CH 177

Hylli’s dark past was exposed the most, but there were also glimpses of people who I didn’t think would show up. For example, Cory and Swan. Hestia popped up a few times thanks to my reports.

Cory entered the screen. The video was taking place inside the dorm room. Cory saw himself on the screen and looked towards at Hylli in surprise. Hylli avoided Cory’s gaze.

In the video, Cory wasn’t sleeping on the floor–he was face down on his desk, asleep. Cory was sleeping before he blinked awake.

[Hy, Hylli. There’s something wrong.]

[What is?]

[My body is stiff, it won’t move.]

Cory had fallen asleep in that position for so long that he couldn’t move at all. I could hear Hylli’s loud laughter in the video. Hylli left the video rolling as he helped the stiff Cory.

Even when they got him off of the chair and put him on the ground, he was in the same position as he had been at the desk. Hylli attempted to help Cory’s stiff muscles relax, but stopped when a loud crack came from Cory’s body and an immense amount of magic erupted. Then, the video stopped.

Whenever Swanhaden’s videos appeared, I came with him.

Next, there was a scene where Swanhaden passed by me as he walked. Swan walked before he covered his mouth with his hand and started walking faster. He soon began to jog, then ran at full speed.

Then, he tripped on a rock and fell. Swan suddenly clutched the rock that had tripped him and threw it at the screen. The video shut, and then Swanhaden’s video moved on to the next one.

There was a scene where Swan was sleeping from within the blue class. I entered the blue class, and Swan rushed to look up at my appearance. The two of us had a brief conversation before I left.

Swanhaden stared at my retreating form until I left. He buried his head back onto his desk before placing one hand over his left chest. He raised a fist and slammed it down on the desk before he muttered to himself.

[She can’t be human like me. No way.]

“What’s wrong with him?”

Hestia muttered, as if grossed out.

As soon as I saw this video, I turned my head to look at Swanhaden. Swan raised a hand to cover his face from my gaze.

My dark past was surprisingly little. The singing video that circulated once upon a time didn’t appear, and none of the ugly photos of me that Hylli took appeared either.

The only thing that showed up was the dance battle from earlier. My friends, who knew I was kind of sensitive about these kinds of things, worriedly looked my way.

“Wow, why am I so ugly?”, “What’s wrong with me?” I said as my face burned red with embarrassment. When they looked at me worriedly, I shrugged my shoulders.

“It’s really, funny.”

I burst out laughing at my stupid dance.

Honestly, it was nice to share everyone’s weak points like this, all together. We all laughed and ate as we watched the endless stream of embarrassing videos.

With everyone admitting their embarrassing, weak points to each other, the only thing left over was happiness.

Chapter 21. Graduation

I changed into my black graduation gown. My reflection felt awkward–I fiddled my fingers together.

I checked again to see if nothing was stuck in my teeth and I didn’t have any dust on my clothes.

I was from the yellow class, so my graduation cap strap was yellow. I fiddled with the yellow strap before noticing that my cap was kind of tilted, so I fixed it.

When I fixed my cap, my hair had become a mess. I sighed. I put the cap down and gently brushed through my hair before putting it on again.

Ding, ding, ding.

The school bell, signaling the start of graduation, rang outside. The weather was clear and comfortable.

“Shushu! We’re late! Let’s hurry!”

“Uhuh. Just a moment!”

I could hear Hestia’s voice telling me to hurry, so I yelled back okay. I checked my appearance one last time and smiled at my reflection.

I linked arms with Hestia and headed over to where graduation was taking place. Hestia talked next to me, explaining where she was going to work, what she was going to do. I laughed and listened to her words.

The graduation was happening outdoors.

A lot of people were holding flower bouquets and waiting for the entering students. I could see familiar faces. Harun and Karim. My parents from my current life. They were holding a ton of pretty flowers and waved towards me. Oh, Yves was here too. He sat there wearing neat formal clothes and waved slightly when our eyes met.

I inhaled deeply and filled my lungs with air. It felt like there was a hole in my chest that made the air escape my chest. I liked how the clean, fresh wind blew over us, but I was a bit tired. I guess this was melancholy.

I walked with solemn steps to the front of the group. I looked for my name, which had to be written on the seats somewhere. I had been the highest achieving student in the year, so I would be performing the student representative oath and award. The receiver of the award had their name written on the seat.

The seat, labelled with ‘Shuraina West’, was truly right in front of the stage. When I found my seat, I saw a few familiar faces in front of me. Hestia was there and Cory was there and Hylli was there. Wow. Seemed like everyone was getting an award. Well, everyone always tried their best, so it wasn’t that weird for them to receive awards for their performances in those subjects.

I waved my hands as I walked closer when I rubbed my eyes at the person approaching us. There was someone who truly looked as if they didn’t belong sitting at the front. No, it wasn’t like I was dissing them or anything, but. It was just too surprising.

“Swanhaden?”

