“Back off a little. You’re making me uncomfortable.”
“Minsu” obediently took a step back at my words. Ignoring the chills running down my spine, I tried to figure out how I could get Park Jihye out of this hopeless tentacle high school.
Escaping by myself was already absurdly difficult, and now I had to drag out Park Jihye too when she wasn’t even in her right mind. Even if I shook off “Minsu” and got out of the chairman’s office, I had no confidence I could carry Park Jihye all the way to the rooftop on my back. People who’ve lost their minds are way heavier than usual.
So I decided to keep talking.
“Anyway, back to what we were saying... if you want to get some fresh air, you have to either sort out this school or finish dealing with the school’s business first.”
“......”
“Once you finish all that, come find me. I’ll take you out and show you an amazing time.”
“Can you ‘swear’ to that?”
“‘Swear’ is a little too grand. I can just leave this with you instead.”
I searched my pocket and held out my student ID to “Minsu.”
“This is seriously important to a college student, okay? Think of it as a token of our promise and take it.”
Getting a replacement student ID would be a hassle, but honestly, it wasn’t as important as I was making it sound. Sure, not having it would make it a pain to get into buildings or borrow books from the library, so it was essential for a “college student,” but it wasn’t like I’d die without it.
Whatever “swearing” meant, it felt like I’d be completely screwed if I did it carelessly. So I decided to get through this by offering up my student ID instead. My heart was pounding because I was afraid he might ask for Park Jihye’s too, but “Minsu” seemed satisfied with just taking mine.
After that, I kept rambling to “Minsu” about how much the outside world had changed. Unlike a boring high school, universities had festivals, and even if you didn’t go to college, the world had gotten better and there were all kinds of places to go have fun. I talked until my throat started to go a little raw, trying to persuade him.
“Minsu” listened quietly to everything I said, and when I got to the extremely long future date course I promised I’d prepare once I got back to reality—I was just riffing off a bucket list of things I’d wanted to do someday if I ever got a girlfriend—he broke into a bright smile.
“You’ll really do all of that with me, right?”
“Yeah. Just let me out of here first, and I’ll make sure everything’s ready before you come.”
“All right, then...”
Apparently all my talking had been worth it, because “Minsu” said he would let us out of the anomaly. I only relaxed after making him confirm several times that he meant not outside the school grounds, but back to the real world where Dowon High School was just an abandoned school.
When I kept asking whether he was sending Park Jihye out too, he looked like he didn’t like something about that, but after enough coaxing and placating, he eventually agreed. I only had to throw in two more date-course options.
“Hey, Minsu.”
“Yes.”
“You really can’t just come as you are. Finish all the school business first, okay? Find teachers, yeah? Improve conditions for the third-year students, redo the cafeteria so it’s modern or something. I mean, how bad does the food have to be for someone who ate it to end up crawling all over the floor?”
“......”
“Make it into some prestigious school of the year or something before you come. That way you can relax and have fun with me too.”
I kept piling on conditions about managing the school properly. Just in case “Minsu” might throw away his job as chairman and follow me immediately, I didn’t stop offering friendly advice about how he should take good care of the school as its chairman.
“You can promise that, right?”
“Is that a ‘swear’?”
“It’s obvious that a chairman should take good care of his school. Why would that need a swear? Just saying you understand is enough.”
“...Yes! I understand.”
“Minsu” suddenly reached out a hand. I jumped, but my reflexes weren’t good enough for me to commit the rudeness of visibly dodging it. His fingers lightly touched my forehead and pulled away, and the leg the man on the fourth floor had injured began healing in an instant.
“...You could heal this?”
If it was that easy to fix, then couldn’t he have treated me while I was stuck in the chairman’s office? I demanded an explanation without even trying to hide how dumbfounded I was, and “Minsu” smiled brightly with a face so beautiful it circled all the way around into something bizarre.
“In case you died before I came to find you.”
That wasn’t an answer to why he hadn’t healed me when he could. I gave up trying to understand “Minsu” and propped up the unconscious Park Jihye.
“Let us out now.”
“How about staying a little longer first?”
“I’m telling you to work hard here and make some room for yourself later. This place is boring.”
In the end, “Minsu” led Park Jihye and me to the school’s only escape route: the rooftop. Traveling with the highest authority in the school, nothing suddenly jumped out at us the way it had before.
“You have to be careful when you give something a new name.”
“Why are you suddenly saying weird stuff again?”
“Advance notice is important. It becomes troublesome if the other party claims they didn’t know anything and says no one informed them.”
“What is this, are you trying to sell me insurance in exchange for letting me escape?”
“If something receives a new name, then through that name, each side can become involved with the other.”
“What are you even talking about... seriously.”
It sounded meaningful, but I was climbing the stairs to the fourth floor with Park Jihye on my back, so I didn’t have the mental room to focus on it. After spending several days in Dowon High School, even when I heard something strange all I could think was, There goes Minsu again...
The railing around the rooftop of Dowon High School was fairly high. For something installed for student safety, it was shaped more like a fence meant to keep something from getting out, so climbing over it while carrying Park Jihye was impossible.
