Returning to School
"Don't shake."
"I'm not shaking."
"You are, though. Not me. You."
Two days before the term began, in a private training ground on the outskirts of the Academy, Hayun sat cross-legged on the floor and held a paper cup out in front of me. It was half full of water.
"Freeze only the water in the cup. Don't touch the cup, and don't touch my fingers. Not a single speck of frost."
"……You know that's dangerous, right?"
"I know. That's why I'm the one holding it."
Hayun didn't so much as blink. I bit my lip. A month ago, Seorin had frozen a classmate's arm. I could hardly believe there was anyone in the world willing to hold out a hand in front of a girl like that.
"Hayun, I really still……"
"Seorin."
Hayun cut me off.
"You know the only advantage an E-rank Detection user has? I can see where the energy leaks. If you cross the line, I'll know before anyone else. So stop worrying and do it."
Her eyes shone faintly. She was using her ability.
I let out a long breath and reached forward.
A cold, deep spring. Only one thread of it.
The Physical Enhancement training from my past life came back to me. Even when I gathered strength until the veins stood out on my forehead, I had barely reached the level of an ordinary person, and the one thing I had drilled into myself until I was sick of it was how to hoard that strength and drive it all into a single point. The power in this body now was a torrent that didn't even bear comparison. The principle, though, was the same. Don't let it spill. Shut it in. Narrow it, and spend it.
The water in the cup shivered. A thin film crept up from the rim.
"Good, good. Just like that……"
Hayun's whisper reached my ear. The sound of water freezing came in small, crisp crackles. The instant I thought it was nearly done, a chill spread beneath the cup.
"Ah—wait, wait—?"
"Leak! It's leaking! The power's slipping out of your right shoulder!"
"My shoulder?"
"You're holding your breath, so your shoulder went up. Relax! Breathe!"
I let the breath go. The moment my shoulder dropped, the spreading cold snapped back into the cup as if it had been lying. The ice set into exactly as much as the water had been, and not a single bead of dew formed on the surface of the cup.
Hayun turned it over. A clear column of ice slid out whole.
"……Perfect."
"Really?"
"Really! Look! My fingers are fine! Not even cold!"
Hayun hopped in place with the column of ice in her hand. A short laugh almost escaped me at the sight, and I turned my head so she wouldn't catch the sudden swell in my throat. I had used my ability with someone's open palm right in front of me, and no one had been hurt. I hadn't known that could matter so much.
"Are you crying?"
"I'm not. It's sweat."
"Sweat comes out of your eyes?"
Hayun leaned in, trying to see my face. I rubbed at the corner of my eye with the back of my hand.
"Training sweat is just like that."
"Then let's wipe it off. Come here."
She pulled a towel from her bag and wiped my face. She was too close. She smelled like soap. I tried to step back and hit the wall.
"Why are you running?"
"I'm not running. It's just the distance……"
"What about the distance?"
"……Nothing."
Hayun tipped her head, but she didn't press. I sighed where she couldn't hear it. I had lived twenty-eight years as a man, and still the fact that the friend in front of me was a girl locked my body up every single time. She closed the distance as if it were nothing, and the most awkward person here was me—the one living in this body.
The problem was sweat. The inside of my training clothes was soaked through, and the sports bra I'd grabbed from the drawer without a moment to worry about the size sat wrong somewhere. The straps kept sliding down. It hurt when I jumped. My hair clung to the nape of my neck and stung.
"Seorin, you need to tie your hair up. It keeps getting in your eyes and breaking your focus."
"Tying it is easy enough if I just……"
I wrestled with a hair tie for ten minutes, and my hands still couldn't get a proper hold of it. Hair short enough to brush my neck spilled halfway free the moment I tried to gather it, and the loose front strands kept poking me in the eyes.
"Oh, give it here. You're really hopeless at this."
Hayun stepped behind me and swept the hair together. Her fingers brushed the nape of my neck, and my breath stopped.
"S-stay still?"
"I am still."
"Your shoulder went up."
