The pit of my chest felt tight, blocked up.
I wanted, more than anything, to pull the kids into a hug right now... but yesterday's resolve caught me by the ankle like a shackle.
To protect them, I have to keep them at arm's length. Ruthlessly.
I steadied myself and stood in front of the mirror.
Not a wrinkle on the jacket, buttons fastened all the way up to the collar.
Like a knight strapping on armor before battle, I buried my shaking heart under the spotless outfit.
Go.
I straightened my clothes and stepped out of the office.
And the moment I entered the corridor, I stopped short.
In the middle of the corridor — which should have been empty — a small, ramrod-straight figure stood planted like a totem pole.
"...Teacher?"
Kim Sunja.
She was standing with her hands clasped behind her back, staring at me hard.
"What are you doing here? At this hour... you should be in the dining hall..."
At my question, Kim Sunja's white eyebrows twitched.
"...Got sick of sitting around, so I came out."
She spat it out, curt.
When I just looked at her, not following, she seemed to find that awkward — she looked off into the air and coughed, loud.
"Ahem! Hm!"
Then, indifferent, she tossed the question out as if she didn't much care.
"How's the body."
Ah!
Come to think of it, I'd come straight back from the treatment at Bawi Guild and hadn't shown my face to any of the institute staff yet.
"Ah... it's — it's good. I'm sorry to have worried you."
"Hmph. Worried, my foot."
I watched her expression, cautious, and opened my mouth.
"Thank you, really, for coming that day. I'll say it again — Teacher, I'm alive because of you."
"Twist an old woman's arm to drag her out, and now you're all sweet-talking?"
It was true.
Anyone reading the letter I'd left that day would have called it a threat, not a request for help.
But that water was already spilled.
I decided to brazen it out.
"I put my faith in Teacher's love for her students, that's all."
"Quiet. Anyway, if you'd just shut it once in a while... all you're getting good at is working people to the bone."
She started to turn her head away, bored, and then her eyes fixed on my right arm.
Her brow drew tight.
"Did you not finish your treatment?"
"...!"
Cheon Sarang's forgotten warning flashed through my head.
[The mana dregs are mixed into the bloodstream... Awakened will be able to see it.]
Those unfocused eyes had stayed on my arm.
[...It might be a little hideous.]
I rolled up my right sleeve and checked the arm.
To my eyes it looked like a perfectly ordinary forearm, but apparently to Awakened it looked entirely different.
"Is it... very hideous?"
At my question she set the long pipe between her teeth and shook her head.
"A glance is one thing, but stare at it a while and it turns your stomach. A very nasty thing latched onto you."
"That bad?"
"If it turns the stomach of a woman who's seen everything, then Awakened with less experience... they'll flinch on pure instinct."
Faces surfaced in my head, automatic, at those words.
The kids... are Awakened too.
The moment the thought landed, my heart lurched.
What if I opened the door and the kids took one look at me, screamed, and backed away?
What if instead of welcoming me back, they looked at me with eyes full of terror and disgust?
But I forced my molars together and shook my head.
...No. This is better, if anything.
Hadn't I made up my mind to cut ties with them anyway?
If they were scared of me and pulled away on their own, I could skip the trouble of pushing them away myself...
"Ngh..."
Right then the pain in my right arm flared again and screamed.
I bit my lip and forced the pain aside.
Then I dipped my head at Kim Sunja.
"The kids will... adjust too. Please look after their training today."
I turned before waiting for a reply and headed for the Sunshine Room.
When I opened the door to the Sunshine Room, an unfamiliar quiet met me.
Instead of the kids' bright laughter, only a stifling silence filled the room.
The kids stood with their faces gone pale, gripping each other's clothes tight.
And their eyes were nailed, all at once, to one thing.
My right arm, specifically.
So they can see it.
Kim Sunja had been right.
The ugly, ominous energy pouring off this arm was clearly repelling them.
...Better this way, actually.
The truth was, I'd been scared.
Even just picturing myself throwing cold words at them to cut what we had made me sick to my stomach.
