Cherry Blossoms and Exams - 3
I skipped the morning lecture and holed up in the library, tearing through every book on precognition I could get my hands on. The moment I arrived on campus I’d gone looking for Professor Baek Seol-hee, but the department office told me she was out on external business and wouldn’t be back today. I’d left a message. She would probably see it once her work was finished and get in touch.
The dream I’d had last night refused to leave me alone. Under normal circumstances the contents of a dream would have faded by morning, but this one had lodged itself in a corner of my mind and showed no intention of moving. Ji-ah collapsed in a pool of blood. The campus torn to ruins. Could it really mean nothing? Was I missing something vital? The anxiety that had surged up felt like it was gnawing away at me bit by bit.
What if—by some one-in-a-million chance—that dream really had been a prophetic vision? Then why had I seen it?
I closed the book—I’d already lost count of how many I’d read—rubbed my tired eyes, and kept thinking. Every source agreed that special abilities tied to future prediction were extremely rare. Awakened individuals were already a minority, and among them the ones who possessed precognitive powers could be counted on one hand.
From what I could gather, those abilities were formed by the Awakened’s mind compiling accumulated information. Though we called it “precognition” for convenience, it wasn’t something that simply fell from the sky without any prior data. The truth seemed closer to an advanced computational process running inside a highly developed brain, producing answers that came eerily close to the correct ones. Therefore, any genuine precognition had to be grounded in sufficient data and evidence. Some scholars even argued the phenomenon should be renamed “prediction” instead.
My head was beginning to throb. I tried to apply the existing theories to my own situation, reviewing the messy notes I’d scribbled while reading. The mangled university. The figure in the black robe. Ji-ah, wounded. It suggested that some kind of data had piled up inside me, and my brain had processed that information to generate the dream.
I replayed the fragments again.
“……”
They were too disjointed. Nothing stood out. Was it simply anxiety buried in my subconscious? How many Awakened were even on this campus? Aside from hunter hopefuls like me, there were truckloads of people like Professor Baek Seol-hee—retired legends who still outclassed most active hunters. Even in the classroom they were monsters.
So maybe it wasn’t general insecurity. Maybe it was anxiety about my own future.
And that person in the black robe. I couldn’t tell if they were male or female. All I remembered was the golden pattern on the sleeve of the robe that covered their entire body. I had never seen clothing like that before.
Damn it.
The more I thought, the deeper I sank. Every time I glanced at the stack of books on the desk, my chest tightened. I gathered the pile and returned them to the counter. No amount of worrying from someone with my limited brainpower was going to produce an answer. I decided to grab a coffee and try again later.
Remembering the vending machine in the first-floor lobby, I stood up. Inside the reading room, students were still bent over their books in peaceful silence. That quiet could shatter at any moment.
The vending machine area was empty. It was still before lunch, and a little early to be reaching for caffeine. The machine only offered milk coffee and black coffee, but it looked clean despite its age. I dropped in coins, pressed the milk-coffee button, and waited. A paper cup clattered down and began to fill.
Just as I reached for the door, someone else’s hand took the cup first.
What the—?
Irritation flared, but the moment I saw whose hand it was, the words died in my throat. It was Ji-ah. She held the cup out to me. Her slender fingers must have felt the heat, yet her expression showed nothing.
“Here.”
“Thanks.”
Our fingers brushed as I took the cup. Hers were cool, as if the heat of the coffee had never touched them.
“Didn’t you say we’d meet in the afternoon?”
I took a sip. The bittersweet flavor spread across my tongue. The coffee was still too hot to finish quickly.
“I wanted to see you.”
When Ji-ah spoke, she wasn’t smiling. That was strange. She almost always wore a gentle smile when we met. The only time I’d seen it break was during the elf incident. Otherwise she was always smiling.
“Is something wrong?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead she looked up at me, and her eyes were different—sharp with resolve.
“Yeah, something’s definitely wrong. Your face is completely stiff.”
“Hyun-do. I have something to tell you.”
“…What is it?”
“It’s not easy to talk about here. Let’s go somewhere else. Is that okay?”
“Sure. I was about to pack up anyway.”
“Then I’ll wait here. Come down after you grab your things.”
“Okay.”
I climbed the stairs again to collect the belongings I’d left in the reading room. I already sensed what Ji-ah wanted to confess. It had to be an explanation for all her strange behavior.
From the very first night she appeared in my studio apartment, I had wondered why she acted that way toward me. Objectively, I was nothing special—just a mediocre rookie. Plenty of guys were better looking. I’d never once stared into a mirror after showering and thought I was handsome. Money? A college student living alone had none. Even though my mother ran a company now, that wasn’t my money, and I’d never bragged about it to anyone. Personality? We’d barely spoken before that night. Normal people didn’t jump into bed with someone they barely knew unless their sense of intimacy was completely broken. The Ji-ah I knew wasn’t that kind of person. If she had been, she wouldn’t have been a virgin.
As for ability, I’d only recently gained a second special skill. Back then I’d had nothing but Rigid Body. I wasn’t even on the scale of real Awakened fighters. Just an ordinary college student chasing an unrealistic dream.
Each step up the stairs dragged another dark thought behind it. My mind felt like it was sinking into shadow. Objectively, there was no reason for someone like Ji-ah to cling to me. If a reason existed, it had to be on her side, not mine. Maybe today I would finally hear what she had been carrying.
When I came back down, Ji-ah was sitting quietly on a bench. The sky was clear, but a chilly wind had slipped in, tugging at my collar.
“Let’s go.”
“Yeah. Can you follow me?”
“Where are we headed?”
“My room.”
“Your room?”
“It’s not something I want to discuss where other people might hear.”
“All right. I understand.”
We walked side by side, but the conversation ended there. It was the first time in my life entering a woman’s room, yet I felt no excitement. Instead, an uneasy weight pressed on my chest even with Ji-ah right beside me. The comfortable distance we had built seemed to be stretching apart again.
“This is it.”
She led me into a clean one-room building—the same complex I had considered when apartment hunting. Multiple door locks made it famous for security. I followed her inside. She stopped at her door, unlocked it, and opened it for me.
The room that greeted me was so tidy it felt barren. A white bed, a small table. Nothing else. It was spotless, yet completely devoid of any lived-in feeling. The only personal items were a few books and notebooks on the table. It looked nothing like the cozy woman’s room I had imagined.
“Come in.”
Ji-ah sat on the edge of the bed and patted the spot beside her. I sat. The mattress was softer than it looked.
“So what’s this important story that needs such a heavy atmosphere?”
“It really is important.”
She took several slow, deep breaths, then looked up at me.
“Hyun-do, you had a strange dream, didn’t you?”
“…What are you talking about?”
I tried to brush it off. How could she possibly know?
Her strange behavior had been constant, but never this direct. As if answering the question in my eyes, she continued.
“A university smashed to pieces. A person wearing a black robe. And…”
“……”
“Me, dying. You saw it, right?”
“How could you…?”
Goosebumps raced across my skin. Fear of the unknown surged up, but I forced myself to stay calm. She wasn’t finished.
“I wasn’t planning to tell you. I thought it would be better if I never said anything… but I can’t stand keeping silent anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“What?”
“From a very, very distant future.”
Ji-ah wasn’t smiling at all.