Doyun Stared at the Infirmary Ceiling

Doyun was staring at the infirmary ceiling.

He hadn't woken up. He hadn't fallen asleep either. For two hours he stared at the ceiling while the concept of a way out slowly came back to him, halfway.

Halfway meant this. He knew how to get down from the bed. He didn't know how to get out of the room. He could see where the door was, but there was no connection between the door and the act of leaving.

About three hours later, the connection came back.

The first thing he did the moment it returned was check the time. Fourteen forty. The review room convened at fifteen hundred.

The second thing he did was build a sentence.

Park Mirae used the seal on my instruction.

He polished that sentence three times. As he polished it, he attached reasoning. Doyun had made some kind of sound under the debris, and Mirae might have heard it as an instruction.

In fact, Doyun had made a sound. He'd said he couldn't get out.

Saying he couldn't get out is different from asking for help. Different, but sorting out that difference in the review room would take time.

While it took time, Mirae's violation would remain unconfirmed.

Doyun finished that calculation and got down from the bed.

Seven people were in the review room. Three from the academic affairs office, two professors, and Taeho and Kwon Heesu.

It struck Doyun as strange that Kwon Heesu was sitting there. A veto violation review fell under the academic affairs office's jurisdiction, and it wasn't a seat the director sat in.

Mirae confirmed the fact beside him. "There's no reason listed for the director's attendance."

"Can we ask?"

"If we ask, they'll answer. The answer becomes the reason for attendance." Mirae said. "It's better not to ask right now."

The three members of Team 2 were also in the back row. They were on-site witnesses, and Mun Sea had already submitted a written statement.

Doyun saw the content of the statement later. It was two lines. Team 2 could have confirmed victory with ten seconds left. Instead of confirming it, they'd requested a halt.

The four members of Team 7 sat in the front row. Mirae's hand had a bandage on it.

"This is the review of the quarterly Team 7 veto violation case." the academic affairs officer read. "The violator is Park Mirae. Unauthorized ability use. Violation of contract clauses twelve and thirteen."

"Objection."

Doyun stood up. The sentence he'd polished three times sat ready in his throat.

"Speak." the officer said, turning a page.

"Student Park Mirae has..."

"Student Han Doyun."

It was Mirae. She stood before Doyun did, and raised her bandaged hand.

"Clause fifteen. No reason is asked when exercising a veto." Mirae said. "I'm using my veto now."

The review room went quiet.

"Student Park Mirae, this isn't a situation involving ability use." the officer said.

"The scope of application for a contract clause is set by the team member. There's no situational restriction in clause fifteen."

"...I'll check." the officer said, pulling out the clause book.

Doyun was standing. Standing, he looked at Mirae.

"Mirae."

"Sit down." Mirae said without looking at him.

"If I speak, your violation becomes unconfirmed."

"I know." Mirae said. "And that would take away my choice."

"Why should you take responsibility for someone who saved..."

"I didn't save you." Mirae cut him off. "I broke a rule. Both are true. If a student states only the first, the second disappears."

In that sentence, Doyun remembered the demand he'd made to Taeho on the first day.

Please write both sheets.

Back then, he'd asked that his own rescue and his own violation be recorded together. Now he was trying to cover someone else's violation with his own instruction.

The same person, going in the opposite direction.

"I'll sit." Doyun pulled his chair back.

Doyun sat down. Sitting down was the hardest movement he made that day.

"Continue your statement." the officer said to Mirae.

"I used the seal to reopen a career path I'd given up on. I'd shelved it four years ago." Mirae read from a prepared paper. "I didn't report it. I didn't get approval. Team member Lee Garam was two meters away and called my name. I didn't answer."

"Do you state your purpose in using it?"

"I intended to share Student Han Doyun's fear to restore his ability to move."

"Did it succeed?"

"It succeeded." Mirae didn't stop at that word. "Please record the success and the violation separately."

The officer accepted that request. Doyun knew where that sentence had come from. It was the way Taeho had shown him the two sheets on the first day.

"Why didn't you answer?"

"I assumed Student Yu Seorin would make a risk grade determination." Mirae said. "It was an assumption. I didn't confirm it."

"Student Yu Seorin." the officer asked. "Would you actually have made a grade determination?"

Seorin thought for three seconds.

"I don't know." Seorin answered.

"What do you mean by 'don't know'..."

"If I answer now, it's a lie." Seorin said. "I'd be answering with knowledge of the result."

The officer wrote that answer down.

Garam's turn came.

"Student Lee Garam, testify to Student Park Mirae's state at the time."

Garam didn't prepare for long. He spoke briefly.

"There were two sounds. Relief and fear. At the same time." Garam kept his palms pressed to his knees.

