Chapter 37 – Test (1)
Early in the morning, I opened the front door and stepped out. The pads supplied by the Hunter Academy rattled in the bag that was busy preparing for the exam. The sound of the door locking automatically seemed to encourage me to do well in the exam. When I went down the stairs and went out to the yard of my own room, I saw someone standing on a pillar in the parking lot.
“Suhyun-san.”
Ichigaya Ichiae. A companion that will be with me while I live at Hunter Academy. She was staring at me with her eyes glowing red. The slightly curved eyebrows seemed to be smiling. I said.
“Are you out early? You can come slowly. You said you would wait.”
“I can’t keep you waiting.”
There was still plenty of time before class started. Looking at Ichie, I thought once again that it was good that she had decided to make her room here. The first room I chose was something unpleasant when I thought about it in many ways, and it was canceled because Ichie strongly opposed it. However, it didn’t make sense to rent a room in Jangan-dong with Ichie over senior Yoo-jeong, so I chose a one-room village between Jangan-dong and the academy as a compromise.
It was because it was a suitable distance for senior Yoo-jeong to go to play, and it was also near Jangan-dong, which Ichie said.
“It makes sense. Test ball… Did Boo work hard?”
Why is the sound of studying so erotic? Every time I had sex with Yoojung-senpai, I played around with ‘studying’ and ‘studying’, so it seemed like ‘study’ had become a dirty word. Ichie looked at me a little strangely when I stopped studying and answered.
“I worked hard. Get first place and get a subsidy.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Let’s go eat something delicious.”
She looked at me and said so. He meant to go with me. I nodded. Ichie took out his cell phone and showed the picture.
“I went here with my relatives the other day, but my family couldn’t eat spicy food, so I had a mild taste. Go and eat something spicy.”
It was a dakgalbi house. I was good at eating spicy food. To enjoy the spicy taste of yukgaejang soup and bean sprout soup, of course, you have to eat spicy food well. I nodded and asked.
“Do you cook rice?”
“Of course, stir-fry. If you don’t stir-fry, you won’t go.”
“Ichie is Korean now.”
“I am still Japanese.”
Ichie replied jokingly. I smiled and walked toward the academy. Ichie asked me.
“Supremacy. What will you do if you come second?”
“Because Ichie is going to win first place?”
“Yes. That’s why I give up the second place to Soo-hyun.”
“If you get second place… I’m new to my own room this time, so I’m going to buy a blanket and some clothes.”
Over the weekend, I felt it while having soggy sex with senior Yoo Jeong on a thin matrix. You need a soft bed and a cozy duvet. Falling on the thin fabric, love couldn’t feel so dry. She said to Ichie.
“It’s realistic. Aren’t things like computers right? Guys like games.”
“I am not good at games. After becoming a hunter, I really don’t have time to do it.”
“Then what do you do when you rest?”
The day ended with meditation and bedtime after training. In fact, talking to Ichie or having sex with senior Yoojung was all I did in my free time. I thought about how to respond to her words. No matter how much it is, it’s not like ‘Have sex with senior Yoojung’, right?
“Just, like, meditating at home. I look at the V-tube on my phone and that’s it.”
“Then it’s no fun. Dad told me to enjoy life when I was young.”
“You are a good person. Come to think of it, Ichie couldn’t hear what his father was doing. What kind of people are the Ichie family?”
“My father is in the construction business. Ichigaya Gumi.”
It seemed like a pretty big company. I don’t know much about the construction industry, so I nodded and said.
“Is this a big company?”
“Big company. It is the second largest in Kanto.”
You mean very big? I nodded again and said.
“Then Ichie is a noble lady.”
“That’s right. I called her lady at home.”
It seemed like a really big family. I was a bit nervous and decided to erase the story from a while ago. This is because from the moment you see a person in the background, you cannot understand the essence of that person.
“It’s already here.”
“It’s close.”
“Yes? Did you get a good room?”
Ichie glanced at me at those words and went into the classroom without answering. I thought I was doing something wrong, so I thought again, but I didn’t do anything wrong. Ichie seemed to have remembered something unpleasant for a moment.
Entering the room, we sat down. Even though it was the day of the exam, the atmosphere was quite chaotic. There were students talking about what they would do on the weekend, and there were students studying because they were really greedy for the subsidy. It was like people in different classes.
Chunbae was listening to music alone, shaking her head with earphones on. Kim Joo-sung and Kim Chun-bae, who seemed to have been quite close in the beginning, stopped going out together these days. Kim Chun-bae was still in the lower ranks of strength below 10, and rumors circulated that Kim had reached his training limit and would sign up for an additional course soon.
Chunbae Kim saw us enter and abruptly stood up. He strode in front of me and Ichie and said to Ichie.
