I Want to Fuck a Hero (6)

Why was this person here, doing something like this?

I ran through hundreds of possibilities in the space of a moment, then dragged the most plausible answer out of the pile. Lee Jiyoon, that bitch — she must have been a delinquent back in her school days. That would explain why she'd shown up for remedial class only to hole up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in here and ditch it.

One look at her clothes, though, and I changed my mind. The nameless girl I'd seen earlier had definitely been wearing the academy uniform, but what Lee Jiyoon had on was ordinary street clothes. A soft milk-white knit that left her collarbones completely bare, and a jet-black straight skirt cinching that knit tight from the waist down. The more I looked at the skirt, the more it seemed like it might be a high school uniform. Or maybe it wasn't.

Either way, it wasn't the academy uniform. The color was a little different from what I'd seen before.

So was she a freshman?

Lee Jiyoon was certainly a hero who'd come out of Miren. I just couldn't quite remember her age. But when I asked myself whether a freshman would have any reason to be playing hooky like this — music in her ears, fast asleep — nothing came to mind. It was still February. The semester hadn't even started, and yet here a freshman was, doing this...

Or maybe it was the other way around. Not a freshman at all, but someone who'd already graduated and dropped by the academy for a visit. She still looked closer to a high schooler for that, though. Her skin. The way she dressed. This and that.

Hmm. Staring down at her wasn't going to solve anything.

I thought for a moment, then reached out.

"Mmm...?"

I tapped the pillow, enough to wake Lee Jiyoon where she slept, completely unguarded.

She was an uncut gem, beyond any comparison with the nameless hero-in-training I'd met that afternoon. Leave her alone and she would bloom on her own, until that face was known to the entire nation. The chance had come to slip into the middle of it — to sink my teeth in, and stamp her with the mark that she was my woman.

I had to move with the utmost caution instead of rushing in. If I got greedy here and laid a hand on her body, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠only for her eyes to open, everything after that was a guaranteed bad ending.

"Excuse me."

"Nngh."

A gesture alone wasn't enough to wake her, so the moment I added my voice, Lee Jiyoon's eyes flew wide with a strange little sound. I'd felt it even looking at old photographs — those were incredibly insolent eyes. The kind some men ranted about online, swearing they wanted to be cursed out and stepped on. The kind other men wanted to seize by a tight leash and force into submission. Those eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"Y-yes?"

"You look like an outsider. I'm asking what you're doing here."

I'd been an insider for about twenty minutes, so I asked with perfect confidence. If I could catch even a scrap of leverage to hold over Lee Jiyoon, that would be a considerable gain.

What followed, though, was a brief silence. A short one — about the length of two easy breaths. Was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she picking out an excuse? Did she even need one? From the look of things, she hadn't committed any serious crime.

In the complete absence of sound, I kept looking down at her with the same stiff, businesslike expression. Those large, deep-green irises stood out. A similar color to the girl I'd seen earlier. Should I ask if they knew each other? The thought lasted only a moment. Lee Jiyoon, who had been carefully looking up into my eyes, glanced around and chose to dodge the question instead.

The warm sunset peculiar to evening washed over the infirmary, and a slightly longer silence followed. I didn't mind if this dragged on. Lee Jiyoon, though — what about her?

Having given her plenty of time, I stepped a little closer. One step. Exactly that much. The space that had been about three steps apart became two.

Thinking about it coldly, clearing away this suffocating atmosphere and building an easy relationship would serve me better later. Honestly, though, my heart was a little stirred. That was why.

"Did you not understand what I said?"

"Ah, no. Um..."

Like this. Carefully cornering a national-class hero I'd never once even met eyes with — hearing Lee Jiyoon's voice tremble — might be something I could never attempt again, if not now. All the more so because she was the Lee Jiyoon famous for speaking to no one at all, whether fans, villains, reporters, or fellow heroes.

I'd expected it to feel good. A thrill that blew clean past any such expectation raked down my spine. Was this the pleasure of a secret conversation, alone with a celebrity, hidden from everyone else? That flustered expression of hers — the one none of you could ever catch, no matter how furiously you snapped your cameras. And here I was, seeing it clearly with both eyes, this close.

"I, um, I..."

