Histori's Perspective >
The classroom was steeped in a muffled din.
A thin veil of false calm desperately tried to conceal the tense atmosphere, yet the mood within this rectangular enclosure was palpable.
Students moved like restless specters, their movements punctuated only by the harsh scrape of chairs against the polished floor.
Bags were carelessly tossed onto desks, and hushed, anxious whispers emanated from girls complaining about unallocated points or their inability to manage studies and expenses.
Added to this were the soft curses muttered by the boys, especially Domon, who had already cursed Miss Aria for the ninth time.
Eyes darted towards the ceiling, awaiting a divine salvation from this routine… all these details painted a picture of suffocation.
Harsh white fluorescent lights cast sharp shadows beneath the students' eyes, as if we were under interrogation in an isolated room.
In my seat,
I sat immersed in my silence, hands in my pockets, my book open before me.
My gaze swept over the lines without truly reading, while my senses absorbed the room's tense rhythm.
From over his shoulder, Mahoro Ryota turned his head towards me.
Without a smile, without preamble.
"I need you on the rooftop after class."
He uttered it in a flat tone, as if dictating an inevitable appointment. I held his gaze for a few seconds; there was nothing in his yellow eyes.
I tilted my neck slightly, trying to gauge his intentions, but he turned back to face forward, indifferently raising his phone as if his first task was complete.
The spaces between the desks vanished as students poured in, and the din swelled like a creature feeding on chaos.
In the far right corner, Domon Taniki asserted his overwhelming presence, his massive body slumped lazily in his seat like a king.
His ankle rested on his right knee, and the dark tattoo on his neck—even with my keen eyesight, it was hard to discern its shape from this distance, but it resembled a Venus flytrap.
< Author's Note: The Venus is that strange plant with a mouth that snaps shut on anything that lands on it, the one we see on National Geographic, the Venus flytrap >
It seemed the other students, especially the girls, were utterly uncomfortable with his presence; this was evident in their wary glances towards him.
To my right, I caught the whispers of Sisika and her sharp-featured friend.
"The situation is chaotic... I doubt they'll disburse this month's points," the girl muttered, tapping her digital watch nervously.
"W-why? There haven't been any absences this week..." Sisika tried to weakly defend her argument, but even her fragile optimism couldn't overcome her friend's observation.
"Because someone acts like they're above accountability." Rose said curtly, and the conversation ended with a quick glance directed at me.
I didn't turn.
I knew I was the target.
Then, the rows parted as Rose began to approach me.
She stood directly in front of me, her shadow covering the edge of my desk.
A mass of cold anger, wrapped in a boldness I wasn't sure was genuine.
Her arms were crossed over her chest.
Her short black hair swayed as she tilted her neck slightly to the left, her blue eyes narrowing distinctly as she looked at me.
"Histori Martinez, isn't it?"
I slowly raised my gaze. "Yes."
Sisika, standing behind her, desperately tried to stop her, clutching the edge of Rose's jacket with trembling fingers.
"Rose, please don't... everyone's looking at us," Sisika whispered pleadingly.
But Rose violently shook her hand off, ignoring her warning.
"They can go to hell."
She fixed her blue eyes on me. I found myself immediately returning to my book, as if her presence wasn't worth my attention.
Not a second passed before Rose raised her hand and brought it down with full force.
BAM!
Her hand slammed onto the pages of the book in front of me, the paper crinkling under the weight of her fingers.
Sisika gasped in horror, covering her mouth with her hands.
The impact echoed through the room like a gunshot, silencing all background chatter.
The students' whispers ceased.
Time froze.
I felt the room's held breath and the eyes fixed on us.
"Why are you absent every Wednesday and Thursday? Do you think you're the director's son?" she roared in a sharp voice, trembling slightly with anger.
I maintained my posture, hands in my pockets.
My back rested against the chair, my gaze fixed on her flushed features with complete composure.
"I don't want trouble."
This icy calm infuriated her even more, though I truly hadn't intended to provoke her anger.
From his seat, Mahoro decided to light an extra match.
He tilted his head towards Rose, a sly smile distorting his lips.
"Are you in a bad mood today?" he said with a sarcastic tone, then cast a provocative glance towards the back of the classroom. "Or are you just looking for a scapegoat to vent your monthly frustrations on?"
The word dropped like a bomb into a pool of boiling oil.
The entire class froze for a full second, then erupted.
Rose flinched as if stung by a scorpion, her face turning a deep crimson that reached her ears.
Her blue eyes widened first in shock.
She opened her mouth twice before a sound escaped, as if the words had caught in her throat from the intensity of the insult.
"You... you're rude!" Rose shrieked in a sharp, trembling voice that almost broke. "How dare you say that, you scoundrel?!"
A wave of muffled commotion spread among the girls.
In the second row,
A girl with long brown hair covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes filled with shame and anger, and whispered to her friend in a voice audible to those around her: "Oh my God... this is too much..."