"……"
Giggling, Hayun pinned the front strands in place. Click. In the mirror, the line of my neck lay bare beneath silver hair pulled halfway up. It didn't feel real that this neck was mine.
"Pretty. You look much better with your forehead showing."
"Pretty……"
"What? It's true."
I had nothing to say to that. My face burned. I clutched my bag to my chest and turned away to sit, and behind me Hayun laughed so hard she held her stomach.
Then, all at once, the laughter stopped, and she murmured.
"……It's strange, though. The you from a month ago wouldn't even have come to the training ground at this hour."
I turned my head.
"A month ago?"
"Yeah. The first month after you enrolled. Every time you made a mistake, your face went white, and all you did was apologize and run. The joint practice was the same. I saw your hands shaking and your output starting to wobble, but there wasn't time to stop you."
Hayun's voice dropped.
"After that day, your name around school was trouble. I couldn't even get into the hospital room. I didn't know where you were. I sent more than thirty messages, and you never read a single one."
She broke off. Her gaze fell, and she picked at her nails.
My chest ached. She must have swallowed those words alone for a whole month. I wasn't Seorin. I had no right to hear them. But the one sitting here now was me. Quietly, I laid my hand over hers.
"……I'm sorry. For making you worry."
"Yeah."
"I won't run anymore. So stay beside me."
Hayun was silent for a long while. Then she wiped the corner of her eye on her sleeve and grinned.
"Obviously. I told you I saved your seat."
The morning the term began, forty minutes slipped away in front of the mirror. White shirt, navy jacket, plaid skirt. In twenty-eight years of living, I had never once worn that combination.
"……A skirt."
Once it was on, air moved between my legs. That hollow feeling refused to grow familiar, no matter how long I stood there. I kept tugging at the hem, then dropped my hand the moment I caught myself doing it. The jacket drew tight across my chest, and even breathing felt awkward. Fastening the buttons, my hand brushed somewhere it had no business touching, and I flinched all by myself.
"Seorin. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."
I apologized to the silver-haired girl in the mirror and tied the necktie. The reflection ran the wrong way, so I undid it and tied it again three times. The student ID on the desk caught my eye.
A girl who had caused an accident a month after enrollment and sat out an entire semester. Today I was going back to that girl's place. I took Seorin's notebook from the drawer and put it in my bag. I still didn't have the courage to read it, but I couldn't leave it behind either.
The Academy stood on a hill above the Han River. My steps stopped in front of the main gate. At eighteen I had stood before this same gate, confirmed that my name was missing from the list of those accepted, and turned away. The next year had been the same. Now the gate recognized my fingerprint and opened without a single check.
"……It's Han Seorin."
"She actually came?"
"How is she even here? After what she did to Doha's arm."
The murmuring spread like a wave. The grounds were already full of kids who had spent a semester together, clustered in groups and trading jokes. In the gaps between them, I was someone who had stopped a month ago. Some whispered outright. Some deliberately took the long way around. A few clutched their arms and stepped back, as if they would freeze solid the moment I came closer.
In my past life, no one had looked at me. Now everyone did. Those looks hurt far worse.
So this is what Seorin endured alone.
I decided not to lower my head. Seorin would have. I was Han Doyun. I had taken looks that stung until I was sick of them—eight years of them. I gripped the strap of my bag and walked with my eyes straight ahead.
"Seorin!"
A familiar voice, and then someone latched onto my arm.
"Why did you go on ahead! I told you to wait at the main gate!"
"Ah, sorry. I didn't see……"
Hayun glanced around, then narrowed her eyes. The kids who had been watching slowly pulled their gazes away. For someone so small, her look was unexpectedly sharp. She walked on with her arm linked through mine, and the moment our bodies pressed together I went rigid as a statue.
"Why are you so stiff today?"
"I-it's nothing. It's just been a while."
"You never used to pull away when we linked arms."
"……Right."
This was dangerous. I let the tension out with everything I had.
