The Crossdressing Girl of the Swordsmanship Department (2)
Even with her hair draped over one eye, the face was striking. And even more striking than the face were the enormous breasts, more than enough to instantly pull the eyes of everyone nearby.
“Oh, Eunju. Morning.”
“Haa, g-good morning…! S-Seo, Seonho….”
-Swish.
“Hee, ehehe….”
Cha Eunju approached me with a smile brimming with affection for anyone to see, and threw herself at me, wrapping my arm between her two arms and her chest.
Since she'd shown up at exactly the right moment, I gave her a fond, soft pat on the head.
“Eunju, you don't have any morning lectures today, right? But you're up early.”
“I-I wanted to eat breakfast with you, Seonho…. Hehe….”
“Right, right. Then let's go eat together.”
“…….”
And with Cha Eunju's entrance, the mouth of the extra girl who'd been slandering me not a minute ago—claiming I looked like I'd never so much as held a woman's hand—snapped shut.
It was fair, really. Personality aside, Cha Eunju was an undeniable beauty; no one could dispute that.
Her chest, nearly the size of her own head, openly stoked a man's desire, and it was more than enough to ignite the inferiority complex of the extra girl who'd picked a fight with me.
…And besides, the woman who'd just appeared wasn't Cha Eunju alone.
“What the heck, Lee Seonho. You said you'd wait at the cafeteria, and here you are?”
“Ah, Sora.”
“…….”
Not long after the wild Cha Eunju had pounced on me, Han Sora had sidled quietly up to my other side.
She was a beauty too, with a different flavor than Cha Eunju. Sure, her chest was on the smaller side, but as long as her looks carried her, that meant nothing at all.
She must have come out here with Cha Eunju.
After all, the breakfast gatherings were always arranged in the group chat. There was no way our Cha Eunju would ever pass up a chance to see me one more time.
Han Sora, arriving a beat late, glanced at Cha Eunju clinging to me so brazenly, hesitated for just a moment—
-Swish.
“…Let's hurry up and eat, then get to class. It's about to get crowded.”
And then, watching Cha Eunju's reaction all the while, she quietly slipped her fingers around my free hand.
Clearly enough for the extra girl standing right there to see it, too.
“Yeah, let's go. Ah, and this here is my dorm roommate. Name's Do Yoonsung—Swordsmanship Department.”
“Oh, really? Hi there~. I'm Han Sora. Seonho and I got close during the entrance exams~.”
“…Right. Yoonsung.”
“Eunju, you say hi too. We might be seeing each other a lot from now on.”
“H-hi…. I'm Ch-Cha Eunju….”
“…Right. Nice to meet you.”
With the heroines claiming one of my arms each, the topic of conversation shifted away from me as naturally as breathing.
We left behind the extra girl, standing there with a dumbfounded expression like she'd lost her script, and headed for the cafeteria.
The mood around Lee Seonho's friends… felt a little strange, to put it mildly.
Do Yoonchae had never dated anyone in her life, granted, but she wasn't dense enough to miss the odd energy crackling across the table.
“So Eunju, you've got the whole day off today?”
“Y-yeah…. Everything I registered for on Wednesday got rejected…. That's why Friday's wall-to-wall classes for me….”
“Yikes, that's rough.”
-Pat, pat.
“Mmm….”
That woman—Cha Eunju—who'd appeared out of nowhere, shamelessly claimed the seat beside Lee Seonho, and exchanged open displays of affection with him.
Listening in, it turned out that despite her airheaded appearance, she was apparently the top-ranked student of the Magic Department. Third in the entire year.
And the Han Sora sitting next to her—the valedictorian of the whole year—kept sending glances across the table at no one but Lee Seonho, too. To Do Yoonchae, who'd been on the receiving end of more than a few fond female glances since becoming 'Do Yoonsung,' the reactions were quite novel.
She couldn't be certain it was love, but she could tell it went beyond ordinary friendship. Whatever it was, it ran at least a little deeper than just friendly affection.
The girls hanging off both sides are the year's #1 and #3. Do faces like his actually work on women these days?
Though that made it rather hard to explain the reaction of the girl who'd just fallen for her at first sight and come sidling over.
Perhaps Lee Seonho simply possessed some charisma unique to him—something that drew the opposite sex. Still mulling over the same speculation, Do Yoonchae couldn't take her eyes off him.
Do Yoonchae's meaningful gaze lingered on me for the rest of the morning classes.
Apparently the sight of me flanked on both sides by the year's #1 and #3 had struck her as fascinating. And to be fair, for a nobody from the Support Department, it was a fairly extravagant luxury.
Not that there'd been a couple of near-death scrapes along the way to get here. Do Yoonchae knew nothing about what had happened between me and the others, after all.
“Uuuugh, class is over~!”
Monster Ecology had just ended—a course that was almost pure theory, meaning we'd done nothing but sit at our desks the whole time (occasionally trading scribbled jokes back and forth with Han Sora).
There was still a bit of time before the group chat meetup for lunch. But not quite enough time to make a trip to the Training Grounds with Han Sora worthwhile.
And moving like that would mean naturally separating from Do Yoonchae, which was a non-starter anyway. Tuesday was Cha Eunju maintenance day, Wednesday was Do Yoonchae conquest day—so today, I couldn't afford to be out of her sight for even a minute.
“We've got about an hour before the others gather, right? Want to hit a café for a bit?”
“Mm, sounds good. What about you, Yoonsung?”
“…Fine by me.”
That was a little surprising. I'd expected her to say she was fine and slip away, maybe claim she was heading to the Swordsmanship Training Grounds.
Whatever her reason, she'd apparently chosen to stay with me and Han Sora, so the three of us moved to a café, and I dropped a message in the group chat saying we'd all be gathering there until lunch.
