School Festival #3
School Festival #3
The next day, real festival prep began.
"Huh. Festival prep's not exactly complicated, is it?"
It really isn't.
Regular classes, and then in our spare time we head to the auditorium, straighten things up, clean, haul stuff away. That's about it.
Specifically, after four in the afternoon. Once the academic classes are all done, we just tidy up a bit.
Since it's an event the school has run every year, all the manuals are already in place. All we do is handle small chores and put our names on the performance list.
There's some kind of system for submitting backing tracks too, but we all just pull everything off the internet anyway, so no issues there.
"Don't see much of the upperclassmen, though."
Si-hoo, who was hauling a box of junk next to me by spinning it on a finger like a pizza box, spoke up.
"Yeah. From what I hear, today's the first-years' cleanup day."
"They split it up?"
"Not sure, but probably."
Upperclassmen.
School seniors, huh.
In media, school seniors are a pretty big deal, but I've never really talked with any upperclassmen properly in my entire life.
Never even saw their faces, never had a reason to interact with them. Isn't high school basically all like that? The whole 'senior' expression itself feels insanely foreign. No kidding, I don't think I've ever used that word even once back in high school.
That's college talk.
"...Seniors, huh."
Come to think of it, I've never really connected with the upperclassmen here at the academy either.
We run into each other coming and going, but no greetings, just slide right past each other... Ah. Actually, I guess there was one time.
Early in the semester.
There was this incident where some obviously delinquent upperclassmen picked a fight with me when I was trying to use the training ground. Broke down sobbing and routed them on the spot, that's a fond memory. Besides that, I've basically never talked to them.
"But wait, isn't this a hero school? We're all gonna be seeing each other after graduation, so isn't the lack of junior-senior interaction a bit much?"
"It does seem that way. But what can you do? Our coursework is way too different."
"True."
I heard the second-years mostly keep studying at school, but from third year on, they're almost always out in the field.
"Still, from what I've heard, there used to be a fair amount of upperclassmen riding herd on the younger students back in the day. There's talk that maybe that's why they deliberately cut off some of the junior-senior relationships."
"Si-hoo, where do you even hear that stuff?"
"Doesn't it just... come up?"
"Does it?"
Anyway, with all that straightening up and cleaning, time flew by. Superhuman students working together gets the place sparkling in no time.
It could host a stage right this second.
"Hm?"
—Swish.
Looking around, I spotted Ryu silently mopping the floor. I immediately performed a moonwalk and ghosted up to him.
"Gah!"
"Why so shocked? You see a ghost?"
"You, you bastard...!"
Ryuseong, all heated up, pointed a finger at me and tried to vent his fury. Too bad you've got nothing you can do to me.
I instantly teased him.
"Ahem, my good man! Pointing fingers at people! What if this gets back to the esteemed Miss Ryu A-ra, what then?!"
"You son of a—!"
"Tsk! Ahem!"
"God damn it! I have nothing to say to the likes of you! You insane terrorist bastard!"
Face red, Ryu whipped his head away and resumed mopping. He dares ignore me? I just want to spike your blood pressure, that's all.
"So, Ryu, what're you doing?"
"..."
"No, I mean, what're you doing for the festival."
"..."
No answer from Ryu.
"Kekeke. Hey. Hey. Singing? Dancing? Spit it out."
Quiver, quiver.
Ryu trembled.
Eventually, his mouth opened slightly.
"...Stru?"
"What?"
"Musical instrument."
"Wha, what! You insane—! Ryu, you play an instrument?! Not an instrument case to the head?!"
"What the hell is an instrument case to the head, you Akbar bastard!"
—Wham!
In that instant, Ryu kicked the mop bucket!
"Hey, jackass!"
I launched myself and smoothly caught the bucket with both hands before it spilled.
"What're you doing!"
"Take that and go clean, you genuine terrorist scum!"
"What'd you...!"
This guy came up with a fresh way to fob it off on me.
—Rattle.
Ryu stomped out of the auditorium, leaving me just standing there holding the bucket... That bastard. Can handle a musical instrument too? Let's just see what kind of instrument it is.
Look forward to the filming.
"Geun-cheol. Keep that up and you might actually get beaten up by Ryu."
"As if. I've got a hotline."
"'As if' gets people killed!"
Well, that's true too.
"Let's wrap this up and go then!"
Anyway, this is about all there is to our festival prep. The school handles the rest of the coordination on its own. All I have to do is practice my singing.
"Si-hoo. I'm heading to practice singing. Wanna come listen?"
"You're trying to kill me!"
"Don't be like that. Come on, listen to me sing."
"Aaaaahh!"
Isn't freaking out and running away going a little too far, though?
* * *
I can state with certainty that I've never once in my life agonized over something like this.
"..."
Personal training room.
Sitting in a butterfly stretch with her arms crossed, Woo Yu-ri brooded over the situation she'd landed in.
"...That fucking prick, seriously."
The more she brooded, the hotter her face got and the harder her heart started pounding. She couldn't run away. Now she had to go up on stage and dance where everyone could see.
Thanks to her swordsmanship training and life spent in the dojo, Woo Yu-ri was reasonably accustomed to people's eyes on her, but performing on stage was a completely different matter.
