Chapter 15
***
Early April.
Exactly one month had passed since the new semester began.
Despite it being after school, the athletic field was quiet.
If it were an ordinary day, it would have been bustling with the sound of soccer, but perhaps the sudden cold snap had caused the temperature to drop sharply.
“···.”
The counseling clubroom was quiet too.
There were only Shin A-young, who had come to hang out for a while, and me in the clubroom. The others hadn't come in yet.
I drank warm cocoa while leisurely watching NewTube.
While I was taking a break like that.
“Oh, right.”
Shin A-young suddenly got up and walked over to where she had left her schoolbag.
She took something out of it.
“Here, thanks for letting me use it.”
She held out a shopping bag to me.
Wondering what it was, I looked inside and found a beige hoodie.
“···Ah.”
Come to think of it, I'd lent it to her.
Perfect timing.
The clubroom had been feeling a little chilly, after all.
I immediately put the hoodie on over my clothes.
“Phew.”
Once I had it on, the sleeves hung slightly past my hands.
It was a little oversized, as expected.
I tended to wear clothes a bit large because I hated looking scrawny. I wondered if this would make me look a little bigger too.
“···Hm?”
Whenever I moved, the fabric rubbed together and gave off a faint, subtle lavender scent.
A peculiar smell wafted up.
“···Did you wash this?”
Shin A-young looked up in surprise.
“Huh? Why, is something wrong?”
“No, it just smells a little different.”
Shin A-young nodded.
“I did wash it. It seemed like the smell had soaked in a little.”
She looked somewhat worried.
“···It doesn't smell weird, does it?”
— “Is the detergent smell not very good?”
It wasn't.
I smelled it once more.
Hmm.
“It's fine. It smells really nice.”
“Oh··· Then that's a relief···!”
Shin A-young raised her voice oddly high.
Then she moved to the sofa across from me with strangely quick movements.
— “Smelling it makes me think of that time for no reason. No, don't think about it. Calm down, calm down.”
···What was that supposed to mean?
I could read her thoughts, but I had no idea what she was talking about.
···Anyway.
Was she planning to stay here the whole time?
“Is it okay if you don't go to your club?”
Shin A-young had been camped out in the counseling clubroom.
She had been like this ever since after-school activities started.
Judging by the time, she was already late.
She waved her hand, telling me not to worry.
“It's fine. Since midterms are coming up, participation is voluntary until then.”
“Really?”
“Isn't the counseling club the same?”
“We always have plenty of free time as long as there aren't any counseling sessions.”
If I wanted to study for exams, I could use the counseling room inside the clubroom.
There was never so little time that club activities would interfere with exam preparation.
At that, Shin A-young gave me an envious look.
“···What a sweet deal.”
I didn't bother denying it.
It really was.
That's why I joined this club.
Rattle—
“Uuugh······.”
Just then, the clubroom door opened, and Lee Sol trudged in with drooping eyes.
Jinuri followed behind her with a wry smile.
“······.”
Lee Sol was wearing an openly miserable expression.
This was obvious at a glance.
“Rejected again?”
That made two times for Lee Sol.
It looked like her homework had been rejected again.
“Uh··· They told me to do it again.”
Lee Sol nodded.
"···."
But was this really so difficult?
Honestly, I didn't really understand the problem.
She was struggling with an assignment from the career guidance teacher: writing down ‘what you want to do in the future.’
Except it couldn't be about studying or future aspirations.
It should have been simple enough to write down an ordinary goal.
···Maybe the problem was that the person writing it wasn't ordinary.
“···I told you, you can't put ‘a rich layabout.’”
A rich layabout.
That was what Lee Sol had written. She had written it down boldly, too.
I had a feeling it would turn out like this from the start.
“···But that's what I want to do. What else can I do?”
“No, besides that? Is there nothing else?”
Lee Sol thought for a moment.
“···A building owner?”
That was her answer.
I was at a loss for words at Lee Sol's honesty.
A landlord.
Of course, it was a good goal.
But it was far outside the range of an ordinary high school student's aspirations.
“······.”
···But I couldn't bring myself to say anything.
Why did it feel like she might actually manage it?
Lee Sol seemed fully capable of becoming one if she made money as a model.
While we were chatting away for quite a while.
“Hi, everyone~”
Senior Minji entered with an energetic greeting.
“You're here?”
Oddly enough, the club president wasn't with her.
“Where's the president?”
“He said he had something to take care of at home, so he was going to leave first.”
I had wondered why he wasn't here for once.
He wasn't the sort of person to skip club activities without a reason.
“But···”
Senior Minji tilted her head when she saw us gathered in little groups around the sofas.
“What are you all gathered for? Studying for exams?”
“Career homework.”
“Oh··· Is it that assignment where you write down what you want to do in the future?”
“···You did it too, Senior?”
“Of course. Everyone does it in their second year. Besides, the second-year career teacher hardly ever gives homework.”
I'd thought it was a sudden assignment, but was it actually an annual event?
Lee Sol made a teary face and clung to Senior Minji.
“Seniorrr··· This is already my third time···.”
Senior Minji gave a gentle smile.
“Still, try thinking it through on your own.”
She took a teacup from the shelf and continued speaking quietly.
“We're people who work in the arts. In truth, there are countless cases where people fail to achieve the dreams they hoped for, right?”
The arts were a field where one survived on skill.
Most people either gave up along the way or were pushed aside by their lack of talent and had to find another career.
That's why.
“Thinking of another thing you'd like to do is something you lose nothing by preparing in advance.”
Senior Minji sat on the sofa and took a sip of warm black tea.
Then she gave us a gentle smile.
It was a little different from her usual mood.
— “···Wasn't that kind of cool just now?”
Hmm. It almost was.
