the Iran war to wipe it all out. That’s exactly who I was right up until the moment I fell into that manhole and ended up here.
—Ring ring ring!
The strange chime told me it was already four in the afternoon. After working a full six hours my shoulders felt like they were about to snap. Time to wrap this up and go rest.
“Alright. What’s bothering you?”
“Ma’am, you’re facing the wrong way.”
“Ah, my bad.”
I’d been spinning the swivel chair out of boredom and apparently lost all sense of direction.
“Mhm, so your concern is…”
“Shouldn’t you ask for my name first? It might help if you showed a little more interest in your students.”
“Ugh, seriously?”
Startled by her sharp tone, I instinctively clicked my tongue.
“My name is Han Yea.”
“I see.”
“‘I see’ isn’t the right response. It’s already been a full month since you started working here… and hearing my name still doesn’t ring any bells?”
‘Who the hell are you, you crazy bitch?’
I couldn’t actually say that. After all, I was technically employed by the academy as a counseling teacher.
And the academy’s official name proudly included the word “Hunter.”
That’s right.
This place was the prestigious private Hunter Academy sponsored by Korea’s top corporations. As the institution that produced the strongest Hunter forces in East Asia, it naturally attracted quite a few kids whose heads were a little… off. I’d heard plenty of lines like ‘Do you know who I am?’ ‘How can you not recognize me?’ and ‘How dare you speak to me that way?’
According to the half-assed psychology theories I’d picked up here, every single one of them suffered from an extreme case of egomania. From a young age they’d been bathed in spotlights and showered with insane amounts of praise, so their self-esteem had shot straight through the roof.
The best thing for my mental health was to just nod along and give them the ‘there-there’ treatment.
“……I’m the student council president, ma’am.”
“What?”
“I introduced myself when you’d been here about a week. Have you remembered yet why I came to the counseling room today?”
“To show off your presence…?”
“Absolutely not! I clearly told you in advance that I’d be visiting on behalf of the busy chairman! I can’t believe you don’t even remember my name. I’m disappointed.”
“Calm down, kid. I’ve always been terrible with names.”
I felt Han Yea bristle in her seat.
“The sense that affects people most strongly is usually sight. But as you know, I can’t see anything, right? Matching faces to names is pretty tough for me. I’m trying to memorize voices, but I can’t remember someone after hearing them just once or twice. You understand, don’t you?”
“Ah.”
A strange silence fell for a moment.
Han Yea was probably dying of embarrassment. She’d just aggressively demanded how someone who couldn’t see could possibly not recognize her face.
“……I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.”
“No, no, it’s fine. But I’ve definitely memorized it now, Yea.”
That was a lie. There was no guarantee I’d remember her name next time we met.
I’d always been bad with names.
‘Though I can name over three hundred characters from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.’
I could list them by country or by year of appearance. While other kids were memorizing the periodic table and English vocabulary, I’d thrown a tantrum and memorized every single Three Kingdoms character instead. That little stunt was exactly why the words “bottom-tier university” were permanently stamped on my academic record.
I never really cared about prestige before, but the way students kept asking which university and which psychology department I graduated from had given me a serious inferiority complex.
Ugh… damn it. If I could regress, this time I swear I’d…!
“I’ll apologize once more, ma’am. I originally planned to suggest to my father—no, the chairman—that you be fired… but I’ve changed my mind.”
For a second I thought I’d misheard.
“What?”
“I said I’ll apologize again…”
“No, not that part.”
Father?
The same Han Shin who, simply because we’d been in the same Hunter generation, had picked up this homeless, blind wreck with nowhere to go, given me this cushy job, and paid me five million won a month—was her dad?
Falling into that manhole really had flipped the entire world upside down. Or more accurately, it was like one of those dramatic historical upheavals.
The unemployed basement dweller I used to be had suddenly been body-swapped into a roughly 140cm silver-haired girl with the body of a child (though my ID said I was an adult). After being forcibly conscripted as a Hunter, rolling around battlefields, and eventually losing my sight, everything I’d learned and trained became completely useless.
I’d spent my days crying in a tiny goshiwon until I couldn’t pay rent and got kicked out. That’s when I met the academy’s chairman, Han Shin, while begging with a tin cup at New Seoul Station.
“H-Han Shin… is your father?”
“Yes. Did you really not know? I think I mentioned it before.”
“Ah, no. Of course I knew. Please tell him I’m endlessly grateful and that I worship the ground he walks on.”
“Uh… sure…”
That was close. I’d almost been thrown back onto the streets to fight stray cats for fish heads again.
Korea was still in the middle of reconstruction, so there wasn’t much budget left for injured Hunters. And since I had no real education and had gone and ruined my eyes, life outside these walls would be pure hell.
‘Staying here, working a cozy thirty hours a week and getting five million won deposited every month is definitely the happier life.’
Hehe. Just thinking about it made my mouth water. This perfect life.
To protect that life…
“Yea, what brings you to the counseling room? Your teacher here works day and night, so I tend to forget things sometimes. See these? The dark circles from all the work.”
“……Those are your cheeks.”
I’d raised my finger to point just below my eyes.
“Sigh… The reason I visited today is to collect the counseling logs you’ve written.”
“Counseling logs?”
“Yes. Digitizing them is part of the student council’s duties. The secretary was supposed to come, but since this is my first visit and my father asked me to stop by… But, ma’am.”
What now?
Why did I suddenly feel such a stinging gaze?
If I had to rate the venom level, it was about sixty percent. I’d naturally developed this sense because most of the students who used the counseling room were girls. I spent a lot of time listening to them badmouth others or vent their complaints, after all.
“Don’t tell me… with that ‘I’ve never heard of this before’ expression… Ma’am, you haven’t written a single one, have you…”
“Ah, well, since I can’t see… you know. Hehe.”
“……Sigh. I see.”
It felt a little unfair. It’s not like I chose to be blind.
If only that gate hadn’t opened during the Mars landing commemorative event, the greatest genius scientist since Tesla—Milon Mengsk—wouldn’t have been sacrificed. My entire stock portfolio wouldn’t have been delisted. And then…
By now Neuralink would have been released. I could have connected that little machine straight to my brain and used mechanical eyes as my window to the world.
I miss you so much today, Professor Milon…
That was when it happened.
—Knock knock.
The sound of someone knocking on the counseling room door was immediately followed by a voice from the other side.
“President, it’s time for the regular meeting.”
“Ah, has it already gotten that late?”
Han Yea seemed to shoot up from her chair.
“……Then I’ll take my leave first. Miss An Sion.”
“Mhm. Take care. And please, please! Give your father my regards. Tell him, ‘Miss An Sion is doing more than satisfactorily’! I’d really appreciate it!”
“Ah, yes…”
Whew. I’d safely survived the crisis.
But then.
The door slid open with a creak.
……And the voices started pouring in.
Here we go again.
The truth is, I’m not just some ordinary injured Hunter.
Nor am I hiding some incredible power.
Absolute Sensitivity
I simply received one strange perk.
Because of it, I was classified as an S-class Hunter from the very beginning and suddenly treated like a human weapon on the level of national power.
‘Maximization of the senses.’
I could sense where a gate would pop up before it appeared. I could distinguish A-rank, B-rank, and C-rank gates in advance. I could tell at a glance if organic matter was contaminated. I could focus every sense in my body into one point, achieve extreme concentration, and fire a gun with perfect accuracy…
Things like that.
But recently, the sense called ‘sight’ had been forcibly deactivated. So instead—
These kinds of thoughts flowed into my mind from beyond the door.
Who were they talking about?
It couldn’t be me… right?
Sigh.
Time to clock out already.