Beside her, another girl with delicate glasses quickly bowed her head, not looking at the scene, but gripping her pen so tightly her knuckles turned white.
A third girl in the back half-rose, seemingly unable to stay silent, her voice trembling with anger and rising to a shout:
"Mahoro Ryota! You're crossing every line! At least respect the girls!"
Sisika, meanwhile, froze completely behind Rose, her face pale as paper, her wide eyes filled with extreme terror and tension. She didn't utter a single word. Her fingers clutched the edge of Rose's jacket with desperate force, whispering, "How did things get like this...?"
From the boys' side,
The reactions were more varied and pragmatic.
Some offered muted, malicious smiles and exchanged quick glances as if to say, "That's bold."
Others shook their heads in disapproval, and one in the last row, in the middle section, muttered in a low voice: "That scoundrel doesn't know the consequences of his words..."
Everyone was silent, the atmosphere unbearably suffocating. The girl who had stood up sat down again when she saw that Mahoro paid no attention to any of the angry girls and returned to his phone, his right foot over his left, as if he had forgotten to greet anyone.
But he said something without looking away from his black phone screen.
"If you're looking for a target to vent your anger, there's a mountain of flesh that looks like he just stepped out of a Yakuza gang. Why pick on Histori specifically?"
Rose tilted her head again, and for a moment, it seemed Rose was the first to understand Mahoro's intention, but the latter
scoffed, his voice containing a muffled laugh, and decided to continue his insinuation further: "This class is truly pathetic. I can't believe you didn't notice that dark creature huddled up like dried feces from an old man's anus."
The class froze again. The student with glasses looked at Domon, then at some of the other students.
Domon's shoulders tensed when he realized Mahoro was hinting at him. He slowly and terrifyingly raised his head, the veins in his neck prominent.
One student laughed, muffling the sound with his hand, but immediately fell silent when Domon gave him a murderous look. Some boys bowed their heads, unwilling to get involved.
A student with relatively long black hair left the classroom without a word, along with a girl with short blonde hair, who seemed to be his friend.
For a moment, I wished I could leave with them, just to avoid watching this movie unfold.
Some of the girls seemed to have forgotten Mahoro's previous rudeness and focused on the bigger revelation unfolding here.
Even I, sitting behind Mahoro, hadn't expected him to utter words even more vulgar than what he had said before.
On the other side, the large-bodied student stood up and moved towards Mahoro's desk. Rose and Sisika immediately moved out of his way.
"Are you talking about me, you little scoundrel?" he said in a gruff voice that resembled a growl from a fifty-year-old man's throat.
His fist was clenched, the veins in his arm and wrist prominent.
Mahoro didn't flinch. On the contrary, his smile widened significantly. He seemed to be looking for trouble as much as Domon was.
He slowly rose from his seat, standing his relatively slender body opposite the mountain of muscle, without a single shred of fear.
— "And if I am? What will you do?"
The class was stunned.
Mahoro's relaxed stance and direct challenge to Domon were pure madness. Domon was about to pounce on him, had it not been for a hand that firmly gripped his shoulder.
His friend, with rectangular glasses and neat attire, whispered to him in a sharp, rational voice:
"Aria-sensei hates you and is looking for opportunities to expel you. The surveillance cameras are working. Don't get involved in this idiot's drama now... Sit down."
Domon stood for two seconds, fire in his eyes, before returning to his seat, giving Mahoro one last threatening look.
Rose turned back to Mahoro and said in a relatively calm voice this time,
— "You want to know why?"
Before I could move, she pulled my hand forcefully and, with a swift motion, snatched my digital watch from my wrist, raising it high in the air.
"Look at his balance!" she shrieked with a frenzied triumph. "He's absent more than all of us, and he has 3000 points! Each point is 1500 Won! He has four and a half million Korean Won without doing anything!"
Whispers immediately rose like an agitated beehive.
In the third row,
The girl with the side braid and round glasses stopped writing. Her green eyes gleamed with curiosity, and she whispered to her friend in a voice audible to those around her:
— "That's mathematically impossible. His absences mean an automatic deduction. Either he exploited a loophole in the academy's system... or he possesses hidden privileges we don't know about."
One student said playfully, "Dude?! Are you really the director's son, as Rose said at first?"
Rose looked at me with the glee of a victor and continued:
— "How do you have this? Answer."
I didn't respond.
I didn't move.
And my facial expression didn't change.
I looked at her in complete silence. This terrifying void in my reaction made the atmosphere heavier and more stagnant.
The absence of justification was more terrifying than any answer. When someone provokes you, if you don't react, they'll get nervous and bored.
This was what I excelled at.
— "Why aren't you talking?!" Her voice trembled.
— "Let go of my hand." I said it very calmly, but my voice and a slight narrowing of my eyes carried a warning she didn't understand.
A flicker of hesitation was in Rose's eyes, but she refused to let go of my hand.
