Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
66. Another candidate (4)
Gye Idam deeply contemplated whether to quit the Guideline Club or not.
The moment he made up his mind to make excuses and run away, another student entered the Guideline Club’s room.
The new person to enter was someone Gye Idam knew.
‘Uh, that’s… the first place!’
The freshman representative, Cheon Dongha, who he saw during the entrance ceremony, came in.
Meeting his eyes through the half-rimmed glasses, his gaze felt very frosty.
While Gye Idam was momentarily scared because of Cheon Dongha’s cold impression, Oh Heyji spoke up to Cheon Dongha.
“Ah, you’re Dongha, right? Come in. You were great during the entrance ceremony.”
“The entrance ceremony?”
“Ye, you read the freshman oath once and memorized it all, didn’t you? And you watched the rehearsal to help in the preparation for the entrance ceremony.”
“I memorized the oath immediately because it wasn’t very long.”
Gye Idam listened to this conversation in a sour mood.
From the standpoint of a person who personally saw the entrance ceremony at that time, the freshman oath didn’t feel exactly short.
Seeing that Cheon Dongha seemed to have a good brain, he suddenly felt disgusted.
Looking at Cheon Dongha, Gye Idam recalled someone.
‘That stubborn fucker also had a good head, and even with the military service creed… Uh?’
But Gye Idam’s thoughts suddenly melted like a bubble.
He only unconsciously tried hard to recall that thought that disappeared so vainly, but it was useless.
While Gye Idam stood there, flustered, a prickly noise hit his ears.
“Hello! I’m Ma Jinseung! I entered the Guideline Club after personally applying. Please take care of me!”
Gye Idam didn’t like Ma Jinseung’s booming voice.
If he had a rubber hammer in his hand, he might have swung it towards Ma Jinseung.
Luckily, before Gye Idam’s face twisted, Cheon Dongha suggested that Ma Jinseung lowered his voice.
Hearing how they talked, the two seemed to be in the same class.
“Ah, you’re that kid with that particular motive for application, huh?”
Oh Hyeji met with Ma Jinseung for the first time, but she seemed to know a bit about him.
But there was something that bothered him about what Oh Hyeji said.
‘Motive for application? I wasn’t asked about such a thing…’
From the beginning, as Gye Idam accepted Ham Geun-hyeong’s offer, he didn’t have anything like a motive for application and no one asked him about it.
In Ma Jinseung’s case, it seemed he didn’t receive a recommendation, and joined through an interview after personally applying.
Even though no one asked, Ma Jinseung started to explain his motive for application.
“I decided to take the Flame category ability user I met in the Eungwang School for the first time as my rival and take him down! Because that rival joined the Student Council, I chose the Guideline Club.”
“Is that so? Who is that rival?”
“Yeom Junyeol!”
When Yeom Junyeol’s name came out, everyone, who was watching, showed surprise.
Gye Idam remained expressionless, but inside, he began treating Ma Jinseung like a fool.
‘Taking the Yong tribe’s descendant as your rival? Are you out of your mind?’
When the 2nd year students asked Ma Jinseung why he took a Flame category ability user as his rival, he answered ‘Because my Gwangrim is weak to fire!’.
Rather than thinking that Ma Jinseung was courageous, Gye Idam thought he was foolish.
‘Your opponent is a Yong tribe’s descendant, and your abilities are incompatible. There is no way you will win. Is your voice so loud because your head is empty?’
Gye Idam thought that the Guideline Club’s members would sneer at Ma Jinseung.
If they looked down at Ma Jinseung, he planned to ride the wave and add a word too.
But no one sneered at Ma Jinseung.
“Hahaha, there is a Yong teacher at our school, so be careful. I think He will just watch if it looks fun, but if Junyeol-yi gets hurt, He won’t stay quiet.”
“Good luck! I won’t help you, but I’ll cheer for you.”
As warm words poured in, rather Gye Idam felt he was more foolish than Ma Jinseung.
‘… I kept myself together.’
Gye Idam swallowed all sharp words he wanted to say to Ma Jinseung and stayed silent.
Currently, all Gye Idam could do was to pretend to be taciturn.
“Don’t cause harm to your surrounding.”
“Got it!”
Even Cheon Dongha, who had a good head and looked cold, didn’t sneer at Ma Jinseung.
Gye Idam fell into a sense of shame that was difficult to express in words.
‘I’m not a duncehead, that bastard is a duncehead… Why do I feel like this?’
He wasn’t able to easily escape the Guideline Club and the time passed.
He made up his mind to leave every morning, but as he dealt with the class 0’s ambushes, class 0’s attacks, class 0’s rampages, class 0’s revenges, etc, the day would end quickly.
The 1st year students mainly faced against the 1st year class 0, but worthy of the rascals cited as the worst and strongest among the generations, they caused incidents often and they were truly brutal.
If the 2nd and 3rd years Guideline Club’s seniors helped, it would be possible to somewhat quickly resolve it.