Young or not, I hadn't expected her to be unable to even say who she was. This was the Lee Jiyoon who, right after sweeping up villains, would only bite her lower lip and dodge the cameras when citizens shoved them in her face. She might be the type who struggled to talk to people. Or, among those, the type who especially struggled to talk to men.

Even so, left alone, she loosened up on her own. It was after another brief stretch of awkward silence that her voice came through, considerably calmer than at first.

"...Actually, I'm a freshman here."

"I see."

Fidgeting with the earphone she'd just pulled from her ear, Lee Jiyoon hesitated, met my eyes, and spoke. Her voice no longer trembled, as if she'd settled, but the way she handled her gaze was incredibly clumsy. She was probably ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the type who dropped her eyes rather than meeting someone's when she talked.

"I was looking around, and I got curious what kind of room this was.... I'm sorry."

"And that's why you were sleeping so soundly?"

"Ah, no. I have chronic headaches, so I was just lying down listening to music for a bit..."

When I listened closely, a faint song drifted from the earphone she was holding out. It was the Beatles' Yesterday.

"My sister's remedial class is ending soon. So I was just going to rest a little and head back..."

"Sister?"

"Yes. She's a second-year."

A faint wariness showed in the way she naturally didn't offer a name. Was that why she'd caught herself? Unlike when she'd first woken — flustered, rambling — the Lee Jiyoon I knew was starting to show through, little by little. Hard. Cold. Indifferent. Every last one of them, nothing but excellent material to break.

"As you can see, this is the infirmary. More precisely, it was an infirmary that hadn't been in use yet."

"I thought so. There was nothing on the desk."

"I plan to fill it in, one thing at a time. Now that I'm here."

It would probably be light novels more than medical texts, but still. When I let my identity slip out with that slight indirection, Lee Jiyoon's eyelids blinked rapidly a couple of times. For some reason, it felt like I was looking at an expensive cat.

"Are you the health teacher?"

"Something like that."

"...? If you're the health teacher, you're the health teacher. There's a 'something like that'?"

"Health Committee Member."

"What?"

"Health Committee Member. You don't know it?"

Only after the words left my mouth did it occur to me that I wasn't sure myself. Was it a concept they used in Japan? The word had exactly that feel.

"...I'm a student, but it's like being the health teacher."

Lee Jiyoon's deep-green eyes stared up at me as if trying to bore a hole through. As expected. She didn't seem to understand.

"Because I'm a Healing-type Transcendent."

"...Ah."

Only then did she let out a short sound of realization and stare blankly at my face — a look that seemed to be trying to confirm who I was. Not that she'd be able to recognize me, of course. Most of the photos of me circulating online had been taken when I was young.

Hmm. I let out a short breath, took out my phone, and showed her a news article I'd pulled up before. Only then did the suspicious look vanish completely. So he wasn't some weirdo. He was the real thing. That was exactly the look in her eyes. A familiar look, somehow. Must have been my imagination.

And then, once again, a silence I'd grown all too familiar with settled in. The cute, flustered oh no, oh no look from when I'd first seen her was already gone, and all that remained was the Lee Jiyoon I knew — the one who found talking to people a bother.

If I'd pushed a little harder, what kind of face might I have seen?

I put that pleasure off for next time and moved my lips. Setting the harsh atmosphere aside — lightly.

"Come to think of it, you said earlier you have chronic headaches?"

"...Ah, yes."

"Since fate brought us together, shall I treat you?"

"...What?"

A brief flush of color passed over the face that had been stiffly set. Brief, of course. Literally brief.

"But the money..."

"Don't worry about it. I'm the Health Committee Member."

Money again. Strangely, the exact same words I'd heard that afternoon came out of Lee Jiyoon's mouth, and it threw me. Struck by an odd sense of déjà vu that called up that country-puppy of a hero-in-training, I unconsciously said the same thing I had then.

"And you don't need to speak so formally. I'm a freshman too."

"No. This is more comfortable for me."

"Then there's nothing I can do."

This was the exact opposite of the answer I'd gotten from the puppy. Could the second-year sister she'd mentioned be that hero-in-training from this afternoon?

Looking at those unusually similar deep-green eyes, I let out a small sigh and carefully reached out. Perhaps because she'd just seen my ability and its conditions in the news, Lee Jiyoon stayed remarkably docile even as an unrelated man's hand drew near. She still hesitated, but she didn't pull away. Even when my hand settled gently against her snow-white hair, almost a stroke, she stayed the same. A flinch. A small show of displeasure. That was all. She quietly stared at nothing but the white curtain hanging beside the infirmary bed.

