Chapter 95
“Ah... Nooo...! I don’t wanna!”
Haru’s sharp scream echoed from beyond Name’s bedroom door.
But that lasted only a moment before silence returned.
The door creaked open, and Haru emerged with her lips stuck out and a scowl on her face.
“Why am I the only one who got the pig...? I wanted to be a bear or a cat, too...”
“Because you lost at rock-paper-scissors.”
“Do you want to trade with me now, Haru?”
“No... It’s fine... Cat pajamas suit Name best anyway...”
Trying to comfort her, Name grabbed Haru’s sleeve and said,
“Look. Your pajamas even have something like this attached. If you put your hand in here, it turns into an animal paw.”
“Even so, it’s still a pig’s foot...”
“Haru, it’s okay. You’re cute enough.”
“What about me, Name? Me!”
Yuna flapped her sleeves at Name’s praise, as if asking to be complimented, too.
Yuna pestered Name as though she wanted praise as well, but her wish went unanswered.
Name spread blankets across the living room floor and seated the two girls.
“What do you want to do first? Jenga? Halli Galli? Or Pirate Roulette?”
It was Name’s trump card for reconciling the two girls who didn’t get along.
The young girls fidgeted awkwardly, perhaps because they were in someone else’s home.
“Then let’s start with Jenga. Okay?”
“Yeah!”
“I like that.”
With everyone’s agreement, a tower of wooden blocks was built.
“How about the loser gets flicked on the forehead?”
“Of course.”
“I hit really hard, too, so don’t expect me to go easy on you like when you played gonggi, Name. You’ll regret it.”
Name had no intention of willingly losing, either. She pulled out the first block and placed it on top.
“Your turn next, Haru.”
“You know what? I heard that the trick to Jenga is finding the center of gravity. Look. When it sticks out a little like this, the block above it isn’t pressing down on it.”
Even though no one was listening closely, Haru chattered on without a care.
Haru boldly grabbed a Jenga block, but when it unexpectedly refused to come out easily, she looked troubled.
“Once you touch it, there are no take-backs!”
Yuna quickly stopped the hand that was reaching for another block.
“What kind of rule is that?”
“That’s the original rule, isn’t it? Is this your first time playing Jenga, Lee Haru?”
“Okay, okay, don’t fight. Haru didn’t know, so let it slide just this once. Okay?”
“Mmm... I guess... okay.”
Name barely managed to stop the two girls, sparks flying from their eyes from the very beginning.
As they unconsciously built familiarity while playing, Name imagined a beautiful scene in which Haru repented and reconciled with Yuna.
“Ah!”
Rumble-
Before the precarious tower could collapse, Haru flinched after pulling out a block and let out a strange sound.
“Go ahead. Hit me.”
Haru swept back her bangs, showing everyone her snow-white forehead.
Seeing Name merely pretend to hit her, Yuna said,
“That’s not how you hit someone. Watch closely.”
Yuna’s fingertip trembled from the excessive force she put into it.
Name was more nervous than Haru.
‘Please don’t hit her too hard.’
“Ow!”
But Name’s wish was utterly dashed, and Haru’s forehead turned bright red.
‘Please don’t get angry either, Lee Haru. You came here to make up!’
“You just wait until you lose...”
Name’s dream had long since gone up in smoke.
* * *
“Tsk...”
“Grr...”
The two girls clutched their foreheads and growled at each other.
The score was 5 to 5 to 0.
Even so, Name had survived without toppling the tower even once.
The girls silently began carefully rebuilding the tower.
But the emotions within were anything but calm. Rather, the current situation was the eye of a storm.
While they quietly continued the game in the subdued atmosphere, Haru voiced a question.
“Something’s weird, isn’t it?”
“Why now?”
Yuna replied listlessly to Haru’s remark.
“How has Name not gotten caught even once?”
Name, who was pulling out a block, flinched.
It was a valid question, and Yuna also hummed as she stroked her chin.
Slide-
Name successfully pulled out the block without toppling the tower.
Yet the tower merely swayed from side to side and never collapsed.
“Your turn, Yuna.”
“Wait.”
Yuna stood up and moved behind Name.
She hadn’t noticed while seated, but from above, it was obvious.
The tower was swaying on a slope so steep that it ought to have collapsed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Name, would you close your eyes for a moment?”
Yuna covered both of Name’s eyes with her hands.
Wobble-
Before long, the tower’s vibrations grew more violent.
Rumble-
Seeing the tower finally collapse anticlimactically, Yuna shrieked.
“You were using aura after all! Name, that’s cheating!”
“What? Is that really true?”
Yuna and Haru, who had each been flicked five times—for a total of ten flicks—interrogated Name.
Surely Name hadn’t left extra aura invisibly in the empty space when pulling out a block and then passed the turn? That was impossible.
But once again, shocking words burst from Name’s mouth.
“There was a rule in my region that allowed us to use aura.”
In the lower section of the still-standing tower, Name demonstrated the feat of pulling out all three blocks from the second layer from the bottom at once.
Every block from the third floor through the seventh was floating in midair.
Name tried to brazenly push the claim, but
““There’s no way such a rule exists!””
Unable to tolerate this, the girls spoke in unison and punished the cheater.
In the end, Name had no choice but to take ten forehead flicks from each of them. Clutching her burning forehead, she looked back and forth between the two giggling girls.
“Why are your hands so fierce...?”
* * *
They had spent so long playing Jenga that dinner time arrived before they knew it.
After sealing away all of Name’s aura, the one who rescued her from the swamp of penalties was none other than Professor Cheon Gyu-jin.
