Chapter 21: Academy Heroine's Right Diagonal Back Seat
Chapter 21
I like her.
Yoon Si-woo, who had become aware of an emotion he had never experienced before, couldn't look at Scarlet's face naturally as he had until recently.
It was the first time he realized he could be so conscious of someone.
Just being near her made his heart race, and thinking about her made his face flush.
Having a conversation while looking into her eyes, as he used to, would probably be difficult for a while.
Until he got used to this heart-pounding emotion, he thought he would have to avoid her a little.
“Today’s training is fear-conquering training! This time, you’ll experience a special unconscious stimulation magic! It's a magic that shows you the things you subconsciously dread or fear the most.”
Eve, his homeroom teacher, was literally the world's greatest illusionist.
Even if this time she cast high-level illusion magic, to the extent that even the Holy Sword of Radiance couldn't discern whether it was an illusion or not, he felt confident he could overcome it easily with the Holy Sword of Radiance and Lucy by his side.
A sharp snap of Eve's fingers was heard.
The students in the classroom were chatting.
Yoon Si-woo looked around.
The classroom scene was nothing special, but he felt a sense of emptiness.
[Hmm, an illusion that distorts perception itself, impressive.]
The empty feeling vanished at the sound of a familiar voice.
Oh, it was because he couldn't sense Lucy.
Fortunately, the connection made by the contract couldn't be cut, so he could hear Lucy's voice.
Apparently, what he feared the most was Lucy disappearing.
Since he confirmed the connection was intact, it was just a meaningless illusion.
Just as he was thinking that and trying to break out of the illusion, he saw a head of red hair.
She, who made his heart race just by facing her in the illusion, was smiling brightly with a face he had never seen before.
Not at him, but at another male student.
The heart that had been pounding stopped with a thud.
As the male student approached, she blushed slightly.
The male student left the classroom, and she shyly followed him.
The two sat together in a secluded spot behind the school building, enjoying their time alone.
In the quiet atmosphere, their eyes met, and they shared a moment of emotion only they could understand, drawing closer to each other.
When they kissed, Yoon Si-woo's heart felt like it was aching.
Before he knew it, she had become a mature woman.
The man who had been a student knelt before her and proposed.
She accepted the ring the man offered and smiled happily as if she had the world.
She hugged the man.
Their kiss this time was much longer than the one they had shared as students.
He saw her in a wedding dress.
She energetically threw the bouquet towards the guests behind her.
When someone caught it, she smiled brightly and kissed the man in the suit affectionately.
After the wedding, they went on their honeymoon.
During the day, they toured various places, and after a nice dinner at a restaurant, they returned to their hotel.
Perhaps because of the wine they drank during dinner, or for some other reason, her face was flushed as she exchanged passionate breaths with the man on the bed.
The man's hands brushed over her body, revealing skin that had grown much more than he remembered but was still white.
And then,
And then,
[Si-woo, get a grip. It's just an illusion.]
A timely voice snapped him out of it.
He realized he was drenched in cold sweat.
It's just an illusion anyway.
Gritting his teeth and focusing his mind, he managed to break free from the illusion.
As soon as his eyes met Scarlet's, who was looking his way, he felt his face flush.
The shame that surged made it impossible to lift his head.
How could he be tormented by such an illusion when they had barely known each other?
He felt deeply embarrassed about harboring such feelings for someone he wasn't even close to.
It seemed he wouldn't be able to face her for a while.
*
After that, whenever Yoon Si-woo looked at Scarlet, he couldn't calm his heart and began consciously avoiding her.
Yesterday, when she wasn't feeling well and had been lying in the infirmary after lunch, he couldn't even ask if she was okay because it was hard to look her in the face.
Whenever he saw her face, he was reminded of that vision. Well, it wasn't just when he saw her face.
Lately, he wandered around more than before to clear his mind, fearing he might inadvertently recall that scene.
That evening, he was wandering outside to clear his mind after dinner when he spotted her in the distance.
His heart seemed to beat faster already, and he was about to head somewhere else when he noticed a man standing next to her.
The man seemed much older than her, too old to be someone hitting on her.
Then, he heard their conversation.
"If you don't want to, you can refuse, but is there no way you can do it?"
"Uh, I don't really like having something enter my body......"
"Well, if you don't like it, there's nothing I can do. But is it okay if I touch you or take pictures?"
She nodded.
His heart pounded ominously.
