It didn’t even take a week for reality to hit.
Though it was inevitable for her to monitor their bad deeds, Son A-reum had spent almost the entire week stuck with ‘those three’.
Of course, it wasn’t possible to monitor during class, and she didn’t follow them outside of school.
If she had, that would have been a crime in itself.
She had moments of doubt here and there.
Ye Sara didn’t act as openly malicious as she had thought.
At a glance, Ye Sara didn’t seem like she was intentionally going around to commit evil deeds, but more like she didn’t care at all about how others viewed her.
The eccentric behavior from the beginning of the semester had almost stopped.
For the past week, Ye Sara had quietly attended classes.
There were no new rumors about her public displays of affection with Yoo Ha-neul, and the teachers gradually regained some sense of stability.
However, it wasn’t as though ‘nothing had changed’.
The fact that Son A-reum had been following Ye Sara and her group during the longest break period, lunchtime, gave the other students an entirely different impression—one that Son A-reum had not anticipated.
Did they think she was doing it because she wanted to become friends with Ye Sara’s group rather than finding evidence of wrongdoing?
Son A-reum could see how it might have looked that way.
No one said anything if she sat near Ye Sara’s group.
They didn’t drive her away if she sat in a nearby empty seat, and they merely wondered why she sat a bit farther away on some days.
Of course, that didn’t mean they welcomed her with open arms.
They didn’t ignore her, but they also didn’t go out of their way to call her over.
Ye Sara’s group maintained a somewhat neutral attitude towards Son A-reum.
At first, she thought it was a tactic.
She believed they were trying to confuse her, make her misunderstand the situation, and eventually pull her in.
She thought that if she showed any signs of being deceived, they would reveal their true nature and try to win her over.
However, contrary to Son A-reum’s expectations, it wasn’t Ye Sara’s group who made the first move.
In some sense, perhaps it was more accurate to say that ‘nothing happened’.
Before this, Son A-reum had been ignored by her classmates.
But that ‘ignorance’ was more like dismissive indifference, as if they were looking at something insignificant.
She wasn’t from an ordinary family, not to mention a rich one, and she was far from well-off.
The other ‘rich kids’ in the class blatantly ignored her.
They only responded begrudgingly after she repeatedly tried to engage them, and if she got angry, they would act even more annoyed and snub her.
But after she started following Ye Sara’s group, the ‘ignorance’ she received changed in nature.
Now, she was treated as if she didn’t exist at all, like a transparent ghost.
The students, who had at least given reluctant answers before, now didn’t respond at all, no matter how many times she spoke to them.
If she bumped into someone in the hallway, instead of looking annoyed, they acted like it hadn’t happened and walked away.
The teachers still treated her the same as before—though whether that could even be considered a ‘reaction’ was debatable.
Even for Son A-reum, who was socially inept, it wasn’t as though she had no friends.
She had a good relationship with the student council president and other scholarship students from her grade.
But even those students began ignoring her, one by one.
Though their reactions were slightly different from the rich kids.
They avoided eye contact, sometimes with guilty expressions, or whispered apologies when no one else was around.
“I’m sorry. But I just want to get through school life normally…”
When one student said that, Son A-reum felt as if she had been struck hard on the back of the head.
That one sentence left a deeper scar on her heart than any of the other instances of being ignored.
She still didn’t fully understand why.
So, yes.
It had only been a week.
In just one short week, Son A-reum found herself quickly isolated.
And only then did she realize.
Even as she was being isolated, Ye Sara’s group treated her the same as before, whether she was around them or not.
They didn’t treat her as if she didn’t exist, nor did they openly ignore her.
If she snapped at them, they snapped back; if she spoke to them normally, they spoke to her normally.
Only after following them around did Son A-reum realize that the student council president’s words had been the literal truth.
The other students were doing the same thing to Ye Sara’s group that they were doing to her.
They ignored whatever Ye Sara did.
At least, they tried to.
They weren’t just tolerating her behavior; they were actively trying to ‘ignore her’.
Ye Sara was merely trying to break through that wall of disregard.
And Son A-reum had simply witnessed it.
“…So, what did I tell you?”
The student council president sighed deeply as he spoke.
Maybe it was because they were the only two people in the room that he even bothered to reply.
