Chapter 21: They Speak While Looking at Me

Perhaps only lies flow from my lips.

Perhaps all my actions are also false.

But nevertheless, just a little bit.

Maybe that is my true self.

It’s contradictory to mock with words, refuse to give meaning to life, yet always say I want to live, that I don’t want to die, but that’s likely me too.

I want to be recognized, but even when face-to-face, I don’t say it myself.

I want to get angry, but I can’t do anything other than mention someone else and be sarcastic.

It’s incomprehensibly contradictory.

When I assign value to life, what method do I use, and how am I living?

I should definitely give myself a negative score, but because I don’t want to die, I probably just grade leniently and move on.

Because humans are animals that commit suicide if life isn’t worth living.

In that sense, to Seo-jun, I was a human not worth living.

Hearing that from someone I had assigned quite a high value to, no matter how leniently I graded myself, I couldn’t help but give a negative score.

Therefore, I returned to my room, went into the bathroom, and took off all my clothes.

My face is such a mess that forget Seo-jun, even Si-hyun  probably wouldn’t recognize me like this.

Nausea rose, and I gagged over the toilet for a long time.

After spitting out only the coffee I just drank and bitter stomach acid, I flushed the toilet and stood up.

Then I saw the mirror.

After setting the broken bones in my face back to normal, the old me is nowhere to be seen.

Ominous-looking, dry-seeming red eyes.

Ribs clearly visible even though I should be eating properly.

Lips corners that won’t turn down, as if frozen, even though it’s okay to cry now that I’m alone.

My left hand strangely trembling by itself.

The mirror looks at me and speaks.

There’s no need to live so hard.

Everything is futile like grasping at the wind, and whatever you do is only suffering for you.

Why bother breathing?

The figure inside looked like Seo-jun, but looking closely, it was my own reflection.

Me when I was young, during the time I wore a school uniform.

Clutching my trembling hand, I looked around for any sharp object.

I saw the mug used to hold water when brushing teeth.

I grabbed the handle, broke it, and stared at the sharp edge for a long time.

Then, just as I was about to bring it to my face, I stopped and just threw it on the floor.

As expected, I don’t really want to look in the mirror.

I was about to break the bathroom mirror too, but then I remembered I had already broken the one in the living room and just let out a hollow laugh.

I filled the bathtub with warm water, walked over to the wardrobe next to the bed, took out a small handbag, and placed a bottle on the desk.

Then, I slightly opened the wound with a small knife and sprinkled the powder over it.

As the pure white powder began to seep into the blood, the nausea I felt just moments ago subsided slightly.

‘By the way, is there no noise complaints between floors?’

‘They must have built the building really well.’

‘Or perhaps a very patient person lives in the room below.’

‘If someone like me disappeared, wouldn’t I be able to vanish quietly without harming anyone?’

‘It would just be one unpleasant piece of trash disappearing.’

‘Nobody likes me, you know.’

‘Even Si-hyun  only takes care of me because she pities me, so if I disappear, she might be sad for a bit, but her heart will soon feel relieved.’

‘Even Seo-jun, who held my hand and told me she liked me, told me to just die.’

‘Maybe it’s because of you.’

‘But in the end, I am me, so maybe it’s because of me.’

‘I don’t think about dying.’

‘Suicide is utterly terrifying.’

To the question of whether life is worth living or not, and if not, shouldn’t I just die right now, I always think life is worth living.

That’s why I scooped corn flour into a dented aluminum pot full of scratches, turned the stiff faucet handle to roughly mix it with rusty water, and ate it with a spoon.

Even when kids my age from the neighboring shack came, beat me up relentlessly, and took everything from my home, I felt despair but never thought about wanting to die.

Even when a thug told me to sell my body, made a cut on my cheek, and threatened to slit my throat if I spouted nonsense when he came back next time, I didn’t yield.

‘Though I did run away.’

‘That’s how it is.’

‘Why should I feel sad because of some idiot who can’t recognize a single person?’

‘Why should I whine about wanting to die just because I became an idiotic b*tch like you?’

‘Just.’

‘Those f***ing researchers.’

‘Those humans who live happily with the world beneath their feet just because they’re a little strong.’

‘Shouldn’t things like that be the ones to die instead?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’

‘It’s the surrounding environment, the surrounding situation, the people around me who drove me to this.’

‘What’s the use of thinking anything while trapped in this tiny room?’