“It’s time for dinner, right?”
Along with the chicken that arrived right on time, Professor Cheon served homemade Hanwoo beef tortillas and strawberry canapés piled high with cream cheese on crackers.
“Wow, it’s chicken!”
When they opened the package, the sweet, savory aroma of seasoned chicken burst outward.
The girls were more excited about chicken than foods that cost a lot of money to eat outside.
“Do chaebol eat chicken, too?”
“I mean, we eat it pretty often...?”
Haru answered Yuna’s question sulkily again.
In fact, she loved chicken enough to order it about once a week.
Bite by bite, Yuna and Haru’s cheeks puffed up, and grayish bones shot out between their small lips.
True to their age and their preference for TikTok over television, they were absorbed in watching creators’ dance videos on the tablet Haru had brought.
“This girl is really pretty. She dances so well.”
“I think Name will get even prettier when she grows up.”
“Isn’t that obvious? Still, I wish Name could stay little forever.”
“Me too, me too.”
For once, the two girls agreed.
Since Name was their only point of contact, the conversation drifted back to talking about Name.
“Have you ever lifted Name?”
Yuna tossed out the question casually, and Haru grew curious.
“How?”
“Grab her under the arms, like this.”
“Ahehehe! Hey, that tickles! But you really lifted her like that?”
“Yeah! She’s so light that it doesn’t take any effort.”
Yuna also said that she had once grabbed Name and spun her around.
“But when did you get close to Name? When Name first came, she didn’t even introduce herself before running off somewhere.”
“Back then... we weren’t close... so I guess that can happen.”
“And there’s more. During group activities, you yelled at Name and Yoon Sihoo while cursing at them.”
“That was...”
Haru hit Yuna’s sore spot dead-on.
However, their conversation was cut short when Professor Cheon came over to clear away the empty plates.
“Was dinner good?”
“Yes, it was delicious!”
“It was even better than what the chef at our house makes!”
“It was my first time making those dishes, so I’m glad everyone liked them. Since you said we should watch a movie after dinner, I installed a projector in Name’s room, too. Have you chosen what movie to watch?”
“No! This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“But where did Name go?”
Name was nowhere to be seen, even after they looked around.
They had been so engrossed in the videos that they didn’t realize she had been gone for quite some time.
They even checked the bathroom to wash the grease from their hands, but they couldn’t find Name there, either.
The only place left was her bedroom.
“But can we go in there?”
“Maybe she got tired from waking up early and fell asleep. Go in quietly and take a look.”
“Open it gently, gently.”
“I know without you telling me.”
With Professor Cheon’s permission, Yuna carefully opened Name’s bedroom door and entered.
It was a pitch-dark space with not a single ray of light entering. Even the only window was completely covered by blackout curtains.
When the door was half-open, the light from the living room illuminated one side of Name’s room.
A large capsule that looked expensive even at a glance sat inside.
On the opposite side, they could see Name’s bed.
Though it was relatively large for a child’s use, Name was curled up like a shrimp in one corner, taking a short nap.
“Looks like she’s asleep...”
“What should we do?”
It was still early, with the sun just beginning to set.
They felt awkward that the host of the pajama party had been the first to fall asleep.
“Mmm...”
When Name, who wasn’t covered by a blanket, shifted in her sleep, the girls flinched in surprise.
With an audible gulp, Name’s lips moved as if she were mouthing something.
“Looks like she’s talking in her sleep. How is she so cute...!”
“What is she saying?”
Yuna approached Name one quiet step at a time, keeping her heels from touching the floor, and leaned her ear close.
“El... Ras... Maven... Su... Tra... Arhen...”
Name’s sleep talk would have been completely unintelligible to any ordinary person who heard it.
But Yuna and Haru looked at each other simultaneously, exclamation points appearing in their minds.
The runes they had spent the past year endlessly memorizing at the academy, reciting them like poetry.
‘El, Ras, Maven, Sutra, Arhen.’
It was a voice they couldn’t help but recognize.
Unable to hold back her laughter, Haru covered her mouth first and snickered.
“She’s reciting runes in her sleep...!”
Haru could hardly wait to see how Name would react if they told her about this.
“Wow, does she really have to go this far just to come in first?”
“Seo Yuna, just give up on being first in the whole school. You might beat Yoon Sihoo, but you’ll never beat Name. Heh-heh.”
It sounded familiar, as though she had heard something similar before, but Yuna wasn’t bothered at all by Haru’s words.
Curious to see how far Name would recite the runes, they continued listening intently to her sleep talk.
“Suuut... ras...”
One more syllable had been added, making five in total. Siatris was the rune that controlled Lorentz symmetry in a magic circle.
Since all ten of Yuna’s fingers had folded for the second time, Name had recited roughly the twentieth rune.
Then Name’s mouth stopped opening.
“Should we wake her now?”
“Aww, I wanted to watch more...!”
“It would be rude to watch any more of this to Name, too!”
“How about just five more minutes?”
While they debated when to wake the girl who had fallen deeply asleep, the sleep talk began again.
“Riff... I’m sleepy... I want to sleep...”
She said she wanted to sleep again even though she was already asleep.
“Creserium... I’m so tired... But I can’t sleep yet...”
Unconsciously, Name’s hand tensed. Her fingers clenched the bedsheet, wrinkling it.
“Yandelvirk... My head hurts... I hate this...”
Her voice grew clearer and clearer. Cold sweat dampened Name’s head.
“It’s hard...”
“I... I think I’m going to die...”
“Help me...”
“■■, please...”