Daily...? (2)
The moment they stepped into the reception room, a heavy atmosphere settled over them.
A low glass table sat in the center of the room, with sofas arranged face-to-face on either side. A landscape painting hung on the wall, a potted plant occupied the corner — it was a perfectly ordinary reception room, the kind you could find anywhere.
The two girls from the Student Council they'd glimpsed through the window were already seated on one of the sofas. The short-bobbed one rose from her seat. She was remarkably tall.
"Ji Sehyun and Sung Yui, correct?"
"Yes. That's right."
Yui answered evenly. Without the slightest hesitation, she walked to the opposite sofa and sat down — as if neither the Student Council summons nor the oppressive air in the room concerned her in the least.
The short-bobbed girl's brow tightened, just a fraction.
Sehyun spoke a beat later.
"Why did you call us here?"
They hadn't pulled out handcuffs, so this didn't seem to be an arrest. Still, the room's atmosphere was far too grim for comfort.
"What are you waiting for? Sit down."
Yui patted the empty cushion beside her. Pat, pat.
Sometimes he almost envied that kind of attitude. Sehyun let out a short sigh and sat next to her.
Only then did the ponytail girl across from them open her mouth.
"Han Seorin, General Student Council Investigation Division 1."
She didn't stand. One hand propped under her chin — whether the pose was meant to project authority or simply the product of exhaustion was hard to tell.
The short-bobbed girl beside her gave a brief nod.
"Rei. Same division."
Ponytail: Han Seorin. Short bob: Rei. Judging by the names, a Korean-Japanese pairing. Sehyun attended a Korean-affiliated school, but the academy as a whole drew students from many countries. Running into foreigners in the General Student Council wasn't anything special.
"We have a few things to confirm first."
Rei lifted a small tablet.
"Yesterday afternoon, the two of you were involved in a confrontation with several male students near the school. Is that correct?"
"Yes."
Sehyun answered.
"To be precise, they started it."
Yui added.
"They were the ones who pulled weapons, too."
"We've already verified that."
Rei swiped through the tablet screen.
"We have exterior camera footage from nearby shops and eyewitness statements. The other party hasn't denied initiating the attack, either."
"So we didn't do anything wrong, then?"
At Sehyun's question, the ponytail girl — Han Seorin — pulled out a water bottle. She took a drink, then slipped it back into the inner pocket of her jacket.
A water bottle fits in a jacket's inner pocket?
It was a small bottle, but the sight was still odd. It could have been a simple habit — or something tied to her ability.
Seorin spoke.
"It'll be processed as self-defense."
"'It'll be processed' — meaning it hasn't been yet?"
Yui asked.
"Meaning the administrative procedures are still pending."
Seorin blinked slowly, as if the whole conversation bored her.
"The students you fought were a particularly nasty bunch, so the matter got a little bigger than usual."
"Every one of them has a record of on- and off-campus violence," Rei added. "One of them has a prior disposition for carrying a weapon."
"So what started as a simple assault case," Seorin leaned back against the sofa, "turned into an incident where a pack of troublemakers pulled weapons on a transfer student and got subdued instead."
"The other side was rather badly hurt," Rei said, her eyes settling on Yui. "One has cracked ribs. Another injured his jaw joint."
"I went easy on them," Yui muttered under her breath.
Rei's expression hardened a notch further.
"That is not what 'going easy' looks like."
"Still safer than a knife, though."
"That may be true, but—"
Rei started to argue, then closed her mouth.
Sehyun asked carefully,
"So the reason you called us in today is to confirm our statements?"
"That, and—"
Seorin covered her mouth as if stifling a yawn.
"We're considering putting you up for a commendation."
"A commendation?"
"You didn't plan it that way, but the result is that you subdued students who habitually caused trouble."
Seorin said it as if it were nothing.
"Crimes targeting students who haven't adapted to the academy have been on the rise. In that climate, a transfer student and an ordinary student bravely subduing criminals—" Her mouth curved, just slightly. "Makes for a good story externally."