“Ichigaya-san. Wait, can we talk?”
“Story?”
Ichie asked back as if he couldn’t understand the meaning. Chunbae nodded her head, looked around, and spoke again.
“It’s difficult here, so I’ll go and talk separately.”
“I do it here. Is it an important story?”
“Ah, hey, Joe, it’s a bit difficult to talk about here. That, tha, let’s go and talk separately.”
Ichie looked around and nodded slowly before standing up. As soon as Chunbae and Ichie left, a student next to Kim Jooseong opened his mouth.
“Look at that guy, he’s a Japanese guy, he thinks he’ll go out with Ji, and he’s working. Fuck you bastard.”
After hearing that, Kim Joo-seong defended Chun-bae in a calm tone.
“Don’t talk like that. He’s not a bad kid.”
“Damn it.”
Kim Joo-sung laughed at her reply. Among the students, dissatisfaction with Kim Chun-bae was bursting out one by one.
“Wash that bastard and go. It smells so fucking weird.”
“I was talking to Jinpyo and I the other day, and he suddenly interrupted me? ‘That’s not good…’ Who the fuck asked?”
I did not intervene in their complaints. Because it had nothing to do with me. I didn’t want to defend Kim Chun-bae, but I didn’t want to get in between them and curse together. It seemed that even among the children she trained with, there were many who were dissatisfied with her attitude toward Kim Chun-bae.
“Do you know that he attacked the instructor the other day? They openly asked why I had to train like this when I had such a damn good intelligence? No, who gets trained because he is an asshole?”
“Once in a while, you ask for a break, and you fucking whine that you’re having a hard time. I really hate to hear it. If you look at what she is doing during recess, she is sitting in the corner of the gym playing some weird game.”
“I saw it the other day, and the instructor told me to work hard, so he suddenly said, ‘I’m working hard too.’”
“Really? You said?”
Kim Joo-seong was also surprised and asked back. His face was full of surprise and interest.
I looked at Ichie and Chunbae, who were talking in the hallway. Chunbae was talking about something serious, but the listener only twisted her head with a sour expression on her face.
What are you talking about?
*****
“That, Jung Su-hyeon, he, uh, he’s a really weird, nasty, bad kid.”
Chunbae Kim stuttered and said. Ichie tilted her head. She was bewildered now. It was because she hadn’t expected that a human without one’s knowledge would bring up such talk about her own ‘partner’.
“Suddenly?”
“He, he, now, I don’t know. Hey, he’s a bad boy. Ni, the nickname starts with Ada Bomber. I, what this means is that it only picks out girls and calls people who just do weird things.”
Ichie was looking at Chunbae with a calm gaze. Chunbae couldn’t meet Ichie’s eyes. He kept avoiding her gaze, scratching his head and crossing his legs. Ichie was troubled as he fidgeted with her sword hilt. His fingers moved in a steady rhythm, as if he were playing a piano on the hilt of his sword.
Tuck, Tuck, Tuck
Chunbae moved her body in time with the beat. Chunbae said.
“I-Ichigaya-san doesn’t know much about Korea, so I…”
“I am.”
Ichie opened her mouth. Chunbae shut her mouth. Ichie took another look at Chunbae and said firmly.
“I don’t like people who say bad things.”
Ichie said that and opened the door again and entered. She didn’t mind Chunbae coming in and her door was closed. Chunbae opened the door belatedly, and she trudged in. He glared at her with a drooping face.
*****
What is this kid? Do you want to fight me? I couldn’t understand Chunbae’s hostility. It was because I really hadn’t done anything to Kim Chun-bae. Ichie had a slightly upset face. I said.
“It makes sense. What happened outside?”
She glanced at me and shook her head.
“No big deal.”
And told me again
“Suhyun-sang is a good person.”
“Uh… Thank you?”
Ichie nodded with a satisfied face. As soon as Chun-bae sat down, the man she was talking to Kim Joo-seong said.
“Hey, so what did you do outside?”
Chunbae did not answer. The man pretended to be friendly and tapped Chunbae on the arm and asked again.
“Ah, Chunbae, tell me. Uh? Huh?”
“Oh I don’t know!”
Kim Chun-bae got up from his seat in anger at his actions. Regardless of Chunbae, the students we were talking to, I, and Ichi all looked at Chunbae in amazement. The man said with a puzzled expression.
“Ah Okay. If you put it nicely, why the fuck are you screaming?”
And at that moment, the door opened. Teacher Lee Jung-ah was walking with her exam papers full. She said with a nonchalant expression.
“Yes. Everyone. Then, we will start the test right away, as we instructed you before.”
The atmosphere, which had not been cool, suddenly calmed down with the word test.
