Academy First Week (4)
Thanks to how sprawling the campus was, every club at Inatium Academy received its own dedicated room. Better results or larger memberships earned nicer spaces, but that was about the only real difference.
The Archaeology Club’s room sat in a relatively out-of-the-way corner of the academy. It was a small single room, nothing spacious. After checking the nameplate that read Archaeology Club Room, I knocked.
“Anyone home?”
“Ah— j-just a second!”
A brief clatter of noise came from inside, then the door creaked open. Through the narrow gap appeared the face of a beauty with striking deep-green hair and green eyes.
“Hello. I’m here about joining the club.”
“Huh? A club?! Are you… a first-year…?”
“Yes. New student.”
The door flew wide open the instant the words left my mouth.
“Y-you didn’t come to the wrong place, right? You’re looking for the Archaeology Club?!”
“Yes. Here’s my application.”
I held out the club application form to the senior whose expression was half disbelief, half pure delight. She snatched it up at once.
“Come in, come in! I’m Min Haryeong, second-year and president of the Archaeology Club! I’m so glad you’re here!”
As her reaction made clear, the Archaeology Club had been on the brink of being shut down. All the previous seniors had graduated, leaving second-year Min Haryeong as the sole remaining member.
The minimum roster for a club was four people, so she desperately needed three new first-years. In the original story, Yeon Hajin, Baek Woohyun, and Yoon Chae-ah—whom Hajin had dragged along—had barely scraped together the numbers.
This time, of course, my joining meant Chae-ah was free to fly off to the gaming club instead.
Judging by the empty room, Woohyun and Hajin hadn’t arrived yet.
“Um, is it okay if I call you unnie?”
“Of course! Call me whatever you want! Senior, unnie, president—I don’t mind any of them!”
Min Haryeong was treating me with the extreme gentleness of someone terrified I might change my mind. After a moment, though, she carefully gauged my reaction and asked,
“But… would it be all right if I asked why you decided to join the Archaeology Club…?”
“Why? Do I not look like the archaeology type either, unnie?”
I shot back the same question that had been hounding me from yesterday’s walk home through this morning’s commute. Min Haryeong jumped and waved her hands frantically.
“No, no! It’s not that at all! Sure, Haneul, you’re super stylish and glamorous-looking, but you’ve also got this kind of elegant, pure vibe that somehow fits archaeology really well? What I mean is…”
Had she checked the name on my application in the meantime? I simply stared at her while she poured her entire soul into a desperate damage-control speech. She continued,
“Our Archaeology Club is pretty unpopular, you know? We barely even advertised. So I was just purely curious why you’d take an interest in us. That’s the only reason I asked!”
She locked eyes with me, sparkling with the determination to prove her innocence. I thought it over for a second.
Might as well just tell her something close to the truth.
“I figured if I joined this club, there’d be a lot of outside activities—like trips? I’m also a little interested in ruins and tourist spots and things like that.”
Min Haryeong beamed as if that made perfect sense.
…She never even considered the possibility that I might actually care about archaeology, huh.
“Oh, right! Want something to drink? We’ve got tea, coffee, all sorts of things.”
“Do you have Forest’s Eye by any chance?”
“…Huh? What?”
“Forest’s Eye. The drink.”
“…Ahaha. We don’t really have sodas stocked yet since there aren’t many members. I’ll buy some next time!”
“We can just go buy some together later. You’ve got plain water, right? I’ll take that.”
Min Haryeong looked faintly awkward after hearing about Forest’s Eye. She handed me a water bottle; I twisted the cap off and drank.
Knock-knock.
“Anyone there?”
A knock came at exactly the right moment.
“Just a second!”
Min Haryeong sprang up and opened the door. Yeon Hajin and Baek Woohyun stood outside.
Huh? They came together? That didn’t happen in the original.
“Hello. We’re here about joining the club.”
Hajin delivered the exact same line I had and held out an application form. Looking closer, there were two sheets stacked—he had brought Woohyun’s as well. Had they gotten that close already?
“Hah! I’m really, really glad to see you kids! Welcome to the Archaeology Club!”
Min Haryeong looked as ecstatic as if she had just received a surprise gift. Over her shoulder, my eyes met Hajin’s.
He registered that I was already inside and looked startled. I gave him a light little wave.
Woohyun, on the other hand, is completely unfazed that I’m here. Is it just because he never has any expression? Or does he simply not think about anything?
“Y-you… why are you here…?”
I answered Hajin’s question.
“What, I’m not allowed to be here? Why? Because my face doesn’t match archaeology?”
I asked half-joking, half-serious. Hajin shook his head.
“No, it’s not that…. Well, okay, it kind of is. I just didn’t expect it.”
I glared at the guy who felt the need to correct himself instead of just saying no. Min Haryeong spoke up.
