First Day of Transfer

"Haa..."

The moment it hit me that I was the only one left in the classroom, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I planted my forehead on the desk. A sigh leaked out before anything else.

How had it come to this?

Thinking like that on the very first day after transferring felt premature, and yet once a single thread snagged, every step that had brought me here started to look like the wrong choice.

My father's sudden job transfer. It had been decided with no time to prepare, so I'd packed and come here in a rush, as if I were fleeing something. I hadn't even managed a proper goodbye to the neighborhood I'd lived in since I was little... but that, I could set aside.

The school I'd been assigned to was strange.

Schools got handed out by lottery anyway, so I'd figured what difference could it make — but I felt it the instant I passed through the main gate.

Something was off.

The gate itself radiated grandeur before you even stepped through. A nameplate bearing the school's name hung between massive stone pillars, and beyond it a neatly kept, tree-lined path ran a long way to the main building. The buildings looked like they belonged ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to some prestigious private university, and the athletic field looked wider than the grounds at most sports ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠high schools.

...Why had it only occurred to me then to look this school up?

A late search told me it was incredibly famous. It was counted among the elite schools in the region, and its college placement numbers were solid every year. Search the school name and education articles spilled out by the handful. No matter how far away it was, this was the kind of place you ought to have heard of — and I'd never heard of it once. I was only just learning that the neighborhood itself was wealthy.

...A place like this, for people in our situation?

I was serious enough to doubt it. Maybe Dad hadn't been transferred at all. Maybe he'd won the lottery...

And one more thing.

Why am I only looking this up now, in the first place?

It felt like I'd been possessed. Of course the whole thing had been too sudden, and I'd been swallowed up by the fact that I was leaving the hometown I'd lived in for years. That much was true.

Anyway. A transfer student who'd rolled in out of nowhere in the middle of second semester, after the entire first semester of freshman year was already over. Day one: the homeroom teacher dragged me to the front of the class for an awkward self-introduction, and then the stretch of curious classmates coming over to ask this and that finally ended. After lunch I wandered the grounds alone, figuring I might as well look the place over. The result was that far from getting used to it, the more I walked, the higher the wall felt.

This place was strange. Too strange.

How was I even supposed to put it. Should I say I could feel a Spiritual Pressure? Say it out loud and I'd be met with looks that couldn't hide their contempt... but unfortunately, my pathetic vocabulary left me no other way to say it.

It really was different.

What even is the average face around here...

Boys and girls alike — walk the halls and you'd catch yourself turning your head. Not everyone, but there were quite a few people who made you flinch as they passed. Enough that I wondered if I'd transferred into some famous arts high school by mistake.

...Not that there was anything to be done about it. I'd already transferred. I was a little cowed for a moment, but it wasn't the kind of thing worth sinking into a depression over, as if school life were already finished.

And right then, I heard someone opening the classroom door.

I lifted my head from the desk. A slim boy in glasses was staring at me, eyes wide with surprise.

"Huh? You... didn't get a club assignment?"

"A club?"

Since I'd transferred, that was the first time the word club had come out of anyone's mouth.

"Ah. Guess the teacher never told you."

He was one of the guys who'd been asking me this and that during the break earlier. His name was... Ahn Jeonghun, I thought.

"Club time usually starts right after lunch. Today's one of those days where everyone goes to clubs instead of class."

"Ah..."

So that was why the room had been empty even though there wasn't much class time left. But nobody had said a single word to me about clubs. A transfer student, left to rot. Figures. No — why hadn't the teacher said anything in the first place?

"Homeroom must've forgotten. You should probably head to the Faculty Office for now."

Since he put it like that, I got up. Jeonghun seemed to have come back to the classroom for something. He went to his seat, rummaged through the desk drawer, grabbed a thin notebook, and left the room with me.

"I'm passing the Faculty Office anyway, so let's go together."

"Yeah. Thanks."

For someone left stranded alone on his first day as a transfer, those were more than welcome words.

We were walking the hall side by side, just after turning a corner, when someone came toward us from the opposite corridor. My eyes were pulled there on instinct.

Dark brown hair falling softly past her shoulders. A straight back, and long, long legs. Just... a girl who looked like a very successful model wearing a school uniform.

...I really hadn't been throwing around Spiritual Pressure for nothing.

She passed us by as if she had no interest in our side at all, and I came back to myself a beat too late.

