I Don’t Want to be an Ojakgyo (15)

Augran Academy separates classes based on color. There are four colors in total: yellow, green, red, and blue.

There didn’t seem to be any set standards for the classes. The students were assigned randomly and had a high chance of sharing dorms if they were in the same classes.

Augran Academy placed great importance in their colors. The academy’s official color was wine. They had four colors for different classes. I asked the teacher what the reasoning was behind the colors, and got a flick to my forehead. I guess it wasn’t polite to ask through a bathroom stall.

Even if we were separated into different classes, the only time that actually mattered was in the morning. Though, we moved around a lot for classes even in the morning. The only time we sat in class ‘yellow’ was for morning attendance.

“Student Shuraina West, please stand.”

This was my least favorite subject. My least favorite class happening in my least favorite classroom, taught by my least favorite teacher. I hated this class even more than history. When I propped my book on the table and played with Hestia to avoid the teacher’s gaze, they called me. I stood up.

The timing just wasn’t right. Looking at the time, it seemed that I had been caught fooling around right towards the end of class. I looked sideways to see Hestia pretending to take detailed notes. It was choir class, so there weren’t any notes to take. All we did today was listen to students sing.

Because class was right about to end, students from the green class were at the back of the classroom, waiting. I saw Hylli and Cory in the group. Hearing my name being called out by the teacher, Hylli snickered and Cory looked at me, expression saying ‘Good luck’.

The teacher saw that I had stood up, then spoke again.

“Before the end of class, please sing “Noirelle’s Last” on page 94.”

Then, our teacher immediately began to play the piano. Hearing that I was going to sing, my classmates began to snicker and talk over us. They probably were remembering the last time I had sang in class.

The piano intro was about to end. The students in the green class were all staring at me. The swordsmanship class students, who were still laughing about toilet jokes and were still calling me poopyhead, stared at me harder than the other students.

I was quite overwhelmed, so I tried my best to read in pitch to the song. I didn’t sing, but I tried my best to read. When I didn’t sing, the teacher slammed their hands on the piano and yelled.

“Miss West? You need to sing, not read.”

……ugh. The teacher knows how I sang, yet they were still doing just that. They began playing the song from the beginning, and I was forced to sing.

“….even as the memories fade into scarlet~.”

I began to sing after the second piano introduction. My voice rang through the room, sounding like an alcoholic grandpa who had, once again, started his day with alcohol and was gleefully dancing around, panting. Maybe it sounded more like husky singing. It was probably funnier than that.

“Even as my strength wanes~ I will still remain~.”

Both the yellow and green class students burst into laughter. Even the teacher’s lips quirked upwards. The only person who was listening to my singing peacefully was Hestia. Hestia always said that my singing was the best, but she probably wasn’t serious when she said that

I didn’t like the attention I was getting. My eyes were glued on the book in front of me. I could hear Hylli laughing the loudest.

When I ripped my gaze away from the book, I looked over at Hylli. He was clutching his stomach in laughter. He grew slightly quieter when he met my deadly glare.

When I looked away, I happened to see Cory and couldn’t help but be shocked. Personality-wise, the most Cory did when he found something funny was laugh quietly or smile with one corner of his mouth. He never laughed loudly like Hylli.

But that Cory was facing the wall, holding his face with both of his hands and shaking. He was laughing so hard that he was leaning on the wall. He was trying his best to hold in the sound of his laughter, but from what I could tell, Cory was laughing the most.

I sulked.

When I entered the club room, Cory was completely wrapped in his strawberry blanket and lying on the sofa like a cocoon. He usually greeted me with snacks and a warm welcome, but he didn’t even move at my loud entrance.

He buried his face into the sofa and didn’t even look at me. Instead, there were snacks placed neatly on a small table. Looking at the snacks, they were all healthy snacks that were supposed to be good for the throat.

After sipping on a warm cup of tea from the table, I noticed a small memo on a desk.

[Sorry, I’m going to sleep for a bit today. Enjoy the snacks.]

The memo said that he was going to sleep, but I stared at the strawberry cocoon on the sofa. It was slightly shaking. The strawberry silkworm was turned away to not react to my presence.

“Stop joking around! You’re not even sleeping!”

I grabbed Cory’s blanket and forced him out of his strawberry cocoon. Without the blanket covering him, he was unable to hide anymore.

Cory’s face was extremely red. His green eyes tried their best not to look at me. They stared at the ceiling before landing back on me. When our eyes met, Cory immediately tried his best not to change expressions.

“Pff, pfft…………”

He hid his face behind both of his hands and turned away. Then, he curled back into the sofa and kept flinching. He seemed unable to stop his laughter. He continued to make guttural noises as he audibly tried to stop laughing.