Something still felt off. Sehyun couldn't take the explanation at face value.
"Is there something about this you find unsatisfactory?"
Rei fixed him with a sharp look.
"No. It's just…"
"Then how does the General Student Council look — failing to catch those students until a transfer student stepped in?"
Yui cut in abruptly.
Rei's eyebrow twitched. Seorin, by contrast, closed her eyes as if too tired to care.
"That wasn't our jurisdiction."
"It happened inside the academy."
"Ordinary criminal cases around each school fall to the local branch investigation units. Here, that would be Branch 7 Investigation." Seorin tapped the table with a finger. "We're the General Student Council Investigation Division. We don't have the free time to personally chase down every delinquent student."
"That doesn't mean we're free of responsibility," Rei said quietly.
Seorin cracked one eye open.
"Here we go again."
"I'm not wrong."
The air between them sharpened. They belonged to the same organization, but their ways of thinking seemed considerably different. Sehyun kept his mouth shut, determined not to get caught in the middle.
Seorin looked back at the two of them.
"In any case, the incident will be recorded as self-defense. May I also process this as your agreement to the commendation recommendation?"
There was nothing for Sehyun to lose. A positive entry on his school record. No real reason to refuse.
"Yes. That's fine."
"And Sung Yui?"
Yui studied Seorin for a moment.
"If Sehyun's getting one, I'll take one too."
"Then I'll handle it that way."
Seorin stood as if her business were truly finished. Rei powered off her tablet and straightened her clothes.
Yui still looked unconvinced, but seemed to decide that pressing further would gain her nothing. She asked no more questions.
"One more thing."
Seorin paused on her way to the door and looked back.
"If you notice anything strange, you're welcome to contact us."
She set a small card with her contact information on the table.
"Whether I'll actually be free to take the call is another matter."
"Why would you add that?" Rei scolded.
"Because it's true."
The two of them left the reception room. The door closed, and the room fell quiet.
Sehyun picked up the card from the table.
"So we just go back to class now?"
Yui didn't answer. She stood first, opened the door, and walked out. Sehyun followed naturally behind her.
Maybe it was from spending the entire previous day running and making decisions together — when she moved first, falling in step without a word already felt like second nature.
When they returned to the classroom mid-lesson, every pair of eyes locked onto them at once, just as expected. Yoona's gaze was especially sharp — the kind of look that said, What did you two do this time? The pen in her hand tightened.
Yui didn't miss that small change. Had Yoona been worried about them being called to the Student Council? Or did she already have a guess as to why? There was no way to know yet.
Whatever.
Sehyun muttered it only to himself. The two of them walked to their seats as if nothing had happened. Fortunately, Sehyun and Yui sat right next to each other — no need to cross the entire classroom under everyone's stare.
Yui calmly pulled out her chair and sat. Sehyun took the seat beside her.
After that, almost none of the lesson registered.
That night.
Back in the dormitory, Sehyun lay on his bed scrolling through his phone.
Thud!
Right on schedule, the floor noise from above rattled the ceiling.
Thud. Scrape.
This time there was even the sound of something heavy being dragged.
"What the hell is she doing up there…"
Yesterday she'd claimed she was checking the room and working out. Was she repeating the same routine today? He was just lifting his phone, thinking he really ought to call this time, when a message arrived from Yui first.
"Who does she think she is, bossing me around?"
It felt exactly like a parent dropping by an apartment unannounced. Sehyun glanced around, shoved the clothes on the floor into a corner of the bed, and roughly stuffed the trash on his desk into a bag.
She'll ring the doorbell, right?
Every dorm room used an electronic door lock. Students had to enter a passcode to get in; only the housemaster and security staff carried emergency master cards. Yui had no way of knowing Sehyun's passcode, so if she came the normal way, she'd ring the bell.
But Sung Yui always drifted a little outside normal expectations. Sehyun had overlooked that fact.
