Chapter 136 - Surviving (1)

1

The Black Dragon leader glared at me.

"Sinseo Middle and High’s two biggest outcasts, or whatever—you were the one who named them that, snickering all the while. Kim Gongja. Thanks to you, what was happening in our class..."

Long-standing contempt filled her eyes.

But it did not last. She frowned, then her face went blank again. She looked exhausted by her own emotions. If a sigh could be sculpted into an expression, would it look like that?

"... Forget it. I don’t even want to talk about this with you. Talking only makes me feel worse. Damn it! If I’d known I would have to watch bullying even in high school, I would have gone somewhere else."

"You’re the class president. You have a responsibility for what happens in your class."

"So what? You’re saying this is my responsibility?"

She sneered.

"Amazing. So it’s true you’ve been sticking to ■■ lately, going around meeting every student individually. ["Kim Gongja has repented. Kim Gongja has turned over a new leaf."] Even the teachers were praising you in the faculty room. Good for you."

A cold, mocking smile curled her lips.

"People like you must have it easy. Hurt someone, then apologize, and that’s that, right? Please forgive me, I’ve worked so hard at apologizing—that’s all you have to say. Everything you did wrong was a mistake. Every hurt you caused was a joke."

"..."

"Maybe that works two or three times. But is your entire life nothing but mistakes and jokes? Do you have some disease that’ll kill you if you go a single moment without making a mistake or playing a prank? Is the world a dump for your mistakes, and are people trash cans for your jokes? You plague-ridden bastards. You fucking trash..."

She abruptly closed her lips.

Once again, she stopped just before her emotions grew more violent. She looked down at her indoor shoes, seemingly anxious. Since coming onto the rooftop, she had not looked at the Heaven-Slaying Star once.

"Class president."

"... Don’t do this to me," she muttered.

"Don’t bring me somewhere like this with ■■. You’re just going to tell me to apologize, to admit I did something wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong. You did..."

"You don’t believe that."

"..."

When the Heaven-Slaying Star killed himself in the previous trauma, the school had desperately looked away. The class employed every trick imaginable to forget the [incident] and shift the blame.

["He sent a text like that. Isn’t he seriously crazy?"]

["Exactly. Looking back, he was always a little weird."]

The Heaven-Slaying Star was crazy. He was strange.

We, on the other hand, were ‘normal.’

Perhaps we had sent him a bullying text or two as a joke. But it was a joke. Nothing more than a momentary lapse. Everyone joked around, everyone stepped out of line, so we were still normal.

Perhaps we had laughed at him. But that was a mistake. We hadn’t meant it. It wasn’t something we had done with serious intent; we had merely giggled, swept along by the atmosphere around us. We had done nothing wrong.

["Think carefully about what matters to you, and pull yourselves together."]

["Yes, sir."]

And so the class pushed away one of its own.

Not even suicide, not even death, could awaken their guilt.

+

You murdered me.

Don’t forget.

You killed me.

+

Except for one person.

The Black Dragon leader had not answered, ‘Yes, sir.’ She had said nothing.

She had simply lowered her head in silence.

"Please, don’t do this to me..."

While countless perpetrators stood shamelessly in their madness, only one bystander remained silent.

"I did my best. In our first year, I tried to stop it too. Damn it."

And there were hundreds of reasons a person fell silent.

"I looked into all sorts of things because of you people... Do you know? This school belongs to the Seryun Educational Foundation. There are ten board members, and your girlfriend’s parents are among them, Kim Gongja. You didn’t know, did you? You didn’t know any of this, and you just bullied ■■ as though it were perfectly natural. The head pastor of Seryun Church in the Samwon Presbytery is on the board too. That’s my family’s church! I see him every weekend!"

She clutched her forehead.

"Why do I have to know all this shit because of the mess you’ve shat out? Just... please. Know when to stop. I’m in my second year now too... I study on four or five hours of sleep a day. I’m busy. I entered on a scholarship, just like ■■... Maybe you can laugh your way through school and enjoy yourselves!"

Malice is easy.

"Maybe you can torment people without a single thought!"

Goodwill is always impossible.

"I’m desperate! This school has a fucking scholarship selection committee, and our magnificent homeroom teacher sits on it as the head of the second-year faculty! You don’t know, do you? You don’t need to know, do you? When I, damn it, brought up ■■ with that bastard of a teacher... Please. Just stop. I didn’t want to know any of this! It’s all disgusting. You, our teacher, the school, all of it... I’m busy trying to survive, so just work it out among yourselves!"

"I’m sorry."

One reason is enough to commit an act of malice.

To act with goodwill, you must shoulder hundreds of reasons.

"Sorry? Ha, how sorry are you? No, fuck it, forget it. Don’t apologize to me. Don’t apologize, Kim Gongja. I don’t need an apology, and I don’t deserve one. And you don’t need to apologize, nor do you have the right. Because you’re trash. Just die as trash. Live as trash until you die. Please, I’m begging you, let’s never see each other again after we graduate."

"I’m sorry."

"I said don’t apologize! You piece of shit!"

She kicked my shin. A sharp tingle ran through it, vibrating in the bone. Breathing furiously, she slapped my cheek.

The violence continued like a curse.

I let her strike me as I spoke.

"He was going to kill himself."

Her hand stopped.

"He would have jumped a month ago. From here."

Silence settled over the rooftop.

"..."

She turned her head.

Only then did she look at the Heaven-Slaying Star for the first time.

Her lips moved several times.

"Is that... true?"

Awkwardly.

As though simply addressing the person before her was more than she could bear.

"Were you going to die...?"

She spoke cautiously.

The Heaven-Slaying Star met her gaze without expression.

"Yes."

"..."

