Chapter 28
The weekend passed, and Monday had come around again.
“……Ahem.”
Before heading into her first-period class, Baek Seol-ah used the spare time to stand in front of a mirror at school for a moment.
She ran her fingers over her white hair, wondering if anything had gotten mussed up, then gave her cheek a little poke.
Soon, after confirming that nothing in particular looked strange, she put on a fairly satisfied expression.
Then she entered the classroom with light, quick steps.
‘Han Taeyang…….’
The first thing she checked was not the seat where she would sit, but the location of a certain male student who ought to be right beside it.
Since she had arrived three minutes before class began, he must already have been there.
She spent a moment scanning the classroom with sharp eyes, her textbook held against her chest.
‘Ah, there he is──.’
When Baek Seol-ah spotted the conspicuous artificial blond hair even on campus, she smiled, but—
She froze—
It lasted only a moment. The moment she saw Han Taeyang’s bizarre appearance, Baek Seol-ah’s expression hardened.
She slowly raised one eyebrow and let out a hollow breath, looking utterly unable to understand it.
“……Huh?”
It was quite a sight. Even someone other than her would have found the scene difficult to accept at a glance.
Sure enough, a considerable number of the other students in the classroom were already looking that way.
Baek Seol-ah stood there for a moment, feeling an odd emotion somewhere close to bewilderment.
“Hey, Han Taeyang…….”
She called out in a rather sharp tone, tinged with an emotion she herself did not understand.
And just as she strode toward Han Taeyang, who turned around at her call—
Bang!
In a déjà vu she had experienced once before, the classroom’s front door opened with a loud crash.
A blond little girl wearing a conical hat walked in with short steps and greeted everyone.
“Nice to see you, nice to see you. I’m not especially late today either, right? All right, everyone, take your seats.”
“……”
The liberal arts teacher, Jeong So-yul, climbed up to the lectern with a fresh smile.
At her bright, cheerful glance, Baek Seol-ah had no choice but to find a seat nearby and sit down.
Of course, her two golden eyes were quietly burning as they remained fixed stubbornly on one particular spot.
‘……Jeez. What’s her deal now?’
And Han Taeyang, receiving that obsessive stare from Baek Seol-ah, could only hunch his shoulders uneasily under the inexplicable gaze.
A girl with curly black hair tied into a ponytail was sitting on his lap as usual.
Han Taeyang looked down at the girl nestled snugly in his arms—Seo Ahyeon—and whispered quietly.
“Hey. You should get down too. What are you going to do if the teacher catches us?”
“Mmm?”
From his perspective, even though they were in a secluded spot in the classroom, he wanted to prevent the possibility of getting caught by Jeong So-yul and being thoroughly scolded.
Although she, Teacher Jeong So-yul, did not single out or look unfavorably upon students who failed to participate actively in class……
she also would not tolerate behavior(?) that drew attention and disrupted the lesson.
Naturally, using someone’s lap as a chair like this also counted as disruptive behavior.
Seo Ahyeon held Han Taeyang’s hands and made him wrap them around her neck as she mumbled.
“I want to stay like this a little longer……”
“……Seo Ahyeon.”
“Tch. Fine, I’ll get down. There, happy?”
Her coquettish insistence had little effect on Han Taeyang. He narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice, and Seo Ahyeon clicked her tongue at her failed attempt to get her way.
Then she quietly climbed down from Han Taeyang’s lap and naturally took the seat beside him.
Her textbooks had been there in the first place, so there was nothing particularly strange about it.
As a result, Han Taeyang had to rub his stiff lower back from maintaining a straight posture, but—
That was not particularly important.
‘This is going to cause another huge commotion today.’
What he needed to worry about right now was not some insignificant pain in his lower back.
Han Taeyang knew. Just Baek Seol-ah sitting beside him last time had caused all kinds of rumors and gossip to spread around campus.
The anonymous campus communities, including Bamboo Forest, had even overflowed with blatant rumors of an affair.
That was how bad it had gotten from nothing more than Baek Seol-ah sitting next to him and exchanging a few words.
What would happen if word got out that Seo Ahyeon—who, at least on the surface, still had a boyfriend named Kim Minjun—had sat on his lap?
‘……It’ll be a relief if nobody took a picture.’
Suppressing a rising sigh, Han Taeyang needlessly scanned the expressions of the surrounding students.
Sure enough, even after class had begun, several students were still looking this way.
They turned their heads and pretended to be looking elsewhere when their eyes met, but what difference did that make?
