CHAPTER 7: "心配しないで下さい"

Tsukiko got closer and closer to school, though she wasn't scared, she only wished for her brother to be safe no matter what. She clenched her fists in determination and boldly marched on towards school. 

After 5 minutes, she had reached her destination. The gates flung open once she got within the required distance, and they slammed shut once she was inside. She couldn't help but flinch at this and felt that the gates were louder than usual today, though I personally think that the sound the gates made was the sound of her confidence crumbling but hey, it's just a thought. Tsukiko, with a little less confidence, bravely continued to walk to class.

Strangely enough, with every step she took, Tsukiko became less and less confident in herself and her abilities. She was well versed in all aspects of magic which would come in handy, so why did she feel like she wasn't good enough when clearly, that wasn't the case. Once she got to her classroom, she realized it was almost completely empty.

There wouldn't have been a single soul in that classroom with her if not for the fact that there was a boy sitting on the same seat Jae-sung sat on yesterday with his head on the table. The boy raised his head and looked towards Tsukiko's direction with a very sleepy look on his face. This boy was of course none other than Kim Jae-sung. At this point, Tsukiko felt a bit shy. "I can't believe I didn't figure out it was Jae-sung, how stupid of me!", she said while covering her face with both her hands and turned around, now facing Jae-sung with her back.

Although sleepy, Jae-sung realized it was Tsukiko and he immediately stood up straight, rubbing at his face. He too felt a little shy. " How embarrassing!". Jae-sung pretended as though nothing happened and cleared his throat in an attempt to get Tsukiko's attention.

Finally, Tsukiko turned around and also acted like nothing had happened and said with a straight face, "Good Morning". Jae-sung also replied with a straight face, "Good Morning". For some time, nobody said anything, and the situation became a bit awkward. Finally, not being able to take it anymore, Jae-sung brought up their mission.

"So, about the investigation, I've been able to meet with the owner of the place I mentioned yesterday, and it seems we'll be able to get the information we need". Tsukiko felt ecstatic.

"That's great! So, this means all we have to do now is make sure we can defeat all the monsters that anonymous person may throw at us". She was practically bouncing off the walls in joy at this point, though it seemed Jae-sung wasn't as excited as her, in fact, he didn't seem excited at all. He had a very helpless and depressing look on his face, like the kind that a person being bullied by his pairs would have. Tsukiko was confused, wasn't this a good thing?

She was just pondering over Jae-sung's lack of excitement when she suddenly remembered that Jae-sung talked about a price system for all the information exchanges, perhaps that was what was bothering him so much so carefully, she tried testing the waters to see if her speculation was correct. "Jae-Wsung...what's the price for the information we need".

Jae-sung looked at her sadly and sighed before he said, "It's something very...strange. You'll know once the time comes". This confirmed her previous speculation though now, an even bigger question that needed to be answered- Just what was this "strange" price they had to pay and why was Jae-sung being so mysterious about it anyway? it couldn't be that bad.

Tsukiko kept thinking about it with her serious expression on her face and Jae-sung noticed this and looked at her, seemingly understanding that she was trying to figure out what they would have to exchange or do for the information. With a sigh, Jae-sung patted her head and ruffled hair. "You really don't have to think about it so much, you'll know soon enough". Tsukiko was even more confused, why couldn't she know now? was it really that bad? 

She was a little annoyed and directed her annoyance towards Jae-sung by frowning while staring at him hard. Jae-sung of course, felt her heated gaze and faced her. He took one look at her and immediately turned around and his entire body was shaking.

Tsukiko thought something had happened to him and immediately stopped frowning, trying to approach him, when she frowned even more. She was genuinely worried about him and what did he do, he laughed at her. To be honest though, one really couldn't blame him for being humoured by this, after all, when he looked at Tsukiko, all he could see was a person whose height came up to his chest, with hair that looks like a bird's nest, looking at him furiously. It was all too funny, and a little cute, so he couldn't hold himself back from laughing, though it wasn't uproarious, it still upset Tsukiko. 

Tsukiko, not being able to understand the reason behind his amusement, grew even angrier and Jae-sung laughed even harder until the point where he was starting to have trouble breathing. Finally, Tsukiko couldn't take it any longer and asked angrily while crossing her arms across her chest, "What's so funny".

Jae-sung, who was still struggling to breathe simply used his hand to conjure a mirror that was levitating over his hand and handed it over to Tsukiko. Tsukiko curiously took the mirror from his hand and as it floated over her hand, she took a look at her reflection and was so shocked that she almost screamed. Jae-sung laughed harder at this, but Tsukiko payed no mind to him and tried to hurriedly smooth out her and salvage it by using the mirror.

