Yu Huina stood with her arms crossed beneath the building shared by the first-year Martial Arts and Magic Departments, waiting for Lee Hyunwoo.
The first-year students leaving the building at the end of the school day tilted their heads when they saw Yu Huina and whispered among themselves.
“Why is someone from the Technology Department here?”
“Looks like she’s waiting for her boyfriend.”
“Hey. Whoever loses rock-paper-scissors has to go talk to her. Deal?”
Yu Huina did not even glance at the Martial Arts and Magic Department students leaving the building, but she thought they were pathetic.
Kids my age really are hopeless. You can’t reason with them.
Thinking that, she continued waiting for Lee Hyunwoo.
[Aah! Huina! Huina! Your heart-pounding first date!]
“…Be quiet, Sylphid. What date?”
Huina responded curtly while twisting a lock of her red hair around one finger.
Her hair had inevitably turned red as she became closer to the spirits. She had told her parents that she had dyed it with her allowance, but this hair had put her in awkward situations more than once.
It always drew people’s eyes and invited unnecessary attention.
Whenever that happened, she would respond coldly…….
[Huina! Huina! Still, this is the first boy you’ve seriously met since entering the Academy! He may be a child, but you don’t have any friends anyway!]
“What do you mean, seriously?!”
Ah….
Her voice had come out louder than she intended, and everyone nearby suddenly looked at her.
Feeling heat rise to her face, she hurriedly moved somewhere with as few people as possible.
[That’s right! Huina doesn’t have any friends! Make some friends!]
“Please… just be quiet.”
She finally got Sylphid to quiet down, only for Sally to start making noise this time.
Just as her head began to throb, someone tapped her shoulder.
She turned around and saw the child she had been waiting for.
Lee Hyunwoo.
“Ah. Were you waiting……?”
Huina’s gaze naturally shifted toward the girls standing beside Hyunwoo.
The girl on Lee Hyunwoo’s left had large eyes and bangs, while the one on his right had similarly large eyes and wore her hair in a ponytail.
Both were noticeably cute and pretty.
Since all three were wearing Magic Department robes, were they close friends or something?
As Huina merely stared at them blankly, Hyunwoo stepped forward and introduced them.
“Ah. This is Yoon Sia. She’s an older girl I hang around with.”
Yoon Sia was the girl on the left with bangs.
“Nice to meet you. Hyunwoo told me about you. I heard you’re treating him to a meal to repay him for helping you?”
“……Yes.”
As though mesmerized, Yu Huina took Yoon Sia’s offered hand.
Yoon Sia shook it with a proud expression.
“You’re very cultured. It’s just that I met someone extremely uncultured a few days ago.”
“…….”
“Ah, and this is my real big sister. Her name is Lee Yeowoo. My sister is ten. Sia is nine. I’m eight.”
Once Lee Hyunwoo finished his introduction, the ponytailed girl held out her hand this time.
Huina once again took it as though mesmerized.
“I’m Hyunwoo’s older sister. I know this is rude of me to ask, but could we join you too?”
“Pardon…?”
“For the meal. We’d like to eat together.”
Ah….
What do I do?
This won’t work.
The meal was actually just an excuse. There were things she needed to ask Lee Hyunwoo.
But if these girls joined them, it would become awkward to ask…….
“Yes. That’s fine.”
Yet she could not refuse.
How could she?
Besides, the girl who was apparently Lee Hyunwoo’s real older sister was looking at her with obvious suspicion.
Huina had no idea what she was suspicious of, though.
***
[Idiot! Dummy! Huina is stupid!]
‘Be quiet, Sally.’
[I have no choice but to agree with Sally this time, Huina. Why did you let them tag along? This doesn’t look like a date anymore. It looks like you’re a guide shepherding a group of children!]
‘You two, seriously…….’
Her insides boiled.
It was not just the spirits.
The little girls named Yeowoo and Sia were also bombarding her with questions without pause.
“How did you meet him?”
“Hyunwoo treated your injury?”
“You’re a first-year too, right?”
“Your uniform looks nice. The blue stripe on the Technology Department uniform is pretty in its own way.”
Ah. Please….
This was the biggest headache she had suffered since entering the Academy.
Had she ever received this much attention before?
…Come to think of it, perhaps she had when she first enrolled.
After one thing led to another, they arrived at Miracle Snack Bar.
It was a shop extremely famous for its spicy rice cakes.
“Um…… When you said you’d treat us to a meal…… you meant spicy rice cakes? Not steak, pasta, or duck confit?”
“……?”
Yoon Sia looked at Huina with disappointment.
Huina stared back at Yoon Sia with an equally displeased expression.
[What an incredibly rude little brat! She’s getting free food and still complaining!]
[That’s right! Those brats are annoying! They’re noisy!]
You two aren’t much better….
“Ah. Well. Um. I mean…… Hmm. It’s very original. Treating someone to spicy rice cakes. How creative.”
“What are you doing? Let’s go inside already!”
Lee Yeowoo grabbed the hands of Sia, who was saying strange things, and Hyunwoo, then dragged them into the snack bar and sat down at a table.
Before going inside, Huina greeted the owner and placed the order.
“spicy rice cakes…… Three servings, please.”
“Huina, is that you? What about drinks?”
“I’m fine.”
One drink cost one thousand won.
Buying one for all four of them would cost a whole four thousand won.
Absolutely not.
She desperately wanted a cold cola, but not today.
I’ll just drink water.
“Big sis! I want lemon-lime soda!”
“Sis! I want Fanta!”
“Big sis. Cola for me, please.”
Ah…….
The owner chuckled at the sight and spoke.
“The usual for you too, Huina?”
“…Yes.”
“All right. Go sit down. I’ll make the three servings big enough for four.”
“Thank you.”
