RASL 07

Chapter 07

After first-period P.E. class.

The atmosphere in the classroom was completely different from usual.

“What? Seol Jiho got second place?”

“She crossed the finish line just one second behind Yujin?”

The students who had witnessed Seol Jiho’s sprint couldn’t stop talking about it.

“Wasn’t Seol Jiho terrible at P.E.?”

“Don’t you remember middle school? She tripped during P.E. and the teacher had to carry her to the nurse’s office.”

“I was in the same class as her back then. I’ve never seen her run like she did today.”

“Maybe she was just feeling really good today?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Just because she’s feeling good doesn’t mean the slowest kid suddenly runs like that.”

Meanwhile, at the very back of the classroom, one student sat quietly as though they belonged to another world.

Seol Jiho’s deskmate, Moon Yujin.

He had no intention of joining his classmates’ conversation and silently prepared his textbook for the next class.

Just then, three girls from the class hesitantly approached him.

“Um… Yujin.”

“…What?”

Eyes as dry and colorless as silver-gray.

The moment they met those eyes, the girls instinctively faltered and exchanged uneasy glances.

“So… about today’s race…”

You ask him.

No, you do it.

They nudged each other and whispered for a while before finally looking back at Yujin.

“Yujin… did you let Seol Jiho catch up because she’d only just come back after getting injured?”

“No.”

“Then… how did she end up getting second?”

…Was that a question?

Yujin’s eyebrow lifted slightly.

“Why are you asking me?”

“Huh?”

“If you’re curious, why don’t you ask her yourself?”

“Ah…”

The girls froze.

Yujin lowered his gaze back to his textbook.

A perfectly clear signal that the conversation was over.

Even so, they showed no sign of leaving. Instead, they tried to naturally steer the conversation elsewhere.

“O-Oh, right! Yujin, what was studying abroad like? We’ve never really asked.”

“You said you were in Germany, right? You came back sooner than I expected! Oh, have you decided on a club yet?”

“You used to be in the kendo club back in elementary school, didn’t you? Are you joining it again in high school?”

Chatter, chatter…

The conversation showed no signs of ending.

Weren’t they just asking about Seol Jiho?

Or had that never really mattered?

…Whatever.

He was simply tired.

Still staring steadfastly at his textbook, Yujin pulled out the earbud he’d apparently had in all along.

“Class is about to start.”

“Huh?”

“The next class. Math. Did you finish the homework?”

“…Ah!”

The girls’ faces instantly turned pale.

“Did anyone do it? Let me copy!”

“Oh no, I forgot too! How many minutes until class starts?”

“Hey! Anyone who finished the math homework! I’ll buy you snacks if you let me see it!”

Like the tide rushing out, they all scattered.

At last, silence returned.

Yujin let out a quiet sigh.

‘…So noisy.’

He put his earbud back in.

Not long afterward, even through his music, he heard the classroom’s back door slide open.

Seol Jiho.

Moon Yujin’s deskmate.

Without moving anything but his eyes, he glanced at her.

Long black hair.

Blue eyes.

Pale skin that stood out immediately.

A face so expressionless it was difficult to read.

…Had she always looked like this?

He thought quietly for a moment.

But he couldn’t really remember.

To begin with, he and Seol Jiho had never been close.

Besides, Yujin had left for Germany to study abroad immediately after graduating from elementary school.

After finishing what had felt both like a short and long three-year stay overseas, he had returned to Korea just in time to enter Gaon Special School’s high school division.

“Well, Yujin, your seatmate is Jiho… but Jiho was in an accident recently, so she’s been absent from school. If you have any questions, you can ask the student sitting in front of you.”

Seol Jiho.

The girl who should have been his deskmate all along.

Since Gaon was an escalator-style school, he had known of her since elementary school.

The granddaughter of the owner of a famous pharmaceutical company.

That was about all he knew.

They had never been close, so he hadn’t even bothered asking anyone what kind of accident she’d been in.

He had simply accepted it.

And today…

Seol Jiho had returned.

“…”

She sat down beside him, checked the class schedule posted at the back of the room, then calmly took out her textbooks and writing supplies.

She looked so perfectly normal that it was hard to believe she’d suffered an accident serious enough to keep her out of school.

She had even chased right behind Yujin during P.E. class just moments ago.

…Judging from everyone else’s reaction, she hadn’t originally been athletic.

