“Isn’t it uncomfortable to keep wearing only the school uniform like that?”
After fiddling with the sleeve that was large enough to cover half my hand, I raised my head. Cha Jeoh was sitting backward on the chair looking at me.
“There are plenty of other comfortable clothes. Right now at school, there are gym uniforms more comfortable than uniform shirts or vests.”
Listening silently to Cha Jeoh’s words, I lowered my head again and scanned my appearance. I was currently wearing a school uniform shirt and pants that seemed one size too large for my body. Naturally, it was stiff fabric and material incomparable to gym uniforms or sweatsuit outfits, but I’d never particularly thought it was uncomfortable until now.
Washing clothes every time, drying them, and wearing the same clothes multiple times like that was inefficient both time-wise and materially. That’s why I lived selecting and changing into sizes that fit my body relatively well among the clean clothes the twins brought each time. Of course, they were all secondhand items rather than new, but I thought what did it matter as long as there was no blood on them? I also wasn’t a picky person enough to insist on new things in this messed-up world.
So today as always, I had selected appropriate tops and bottoms from the pile of clothes and was wearing them. I’d picked up a shirt, long pants, and vest as if it were natural without even thinking I should consider it, but that seemed to strike Cha Jeoh as strange.
Thinking about it, I didn’t seem to have ever seen Cha Jeoh properly wearing a full school uniform top and bottom.
‘Last autumn too… he was wearing a gym uniform jacket.’
I couldn’t know whether he wore a uniform shirt underneath or just a white t-shirt. But it was clear that he maintained comfortable attire that didn’t get in the way of movement. Well, most people would be like Cha Jeoh. Where would there be students firmly wearing school uniforms when school rules and teachers had disappeared?
“Just, moving without thinking, I keep choosing to wear it like this.”
“Then should I try finding more comfortable clothes next time? What kind of outfit did you usually wear outside school, Hayoung?”
Was there anything worth calling an outfit?
On weekdays, I went to school in the morning and returned straight to the orphanage in the evening without diverging to other paths. Five days a week, I lived wearing only my school uniform all day.
But if you asked whether I was someone who enjoyed going out on weekends and playing around to my heart’s content, absolutely not. So I had virtually no experience wearing what could be called outdoor clothes. Due to the orphanage’s nature of not distinguishing between your clothes and my clothes, even more so, the only thing that could be called ‘my clothes’ was the school uniform.
Of course, besides the school uniform, I had fallen asleep wearing stretched-out t-shirts and pajama pants with baggy knees. But what Cha Jeoh was asking me wasn’t indoor clothes that didn’t matter.
“…I don’t have any.”
“You don’t have any?”
“Yeah. When I wandered around outside, I only wore my school uniform.”
Cha Jeoh’s two eyes narrowed.
“You didn’t even wear outerwear? The winter cold is so harsh, you must have worn a padding jacket or at least a fleece.”
“I didn’t wear them. If anything, all I did was drape a blanket over myself.”
I could see Cha Jeoh opening and closing his mouth as if he couldn’t believe it. But I hadn’t told a lie or made a joke. Though it might look strange when compared to general standards, it was all fact.
“I don’t really feel the cold.”
“…So it wasn’t that you took off your outerwear when you got to school, you really didn’t wear it coming here.”
Cha Jeoh, who had been muttering softly, captured me in his vision of disbelief.
“So that’s why even in summer you dressed so meticulously like that?”
“I don’t really feel the heat either.”
“I wondered where you got the nerve to wear long sleeves and long pants under the scorching sun… you seem like someone who should have collapsed long ago.”
Is it that much?
“No wonder you insisted on just a shirt and vest whether it snowed or the wind and frost blew.”
“Well, when it snowed, I had an umbrella.”
“Just because you don’t get snowed on doesn’t make it okay.”
Cha Jeoh let out a deep sigh. Leaning with both arms draped over the chair back, he stretched his body and muttered.
“Food too, moving around too, and now we’ll have to pay attention to Hayoung’s clothing one by one.”
“There’s no need to go as far as clothes…”
“Hayoung-ah.”
My gaze that had been reflecting Cha Jeoh lukewarmly moved to the side. After kneeling in front of the pile of clothes and rummaging through that mountain for a while, Cha Woodan who had at some point approached right beside me smiled gently.
“Look at this. I found a necktie.”