...Had I stared too openly? Once your eyes get stolen that naturally, like instinct had taken the wheel, the crash afterward is inevitable. And there was another kid right next to me. Embarrassed for no good reason, I said whatever came to mind.

"For real, at first I thought I'd transferred into an arts high school by mistake."

"Hm?"

Jeonghun looked at me for a second, then glanced back over his shoulder.

"Ah. Because of Senior Han Sehee, who just walked by?"

Han Sehee? I hadn't gotten a clear look at her name tag, so I didn't know the name — but there was no one else he could have been pointing at.

"That senior's insanely famous here to begin with."

"Ah... she is?"

"She's the student council president."

Jeonghun let out a short laugh and pointed a finger at his own face.

"And if you're thinking this place feels like an arts school, look at me. You still think that, looking at this face?"

Jeonghun had the classic model-student look, but we weren't close enough yet for me to enthusiastically agree. All I could do was laugh awkwardly.

"Uh, uh... that's persuasive."

"Tsk... somehow that makes me feel worse."

"Ah, sorry..."

"I'm kidding."

The way the words came so easily, he was more easygoing than I'd expected. We kept walking, and before long we were in front of the Faculty Office.

I parted from Jeonghun, went inside, and explained the situation to my homeroom teacher, who apologized and said it had slipped their mind. They couldn't assign me a club on the spot, so they told me to just rest for today. I killed the remaining time in the lounge beside the Faculty Office, bored out of my mind, until school ended. Sitting still and reading for three hours was its own kind of ordeal, and by the time the bell rang I was completely drained.

What kind of screwjob was this, starting from day one...

And so the long, strange first day of transfer ended on that flat note.

I left school and went home. The place was small enough to kill, on sight, any suspicion that Dad had won the lottery — an old low-rise apartment where "rooms" meant mine and my father's, and that was it. I opened my door without any strength left and threw myself onto the bed. At least the mattress was soft enough to catch me.

In the small calm that settled over me, the day's events brushed through my head one by one.

...Even if it was the first day, shouldn't I have made a friend? A few conversations with Jeonghun were all I had. Starting tomorrow, I'd have to actually try...

I settled on that and lay sprawled across the bed for a while. Only when hunger started to creep in did I get up.

Dad always got off work late, so eating first — or roughly setting something out before he came home — was familiar by now. He'd said he was eating dinner out tonight, which meant I only had to take care of myself. I scooped rice, pulled a few side dishes from the fridge, and was picking at the meal when something strange flickered at the edge of my vision.

I blinked a few times, thinking something had gotten in my eye. It stayed. I even shook my head hard. Useless. The little light clung to the same spot at the side of my vision, as if someone had hammered a nail there.

...A lot of weird things were really happening today.

I hesitated, then lifted a finger and pressed the empty air where the light seemed to be.

Flash.

"Hup—"

My vision flared, and something translucent filled everything in front of me. I jerked backward on reflex.

"...What?"

A translucent screen, like an internet window left open on a computer monitor, was floating in the air.

...A status window? The word came to me first, but the moment I actually read what was on it, that thought vanished. Large text ran across the very top.

Haeseong High School. The name of the school I'd started attending today, so it should have felt welcome. It didn't.

Romance... Gallery?

I set my spoon down and stared blankly at the screen. My eyes caught on the posts packed beneath the header, dense as an anonymous board.

...What was this?

A school community? Was some kind of superpower letting me see an anonymous board the students used? But that was something I could look at just by downloading an app on my phone. Half convinced, half not, I skimmed a few of the posts scrolling past.

Sehee... Han Sehee?

The student council president I'd stared at, dumbstruck, in the hallway today. The impression must have been that deep — I'd heard the name once, and it was still perfectly clear.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Most of the posts read like people live-chatting while they watched a dating show. A few even had photos stuck in them, shot so close they might as well have been taken from inside school life itself.

In the photo, a handsome boy was playing basketball in the gym.

...It felt like a creepshot. I wasn't the one in it, but still.

Uneasy, I scrolled a little farther down the screen. Then I found a post that snagged my eye for no reason I could name.

A transfer in the first-year second semester... and Class 3 on top of that...

That's me.

Right down to the part telling people not to expect anything because he was an Ordinary Guy. Dead to rights. Getting my looks rated out of nowhere by unidentified strangers left me with a weird feeling, but I couldn't argue with it.

I backed out of that post and opened another one I'd been curious about. A post whose title had felt off from the start.

"...What is this even saying?"