I threw the strawberry blanket back at him and scowled.

“Just laugh as hard as you want. I won’t feel hurt.”

My words had thorns. I was going to be hurt.

This was what I was thinking to myself. Cory seemed to realize that, and tried his best to stop laughing. After a few moments, he was slightly calmer. He straightened his posture and looked straight at me. Then, he put a hand on my shoulder. It seemed like he was comforting me.

“No, Shushu. Your song today……”

Then he burst into laughter again. He just burst into laughter after meeting my eyes. He couldn’t seem to take his hand off of my shoulder. He grabbed onto my shoulder and kept flinching again. Then, he looked down.

His blond hair covered his face. One hand was grabbing my shoulder, while the other one was trying to stop his laughter.

I slapped Cory’s hand off. I got angry after seeing how he couldn’t stop laughing.

No, Shushu. It’s not a crime to laugh.

I tried to say that to myself over and over again, but I sulked again, knowing how bad I was at singing.

Cory rested his forehead on the sofa armrest and muttered.

“…..what do I do?”

Then, he didn’t stop laughing. Even his ears turned red.

That day, Cory laughed the entire day. He remained that way for the entirety of club time. He laughed while trying to talk to me, laughed in the middle of our project….. He didn’t seem to be able to do much else, so I allowed him to return to his cocoon. But Cory refused, saying that it was okay.

He even laughed as he refused.

Cory sat down across from me, watching as I worked. He had both of his elbows resting on the table, hand covering his face as he laughed. I could see his green eyes staring through the spaces between his fingers, closed in the shape of a crescent moon.

After laughing long and hard, he would stop, remove his fingers from his sight, then burst into laughter after his attempt had failed. It seemed that he was genuinely trying his best to hold in his laughter, but it wasn’t working.

Even as we exited the club room, he couldn’t seem to calm down. He held on to my shoulders and laughed into my back. I played choo-choo train with him as we walked down the hallway.

I decided to take my friend Cory, who seemed to be having a pretty rough time right now, back to his classroom. The moment we arrived at the green class, I bumped into Hylli. It was just about time for afternoon swordsmanship classes to begin, but Hylli soon joined Cory’s status.

I was going to lose my mind.

When I saw that everyone else in the green class was about to laugh, I rushed out of the classroom.

Hylli came into swordsmanship class and continued to laugh. I punished him to the best of my abilities.

After that, Cory tried his best to make me stop sulking.

Thankfully, that day was the last of Cory’s ‘Can’t Stop Laughing’ disease. He seemed sorry. He quietly put chocolates and candy in my pocket when we bumped into each other.

We didn’t have club activities the next day, but Cory came over multiple times to my classroom to give me snacks.

But now that I was thinking about it, I thought that there might have been another reason. Hestia was sitting right next to me in class, after all.

Whenever Cory came over, Hestia would run away in fright, but from some unknown moment, she was lured in by the snacks and didn’t escape from then on.

Cory had a strange expression on his face when he saw that Hestia came closer to him. I watched that scene quietly, then asked him the next day.

Cory was working on something that I had asked him. I tightened the screw on my device and started a conversation.

“Cory, do you like Hestia?”

It was an important question. I was getting closer to Cory these days, and I was feeling bad because I was supposed to be trying to help Hylli get closer to Hestia.

Cory paused his work and looked up at me.

He seemed surprised by my sudden question. One of his eyebrows raised.

“Why all of a sudden?”

After saying that, he blew air onto where he had just glued something. Then, he seemed finished with everything that I asked of him and stretched, throwing his work goggles onto the table.

“Just curious. You, when you first approached me, you said you came over to check who Hestia’s type was.”
“Oh, right. I did.”

Cory, as if tired, shoved everything off his desk and laid down on it.

Hey, Cory, be careful with the goggles.

When he tried to lay down on his goggled, I quickly moved them away. His glasses seemed very worn out.

As if tired, he closed his eyes and began to speak.

“Well, it would be kind of excessive if I said I like them when I never even had a proper conversation with them. For some reason, my eyes just kept going to where was was. Maybe it was because she was my type.”
“Your type?”
“Yeah, she’s candy-colored. And she’s cute, too.”

That was very like Cory. No, so did he like her or not? He said that he didn’t like her, but there was something missing in his answer. There was a high chance that he did like Hestia, after all.

Come to think of it, did Hylli and Cory both fall in love at first sight? I had once asked why Hylli had begun to like Hestia. He had also said that his eyes just kept looking at her.

Cory seemed to be thinking of Hestia. His eyes were barely open and he didn’t say a word