Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
54. Dongsaeng (6)
I decided to accept the magnanimous suggestion of the title hero Ju Su-hyeok and go to see the Korean Series game with the class children.
After Ju Su-hyeok handed me six tickets first, he said he would get more seats if more people are coming.
Currently, there were ten students attending school in our class.
It was a situation where four more tickets would be necessary, but fortunately exactly six people revealed intentions to see this event.
“I’ll go! I want to hear Miro sing in person!”
“If Geurin is going, then I’m going too.”
“… I want to go.”
Min Geurin, Song Daeseok and Han Yi replied that they would go right away.
Putting aside Song Daeseok, who answered he would follow Min Geurin without thinking, Min Geurin and Han Yi were clearly looking forward to Dokgo Miro’s stage.
‘Strictly speaking, we can’t call it ‘Dokgo Miro’s stage’, but we want to see it because Dokgo Miro will sing a national anthem in a meaningful place, right?’
According to what Ju Su-hyeok said, all Playlist final participants were planned to sing the national anthem, so it wasn’t her individual stage.
But if Dokgo Miro will sing the national anthem solo one day, our class children will surely watch it together.
“Ah, then me too! I have never been to a baseball stadium, but aren’t they very good tickets?”
“I want to hear Miro’s singing and I want to go with Lena… too.”
Following them, the one to reveal they will go were Kwon Lena and Mok Uram.
After Kwon Lena finished the re-test, she became noticeably brighter.
Mok Uram was happy about the change in Kwon Lena, but it seemed he struggled with title ‘Lena-nim’ unknowingly popping out.
On the other hand, some children revealed it would be difficult for them to participate.
“Ah, my apologies. I made plans to spend this week with my family. I have to buy aunt-nim a gift requested by uncle Semin and…”
Sawol Seeum spoke with a regretful face.
‘Now he calls Oh Hyejeong just aunt, huh?’
Oh Hyejeong said she would certainly send me an invitation when a wedding with Sawol Semin was confirmed, but seeing there were still no news, it wasn’t time for marriage yet.
Even so, seeing how Sawol Semin ordered Sawol Seeum to buy gifts for Oh Hyejeong, I may receive an invitation soon.
“Ah, I can’t come too. Erm, these days when I’m sparring with ascetic… with master-nim, I feel like I’m about to come up with something like a skill, but I still can’t grab that feeling. Ascetic said you have to push to obtain enlightenment when it’s like that.”
Maeng Hyodon also revealed intention not to attend.
But Maeng Hyodon first tried to call Tak Geosan ascetic, then master-nim, and then returned to calling him an ascetic in the end.
It seemed that Tak Geosan was engraved in his head as ascetic just like before.
“I saw you train together with Yunseop a few times, and it looked hard… is it okay even if it’s not easy?”
“… It’s fine.”
“Actually, I also decided to see teacher-nim this week, because I wanted to play next week. I feel it will be difficult for me to go to the baseball stadium this weekend.”
“…Teacher-nim?”
“Ye, I’m learning how to control superpower waves and use Gwangrim.”
Kim Yuri and Maeng Hyodon, who were receiving personal superpower training, shared a conversation over a built camaraderie.
Although Kim Yuri was talking unilaterally and Maeng Hyodon just answered awkwardly, it was much more natural than during the 1st semester.
‘Kim Yuri mentioned that these days she is receiving teachings from the Ho tribe’s chief shaman.’
Diligently learning how to control the superpowers behind the scenes, while managing class and promoting friendship among the class children as a class president, was indeed like Kim Yuri’s sincere personality.
“As we have to go watch Playlist in the middle of next week and Halloween is on the next weekend, we should work diligently this week and play the next!”
At the words Halloween, I suddenly recalled the next week’s plans.
‘I should now stealthily prepare to go abroad. Gather all information I can gather beforehand like geographical information, check the setting book in the exclusive menu one more time and…’
I planned to spend Halloween overseas.
To be exact, I planned to participate in the party held in the isolated castle of a certain Jin tribe.