‘It just festers in my heart, rots for a long time, and then withers away.’

Looking up at the ceiling, perhaps because it’s a school building, I see a plaster ceiling with a sea wave pattern drawn on it.

‘What’s the problem?’

‘What was the problem just now?’

‘I know there’s a problem, but I can’t recall what it was.’

‘Like Seo-jun said earlier, have I really become stupid?’

‘I just can’t understand what I did wrong to end up like this.’

‘Was she a much more precious person than I thought?’

‘She was just a teacher who taught how to use abilities and handle power.’

‘Yes, just a teacher.’

“Ha-rin..?”

‘But why is she right in front of me?’

‘I was in my room just a moment ago.’

————————

“If there are kids bullying you, you need to tell me so I can help.”

“You can’t even think about transferring or dropping out and will have to be at school for the next three years, so you need to say something…”

“Um, what were we talking about?”

“Maybe it’s because of my ability, but my head went blank for a moment.”

At those words, the teacher paused for a moment before continuing her explanation from the beginning.

She said she called me separately after class because of the increasing number of wounds on my body day by day, and my appearance, which clearly didn’t look okay.

And I, who had slept through the entire class, had followed her half-asleep.

‘Was I just continuing yesterday’s thoughts while sleeping?’

“The sparring period is coming up soon, so the kids are all on edge, and various things happen as they try to make similar-level opponents give up without much effort.”

The teacher, who I initially thought strongly resembled Team Leader Joo, but now looked similar in age to Si-hyun , continued speaking while sipping her tea.

“If you just tell me, I can take action.”

“I can easily arrange for isolation so it doesn’t affect you before the sparring matches, and if Ha-rin wants, I can issue disciplinary measures too.”

“Until before the sparring matches?”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes there are people who don’t move as the country dictates and always disrupt order, aren’t there?”

The teacher spoke with what seemed like a rather kind smile.

It felt like she was trying to reassure me.

“The most outstanding person should stand at the very front, and the most inferior person should stand at the very back, but they always use shortcuts.”

“In society, shortcuts might be called an ability, but within this school, the abilities one possesses are everything.”

Her tone was gentle.

“If possible, fighting should happen in the sparring arena.”

“If one dies, it shouldn’t be by disappearing somewhere or being murdered inexplicably within the school, but by fighting to the end in the sparring arena.”

As if stating the obvious.

As if preaching extremely moral words.

But why does it sound so strange to me?

Is it because I didn’t live here, or because I’m from the slums where such words don’t stick no matter how much I hear them?

Or is it because I feel a sense of dissonance at the sight of a teacher saying it’s okay for a student she cherishes so dearly to die in the sparring arena?

“That’s why the winner moves up.”

“Why, even Lee So-hyun, who single-handedly stopped the villains this time, was only D-rank but made it to the finals, didn’t she?”

The more I listened, the less it suited my taste.

I didn’t want to make a fuss, so I just laughed it off lightly.

“But teacher, really, nothing happened.”

At those words, the teacher makes a face that looks incredibly regretful.

‘Is she a very passionate teacher?’

But the reason I came to this school wasn’t to diligently scuffle with students and make it to the finals or anything like that.

Looking up at the ceiling, I see the plaster ceiling with the sea wave pattern here too.

It felt familiar, which somehow made me feel bad.

“The staff room is always open.”

“When things are tough, come find me and tell me anytime.”

“Taking care of students and keeping their minds from wavering is also a teacher’s job.”

I nodded and exited the small room, which had a table placed between two sofas.

—————————–

Excluding the F-ranks, idiots who can’t even properly feel the mana(magic/power) said to be in their bodies, students always take classes on how to handle it.

Moving the instinctively flowing blood, changing its shape, altering its hardness – it seems these also fall under the category of handling mana.

Since they’ve vaguely lumped all the power needed to handle abilities under the term mana.

This was the first time I attended such a class since coming to the academy.

That’s why they say it’s not unheard of for E or F-rank students to awaken their own abilities, rather than just simple physical enhancement, when their lives are in danger.

I wondered if there was any reason to die when it was just students scuffling with weapons among themselves, but then I remembered Hye-yeon who attacked me.

She had thrust the blade without hesitation.

As if she didn’t care whether I lived or died.

‘That kind of thing must be accepted as common sense here.’

This was the first time the world I crawled out of the basement into didn’t seem particularly beautiful.