Home/For some reason, the male leads avoid my guiding/ch 4

Chapter 4: 

When she opened her eyes after the car accident, vacation was already over.

Incredibly, two months had passed, and it was now early April.

Time skip. For real?

She'd been discharged without any issues, but she couldn't shake the feeling that time had simply disintegrated into thin air.

With a restless heart, Sua picked up her school uniform for the first time in about three months.

Her body moved on autopilot, heading for the Academy, while her mind was crammed full of other thoughts.

Did I get placed in the Awakened class?

That worry had been consuming her more and more as the first day back approached.

The Academy usually separated students into Awakened and Non-Awakened classes.

Since Sua's goal was to avoid any contact with Espers, being placed in the Awakened class would be a massive headache.

But she had a nagging suspicion. There was no way the Awakening Test Center hadn't notified the Academy about her results.

Sigh. Well, I won't know until I get there.

She shook her head slightly and stepped out of her room.

"Hurry up and eat."

Sua had lost her parents to a rift when she was young, so she lived with her aunt, and by extension, her cousin Baek Cheol-yeon.

As she sat down at the table, a wave of sentimentality washed over her. It was their first meal together in two whole months.

Maybe it was because she'd nearly never had this chance again. Just as she was sinking into an unusually emotional mood, her aunt brought up a different topic, her voice oddly cheerful.

"Now that you're feeling better, let's go see the cherry blossoms together this weekend."

"Cherry blossoms?"

"Yeah. They say it's going to rain next week. We should go before they all fall."

Those words made her realize once again just how haphazardly time had slipped away.

Just before the accident, it had been the dead of winter, with freezing winds howling.

I wonder how everyone's doing.

Sua gazed at the ceiling with distant eyes, thinking of the faces she knew but not the names, and once again felt herself sinking into sentimentality.

Then, something she'd completely forgotten suddenly struck her.

Oh my god.

The Haeso Academy she currently attended was the very place where the second G-Class, Yeo-ju, would be transferring.

But Yeo-ju wasn't scheduled to come until second semester, so that wasn't the immediate problem.

The problem was that the male leads and the villain were already at the Academy before Yeo-ju even arrived. And all three of them were S-Class.

The greater their power, the more sensitive they would be to Guiding.

If she so much as brushed against them, they'd instantly discover that she possessed Guiding abilities.

How long had it been since she'd been hit by a car, and now she had to worry about brushing against Espers?!

As she was agonizing over how to navigate this situation, one question suddenly barged into her mind.

…Wait. But right now, there's only one S-Class at Haeso?

If this world really was the one from the novel, then Haeso should have three S-Class individuals, just as the story dictated.

The male lead, the second male lead, and the villain. Three in total.

Her head spun with confusion at the discrepancy between what she knew and the reality of the original story.

Just as she couldn't tell if she was eating through her nose or her mouth, her aunt spoke up again, her voice triumphant.

"Still, aren't you lucky? If I hadn't managed to get a Healer on standby, you'd have been stuck in bed for months."

"I know, I know."

"I'm the one who saved you from nearly repeating a year with just one left before graduation. Remember that."

"Auntie, you're the best!"

"Now that you're in your third year, you should study a little too."

"Ahem, well, that's…"

Thump. Baek Cheol-yeon kicked her leg subtly, as if to tell her to read the room.

But once words were out, they couldn't be taken back. Her aunt narrowed her eyes and glanced sideways at her, muttering, "Hopeless."

Just as Sua let out a silent sigh, her aunt asked,

"Want me to drive you?"

"No, I'm fine. I can go alone."

---

Zzz.

While walking to school with Baek Cheol-yeon, her phone buzzed with a message.

[Ahn Ji-hyeon: You're coming today, right?]

[Me: Yeah.]

[Ahn Ji-hyeon: Good. Didn't you miss me?]

She didn't reply after that.

Miss Ahn Ji-hyeon? She didn't have time for that. She needed to worry about surviving first.

"So make sure you go to the Academy regularly, okay? Just because you've Awakened doesn't mean you can enter dungeons. The Espers who actually make good money from dungeons are few and far between. Got it?"

Baek Cheol-yeon repeated the same words so often that she'd developed calluses on her ears.

Ever since he'd heard about her Awakening, he'd been saying the same thing every single day. Coming over to say it, calling to say it. Like he was trying to brainwash her.

Exasperated, Sua shot back irritably.

"I said I get it. Why would I go to a dungeon? Mom and Dad died there, remember? I don't want to die."

Baek Cheol-yeon put on a stern face and scolded her.

"What's this 'died there' talk? You should say 'passed away.'"

"They died, so I say they died. What's the point of sugarcoating it? I don't even remember their faces anyway."

"…"

Baek Cheol-yeon seemed at a loss for words and finally fell silent, shaking his head.

But Sua had her own standards.

