Chapter 83

“Uh? What are you guys doing over there?”

“Come sit down.”

“Whoa!”

After chatting excitedly with friends, Nuri returned from the bathroom.

“Are we one short?”

“I’ll go get them. Hey, Shin Si Hoo, you come too and hurry up. We’re going to play air games in 4 vs 4 teams.”

“What? Don’t pull me; my clothes will stretch!”

Si Hoo, who had been quietly reading a book, joined in.

Before long, eight of us were gathered around in a circle ready to play air games.

Just as sparrows cannot pass by a mill, the children, enchanted by the peculiar game, joined our group.

Yuna and I ended up on different teams to start the air game team match.

If one person fails, the next person continues from that stage, making it a continuous game.

The first round started off lightly at 30 years.

Since I could easily go on for a hundred or a thousand years if I really tried, I decided to end it around 5 years. However, Yuna unexpectedly succeeded in a series of 9 years right from the beginning, tipping the scales.

In the end, the final score was 31 to 26, with Yuna’s team winning.

“Whoa! We won!”

“That was too easy, Namé!”

“Let’s change the rules.”

“Should we make it 50 years then?”

“No, from now on, the opposing team can change the weight of the air stones at will.”

There was a reason for the mana gathered inside the air stones.

One could say it was part of a grand plan.

“This air stone is designed to change weight according to the mana density around it. If I inject a large amount of mana here, Yuna, why don’t you try picking that one up?”

“What? It got really heavy!”

“The weight of the air stone fluctuates constantly.”

Simply extending the years would make the game tedious.

Moreover, since it’s a team game, it takes quite a while until it’s your turn again.

“Do you want to try ‘bending’ once?”

Yuna grabbed five air stones and threw them into the air.

“Whoa! What’s this?”

When thrown with the same force, the light air stones soared high while the heavy ones fell quickly.

“This way, the opposing team can change the weight of the air stones to hinder us. Should we try starting with 30 years again?”

This way, it could become a true air game team match where everyone could participate.

After all, there’s nothing more fun than hindering the opponent who is trying their best, right?

“Jeon Nuri, I thought you went to the bathroom; what are you doing here?”

A clear voice rang out above me. Iharu was looking down at us with crossed arms.

“This is so much fun! Come join us.”

“What is this?”

Haru squatted down and pointed at the unimpressive plastic pieces.

With only 4 vs 4, we were short on players.

Reluctantly, I decided to stand up and let Iharu join the game.

“Namé, where are you going?”

“We have an odd number of players now. I’ll sit this one out, but Haru will join our team.”

Yuna suddenly told me to lean in closer, putting her ear to mine.

“I don’t like that person. Iharu is someone who always talks behind my back.”

“How about using this chance to become friends?”

“…I don’t know about that.”

It seemed that Iharu, too, was just as confused.

“I didn’t say I would join—”

“Come sit next to Yuna.”

Somehow, Haru ended up wedged between Yuna and Nuri, and he sulked, asking to at least be told the rules.

“I don’t know how to play at all.”

“While drinking~ you learn~ it’s a fun~ game.”

“Hmm?”

“Well, we don’t have any alcohol now. Just follow what the others are doing. It’s not too difficult.”

I tried to lighten the mood with an irrelevant joke, but as everyone looked confused, I turned serious and spoke to Haru.

Taking care of these kids is such a hard task.

Today, I particularly felt like having a drink.

I should just go to the bathroom.

* * *

The term rival could be considered the same as a competitor on equal grounds, but that was based on the assumption that both parties thought so.

If Si Hoo thought Yuna was just a competitor, it was more logical to see Iharu as Yuna’s true rival.

The eyes of the two girls looking at their arch-nemesis burned fiercely.

The thought that they absolutely could not lose to that person dominated them.

However, the one who had the upper hand in the game was undoubtedly Yuna, who was the first to receive the air game lessons from Namé.

“Yay, three years! Only two years left, right?”

On one side, cheer and excitement erupted, while the other side sighed in frustration.

“Hey, what if you just make everything super heavy? Yoon Yuna makes it way too easy to catch.”

