Dodging Responsibility
It had been a day since the after-school gathering Narin had attended.
And now our class had, in the end, split cleanly into boys and girls and settled into a cold war.
The original cause of the fighting should have been Song Changwon, but it no longer seemed as though the reason mattered much to anyone in class.
That didn’t mean, however, that things had been repaired between Changwon and the rest of the class.
Changwon himself had no intention of fixing anything, and he was still treating the students in our class like dirt.
...
And yet, starting from the morning, Changwon came up to me and spoke in a friendly tone.
"Jung Ian. Did you enjoy the chocolate I gave you? Come to think of it, I forgot to mention that it’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to eat with something to drink, like coffee."
"Haa... So that’s why the chocolate was disgustingly sweet. I opened one piece, tried it, and shut the lid right away."
Looking at his attitude, he felt like a completely different person from the guy who’d been looking down on the entire class until just a moment ago.
Of course, I didn’t exactly hate it. Who in their right mind would want to be treated like dirt?
Still, seeing him treat everyone who spoke to him like they were beneath him, while acting normally only with me, made him look a little unhinged.
So I decided to ask him outright.
"But why do you act like a psycho in front of the other students, while you become a normal person in front of me?"
"Why? Do you not like the way I’m treating the rest of the class? If you hate it that much, I could stop. Though I wouldn’t recommend it. Useless things tend to crawl back up if you don’t stomp on them often."
At least from Changwon’s perspective, the students in our class seemed no different from weeds.
Well, as long as this bastard hadn’t suddenly discovered homosexuality and started treating me specially, I didn’t seem to have anything to lose.
After thinking it over, I grinned and answered him.
"No. Honestly, it’s pretty satisfying to watch. Especially the part where you split the class right down the middle. I think that was a masterstroke."
"Right? But the boys and girls fighting each other wasn’t my intention. Judging by the atmosphere, it seems like there was already a lot of resentment piled up between them... Was that your doing?"
No. Those bastards started fighting on their own last semester, and I had nothing to do with it.
All I’d done was use the homeroom teacher as a shield and do a little "adjusting" from behind the scenes.
In the end, the final decision had been made by the school teachers, so shouldn’t the responsibility rest with them too?
...
Even so, there was definitely a part of me that felt guilty, so I looked away and shut my mouth.
"Silence can be an excellent answer as well. Either way, to get to the point... I was wondering how things went with Narin yesterday."
...Thinking about it calmly after hearing that, it seemed Changwon had started the conversation with chocolate as a pretext to ask this in the first place.
The cash and chocolate I’d received were, in effect, payment for introducing a friend to Narin.
He didn’t need to dance around it like this; if he’d just asked directly, I would’ve answered him.
"I’d call it a success, more or less. She got close with one of my friends, a girl named Yu Somi. If they have matching hobbies, I think they could get along well in the future too."
"Hmm... That’s a relief. Still, I suppose becoming close with Han Sia is impossible after all."
"Well... from what I can see, it seems difficult. I’m ignorant when it comes to the ecosystem of upper-class people, so I can’t really say for sure."
Han Sia used the word "friend" for Narin, but it was completely different from the kind of "friend" Somi meant.
Probably the same sense in which Han Sia called the students in her own class "friends."
In other words... it was like the way social butterflies pretended to be close to each other while keeping their real friends separate.
She had more than a few misgivings about Narin being one of Changwon’s chaebol people, so for now it couldn’t be helped.
At my answer, Changwon’s expression tightened slightly as he said,
"I see... I’m a little sorry that my existence seems to be a hindrance to Narin."
"No, I mean, you’re the one who wrecked her class relationships in the first place, and now you’re saying that?"
"It’s a little different. Honestly, befriending the idiots in class would obviously be useless, so that didn’t matter. But if Narin became close with Han Sia, it would be a huge help to her."
He seemed to be paying a great deal of attention to Narin.
From what I’d heard, she had come along to support Changwon... but at this rate, it was hard to tell who was helping whom.
Still, despite his efforts, Narin seemed to be treating Changwon with a thoroughly businesslike attitude, so their relationship looked a little complicated.
On top of that, the two of them seemed to be misaligned in some subtle way when it came to each other’s behavior... but that wasn’t really my problem, was it?
***
After school ended, we gathered in the library again.
Of course, Narin came too.
