Student Council President Election #4
Student Council President Election #4
So that's how Brian and the rest of the class threw themselves into making campaign materials and planning distribution. This is what they call solidarity and unity, right? With the whole class pitching in, it felt like nothing could stop us.
"Hell yeah! Now that's what I call unity! Solidarity!"
When we're this united, even if something showed up, we'd handle it no problem.
We rallied together under the banner of solidarity, and the campaign materials were finished.
And so, campaign season kicked off.
"Everyone! Please support Leona Kainus!"
"Good school, good worker! Give Leona a vote!"
"Ouuuuu!"
From early in the morning, Leona took her spot and gave speeches while I shouted slogans and handed out flyers. Brian drew a crowd with his breakdancing.
The guy's completely dance-brained now. Give Brian a half-decent stage and he turns into a monsterkin who'll just start dancing on his own. We set up a platform so he could hype the campaign, and he's the one having the most fun. The bastard's practically a wacky inflatable tube man with the aggro he's pulling.
"Whoa. Look at that headspin."
"Well, I don't really have anyone else I'm voting for."
"Don't even know the other candidates."
Warrior Class, Mage Class—every last one of them watched Brian dance and heard our voices with their own ears.
"Wow. The response really is good. Everyone's paying attention."
I nodded at Si-hoo's comment.
"Heh heh heh, right you are. Seeing everyone so united feels great."
"Yeah."
Back in any normal school, elections or whatever were just a sweet excuse to skip class for a bit. Nobody cared about the candidates. But now? All eyes are on Leona.
Aggro becomes influence. Once the idea of "president" is firmly planted in people's heads like this, asking for cooperation and assistance later will be a lot smoother.
That is what you call goodwill.
"Hey, Ryu!"
Just then, we spotted that Ryu bastard trying to walk right past us into school!
"Where do you think you're going! You've gotta take one of these!"
The nerve of this guy!
I immediately closed in and shoved a flyer at him, and he flailed his arm like he was trying to shake me off.
"Get away from me, you bastard!"
"Oh? So you're not gonna take what the whole class worked together to make?"
"What does that have to do with me!"
"Hah! What! Are you serious right now! Everybody's trying to pull together, and you, the guitarist of the armor, are gonna bail? That makes no sense!"
I yelled at him for the sheer disrespect, and the other kids nearby raised their voices too.
"Yeah! For real!"
"Ryu Cheon-hwi! Just take it!"
"It's from the heart!"
"Ouuuuu! Mister Dragon! If you don't take it, watashi sad desu!"
"You...!"
At that, Ryu's face started turning red.
"Ryu! Everybody's saying it! Just take the damn thing!"
This guy's real weak against getting put on the spot.
"Tch! Hand it over!"
—Fwoop!
Ryu snatched the flyer roughly, folded it in half, and walked into the school building with it.
"Little shit. He took it after all."
The day that one solitary laugh-track wolf joins the united pack isn't far off. He folds surprisingly easily when you put the pressure on.
"Leona. We're almost out of time. Let's wrap up the promo and head in."
"Ah, yes! Let me just say one last thing!"
Up on the platform, Leona had been speaking like she was singing an upbeat song. She delivered her final words.
"There shouldn't be distance between classmates! We're all future comrades and colleagues! Let's use this chance to build unshakable solidarity! Together, let's carve out our nawabari right here!"
"Nawabari! Nawabari!"
"Nawabari! Nawabari!"
"Nawabari! Nawabari!"
Nawabari!
"Good atmosphere."
So anyway, we finished up campaign activities and were about to gather our stuff and head inside. That's when I saw a group of students walking over from the other direction. What's this? Looking at them, they were headed straight for us.
Their identity was none other than.
"Nice to meet you. We're the Noncombat Class president candidate and her campaign team."
"Noncombat Class kids!"
It was the Noncombat Class!
These guys have all sorts of unique but not exactly combat-useful abilities. After graduation, they go on to become noncombat heroes in research, production, clerical work, and so on.
Anyway, I took a look at the campaign team. Overall, they felt more like regular high school students than hero cadets. Which is true to reality. The physical abilities of Noncombat Class kids are about average-person level, or maybe a little better.
"Oh, hey! Good to meet you! I'm Kim Geun-cheol! Let's compete fair and square!"
"Nice to meet you. My name is Leona Kainus. And you are?"
"Nice to meet you too. I'm Park In-geun. My ability... might seem a little funny to you combat-track guys, but I have the power to separate components from Rare Metals that come from the Otherworld."
Oh.
That's pretty interesting.
"That's fascinating."
"Right? And a lot of kids in our class have powers like that which help Otherworld industries. So if I become president, I want to work toward connecting the school with a few Otherworld-related companies."
"Wha."
These guys actually have a vision, don't they? I'd barely thought about them since they have zero presence and always just seem to be studying hard, but superhumans really are superhumans.
They've got a clear vision.
"That's not half bad! Let's compete well! Of course, we're in this to win, so no holding back, but once you're president, I'm all ears for that kind of thing!"
"Ha ha ha, sure. Thanks."
With that, the Noncombat Class campaign team said their goodbyes and left.
"Surprisingly, they have a solid vision. We can't afford to let our guard down."
"Guess not. Anyway, let's campaign hard during lunch after class too, Leona."