To Han Taeyang, their reactions only deepened his sense of disaster.
He cast Seo Ahyeon a displeased sidelong glance, his resentment toward her intensifying for committing something so pointlessly conspicuous first thing on a Monday morning.
“……Ah. Ahem.”
Seo Ahyeon flinched very slightly at the look, then spoke a few words in an exaggeratedly theatrical tone, as though she had anticipated even that.
“Ow, ow, my back.”
“……”
“Maybe it’s because someone kept having his way with me all weekend without a break……. My back and pelvis hurt, and my lower belly’s stinging too. Mmm.”
“……”
“Whaaat……. I’m just saying.”
Then she even lifted her uniform shirt slightly to show her lower abdomen, where a faint bluish bruise had formed.
Han Taeyang had no excuse for that, at least, and reluctantly fell silent.
After Seo Ahyeon had thrown a tantrum about not wanting to spend the night alone in the lounge, he had been forced to bring her to his dorm and live with her there, if only temporarily, for the past two days.
It was true that they had had sex day and night without considering her physical limits.
‘……How was I supposed to know? Who’d have thought thrusting inside her would leave a bruise on the outside?’
Han Taeyang avoided Seo Ahyeon’s gaze with a hollow cough, and she let out a smug little laugh.
Then she poked him in the side with a playful finger and said:
“You’ll lend me your lap during the next class too, right? Hmm? Hmm?”
“……Your next class isn’t the same as mine.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Whatever, just do it for me.”
Seo Ahyeon’s eyes and attitude dripped with affection as she went beyond coquettishness and outright threw a fit.
“Haaah.”
In the end, Han Taeyang sighed, but he still could not flatly refuse her.
In other words, it could be called Seo Ahyeon’s unilateral victory.
Han Taeyang silently nodded, and Seo Ahyeon smiled brightly with a happy expression.
*****
“As you all know, two hundred years ago, after a meteorite whose true nature remains unknown even now fell to Earth, the world underwent a great upheaval.”
“This marked the beginning of a new kind of world known as the Awakened Society. In your case, you are the proud fifth-generation Awakeners who will soon become the backbone of that very Awakened Society.”
“Today, we’ll learn about several incidents that took place during the heyday of the fourth generation, immediately before this fifth generation. Now, if you look at the screen here…….”
Fortunately, once class properly began, Seo Ahyeon did not cling to me any further.
For her part, she opened her textbook and clicked her ballpoint pen, focusing properly on the lesson.
‘……Come to think of it, wasn’t she actually pretty good at theory too?’
Come to think of it, Seo Ahyeon was definitely a student in the upper ranks of the school in terms of her theory grades as well.
Whereas I had neglected theoretical studies throughout my life in this body because I was busy acting like a delinquent.
Unlike me, who, after a year of such behavior, had gone beyond merely acting and become a genuine written-exam dropout, Seo Ahyeon had steadily kept up her grades too.
For some reason, I found myself looking at Seo Ahyeon with a hint of irritation born of jealousy and envy.
Had she felt the prickling of that intangible stare?
Soon, Seo Ahyeon flinched and glanced back at me.
“……W-what? Why are you looking at me like that? You’re freaking me out.”
“What did I do?”
“You were glaring at me like crazy until just now. Weren’t you?”
“You must be imagining it.”
At my flat reply, Seo Ahyeon parted her lips as if she found it absurd.
Of course, that did not mean I was going to willingly reveal what I was thinking.
……Whatever the reason, neglecting my theoretical studies had been my own doing. Wasn’t choosing to play the delinquent 100% convincingly my decision as well?
Still, I couldn’t take out my frustration over that on the innocent Seo Ahyeon.
‘This is more complicated than I thought.’
I merely smacked my lips, flipped through the textbook with a quick rustle, and skimmed its contents.
My resolve not to interfere with the original plot had been shattered long ago anyway.
If so, wouldn’t it be better to start taking care of my theory grades, even this late?
I wouldn’t be able to use my delinquent act as an excuse from now on, either.
I really ought to start studying properly. Though I wasn’t terribly confident.
‘Should I get a crash course from another student?’
It was around then, as I thought of the students at school with top theory grades.
“……Hey, Han Taeyang.”
“……”
“……?”
Seo Ahyeon lowered her voice another notch, lightly tugged at my sleeve, and called my name.
When I turned toward her, she indicated a certain spot in the classroom with her eyes.
……A head of pure white hair with a silvery sheen, as familiar as Seo Ahyeon’s black hair, or perhaps even more so.