It would have been nice if she hadn't had that thought.
Still, I should at least play along.
“···You sounded really grown-up just now.”
When I murmured my admiration.
“Ahem. Did I?”
She nodded repeatedly, looking satisfied with herself.
If I indulged her like this, I might get an extra snack from her later.
This was what social life was all about.
“···But what did you write last year, Senior?”
I asked her about a question that had suddenly occurred to me.
“Me? I···”
Senior Minji was about to answer, but then unnaturally changed the subject.
“···Uh, yeah. What did I write again?”
What was that about?
Her face even looked a little red.
— “···I could never admit that I wanted things to work out with that person.”
The senior's mini-me was squirming shyly.
“···.”
···I shouldn't have heard that.
I had gotten curious for no reason and ended up witnessing a public display of affection.
Let's just pretend I didn't hear it.
“···.”
I looked at Jinuri, who was scribbling in a notebook beside Lee Sol, and spoke.
“···I can understand Lee Sol, but I didn't expect you to take this long too.”
Jinuri still hadn't finished her homework.
Unlike Lee Sol, she hadn't been rejected; she was simply taking a long time to think about it.
Even so, it was unexpected.
“Nothing came to mind right away.”
Jinuri gave a hollow laugh.
— “I can't exactly write ‘try debuting as a coser,’ either.”
She muttered that thought to herself.
But.
What was a coser?
“···.”
When I searched for it on my phone, images of people in flashy outfits appeared.
So ‘coser’ was short for ‘costume player,’ or cosplayer.
I had learned something new.
This was definitely not a goal Jinuri would openly reveal.
Looking at the images, some of the outfits were rather revealing, too.
“···.”
···Hmm.
Save it.
“···You really are a guy, huh?”
Flinch—
The hand holding my phone trembled.
“···.”
When I subtly looked behind me, Shin A-young was standing there.
She was looking at my screen with considerable interest.
As luck would have it, the screen showed a picture of a female cosplayer.
It wasn't as if I had pressed the button because I wanted to.
Wouldn't anyone be curious?
“Ahem. Cosplay. So this is your type, huh~?”
Shin A-young looked at me with a mischievous expression
and teased me gently.
“···.”
Jinuri, on the other hand, was looking at me with a somewhat hopeful gaze.
— “···Could Lee Seung-ho possibly be···?”
She seemed to be guessing that I might be one of her kind.
That wasn't it.
“···.”
I decided to change the subject first.
“···Shin A-young, what did you write?”
I brought up the topic from earlier.
She seemed to know I was deliberately changing the subject, because there was still a trace of amusement in the corners of her eyes,
but she answered the question for now, as if she would let me off the hook.
“I want to visit Antarctica.”
“Huh?”
That was another randomly specific goal.
Had she written it like a bucket-list item?
“Don't you want to go at least once before you die?”
“Hmm···.”
I was definitely curious about it.
If I had enough time and money, it might be worth going at least once.
“What about you, Seung-ho?”
“···I just wrote down something I really want to do. Something simple.”
I had written down something genuinely simple.
It was more of a short-term goal than a long-term one.
I placed the paper on the desk so everyone could see it.
— Try dating before I graduate.
That was my goal.
When Shin A-young saw it, her head lifted slightly.
“Dating?”
She looked genuinely surprised, as if what I'd written was unexpected.
Had she thought I wasn't interested in the opposite sex?
“Do you perhaps have someone you like?”
“No, not yet.”
I didn't have anyone, but that was separate from wanting to date.
At least before I graduated.
I'd heard that dating as an adult felt quite different from dating at this age.
“Did the teacher pass you with that?”
I nodded at Lee Sol's question.
“Yeah, he just let it pass.”
The teacher really had let it go without saying much.
If anything, he had seemed pleased. Something about how youth was wonderful.
“Great. I'm going with that too.”
Lee Sol scrawled ‘dating’ on her paper.
She was just copying me.
Or was she actually planning to do it?
“You're going to try dating?”
“···Huh? No way.”
Lee Sol rested her chin in her hand.
She had an expression that said I was asking something ridiculous.
“Isn't Sol pretty popular? You could if you wanted to.”
Shin A-young was right.
Regardless of her personality, her looks alone were enough to make a living from.
We just didn't know about it. Hadn't she already received several confessions by now?
“Who knows···.”
Still, Lee Sol clearly wasn't interested in the idea.
“I don't really want to. If I date someone, I'd have to go on dates regularly and contact them every time.”
Her reasons were all so···
“Wow··· Just thinking about it makes me tired···.”
That was so like her.
A high schooler was calling dating a hassle.
“That's not right! You're only saying that because you don't know how great dating is.”
Senior Minji objected as if she couldn't let that comment pass.
“You'd see things differently if you found someone you liked.”
“Who knows···.”
Lee Sol looked like she genuinely didn't know.
“What would you do if you found someone you liked?”
“···That won't happen.”
“What if! I mean, just hypothetically.”
“Umm··· It really won't happen. But if it did···”
Lee Sol let out a little snicker, as if the mere thought was funny.
“Then, well. I'll do one thing you want, Senior.”
— “That won't happen, though.”
***
Not a single student came in for counseling today either.
As usual, club activities came to an end.
“Hmm-hmm~”
What should I eat when I get home?
There was no one at home today, so I could order something.
The moment I stood in front of the shoe locker, happily imagining it.
“Lee Seung-ho.”
Someone called my name.
“···.”
“Do you have a moment?”
Kang Han-sol appeared. He was Client #1 from the band club, the one who had been rejected by Jinuri.
Had he been waiting for me?
Since Jinuri had joined the counseling club after leaving the band club,
I had a feeling something like this would happen.
“Let's talk for a moment.”
He had come sooner than I expected.