Chapter 41 –
Sijoon Said He Doesn’t Like Chicken! 

It was time to return to the dorm now.

After I saw Yoona leave towards her class, I walked down the hallway to get to my destination. 

Step. Step.

My counseling session with Ms. Sihwa had finished so now classes were starting for the students.

Only the sound of my steps were echoing in the hallway.

As I walked in the quiet hallway, the students outside the window heading to their outdoor training class caught my attention.

That class…

The First Year classes were sorted from Class A, B, C, D, to E.

This wasn’t in the order of the students’ grades, but merely arranged by the numbers.

But for the sake of the student gaps, those of the upper ranks were split apart to some extent.

The students of higher rank obviously had higher scores, and in V. AGE, they played significant roles.

Among the Class B students, the one who caught my eye was, of course, the first year who scored first place.

Lee Seolha.

Lee Seolha had dark-navy bobbed hair which came down to her shoulders.

Since Hayeon had given up first place, Seolha was the one who won the scholarship. 

It was a blow to her pride, so she disliked Hayeon.

Like the illustration from V. AGE, she gave off a sharp impression.

She came from a poor background yet had a strong personality.

As I stared fixedly on Seolha, she seemed to sensed my gaze since she abruptly turned around and made eye contact with me.

“…”

Who is he to stare at me like that?

That was definitely what her gaze said.

She briefly met my eyes, then immediately followed the students to the training grounds and vanished.

What a scary glare…

I made eye contact with Seolha for a moment, but had she been in front of me, it seemed like she’d raise her fist at me.

I’d certainly be meeting her in the next episode.

This face-to-face encounter wasn’t bad on my end.

She couldn’t see me from her end anyway.

I had a hat pressed down on my head, so it was a one-sided exchange on her side.

I’ll likely meet her again in the next episode.

In V. AGE, most of the episodes had fixed strategies.

If certain characters had abilities, the episode could be cleared easily.nIf they didn’t, then it might be fairly difficult to proceed with the episodes.

That was why, every episode in V. AGE had characters that were essential for the strategy.

In episode 2, the character expected to perform the best was…

Lee Seolha.

If I could borrow her strength in episode 2, the likelihood of reducing the student death toll was very high.

But will she cooperate

with me?

That was the biggest issue.

Besides Seolha’s pride, there were other problems, so it was difficult to recruit her as a teammate.

I thought about her as I checked my plans for today.

Hm…

There was nothing.

There’s nothing else to do now, so I should get back.

I quietly walked past the school president’s office, and walked quickly to return to my room.

 ***

The room with no one else in it was lonely.

When there were no people around me, I often got anxious.

“Still… Rabbit is with me, so it’s okay…”

I can endure it!

Sijoon said if I waited, he’d give a reward for good girls.

It was much more tasty than sweet snacks, like it was filling the emptiness in my heart.

“Hehe… It’s a good thing I came out of the hideout! If I stayed there, I wouldn’t have known about stuff like this! Yoowol Unni is a dummy!”

Han Yoowol was very scary, and because she had good ears, this was the first time I could be at ease and badmouth her.

Was this how the main character in the fairy tale, ”King with Donkey Ears” felt?

The suffocating feeling was gone and I felt refreshed.

But why…

“This place is so nice… Why is Grampa and the Ajussis
1
trying to destroy it…”

I couldn’t understand the current situation even more.

The people outside are trash.

The people outside are terrible people who want to use you.

Those were the words Grampa said to me.

Having experienced it firsthand, it didn’t occur to me at all that they were bad people.

“Even when I look at the red-haired Ajumma
2
, or just Sijoon, they’re kind… Except for the black-haired girl.”

The Ajumma with the red hair, who was much bigger than me…

Sijoon called her “Teacher.”

“I want the same teacher as Sijoon… I want to do the same things with Sijoon…” 

But the one girl on my radar…

The dark-haired girl who was glued to Sijoon’s side like gum.

Even if I asked the rabbit I was hugging, the rabbit would say she was a bad girl.

Anyway…

It seemed like that.

“What do they call stuff like this…?”

Sensation?

Touch?

I think it was called something like that?

I couldn’t remember it in detail.

“Anyway, Sijoon! When are you coming back?!”

Waiting was difficult too!

I didn’t have much patience.

The number one thing I couldn’t do was endure, and waiting came second.

“I want to hurry and do that thing…”

As I started to get tired of waiting, I couldn’t endure it any more.

With a serious expression, I stared at the white rabbit doll.

“Rabbit-kun. From today on, you’re Sijoon. Alright?”

The name of the rabbit who I always tried to name but forgot…

I decided his name was going to be Sijoon starting today.

“Now, S-Sijoon…! Ready?!”

Badump. Badump.

Recalling the sensation from back then, my heart thumped.

This is Sijoon. This rabbit is Sijoon.

I immediately kissed Sijoon on the lips.

“Sijoon…!”

As I recalled the memory and locked lips, what I felt on my mouth was soft fur.

It felt different from Sijoon’s moist lips.

“T-This…isn’t it!!”

As I thought, I needed Sijoon.

No one but Sijoon could fill my heart.

“Shi… When is he coming back…?! Sijoon!!”

