The Red Classroom
As seventh period was about to begin, a strange atmosphere seeped into the classroom.
The breeze coming through the windows was warm.
And yet Sehyun felt cold.
Perhaps it was because of the transfer student's gaze.
The transfer student had written a name Sehyun had never seen before, writing it herself on the chalkboard.
Sung Yui.
The girl set the chalk down on the teacher's desk and looked straight at Sehyun.
Her posture was perfectly upright. Even through the loose school uniform, her figure was clearly good. Silver hair cut short fell to her shoulders, bangs lightly veiling her eyebrows. Even so, her eyes shone with a vivid, piercing light.
"My name is Sung Yui. I transferred here today. I'm an acquired ability user. I look forward to working with you all."
There was a strangely severed artificiality mixed into her speech. It was so textbook-perfect that it felt fake instead.
Yui sat down as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
Of all places, it was the empty seat right beside Sehyun—the one who had only wanted a quiet, uneventful day.
So the seat next to me just happened to be empty. Lucky me.
Sehyun gave a bitter smile.
"Hey. What's your name?"
The transfer student. Yui, was it?
She was speaking to him while completely ignoring the teacher standing at the front of the class.
Sehyun was interested in her, but not so interested that he would chat through class time. Still, outright ignoring her would be rude.
"Mm. Let's talk after class."
At Sehyun's cold reply, Yui looked faintly put out.
"Ah. Okay."
She turned her head away.
Seventh period was the last class of the day. They could talk once it was over. That was what Sehyun thought—without the slightest idea of what was about to happen.
And that day, the moment the bell rang to signal the end of school—
Every window slammed shut, and the door vanished.
Not "the door closed." It was gone.
There was nowhere even to put a hand. Where the door should have been, there was nothing. Only wall.
So we can't open the door and leave, then—
Outside the windows, everything was red.
The sky. The hallway. Even the scenery reflected in the dead classroom television.
On the chalkboard, the earlier self-introduction still remained.
Sung Yui.
And beneath it, a newly carved sentence.
"…Is this a joke?"
Sehyun muttered.
"Or an attack using someone's ability?"
This was an academy where ability users gathered. If it was an attack by an ability user, something like this paranormal phenomenon was entirely possible.
This is bad… If it's a fight between ability users, there's nothing I can do.
Sehyun's ability was not a direct offensive power. It did not look like it would be of much help against the anomaly unfolding right in front of him either.
Still, I need to figure out what's going on.
Nothing had been confirmed yet. Everything so far was pure speculation on Sehyun's part.
To grasp the situation, Sehyun rose from his seat and looked around.
The teacher at the desk had vanished at some point. The classmates had been strangely quiet for a while now.
Did I fall into this alone?
Every student had their head buried on their desk, unmoving.
In that moment, one of them suddenly shot upright and laughed.
"It's me."
Then slammed their head into the desk.
Thud.
"It's me."
Twice.
Three times.
"It's me. It's me. It's me. It's me—"
Suddenly every student in the class turned to stare at Sehyun and the one who had stood up.
Many mouths opened at once, but not a single sound came out.
Every single one of them was Yui.
Faces of that unfamiliar transfer student, eyes perfectly replicated down to the last detail.
Twenty-nine Sung Yuis filled the classroom.
All of them were looking at Sehyun.
"Sehyun, remember me."
One Yui spoke with a tear-streaked face.
"Sehyun, it's me. I introduced myself earlier, remember?"
Another wore an angry expression.
"I'm the real one."
The Yui standing by the window spoke calmly.
Voices overlapped. They twisted, subtly wrong.
People began harming themselves one after another. Some Yuis fought each other. They bit their own fingers, smashed their heads against desks, lifted chairs and swung them at one another.
And yet they were smiling.
With affectionate faces.
With alien smiles.
Sehyun clutched the collar of his uniform. His heart skipped a beat late.
Yui.
Among the Yuis, there was a real one.
Only one.
Only one of them was the real Yui in this hell.
Then Sehyun's gaze went to the chalkboard.
Faint writing still remained.
Sung Yui.
A name he had truly met for the first time today.
"Find the real one…?"
Cold sweat ran down his face. Sehyun covered his mouth with his right hand.
Illusion?
Dream?
This was far beyond the level of a hidden-camera prank. The scene of this massacre, felt through all five senses, was unmistakably real.
The movements and wounds of the Yuis fighting to kill one another. Bodies twisting in agony with every blow. Yuis already collapsed on the floor, unmoving. Above all, the stench of blood stabbing his nose was far too real.
I have to calm down.
I have to think calmly.
If I stop thinking, I might die.
Even if this was a paranormal phenomenon created by an ability, it would have its own laws and rules. To fight an ability user, the most important thing was to understand the opponent's power.
Was this an ability that turned the classroom itself into a domain?