It felt like all the blood in his body had turned cold, and the cold blood was chilling his entire body through his heart.
Their conversation sounded nothing but ominous.
With a feeling of disbelief, he followed the two.
They arrived at a building that looked inappropriate for students to enter.
From time to time, he could hear noises from some men and women who had already booked rooms, indicating what kind of activities were taking place inside.
It seemed like she was about to engage in something inappropriate, and he debated whether he should rush in and stop her. But he thought, what right did he have to interfere with what she wanted to do?
While he hesitated, she had already disappeared into the building with the man.
Feeling weak, he sat on a bench near the building.
The image of her from the vision came to mind.
Was she doing something similar inside there?
His unnecessarily good hearing pierced through the walls, and the faint, suggestive sounds from inside interfered with his rational thinking.
Among those sounds, he thought he heard a familiar voice.
"Feeling good$#@[email protected]#%!"
I must have misheard......
He murmured to himself, covering his ears.
After a long while, she came out of the building, drenched in sweat from whatever she had been doing inside.
Seeing him, her expression stiffened, and she tried to walk past him.
Unconsciously, he blocked her path.
She glared at him, asking coldly what he wanted, and he asked in a trembling voice.
"......What were you doing in there?"
She replied that she didn't need to tell him, and he noticed a money envelope in her hand.
No way, because of money?
"Are you doing it......because of money?"
She nodded.
The Holy Sword of Truth confirmed it was the truth.
It probably wasn't just because of money.
At least, he didn't want to think so.
He asked if she was being blackmailed or threatened, hoping that was the case.
"I did it because I wanted to. It wasn't particularly hard, and I actually liked it."
He wanted to believe that the voice he thought he had heard earlier was a mistake.
But the Holy Sword of Truth spoke.
It is the truth.
His stomach churned.
For the first time, he wished he didn't have the Holy Sword of Truth.
Hearing a truth he didn’t want to know was painful.
When he asked if she would do it again, she replied.
“Well, if the opportunity arises. There’s no other way to make money this easily.”
The Holy Sword still spoke calmly.
It is the truth.
Please, stop...
He wanted to beg, and he felt like he actually did.
He pleaded, asking if she could stop. If she needed money, he would help her, just please...
But her response was cold.
“Help? What kind of help? Do you think you’re something to me? I don’t need it.”
Her words felt like a dagger to his heart.
He meant nothing to her.
Every word that reminded him of this was excruciating.
[Si-woo...]
Lucy’s voice, trying to comfort him, helped him regain a bit of his composure.
Feeling disappointed in her for being different from what he had imagined was embarrassing.
No matter what kind of person she was, his feelings for her hadn’t changed.
He quickly followed her, who was walking away.
She glared at him, but he couldn't leave the woman he liked alone at night.
He followed her to a shabby-looking building.
He couldn’t believe how easily she climbed the stairs that looked like they could collapse at any moment, and he unknowingly followed her.
When she opened the door, the sight of the room was shocking.
He knew his house was quite large, but this place was incredibly small.
It made the orphanage he grew up in look like a hotel.
It was unbelievable that a student of Aegis Academy lived in such a place.
Was she living here to afford the high tuition fees?
Did she have to do such things because of this?
To him, who had never felt a significant lack of material things thanks to Lucy, this was heart-wrenching.
As he stood there frozen, she called him in.
There was no sense of excitement about entering the house of someone he liked for the first time.
She unfolded a small table and motioned for him to sit.
Sitting at the table, he looked around the room.
There was a small bathroom right next to the entrance, a bed and a small wardrobe to the left of the table, and a tiny cooking space with a small fridge to the right.
That was it.
It felt like a space that only had the bare minimum for someone to live.
He glanced inside the fridge she opened and saw it was empty.
She fetched tap water from the sink and handed it to him, apologizing that it was all she could offer.
She seemed accustomed to such a life.
Drinking unfiltered tap water naturally, she stared at him as he drank.
The water tasted flat.
She must have grown used to this taste.
Tears welled up in his eyes.
When she told him to leave, he wanted to offer some comfort.
Many words came to mind, but he couldn’t utter them.
Anything he said might hurt her instead of comfort her.
So he quietly stood up and, before leaving, gave the least special farewell.
“See you tomorrow.”
She nodded.
*
The next day, she was late for some reason.
Yoon Si-woo worried she might be shocked because he had discovered what she was doing.
“Scarlet, you’re late.”