But because the 2nd and 3rd year class 0 were especially running wild, the seniors were busy.
In the end, the problems caused by the 1st year class 0 had to be dealt with by the 1st years only on many occasions.
“No, if they wanted to hear Blue Violinist’s performance, they should have obediently shoved themselves into a corner of dormitory and listen to it there. Why the hell did they occupy the Hoyeon Building.”
“I guess it’s because senior Kwon Jane-nim often performed in the Hoyeon Building. They must have done as it a prayer for Her to come to Korea.”
“Blue Violinist didn’t visit Korea for quite a while! She obviously won’t come whether they turn the music on there or offer sacrifices.”
Today, the 1st year class 0 occupied the Hoyeon Building without a permission to watch the video of Kwon Jane’s concert and caused a commotion.
It seemed they invaded and occupied it by surprise, because the permission to use Hoyeon Building wasn’t easily given.
“Keuk, I wasn’t able to play a role today too…!”
“Jinseung, you asked Junyeol-yi for a spar during the lunch break and used up all your superpower wave. I think you should be glad you weren’t hurt by the class 0’s kids.”
Ma Jinseung’s face wilted at Cheon Dongha’s advice.
It looked just like the shabby grass scraps Ma Jinseung summoned with his Gwangrim.
With Cheon Dongha standing at his side, Ma Jinseung looked even more pathetic.
‘If one were to pick Yeom Junyeol’s as rival, it should be that Cheon Dongha.’
Cheon Dongha played the decisive role even today.
After thoroughly scrutinizing the sealed by the 1st year class 0 Hoyeon Building with the Thousand Li Eye, Cheon Dongha formed an infiltration strategy and carried it out — be it the created strategy or the clarity of orders, there were no gasps.
Then, the conversation focus shifted to Gye Idam.
“Idam-ah, you’ve worked hard today too.”
“Without Idam, we might have not been able to endure until teacher Jegal Jaegeol-nim came.”
Words of praise were thrown to Gye Idam.
These days, the Guideline Club members grew quite close.
It wasn’t long since they first met, but as they did the Guideline Club’s activities, something like a sense of camaraderie sprouted out.
They even treated the man-of-few-words Gye Idam well without any bias.
“Because I couldn’t control my Gwangrim, I sealed the superpower waves at our side too.”
Gye Idam hid his awkward feelings and said.
Gye Idam’s Gwangrim ‘Night Silence Fog[1]’ interrupted the circulation of superpowers of the targets who touched the fog.
The problem was that this fog’s effect didn’t differentiate between opponents and allies.
Today, Gye Idam’s fog disrupted the superpower wave flow of everyone, excluding Gye Idam.
So because of Gye Idam’s Gwangrim, the 1st year class 0 and the Guideline Club members couldn’t properly use their superpowers.
‘I still can’t control the fog very well. I used it out of urgency, but… it was dangerous.’
When Gye Idam self-reproached.
“Geun Chansol and Wang Chansol’s superpowers are annoying. Though our side’s superpower wave was also sealed, it was a good decision.”
Cheon Dongha’s tone was cold as usual, but the content wasn’t.
After Cheon Dongha, Ma Jinseung also praised Gye Idam with a loud voice, but the more he listened to it, the more upset he became.
He wasn’t simply thankful.
‘What of becoming close? After all, they will…’
Suddenly a very gruesome sight came to mind.
It was a sight of the two Guideline Club members in front of him right now, Cheon Dongha and Ma Jinseung covered in blood.
‘Uh?’
However, that scene was immediately erased from his mind.
Gye Idam had no clue what he was trying to to think about a moment ago.
‘It’s so suffocating, as if I have fog covering my mind…’
Time passed, and Gye Idam’s symptoms became even more serious.
In early May, thanks to Jegal Jaegeol’s influence over the 1st year class 0, the Guideline Club’s work largely decreased, but the unexpected situation became worse.
The problem wasn’t just in Gye Idam’s head.
‘There is something strange about this school.’
Gye Idam started to feel uneasy about something in Eungwang School.
Just when he was about to forget that bad feeling, something in his everyday life would flare them up.
“Those things these days, I say, they know no manners! Hmph.”
One of the roots of the unease Gye Idam felt was teacher Choe Pyeondeuk.
Choe Pyeondeuk bossed around the ordinary students and teachers in lower position than him, so most of the students considered him unpleasant.
The female student from the same class as Gye Idam, Hae Chaea, even considered dropping out of school, because of Choe Pyeondeuk’s harassment.
Hae Chaea, who requested a consultation with Gye Idam on the matter of dropping out, lamented as such:
“Why does the director board leave such teachers alone? Recently, they even criticized teacher Gong Cheonghwon-nim, who protected me…”
Recently, Choe Pyeondeuk was persistently harassing the irregular fix-term teacher Gong Cheonghwon.