She couldn't even be angry at this point and was worried that someone would walk into the classroom and see her hair. Tsukiko always tried her best to be neat and orderly and now someone had ruined it. After finally managed to make her hair neat, she shot Jae-sung very furious looks who had already stopped laughing and was now wiping the tars in his eyes.

He looked apologetically at Tsukiko and apologized for messing up her hair. Tsukiko, who didn't feel any sincerity from his apology, looked at him even more furiously. Jae-sung was stunned. He never knew that Tsukiko, the girl that always seemed so easy to bully, could actually get so angry. He backed away slowly, while cautiously saying, "Tsukiko?".

He couldn't see her face as she had looked down silently. When Jae-sung saw her like this he remembered the words 'calm before the storm' and felt like they applied to this situation and boy was he right. Just as he was about to make an attempt to subside her anger, she raised her head up eerily. Jae-sung flinched at this and suddenly felt like his life was in danger and was very much intimidated by the strong aura now surrounding Tsukiko and he felt even more intimidated when she had now slowly begun to walk towards him.

He was scared, but with his last shred of dignity, he closed his eyes and held his breath, while waiting for Tsukiko to do whatever she was going to do to him. He closed his eyes for a while, but nothing happened so slowly, he cracked open his eyes only to see that the person that was very much ready to possibly devour him, had turned around and walked towards her seat, pulled her chair out of the table, and sat down.

"Huh", was of course the only thing that came out of Jae-sung's mouth. Tsukiko had heard this and faced him with a smile on her face that was so pure and innocent that no one would be able to connect her to the person who was just about to possibly seriously wreck someone. A series of questions jumped into his head and he was even more confused. "What the heck??", he thought. To top it all off, Tsukiko had further confused him when she asked him, very politely, "Aren't you going to sit down". Jae-sung, who was now as shocked as he was confused, stared wide-eyed at the seemingly harmless girl in front of him.

What was even more shocking was the fact that she still asked him why he was staring at her like that, and if she did something wrong. Although she had tried to move on and pretend nothing happened, she wasn't that good of a liar and the smile on her face was forced, though she still tried her best to continue her act.

Having not caught onto this yet, Jae-sung sat down at his seat and began to second guess himself. Tsukiko's acting was good enough to make him, doubt himself, thinking that he may have seen wrong. Just as he was on the verge of accepting that he had seen wrong, he heard her sigh defeatedly and stopped pretending. Turning to him shyly, Tsukiko said, "I'm sorry, I was too angry just now". "So, I was right!", he said. Tsukiko just meekly nodded.

She wanted to explain herself but couldn't find an explanation that'd be suitable, so she just looked at him apologetically and even seemed a there even seemed to be a subtle undertone of guilt in her eyes.

Seeing her like this, Jae-sung sighed helplessly, though he was smiling as he did so. Lifting his eyelids to look at her, he parted his lips and said, "It's okay, you don't have to explain if you don't know how to, but I'd prefer it if you tell me when I'm being too discourteous towards you". Great, now Tsukiko felt even guiltier and regretted her actions even more.

She wished he would at least be a little angry or upset, but he instead smiled at her and told her not to worry about it and was willing to accept her inability to provide him with an explanation. She apologised even more after this and Jae-sung kept telling her "Don't worry about it". After doing this for a while, Tsukiko decided to give up and sighed. "I'll give you an explanation someday but for now...", she trailed and looked at him once more with pleading eyes.

When Jae-sung saw this he told her, "Sure, whenever you feel like telling me, I'll be ready to listen". Feeling like a weight had been lifted off her chest, Tsukiko smiled and promised that she would definitely tell him someday. Jae-sung took her word for it and the two ended up having a conversation with each other, a very animated one at that, and during this conversation, the class was slowly filled up with students and everyone would curiously glance at Jae-sung and Tsukiko, some even stared at them.

Some of their classmates were filled with envy, especially the female ones. They had all wanted to talk to the handsome foreign exchange student and be friends with him, some even wanted to date him, but Tsukiko beat them to it. Tsukiko couldn't help but smile helplessly as she could feel all their heated stares and thought, "Sorry girls, but I really only want to be friends with him, so please stop looking at me like that".

Thankfully for her, the teacher had walked in and the class was about to start. Jae-sung, seemingly disappointed that he couldn't talk with Tsukiko some more, looked a little sad. Tsukiko saw this and tried to cheer him up by telling him that they could talk some more during lunch. He immediately agreed to this and was in much better spirits. Tsukiko laughed quietly at his enthusiasm and began to focus on the lesson. As it turns out, they would be having a practical class that day and Tsukiko became a bit ecstatic. "A practical lesson? how fun!" .