Or had the phenomenon spread through the entire school?
Sehyun's frozen mind began to turn again.
Think.
Don't stop thinking.
"Find the real one… is it."
There were not many hints to be gained from the classroom right now.
The landscape that had suddenly turned red.
A classroom that could not be left.
Everyone inside had turned into Yui and was either harming one another or committing suicide.
And the writing on the board.
What if they all died?
Would it become impossible to find the real one?
Then how long was the time limit?
Until every Yui was dead?
What if the real Yui was already dead?
Could the one who activated the ability not even control the order of deaths?
If they could decide the order, they would have made the real Yui die first.
If he assumed the phenomenon had not ended yet, then it was correct to think the real Yui was still alive.
Questions chained into more questions. There was no solid information.
The one thing that was certain—
Find the real one.
Abilities, conditions, all of that could wait. First he had to find the real Yui.
Having sorted his thoughts, Sehyun raised his head.
In that instant he nearly fainted from shock.
The moment Sehyun looked up, every Yui stopped moving and stared at him.
"Sehyun, it's me. I'm the real one."
"Sehyun, I'm the real one."
"No, Sehyun! It's me."
"Sehyun, it's me it's me it's me it's me."
It's me.
I'm the real one.
The Yuis said those words as they came closer, reaching their hands toward Sehyun.
"Uwaaaaaah!!"
Sehyun screamed and fell backward. He put a hand on the floor to push himself farther back, but his palm slipped and he fell again.
What?
Had he slipped on blood spilled by a Yui in the back row?
Fortunately the two Yuis collapsed behind him seemed already dead.
Come to think of it, where did the original Yui sit?
The seat next to me.
Sehyun hurriedly looked to the side.
The Yui who had been sitting next to him was simply watching him with no reaction at all. She said nothing. She only stared.
The other Yuis slowly approached the fallen Sehyun.
If those hands touch me, it's dangerous.
That instinct rose in him.
"It's me—!"
The foremost Yui suddenly lunged.
"Uwaah?!"
Sehyun rose in a flash and took a stance.
Just before Yui's hand touched his body, Sehyun stretched his left hand straight out to the left.
The hand that had reached his chest vanished.
At the same time, that wrist appeared inside the left hand he had extended.
The arm had not been severed. It had not bent unnaturally. The position of the arm that had been reaching for Sehyun had simply shifted to the left.
Without hesitation Sehyun smashed the remaining right fist into Yui's face.
"Ghk…"
The fake Yui let out a strange groan and collapsed.
"Ah. I think I get it a little."
Sehyun caught the falling fake and shoved her toward the other Yuis.
"There were plenty of hints."
The approaching Yuis tangled with the fallen fake.
"All of you called my name."
The Yuis' movements faltered for an instant.
"But the Sung Yui I met today asked for my name, and I never answered."
Sehyun grabbed the silent Yui from the neighboring seat and pulled her to her feet.
She rose with a blank expression and looked at him.
"You might say she could have checked the attendance sheet, right?"
Sehyun shook his head at the doubt he himself had raised.
"If that were the case, there would have been no need to ask my name from the start. At the very least, the Sung Yui I met today acted as if she didn't know my name."
Every fake had called Sehyun by name.
But only the Yui in the seat beside him had never once spoken it to the end.
"And one last confirmation."
Sehyun held out his hand to the Yui he had helped up.
She looked at the hand for a moment, then took it.
White chalk dust clung to her fingers—the trace of having written her own name on the board herself.
"My name is Ji Sehyun."
"Yeah."
Yui answered shortly.
In that instant, the world changed.
"…What are you two doing?"
It was the voice of class president Yoona.
"…Huh?"
When Sehyun answered in a deflated voice, Yoona shook her ponytail and sighed as if he were hopeless.
"No, Yoona. I'm glad Sehyun seems to be getting along well with the transfer student."
The teacher at the front of the class said with a smile.
Sehyun looked around.
It was the original classroom.
The moment after class had ended and they were about to begin closing homeroom. Everyone should have been seated, with only class president Yoona standing. And in the middle of that, Sehyun and Yui were standing and shaking hands.
"Ah! I'm sorry!"
Sehyun quickly bowed his head and sat back down.
Yui likewise sat without a word, following him with a cold expression.
"Haa…"
They had returned to the original classroom.
In the end he had found the real one, and that was the end of it?
What on earth had that grotesque phenomenon earlier—
"No. It's not over yet."
Yui spoke quietly.
"Probably, you know… this is just the beginning."
"What?"
Sehyun reflexively looked at her and asked back.
Yui turned her head and met his eyes.
It was a bold, bright smile so different from the cold expression of a moment ago that the earlier face would not even come to mind.
In a voice low enough that only Sehyun could hear, she said:
"Looking forward to working with you from now on, Hero."