"Yes! A worthy opponent has appeared, and my fighting spirit is ablaze! Let's give it our all!"
I rallied with Leona and we headed back to the classroom.
* * *
"They're a tougher opponent than I thought. This could be a difficult fight."
Even so, I never doubted victory. A mindset of absolute winning. I was born in a democratic country. No way I can lose an election.
Leona as student council president and me as vice president? Isn't that the absolute center of power? Just imagining myself throwing my weight around as vice president already has me feeling great.
For a future like that, victory is non-negotiable.
"Heh heh heh."
Anyway, it was lunchtime. And again, no time to actually go eat. We had to do a bit of work in the classroom and then head straight out to campaign.
So I'm on my way to the snack shop again today. Gotta buy something to chew on and eat fast. Everyone's working upstairs, so I need to get back quick.
—Step, step.
The path to the snack shop.
"Huh?"
—Step, step.
Suddenly, I started hearing very strange footsteps from somewhere. What the? Those aren't mine. Is something nearby?
—Step, step.
As I looked around, the ominous footsteps started growing a little louder. Feeling a slight tension, I turned around.
And what I saw was.
"Wh-what...?"
This school's.
Current.
Student Council President.
"Wha...!"
The student council president we'd laid out that one time was standing right in front of me!
"Don't be so surprised, first-year. I'm in my right mind right now, you see."
He said it in the tone of an Enhanced Human—inhumanly modified, normally maintaining a non-rational state—who happened to have regained his sanity and was telling me there was no need for alarm.
"How am I supposed to believe that! Why are you here!"
"The reason is nothing special. I merely came to give my thanks."
"Excuse me?"
"Thank you for stopping me that day. Junior Kim Geun-cheol."
"Huh?"
The student council president.
He gave his thanks in an extremely dry tone and scratched the back of his neck. What's this? Why's he so normal? Is he really in his right mind today?
"You're making a face that says you're wondering if I really am in my right mind today."
"Hah! How did you!"
"Because I see that face often."
It seems this guy.
Even among the second-years, he's considered a total psycho.
"Anyway, I'm grateful. That is all... For it to have stemmed from my foolish misunderstanding."
"Ah, yeah... That's right. It was all a misunderstanding."
Still, seeing that he came to apologize, he doesn't seem like a completely crazy person. Man, I really aged ten years. Thought I'd seen a ghost, but he was just a person after all.
"Indeed. I'm sorry. But seeing you then... suddenly triggered a flashback to last year. It still remains in my heart as a major trauma."
"Ah."
"Back then, I was quite literally a foolish whelp... I thought that singing and confessing coolly on a wonderful stage would be the height of romance."
"Hhk...!"
Please don't tell me your dark history!
"But it wasn't... It absolutely was not. Of course, that was a year ago. I haven't spent the entire year in agony. It simply... remained as a trauma in my memory. A thorn lodged in my heart."
The student council president clutched his head with his hand and spoke as if in pain.
The look on his face reminded me of a soldier who'd come back from a past war with scars that could never be washed away.
"Everyone must have one. A trauma like that. You too, junior Kim Geun-cheol."
That hit home.
"..."
I bowed my head slightly and thought about my own traumas. Could I confidently say I had none?
—...
In those hazy, barely-there memories of the past, had I really not picked up any trauma at all?
"That is what trauma is. Normally, you think about it from time to time... It's painful, but it doesn't feel so horrifying that you completely lose your mind. Humans are animals of adaptation. Eventually, we bury it in our memories."
"..."
"But when some trigger causes your memories of that 'horrible past' to resurface with absolute clarity... a 'person' can 'rampage' at any moment."
A serious tone of voice.
With both hands in his pockets, the student council president looked at me with cold eyes.
Standing ramrod straight, he told me that.
"What happened at the festival was simply that. Your appearance was so astonishingly similar to mine that I reverted to that moment."
"Yeah."
"Give some deep thought to managing your trauma. This is a lesson from me, the president, to you, a first-year junior."
It did strike a chord.
This man, the student council president.
He struck me as a pretty decent older guy.
"Keep it in mind. Physically, we can be called superhuman, but mentally, we're not yet that strong."
Light reflected off the president's glasses.
"We merely delude ourselves that because our bodies have become strong, our minds have as well. Our minds have yet to transcend humanity. They remain merely human. Just because we're superhuman doesn't mean we can endure horrific austerities like the virtuous high monks of old."
"..."
"Someday, you might also experience something that triggers a trauma or deep psychological pain. Be wary of it. If there's someone to stop that rampage and protect you like during the festival, maybe it's fine, but on a battlefield, the odds are high there will be no one."
He sounded like some veteran soldier.
I was busy chewing over his words, so I couldn't offer a reply. So, silence descended the moment the president finished speaking, and I threw out a line to break the mood.
"So, did things work out with that upperclassman, Soo-jin?"
"Soo-jin... Well, I knocked her down several times to overcome the trauma of the past, but, I'm not sure."
What kind of crazy talk is that.
"I don't think things worked out."
That was the end of it.
Without a trace of relief or regret—or anything like that—the student council president said it emotionlessly and turned his body.
"Adiós."
He raised a hand in farewell as he left me with that parting word.
"Psycho..."
No matter how you look at it, the guy's a psycho.