“One more time.”
“Cha Jeoh.”
“Just one more time.”
“Cha Je… Stop it already.”
After repeating the same name then chiding him, Cha Jeoh, who had been clinging close to my side, put on a pitiful crying face.
“Really. Really just one last time, Hayoung-ah. Hm?”
I pressed down firmly on that face he was pushing at me. Even while yielding and stepping back obediently, Cha Jeoh couldn’t compose his expression dripping with disappointment and regret.
If I’d known he’d be this annoying, I should have pretended not to be able to memorize his name to the end even if not for the sake of stubbornness. As I swallowed a sigh in regret, Cha Woodan, who had been sitting on my right bedside opposite Cha Jeoh, interjected.
“If you like having your name called that much, I’ll call it for you.”
“What?”
“Jeoh-ya. Jeoh-ya. Jeoh…”
Watching Cha Jeoh scowl fiercely, Cha Woodan calmly curled up the corners of his mouth. Withdrawing my interest from that scene, I turned my gaze toward my left calf. As I looked at the bandage Cha Woodan had changed to a new one this morning, yesterday’s events that had faded to the back of my memory came to mind again.
No matter how uninterested in others I was, I wasn’t oblivious. There was no way I hadn’t noticed that Cha Woodan’s attitude had been subtly off for a while after barely catching me when I tried to escape out the window.
I fiddled with the end of the firmly knotted bandage.
It wasn’t just yesterday. The touch of Cha Woodan’s hands just a few hours ago when he applied disinfectant he said he’d seized from the auditorium and treated the wound also had aspects that were a bit different from usual.
‘How should I put it.’
Should I say tenacious, or should I say mischievous?
In that warmth of unwrapping the bandage, examining the wound, applying medicine and stroking my calf, there wasn’t the slightest sign of trying to threaten me. Yet strangely, I couldn’t deny the eerie chill that brushed past before my eyes.
“Why?”
At the voice heard from my right, I slowly turned my head. Cha Woodan, who had at some point stopped wrestling with Cha Jeoh, was staring at me with a gentle smile.
“Is the bandage uncomfortable? Too tight?”
“……”
“Come here, let me see. I’ll wrap it again.”
Thinking about it now, I wondered if I was too easily giving my vital points to them. Comfortably entrusting my body like this to predators several times stronger and superior compared to the survivors including myself—didn’t we lack accumulated time and trust?
As the saying goes, if Cha Woodan and Cha Jeoh suddenly turned and tried to kill me, I would lose my life without even properly resisting once. At some point, even the thought ‘I should leave alone when the time comes’ had faded.
“…It’s fine. Not uncomfortable.”
At the answer I gave belatedly, Cha Woodan’s smile deepened. I pretended not to notice and withdrew my gaze because I couldn’t see his inner thoughts and didn’t want to try to figure them out either.
Meanwhile, Cha Jeoh was pouring interest into my left hand that was sprawled without will. Gently grasping what had been carelessly abandoned on the bed sheet, he kneaded my palm with force that didn’t hurt.
“We feed you well, so why do you seem to be getting thinner…”
“It’s because you can’t have proper meals. Always just getting injured.”
Cha Woodan chimed in. At that, I tried clenching and unclenching my right hand that wasn’t caught.
I didn’t know whether I was on the plump or thin side, but there was absolutely no problem moving. Rather, it seemed like I’d gained plump weight thanks to Cha Jeoh who, regardless of my words that I originally didn’t eat things like breakfast, forced food on me every morning.
“This won’t do. I’ll go get some food.”
‘Again?’
It didn’t seem like even two hours had passed since I’d swallowed a big energy bar for lunch.
Before I could say anything, Cha Jeoh sprang up. Then, making a mockery of how he’d been clinging as if he didn’t want to leave me, he turned his back cleanly and moved away. Watching that back, unable to hide my absurdity, I heard the sound of small laughter flowing from beside me.
Leaving Cha Jeoh disappearing into the depths of the acorn warehouse behind, I turned to look at Cha Woodan.
‘His laughter… seems to have increased a bit.’
Of course, how many long days could Cha Woodan and I have spent together, but that subtle yet clear difference was particularly noticeable. Compared to when we met in the art room close to two weeks ago, his characteristic coolness had faded.