‘I have something to do besides the departure preparations.’
We were going to see Korean Series on this week’s Friday.
Playlist viewing was next week on Wednesday.
Halloween was next week’s Friday.
There was one more event I couldn’t miss in the meantime.
‘I have to go offer flowers…’
This week’s Sunday was my family’s death anniversary.
There existed a shrine holding my family’s fake remains in this world.
Although they were fake remains, I couldn’t just ignore the death anniversary.
Because be it in this world or the previous world, there was no one to offer flowers to my parents-nim and dongsaengs besides me.
Perhaps an old friend may come to visit my parents-nim, but there were no people, who would place flowers for my dongsaengs, who left the world at a young age.
What cut off my contemplation was the sound of Hwang Jiho’s laughter.
“Hahahaha! This one is busy that day. It seems it will be difficult to watch Korean Series together, eh? Don’t be too sad.”
It seemed that Hwang Jiho’s highschooler version alter-ego was very busy these days.
But were there any sad people?
“… Who is sad?”
“Daeseok-ah! You can’t say such words openly!”
Song Daeseok’s tactless words represented my feelings.
* * *
Han Yi slowly wandered in a dream.
Her legs were heavy and because her superpower wave didn’t move as intended, she couldn’t use a Leap skill.
After she moved forward with great difficulty, someone with his eyes covered was waiting for her.
‘Who…?’
The eyes of the other party, who covered his eyes with a cloth embroidered with five colors[1], didn’t see.
Even so, Han Yi was certain that someone with covered eyes was looking at her.
That someone moved his mouth trying to say something to Han Yi.
But because someone’s shining faintly[2] silhouette was trembling, and the surrounding was dark, it was difficult to read his lips.
‘Perhaps, You…’
Han Yi tried to open her mouth, but no word came out.
Beep…!
Together with the vibration felt on her wrist, Han Yi’s consciousness returned to the reality.
Han Yi was woken up from sleep by the automatically ringing alarm from the band type device.
‘I had that dream again…’
She always had the same dream since the first day she entered this school.
She only didn’t have that dream when her sleep was extremely short.
The content of that dream or the dream itself didn’t give her an exactly scary or uneasy feeling.
But she couldn’t help but be bothered by it.
‘It seems that the dream image is becoming clearer little by little.’
After the things visible in the dream gradually increased and Han Yi had energy to think, she started to analyze the dream.
Han Yi was guessing the identity of a person with the covered eyes, who appeared in that dream.
‘He should be a higher being. A god with influence powerful enough to interfere in human dreams for a long period of time.’
Han Yi recalled the content of all kinds of publications related to higher beings she borrowed from the school library.
Because the clues were few, she couldn’t figure out the higher being’s identity, but Han Yi didn’t give up.
‘It’s still difficult to lip-read, but I think I soon will be able to accurately sort out the embroidery on the cloth covering the eyes and the colors used in the embroidery.’
Finishing her thoughts, Han Yi did one big stretch and stood up to prepare to go out.
Today was weekend, and it was still early, but she was going out for the Taehokwon morning self-training and at noon had to go to watch baseball.
‘… If I see Miro’s stage in person, I will be able to tell what that sense of incongruity is.’
In their elementary school days, Dokgo Miro pushed Han Yi away, saying harsh words.
— I — have a goal of debuting as a solo idol, so I want to be alone now!
— It’s scary on stage, but if I learn to stand alone in front of people, I may be fine.
— I wish you wouldn’t greet me in front of other kids.
— Don’t sit beside me. Go somewhere else.
After that, Dokgo Miro and Han Yi spent their time at school alone.
Dokgo Miro visited the children’s home, but avoided the hours when Han Yi was there.
On the subject of Dokgo Miro being alone, if Han Yi saw it, she always pretended it was nothing and Dokgo Miro was running wild as a back alley king or something behind her back.
The young Han Yi found seeing Dokgo Miro act like this just very difficult and hated it.