But now, without me having to force anything, this ruined arm was pushing them away on my behalf.
Feeling relieved to watch kids shake with fear... what a selfish adult I am.
I hid the bitterness and, for the frozen kids' benefit, arranged my expression to look even colder, more shut down.
"What's this? Director's back after a while and I don't even get a hello?"
At my words, the kids came forward, timid — but with their eyes still locked on my right arm.
"...Director... is your arm... okay?"
"Making a fuss over something like this. It's nothing."
"But..."
Just then, next to him, Hayun asked in a voice barely there.
"Director... this... you got hurt because of us, right?"
There was something off about it, subtle. It wasn't quite plain guilt.
Threaded through the trembling in her eyes was a thin, fragile hope.
Hope?
I froze for a second.
Not fear, not revulsion. What in the world was that look — the look of someone wanting something confirmed?
The reaction caught me off guard, but I shook my head.
No. I must have misread it. Hoping for something after seeing a hideous arm — that makes no sense.
"Because of you?"
I looked the kids straight in the eye and deliberately picked words that would put them off.
"Keeping a doll from breaking is just an owner's basic duty. That's all this was. Don't blow it up into more than it is."
The moment the word doll came out of my mouth.
The kids' shoulders visibly stiffened.
"...I knew it."
"What?"
Just as I was about to ask, Hayun's shrill cry hit my eardrums.
"I hate the Direchtor!!"
The kid snatched Hajun's hand and, stamping her feet in fury, ran off to the bed.
Dragged along, taken by surprise, Hajun made a pitiful face and glanced back over his shoulder — but it did no good.
"Hnnnnngh!"
Hayun threw herself onto the bed with Hajun and, making a point of it, pulled the blanket up over her head.
A giant steamed-bun-shaped lump appeared on the bed.
"H-Hayun..."
Suho stood there, torn between me and the mountain of blanket on the other side, unable to sit still.
He seemed to want to say something — his mouth worked — but in the end he just bit down on his lip hard and turned his back, sharp.
Then he trudged over to the bed where the twins were hiding and quietly crawled under the blanket with them.
Whoosh.
Sihyeok melted into a shadow and vanished, and the remaining two — Cha Yul and Lee Sea-ah — glared at me with eyes colder than before.
Hate me?
I couldn't make sense of it.
My arm turned this hideous... and instead of being scared, or grossed out, they hate me?
I flicked my eyes over to the huge shifting mountain of blanket.
And through the gap in the blanket, my eyes locked directly with the ones stealing peeks at me.
"Hmph!"
The instant our eyes met, the kids whipped their heads the other way as if on cue.
Something hot came surging up from deep in my chest.
The urge to run over and comfort them shot all the way down to my fingertips, tingling.
But I pinched my thigh, hard, and forced my feet to stay planted.
If I broke now, everything went down the drain.
To hide the shake in my voice, I made my tone even more clipped.
"So mind your own business about my arm and... you focus on your training, all of you."
"..."
"Also, starting today I've got some very important work, so I won't be around to watch training for a while. Don't get lazy just because no one's watching. Train hard."
Gripping my throbbing right arm tight, I hurried out of the Sunshine Room before anyone could catch me and hold me back.
"..."
Only after the Director's footsteps had completely faded away down the corridor did the kids cautiously poke their heads out from under the blanket.
"Hnngh..."
Hayun had her face buried in the corner of the bed, her small shoulders shuddering in fits.
Beside her, Hajun patted his sister's back in silence, but his own face was already crumpling like it was one breath from collapse into tears.
Suho pushed the blanket off, dropped to the floor, and broke the silence with a shaking voice.
"The Director... he looked really unwell..."
Suho was grasping at straws.
"Maybe... maybe he actually doesn't hate us? Maybe we're getting it wrong..."
"Give it up."
Lee Sea-ah cut him off, cold.
Her eyes were full of disbelief.
"You didn't hear what he said yesterday? He just got flustered because we were acting different from usual."