No matter how long he waited, the doorbell never rang.
Instead—
Tap.
A knock on the window.
Tap, tap.
"What?"
Sehyun spun around in shock. Beyond the balcony window stood Yui.
"Holy shit!"
He yanked the window open in a hurry.
"How the hell did you get here?"
A thick rope stretched from behind her all the way up to the balcony above. A makeshift safety harness was strapped around her waist and thighs, with a small descender for controlling the rope clipped at the front of her waist.
"Don't tell me you rappelled down on that."
Yui jiggled the safety carabiner attached to the descender.
"Came down with this. You think I'd climb barehanded like an idiot?"
"Using gear doesn't make it not dangerous."
Even one floor up, a bad fall could mean fractures or a head injury. Sehyun leaned out the window and looked up.
"Where'd you anchor the rope?"
"Once around the fixed post on the balcony railing." Yui held up one finger. "And a backup around the bed frame."
"What if the bed gets dragged?"
"I blocked it with the desk. Even if the railing side comes loose, I won't drop straight down."
The source of last night's noise — and today's — finally made sense.
"You said you were checking the room and working out."
"I did that too?" Yui answered shamelessly. "I just left out a few important details."
"So you've been building this since yesterday?"
"Yep."
Yui stepped onto the balcony. Then she clipped a carabiner around the midpoint of the rope hanging from above, securing it to a post on Sehyun's railing. She yanked the anchor a few times to check it.
She tapped the carabiner she'd fixed to his railing.
"This is an intermediate anchor point. Normally we use it to go between the upper and lower rooms. In an emergency, you unclip this side and keep going down."
"How far does the rope reach?"
"A little short of ground level, but it easily reaches the second-floor balcony."
"You set this up as an escape route from the start?"
"Better to build an exit first than go looking for one after you're trapped in an urban legend."
Sehyun had no answer for that. The urban legend that had erupted in the classroom. The gray city they'd suddenly walked into from the park. There was no reason to assume the dormitory was safe.
"If the hallway or stairs get blocked, we can come straight down this way."
"What if I need to go up?"
"Switch the descender to ascent mode, or climb the knots."
"You could do that. I probably couldn't."
"Then I'll haul you up from above."
Yui said it like it was nothing. Sehyun looked down at the rope. It looked absurd — but after what they'd been through the day before, he couldn't call the preparation completely unnecessary.
"Besides, we still don't know who our enemy is."
Yui stepped into the room as she spoke.
"…Yeah."
The mission given to the Hero and the Saintess was to defeat threats. Surviving urban legends alone hadn't been confirmed as the only goal. The legends themselves might be the enemy. There might be people exploiting them. For all they knew, a demon king or some unidentified monster was waiting, like something out of a fantasy novel. Right now, they knew nothing.
A brief silence settled between them.
Then—
Fire detected! Fire detected! Evacuate immediately!
A shrill alarm tore through the entire dormitory.
"What the fuck!"
Sehyun was on his feet instantly. The fire alarm on the ceiling was blinking red.
"Is this real?"
Yui's eyes sharpened. She moved straight toward the front door. Sehyun checked the gap underneath — no smoke seeping through. He held the back of his hand near the door surface. No heat either.
"Let's check the hallway first."
"Alright."
Yui pressed the unlock button on the door lock.
Beep.
The electronic tone confirmed the lock had released. Yui turned the handle.
Clack.
The door didn't open.
She yanked the handle again.
Clack! Clack!
"…What?"
"You unlock it properly?"
"It unlocked."
Sehyun pushed Yui aside and checked the door lock himself. The display showed unlocked. No secondary latch was engaged. He pushed the handle all the way down and threw his weight against the door.
Bang.
The door shuddered faintly — and did not open.
"Shit, why won't it open?"
The alarm blared even louder.
Fire detected! Evacuate immediately!
Yui and Sehyun stared at the door at the same time.
It wasn't a lock problem.
The door itself — as if something on the outside was holding it shut — would not move.