Chapter 79: Line of sight, field of vision, field of view.

While Marin was silently hurling curses that would never reach their target, the very person in question, Mary-June, was still at the academy.
Unlike Violet, who usually lingered, Mary-June was the type to head straight home more often than not; yet today the sisters had apparently made opposite choices.
They were supposed to share half their genes, yet the two of them were dissimilar in every possible way.

Even if they had been similar, Yulan thought as he glanced sideways at her smile, the day he ever considered Mary-June’s feelings would never come.

“You’ve been close with big sister for a long time, right, Yulan-kun?”

“Yeah… though it’s not just us. Most students here have known each other since long ago.”

To any onlooker, the scene would have looked like this: Mary-June radiating brightness simply by existing, and Yulan conversing with an equally warm smile.
At least, anyone familiar with the academy would surely see it that way.

But if Gear, or even Claudia, had been present, they would have noticed instantly:
the emotionless mask peeking through Yulan’s smile.

Perfectly curved lips, gently narrowed eyes, calm tone; anyone would say it was an impeccable, pleasant expression.
Anyone could tell he was smiling.
And that was precisely why it was obvious this was not Yulan’s real face.

The true Yulan was never gentle by nature.
Even Gear, the one person close enough to be called his best friend, had almost never seen Yulan’s genuine smile.
Beneath the dozens, hundreds of layered masks was a cold-blooded, merciless demon who could make devils weep.

And the only person in the world who ever received Yulan’s heartfelt, happy smile was one single individual.
The moment that person was not Violet, Yulan’s expression became no different from nothingness.
No matter how soft or kind it appeared, no matter how perfect and flawless it looked, if you peered inside there was not a single speck of emotion.
He had merely painted the appropriate face over the mask for the occasion.

“There’s a middle school section too… so I guess almost no one starts from high school, huh?”

“It’s pretty rare, yeah.”

“I thought so…”

Yulan idly noted that she was the type whose expressions and tone shifted easily.

Anyone with a proper conscience would probably feel some sympathy for the visibly dejected Mary-June.
It wasn’t wrong to see her as a victim, suddenly thrown into the noble world because of her parents’ circumstances.

Yulan simply wasn’t on the list of people who possessed such a conscience.

(…A complete waste of time.)

He felt no pain at her disappointment; if anything, he wanted to click his tongue at the irritation of being forced into meaningless conversation.

He had figured it out after just a few minutes of talking: her naive, ignorant nature.
She might be bright and charming, but precisely because of that she lacked consideration in all things.

People like her had wide fields of vision yet never thought deeply.
They revered universal love as virtue, called majority rule equality, and believed correcting outliers into mediocrity was justice.
They never looked at those who were excluded, mistaking the world for round and smiling.
They never noticed the corners that had been shaved away.
As long as the world inside their vision was beautiful, they assumed the entire world was beautiful too.
They never considered how dangerous that way of thinking was.

No matter how far they reached, they could never embrace someone’s back from the front.

For someone who could treat things she didn’t notice as if they didn’t exist, no amount of scrutiny from Yulan would help.
There were things Mary-June herself didn’t know or realize; no matter how much Yulan imagined, hypothesized, or assumed, there was no way to verify the answers.

“…Sorry, but I’ve got to go. I left some stuff in the classroom.”

“Oh, right…! Sorry, thank you!”

“No problem.”

If she had no information, continuing was nothing but a waste of time.
He already harbored no good feelings toward her; on top of that, Mary-June and Yulan were fundamentally incompatible.
Their personalities were hopelessly mismatched.

He lifted his hips from the window sill and turned away without even a farewell; only to be chased by that sweet voice.

“I’m really glad we got to talk! Can I talk to you again?”

“We’re in different classes, and you’d probably have more in common with other girls, right?”

“That’s not true at all! We finally got to meet like this, so I want to talk a lot and become good friends!”

“…I see.”

“Yeah! Take care, Yulan-kun!”

He couldn’t move from the spot until the sight of her waving enthusiastically and saying “See you tomorrow!” disappeared from view.

Shock… yes, it was shocking.
Staggering.
Completely unforeseen, utterly outside any possibility he had ever considered.

“—ku, haha…!”

Laughter he couldn’t bite back spilled through the fingers pressed to his mouth.
It was, unusually, genuine laughter; the naked truth of Yulan without a single mask.

Because, because;
that girl was just too ridiculous.

“…Ah, that’s hilarious.”

When the fit of laughter finally ended, Yulan’s face was twisted with both amusement and disgust.
His eyes were frozen cold enough to kill, yet the smile at his lips was darker than before.

He had known she was slow.
To Yulan, someone who was merely pure and honest was nothing but a fool.
He had always looked down on her, had always thought of her as someone to crush someday.

But it seemed she was far, far slower than even he had imagined.

(…Become friends, huh.)

A day like that would never come.
Mary-June’s value would never rise any higher in Yulan’s eyes, and he doubted she could ever understand how his world worked.
A girl of universal love could never comprehend a man who would destroy anything; absolutely anything; if it was for Violet’s sake.
To begin with, Mary-June was already on the side that would be destroyed.

Would the day ever come when she realized that?

…Probably not.
Until the day Yulan bared his fangs, she would surely keep believing.
That the gentle world she saw showered kindness on everyone.
That there was no reverse side to the world she lived in, that her narrow vision was the whole truth; she would continue to recognize only what was pure, righteous, and beautiful, smiling without ever knowing the line between dream and reality.

In fact, Mary-June never noticed;
not once, from the very first word to the final goodbye;
that Yulan had never, even for a single instant, faced her at all.