In the end, I dropped Park Jihye over the railing first. I knew in my head that this was the escape method, but mentally, throwing an unconscious person from a high place was still a huge burden. I must have told “Minsu” two thousand times to make sure Park Jihye escaped properly too.
After that, I steadied my trembling legs and climbed up onto the railing. This was the first time I’d been able to look down at “Minsu,” after having to look up at him the whole time.
“I’m never even turning my head toward an abandoned school again.”
“......”
“Take care.”
“Minsu” looked like he wanted to say more to me, but I didn’t wait to hear it. I jumped immediately. At least at that moment I was grateful I didn’t have a fear of heights. If I hesitated for even a second, who knew whether “Minsu” might change his mind and turn me into a teacher.
Goodbye, “Minsu.”
It was fucking terrifying being with you, and let’s never meet again.
As the fall picked up speed, I quickly lost consciousness.
***
To skip to the conclusion, Park Jihye and I successfully escaped Dowon High School. Just as the rules sheet said, jumping from the rooftop was the correct way out.
I’d taken a gamble on the possibility that the rules sheet was lying and that “Minsu” might pretend to help only to stab me in the back, and somehow it had worked. Fortunately, it seemed “Minsu” hadn’t scammed me. I was the only one who’d been scamming him... My conscience hurt about as much as an ant’s tear.
Park Jihye and I woke up back inside Dowon High School in its abandoned-school state. The moment Park Jihye regained consciousness, she started screaming without stopping, so rescue happened quickly.
By my own sense of time, it felt like I’d been trapped in Dowon High School for about three or four days, but outside the anomaly, fifteen days had already passed.
Because Kim Jihoon and Lim Jinsung were missing, and Park Jihye’s family had reported her missing too, Park Jihye and I had to go through all kinds of questioning at the hospital and the police station instead of going straight home. Strangely enough, my parents hadn’t filed a missing persons report. Since we lived separately, apparently they hadn’t even noticed I was missing.
No matter how unfilial a son I might be, wasn’t that a little too indifferent? I felt a little hurt toward my parents, but when they contacted me asking if I was okay, I told them I was. After that, there wasn’t much contact besides my father’s nonsense.
Because the hospital tests showed Park Jihye’s physical condition was a wreck, I was the only one questioned by the police first. Thanks to “Minsu” suddenly healing me at the end, I was in excellent health.
“Mr. Kang Iru?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Two of the friends who disappeared with you still haven’t returned. Do you happen to know anything related to that?”
A police officer who looked exhausted, making small talk about how there had been a lot of missing persons reports lately, asked me about Kim Jihoon and Lim Jinsung’s whereabouts.
What I wanted to do was spill everything and say that “Minsu” had probably chased them not out of the anomaly, but merely outside Dowon High School while they were still inside it. But it was incredibly hard to explain what had happened there. To someone who didn’t know, how much like complete bullshit would my testimony sound?
If only I still had the rules sheet, I could at least have submitted it as evidence. But “Minsu” had taken the rules sheet too, so I had no way to prove what I’d gone through.
If this was how it was going to be, I should have insisted I was in no state mentally and stayed at the hospital until Park Jihye, who’d gone through something similar, recovered. Two people talking about the anomaly together would at least sound a little more believable than just me rambling on alone.
“Why did you go to Dowon High School when it’s an abandoned school?”
“Because YouTube is the future...”
“Pardon?”
“We went there to film a video for the YouTube channel Kim Jihoon started.”
Even though I was trying as hard as possible not to make it sound like nonsense, the police officer’s expression kept changing by the second. Apparently, even without barking, what I was saying sounded enough like bullshit already.
The person who saved the police officer from the headache of dealing with a surging number of missing persons cases and a group of college students who had broken into an abandoned school, only for two out of four to suddenly reappear, was a middle-aged man who abruptly entered the noisy police station.
“Are you Kang Iru?”
The middle-aged man approached me from behind without making a sound. After he appeared, every police officer in the station turned to look our way. For a second I wondered if he was the chief of police, but his clothes weren’t a police uniform. All he had on was a smooth business suit with a metal badge bearing a symbol I’d never seen before pinned to the collar.
“...Who are you?”
“Jeon Jiho, second-rank controller with the Anomaly Control Department. Kang Iru, I don’t think you should be at a police station. I think you need to come speak with us instead.”
“What?”
“After Kang Iru escaped, the state of Dowon High School changed. It’s common for the rules sheet to become unusable after civilians enter, but a veteran controller sent in to investigate the changes was dragged to the fourth floor of the main building the moment he entered and torn apart. The last thing he reported was that ‘he has to take the teacher exam.’”
Whether his name was Jeon Jiho or Almighty Omniscience, this middle-aged man I’d never seen before suddenly grabbed me by the shoulder.
“What exactly did you do in there before escaping?”
I had no idea what the Anomaly Control Department or a second-rank controller even was, but there was one thing I did think I understood.
The teacher exam.
Minsu is really doing his best...