"I don’t know how Kim Gongja found out. But yes, I was going to kill myself."

"..."

"So that’s what you were thinking, class president. I had no idea."

The rooftop grew quiet.

Slowly.

She covered her face with both hands.

"I’m not sorry..."

Sobs escaped between her young fingers.

"I’m not sorry to you, ■■. I just... In our first year, while gathering evidence of school violence, I happened to find out who was on the board. I gave up because I thought exposing it wouldn’t change anything. In our second year, I brought it up with our homeroom teacher once and quit. That’s just the kind of person I am. Remember me as that kind of person."

"..."

"But don’t die. Please don’t die... Why would you die? You can’t die. You can’t die because of those pieces of trash. You can’t, ■■. You have to live. Okay? If you live and get into a good university, earn money somehow, and leave this goddamn city..."

"I thought about that too," the Heaven-Slaying Star muttered.

"But then I thought those bastards would forget."

"..."

"They’d live happily, as though nothing ever happened. No, they wouldn’t even remember. That’s what I hate most. I wanted to fuck those bastards over. They’ll forget anyway, but..."

He looked down at her.

"I’m sorry, class president."

"..."

"I wasn’t trying to hurt someone like you."

She sank to her knees. Covering her face, she held her breath. She clenched her teeth, suppressing the sound. That suppressed sound sent a shock through her body, making her shoulders tremble.

The Heaven-Slaying Star spoke.

"There was someone."

He bent his knees.

"I thought there wasn’t a single person."

He lowered himself.

Until he was at the same height as her.

"I’m glad I didn’t die then, a month ago."

He slowly put his arms around her shoulders. She flinched. He moved a little closer and rested his head against her.

"I’m glad there’s even one person I can forgive."

"..."

"I’m glad."

Her breathing broke apart. Spilled out. She could not embrace him. She merely bent over, enduring the sobs wrung from her heart. The Heaven-Slaying Star held his classmate like that for a while.

"I’m sorry..."

Her body crumbled.

"I’m sorry, ■■. I’m sorry. Sorry. I’m so sorry."

But only the outer shell melted away.

She did not fall into a shadow, into a wraith.

The person stripped of the Black Dragon leader’s face—someone—cried out.

"Please don’t die. Please. I’m begging you... You have to live."

It was the face of someone I knew.

A voice I had heard somewhere.

"We can live. We can survive. We can live a little better. We have to live, ■■. I’ll try harder, I’ll try just a little harder. Together..."

[The trauma’s recreation fidelity is decreasing.]

The void ate into the rooftop’s iron door.

Pitch-black mist crept through its gaps like tentacles. Soundlessly. Black tentacles coiled around the iron door.

Swallowed it.

The void that had submerged everything up through the fifth floor climbed the school walls and flowed into the rooftop fence.

"None of them care about you. None of them, none of them. None... You can’t die because of beasts like that. You have to live. Those animal bastards can’t be allowed to ruin your life. Fight tooth and nail to survive, study, yes. Get into university... Go to another city."

I looked at the person from whom the Black Dragon leader’s flesh had peeled away.

"Let’s live for unfortunate children..."

At that moment.

"Let’s give our time to children more unfortunate than us. We can do it. I’m sure we can. I’ll help you... I’ve researched a lot. Studied. It isn’t some stupid delusion. If we really try, we can do it..."

A piercing chill ran down my spine.

"... First, let’s enter a social welfare program. We’ll need certification."

An electric current shook my head.

"To live here, to survive in this world, we have to become strong, ■■. We have to wrap ourselves in armor so other people can’t look down on us or get in our way. Let’s study. I’ll help you... I can help."

Ahh.

"Which university we graduated from, what qualifications we have... They may seem useless right now. But with them, we can do so much more than without them. We can do what we want to do. They’re power. First, we have to become strong."

Ah.

"Let’s help children together. Alone, I... Alone, it’ll be hard. Yes. I might not be able to bear it. I might end up hurting the children. But with two of us. Three of us. If just four of us come together, we can do anything. I’m sure we can do anything."

Director.

"We’ll work hard..."

My dear director.

"This world isn’t all there is. It can’t be, ■■. We can make our own world. Start small... small. Even two people can make a world. Please don’t die... Together. Let’s live in another world, the two of us..."

The young director’s face.

["Don’t do that."]

["You haven’t done anything wrong."]

It overlapped with the director’s long-weary voice.

Thinking back on it now.

The director seemed concerned and wary about loving us too much.

["Don’t let someone like me twist you."]

Seemed always to be afraid.

"..."

The Heaven-Slaying Star stroked the young director’s head.

"I don’t think we’ll make much money."

"We won’t..."

"It sounds hard."

"They say it’s incredibly hard..."

"But I think it’ll be better than things are now."

The Heaven-Slaying Star smiled.

"I stopped studying in the second semester of our first year. It’ll be a little hard."

"It’s okay. It isn’t too late. Nothing is too late yet."

"Okay. Class president. In this world..."

[The trauma’s recreation fidelity is decreasing.]

"Let’s survive together."

[Unable to restore the data.]

The rooftop collapses.

The school melts away.

The bell rings, announcing the end of lessons.

[Trauma recreation terminated.]

The possibility of what might have been, the supposition of what if, the one-in-ten-thousand hypothesis—all are buried in the black emptiness. The Heaven-Slaying Star’s smile, too. The director’s childhood appearance, which I had never known. The two classmates, one smiling while the other cries.

The past.

The time of a past that ended in failure. Regret. Remorse.

[Confirmed that the subject’s sense of self has been preserved.]

It all disappears.

[Ending the penalty.]

The world sinks into static.

■.

■.

■.

■.

I opened my eyes.