At that moment... the classroom door slid open.
Mia Cyrus entered.
She didn't need to make a fuss.
Her overwhelming presence,
her flowing purple hair, and her headphones around her neck were enough to steal attention. Her yellow eyes swept the room from the doorway before she fully entered.
She stared at the captured wrist.
Then at me.
Mia smiled with exaggerated gentleness, waving her hand as if greeting a dear colleague.
"Good morning, dear. Good morning, everyone!" She advanced confidently and gave me an amused look. "And Histori... I want my points now."
"Points?" Rose asked, her voice losing its edge.
The room was filled with the smell of burning metal.
Blue sparks flew from the workbench.
Kayla, his older sister,
sat there with dark welding goggles, fusing parts of an electronic board with a precise soldering iron, seemingly in absolute concentration.
She turned when Mahoro entered.
She lifted her goggles and looked at him with a coolness that matched the room's heat.
"Didn't you learn to knock, animal?"
Mahoro threw the phone onto her table.
— "Open this useless thing quickly."
Kayla sighed, "Damn you this morning."
She picked up the phone, and as soon as her thumb brushed the cold casing and the engraved metal seal on its back, her expression completely hardened.
"Where did you steal this from?" she asked in a voice that dropped to a terrifying hiss.
"From some nobody student in my class. Can you open it or not?" he asked stubbornly and dismissively.
Kayla slowly rose and threw the phone onto the table as if it were a ticking bomb, saying while touching her forehead, "You're such an idiot..."
"Excuse me?" Mahoro tilted his neck.
"Hack it? Are you crazy? This is an 'Aegis Ghost-Protocol' phone. This isn't a device sold for money; it's custom-made for diplomats and heads of state. Its value exceeds fifty thousand dollars, and it has a self-destruct system that will wipe us from the civil registry the moment we try to connect it to my computer!"
Mahoro stood stunned, but his pride prevented him from backing down. He said in a different voice this time,
"We are the Chaebol, Kayla. Our father owns a quarter of this country and the entire Busan tribute. Why should we tremble at a mere phone belonging to a student whose background we don't know?"
Kayla smiled a smile devoid of any warmth and picked up her personal phone from the table.
"Very well, stubborn one. I'll tell your father that his genius heir brought a sovereign disaster into my room, and I'll ask him to send his men to drag you out by your neck right now. Shall I?"
"Hey... for heaven's sake, what happened to you, sister? Fear isn't like you."
"Listen, you brat, I'm not a coward, but I'm not stupid enough to make my father clash with a man of his power just to satisfy a fleeting whim of a child like you."
Mahoro's face paled, and he swallowed. He realized his sister was completely serious, and there was no room to provoke her.
"Go return it immediately," Kayla ordered in a voice that brooked no argument.
"He left it for you to understand your true size. It's a message to realize that you can't even scratch him, and that student probably knows perfectly well that you'll return it humiliated."
Mahoro picked up the phone with obvious disappointment. As he turned the doorknob, her voice came from behind him, "What's that student's name?"
"Histori Martinez," he uttered and left the room, closing the door with a soft click.
Kayla, sitting in front of her wide-screen computer, typing without looking at the keyboard, "Histori Martinez, then?"
Mahoro walked through the corridors, his mind gnawed by thoughts.
He finally reached the first-year lockers, cautiously extending his hand towards Histori's locker to confirm what he suspected.
But his hand stopped in mid-air.
The locker door was ajar.
Open, waiting for him.
"Just as Kayla said," Mahoro whispered in a low voice.
It wasn't Histori's carelessness; he had left it like that intentionally... a blatant declaration and a psychological defeat silently telling him: "I knew you'd come back defeated to return it."
< Mahoro's Perspective >
Three hours later, there was a soft knock at the door.
I stood up with immense annoyance, stepping forward while muttering, "Who's the scoundrel knocking on my door at the worst possible moment for my mood?" I opened it, and there was Histori at the threshold.
A pair of red eyes stared at me in that same damn cold way.
He was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and black jeans as well. What exactly is his problem with the color black? Does he want to assassinate me after midnight?
I truly wished I could slap him.
"Did you come to gloat?" I said bluntly, poking my head out past the doorframe, turning it right and left to check if he had come alone.
"Where's that purple-haired fool who follows you around all the time? Have you stopped hiding behind her skirt?"
"Can I come in?" Histori asked casually. I sighed in boredom and reluctantly let him in; I was curious to know what he wanted.
I noticed he was carrying a bag. "What's in it?" I asked. He placed it on the table and sat politely after gesturing toward the sofa, asking for permission.
"A hospitality gift. No one visits someone empty-handed," he said in a normal voice.
I don't recall ever visiting anyone with hands that weren't empty.
That scoundrel acts as if he isn't visiting someone who just snatched his phone from his pocket or picked a fight with him. How does this damn red-eyed guy think?
On top of that, why can't I provoke him?