[Those brats are test subjects.]
[Quit trying to get your hands on them. These are my tools and my toys...]
Those cruel words rang in her ears like tinnitus.
Under Sea-ah's icy verdict, even the faint hope that had flickered in the kids' eyes collapsed like a sandcastle.
Dark clouds rolled back in across their faces.
"Hnk... the Director's arm... it looked like it hurts a lot..."
Hayun mumbled, face buried in a pillow.
Hurt by being called a tool, and yet she couldn't stand to see the scarred arm the Director now had to live with.
"The Director haaates us... so I can't even worry about him... hnh..."
As if it grieved her that she couldn't even worry out loud, a wet, weeping sob broke from that small back.
"I don't... really hate the Director... but I said I did..."
At last the tears she'd been holding down burst out like a dam giving way.
"Hnnh... waaaaah—!"
Her small back shuddered, pitiful, hiccuping like she was running out of breath.
Hayun's crying spread through the room instantly, contagious.
Beside her, Hajun's lips trembled, and then he raised his own voice to match his twin sister.
"Waaah...! Noona... don't cry... hnnngh..."
"Guys... don't cry. Shh..."
Suho wiped fiercely at his eyes, trying to comfort them like the older brother he was — but tears the size of pigeon eggs were already dropping steadily from his own.
In a heartbeat, the room was full of the miserable wailing of children.
The eldest three — Sea-ah, Cha Yul, and Sihyeok — couldn't even manage to soothe their younger siblings, and just kept their heads bowed, looking devastated, as if the world had ended.
Then—
"...Why's everyone crying?"
Ari poked her head in through the half-open door.
When no one answered, Ari scratched the back of her head and carefully opened her mouth.
"Is it... because of the Director-ajusshi? Because of what he said yesterday?"
"Hic... hnk..."
Instead of answering, the kids sniffled, eyes rimmed red.
"Well, sure. The ajusshi was a bit harsh. Tools and all that... not exactly nice to hear."
At that, the kids ducked their heads even further and clenched their fists.
"But..."
Then—
Ari stepped fully into the Sunshine Room and spoke up.
"I've been mulling it over since yesterday, and doesn't it seem a little off?"※TL Yes Ari please save the day(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
"...?"
The kids' teary eyes all lifted, drawn to Ari.
"He talks that coldly... but honestly, what he does is the exact opposite! Just look at this room..."
Ari swept her gaze around the room.
The Sunshine Room, despite its name, didn't actually get any sunlight — but inside, the place was dazzlingly lavish.
Everything from top-of-the-line workout equipment for Cha Yul, to a bookshelf packed tight with books for Sea-ah to read.
On Suho's bed there were enough stuffed animals to open a zoo, and in the twins' corner, sparkling jewel toys glimmered brilliantly.
Even a cozy, soundproofed tent tucked into the corner for Sihyeok.
"Who gives a doll — no, a tool — a room like this? This is nicer than a rich kid's playroom, easy."
Ari looked around the room and clicked her tongue in disbelief.
"If this is being played with as a doll, honestly, I'd want to be a doll..."
She tacked it on jokingly, trying to lift the mood — but the kids' faces stayed set as stone.
Ari's expression fell a little sheepish, and she started again.
"And besides, the ajusshi's arm... you said he got hurt trying to save Cha Yul-oppa, right?"
"That's..."
That was exactly the part the kids were most tangled up over.
What he did was devoted enough to risk his life for them, but what came out of his mouth cut like a knife.
Sea-ah spoke up, gloomy.
"That's true, but... we heard him ourselves. That we're just tools. He's only managing us."
Just as the mood was about to sink heavy again, Ari's eyes flashed and she leaned forward.
"Then how about this?"
"...?"
"That ajusshi... let's put him to the test."
A mischievous but unshakably confident light glinted in Ari's eyes.
"They say love and, uh... eh... whatever it was — anyway! You can't hide it when you like someone! So we find out for ourselves. What the ajusshi's real feelings are!"
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