The moment I opened the door to Class 1-A, the noisy classroom went quiet all at once. Then, from the very back, came the scrape of a chair. A tall boy with sharp eyes stood up. A thin brace was strapped to his left arm.
"Hey. Han Seorin."
The air in the room froze.
"How do you walk in with your head up? Do you even remember what you did?"
Seo Doha. The classmate whose arm Seorin had frozen badly enough to leave a serious injury, during a joint practice only a month after enrollment. Hayun moved to get in front of me, but I caught her shoulder and stopped her. Anger sat in his eyes, mixed with a faint fear. The recovery was finished, but the aftereffects seemed to remain.
I could have made excuses. That I didn't remember. That I hadn't been able to control it. But that wouldn't have been an apology. It would have been running. I took one step forward and bowed.
"I'm sorry."
The classroom stirred.
"I won't make excuses for what happened. Is your arm all right? If it still hurts, tell me. I'll make sure nothing like that ever happens again."
When I lifted my head, Doha's eyes were wide. He had come with something prepared to throw at me, and what he got back was nothing like it.
"……What's with you, all of a sudden."
"I wanted to apologize."
He glared at me for a long time, then looked away.
"An apology brings my arm back? Stay out of my sight."
Grumbling, Doha went back to his seat. It wasn't settled. Even so, a little of the thorn had left his voice. Hayun poked me in the side.
"You've really changed. That was kind of cool."
I couldn't answer. I sat down with the tips of my ears burning.
Afternoon practical. Twelve targets stood in a row across the indoor training ground. The instructor in charge was a woman with a neat bob and knife-sharp eyes. Her name tag read Yoon Seyeon.
"Basic output test. Returning student Han Seorin, step forward."
"……Yes."
"I've read the first-semester runaway record. If I decide it's dangerous, I cut you off on the spot."
The class backed toward the wall. Looks tangled with curiosity and unease poured over me. Hayun stood at the very front, both hands clenched, watching. Her mouth moved without a sound.
Shoulder. Breathe.
I smiled a little, let out a long breath, and felt my shoulder drop.
One thread. Exactly one point.
Crack. Ice needles drove into the centers of all twelve targets at once. Dead center, without a hair of error. Not a single shard of frost spread across the floor. The training ground went still. Instructor Seyeon's eyebrow rose, slowly.
"The output is A-rank, but the control is nothing like the first-semester record. Who taught you?"
"I practiced alone. And……"
I looked back at Hayun.
"I had a friend watching beside me."
Hayun's eyes went round. The instructor's gaze passed over her and came back to me. She gave a short nod.
"Measurement's over. Keep doing it that way."
When she turned, the class let out its breath all at once. The grain of the whispering had changed.
"That was really the girl who lost control?"
"Did you see that?"
Doha stood with his arms crossed, watching me with a complicated look. Hayun ran over, caught my hand, and bounced.
"Hey, what even was that! I told you, didn't I? I told you!"
"H-Hayun, that hurts. My hand……"
"Unreal! That's unreal!"
With every bounce, her bob swayed right under my nose. I never did get used to that closeness, and heat climbed my face. Hayun saw it and giggled.
"Why'd you turn red? You're cute."
"C-cute……!"
I tried to protest, and the words tangled. Hayun laughed, holding her stomach. Listening to that laugh, I thought about it. The girl they had called a monster had changed a little in a single day. And the one who had made that change wasn't me. It was this girl, who for a whole month had never once left Seorin's side.
After class, among the students heading home, Doha brushed past me. He didn't stop. Walking on, he tossed back a single line.
"……Today wasn't bad."
He was gone before I could answer. Hayun's eyes went wide.
"That was a compliment just now, right?"
"……I think so."
Beyond the hallway windows, sunset was spreading. The notebook in my bag sat heavy against my shoulder. Onto the life Seorin had set down, today laid the first new layer. The road ahead was still long—Cheolgon, this unfamiliar body, the secret I had to keep. Even so, this time I wasn't alone.
"Seorin, let's go together!"
Hayun waved from a little way off. I tugged the hem of the skirt once and walked toward her.