"Which was louder?"

"I don't know."

"Can you estimate?"

"I can estimate. I won't." Garam said. "If I estimate, it becomes something like evidence."

The officer wrote that down too.

"Student Han Doyun." Taeho spoke for the first time. "You withdrew your objection earlier. Do you state the reason for withdrawal?"

Doyun knew where that question was headed. Taeho was the one who'd written the counterexample in the margin on the first day.

"I'll state it." Doyun stood up.

"Speak."

"I tried to take responsibility for Student Park Mirae in her place. That looks like protection, but in reality it was taking away that student's right to responsibility."

"Is that all?"

Doyun knew he had to add one more thing to that question. If he didn't, the reflection he'd made today would remain nothing but words.

"There's one more thing."

"Speak."

"For three days I've had a sensation of heat in my left hand. It occurred without my using my ability. I told the team yesterday, and I didn't say anything for the three days before that."

The review room shifted. Kwon Heesu lifted her eyes from the documents for the first time.

"Continue." Taeho said.

"That item was recorded on a separate sheet yesterday. Student Yu Seorin wrote it. It isn't in the clauses, but she wrote it anyway." Doyun said. "If that item didn't exist, today I wouldn't have mentioned my own pain and would have only talked about Student Park Mirae's violation."

"Is that statement favorable to you?"

"It's unfavorable. My physical condition could be judged unfit for practicum."

Taeho wrote it not in the margin but in the main body of the form. Doyun watched that hand.

The review's decision came twenty minutes later.

All of quarterly Team 7 was suspended from practicum for four weeks. All scholarship support was frozen. Park Mirae received three additional demerit points individually.

And there was one last item.

A demand that Park Mirae submit the original of her family's career path contract. Reason given: to confirm the origin of the abandoned choice that had been used.

Mirae froze at that line.

"What's the submission deadline?" She didn't take her eyes off the decision.

"One week."

"And if I refuse to submit it?"

"Since the violation's cause cannot be confirmed, the maximum penalty applies. Permanent revocation of quarterly team eligibility."

Mirae said nothing as she left the review room.

In the hallway, Doyun fell into step beside her.

"Mirae."

"...Yes."

"Is the academy connected to that contract?"

Mirae stopped. Doyun counted the length of that pause.

"Why are you asking that?"

"Last week you filed to have a clause deleted. It was an amended clause from four years ago." Doyun said. "And your contract is from four years ago too."

Mirae didn't say that calculation was correct. Instead she said something else.

"Clause sixteen. Report within twenty four hours."

"Right."

"I'll report it now." Mirae said. "My family contract's company seal is the same as the third seal in the scholarship regulation's appendix. It was stamped during the amendment four years ago."

"When did you find that out?"

"Twelve days ago." Mirae stated the number precisely.

Doyun took that number and said nothing. He could have gotten angry, and if he got angry, it felt like this person would fall apart right now.

And he also knew he had no right to be angry. He'd hidden his left hand for three days.

"Twelve days ago is before the contract was signed."

"It's before."

"If you'd said it then, would we have written the contract differently?"

Mirae thought about that question for a long time. After thinking, she answered honestly.

"We would have written it differently. I wouldn't have accepted clause sixteen."

Clause sixteen was the clause Doyun had proposed. Report within twenty four hours any offer received from outside the team.

Mirae had sat in the seat where that clause applied and built the logic that it didn't apply to her. Because it wasn't an offer, it was a document.

"Why did you say it now?"

"Because now it's become an offer." Mirae held up the decision. "The demand for the original submission. This is an offer the academy is making to me. If I submit it, my eligibility remains. If I don't, it's revoked."

At the end of the hallway, Seorin was waiting. Garam stood beside her.

Mirae repeated the same account to the two of them. Repeating it took four minutes, and no one interrupted in the middle.

After hearing it all, Garam asked.

"Was it scary to say that?"

"It was scary."

"And now?"

"It's still scary now." Mirae said. "But earlier in the review room, when Student Doyun tried to say my violation was his own instruction, that was scarier."

"Why was that scarier?" Garam asked.

"That's what happened to me four years ago." Mirae said. "My father signed in my place. For my sake."

Seorin sorted something out then.

"The original submission deadline is one week. There are two things we need to do within that."

"Tell us."

"One is confirming the appendix seal. Academic affairs viewing only gets us copies." Seorin said. "The other is something you'll decide."

"What is it?"

"Whether to submit the original or not."

Mirae didn't decide the second thing today. Instead she asked about the first.

"How do we confirm the seal?"

"Im Yeonwoo has a preservation list." Seorin said. "Thirty one years' worth. The seal stamped on the document from four years ago might exist somewhere else too."