“I really didn’t use mana this time. Iharu, you must have messed up your strength control.”

“Hehe, this is starting to get easy, huh? We might finish first at this rate.”

Confidently, Yuna boasted, but her words fell flat when she abruptly missed a suddenly light air stone on the next level, handing the turn over.

“Iharu, fight on!”

“Pay close attention, Seoyuna. Your turn may not come.”

Haru could say that because he understood the principle of how the air stones became heavier.

Changing according to the density of surrounding mana meant that one could also adjust and counter it.

Throwing and catching stones was hard enough, but managing mana simultaneously was truly difficult.

However, to win against Seoyuna, it was something he had to endure. Haru gritted his teeth and concentrated all his spirit on the air stone.

“The yellow air stone is heavy, while the blue one is excessively light.”

Having strategized about how to lower the weight of the former by dispersing the mana and consolidating the mana of the latter, Haru finally threw the stone.

At that moment, Yuna’s eyes lit up red.

She conjured a small mana storm, instantly making the light one heavy and the heavy one light.

“Ah…!”

Just as a bicycle whose handlebars move in the opposite direction cannot be ridden by human brains, it was impossible to adapt instantly to the suddenly reversed concept.

One air stone bounced from Haru’s fist and fell to the ground.

Without permitting Haru a single mistake, Si Hoo received the stone, swiftly capturing two stones on a curve, concluding the second team match.

“Yay! Shin Si Hoo is amazing! I was counting on you!”

“Hey, back off, Seoyuna!”

“We won, we won! We did it!”

Haru, who found the obnoxious behavior of that annoying kid contemptible, stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to use the bathroom too.”

“Should I go with you?”

“No, I can go alone. Nuri, you just went before.”

Haru touched her own cheeks, feeling the heat that had built up. Planning to simply wash it off, she stepped outside.

From Class B to D, everyone was in different subject classes, creating a generally quiet atmosphere.

Haru opened the bathroom door after passing down the hall.

“After playing such a childish game, I won’t do it again.”

From the sudden increase in weight of the air stones, Haru’s knuckles were also swollen red.

She thought it might help to run cold water in the sink and soak her hands a bit.

However, the lights in the women’s restroom had been on even before she entered.

Since it was a sensor-activated light, it meant someone was already inside.

Bang—

“Is someone there?”

No response.

However, the presence was unmistakably audible to Haru’s ears.

Could it be a squirrel that came in through the window? What if it was a mouse?

After a brief internal debate, Haru decided to cautiously open the door.

Creak—

“Ah! What the heck, No Name…?”

When did the child who had just played air games come to the bathroom?

Suddenly, she remembered that Namé had been missing for a while.

It seemed she had come to the bathroom after stepping away from the game.

But for that to be the case, Namé was in a rather precarious and silly position, teetering on a small chair.

As I opened the door wide, a sweet apple scent spread throughout the bathroom.

“What’s that smell…?”

“Cough! Haru! You surprised me.”

“What’s going on? Why is there smoke coming from your mouth…?”

A thin stream of smoke rose from Namé’s mouth, spilling out as she coughed lightly.

The smoke swirled and climbed towards the ceiling before eventually being sucked out through the ventilation fan.

Haru remembered something she had heard from her older sister, who was in high school.

She recalled that troublesome kids often came to the bathroom and smoked right in front of the ventilation fan.

It was to avoid getting the smell of smoke on their clothes.

But why was this transfer student doing such a thing?

“Haru, could you come here for a second?”

“No…? Why should I?”

“I just wanted to chat since it’s just the two of us.”

“No, I’m going back to class.”

At her words, Haru was taken aback and tried to step back out of the bathroom.

The fleeting desire to get close to Namé vanished in an instant.

Certainly, Namé was small in stature and build, unlike Yuna, and had no scary qualities whatsoever.

So why was Haru feeling scared? She couldn’t understand herself.

It was merely an instinct to avoid getting involved with someone like that.

[Spell: Rotational Movement]

Click—

Like a scene from a horror film, the manual lock on the bathroom door turned 90 degrees.

A child’s hand, aged eight, would never reach that height.