“You three know each other?”
“Ah, we’re classmates.”
“Really?! That’s great!”
Min Haryeong lit up at my answer. She then asked the other two the same question she had asked me—why they wanted to join.
“Just because.”
That socially annihilated reply was, of course, Baek Woohyun’s.
“Ah, I’ve always been really interested in ruins and history and things like that.”
And that completely fake-sounding answer belonged to Yeon Hajin.
A little later we were all seated—me with water, Hajin with coffee, Woohyun with barley tea.
Even after a fair amount of time had passed since we joined, Min Haryeong still seemed to be carefully reading the room, so I threw her a line first.
“What are we going to do from now on?”
“Ah, well…”
She seemed to gauge our reactions again before continuing.
“You guys are more interested in actually going out and exploring than sitting around with theory stuff, right?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Then how about we use the club budget for some kind of survey or expedition?”
Every Friday at the academy was club time. If the request and plan forms were solid enough, overnight trips of up to two nights and three days—including the weekend—were allowed. That was exactly why Hajin and Woohyun had been uncharacteristically diligent about club activities in the original story.
“I think that sounds great!”
Min Haryeong looked at Hajin and then Woohyun in turn after hearing my answer.
“Same here.”
Hajin gave a positive reply.
“……”
Woohyun simply nodded.
Fortunately, Min Haryeong had been the maternal-type heroine in the original novel, so she didn’t make an issue of Woohyun’s total lack of social skills. Or maybe she simply couldn’t afford to care when even keeping him meant the club was one member away from dissolution.
“How much budget do we actually get, though?”
The pleasant atmosphere lasted only a moment. Min Haryeong’s previously unshakable bright smile cracked hard at my question.
“Um, the thing is…”
She hesitated heavily.
“Our club doesn’t really have much of a budget. So it might get in the way of proper activities a bit…”
She was watching our faces carefully as she said it. Hajin smiled brightly.
“If it comes down to it, I’ll just cover it with my own money, so please don’t worry too much.”
“What? No, no. That doesn’t feel right.”
Her timid attitude vanished the moment Hajin offered. She cut him off with a serious expression.
“This guy’ll chip in some too,” Hajin said, casually slinging an arm around Woohyun’s shoulders with shameless confidence. “In exchange, maybe you could cut us a little slack on the destinations and itineraries we want?”
“Still, even so…”
Min Haryeong didn’t give in easily. Hajin looked at her steadily, then dropped the line casually.
“…That’s a shame, then. Looks like we’ll have no choice but to look for another club. You said the lack of budget would make activities hard, right? In that case I’m not sure I can do the kind of club activities I actually want.”
Min Haryeong’s eyes started trembling violently.
…Psycho cool-guy bastard. Does this kid even have a heart?
“Uh, th-that, um…”
The extreme either-or choice had completely short-circuited her.
To Min Haryeong this club was a symbol packed with friendship and memories of her seniors; she couldn’t simply let it be shut down. Of course, since she was also a heroine from the original novel, those seniors had all been girls—but that wasn’t important right now.
I spoke up to help her decide.
“Unnie, as far as I know clubs have a sponsorship system, right?”
“Huh? Y-yeah. We do.”
The sponsorship system that existed for clubs was a device for future exchanges with guilds and industrial organizations. Some of the bigger clubs partnered with specific guilds and functioned almost like talent farms.
Of course, students sponsoring a club themselves wasn’t exactly common.
“Then just think of it as sponsorship and accept it. What’s the problem? Officially putting names on a sponsor list would make things bigger and more complicated, but as long as we treat it that way among ourselves, isn’t that enough?”
Actually putting Hajin and Woohyun on an official sponsor list would be a hassle, but a verbal agreement among ourselves that we were “attracting sponsors” seemed perfectly doable.
“But still… wait, is it? No, huh? What?”
Min Haryeong looked even more broken than before. I jabbed Hajin in the side with my elbow.
“Just think of it as sponsorship like Yu Haneul said. The purpose of the sponsorship can be something like ‘activity encouragement funds for Archaeology Club member Yeon Hajin.’ It’s not official sponsorship, of course.”
When all three of the new members said the same thing, Min Haryeong finally gave in.
And so the Archaeology Club, freed from its budget problems by acquiring two sponsors, moved on to planning.
“Is there anywhere you want to go next week first?”
Min Haryeong asked Hajin and Woohyun’s opinions first. They were the money, after all. She wasn’t handing them absolute power, but a little priority on choices was only fair.
Hajin started to speak at her question, but this time Woohyun was faster.
The destination that Baek Woohyun, who had stayed silent the entire time, finally named was…
“Pyongyang.”
“Huh?”
“We’re going to Pyongyang.”
— Min Haryeong Illustration —