“Hey, Seol Jiho’s here.”

Once Jiho entered the classroom, the atmosphere shifted again.

Come to think of it, during P.E. the other students had seemed reluctant to end up on the same team as her.

Was there some reason for that?

‘She doesn’t seem particularly strange.’

If there was one unusual thing, it was Jiho’s attitude.

If she had even a little awareness of her surroundings, she had to notice all the eyes fixed on her.

Yet not even a single eyebrow twitched.

She calmly opened her textbook as though nothing was happening.

‘…She’s an interesting one.’

After watching her quietly for a while, Yujin eventually lost interest and returned his attention to his own textbook.

After school.

“Yujin!”

The moment homeroom ended, the classroom’s back door burst open.

Yujin, who was neatly packing his textbooks into his bag, glanced over.

Standing there were bright yellow eyes sparkling like glass marbles beneath the afternoon sunlight.

“School’s over, right? Let’s walk back to the dorm together.”

He looked as though he’d just finished exercising.

His soft light-brown hair was tousled like the fur of a puppy returning from a walk.

Instead of his school jacket, he wore an oversized hoodie that suited his cheerful, energetic personality perfectly.

Bae Hangeol.

A close friend who had been with Moon Yujin since elementary school.

“Where’s Jiho? I heard she came back today.”

“Yeah. She already left. Right after class ended.”

Having finished packing, Yujin walked out of the classroom.

Hangeol hurried after him.

“So, how was Jiho?”

The question caught him by surprise.

“What do you mean?”

“Did she seem okay? She was seriously injured.”

“Isn’t her ability Core Regeneration? I guess she’s recovered.”

“Still… I wonder if it’s really okay for her to come back already.”

“If she stayed at her family’s estate for months under the excuse of treatment without graduating, she’d get expelled.”

“I know that, but…”

Hangeol looked back toward the now-empty classroom and trailed off.

He seemed genuinely worried.

Even though they weren’t particularly close.

As far as Yujin knew, Hangeol had never once been in the same class as Seol Jiho since elementary school.

Yet he still worried this much.

It wasn’t something Yujin could easily understand.

Though…

That was also one of Hangeol’s strengths.

Pulling a vocabulary notebook from his pocket, Yujin answered indifferently.

“She didn’t look like she was in bad shape.”

At the very least, she’d been healthy enough to finish only one second behind him during P.E.

Remembering that race again, Yujin suddenly spoke.

“By the way… Seol Jiho.”

“Hm?”

“Has she always had a bad relationship with the rest of the class?”

“…Huh?”

“The atmosphere seemed kind of strange. I don’t remember it being like that in elementary school.”

…

Hangeol fell silent.

Jiho hadn’t started being bullied until middle school.

Yujin had spent all of middle school in Germany, so it made sense that he didn’t know what had happened.

Still, it was surprising that someone as indifferent to others as Yujin was asking about Jiho first.

“I don’t really know the details either. Something must’ve happened, but Jiho never talked to me about it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But why are you suddenly—”

Why are you asking about that?

Just as he was about to ask…

His gaze landed on a familiar figure.

At the far end of the hallway.

Jiho was walking away, casually sipping from a can of cola.

“Oh, there’s Jiho.”

A smile spread across Hangeol’s face.

He was about to run over to her when—

“Hey, did you hear? Seol Jiho’s coming back to school.”

Suddenly, the atmosphere around them changed.

“Holy crap. There she is. That’s Seol Jiho walking at the end of the hallway.”

“You’ve got to admit she’s got guts. After being bullied that badly, she still came back.”

“For real.”

The whispers around them grew louder.

There was no way Jiho couldn’t hear them.

Yet no one stopped.

“If it were me, I’d be too embarrassed to even lift my head. What’s with that confident face?”

“She’s got Core Regeneration. Guess both her body and her mind are ridiculously tough.”

“Heh… At that point she’s basically a cockroach.”

Hangeol’s shoulders twitched.

“You guys…”

Unable to listen any longer, he took a step toward them.

Then—

“A-AAH!!”

A sudden scream echoed through the hallway.

Hangeol froze.

For a single instant, silence engulfed the corridor.

Within the frozen air, someone shouted at the top of their lungs.

“W-What are you doing?!”

Splash—

A can of cola was being emptied over someone’s head.

The person doing it wore a completely expressionless face.

It was Seol Jiho.