Her relationship with Han Sia was still a bit vague, but thankfully they didn’t seem uncomfortable around each other.
"I watched the anime Somi recommended yesterday up to episode two. The characters were cute, so I liked it. But when does the fighting happen? It’s not that interesting if they only use magic and stuff."
Narin’s expression was as flat as ever today.
It seemed she’d been expecting something a little more flashy and adrenaline-pumping, so a standard magical girl anime felt a bit bland to her.
Meanwhile, Somi looked away as if she were the guilty party and said to Narin,
"Aaah... I think if you watch just a little more, the parts you’ll like will start coming up, Narin."
Magical Girl Ma□□ □□□, which Somi had recommended to Narin, was actually dark fantasy dressed up as a magical girl story.
But through the first two episodes, all you saw were girls laughing and chatting with a cute mascot character, so that reaction was only natural.
From episode three onward, though, the atmosphere shifts so sharply that the story launches into full-on dark fantasy so shocking it ought to come with a warning for children,
and the series became infamous for shoving people who came expecting a cute magical-girl show straight into a pit of shock and horror.
It wasn’t a good thing, but... I had to admit I was a little curious what expression Narin would be wearing when we met tomorrow.
.
.
And then, the next day.
Dark circles had settled under Narin’s eyes.
Maybe she’d been short on sleep, because she even nodded off now and then during class.
Even Changwon thought her condition looked odd, to the point that he came to me and asked what had happened.
Narin had watched episode three, the one packed with shock and horror, and then she hadn’t been able to stop herself—she’d gone all the way to the ending.
And at the after-school gathering, Narin said,
"After watching the anime you recommended, Somi, I realized something."
"What is it?"
"I don’t want to watch girls fighting... what I really wanted was to see girls smiling and being happy."
"..."
Narin’s expression was still flat.
But her eyes were completely dead.
For her tastes to have changed in just one day, Somi’s recommendation must have been unbelievably intense.
As I saw it, Narin probably needed to stay away from stress and rest for a while.
...
Then Somi, wearing an expression that suggested her conscience was under serious strain, recommended yet another anime.
"...Then should I recommend something else? Something bright and hopeful."
"Yeah. Please."
"The Name of the Flower We Saw That Day...."
No, no, no. Absolutely not.
The anime Somi was about to recommend was one where the heroine starts out already dead, so the story carries a tragic emotional line from beginning to end.
It was a good work, sure, but recommending that to Narin, whose mind was already shredded, was insane.
"Hold on. Somi. Stop right there. What are you doing? Weren’t you supposed to recommend something bright and hopeful?"
"Ahaha... Ian, what are you talking about? Ano□□na is a hugely moving masterpiece. There’s a cute girl in it, and in the end she becomes happy..."
"No, I mean, it is moving! But is it really something her current mental state can handle? There are plenty of gentler, lighter shows you could recommend, you know???"
By the time I said that much, Somi faltered for a moment.
She already knew her recommendation was strange, which was why she was reacting like that.
Then why are you doing this, Yu Somi?!
...
But then she whispered something shocking to me.
"...Ian. I think, to really pull in a new friend, you need a strong stimulus. Once they’ve tasted something so intense that they start searching around on their own for the next work that’ll satisfy them, only then can you say they’ve truly stepped into this side of the industry."
That’s an awfully demonic way of thinking, Somi.
A friend is not a word used to describe people whose lives have been ruined.
After that, I tried to stop Somi, but Narin sided with her and I failed.
"I’m fine. If anything, something a little stimulating might help me forget the shock from the previous show."
"Are you really okay? You can say you don’t like it if you don’t."
"I’m okay."
"You can’t blame me later, all right?"
...
And then, the next day.
Narin’s eyelids were red and swollen from first thing in the morning.
And the dark circles were still there too.
Especially Changwon, who seemed to be quite shocked when he saw her like that.
"What the hell. What happened to her? Don’t tell me she cried?"
"I tried to stop her, I swear... it’s not my fault...."
"Tell me!! What the hell have you two been doing!!!"
I explained the whole situation to him in detail,
and only then did Changwon release me with a, "What, she cried over a cartoon? So women really are hard to understand," and let the matter go.
Honestly, I didn’t think this was a situation anyone ought to be feeling relieved about...
Still, none of it was my responsibility, no matter how you looked at it.
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