Swanhaden was sitting on one of the front row seats. He looked around before he ripped my name tag off of my chair and placed it on the chair next to him. But he was caught by one of the people running the event and my tag was returned.

It seemed like Swanhaden was receiving an award too. I had no clue what it could be. All of the students who were getting subject awards were pretty reasonably chosen. I wasn’t the only one surprised, though. A few teachers looked visibly shocked, and the students kept rubbing their eyes as they saw Swan. Maybe everyone was looking down on him, all together. Maybe I was looking down on him too.

I quietly took a seat. I was sitting in the front, anyway, so all of my close friends were sitting near me. Hylli and Cory and Hestia were all staring at Swanhaden with wide eyes. I joined them and stared at Swanhaden with wide eyes.

“What award are you getting?”

Hestia asked with a scoff, but Swanhaden lightly ignored it. Cory poked Swanhaden and asked, but he was still ignored. All of the others gained some courage to ask, but nobody got a response.

Everyone was so curious, but Swanhaden refused to answer. We all butted heads together and guessed what he might be getting.

“The Bad Student Award?”

“The Pain in the Ass Award?”

“The Nutso Award?”

“The Party Pooper Award?”

“The Bone Breaker Award?”

Swanhaden, who had somehow just ended up listening to everyone diss him, rolled his eyes and scratched his nose for a moment.

“…….”

Then, he shook his head to tell us that we were all wrong. He had been listening for real. He actually raised his index finger out of a sudden. When everyone stared at his index finger to guess, he just wagged his finger left and right. We had no idea what it was, but he was super confident. The look on his face was as bored as usual, but there was a tinge of standoffishness in his look.

[Ahem. Ahem. Everyone, please be quiet.]

The teacher’s voice rang through the microphone. All of the loudly chattering students became quiet and looked to the front. Even the more misbehaving students all quieted down when the teacher began to speak.

Once we began the generic opening sequence of a graduation, all of the higher-ups of the academy all stood to make their speeches. A long relay of speech after long speech began.

The weather was nice. The sun was warm and spread out evenly in the open space. It wasn’t too hot, either. It was the perfect combination of perfect weather and boring speeches.

All graduation speeches were basically the same, anyway. The same reassurances and the same advice.

[Now, you’re at a new starting point. All of you will be faced with endless choices, and the results that come with those choices. Think about what kind of life you’ve lived until this point and what direction you will be walking towards.]

No matter how generic of a speech it was, today was a special day. It felt special.

I had been blankly staring at the pigeons flying in the sky when I heard something that resonated with me and tapped on my knee with my fingers.

My life until now. And a start.

The gently blowing wind caught on my hair, and the weather made me feel happy.

When I closed my eyes for just a moment, I was able to realize a single fact.

‘I lived until about this age in my past life, huh……’

The speech had mentioned an ending and a new start, so this thought just popped up.

At this point in my previous life, I had been dead. Just when I was bout to graduate and become free, I had died and had begun the process all over again.

When I graduated now, I would be living on at an age I’d never experienced before in my life.

The vice principal’s gentle speech continued. All of the students’ heads began to sway from left to right, but I was engrossed in my thoughts as I fiddled with my fingers.

I wondered what I had been thinking at around this time last year.

‘I had been hoping my life would improve back then.’

I had just wished for an environment where I wouldn’t have to worry about my next meal.

My life had been unstable back then, so I tried as hard as I could to become a civil servant in this life. I planned my life around a job where I would be able to get a decent pay, no matter what. My mind hadn’t changed about this. Actually, I’d become more earnest about this dream after the party.

But I had met a lot of different people and had faced a lot of obstacles, and I had learned a lot as I grew older.

I had a surprising amount of influence on the people around me. I’d been able to save the empire because of it. I was more important than I had thought. Even though I was still pretty insignificant.

If I had just been focused on eating and surviving back then, I was looking for the meaning of my life right now.

It wasn’t bad to yearn for stability. I was still hoping for a stable life right now. More than anybody else.

But the world was filled with countless different people, and there were a lot of variables within it. The perfect, stable life that I had wanted was a bit of a contradiction. No matter what job I chose, no matter what kind of person I became, I couldn’t escape from instability.

My horrible experience with poverty had given me the wrong idea–that all of my troubles would be solved if I had money. I could be financially stable, but I would see other parts of my life that were unstable. My thoughts had evolved as I interacted with more and more people.

There were things that went as planned, and things that didn’t. Just like I had ripped up my dating wishes while dating Eric, nothing went as I had planned. But I wanted to give myself a steadfast meaning behind my life and plan my life around it and revise it as I went.

It didn’t have to be a lofty goal like Hestia’s, to fight for rights of those who were supposedly weaker–like women or laborers, those with disabilities or etc. It didn’t have to be that noble.

I wanted to find some sort of small meaning for myself and achieve that goal. No matter what kind of position, occupation, or situation was thrown my way.

I sighed at the heavy feelings that settled in my chest.