I silently pressed my lips together. I immediately looked away, but even so, the force of her presence was impossible to miss.
‘What the hell is her problem…….’
I had been doing my best to ignore her, but the truth was that, ever since class began, that girl—Baek Seol-ah—had been glaring at me with unusual severity and tenacity.
Her golden eyes were so vicious that I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze.
“……You said nothing happened between you and Seol-ah last time. That you two still had a bad relationship, right?”
“……”
“It was a lie after all. If nothing happened, why is she glaring at you like that?”
I made a sour face, unable to find anything to say in response to Seo Ahyeon’s sharp observation.
It was only natural. Could there really have been nothing between Baek Seol-ah and me?
NTS gameplay or whatever aside—if one could dismiss a man and woman pressing their navels together on the same bed as ‘nothing,’ then I could say nothing had happened between Seo Ahyeon and me last night, too.
But that did not mean I could tell Seo Ahyeon the truth as it was.
That was separate from the fact that my relationship with her had become considerably more intimate.
This was a matter of courtesy I owed Baek Seol-ah.
It was simply that the circumstantial evidence was so obvious that continuing to tell lies that would not be believed felt pointless.
“……Oh? So you’re going to keep your mouth shut?”
Despite Seo Ahyeon’s piercing gaze, I did not offer a single word.
I neither revealed the truth nor told a lie.
I did not even answer. I decided to exercise my right to remain silent, and Seo Ahyeon’s lips twisted more and more petulantly, but there was nothing she could do.
And so, I somehow endured an entire hour, scorched by Seo Ahyeon’s cold gaze from beside me and pierced by Baek Seol-ah’s burning stare from diagonally across.
Ding-dong-dang-dong-
At last, the bell signaling the end of class rang.
“We’ll stop here for today. Don’t forget the assignment I gave you, and you know finals are coming up soon, right? Everyone, study hard! See you.”
Teacher Jeong So-yul waved her adorable little arms at the students, then left the classroom first.
And just as the other students’ gazes, which had at least been scattered during class, began converging on me again—
“……Hey.”
Flinch.
A girl who had somehow approached right behind me exuded a chill as if she had cast an ice spell, then jerked her chin toward the classroom exit in a delinquent manner.
“Let’s talk for a bit, Han Taeyang?”
“……”
Naturally, that girl was Baek Seol-ah, whose eyes had burned as if she wanted to devour me throughout the entire class.
Just as I swallowed a sigh at the thought that the inevitable had arrived and half-heartedly began to rise—
Grab!
“?”
All of a sudden, while I was turning toward Baek Seol-ah, I felt a powerful, unmistakable pressure on my right arm.
I blinked stupidly, and Baek Seol-ah likewise furrowed her brow, showing her confusion.
She spoke to the person who had grabbed my right arm and stopped me from standing.
“……It’s been a while, Ahyeon.”
“……”
The instant those words were spoken, the temperature in the classroom seemed to plunge below freezing.
Amid the frigid, frozen atmosphere, the students tactfully began leaving their seats one by one.
Baek Seol-ah wore a strangely hollow smile and added to Seo Ahyeon:
“I have something to discuss with Han Taeyang alone, so may I take this guy with me for a moment?”
There was certainly a natural smile at the corner of her mouth.
But her eyes were not smiling at all, making it eerie.
Wearing that unusually terrifying expression, Baek Seol-ah openly displayed her hostility.
“……No, you can’t.”
“What?”
Though Seo Ahyeon trembled like a frightened red panda, the hand gripping my arm shaking violently, she kept her expression as composed as possible and met that hostility head-on.
She yanked my arm sharply, burying it between her breasts, then gave Baek Seol-ah a prim sidelong look.
“Why are you trying to take someone else’s man away whenever you please? Especially when you have a boyfriend of your own.”
“……”
“If you have something to say, say it here. Right here, while I’m listening too.”
Despite being scared stiff of Baek Seol-ah’s unusually chilling expression, she seemed determined to stop Baek from taking me without a fight.
As if she couldn’t bear to let the same person steal two men she liked—or had liked.
Seo Ahyeon somehow drew on every last scrap of courage she possessed, raised her chin, and glared at Baek Seol-ah.
Crackle-!
……Somehow, it felt as though invisible sparks were flying between the two beautiful girls.
‘Ah.’
I simply stared blankly up at the classroom ceiling and muttered inwardly with utter helplessness.
‘I want to go home…….’
Can’t you two just talk without me? Please.