Then he suddenly showed me a red necktie. Unlike the neckties that ordinary adults wore with suits, a relatively small and short necktie sized for students’ uniforms was gripped in Cha Woodan’s hand.
I had selected shirts, pants, and vests without difficulty, but ultimately couldn’t find a necktie and was going to just not wear one. Of course, what I called searching was all just rummaging through the pile of clothes a couple times before getting tired and giving up.
“It was buried under the clothes. So I guess it didn’t catch your eye, Hayoung.”
Anew, the twins were quite devoted to me.
“How about it? Should I tie it for you?”
Cha Woodan curved the corners of his eyes beautifully and lightly shook the necktie in his grip. As I quietly offered my neck in wordless affirmation, he approached me boldly. The distance of about two steps apart narrowed considerably.
Cha Woodan’s hand that approached me grabbed the folded shirt collar. The movement of carefully smoothing it was excessively slow and tenacious, so my body flinched at the awkward sensation of the shirt grazing my nape. There was no way Cha Woodan would miss such a reaction from me.
“Sorry.”
An apology uttered small in a lowered voice brushed past my ear. I couldn’t quite gauge what the apology was for, exactly what he was sorry about. Looking up at Cha Woodan close by, I soon turned my head obliquely.
My eyes met with Cha Jeoh who had been watching us the whole time. He produced a smooth smile as if he’d been waiting.
“Summer’s gotten quite close too, so how about short-sleeved dress shirts? If you wear sky blue on top and black slacks on bottom… I think you’d look quite pretty.”
As if changing my outfit back and forth in his head, Cha Jeoh’s gaze left me and fumbled somewhere in the air. I was looking at him pondering while supporting his chin with his hand and tapping his lower lip with his fingertips.
Cha Woodan’s hand tightening the necktie gently suddenly stopped. Feeling him turn his head toward the window, I too turned my head following Cha Woodan one beat late. As expected, beyond the empty schoolyard without a single monster, a careful commotion beyond stillness was hovering.
The place my gaze reached was the school gate, which could be called the school’s largest entrance. Unlike a few weeks ago when it had always been wide open except during class time, since monsters appeared and this place became a fortress for Hanul High survivors, the iron bars of the school gate were always firmly locked. As if that wasn’t enough, they’d even pulled out several chairs and desks to build a tangled wall on the inside of the iron bars.
And now there, a small group of survivors wearing Hanul High gym uniforms were jumping over the iron bars and coming inside.
“It seems the athletic club survivors have returned.”
Cha Woodan muttered low. Only then did I recall one of the school news items Cha Woodan had conveyed to me not long ago.
When I still hadn’t recovered from my calf wound, people from among the school survivors had been recruited for food exploration and securing, he’d said. From what I heard from Cha Woodan, most of the few remaining athletic club students had volunteered saying they would go. Of course, it wasn’t certain whether that was really their own will without falling victim to the student council president’s ability.
Even if the student council president had manipulated them, it wouldn’t be for a reason like ‘I hate it because it’s swarming’ that I’d heard last time. Since they belonged to athletic clubs, many had awakened combat-type abilities, and most had basic physical abilities above average. Pushing such people into danger simply to reduce numbers was a stupid act separate from moral standards.
The student council president probably judged that since the athletic club students were that skilled, if he sent them outside, they would surely return with results.
‘He said they were going to a small mart near the school.’
Since I didn’t know how many survivors had initially left the school, it was difficult to determine whether there were casualties aside from the seven survivors currently visible. But I could clearly see that none of them had major injuries enough to make movement difficult. It was fortunate for them that the healers were still maintaining their strike.
A hand appearing from my left pressed against the window frame. When I looked to the side, I could see Cha Jeoh who had approached soundlessly staring intently outside the window.
Soon he furrowed his brow slightly.
“…Those bastards seem to have brought something unnecessary attached to their tail.”
Something unnecessary. Chewing over that word, I examined the school gate beyond the window again.
“You mean monsters?”
“No, people. Are they just ones coincidentally passing by this area…”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”
Cha Woodan, who interjected and added, tapped one point on the window.
“Their presence isn’t leaving. Like they’re hovering around this vicinity, not moving from the same spot.”
“Pathetic bastards. How little must be in their heads not to know other survivors are following and to come back grinning.”
“Hayoung-ah, should I go out?”
At Cha Woodan’s question reaching me, I slowly rolled my eyes.