But after becoming a highschooler and now having some spare energy to coldly look back at the past again, she felt a growing sense of incongruity rather than pain when thinking of Dokgo Miro.
‘If the strange story our elementary classmates spread on SNS was real, then perhaps Miro…’
Han Yi stopped her thoughts and went out of the Eungwang School’s residential zone’s 1st year building.
She decided to concentrate on Taehokwon instead of thinking of Dokgo Miro right now.
* * *
Friday, in front of the Jamsil Baseball Stadium, where Korean Series 3rd game was held.
The surrounding of the stadium was completely covered in red and white colors symbolizing Ju-Oh Dragons, and cheering songs were heard all around.
Around, people wearing Ju-Oh Dragons mascot Yong-Yong costumes were diligently waving their hands, handing out cheering balloons and cheering towels, so I could feel how desperately they wished for Ju-Oh Dragons’ victory.
‘For the last 15 years, they were the runner-up ten times, but never once won, so people would really want them to win.’
When considering the team achievements or athletes and teams’ records, Ju-Oh Dragons couldn’t be denied to be a powerful team in KBO.
Even so, Ju-Oh Dragons never won.
Ever 2nd place, permanent victor candidate.
Those words never leave Ju-Oh Dragons’ modifiers, so it was the team owners and fans’ seizure button or their king’s wrath.
It seemed that the royal’s wrath existed because the team’s symbol was a dragon[3].
‘In PMH, a few of the main athletes were out for a season because of the Children Day’s incident, and because it was impossible to come back for a few people, their momentum was completely broken.’
But now was different.
This time, Ju-Oh Dragons could truly aim for a victory.
“… There is a lot of people.”
“Ah, Geurin-ah, stay between me and Daeseok.”
“Geurin-ah, come here!”
Min Geurin got accustomed to many people at school, but it seemed difficult to endure so many people she completely didn’t know.
Min Geurin pulled on the hood even further and moved stuck between Kwon Lena and Song Daeseok.
Mok Uram saw it and smiled widely, saying his muse’s heart was ever so kind.
“Let’s buy something to eat before sitting down.”
“Yes, I agree. Today my bank balance isn’t 0! Lena… what do You want to eat?”
“There are so many delicious looking things here, I’m worried…”
Kwon Lena looked around, and then her gaze stopped on Han Yi, who seemed to lack energy a bit.
“I want to eat something sweet. I smell churros so how about eating chocolate churros?”
“… Let’s go.”
At Kwon Lena’s suggestion, Han Yi immediately regained energy.
When the children stood in line in front of the churros shop.
Suddenly the surrounding became very noisy and a lot of people gathered.
“What? What is it?”
Min Geurin stood on tiptoes, trying to look into the distance, but because of the crowd, she didn’t see what was the origin of the chaos.
Song Daeseok, who had the height to freely look into the distance, checked instead.
“It seems like a person from Playlist came? Aren’t they preparing to sing the anthem? What is he doing here?”
“I guess they’re looking around, because there is still time left.”
“Uh? He is coming this way?”
The people gradually increased, and Min Geurin fled behind Song Daeseok.
And from between the people, a famous person appeared.
My Playable Character, Saint of Naejang Mountain.
“…”
Saint of Najang Mountain, who suddenly appeared, quietly looked at Kwon Lena’s violin case.
*~*~*
[1] embroidered with five colors — because of how this sentence is constructed, it has ‘수를 놓다’ in it, which in another context could mean to ‘play a move(chess)’.
[2] shining faintly — literally ‘wearing/instilled with a faint light’.
[3] It seemed that the royal’s wrath existed because the team’s symbol was a dragon — similar to China, the dragons were often symbols of kings, especially the symbols of kings of Joseon, who had a dragon in its royal emblem.
Translator’s note: *looks at the title, looks at the content of the chapter* Well, that solves a speculation a certain character will put forward in a far away future.
Anyone wants some churros, which I’m so glad have nothing to do with chestnuts? (I hope.)
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