"Headaches, you said?"

"...Yes."

"You might feel a little tired once the treatment's done. You just took a nap, so it probably won't matter much."

"......"

I said it as I dropped down beside her, my hand still resting on her head. I'd thought I'd sat a reasonable distance away, but before I even noticed, the space between us had widened by another half a handspan. At this point I wondered if she simply disliked me. I let it go soon enough. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Hiding a smile, I slowly began feeding mana into Lee Jiyoon's head.

Except this time was different from before. I'd never intended to heal her completely in the first place.

"Are you all right? Anything feel strange?"

"...Not really."

Asking after her condition as if nothing were amiss, I didn't cleanly shatter every hard impurity my mana struck. I left the deep core intact and carefully pared away only the surface. In my experience, that made the pain disappear. More precisely, only the pain disappeared. The wound stayed. Only the pain.

If it were an external injury with room to heal on its own, this would help too, the way a painkiller does. But a chronic headache? The result was simple. It would only worsen again, slowly. It would never get better by itself. Leave the root cause in place, and someday it was bound to fester and rot, just as it had now. And when she was suffering again from that throbbing, ringing headache, Lee Jiyoon would knock on the infirmary door with her own hand. Like an addict craving a fix.

Well, if I kept this up until someone stepped on my tail, I'd come under suspicion. Once or twice, though, she wouldn't notice.

As the work progressed and the pain lessened, the expression that had been stiff all this time visibly eased. Good. The groundwork was laid. Now that I'd laid hands on her, I might as well get a rough sense of what tastes she was hiding—

"You in here?"

That was when it happened. The firmly shut infirmary door flew open, and a familiar girl walked in.

"Ah. Jiyoon. So this is where you— ...Huh? What? Didn't you say you weren't a freshman here?"

"...Hey. Hayun. Shut— ...Just a little quieter..."

"You getting your headache treated by Woojin?"

"How do you even know his name.... ...Ah. Don't tell me."

"Well? Isn't he crazy good?"

"......"

"I'm telling you, even I was shocked. I waited a second and it was all gone."

A face I knew. Unlike Lee Jiyoon's calm, snow-white bob, a long black ponytail yanked up tight swayed with energy. Unlike Jiyoon, neat even in street clothes, this one's uniform was sloppy on top of it — barely worn, arms just shoved through the sleeves. In other words, she was the one I'd offhandedly named the puppy.

"Anyway. Hey. Seo Woojin."

"Yes, Noona."

"Didn't you tell me earlier you hadn't even turned in an application? So why are you in here doing this? And why is this place an infirmary?"

"...It wasn't a lie. Things just ended up this way somehow."

Judging by Lee Jiyoon's reaction, her name was Lee Hayun. Judging by Lee Jiyoon's reaction, this woman really was Lee Jiyoon's older sister. I stuck a fresh sticky note onto the information I'd arbitrarily jotted down.

"It wasn't a lie. Things just ended up this way?"

"Yes? Yes."

"...For real? Not a lie, really?"

"Why would I bother lying about something like this?"

"Hmmmm.... Suspicious.... So suspicious..."

"How so."

"Well.... Falling for a hero at first sight, after they save you from a crisis — it happens more often than you'd think."

"...Pardon?"

"Be honest. What about Noona did you like so much? Want a hug, as fan service?"

"...I'm sorry. She's an embarrassing sister."

"......"

"The sense of responsibility — saving citizens even if it means giving up getting to class on time...?"

"......"

"The fighting spirit to charge in even if her ankle snaps...?"

"......"

"Or just the looks..."

Lee Hayun had started running her mouth the instant she walked in — more, all by herself, than Jiyoon and I had managed in our entire conversation. I answered her with my hand still pressed firm against Lee Jiyoon's head, and poured everything I had into quieting my pounding heart.

...Lee Jiyoon. Her tastes were, more than I'd expected — unlike the way she looked. The places she'd secretly pinched at herself, here and there, and the spots she'd scratched at so hard, were extremely shallow. But the places you could call weak points...

They took after her sister. Extremely deep. And violent enough that—