She was insanely nervous.
She'd never really danced before in the first place.
It wasn't even a sword dance, and her first-ever dance was going to be at the school festival... The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to kill Kim Geun-cheol. She couldn't hold it in!
"Gah!"
Kim Geun-cheol, that bastard, got spoiled rotten because people coo and fuss over him, so now he's got no fear. How exactly do you discipline that?
What the hell was she supposed to do?
"Just blow it off? Pick some random moves and walk off? No! I don't even have time to train right now, why do I have to be agonizing over this?!"
The thought did occur to her, but she couldn't do that. No matter what, she was the one who had to go up on stage and dance.
Doing a half-assed, amateurish job would be humiliating for life, obviously.
For honor's sake, she had to dance properly.
"Fuck... If I dance like shit I'll seriously look like a total moron... Ughhh! Kim Geun-cheol, you son of a bitch!"
More than anything, that bastard Kim Geun-cheol would be sitting in the audience watching her. In that situation, doing a lazy dance was unacceptable.
It wasn't like she intended to make a clown of him, so she had to do it right.
"Snap."
She thought about what kind of dance to do in her head.
"How about I snap-snatch Kim Geun-cheol's attention completely? Put him in his place with my sexiness? Huh?"
Seeing how he always floundered and mumbled whenever she put him in a headlock, she thought she could definitely make him heel.
"Put him right in his place!"
With those thoughts, Woo Yu-ri grabbed her phone and started searching for dances. What's ordinary and sexy these days? Embarrassing as it was, weren't those the kind of dances idols perform all the damn time anyway?
As long as it wasn't too explicit, she could definitely do it.
"Shit, what kind of dance am I supposed to do... Like this? This?"
She scrolled through video sites and picked out plausible options.
She filtered out anything too explicit. Focused mainly on dances by moderately well-known idol singers.
"Ah."
Still, even filtering like that, some pretty provocative dances did show up. Face heating up, Woo Yu-ri covered her forehead with her hand and looked down at her smartphone from a hunched-over position.
"Tch. What is this kind of dance?"
A dance beyond mere sexiness.
For a moment she imagined herself dancing like that, but it was such an absurd notion she immediately erased it from her head.
"...!"
It was seriously embarrassing.
No, she was even questioning why she should feel embarrassed over something like this in the first place. And to show who, exactly? Kim Geun-cheol? No way in hell.
"Alright. Something like this'll work."
—Swish.
Having finally settled on a suitable dance, Woo Yu-ri stood up, scratching the back of her head vigorously.
"Let's see."
She watched the video all the way through one last time, memorizing the dance, then put down her phone and slowly ran through the moves, trying out the choreography.
—Tap, tap.
"Easy."
With her superhuman physical ability and reflexes, grasping the moves and tempo of a dance she'd just watched wasn't a problem at all. Of course, that doesn't mean she can get away with doing it halfheartedly.
"...Leona."
Leona had decided to dance too.
From the way Leona talked about it, the girl was absolutely brimming with confidence. Was she planning some European noble dance or something? Yu-ri didn't know exactly, but if Leona started flaunting her talent, a massive shockwave was sure to sweep through the auditorium.
At a glance, doesn't she look like she'd be great at it?
"..."
So she couldn't afford to fall behind.
"That bastard Kim Geun-cheol."
Anyway.
Woo Yu-ri pictured Kim Geun-cheol's face and pushed herself harder, riding a competitive fire against Leona as she continued to practice her dance. No matter what, she was definitely going to chew him out and bring him to heel big time.
"I should go with Leona and make him judge us."
Force him to answer who danced better.
Obviously, in that kind of question, he can't pick both, and if he does pick one, he'll obviously get brutalized by whoever's on the losing end.
"Heh."
An evil grin crept onto Woo Yu-ri's lips at the thought of putting Kim Geun-cheol in a bind.
Of course, the winner will be her.
* * *
And so the day of the festival approached rapidly.
Obviously, my friends were all studying hard and never skipping personal training, but at the same time, whether it was dancing or singing or whatever, they were also grinding their asses off practicing their talent show performances for the festival.
"Oh, c'mon, can't I just get one look at the dance practice?"
"Hmph! As if I'd show you! See it on the actual day!"
"Yu-ri."
"He's acting up again. What? You wanna see me dance? Wanna see? You and me, go into a private room?"
Gasp!
"Wait, Woo Yu-ri?! What on earth are you saying...! Kim Geun-cheol! Ahem! No more weird stuff, just go practice your singing!"
"R, right! Will do!"
Seriously, Yu-ri's still apparently mad because I pulled that water-ghost routine on her. Time to lay low for a bit.
So I turned my head.
"Whooooooa! Yeeeeeeesss!"
Brian had become an insane spinning top, planted his skull on the floor and was pulling off a hellacious headspin.
—Tang-tang-tang-tang.
Ken was playing some kind of traditional Japanese guitar.
"Ah, ah-ah. Ah-ah-ah."
Mun Min was also practicing his vocals while gushing like a total simp.
"These bastards are going hard, huh?"
Were they always that into that kind of stuff?