She wasn't the type to pine for parents whose faces she didn't even know. She was more focused on the present.

To her, everyone except her aunt and Baek Cheol-yeon were strangers. And people whose faces she didn't know even more so.

"There's a hill on the way to the Academy now. Ugh."

Sua wiped the beads of sweat forming on her forehead, panting heavily.

Baek Cheol-yeon clicked his tongue.

"That's why I told you to exercise. You're going to collapse one of these days."

"I'll probably collapse from exercising first."

Baek Cheol-yeon stared at her in disbelief at her reply.

Then, as if sensing something strange, he raised one eyebrow.

"Hey, do you actually not know what your ability is?"

"…"

The sudden question made Sua clam up.

No matter how low-ranked her Awakening was, it was still unusual for someone to be so out of breath on a hill like this. It made sense that Baek Cheol-yeon would find it odd.

Flustered, Sua's mouth opened and closed before she finally managed to answer.

"I-I'm just not that type."

"Then what?"

"…There's that."

Baek Cheol-yeon's eyes narrowed even more.

But there was a perfectly logical reason Sua had said she "wasn't that type."

The fact was, she'd eventually get found out by Baek Cheol-yeon anyway.

It was a very clear reason.

It was better to vaguely brush it off.

Baek Cheol-yeon seemed to have something more to say, his lips twitching, but they'd just arrived at the Academy's main gate, so there was no time to ask.

"Oh, we're here. See you later."

As if she'd been waiting for it, Sua slipped through the main gate without giving him a chance to ask his question.

---

Geez. Quick to pick up on things, I'll give you that.

Sua clicked her tongue as she arrived at the classroom door.

Honestly, she'd been conflicted about whether she should hide the fact that she was a Guide from Baek Cheol-yeon too.

If she was going to be found out anyway, maybe it was better to tell him in advance and ask for help.

But that plan had its own flaws.

First, Baek Cheol-yeon was a Non-Awakened, incapable of protecting her from Espers. And even if he were an Awakened, he wasn't in the same grade as her.

Sigh. Let's deal with what I can.

The odds were high she'd been placed in the Awakened class, but even if the sky fell, there was bound to be a hole to crawl through.

Creak.

As soon as Sua entered the classroom, the first person to speak to her was Ahn Ji-hyeon, the same girl she'd texted that morning.

"Well, well. Look who it is. Isn't this Bongsuk, back from the dead?"

She flashed a playful smile and walked toward Sua.

But Sua hesitated, stopping mid-step.

I'm in the same class as Ahn Ji-hyeon?

It was a reasonable question. Ji-hyeon had been in her class last year too. Both of them had been Non-Awakened.

Did that mean she'd been placed in the Non-Awakened class?

It was one of two things. Either Ji-hyeon had Awakened, or the Academy hadn't been notified about Sua's Awakening.

Should she ask Ji-hyeon if she'd Awakened?

No. Let's be more careful. If the Academy really hasn't been notified, it's better to keep quiet.

Sua quickly schooled her features and replied with a blank expression.

"I told you not to call me that."

Sua's nickname was "Bongsuk."

Normally, a name like Bongsua would naturally lend itself to nicknames like "Peach" or "Bongsoonie," but at Haeso, she was universally known as "Bongsuk."

"Why not? It's so cute."

"Cute, my foot."

Sua shot back curtly at Ji-hyeon's comment.

To explain how Bong Sua became Miss Bongsuk, we'd have to go back about seven months.

Sua had transferred to Haeso Academy last year, around September of her 11th-grade year.

The reason was that her previous Academy's building had collapsed due to a rift.

It was a chaotic time, but the government moved quickly, insisting that students still needed to study.

So Sua ended up here, the Academy closest to her original one.

Introducing herself in front of a room full of strangers was standard procedure, and that's when she made a bone-crushingly embarrassing mistake.

"I transferred from the next town over. My name is Bongsuk… uh."

Just then, a massive fly had passed right in front of her eyes. Startled and disgusted, she'd cut herself off.

Some might think she was overreacting to a mere fly, but Sua had a pathological fear of insects.

The fact that she hadn't screamed was already impressive.

After that, her classmates said things like "Bongsuk…?" and "Whoa, that's my grandma's name."

Word spread that a transfer student whose Academy had collapsed due to a rift had arrived, and that her name was Bongsuk.

And so, Bong Sua became Bongsuk.

Nowadays, most people knew that Bongsuk was just a nickname, but the impact at the time was no joke.

Even the teachers got confused, asking, "Which one of you is Bongsuk?"

I have no one to blame but myself. Ugh.

Finishing her recollection, Sua inwardly clicked her tongue and looked around the room. Most of the seats were already taken.

As she was wondering where to sit, Ji-hyeon spoke up and tugged her by the wrist.

"Miss Bongsuk, this empty seat is the only one left."

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