“Haaa, S-Seonho…! Is c-class over…?”
“What are you sprinting over here for, Eunju? The others are still a ways off.”
“Ahaha, oh, is, is that so….”
Once again, Cha Eunju reacted first and latched onto our group at top speed.
“…A-ah, hello, S-Seonho… s-sir…. And, and th-this m-m-man here, who, who exactly….”
“Do Yoonsung. My roommate…. Let's get your buff started first, shall we?”
“Y-yes, pleeease…. W-without it, I-I simply can't hold on in front of a m-man who isn't you, Seonho sir….”
Kim Isabel, back from her Recovery Department class, took her seat just as naturally, receiving my Suggestion as she did.
“Hey, Lee Seonho!! What kind of man sits around nursing drinks at a place like this!!! It's barely been three days since the semester started and you're already going soft!!!”
“…We're waiting for you idiots, remember. And since Park Cheonho's here too, we should get going soon.”
“Ooooh!! A face I haven't seen before!! A pleasure to meet you!!! My name is Park Cheonho!!! The future mightiest hun— who single-handedly subdued the terrorist bomber at Neverla—”
-SMACK!!
“GAAAAAHHH!!”
“Haa, haa…. Y-you little shit…. All you're ever good for is running fast…. haa, haa….”
And so, Park Cheonho showed up spewing his usual nonsense, with Park Hana appearing moments later to clean up the mess, as always.
Ordinarily I'd have preferred Park Cheonho to just not exist, but in the current mood he was actually somewhat useful. If Do Yoonchae ever found out that every member of the group chat besides me was a girl, the way she looked at me might turn a little strange.
With a guy like Park Cheonho mixed into a gathering like this, it aired the atmosphere out nicely—and since that idiot alone produced the vocal volume of about three people, it subjectively felt like the group was split roughly fifty-fifty, men and women.
“Ooooh, so you're Do Yoonsung!! Great to meet you!! Let's get along from here on out!!”
“Don't mind him too much. He's the type who just yells for no reason and charges off in random directions.”
“…Right. Noted.”
“You're majoring in Swordsmanship, aren't you, Yoonsung? And you said you're Seonho's roommate?”
“…That's right.”
“I'm in the Recovery Department, so perhaps we'll be seeing each other fairly often. Though without Seonho at my side, I'm afraid I'm a bit awkward around men—sharing a conversation just the two of us might be rather difficult.”
“…You don't exactly seem to have much trouble talking.”
“Ah, that's entirely thanks to Seonho's buff. When he's beside me, that buff lets me converse quite normally even with men like you or Park Cheonho, sir.”
“Since everyone's been introduced, how about we add Yoonsung to our chat while we're at it?”
“…No, there's really no need to….”
“Yeah, let's do it! If he's Seonho's friend, we'll be seeing him all the time anyway.”
“Anyone who can share in my burning passion is welcome at any time!!!”
“I don't mind either.”
“I think it's a fine idea too, Seonho, sir.”
“Ah, sorry. I never actually asked the man himself. Yoonsung, your call. But you've met everyone now, so you get the vibe, right? You good?”
“…If you all want it, I don't mind.”
For someone claiming to not mind at all, she was wearing a rather pleased expression about it, though.
And so, one more member joined the entrance-exam group chat as naturally as could be.
Friends.
From around the time my head had started to turn heavy and hard, they'd been a presence I'd stopped caring about—whether I had any or not.
For someone born a girl into the Cheongun Do Clan, an ordinary, unremarkable life had been nothing short of a luxury.
Because the family rule decreed that only a man could carry on the Cheongun Do Clan's sword lineage, I'd never had the chance to unfold my talent even though I had it in spades—and I couldn't form relationships freely, either, not without the clan's approval.
Everyone who had ever stood at my side had either been entangled in the family's interests, or belonged to the circle of connections that came with being 'Do Yoonsung.'
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say I had almost no relationships of my own making. I had been our family's failed work from the moment I drew breath.
Though I was the 'firstborn heir' meant to carry a line that had endured for hundreds of years, I'd been born a woman—and the only thing left for me to do was let the younger brother, born a year after me, inherit the clan.
Even though I was clearly a year older, his birth had been registered a year late on the pretext that I had to assist my younger brother—and from elementary school onward, I was made to shadow him everywhere, support him, curry his favor.
More than once he'd found a pretext to pick on me, and he'd laid hands on Do Yoonsung—the real one—more than a few times. Most of the time, that was after he'd been scolded by the clan elders, and hitting me was simply how he vented.
I was the one who worked harder.
It wasn't as if my swordsmanship was any lesser than Do Yoonsung's. I had striven all the more desperately, precisely to prove that even a woman could carry on the family line.
But before the clan elders who insisted on preserving centuries of tradition, one single fact—my not being a man—was enough to negate everything. Spend less time swinging a sword, they said, and spend more time properly attending to Do Yoonsung's training instead.
Even up to the moment that boy died, my skill was probably still the better one.
Because when the clan's dungeon suddenly broke out in anomalies, he died—and I survived.
If I'd known I'd crawl out alive only to be lectured that I should have traded my own life for my brother's, it might have been better to simply die there.
A death report filed under my name instead of my dead brother's—and then, at long last, the family went so far as to force me into men's clothing and push me into the Academy, so starved were they for a male heir.
Every time one of those people's faces surfaced in my mind, I quietly ground my lower lip between my teeth against the fury that came seeping up.
-BANG!
“Whew, that hits the spot. Go wash up too, Yoonsung.”
“…Right.”
Even if only to take my revenge on this family, I absolutely could not be found out now.
This farcical game of 'friends'—it would last only until then.