Barely suppressing the sigh rising from within her, Huina sat down.
The children—more precisely, only the girls—immediately began pelting her with endless questions again.
Eventually exhausted, Huina answered them curtly, and the children lost interest and started chatting among themselves.
Just like all the other children who had approached her out of curiosity.
“Here’s your spicy rice cakes. Enjoy.”
“Wow~ Thank you!”
The ponytailed girl rejoiced like a little child.
The other girl calmly picked up a fork and smacked her lips in anticipation.
Huina glanced over at Lee Hyunwoo.
He, too, looked like an ordinary child no different from the others.
He picked up a fork and, for some reason, fumbled with the tab on his soda can until his older sister opened it for him instead.
Lee Hyunwoo thanked her like a child.
Looking at him right now, he really did seem like an ordinary little kid.
[Don’t be fooled! That child realized what we are. He’s no ordinary child!]
‘I know, Sylphid.’
Yu Huina casually speared a rice cake with her fork and ate it while repeatedly glancing at Lee Hyunwoo.
He was a special child.
Or a child hiding something.
Otherwise, there was no way he could have identified spirits—beings that had never once appeared on Earth—after seeing one only a single time.
On top of that, Lee Hyunwoo had seemed as though he already knew about spirits in the first place.
<It looked like a spirit to me….>
Chew, chew.
As she chewed the rice cake, she mulled over Lee Hyunwoo’s words.
‘It looked like a spirit.’
How in the world does this kid know about spirits?
Could he possibly use spirits too?
[No! I don’t sense any other spirits around that child!]
‘Then how in the world….’
How does he know about spirits?
She was itching to ask him immediately.
But she could not.
Because of the two girls.
So Huina simply continued eating without saying anything.
Haa….
This isn’t how this was supposed to go.
Watching the spicy rice cakes gradually disappear, she instinctively realized something had gone wrong, but there was nothing she could do about it.
It was not as though she could shout at the girls, ‘If you’re done eating, go home!’
“Hmm. Big sis.”
Sia, who had been chatting with the others for a long while, suddenly looked at Huina.
“…Yes?”
Holding a rice cake on her fork, Sia waved it left, then right, before grinning.
“This is delicious. We can order more, right? You’re paying today, after all.”
“…….”
Without even waiting for Huina’s answer, the girl raised her hand toward the owner and shouted,
“Sir! Two more servings over here, please!”
Huina’s fist clenched involuntarily.
“I said I’d treat Hyunwoo, not you! Buy it with your own money!”
Yu Huina’s fist slammed into Sia’s pretty face.
In an instant, chaos erupted around them, and Sia began bawling…….
“Big sis? Big sis!”
“…Yes?”
“Ah. You looked like you were spacing out. The spicy rice cakes is here, so eat.”
“……Ah. Yes.”
In her imagination, Sia had been bawling her eyes out.
In reality, she was smiling brightly while alternating between cola and spicy rice cakes.
Having finally given up, Huina simply kept eating spicy rice cakes.
Without managing to ask a single question about spirits.
***
“That’ll be twenty thousand won. Card?”
“Yes. Please put it on my card.”
Huina handed her card to the smiling owner.
Her hand trembled, but the card nevertheless left her fingers.
[Huina is stupid! This is so frustrating I could die!]
[In the end, you didn’t ask a single thing about spirits, and you just lost almost three days’ worth of food money! Won’t you have to skip dinner for the next three days now?]
[Forced diet! Forced diet!]
Sally and Sylphid began chanting together.
Huina stopped paying attention to them entirely.
But then the owner returned the card with an awkward expression.
“This says there aren’t enough funds. Don’t you have another card?”
“…What? That can’t be right.”
Flustered, Huina searched through her wallet.
There were two more cards tucked inside, but she already knew that neither of them had any money left on it.
She checked for cash as well, but she only had five thousand won.
As she hesitated and repeatedly fumbled with the payment, the people waiting behind her began shooting annoyed looks in her direction.
Those gazes only made her more anxious, and she frantically searched through her wallet.
But no matter how much she searched, money that was not there would not suddenly appear.
‘Five million won. The five million won I got from the scholarship definitely…… Ah!’
Only then did she remember that she had given the entire scholarship to her parents, who were struggling financially.
If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve kept at least a hundred thousand won….
“Ah, could you hurry up and pay? People are waiting.”
Someone finally complained aloud.
In an instant, Huina’s mind went blank and her vision darkened.
She had absolutely no idea what to do.
What do I do?
What am I supposed to do?
Her thoughts blacked out under the hopeless situation.
Then someone held out a tiny card toward the owner.
“Then please use this one.”
It was Hyunwoo.
Lee Hyunwoo, who had looked like an ordinary little kid only moments earlier, confidently held out his card in her place with the composure of an adult.
The girls were nowhere to be seen, apparently still in the restroom.
“All right. Here you go. It went through.”
“Thank you.”
Hyunwoo tucked the card away, scratched his head, and apologized.
“Sorry. Those two made things a little difficult for you, didn’t they?”
“……Ah. Thank you.”
“It’s fine.”
Embarrassment made her face burn hot.
Huina put the card with no money back into her wallet and lowered her head.
Embarrassment was embarrassment, but she still felt grateful to Hyunwoo for resolving the situation.
“Hyunwoo. What are you doing over there?”
Just then, the girls came out of the restroom.
Huina quietly whispered so only Hyunwoo could hear.
“I’ll go ahead.”
“Ah…… Okay. I’ll contact you later.”
Then she ran out of the snack bar as though fleeing.
Idiot.
Dummy.
Moron.
Those were not Sally’s words.
Huina was saying them to herself.
Even the spirits, who were always so noisy, were quiet now.
Her face completely red, Huina kept running down the empty street.