Son A-reum sat with her head down, unable to say anything.
“…”
The president scratched the back of his head and sighed again.
“You might as well just stop paying attention to them. If you cut ties with them, the other kids will start treating you the same as before.”
That might be true.
But what would change if she went back to being treated the same way as before?
More than anything, Son A-reum had been the one to stand up to Ye Sara, telling her not to bully the other students.
It seemed wrong to now turn around and join in with the others in ignoring her.
In the end, Son A-reum didn’t say a word to the student council president.
*
Lunchtime.
Though Son A-reum had confidently joined Ye Sara’s group for lunch every day until now, she couldn’t bring herself to do it today.
Now that her suspicions had turned into certainty, and her certainty had become fact, she no longer had any reason to sit with them.
But at the same time, she couldn’t go back to how things were before.
She had wrongly assumed they were the villains and thought that the victims were the perpetrators.
Now that she knew, she couldn’t participate in tormenting them.
She stopped following them around during breaks.
And with that, she became completely isolated.
No one spoke to her anymore, and even if she spoke first, they wouldn’t respond.
But in the end, this was all her own doing.
There was no one she could complain to.
Son A-reum found herself utterly stuck, unable to move forward or back.
It was almost funny that she still felt hungry despite everything.
Dragging herself to her feet, she slowly walked out of the classroom.
Not a single student looked at her.
She went to the cafeteria and got her food.
As she walked, she spotted an empty seat and stopped.
Ye Sara’s group hadn’t arrived yet.
“…”
Son A-reum stared at the empty table for a moment, then turned away to find another seat.
She sat down in a secluded corner.
It was still early in the lunch break, so there were plenty of empty seats nearby.
But no matter how much time passed, no one sat near her.
Even as the cafeteria grew crowded with students, no one came to sit near her.
A few students who hadn’t caught on yet approached, only to be pulled away by others.
So, this is how it feels.
Only then did Son A-reum begin to understand how Ye Sara must feel.
It made sense that she would want to shout that she was here, that she existed.
That’s what she had done.
And she had succeeded in making friends.
But Son A-reum herself hadn’t done anything.
“…”
She hurriedly began eating.
If she finished quickly and left, maybe this feeling would lessen.
Just as she picked up the pace, she heard a soft clatter beside her.
Startled, she looked up to see a plate of food being placed on the seat next to hers.
“Why are you eating alone?”
A voice asked casually.
Narrowed eyes stared at her as if scrutinizing her.
Without any hesitation, the girl sat down next to Son A-reum.
One by one, the others joined as well.
“Uh, but don’t you guys usually sit…?”
“There aren’t any assigned seats in the cafeteria, are there?”
Ye Sara looked around as if observing Son A-reum’s reaction.
“If you want to sit somewhere, just sit.”
Somewhere I want to sit.
At those words, Son A-reum swallowed hard.
“…”
The hand holding her fork trembled slightly.
Her vision blurred for a moment.
“…I’m sorry.”
“Huh?”
Ye Sara, who had been about to eat, turned to Son A-reum with a surprised expression.
She looked even more startled when she saw Son A-reum’s face.
“…Are you crying?”
Son A-reum sniffled once before saying,
“I’m sorry. I misunderstood. I’m really sorry…”
And with that, she broke down in tears.
*
Uh, what?
What’s going on with her?
I came over because she looked strangely out of place, sitting in the corner, and now she’s suddenly apologizing and crying.
“…”
Well, we weren’t that close, so hugging her would feel weird, so I handed her a handkerchief instead, and she buried her face in it and cried.
Did I do something wrong?
No, more importantly, why is her face glowing?
I could at least guess why the others glowed, but I have no idea why she’s shining.
There must be some kind of trigger.
Since it’s part of Ye Sara’s original ability, I can’t figure it out on my own.
Still, I’ll have to pay more attention to my relationship with Son A-reum from now on.
It’s promising enough that there are more people whose faces glow, not just Son A-reum.
Thinking back on my interactions with her to figure out what might have caused this could be useful.
And aside from that, it seems she got isolated while following me around.
It’s not entirely my fault, though.
The teachers have settled down over the past week, so maybe it’s time to stir things up a bit.
And I still need to find the real Ye Sara.
There’s so much to do.
But that’s exactly how I like it.