The girl sitting next to him, Sylvia, said.
She was the student who received macarons from Scarlet every day.
Yoon Si-woo remembered the sight of Scarlet's home he had seen yesterday.
She must have been straining herself to buy those too.
“Sylvia, can we talk for a moment?”
As he said that and called Sylvia out, she blushed and followed him.
He told Sylvia, who had come out with him,
“I’d like it if you didn’t accept anything from Scarlet anymore.”
Sylvia, blushing, paused a bit before replying, seemingly taken aback by his unexpected words.
“Um... Can you tell me why?”
“I can’t explain, but I just want you to.”
Since he couldn’t reveal what Scarlet was doing to earn money, he could only be vague.
However, Sylvia wasn’t satisfied with his answer and refused.
“It’s strange to ask me not to accept her gifts without a reason. Scarlet is giving me macarons as a friendly gesture.”
Yoon Si-woo felt a bit angry at her response.
“That’s a lie.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a lie. You don’t think of her as a friend.”
Whenever Scarlet brought macarons, Sylvia would say she accepted them because they were friends.
But the Holy Sword of Truth always indicated that Sylvia was lying.
In other words, Sylvia never thought of Scarlet as a friend, and Yoon Si-woo knew this.
“I don’t know why you think that. But even if it’s unreasonable—”
“Stop pretending.”
Cutting off Sylvia’s shameless words, Yoon Si-woo snapped.
Scarlet was doing such things, thinking she had a friend, but Sylvia was exploiting her feelings.
“What’s with you? Why do you always care about her so much! I care about you more than she does...!”
Yoon Si-woo stared coldly at Sylvia, who was being unreasonable.
Sylvia, briefly showing a hurt expression at his gaze, soon erased her expression and spoke blandly.
“...Alright. I’ll stop accepting macarons from Scarlet. After all, we weren’t really friends.”
Yoon Si-woo nodded.
Thinking this was enough.
On ho si-woo you might just made her mental state worse in the future
ReplyDeleteThat really bad...
ReplyDeleteSi-woo me está dando pena, normalmente los MC originales son malos o tienen el carisma de una piedra pero esté es agradable
ReplyDeleteI hate Si-woo so much, he is too oblivious to the pain he is causing Scarlet, love truly blinds a person
ReplyDeleteThanks for the chapter !
I hate Sylvia as she is currently more, so he should keep disrupting things.
DeleteSo, i was right, he gone and did say shit nobody asked him to.
ReplyDeleteAgain, the fake friendship did need to be changed but certainly not in that abrupt manner.
I don' t like Sylvia, she shouldn't lash out at the wrong target.
But, i can understand where that comes from, and it could've improved if that little shit didn't get in the middle anyway, given time.
I really don't care for the stalker intentions, the heart of the matter is that regardless of that or his feelings, MC doesn't want anything from him and he should back off when told.
He should've realized already that whatever he does backfires unless he has no braincells, too.
MC frustrates me but i'm more annoyed at the original protagonist.
Again disagree, I could not stand another chapter of idol worship and bean sprouts.
DeleteSo, yeah. I'm glad the Si-woo burnt it all down.
Sylvia taking advantage of the mc was grinding my gears and in the long run, this is much better than whatever I had to sit through for 20+ chapters. I'm simply tired of waiting for 'tsunderes' to stop being shitty people.
Not to add that he didn't say what shouldn't be said, if he did he would have aired her dirty laundry. He simply asked Sylvia to stop being fake. And he used information that he knew all along, seeing her desperate situation (which the mc allowed) is what sped up the process.
If Sylvia wasn't such a butthurt brat, she could have used this to evaluate their relationship.
I agree with you. Right now ML is amateur. But he will grow up in the feature and it's called character growth. I am looking forward to ML and FL character growth in the feature
DeleteWow... now this is how you write drama. Take notes dear korean authors, TAKE NOTES !!!!
ReplyDeleteFr fr
DeleteThe path to hell is paved with good intentions, or so they say. You did try, man; unfortunately, you made it worse in the short-term. I don't know about the long-term but I like to think it's for the best.
ReplyDeleteMC already have twisted personality and OML make it worse... Now i really curious what MC would do, even I somehow can predict it
ReplyDeleteblud, is he watching porn?
ReplyDeleteThis is hard to read, not gonna lie. Like... SHEESH
ReplyDeleteWell, he's trying.
ReplyDelete