Perhaps because of that, my eyes were especially drawn to Cha Woodan’s beauty that I couldn’t take my eyes off anyway. A beautiful person is uniformly lovely whether in a cold atmosphere or warm atmosphere, and if it’s a change that occurred in one person, it was bound to provide novel stimulation.
From the moment Cha Jeoh left until now, Cha Woodan received my pure gaze without a hint of wavering. Unlike me who couldn’t bring myself to close my eyelids trembling finely, entranced by his dazzling face, he curved the corners of his eyes beautifully while enduring with open eyes without wavering.
“Should I give you some?”
A question I’d already experienced hearing once brushed past my ear. At that, just in case, I raised my hand and felt under my nose. Fortunately, there was no sticky blood on my fingertips.
Ignoring Cha Woodan who this time burst into deep laughter as if openly teasing, I brought up the main topic as if conversation had been the goal from the start.
“The student council president’s awakened ability is a mental-type ability, right?”
The warmth on Cha Woodan’s face that had been seeping toward me subsided.
“You saw?”
“Yeah. He tried it on me and it didn’t seem to work well, so he was trying to attempt it on you too.”
Cha Woodan slowly rolled his eyes and chewed over my words. After waiting for him to sufficiently draw the situation in his head, I soon continued speaking.
“If the target using a mental-type ability is in a state where they’ve also awakened a mental-type ability, is it difficult to deal with them?”
“Probably… generally yes. It’s not universal though.”
Cha Woodan turned his eyes that had been wandering through the air and stared at me again.
“With mental-type abilities, success depends on how thick the opponent’s will and brain defense barrier are. As is common, it works easily on people with weak mental strength, and you have to put in a bit more effort on people with strong mental strength.”
Since people who’ve awakened mental-type abilities can rummage through someone else’s head at will and still endure, they generally have high mental strength.
I nodded slightly at Cha Woodan’s additional words.
“Then are there any other conditions by chance? Like mental-type abilities not working on people with certain characteristics… something like that.”
“Well. I don’t know if there might be variation depending on each awakened ability, but I don’t have any. If I invest enough time, I can infiltrate anyone’s head.”
“Could other mental-type abilities have slightly more demanding conditions?”
“That possibility isn’t completely absent. But why?”
After tapping my round knees with my fingertips, I slowly opened my mouth.
“The student council president’s ability doesn’t seem to work on me.”
“It didn’t work? Only on you?”
“Probably, only on me.”
When I heard Cha Woodan’s story, I’d hoped there might be room to break through that question, but instead it felt like falling deeper into a labyrinth.
‘…It seems investigating my awakened ability in detail should be the priority.’
In the end, all the questions came down to ‘my ability that even I don’t know.’ The fact that despite it being an ability I myself awakened, I couldn’t completely grasp it was already a differentiating point different from others, so if I could just solve this, I could dig into the subsequent question marks as well.
I was firming my resolve that I should soon make a plan related to my ability and try something. Cha Woodan, who had been quietly watching me, opened his mouth.
“Or, Hayoung-ah.”
“……”
“Should I try using my ability on you?”
“…What?”
A tone full of confusion popped out as is.
“Since what I awakened is also a mental-type ability. If I try using my ability on you, we might be able to figure something out.”
How about it? There wasn’t a speck of suspicion on Cha Woodan’s face asking that. Looking at him who seemed to claim with his whole body ‘I’m harmless,’ it felt like I’d be helplessly entranced. After moving my mouth, I barely held onto my mental thread.
“…No. Is there really a need to go that far?”
“Why, are you worried I’ll do something to your head? If I was going to do it, I would’ve done it already, Hayoung-ah.”
It was a valid point, but that didn’t make the ‘what if’ anxiety disappear. Moreover, I was even more so because I’d been noticing the strange change Cha Woodan had been exuding from yesterday to this morning. I didn’t want to expose myself to needless danger.
I could see bright yellow thread rising from Cha Woodan who was tilting his head slightly. That thing softly emitting a golden light seemed to be wriggling and gauging my reaction.
The learning that most mental-type abilities seemed to be formed in thread shapes was brief. I moved my lips to refuse again.
“Really don’t nee—”
“Hayoung-ah.”
Cha Jeoh, who had returned just in time, pressed his body to his seat once more.