Being a good girl…was not as easy as Sijoon said it would be. 

 ***

“What the… She’s sleeping.”

When I had opened the dorm room’s door to leave, Hana’s eyes were full of anxiety.

Yet the current Hana didn’t even notice that I had returned, and was sleeping with the fluffy rabbit doll as a pillow.

Zzz. Zzz.

She let out a small sound, while having fallen into a slumber.

I had not even been out that long, but if she was sleeping so soundly like this, it meant she fell asleep shortly after I left.

With the given information, I could take a guess.

“She probably didn’t eat lunch…”

Since she only had a toast for breakfast, she must be very hungry.

It couldn’t be helped, so I began to prepare food for her.

Let’s see what ingredients there are first.

I opened the fridge to find out.

“…There’s nothing to eat.”

 My fridge was empty.

The only things in there were eggs and various types of beverages.

I didn’t see any ingredients that could be used to make a meal.

Did I really live like this…?

For dinner I just had bread, and the only proper meal I had was at the academy restaurant.

When I thought about it, that was the moment I realized why my body was skinny.

I don’t have much money, guess I have no choice.

It was impossible for me to cook her a meal under the current circumstances.

It was also impossible to go to the academy’s restaurant since it was late.

There was only one remaining method.

The price of chicken has gone up lately though…

I picked up my phone, which was plugged to a charger, and pressed the delivery app.

I wasn’t sure if it’d suit Hana’s luxurious palate who always ate meat, but I’ve never seen anyone who hated it in my life, so I began to order it right away.

 ***

The food delivery arrived, and as I unfolded the table to set the meal, Hana began to stir from her sleep due to the smell.

“Ehh… Sijoon? What’s this smell?”

“Ahh. This is what you call a chicken.”

“Chicken…?”

Chicken.

It was everyone’s favorite food, a fried chicken dish that rarely anyone hated.

In my opinion, Korea’s soul food was chicken.

It was enough to rouse Hana from her sleep.

She rubbed her eyes, got up from the bed, and softly plopped down in front of the chicken.

Because she had lived in the secret hideout, it looked like this was her first time seeing delivery food.

I opened the packaging and showed her what kind of food it was.

“This is a fried chicken dish, it’s one of my favorite foods.”

“If… S-Sijoon likes it, I like it too!

The steam was still coming from the chicken, so I got a paper foil from the kitchen and wrapped the piping hot chicken leg.

“It’s hot, so eat slowly.”

“I’m not an idiot! I’m going to eat slowly!”

Do you know that you seem more like an idiot because of that comment, Hana?

But was it because I heard of her past?

I didn’t want to tease her today.

Hana blinked her round pink eyes, and stared at the steam coming from the chicken.

“Ohh…”

She looked at the leg she was holding with interest.

If she had grown up, not under Shin Haeil, but in a normal family, would she have made that reaction?

 
Forget it. Forget that past of hers.

Hana’s past made me conscious to the point I almost wished I hadn’t heard it.

Her reaction left a slight bitterness in my heart.

Right now, I was only looking at Ban Hana.

I made up my mind to view her without any bias.

Once I settled on that, I saw she was blowing wind on the chicken leg.

“Huu… Huu…”

Hana blew on the hot leg to cool it off.

When the heat settled down a bit, she took a bite out of the chicken. 

Crunch.

The crispy texture of biting into the surface of the fried chicken.

The inside was hot and tender.

Hana’s eyes flew wide open as if she was completely awake now, and then she hastily dug into the chicken.

She concentrated as she ate.

I felt bad asking her a question when she was so focused, but I decided to ask her about the taste.

“Hana, is it tasty?”

“It’s tasty! Sijoon! Hurry and eat too, Sijoon! I could even eat the entire thing! This is the taste of a villain…!!”

Saying how she couldn’t hold back, she held the chicken in her hands.

The days when I ordered chicken with Hayeon, we made a fantastic duo: I ate all the chicken legs, while she ate the chicken breasts.

But I couldn’t do that now, so I had no choice but to watch Hana as she tore off the chicken leg.

Yeah, gobble it up Hana.

Just watching you eat makes me happy.

“I don’t like chicken. Go ahead and eat it all, Hana. Slowly, you’ll get an upset stomach…”

Why would the mother say she didn’t like Jjajjangmyeon?
3

It was a moment when I sympathized with the mother’s feelings.
4

When I saw Hana eat well with sauce on her mouth, I began to feel a little regret.

 
Ah. I shouldn’t have thrown away my taste buds.

Why did I throw my taste buds away…

The chicken tasted absolutely like nothing, just nutrients that only gave me protein.

“It’s tasty! Hehe…!”

“Yeah, eat up…”

She tore off her second leg, and ate well.

I just watched her.

Footnotes
 

1
Ajussi: A word referring to middle-aged men.

2
Ajumma: A word referring to middle-aged women.

3
Jjajjangmyeon: Is a Korean-Chinese black bean noodle dish.

4
Mother doesn’t like Jjajjangmyeon is also a lyric from the song, “To Mother,” from a famous Korean K-pop group, god. Basically the mother says she doesn’t like it so that the child eats more.