Because Gong Cheonghwon, who became his target, was outstanding on all sides, superpowers, popularity, looks and personality, in contrast to Choe Pyeondeuk, the student’s resentment grew even more.
‘It’s natural for such a fucker to be nauseating, but even so, it feels like there is one more reason…’
There were many other strange things, besides Choe Pyeondeuk’s pretentious Self-importance.
There was also the School Editorial Magazine Club, that wrote articles without properly checking facts and seemed to be picking a fight with the Newspaper Club.
The Guideline Club came into contact with the School Editorial Magazine Club’s member.
That member refused to answer the Guideline Club’s questions and left as if fleeing.
Gye Idam was bothered by the School Editorial Magazine Club’s strangely fearful attitude.
‘What am I going to do with the fact that I’m bothered? I’m going to immediately forget what I was thinking anyway!’
Gye Idam felt like he was gradually going insane.
But the surrounding wasn’t able to properly recognize Gye Idam’s mental state.
It was because though compared the beginning Gye Idam actions were more aggressive and short-tempered, it wasn’t much of a problem.
Because there were many openly crazy people at the Eungwang School, Gye Idam seemed nothing but normal.
And right now, the representative example of the openly crazy person was in front of Gye Idam’s eyes.
“In any case, the first and second place are going to TaoWonu-WooGihwan-TaoWonu-WooGihwan… Even if I study, I won’t be a first place, first place… Hihihi.”
In the middle of the night, Heavenly Wings (Cheonik) Mountain.
The 2nd year student, who was like an extra, was blabbering dogshit, while loitering on the mountain path.
His identity was the 2nd year class 0’s president Woo Gihwan.
‘He was closer to normalcy at the beginning of the year.’
Until he entered the Eungwang School, to be precise, until he met Tao Wonu, Woo Gihwan didn’t even miss the 1st place.
After entering the Eungwang School, he tasted a desperate defeat.
Even though he was somewhat of an oddball, nevertheless, there was an opinion that among the class 0, Woo Gihwan was normal, but as his defeats continued, he started to go mental.
It was a huge accomplishment to continue to maintain the 2nd place, so it seemed that he was going mad.
No, looking at him, it seemed that Woo Gihwan already went mad.
‘… Let’s go back and go to sleep.’
He went on a night walk because of suffocation in his heart, but Gye Idam, acted like he saw nothing and turned on his heel.
But before he could descend the mountain, someone appeared.
“Gihwan-ah, you will catch a cold. Let’s just come down.”
The person who suddenly appeared was the 2nd year Earthly Wings Council’s member, Seong Siwan.
Because Seong Siwan memorized all the names and faces of the dormitory students, he also spoke on friendly terms with Gye Idam.
‘… Meddlesome[2] bastard.’
Seong Siwan seemed to be meddling with Woo Gihwan too.
As expected, Woo Gihwan didn’t welcome it.
“I’m not listening to anyone weaker than me.”
“Yeah? Shall I call teacher Im Yeonhwa-nim then?”
“Keuk… I won’t lose to the homeroom teacher!”
“Hahaha, say that after you win at least once.”
In the end, Woo Gihwan followed Seong Siwan down the mountain.
In terms of grades, Woo Gihwan was much better, but Seong Siwan was above him when it came to dealing with people.
Seong Siwan even spoke up to Gye Idam, who missed the timing to slip away.
“Idam-ah, let’s go down together.”
It would be annoying if he was marked by that meddlesome senior, who captured Woo Gihwan with one move.
Gye Idam quietly nodded and followed the two seniors.
While going down the mountain, Seong Siwan actively led the conversation, but Woo Gihwan spoke incomprehensible nonsenses and Gye Idam kept his mouth shut.
While descending, Gye Idam fell into distracting thoughts.
‘… For some reason, the grass on the Heavenly Wings (Cheonik) Mountain doesn’t look very well. Is it because of my mood?’
For a moment the sight of all the plants on the Heavenly Wings (Cheonik) Mountain wilted and dead and the rotten ground flashed in his mind.
But Gye Idam didn’t think deeply about it.
‘Even if I try to think about it, it’s useless…’
And after that midnight mountain walk, Seong Siwan started to talk to Gye Idam more often.
*~*~*
[1] Night Silence Fog — Silence ‘정적(jeongjeok)’ also means calm, without emotions, but it has a few homonyms: ‘stillness, achievements in politics, first legitimate son, traces of emotional circumstances, emotional or being rich in emotions’. What’s more 밤정(bamjeong), which is ‘night+part of word for silence’ (they’re written together), can mean: ‘to return to original, proper state’, ‘to make a chaotic world peaceful’, or ‘feeling of resistance/opposition or hate’.
[2] Meddlesome — literally ‘wide front upper garment‘.
Translator’s note: I already said that I love Gye Idam as a narrative tool, but damn, he is also explicitly fleshing out that ‘story about how people change’ that author-nim said was their motive for writing ex replay, and I love him for that too.
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